Moments of Clarity

There are those moments in life when the sun shines, the heavens open, and things just make sense...
Last Saturday Ryan and I left Tyler with Grandma Denos, Grammie H., and Aunt Heather so we could run to Costco really quick. We grabbed a quick lunch while we were out too. It was the strangest thing to get out of the car and not open the back passenger-side door to get out our son. It was so strange to stand in line together to order. It was so strange to not pick our table based on where Tyler's car seat could fit. It was so strange to sit and talk. Then I looked over at Ryan and asked, "Is this what life was like before having a kid?" We both kinda laughed at how boring and quiet things were without Tyler around. I was definitely having separation anxiety hoping that our little guy was doing ok without us. The rest of the quick trip together was fun...and strange. Ryan and I agree that we love each other to pieces, but it didn't feel quite complete without Tyler with us. We had our own moment of clarity when we realized that life really was good...just not complete before we had our little Tyler. Tyler makes us a family and we wouldn't have it any other way.

An update...when I called to check on Tyler thinking he'd be freaking out away from me I hear him cracking up in the background. He was laughing at a squeaking toy and he was just fine without us. He hardly even looked up when we rushed in to pick him up. Guess he's already becoming independent! Love our little guy :)

Oh sweet technology

I had been updating the blog more, but we have been experiencing technical difficulties. Our lovely Internet went MIA for a few days, which is much more annoying than I thought it would be. Good news is, we're back in business! Here are some of our fun experiences from the last bit of life...

Thursday- we got to meet Aunt Anita, Cousin Jill, and Baby Scott for lunch in Centennial Hills (Las Vegas). Aunt Anita was visiting Jill and Scott. Scott just celebrated his one month birthday :) He was so tiny and sooo adorable. Tyler also got to meet his first dog, up close and personal. I though Tyler might be scared of the dog since we have a ton of big, mean, dogs on our walking route, but he crawled right over to Sophie and put his hand out to touch her. She sniffed his little hand and sent him into hysterical giggles. It was pretty cute- which means that I, of course, don't have a picture of it! We had a blast doing lunch with our buddies and hope to do it again sometime soon!

Friday- Oh it's fun to be a mom...another thrilling experience. Little Tyler decided to puke ALL OVER ME!!! It was so gross. He was all stripped down, ready for the bath. I was about to hand him over and then he just started puking all over me...sweet potatoes none the less. Down the front of me, down the shirt, on the jeans, all the way to the slippers. GROSS!

Saturday- Grandma and Grammie come for a visit. My mom and grandma made it to Henderson in record time. They are here to play and spoil the kids until Tuesday sometime. We are hoping to celebrate Grandma Anita and Heather's Birthday while we are all together. Happy birthday to both on the 30th!

What's Happening?

Here are some big events in the past five days or so of life...

1. Tyler sleeps through an ENTIRE night. A great performance, 7pm to 6:30am. What a stud! So he might be crawling and eating and growing like a 9 month old, but he is notorious for sleeping like a newborn...meaning not very well. He was typically waking 3+ times a night, even through Christmas. Just in the last week or so he went to just one time. Then Friday night, my big boy finally slept through an entire night!

2. Tyler wakes up every 2 hours...nice follow up huh? Just last night Ty went back to waking up ALL THE TIME! Who knows what is going on?!? And, just for credentials, yes, I have tried to let him cry it out. Apparently my little guy forgot to get an off switch. He cried for 6 hours without falling asleep...so we're not going to try that again for a few weeks at least.

3. Finding the little "fort" between the love seat and end table. He crawls back into this little spot and gets stuck but loves his independence.

4. Discovering trash is fun! In all of his crawling adventures Ty also discovered an empty juice bottle, milk carton, and cardboard boxes are a blast to play with. Other things around the house are fun too...like door stops. Who knew?!

5. First big boy barf. Not fun! Ryan was feeding Tyler his dinner while I finished mine. Tyler apparently doesn't have an off switch for eating either. He had a piece of toast, some baby cereal, and I think some baby fruit...anyhow, he gagged himself or just plain over-ate and then it all came right back up. It's scary to see a baby puke. Not spit-up, but puke. He ended up being just fine- and Ryan is over the traumatic experience too, but we hope to not go through this one again anytime soon.

6. Other fun events- playing with dad a lot! Ryan had a three day weekend from work for MLK day. We had a blast having him home for three days in a row. We hardly ever get to have him home, let alone for that long. Tyler loved to give his daddy smiles and laughs. We also got to play with Aunt Sarah and Uncle Ryan for Sunday Dinner. It was fun to see Tyler explore someone else's home and get comfy in new surroundings. He's definitely growing up!

Merry Christmas...A little late

We missed the Christmas season with our digital camera, but through the grace of others we finally have some pictures to document the occasion. We had a blast in California for a few days and we got to see a whole lot of family from both sides, Ryan's and mine. Let's see if I can get these fabulous pictures in here... This first one is Tyler and I getting ready for the Rosenthal Family Christmas (Ryan's extended fam) Isn't he such a cute santa? Just wait until you see the whole outfit!!

I have yet to figure out how to get the pictures in here where I want them..but this will do for now. The picture on the Left is of Aunt Debbie, and Tyler on Emily's lap. Tyler loves the piano and he's getting pretty good at playing. On the right are Daddy and Tyler just before we headed out to Chino Hills for the Denos family Christmas Eve at Aunt Denise and Uncle Layne's.

Lastly we have Tyler on Christmas morning with Daddy and you can see Grandma in the background. Tyler loves this little Elmo book. He enjoyed all of the fun toys and clothes that he got for Christmas. What fun! Hopefully I'll figure out how to add the slideshows and other fun stuff!

Creepy Crawly

It truly is amazing how quik this little boy is growing up. Since last Sunday my little boy has gone from squirming to crawling. He is officially on the move. He gets more and more into it each day. Tyler's new favorite things are; any electrical cords, mom's fuzzy slippers, the slippery floors, and anything just out of arms reach.

Another event that we failed to mention is that just a few days after Tyler's first tooth broke through, his second popped right up too! By now they are both very visible and he looks so cute when he gives a big, cheesy, smile. Ty is definitely learning a lot from his cousins, Benjamin and Madelyn. Madelyn used to crawl right over top of Tyler- but now that Tyler is an offical crawler he has returned the favor a few times ;)

One of my favorite things that Tyler does now is laugh. As I've said before, he has done his fair share of crying already so his laugh, and his smile, are so sweet. Ryan can always get a laugh out of Tyler- it is the cutest thing! I cherish the smiles that I get right after a nap- so cute.

That is just a bit of what has gone on in the last bit of our life. I'm sure there will be more to follow as we try to change a few things this week. Our goals for the week are to move Tyler's play area to our front room to give him more crawl space, get him to sleep better at night...hopefully only one waking...yes he still wakes up more than that!, and for mom to get some more of his scrapbooking done!

Check Point

At the start of a new year there are many opportunities to stop and reflect on the past year and set goals for the upcoming year. Recently there was a very poignant reminder of how sweet life is and how blessed I am.

I have been meaning to write about gratitude for quite awhile and I was hit over the head yet again. We had been feeling the stress of Ryan being out of the house so much. His job has been requiring so many more hours than we had anticipated. As it became more of a stress at home we had a not so subtle reminder that we are extremely blessed that Ryan has a steady job with a constant pay check. Not only does he have a job, but it it enough for us to make it on one income. Ryan went out to do his home teaching and two of the families he visits had just experienced a lay off and numerous other people that we know in the area have all lost jobs and are really struggling to find work. Sooo...as much as we miss Ryan at home we are so grateful that he is working hard every day.

Another BIG reminder to me just happened on New Year's day. A family that I know from my hometown in California just lost their little 4 year old on New Year's day. It was a day of family time playing together and one accident later a member of that family is missing. I firmly believe that this family will be together again. I know that there is always a plan so much bigger than our understanding, but when my sister called and told me this over the phone- as I was making cookie dough- I couldn't help but get choked up. Two years ago I'm sure this wouldn't have had the same effect on me as it did at this time. Since having a baby of my own this news hit so much harder. I never understood just how sweet having a little life in your home is. Tyler can be the ultimate test of my patience sometimes, but his sweet smile and infectious laugh make every late-night-hours-long-cry-fest worth it. I just can't imagine life without our little guy. Being a mom has been more difficult for me than I had originally imagined it would be, but it's the moments like this that make you stop and think just how blessed I am that I can even have a baby. So many people can't or don't get the opportunity. There aren't words to begin to explain how wonderful it is to be a mom, a wife, a sister, a daughter, granddaughter, niece, friend...etc. I pray every day that I may find a way to be better in every aspect of life...especially those of wife and mom.

Now that I have essentially emptied my brain on paper I hope to be able to lighten the mood with some adorable pictures of my little guy. We finally got a ding-dong (in the middle of Tyler's nap no less) and our camera arrived. Two day shipping turned into 8 days somehow?!? Regardless, our new, very pink camera is here and we're loving it. Let's see if I can be successful in adding some viewing pleasure

The first picture is how I find Tyler after every nap now. He often plays army and throws his pacifiers out of crib like hand grenades and has his stuffed animals as casualties ;)

The second is Tyler's first big-boy-bubble. He is sitting up well enough that he enjoys his toys now too!

And third, is our big boy(s) all ready for bed. We tried on these sweet space p.j.s (thanks to cousin Leslie & Paul's twin hand-me-downs) they are 12-18mos. and they fit our 6 month old giant! Scary stuff.

I am so excited to be able to add more snapshots of our life now that we are back in the digital world. Here's to many more memorable moments in 2008.

The joys of Parenting...and camera buying

First off- our new digital camera should be here tomorrow! Finally- hope for something more than just words on this post.
Funny story with the camera. We ordered online from Kodak.com after much shopping. We must have put different cameras in our cart about a million times to see the "sale price". After finally deciding on the v1003 we were so excited to make our purchase and receive a free 2GB SD card with it we forgot to look at one small detail- the default color. Needless to say, about 15 minutes after securing our purchase we looked at the fabulous receipt that we printed out to see that we just purchased ourselves the most fantastic PINK BLISS camera we will ever own. That's right, default color on our model was pink. That should be fun to have around. Ryan will feel really good about using it when I'm not around. We should be a part of some study to see if families with pink cameras take less pictures because dad won't touch the camera ;) We are kinda over it and just excited to have a camera again. I feel like we have missed so many picture opportunities in the past month or so.
Speaking of picture opportunities...just in the past day or two Tyler has figured out how to roll over and play in his crib. It all started about 1am two nights ago when I heard the most atrocious sound on the monitor. I ran (half asleep) into Tyler's room hoping that he was okay. Of course he was, he had just found his way onto his stomach and was eating up the monitor in his crib! This was cause for some adjustments the next day. We put his crib mattress down quite a bit lower and I got creative and hid the monitor behind some of the bumpers on his crib. He is so cute when I get to go in and "catch" him in the act. He looks up at me as if he was getting away with something. He has developed a sly little personality and he's learning how to scoot around his crib quite well. I have had to revert to wrapping him up for now to get him to fall asleep before he rolls over and gets stuck on his hands and knees. What a joker!
Another fun first has been with food. Tyler has had a blast eating toast cut into quarters, the inside of daddy's fries when he was throwing a fit at a restaurant, anything on mommy's plate he can grab before I stop him, peaches...he loves them, squished rice, baby stars, and just about anything else he sees everyone else eating. We love our curious little boy and can't wait to catch up with pictures.