Merry Thomas Christmas

So far Ty's received a Thomas pillow pet, thomas pj's, a Thomas book,
and a Thomas remote control train with more track! Someone likes
Thomas!

Almost ready for Christmas!

Since we didn’t bring any decorations but our stockings a couple strands of lights, everything this year is homemade.  We bought a small pre-lit tree and I started working on our little Christmas corner.

Helping daddy put up the tree together.

Hum….I think there’s some things missing momma.

Decorating the patio with daddy.

Here’s all the finished projects.  We made popcorn garland, paper stars and other homemade ornaments from beads that Ty strung on pipe cleaners. 

Here’s the cranberry covered G monogram hung with brown burlap.

I made this advent calendar using my Silhouette digital paper cutter.  Each day has a little activity, candy and/or a scripture about Christmas.  This is Ty’s favorite part of the day – seeing what’s inside.

This is a close up of my burlap/lace tree skirt I just finished.  Isn’t it beautiful? Thank you Pinterest for the great idea!

Now I just have to make a table runner and figure out what to decorate the table with for Christmas dinner.  Are you ready for Christmas?

Christmas cards

Which Christmas card will you get in the mail? It could look like this! I love Shutterfly holiday cards and this year they've added so many new designs it was hard to pick the ones I wanted.

Stationery card

View the entire collection of cards.

Peek-a-boo

November Happenings

November just flew by.  We made a trip back to Missouri for Thanksgiving and loved visiting with all our family.  Tyler did great on both flights and almost slept the entire three hours back – his cousins really wore him out.  Now we are busy preparing for Christmas.  We just finished all the decorations so look for a post soon to check out my homemade advent calendar, star wreath and homemade tree decorations. 

On the plane...

Man on a mission

On our way to the airport!!

1,2,3,9

Counting...

Cat drama

Check out my shades

More wa-wa

This is a common sighting at our house. Playing with no pants, one
sock, and of course wanting more water. Sometimes I regret buying him
a step stool...

More hangers

Swimming lessons

Family photos

We finally picked out our favorite photos from Ty’s recent 2 year old photo shoot.  There are more to come, but this is what we have now – they turned out great and we couldn’t wait to share them with you.

New

words: foot-ball, pink (which I'm pretty sure he learned from Van), I hold, kit snack (kitty snack - he loves to feed the kitty her treats), sauce (for applesauce - I think this came from Van too!), choo-choo

clothes: 4T shirts and size 9 shoes!! He still wears 3T stuff, but when we put the 4T shirts we had on him - they actually fit him really well - we thought they were going to be huge.

toys: trains, trains, trains. He got a small Thomas set for his birthday and loves it! We just need "more track" (as he says). He likes to sit in the middle and build the track around him, but we don't have quite enough for him to do that. And playdough - he really likes this too and luckily he isn't strong enough to take the lids off...yet.

activities: messy mondays (art class at the rec center where we do a new messy thing each week), tumbling, library storytimes and book buddies.

sleep: our wonderful baby used to sleep from 8pm to 8am and nap from 12 - 2 or 3. Around his birthday he decided to change all that by waking up around 6 or 6:30 and napping from 1-2:30 or 3. I am still adjusting to that early morning wake up tap.

Can't think of anything else right now, but each day he learns something new, so maybe I'll start making this a regular section........

Trunk or treat

Tonight we went to a trunk or treat at Ty's new best friend Van's church. Ty was a monkey and Van was a lion. After putting on our monkey costume at home - he tried to eat the fake banana attached to his costume - so we had to get a real one. Here we are trying to eat it in peace - but momma keeps taking pictures.
....need a little more....

momma......
okay, I'll be a monkey. OO-OO
AH-AH (see the banana?)

trunk or treating with Van. It went okay - until Ty saw spiderman - he did not like the mask covering the little boy's face and started screaming and clung to my leg.

showing off his trick or treat bag mom made for him. :)

Be on the lookout for more pictures from Halloween night!

Tricky

As I was cooking dinner tonight Ty kept asking for cheese, after two slices I said he has to wait for dinner. I turn my back to stir something at the stove and then look down. He just has a huge open mouth smile so I of course think he just likes helping with dinner. But then I realize he keeps opening his mouth and giving me a really happy smile-then I see it-a half chewed green bean that he stole off the counter while I had my back turned. Ha. So I prompty filled up a plate of beans for him to eat. We are both tricky tricky. (wink wink!)

Two more!

Around Ty’s birthday he had a fever for about 4 days and no other symptoms.  It was a rough week – he was having trouble sleeping – waking up in the night 3 or 4 times.  No one got much sleep.  Well, while we were learning body parts we decided to count his teeth – turns out he was getting his two year top molars right on time.  Now that they have finally broken through he’s sleeping and eating better! Yay!

Pumpkins

Halloween is almost here and so we got into the spirit last weekend by carving a pumpkin and doing a pumpkin craft.

Here is our pumpkin craft. Can you guess who did which pumpkins?

Daddy carved the big pumpkin while Tyler watched intently.

Cleaning leafs

We kind of have fall here-in that leafs do fall from the only kind of tree they have here-they are tiny leafs and here Tyler is cleaning the leafs off his playground. When the wind blows he screams no because it knocks more leafs off the trees and onto his slide. I rode my bike up here 2 miles hauling Ty in the bike trailer so let's hope I can make it back up the big hill without walking.

Tyler is 2!

Our baby is two! His checkup went well, he was 37" tall (95th percentile) and 30.4 pounds (50-75th percentile). He is growing up so quickly. He's learning more words everyday and has started to repeat what we say - or at least try. He's adjusted to his big boy bed very well now and stays in until it's time to get up. He's finally started eating better, though he's still not a fan of vegetables. We have switched to 2% milk, though he would drink half a gallon a day if I would let him. We're working on drinking more water and limited his milk - which could be the cause of him eating better. We had his two year old pictures taken last weekend so I'll post those as soon as we get them.

Birthday weekend

My mom, sister and her husband came to visit this weekend to celebrate Tyler's birthday. Saturday we had fun visiting the Hoover Dam and had a party after Ty woke up from his nap.

He wasn't sure what to do with the candle, but liked it after daddy blew it out.

Yummy Sesame Street cake!

View from the Hoover Dam

Karissa and Morgan had to leave Sunday morning so we decided to take mom to visit Mount Charleston. This is one of the skiing areas in Las Vegas. They already had snow and we were not prepared for the 45 degree weather. We stopped and ate lunch by this clear stream - it was a really cool area and probably would've walked around more except we were so cold, we ate our lunch quickly and headed back to the truck and turned the heat on. Who would've thought - snow in Vegas? We kept pointing it out to Tyler and he started saying "more snow, more snow" so we stopped so he could play in it - but then he wanted nothing to do with it. Figures.

We look forward to visiting Mount Charleston again and maybe even skiing this winter.

Splash pads!

Henderson is full of parks - there are at least three parks within a mile of our apartment and we've been to all of them and more. Last week we got invited to a park that had a splash pad. What is a splash pad you may ask...it is super fun, free, and the kids love them! The pictures will explain.

BBB

Big Boy Bed! After several weeks of Ty climbing out of the crib we finally took the front off and added a side rail so he could get in and out by himself. It's been almost a week and we still have trouble staying in bed, but he's getting much better and only gets out one or two times. He loves being able to get in and out all by himself.

Red Rocks

We took our first trip to Red Rock Canyon today. Forgot to bring our camera though so these pics are from my camera phone. If you want to see it better you'll have to come see it for yourself! Ha-or just wait till we visit again! And remember our camera.

Furniture

Our furniture finally arrived last Saturday – I feel like our apartment is finally a home.

Here’s what we survived with for 4 weeks. One ottoman, two pillows and Ty’s picnic table.

Now – couches you just melt into! A tour of the whole apartment to come soon!

What?! Don’t you clean in the nude? Ha – while eating a snack?