First Day of School

Today was a big day at the Tyler House.  Hannah woke me up at 6:53 a.m. and said "Mommy!! Wake up, today is schooooool!!" She was so excited and went to her room and got her dress and she was ready an hour and a half before we needed to leave.  I love that she loves school so much!  An added bonus this year is that Aunt Jenn is her teacher! Her good buddies Judson and Emily are in her class, and of course her best friend and cousin, Marley.  I think it's going to be a good year!

Another HUGE thing is that Ethan is starting school one day a week, too! My heart doesn't know how to handle this quite yet and this morning while I was doing my weekly grocery shopping I felt a little lost without my side kick. I think he will love school, though. He loves being out of the house and exploring new things.  I'm a little anxious about nap time, but I know the women in his room have seen it all, so I'm just hoping he's not the worst they've ever had. Ethan's a great napper at home, but he doesn't seem to do so well anywhere else. Fingers crossed!

I can't wait to hear all about Hannah's day, and I'm hoping Ethan's teacher sends home a good report.  I sure miss my sweet peas, but I'm also enjoying a quiet house!

Here's to a great year!

Ethan - 15 months!

I haven't done an update on Ethan since his 12 month post.  He seems like a different baby from that time! Ethan is walking running everywhere and he's VERY active.  My mom stayed with me a few weeks ago and she got a taste of what a handful this little guy is.  She agreed with me that it's easier to leave the house with him and either have him strapped in to a car seat/stroller or in a non-dangerous climbing zone. I spend the majority of the day chasing him and taking him off the coffee table, down from the fireplace hearth, helping him climb onto chairs, etc. He's a little monkey and he gets so proud when he reaches the top of wherever he's headed.  He may or may not have climbed the attic stairs last week and hung out in the attic for a few minutes before we found him.

Ethan babbles alot and has several words that you can understand. Some consistent words he uses is: momma, dada, Hannah, puppy, diaper, hello, no-no, outside, milk, night-night, mouse, snack, pawpaw, vroom vroom, duck and book. It has  really helped that he's starting to use more words and pointing. I think he's happy now that we somewhat understand what he wants.

Ethan is definitely a daddy's boy.  This little guy LOVES his daddy and wants to be where he is at all times.  When Wes gets home from work Ethan darts for the door squealing and saying "daddy! daddy!" It's precious to me and I know the time they have together is so fun for Ethan.  If I had to guess, I would say Ethan is going to be handy like daddy.  He's always got a screw driver or some tool in his hand and his favorite "toy" is our riding lawn mower.  Maybe it's just curiosity, but I think it's in his genes to want to fix things.

Ethan has turned into a pretty decent night sleeper. I would say he still wakes up once or twice a week, but he's only up for a short time and then he's back to bed.  He sleeps from 8:00 p.m. to about 10:30 or 11:00 a.m. Yes! You read that right...that boy can SLEEP.  He usually naps for 3 hours in the afternoons. He sleeps ALOT!

Ethan's eating habits are good - in the fact that he eats constantly.  That boy never turns down food and is always wanting what we have. He's become a little more picky though.  I wasn't able to hold off with all the "junk" food as long with Ethan as I did with Hannah. Mainly because when Hannah has something, Ethan ends up getting a taste.  Now that he's tasted cookies, cheetos and pop corn, he wants in on that most of the time!

Ethan, you are so sweet to us and every day we talk about how we love you more and more. You are such a delight and you keep us laughing with your personality and funny faces.  We are treasuring our time with you so much, because you seem to be growing up so fast.  We love you little guy!

At 15 months you:

• Are in size 3 diapers
• Wear a size 4 shoe
• Wear 12 months tops
• Wear 3-6 month bottoms
• Drink 2 sippy cups of milk a day - rest is water. No juice for you yet.
• Weigh almost 20 pounds - you are so small
• Not sure how tall you are, but will find out Monday at your appointment
• Love books. You bring me book after book and sit in my lap for me to read to you - LOVE this!
• Sleep really well - 14-15 hours at night, 3-4 hours of naps during the day
• Eat pretty well - all table food
• Love wheels and trucks
• You love playing in the sandbox
• Have developed a strong personality and you arch your back big time if you are mad
• Sleep with your blue puppy and paci - very attached to the puppy
• LOVE being outside

Happy 15 months, Ethan. Love you so much!

Wednesday Fun Day!

Ethan slept until 10:00 this morning.  When that boy decides he wants to sleep, he is a great sleeper.  Anyway, when he finally woke up (Hannah had been up since 7:30) we went and ran some errands and ended up at the pet shop.  We came here when Hannah was Ethan's age, but I don't think Hannah remembered.  It was a fun, new thing and both kids enjoyed themselves.

Hannah's favorite thing was a little kitty cat.  Wes and I aren't fans of kittens or cats, so we will most likely never own one, but Hannah thought this kitten was really cute. 

Ethan liked everything.  He was pointing to everything and was even able to pet a bunny.

It was a fun time! Towards the end Ethan was getting sleepy again and so we headed home for lunch and naps.  Ethan has been asleep for over 3.5 hours (he must be having a growth spurt), so Hannah and I decided to have a little fun without him.  It was starting to rain outside so I went to pinterest to find an idea and I found this fun milk/soap/food coloring idea.

This was a fun activity and kept Hannah busy for about 45 minutes. 

(Note: Hannah is, of course, in pajamas)

Now, if my sleepy boy ever wakes up, we are planning to make a castle out of paper cups. My guess is that our castle won't get too high before it's destroyed!

Love at home time with my kiddos!

Beach Vacation 2012

This past week we went to the beach with my family for our annual trip.  I grew up really close to the beach and I've been going since before I can even remember.  It's been such a great memory from my childhood and I'm happy to say, my kids love the beach, too!

This little guy had a big time.  He loved the sand, the water, the shells, the seaweed, the birds and the waves.  He was all about EVERYTHING.  He didn't sit still at all, which  made for an exhausted momma, but it made my heart so happy to see him having such a good time.

Hannah loved playing with her cousins, as usual, and when she loved the beach, she loved it and when she had enough she was READY to go back to the cabin, often resulting in a melt down. But overall, she had a really good time and has been asking about the cabin ever since we left.

One of Ethan's favorite things to do was destroy the sand castle neighborhoods that Carter and London spent so much time creating.  

My beach beauty. She looks SO grown up to me in the picture below.

Wes took Ethan out on the kayak a couple of times.  They didn't go far, but Ethan liked the movement of the waves. Although, I think Ethan liked the kayak just as well on shore.  He's such a monkey and spent a lot of time just climbing and sitting in it.

We really had such a fun time and looking at the pictures makes me want to be right back on the beach relaxing.  I always anticipate the trip so much and then feel sad when it's over.  We are already excited for next year and I know it's going to be so fun with a 2 year old and a 4 year old  (gasp!) Hannah loved the water slides at the beach this year, too.  Almost immediately after hitting the bottom she would say: "I want to go again!" I love making these memories with my family.

Until next year...

What's going on?

I haven't updated in a while...we've been BUSY.  It's literally been crazy around here and I haven't gotten my camera out in weeks it seems. Luckily, I take a lot of pictures with my phone, so I do have some record of what we've been doing. 

I have been CHASING a certain little monkey around.   This little guy is constantly climbing onto furniture or getting into something mischievous.  I spend 80% of my day removing him from dangerous situations. 

Last Sunday I took both kids to church by myself.  Uncle Justin was playing his guitar in our worship service, so I thought it would be fun to bring Hannah with me to worship.  She really liked it....for a little while.  Then she was pretty much done and being disruptive, so we watched the remainder of the sermon from the foyer of the church.  This made me hold firm to the belief that we have a nursery for a good reason and people should take advantage of that. I loved seeing Hannah clap her hands and dance, though.

This week we emptied the water from our water table and replaced with rice.  Aunt Jenn has a rice table at her house and my kids love it, so we decided to try it for something new.  Apparently playing with the rice from outside the table was not good enough, so both my little monkeys decided to climb into it...and Ethan apparently enjoyed eating a few bites of raw rice.

(Notice Hannah is in her nightgown - I wasn't kidding in my earlier post when I said ANYTIME we are at home she is in her jammies).

We spent some time at my sisters house this week and Ethan loves the playhouse that is at their house...and of course he climbed on the chair and peeked out the window and he looked so  big and so cute.

And lastly, a few weeks ago we went to Chuck E. Cheese with a few friends.  We had a lot of fun, but trying to keep up with 2 kids in that crazy place is hard. You can't turn your back for a second...

We have had a very fun, busy summer. We are looking forward to spending some time at the beach next week, so that probably means you won't hear from me for a while again! But, I'll have some GREAT beach pictures when we return!

Swim lesson success

To be honest (as mentioned in my previous post), I haven't been crazy about the idea of putting Hannah in an intense swim course this year. I just feel like she's too young to REALLY need to know how to swim.  We don't have a pool and she's really only around a pool when we are at my parents house, which is only a few times a year.  But, after seeing my nephew's abilities after a week of private lessons, I decided to give it a shot and take the risk of Hannah never trusting me again - ha! I'm SO GLAD we did it! Below is a video of her today, after just 5 lessons. 

I absolutely loved Hannah's teacher.  She's been doing lessons for 9 years and she was just so nice and so good with Hannah. She didn't take an aggressive approach and just pushed Hannah as far as she would go, but not too far.  

I'm so proud of my little mermaid! 

Adventures

This past weekend we headed to Houston to visit Wesley's grandparents and parents.  We had  a good visit and as always, it was fast paced and I got no pictures!  Wes had to stay in Houston to work all week, so me and the kids headed to Granna's house for the week. I knew it was a long shot, but I decided to try to get Hannah in to a really intense swim instructor here.  She actually had a cancellation and to be honest, my heart kinda sunk when she said she could take Hannah. I've heard stories about these swim "natzi" people and it terrifies me to think that they would throw my child in the water and it would be a game of sink or swim.  Well, it was NOTHING like that and Hannah did sooooo well!  We got her a prize after swim lessons...a purple slush.

Hannah was SOOO proud of herself, and we were too! I peeked through the fence a couple of times and she was swimming under water and kicking her feet so well.  I asked her teacher how she did today and she said that Hannah almost got across the width of the pool under water the whole way! WOW! I was soooo shocked that she accomplished that on day 1!  She even went to the bottom of the pool and got toys from the ground. Totally amazing! I'm so glad Wes pushed me to put her in if this girl had an opening. With just 1 day behind us, it's been worth it so far.

And swimming (and no nap) makes for one really, really tired little girl.

Here's to hoping day 2 is just as successful!