Back home again...

We're back home tonight after a long visit to the hometown. My weekend started out by a phone call at 8:45am from Josh... so much for sleeping in as late as I want. All he wanted was to see if I was heading out soon because the roads were a little slick. Well, leaving that early was not in my plans. I tried to go back to sleep, but that didn't happen so I got up and mosied around the house for the morning and took off around noon. I met up with Josh later that day for the day that wouldn't end.... we did the "brother's christmas" at approximately 1:30am. We got to bed that night at 4:30am and I got up for the 10am Christmas morning mass. When we got back, we had some breakfast/lunch and Tyler opened up a couple gifts that Santa dropped off at his Grandma and Grandpa Basinger's house for him. Then, it was time for a MAJOR nap. I think I slept about 2-3 hours with Tyler. It was heavenly! We had a huge Christmas dinner later that evening.

The next day, we had the Basinger Christmas and found out after opening gifts (and a little confusion) that we are going to expand the next generation by two! Tina and Theresa are both expecting - within a couple weeks of each other. SO - Since this is Theresa's first baby, we get to plan a BABY SHOWER! Josh took off for Cincinnati before dinner to visit with his brothers and some family from Kentucky. He had a good time and didn't miss much besides the Aelker Christmas on Saturday night, which lasted less than 3 hours.

On Sunday when Josh got back, we got around and heading over to Delphos so Tyler could open his presents that he didn't open Christmas Eve (since he was sleeping!). We had dinner over there and headed back to Grove to visit with the Schroeder family for the rest of the evening. We got up Monday morning and heading to Tyler's Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa Basinger's for a visit. We came back, loaded up, had some lunch, and headed back for home.

We managed to get a picture of Tyler and his Christmas goodies in front of the Christmas tree, and then took it down. It was looking pretty sad - most of the needles on the bottom half of the tree were gone (due to Tyler!) and it was making such a mess. I'm glad it's out of the house and all the needles are cleaned up. It was up for a month, so it had a pretty good run! I'll get the rest of the Christmas decor taken down over the next week.

Well, we wish everyone a happy new year!

Home Alone!

It's minutes away from being Christmas Eve and I'm at home all alone - no husband, no baby, no dog. It's my very first time being in this house alone. Before Tyler, Daisy was always around to keep me company when Josh would be away for work. Then, along came Tyler and the house never seemed very empty, even with Josh gone (although I did still miss him much!). This is also my first night away from my precious little baby. It hasn't been too bad, because I had so much to do tonight to keep myself occupied. I had some baking to do and packing up Tyler and myself for the trip back home. (I just packed Tyler an overnight bag for Josh to take.) That may not sound like a lot to do, but when you don't get home from work until 8:30pm, it's more than enough. I have some last minute things to do in the morning and I'll be ready to hit the road - I just hope it's not going to be an icy mess for my drive! Well, I'm going to FINALLY get myself to bed - I'm pretty exciting knowing that I'm not going to be interrupted by anything (except my pager for work potentially) and I'll get to sleep in as late as I want - not to mention I get the WHOLE bed to myself tonight. No snoring, no nudges (from Daisy!), and no cries (from Tyler) to wake me up!!!

confessions of a missing blogger

I can't say that I haven't been on the blog for awhile because I've been so busy. I admit, there are times I find myself just sitting on the couch watching a little boob tube while Tyler plays nicely alone with his toys. The thing is that the moment when I think about the many tasks I need to accomplish on the computer, I put the thought out of my head pronto. The computer seems to have an attraction to Tyler and he comes running over before I can even open it up to turn it on! He's been better about not touching the keys, but he still finds the perfect key to press at the most inoppurtune time. And you say, why not get on the computer during nap time? Well, that would be because I'm usually napping myself! Don't get me wrong - Tyler isn't usually keeping me up at night, it's just that I LOVE to sleep and REALLY LOVE to sleep on the couch with Tyler. It's a bonding thing that I just enjoy and hate to think of the day when it'll end. Well, that being said - I need to get myself to bed. Sleep is calling me and my alarm will be rudely waking me up far earlier than I want to get up. However, it is set for the latest possible minute for me to get ready and head out the door, and I will still hit the snooze making my morning 9 minutes shorter....

Tyler Update

It has been awhile since I've blogged, so I thought I'd update everyone on Tyler's latest doings.
I repainted in the bathroom last weekend and replaced the vanity mirror in the process. The old one was leaning against the wall on the floor and Tyler was being really cute with his reflection. He usually points at himself and giggles, but this time he gave himself a kiss (he even made the smooch sound) and sticks out his tongue at himself. He has such a ball with his reflection (always has actually) that I was thinking of putting a mirror on his bedroom door.

His vocabulary has been expanding as well. He still doesn't talk as well as his cousin, Alex, but he is getting better all the time. He understands quite a bit of commands/requests from Josh and me. Just as I was typing this, he was trying to get a picture album out of the bookcase and I told him "no, put it back." and he did!

Last week, he was having fevers there for a day or two. We let him sleep in bed with us since he was sick (I think he was teething) and that has taken a several nights to get him to sleep in his own crib. He has been waking up at 1/1:30 every night wanting to get in our bed. We've been putting him back down and laying on the floor beside the crib until he falls back asleep (which has been just a few minutes) He hasn't been going to bed at a decent hour lately, either. Last night it was about 11:00 before he settled down to sleep. That needs to change. He was doing soooo well about a month ago. He would go to bed at 10:00 and sleep all night until 8/8:30 or until I had to wake him up to go to work. We need to go back there!

This past weekend, we also went to get our Christmas tree. Of course, the kind of tree we wanted was in the far back lot that took 10 years to get to and it was cold/rainy/windy. Poor Tyler - I had him bundled up and wrapped in a blanket in his stroller. We came back and decorated it. This year, we opted to put all LED lights in the tree for several reasons. The main one is that they don't get hot, so we don't have to worry as much about starting our tree on fire. Tyler has been doing good about leaving the tree alone. We put a couple jingle bell ornaments at the bottom that we let him touch, and he respects that surprisingly enough. He tried to get after the other ornaments at first, but he doesn't as much now that he's been told not to. He mostly likes to look at the pretty lights. We are pretty excited about taking him around to look at christmas lights this year - he should get a kick out of it.

Our weekend

This past weekend, we had some house guests: Tyler's Uncle Mark, Aunt Tina, and Cousin Alex. For me, the weekend started out with a runny nose which quickly turned into the nastiest cold I've had in a while.... I actually had to go to the drugstore for some drugs (which I usually try to muster through without). Tyler and Alex took some cute pictures for Christmas at JCPenney on Saturday morning. After that we ended up just hanging out at the house, and Tina tried to get some pictures of the two on her own. The boys just weren't into it, so it wasn't very successful. I was trying so hard to stay awake since the cold was really taking a toll on me - so I wasn't much of a hostess. We ended up eating Arby's for lunch and pizza for supper... not really anything spectacular. The pizza itself was an issue. The boys went to pick it up only to realize it was phoned in to a different "branch" about 30 minutes away. Luckily, they went ahead and made a new one for us right away. The Basinger's left about noon on Sunday, which was perfect timing for me to get a much-needed nap - about 2.5 hours! As of right now, I'm still getting over my cold - it's been a slow process.

Busy Weekend

We got back Sunday evening from a busy weekend in Cincinnati for Josh's brother, Michael's, wedding. To hit some basic points to sum up the craziness - Bought a new air mattress, took it back, drove around looking for a different store to buy a different air mattress, went to the rehearsal, got lost going to the dinner, found a Wal-Mart to buy the air mattress, Josh played frisbee while us ladies got ready, went to the wedding, the rehearsal, hung out at the hotel with the Barnes cousins, woke up really tired the next morning, got around and headed home.

I didn't get to see the wedding because Tyler was being naughty, so I spend the time in the fellowship hall chasing Tyler around.

Tyler was absolutely adorable in his little suit outfit - of course I didn't get any pictures. He was a dancing fool at the reception. That certainly wore him out. He didn't want to go to sleep because there was so much more fun to be had, but he finally gave it up. He had lots of fun playing around with cousins Hadley and Kaylee as well.

The air mattress part is a whole craziness in itself and Meijer will be getting a nastygram from me because of it. We needed a new air mattress because ours decided not to hold air anymore. So we heading down the street to pick one up. The one I decided on was a $150 Serta mattress. We get back and I unfold it to pump it up nad there's a big gaping hole in it that someone had tried to patch. No where was the word "Serta", no where was a pump included, and it wasn't even the same color. So we took it back and they refused to give us a discount on an exchange, so we high-tailed it out of there with our money. We went on a wild goose chase finding another store because we didn't know where we were going. We ended up not getting one right then - we picked one up at a Wal-Mart after the rehearsal dinner.

Well, I've gotta end this post - Tyler is crabbin' and pressing buttons while I'm typing.

Teeth Teeth and more Teeth!

Tyler now has 3 of his 4 first year molars. He still is missing the second teeth on both sides on the bottom (which he is actually behind on - the rest he is within the normal range) The most recent molar arrived with a cold. He wasn't a happy camper with his runny nose - more so Mommy wiping his runny nose. He's been drooling like a fiend, so I had to dig out all the drool bibs that I thought I was done with!

He had his 15 month check-up on Monday morning. He only gained a half inch in 3 months to 30.5 inches. He gained 2.5 pounds up to 27lbs 12oz. He is in the 95% for his weight and something like the 20-25% for his height. So he's short and chubby, but terribly cute (mommy-biased!) We switched him to 2% milk since the pediatrician said that if there's any obesity or high cholesterol in the family that the American Society of Pediatricians recommend switching from whole milk before the 2nd birthday. We figured that we don't really have either in the family genes, but Tyler obviously isn't needing the extra fat so much - so we switched him.

We spent the weekend back home visiting the family and getting to see my cousin, Jim, and his family from Florida. I had been 4 years since I saw them last and the kids grew up fast! It seemed Alexis and Matthew enjoyed their brief stay in the country - especially with the Odyssey!

On the way home in the car, Tyler added another word to his vocabulary - Tickle. I was tickling his foot and saying "tickle tickle tickle" and just repeated "tickle" back. He kept saying it and it merged into the word "giggle" and then into some nonsense babble. I also believe he said Alex's form of "Tyler", which is "Iler". Alex said it around him and Tyler repeated it, so I'm going to have to work on him saying his name. I think he is trying to say lots of words, but I can't pick up everything, so I'll be interesting once his words get a little more articulate.