Christmas Eve….

This year on Christmas Eve we went over to Craig’s sister’s house for some yummy food and to celebrate Christmas with Craig’s family and just be togeather.  Kathy and Michael were @ the ER with Nolan the evening before however that didn’t stop Christmas @ the Sunsdahls!  I love love love what they did (and may copy-cat the idea next year when, cross your fingers, we have a house with our own yard – not just condo common area).  They got a real pine tree with the root ball and all for thier Christmas tree (a tradition from Michael’s side of the fam.), decorated it and then planted it in thier yard the day after – which worked well because it was so warm the day after Christmas this year!  It was fun and relaxing to be @ thier house and Caden and Tyler had alot of fun togeather!  It is so cute watching them run around togeather – You hear Caden say “Come on Tyler – let’s go to my room,” ”Come on Tyler, let’s do ___this___” or “Let’s do ___that___” and Tyler just runs after him following him where ever he leads.  You can tell Caden loves to have a follower and that Tyler loves to follow him around doing all the big boy stuff Caden does!  Here are some pics of our Christmas Eve…..

Part of Nolan’s gift from us was this balloon which Tyler seemed to have some issues parting with…

When does Santa get here?!?!

Pics of the boys and the boys with Grandma and Grandpa….

Did someone say PRESENTS?!?!  Caden passed out gifts and then showed Tyler how it was done….

If you ever need help fighting the bad guys, rescuing a cat from a tree, or anything else super-hero-ish – just call Caden – he’s official now that he has his super cape!

Tyler loves his Sit ‘n’ Spin from Grandma and Grandpa…

Some assembly required….

Caden got his out to show Tyler how it works….

Dueling Sit ‘n’ Spins….

Craig received a special gift from Nolan this year….but more about that later

Our little drummer boy Christmas Eve night before going to bed.  Don’t be confused, those straws he is holding are actually drum sticks…..if only Santa would deliver something to play them on…..  

Trimming the Tree…..

Tyler has had great fun with our Christmas tree this year.  This year we did not put up our regular Christmas tree…we put up this little 3 foot tree.  Yes, it was a handful to put up – but somehow we managed   As soon as we put it up he just kept hugging the tree.  We decided to just put this little tree up for numerous reasons…we have a condo so the downstairs is mostly like one big room (kitchen, dining room, family room) and we are always here in this area, Tyler’s toys are all mostly here.  Tyler is curious and though I do believe in setting limits for my son, I am not going to make my life miserable by putting up this big sparkly lighted tree up in the middle of his play area that I don’t want him hugging, touching, pulling on, “pecial fuzzing“, or accidentally knocking over – it just isn’t fair to him – it would be the equivalent of taking him to the park but making him sit on the bench the whole time.  It would be different if we had a bigger house and not our condo – there would be other play areas, other rooms, and it wouldn’t be right in the middle of his space so this just worked for us this year and he has LOVED it!!!  This and we will be at other family member’s houses for Christmas Eve and Christmas, it just worked for us this year and made for some fun little projects!

I don’t know what he’ll play with when we take it down!  He takes things on and off and of course adorns his tree with “pecial fuzz”.  Craig and I call it our little Charlie Brown Christmas tree – it even has a little Christmas blankie for the tree skirt!  We have pleanty of non-breakable orniments but I thought it would be fun to make orniments with Tyler for his tree so we used some of his favorite things to decorate his tree…

….Noodles….

….Pinecones….

….Paint….

….Then to top off our tree, a little Tyler hand print angel….

The funniest part of making the decorations for our tree was when we were stringing noodles and bells and hanging pinecones with pipe cleaners, Tyler kept taking the pipe cleaners and wanted us to make it look like a cane so we bent a little “handle” and he walked around all hunched over with this little 6in. pipe cleaner cane.  He is all about canes because Great Grandma has one and when we are with Great Grandma, Tyler is her self-appointed “Cane Keeper.”   If only he could get it to fly!!!

Cookie Extravaganza 2008!!!

For the past few years Craig’s sister Kathy and I have gotten togeather to make Christmas cookies.  It is really fun to get to spend the day with Kathy!  We chat, laugh, eat and it’s just a great little tradition we have started!  We start in the wee hours of the morning…..OK, I do NOTHING in the wee hours of the morning but sleep, we really start  around 9 or 10 and bake all day.  Traditionally, by dinner time we are mostly done and the only thing left to do is frost the cut-out cookies so we and our hubbies have dinner togeather (and now kids) and then we enlist the help of our hubbies for icing and decorating.

This year we were a well oiled machine!  We started around 10:30 or so, baked and baked with small interruptions from Tyler (who Elmo was supposed to babysit – I guess you can’t expect too much from a puppet on TV though), ate lunch, baked some more and miracles of all miracles did happen, when we found ourselves done around 4pm or so.  Tyler was not in the picture @ that time because he was taking a nap, Caden and Nolan were also not in the picture because they were home with Michael and were coming over but hadn’t arrived yet.  We put in A Christmas Story to watch but neither one of us lasted more than probably 10 minutes into the movie.  We each had a “wing” of the sectional couch and cozy afgan and both fell fast asleep.  Cookie baking is hard work!

This year was especially fun because Tyler and Caden helped us decorate the cookies!  All this talk about cookies is making me hungry!!  Here are some pics from our day. ….

Sesame Street Live…..

….proved to be an “awe”some time for Tyler….

Last week was my mom’s birthday and for it she wanted to take Tyler to Sesame Street Live…..OK, that not be exactly how it came about, but last week was her birthday and I had talked about going to see her. Then she had mentioned that she had seen Sesame Street Live would be in town @ the end of last week and was thinking how cute Tyler would be there and how much he would love it…so we went. There was dancing, there was singing, souvenirs were purchased, there were furry life-sized puppets and I think we all spent more time watching Tyler rather than the show we were there to see

Here we have a “sad” moment because Mommy would not let Tyler climb up on the stage….where’s your sense of adventure mommy!?!?

Tyler was in “need” of some Elmo paraphernalia so MeMe delivered

Let the show begin!!!  In between songs Tyler kept calling out “more…more”…..um…..yes…..we’ll be back next year!

Little moments with Tyler

I love the things Tyler says now that he is talking. It’s just those tiny little moments in my day that just make the day grand!

The lawn crew came a few weeks ago to mow the lawns in our addition. They were a few condos down across the street. Tyler was watching them work sitting @ the kitchen table yelling “Over here! Over here!”

We have been listening to Christmas music almost all the time when we are @ home.  We have also been reading the book Olivia Helps With Christmas from the “Olivia” series.  In the book it reads -  After dinner the family gathered to sing carols.  Softly they started:  “Angels we have heard on high, sweetly singing o’er the plains.” and has the family around a piano singing.   Then on the next page it reads “Olivia always lets go for the chorus. GLO-OOOO-O-RIA-A!” in large letters with Olivia really belting it out.  You must understand, I read this book to him an average of 20 times a day.  Right now it is his favorite book!  So this afternoon we are listening to Christmas music and the song Angels We Have Heard On High comes on.  Tyler just stands there quietly listening and then the refrain comes…..Tyler chimes in with a “Glo-oooo-o-ria-a” looking @ me and smiling…..oh my little angel…too sweet!

We usually have the TV off – I’m not against it – it just isn’t on that much. But I do like to turn it on @ 6pm because my favorite show Everybody Loves Raymond is on the CW4. I had watched Raymond and Tyler was playing. I hadn’t turned off the TV yet when the next show came on which was Friends. They hadn’t even ran the music intro yet, just the first little clip of the show when all the sudden a little voice pops up excitedly saying “Watch Friends….watch Friends”…..I don’t even remember referring to the show as Friends….I mean apparently if h said it, I have in the past….but the times are very few and far between because usually around 6:30 Craig is getting home or Tyler and I are eating if Craig isn’t home yet….he catches everything you say….every…little….thing!!!

We put up a little tree for Tyler for Christmas. It is his tree – he hugs it, plays with it, takes orniments off and puts them back on. Shortly after we put it up he would go over to the couch, act like he was picking up something very small from the couch cushion between his pointy finger and thumb, carry it over to the tree, and put it on the tree. When I asked him what he was putting on the tree he replied with “pecial fuzz” which is “special fuzz”.

I brought Tyler downstairs from his room the other morning. I hadn’t plugged his Christmas tree in yet so it wasn’t lit up. He immediately went right over to it, pointed to it, looked @ me and said “Kiss-a-mass tee empty”. There are a few Christmas tree terms I have apparently been wrong about over the years – when the tree is not lit up it is not that the lights are off – it is that the tree is “empty” and it is not “garland” as I had thought since my childhood, it is really a “snake” – or as he calls the garland on his tree a “parkley nake” which means “sparkley snake”.

Tyler decorating his Christmas tree with “pecial fuzz”

I’ll give you one guess….

….and one guess only what Tyler named this cute purple dino….

“Kim-a-saurus” and sometimes she gets upgraded to “Kim-a-saurus-rex“

This is how we found “Kim-a-saurus” and Tyler tonight when we went to check on him before we went to bed…..

He also named these 2 dino friends….

The male looking one with it’s ferocious looking teeth and attack stance he named “Daddy-saurus“

The very plain green dino he named “Mommy-saurus“….why don’t I get to be the cute purple dino?!?

Tyler-saurus-rex…..ROOOAAAARRRRRR!

I don’t know if it started with Auntie Kimmmmm creating a faux-hawk for Tyler during his bath or if she was creating dinosaur spikes because Tyler is big on dinos right now….whichever it started as – the end results were some cutie bathtub pictures and a little boy who kept running around in circles yelling “ROOOAAARRRRR” afterward…..

Pictures From Our Thanksgiving Day Feastivities

Here are some pictures of our adventures this Thanksgiving.  We spent Thursday @ my parent’s.  There was great food, games, a whole lot of kiddos running around, and a whole lot of FUN!  Here we are with our little Indian…..or, to be politically correct as people kept correcting me….our little Native American…..

Tyler and his preferred tribe leader……

Oh, don’t you worry Nathan and Amanda – I have saved hats for you too! 

The feast and playtime….

We spent Friday @ Craig’s parent’s where there too was great food, games, not so many kiddos, but a whole lot of FUN….

The boys had great fun with “Pin the hat on the turkey”.  Caden did an awesome job keeping his eyes closed even after being spun 5 times…….

After our feast and some naps, Grandpa had bought trucks that the boys could put together with their dads.  “Is it done yet?!?”…..

“How about now?!?”…..

“Now?!?”

“Ahhhh….FINALLY!!!”

How much does 1 little turkey grow in 1 year?!?!

Last year we made a shirt for Tyler to wear on Thanksgiving.  It had a Mommy Turkey (my handprint) followed by Mommy’s little Turkey (Tyler’s handprint)…..

This year we were again making some handprint Turkeys for some cards.  I had had Tyler’s turkey shirt out because I wanted to see if it would still fit him this year, most likely not, but it was a size 12-18 month, so I thought I give it a try.  I set the shirt down in a spot where his handprint turkeys from this year were sitting and then I saw it….somehow my little turkey from last year has grown exponentially in the past year!!! Here is his handprint on the shirt from last year and one of our turkeys from this year….

Are you serious?!?!  How does one little turkey get so BIG in just 1 year?!?!?  Awe, it made my eyes well up with tears!!!  Don’t get me wrong, I am so so thankful and we are so blessed he is so healthy and getting so big….but he is just soooooooo BIG!  He does big boy stuff, he plays with big boy toys, he says big boy things, he has a big boy appetite, and his hand size has tripled in the last year….perhaps I should add a life “PAUSE” button to my Christmas list this year!!!