Sunday, March 21, 2010

Grandpop is our angel

Just a couple of weeks ago marked the one year anniversary that my Grandpa passed away and sadly, here we are again. Travis' Grandpop passed away this past Tuesday morning and we had a very nice service for him today in Llano. Grandpop was 93 years old and he lived a very long and happy life, so I guess this wasn't necessarily a sad occasion, although it is still hard and we will miss him terribly. Tyler was Grandpop's only Great-Grandchild and I loved seeing the way he grinned from ear to ear when he saw Tyler. It always took Tyler a little bit to warm up to Grandpop, but by the end our visits, Tyler would be giving out high-fives, fist bumps, hugs and kisses to him. It was so sweet! I'll never forget the day that Travis and I took Grandpop to lunch to share the news with him that we were expecting a baby. He was so excited! He said, "Girls are great, but I sure hope you have a boy!" haha. And when he found out later that we were having a boy, he was so proud to have a Great-Grandson that would carry on his Barrett name. He loved Tyler so much. I am beyond thankful that he was able to know Tyler and I feel so honored to have been able to give him the Great-Grandson that he wanted.

I fell in love with Grandpop the minute that I met him eight years ago. It's kind of hard not to. He was such an adorable, little, old man. I'll always remember my first fishing trip with him to Lake Buchanan and picking prickly pears with him at the ranch while listening to great stories about his past. It's funny... the little things that will always stick with you. He had too many wonderful characteristics to list and I can only hope that Tyler will grow up to be a similar man and that he will make his Great-Grandpop proud.

This is one of my favorite pictures!! This was as soon as Grandpop walked into the hospital room after Tyler was born and saw him across the room for the first time. He was so happy and proud! Look at that smile!













I'll miss this sweet man~

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Uncle flew our coop

Well, after mooching off of us for almost two months, Uncle Justin headed down to Florida this past week to start his new job. (I'm really just teasing about him mooching off of us!) I haven't spent that much time with my brother since we were kids and although, there were a few times that I thought I may strangle him, I really enjoyed his company and am going to miss having him around. There is a certain little someone that is definitely going to be missing his playmate and babysitter! Tyler got very close to Justin while he was here and Travis and I enjoyed taking advantage of that relationship by going out for a couple of date nights. Now I'm spoiled! haha! It stinks that we're now back to seeing him for just short visits around the holidays. Hopefully, we can plan another vacation to Florida this summer to see him!

Teaching my kid karate moves AND how to be not-so-nice to Mommy~


How can you not love this kid? I'm secretly filming him. What a dork~


Sunday, February 28, 2010

22 months old

Our 22 month old is definitely a mini-human (as Travis likes to say)! He repeats/copies just about everything we say or do these days. It's really cute. I think I have pretty much given up on logging the words that he often says since he now says so much. Although, I have to mention that he finally started saying 'Tyler!' We have been trying for months to get him to say his name and he hasn't even attempted to try. We would ask him to say Momma, Daddy, Uncle, etc. and he would. When we would ask him to say Tyler, he would just point to himself. It always made for a good laugh! Now, he says his name so well and he says it all.the.time. :-) He also started saying dog, cat and cow as opposed to just making their sounds when we ask him to say the word. While his vocabulary is growing very fast, he isn't putting many words together aside from: Bye whoever or Hi whoever. I'm sure that's coming soon though.

We are still easing into potty training. I am more proactive about taking him to the bathroom since he's shown such a huge interest over the last few months and so far he's doing great with it! I purchased one of those toilet seat inserts (that sit on the big toilet) and he doesn't care for that. He went from standing to sitting on the toilet now and it's so much easier in my opinion. He often tells me that he needs to pee and he always lets me know when he's made a 'poot' in his diaper. haha. He even woke me up at 4:00am to let me know he had to pee! I know we still have a long way to go with this, but I'm very proud of his initiative/interest and how well he's doing so far.

We have also recently implemented time out. I initially thought he was a little young for this, but I still wanted to try a consistent approach and get him familiar with the idea of time out... where it is and why he goes there. That is also working out well! There is no struggle to get him to go to time out, in fact, the few times that I've told him he has to go, he gladly runs to his spot! However, once he sits down for a couple of seconds, he gets up, gives me a hug and tells me he's sorry. Fingers crossed it's always this easy, but who am I kidding??





Up the slide backwards~




And back down again~


Posted against the dishwasher~


A few videos of Tyler saying a few words before I've kinda given up on recording them.





ABC's with not a lot of patience. This was actually taken a couple of weeks ago and he would usually say all of the letters pretty well, but of course, it didn't come out quite as good when I recorded him. He's gotten a lot better at this over a couple of weeks!

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Snow Day

It was almost 85 degrees and sunny two days ago and it was snowing today! True story! It's no wonder everyone is walking around sick. Anyway, we bundled up and at least got outside to see the snow coming down, but the temperature was just slightly above freezing, so it didn't stick and we weren't able to play in it. Bummer.





The boys watching the snow fall from the garage~
















We didn't see this stick around at all. Oh well. It was fun for 30 minutes.


Monday, February 22, 2010

Silly face

Ahhhh... what can I even say? I'm sure I have a lifetime to witness these silly faces that my child just discovered was fun to do.



Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Day at Zilker

Tyler and buddy Trace getting ready to ride the train around Zilker Park-













It's silly, but I'm so impressed with his ability to hold his weight and hang from the monkey bars. He's such a strong little boy!