More..

More walking. More good news. More beautiful weather. More "mommy thoughts".

More walking...Tyler is becoming a maniac behind anything with wheels. If I leave the stroller open, it becomes a walking aide. If I leave the walker up, it becomes a walking aide. If I leave anything about Tyler height with wheels up, he's pushing it around. It is so cute and so frightening to think that he could be walking all on his own in the next month or two. YIKES!

More good news. My amazing husband, Ryan Boyd, got the promotion at work! We are so excited (and a little anxious) about what this will mean. Ryan has been working hard (way too hard in my opinion) every day since September 13th...and he just got a position in 6 months that usually takes 3 years! As much as Ryo likes to worry, he is a great worker, a nice guy, and great with people skills. We have yet to get the official offer in writing, but we can wait for that part. Congratulations to Ryan for getting himself noticed at work. We are so proud of you!!

We also celebrated our 3rd anniversary on the 26th. Ryan was working so we thought we'd do something cute on our shoestring budget. Tyler and I went to surprise daddy by heart attacking his car. Little did we know he'd be outside when we got there. It was a good excuse to see him since he's been working over time every day this week. We got to visit everyone in his office and put smiles on a lot of faces! Everyone was telling us what a good job Ryan did by breaking an office record the day before. What a stud! Later that night Ryan and I got to go out to dinner at Lucille's, a BBQ place, just the two of us! It was fun to have a few hours with my hubby to remember how great things are. Tyler had a blast with his uncle Taylor and the cousins while we were out.

More beautiful weather. From what I hear, I should cherish this brief time of year in Las Vegas when you don't need to wear spf 100 and carry around a shade structure everywhere you go. It has been around 70 the past three days. We have been able to spend a lot of time at the park and playing outside at Aunt Heather's. It is funny how a little sunshine makes everything better. It even made me want to clean the house...scary stuff!

More mommy thoughts. I'm sure I can't include everything in this one post, but sometimes I just get to thinking and here are a few of my treasured thoughts...

Eventhough the first two weeks of Tyler's life were probably the hardest thing for me- a serious reality check- it has been so worth it! I know I've said it before, but he really has made our family more complete. As much as I hated hearing it at first, everything really does get better with time. There is a lot that I have learned and a ton more to learn, but the simple fact is, I'm doing it!

A funny thought...we just visited my friend who had her third. She was such a better patient than I was. She attributed it to the fact that it was her third time around. It is interesting to look back at how compliant I was with anything the Dr. said to do. They could tell you to eat only lemons for a month and my response would be, "okay." When I got to the hospital that also seemed to be the only word in my vocabulary. It all starts with, "put this on"...my response, "okay". Next is, "we need to....(fill in the blank)" however invasive it may be, what is my response, "okay". And lastly, who in their right mind says, "oaky" when told, we need to do major surgery on you in about an hour?! Then after it all, "take this" not that I had any clue what the drug was, what the side effects could be, or if I'd be fine on something less potent, what is the only thing I could say? Okay! I think it's all built in because Heavenly Father knew what he was doing!

I hope I remember some more later. My sister and I have been sharing funny things moms learn to do, like go to the bathroom with the door open, cook with a baby on your hip, feed two people at once, use your feet as hands, etc. I'll make a better list and post it sometime soon! To all the moms...and soon to be moms out there,we really are amazing, aren't we!?

Brave Little Boy

Tyler is getting more daring each day. Friday was one of those days that he was just falling all over the place. The week started off with him hitting his cheek on my nightstand while I was getting ready for a walk. It looked soo bad :( I felt like such a bad mom. But, as babies do, he got over it and back to smiling fairly quick. Friday started off with a slip and bonk on his block-o-fun toy leaving a nice line on his lip. Later while reading books, he tried to stand up on the bookshelf, his hand slipped and he bonked his forehead. After that he was pulling up on the classy metal folding chairs in the kitchen and pulled it over on him getting a wham-bam in the nose! Poor boy! We don't have any pictures that really show all the pain this poor little one has gone through, but you can imagine! The silver lining to all of his bruises came last night. Sunday dinner at Aunt Heather's and Uncle Taylors was going as usual...until Tyler pulls up behind the walker and starts walking!! No joke! Sure it was only about 3-5 feet of pure sure-footed genius, but it was still amazing. He makes me smile so much. What a wonderful little boy. This sweet little boy is already in bed and I thought I'd finish this post with the words to his lullaby he gets each night...

You came from a land where all is light

To a world half day and a world half night

To guard you by day you have my love

And to guard you by night, your friends above

Sleep, sleep 'till the darkness ends

Guarded by your angel friends

Sleep, sleep 'till the darkness ends

Guarded by your angel friends

There's one stand softly by your bed

And another sits close with a hand on your head

There's one at the window watching for the dawn

And one waits to wake you when the night is gone

So sleep, sleep 'till the darkness ends

Guarded by your angel friends

Sleep, sleep 'till the darkness ends

Guarded by your angel friends.

Sweet Dreams!

The way things are

We are so lucky to have family close. Tyler has learned so much from his cousins. Madelyn and Tyler are almost exactly 4 months apart. Maddy enjoys showing Tyler the way things are. We get together for dinner at least three, sometimes four nights a week. One of the cousins' favorite things to do is push Tyler around in the walker since he is the only one not walking yet. I'm not sure if this is Tyler's favorite thing, but he puts up with it okay.

This is how it starts. Maddy comes up all nice and plays with Tyler..

This is usually how it ends. Tyler gets to go for a ride!

Tyler is still stylin' thanks to our old neighbors in Mission Viejo. His sweet slip-on flame shoes were too small before he even got to wear them so we exchanged them this past week for these awesome checkered old school vans. He look so cute with "real" shoes on.

Fun with Granny Jenny!

We had the best time with Granny Jenny visiting us for the past few days. We got to take her with us to church, the "big park", to lunch with daddy, and on a few walks around the nieghborhood. Sunday night we got together with the rest of the family, Sarah, Ryan, Heather, Taylor and the kids. It was fun to see everyone together for family dinner. I wish we would have caught more of Tyler's smiles on film. He was all grins for his granny. Ryan and I even got to go out on a date for dinner Saturday night!

Tyler and Granny ready for church on Sunday.

Tyler and Granny at the "big park" (Sunset park by daddy's work)

A cute shot of our little guy being big and brave. He pulls up on almost anything and now he even lets go and drops down right onto his bum. He's getting a little too brave for my liking ;)

IT'S A MIRACLE!!!

Pardon the excitement...or not! Tyler slept through the entire night, that's right 7:45pm - 6:15am. This truly is a miracle considering the night before last we had a combined total of about two hours of sleep. Oh what a difference some sleep makes. So proud of my 8 month old boy :) What a way to show mommy he loves me...9 hours of un-interrupted sleep. Perfect!

A little TLC

Yes, today was another Doctor's visit. We had a follow-up with our new and improved friend. The news was a little better. The bronchitis seems to have cleared up but the ear infection is still going strong after a full week of meds. We have our fourth perscription for little guy. Let's hope this one works!! Tyler also is moderately anemic, therefore he gets to go on a liquid multi-vitamin with iron. The doc says he is, "batting 950" Not bad!

We tried to avoid three co-pays in one month so the kind nurse gave us Tyler's 9 month check-up early. The eight-month (TODAY :) ) numbers are...

19lb. 6oz. and 27in...

funny because he was 27.5 two months ago???

We'll get a better update when we go back in a few weeks for another follow up visit.

Even with our little boy being slightly under the weather we are greatful for many things today. Ryan's job has taken a lot of his time from us but it also has something called family time. PTO baby! Ryan was able to come home early yesterday to help out with Tyler. Then I ran a fever and Tyler didn't sleep all night so Ryan came in to say good-bye and saw that I looked less than my usual fabulous. One call in to work and his wonderful supervisor said take the day and do what you need to do. We have been so blessed to have daddy home to play with Tyler and let me nap a little more. We will miss him tomorrow on heart day- but we were glad to have him around to give us an extra dose of TLC.

We love you daddy! Happy heart day.

A little Update

Following up on my goals from last week. I DID organize one thing :) Our closet! It looks great. Not that it was terribly messy before, but there were a few things on the floor. During one of Tyler's naps I got to re-fold, re-hang, re-color code, and re-organize. It was great! Other than that, I just accomplished the usual house cleaning, food making, diaper changing, bath giving, grocery shopping, errand running, finance balancing, and medicine giving.

We were able to get some really cute pictures of Tyler this past week or so. I think we need some smiles on here after last week's sad pic so here we go.

The weather has finally warmed up (never thought we'd say that in Las Vegas!) so we made some crawling space outside. Tyler and daddy had some good quality time this weekend. My two boys are soo cute!

Satuday was finally a day off for Ryan so we all spent some time outside. Ryan was washing cars, which he does so well, and Tyler was studying the art ;) Tyler stayed in the garage for most of the morning but he made a running start and cleared our make-shift barrier. He rolled right down the driveway to the sidewalk and he didn't stop there. Tyler and daddy went for a little walk to the neighbors and giggled all the way!

Tyler gave us a great smile and we finally caught it on camera so just enjoy the goofy grin.

Finally we got an adorable picture of our sleepy head. This is his new favorite sleeping corner. Isn't he adorable?!