SLO in Arkansas: March 2010

Friday, March 26, 2010

Missing Pictures!

Not sure why these didn't post last night, but hopefully this works today!

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Little "T"

Man how fast my little guy is growing up. Where in the world did my baby go???! Tyson is a little over 2 1/2 years old now and amazes me daily on how much of a big kid he is. So here is my bragging post about my firstborn:)

I am not sure of his exact stats, but the kid is big! He weighs about 34.5 pounds right now. Not sure how tall, but he is basically at least the size of most 3 and some 4 year olds! He wears 3T and 4T shirts and pants. The adjustable waists make the bigger sizes fit his little waist, but length wise they do great. Almost all of his friends at church are at least a year or two (or three) older than him, and I forget at times that he is only 2!!!

He is still a show-off, the life of the party, a non-stop talker, etc. He talks without ceasing (don't know where he gets that from!) and we are finally able to have actual conversations now that his vocabulary is huge:) He blurts out the funniest phrases and is constantly cracking me up. He continues to have a passion for singing (gets that from his daddy) and we love to sing songs all the time. Most of everything we do turns into some type of song. His favorites right now are "Blessed Be the Name of the Lord," "Jesus Loves Me," "Barbara Ann (Beach Boys), and his name song. I sing him a little diddy spelling his name out and Jace's name out and he loves to hear those quite often:)

What else about Ty at 2.5 years old?? The kid eats wonderfully and likes a lot of healthy stuff. He loves lettuce and any kind of salad. He prefers plain Cheerios to any other kind of sugary cereal. He loves apples, pears, grapes, almonds, cashews, and peanuts. His most common requests for lunch are pizza and chicken salad!! He knows exactly how to make home made chicken salad too, because he helps me make it several times each week. He is crazy about trains and trucks, and could play in the dirt all day long. He knows how to ride his big wheel and pedal correctly. He can ride his scooter correctly and he drives his motorized jeep with one hand like he has been doing it for YEARS!! Cracks me up, especially when he has his ski goggles on his head at the same time:) He can recognize about half the alphabet and bring me whatever letter I ask for. He knows lots of words that start with the different letters too. He counts to 12 and then gets a little mixed up in the teens:)

He sleeps wonderfully at night from 830 pm til about 7 or 730 am most days, and usually wakes up in the best mood. Of course he also wakes up going 90 miles an hour so I try to beat him up to get my head on straight:) He takes an afternoon nap for about one and a half to two and a half hours every day. He is pretty flexible about when this nap occurs, which is nice. Oh, and the best thing ever......he is paci free as of this week!!! Yay for smooth transitions!!! We had cut the silly thing in half about a month ago and the kid just keeps taking it no matter what, so I finally just didn't give it to him one day and told him it was for tiny babies and he hasn't had it since. Hasn't affected his sleeping really at all either, thank goodness! He is also potty training pretty seriously, so lots of big changes going on right now. He has made some major leaps with this in the past two days as he has told me twice when he needs to go rather than me asking or just taking him. And we are having lots more dry diapers throughout the day. I think I found my magic motivator with him.....Jelly beans!!!

Anyway, he is just precious and I love him to pieces:) He adores going to Bible class and school (mother's day out) and is the BEST big brother in the world. He thinks the world of Jace and loves on him, pats his back and says "thats ok brother!" when he is fussing, and gets so excited when we go in Jace's room to get him up from a nap. He shares his snacks (crackers) and toys with him easily and is just so stinking sweet to him. I love how precious they are together. Jace's little face gets the biggest grin when he sees his "brother" coming and he adores watching every move Tyson makes. I can't wait to see how much fun these two guys have growing up:) I just can't believe how fast it all goes.

Friday, March 12, 2010

Happy Half Birthday Jace!!!

My little Jace is 6 months old. He has been the sweetest addition to our little family:) We finally had his appointment this week so here are his official stats.

weight: 16.15 lbs 45%
height: 26 3/4 inches 75%

He is only 2 ounces less than Tyson was at 6 months, but he is a quarter inch taller! So they are pretty similar, but Jace may be taller and skinnier than his brother. Thankfully Jace is still wearing all of Tyson's clothes, so that has been super nice! He is in mostly 6-9 month stuff, but he can wear 12 month onesies too, since he is so long. I put him in a 9 month pj outfit last night for the first time and the legs only came down below his knees....not to his ankles like they were supposed to!! It was pretty funny looking:) Anyway, the doctor said he is growing great and is healthy as can be. He hasn't been sick once since he was born and I hope that continues for a while:)

The little booger is trying really hard to crawl. He gets on his hands and knees and rocks back and forth like crazy. He lunges forward to grab things and can usually get whatever he wants. We are baby proofing since he will be going mobile soon.

We are so mean and put this lovely thing on his head and he HATED it, but it was so funny I had to get a picture. He was so angry at us, but was fine once it came off. Mean old parents!!!

My happy teething boy. That kid might chew his hand off soon if he isn't careful:) Ok here are some things in general about Jace at 6 months old.

*He eats three meals a day and gets 4 bottles. He eats a tub of baby food (2nd stage) at every meal, sometimes some baby oatmeal mixed in, and devours saltine crackers, puffs, and baby mum mums like no other. He is pretty good at feeding himself the crackers and mum mums which is nice:)
*He takes a bath in the big tub with Tyson and loves playing in the water
*He has two bottom teeth
*He goes to bed super early....around 6 or 6:30 pm usually. Gets up about 7 or 7:30 am. Sometimes he wakes up around 430 am fussing, but we never go in there. He just works it out and goes back to sleep on his own:) This is getting much better now that he can find his paci and get it in his mouth on his own in the night.
*He rolls over both ways and completely sits on his own with no support.
*He really enjoys being outside
*He takes two naps a day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Usually about 1-2 hours for each one.
*I think he is a mama's boy:) Which I love:)

Jace continues to add so much to our lives and makes us smile daily. The next 6 months should be fun with him getting to be mobile! Tyson is really enjoying his baby brother and I know they will have many fun adventures together.

Friday, March 05, 2010

Just Checking In

Sorry for the lack of pictures. I am on my laptop and don't have them on this computer. Anyway, just a quick report on progress so far. The exciting news is that I have lost 7 pounds since I have started my healthy living plan:) I am pretty happy with my progress so far, especially since it has only been 3 weeks and I am really working hard to do well in lots of areas. I have been trying some new food and so far we have found several things we all really enjoy as a family. I think the biggest thing I have noticed is that I really don't crave plain sugary stuff anymore, and that when I do eat junk my body is not very happy. The sunshine and warmer temps have really got me motivated to get moving outside more...I have mapped out a route that I have started walking and will start running it in the near future:) We have some killer hills around our neighborhood which makes it a lot tougher than it seems too.

I am having a great time with my couponing!!! I have found several great deals (free stuff!) and am learning how to be more frugal in all areas of my shopping. I did a pretty good job of this before, but it is really helping overall. This week I found some great stuff at Old Navy and got Tyson $101 worth of new clothes for only $37!!! Everything was on sale plus I had a 15% off coupon:) I seriously bought him some long sleeved shirts for $1.25. How awesome is that??!! I am having a hard time even thinking about buying more clothes at the consignment sales when I can find deals like that on brand new name brand stuff.

Spring is in the air!!! I LOVE it!! The sun makes me so happy and much more energized:) We have taken advantage of the sunny days and have played outside as much as possible. The house gets a lot of natural light too throughout the day, which I LOVE:) Speaking of the house....have I mentioned how much I love it??! It has felt so much like home since we moved here and is so comfortable. The space is awesome for our family and so functional. I am just so thankful that we found this house. It will be totally awesome once we get our bathroom finished too:) We have grand plans for the outside as well. Silas and I are much more of the outdoorsy project kind of people, and have started making our wish list for the wonderful projects we want to do in the yard and with landscaping. I don't even know where to start! I am really looking forward to cleaning the yard up and making it our own. I love yard work!!!

Tuesday, March 02, 2010

My Boys

The kids are growing like weeds. They are so much fun. Pretty exhausting too I must say, but fun none the less! Jace has had a big week. He sprouted his first tooth on the bottom and the second one was just a few days behind. He looks so cute:) He also started taking big boy baths in the big tub, which he likes a lot better than his little tub. He turned 6 months old last Friday. My how the time goes by! We head to the doctor next week for his 6 month check-up so I will do his full 6 month post once we know all his stats:)

Oh my sweet busy Tyson....what can I say??!! He is as lively as ever. His talking and language has just exploded lately and even though he is still tough to understand at times, he talks non-stop! We are working on some big changes with him as well. We cut the end off his paci and are working on getting rid of it. The first day I gave it to him he looked at it and said...its broken!! Then he stuck his finger in the hole of the bulb and wore it around on his finger all day!! Silly kid:) He still tries to suck on it some, but not nearly as much. He is also going potty on the big potty a lot more now. He just doesn't tell me when he needs to go, but will pretty much go almost every time I put him on there, so that is progress to me. Hopefully we will turn the corner with potty training soon and get the whole thing over with!

My sweet little crazy boys. Jace loves to look outside and one of his favorite spots is parked right by the back door so he can look out and check out what's going on outside. This spot also gets some great afternoon sun and is usually warm and bright, so it is getting a lot of action these days! Tyson and Jace just hang out together and jabber about what they see. Tyson loves Jace so much and I just can't say enough how much I enjoy watching their relationship grow by the day. I love my boys!

SLO in Arkansas