Trick-or-Treating

Practice session at our house. Love that he starts to yell 'Trick-or-treat!" before we even open the door.


Another practice session- we were trying to get him to wait until AFTER the door is opened before saying 'trick-or-treat.'


The real deal!!


Neighborhood bud, Jacob~










Neighborhood bud, Trace~


His loot!

Boo-da Festival

Tyler got to practice his trick-or-treating skills at the Boo-da Festival last night. A lot of local businesses gathered downtown and set up booths to pass out candy to the kiddos- it was crazy/chaotic, but he had so much fun!

Tyler decided to be Captain Rex from Star Wars- Clone Wars for Halloween. I gave him several options and this was the winner. He's really into Captain Rex at the moment and I know a lot of people don't even know who/what that is, so here's my (excited) little Captain Rex showing off his Captain Rex:




Tyler got to see his little girlfriend, Claire, at the festival~


A highlight for Tyler- checking out the firetruck!






Check out that arm! He made two out of four shots. Not bad, right?

Visits with Brent!

This post is a real treat because these are the first/only pictures I have of Tyler with his Uncle Brent and aside from a couple of baby photos of Brent, these are the only other ones you'll see of him in this blog so far! After 2 1/2 years of taking Tyler to visit Brent, they FINALLY had 'picture day' on his unit this past weekend and we were able to get a few shots. The quality is horrible with a capital 'H' and the "photographer" is less than enthused to be taking pictures, but I don't care. At least I now have something for Tyler. We had a great visit with Brent and Tyler gets excited to see him because he knows that when we go to see his Uncle Brent, he gets to sip on Coke, eat candy and whatever other junk food we buy out of the vending machines over a period of two hours for Brent. I cringe thinking about all the junk that Tyler eats and the sugar high he gets, but it's HIS special time with his Uncle Brent and I wouldn't take that away from them for anything! I'm so glad they get to spend time together and I imagine all the fun they will have one day when Brent gets to come home! :-)

(Proof by Tyler's blurry head that homegirl STINKS as a photographer!!)












Justin and I saw Brent a few weeks ago when they were doing pictures. It was the first time I've been without Tyler since he was born and I was devastated to find that they were taking pictures this day. Luckily, they decided to do them for the entire month of October! :-) I think it's so funny to see how big my brothers are compared to me.

Pumpkin Patch

Pumpkins, pumpkins and more pumpkins! The holidays are HERE and we kicked it off by heading to our local pumpkin patch today to let Tyler pick out his favs.

16 week Pregnancy Check-up

I had my 16 week check-up yesterday. It was quick and everything went well. The technician found the baby's heartbeat right away and it sounded great- in the 150's range. We received our paperwork to schedule the anatomy ultrasound between 18-20 weeks (not much longer!!) and I got all of the hospital registration forms to submit. I can't believe we're already at this point of finding out the baby's sex OR that I need to start preparing for hospital/anesthesia registration. The time is going by so fast and it's starting to feel really real now. Not that it didn't feel real before, but I have a noticeable belly bump now, I feel tiny bubble movements (although I'm still waiting to feel that one big kick or jab), and we're starting to do things to prepare for the baby's arrival. Crazy!

I've been feeling A LOT better than before. I've got my energy back and my back doesn't hurt quite as bad, at least it's not constant. I had my first prenatal massage last week, which helped tremendously, so I'm sure I'll be indulging in massages quite often. :-)

15 1/2 week belly- total weight gain so far: 5 1/2lbs~


Comparison with Tyler at 15 1/2 weeks~

Artist in the making

Here is our proud little artist showing off his very first portrait that he did ALL by himself(!). Take a close look and you will see the head, two eyes, a nose, mouth, two lines for ears and a crazy little hair-do.

Day out with Thomas

Tyler got to spend yesterday with one of his fav.o.rite characters, Thomas the Train!









*This is Tyler's 'Whoo Whoo' face- haha!*










We left with a couple of new trains and a Thomas umbrella and Tyler was one happy kiddo. :-)

Tyler's two year/30 mos check-up

We just took Tyler in for his two year pediatrician appointment this past Monday(Sept. 25, only five months late!), so it actually became a combination of his 24 month/30 month check-up. He was supposed to get the big MMR (measles/mumps/rubella) shot at his one year appointment and we had been delaying it until his two year appointment, although I guess our hesitancy about getting this shot extended a little beyond the two year marker. ;-) That was actually just a very small reason on why we were so late with setting the appointment, it really just never seemed to work with our schedule for whatever reason. At any rate, Tyler did finally receive the MMR shot and I'm a little relieved that it's over with. I can finally stop having anxiety over it and while he screamed bloody murder when he got it, he had no side effects and handled it really well afterwards. A funny side note- our pediatrician's office is located right next to a train track so Tyler got to watch a train go by while we were waiting in the room. He looked over at me and said, "I love trains and I love my doctor!" Of course that attitude didn't last long. After he got his shot and took a breath from screaming (poor baby), he yelled at the nurse, "Not nice, nurse!" and then told me he didn't love the nurse. I felt so bad for him, but that was pretty funny. The appointment went great, otherwise. He weighs 29lbs (25-50th percentile) and is 37 1/4 inches tall (75-90th percentile). He got an A+ on his developmental status and Dr. Anna seemed happy with him overall.

He is doing great in our book as well. He's growing and learning so much and we just think he's soooo smart! :-) We got him a 'big boy' bed this past week and although we don't have it set up (no bed frame, sheets/blanket, etc), he asks to sleep on it AND has actually taken one nap on it so far. Uncle Justin is visiting us again and we're waiting until he leaves before setting up Tyler's new room, but I'm starting to feel like the transition of moving him out of our bed may not be as hard as I once thought (at least not on Tyler). I guess we'll see when it really comes down to moving him, but at this point, he seems very excited about the change. I'm not so sure that I'm ready for this transition, but I know that it has to happen now before the new baby gets here. Lots of changes will be happening in our house soon! :-)

Catchup- Ice Cream truck

September 1- Tyler is usually napping when the ice cream truck comes by in our neighborhood, but we finally caught up with it today. We had been talking about the ice cream truck for a few weeks and Tyler was so excited to see it and hear the music coming down the street as he stood outside waiting with his money in hand (and jumping up and down, screaming "I got money, ice cream truck!"). :-)