The latest

Not much has happened in the past couple weeks. Josh spent a week in Jacksonville for work while Tyler and I stayed home and dealt with a prank caller and another major windstorm. Those kinds of things always seem to happen when Josh is gone!

The past couple days I have been working on making Tyler some fleece footed sleepers. I have 3 done in the 3T size and I have another cut out for a 4T size and enough fleece for a couple more. I just don't have the zippers, so my projects has been put on hold until I can get to JoAnn's. I'll post the pictures of the completed sleepers on our website soon. I just have to get them off the camera.

Tyler has perfected his useage of "no". Lucky us. I'll ask him for a kiss and pucker up for him and he'll turn his head and say "no!". He had a mixed up schedule this week, too. He was a grouch for Brandy on Monday and Tuesday. He failed to take a nap on Wednesday (which made him not as grouchy as one would assume). He was still not acting normal on Thursday - a crab-butt as I like to call it. On Friday, he wasn't too bad - that's when we went to JoAnns to get sleeper supplies. He hammed it up for all the ladies in the store - his favorite thing to do.

He's been going to bed awake for the past week as well. As long as you lay him in there with something to play with, he'll play for about 10 minutes and then fall asleep. An added bonus is that he has something to play with when he wakes up so Mommy might be able to get a little bit more sleep before he yells out "HEY!" for us to get him. It was awesome that this morning he yelled out "DADDY", so Josh had to go get him - too bad I was already awake and couldn't get back to sleep. He has yet to yell for mommy in the morning, but maybe that's what he means when he yells "hey". I'd like to think not.

He's been giving Grandma all kinds of kisses over the phone lately. He says "mmm ahhh" up to the phone. Grandma gets more kisses than I do anymore!

Well, in up-coming news... Josh will be heading to Texas the first weekend of March and won't be back for about 2 weeks. I just wonder what catastrophe awaits us! Tyler and I are planning to head to Grove for a visit while Josh is gone, so he'll have lots of chances to give Grandma kisses in person!

A Major Update is in Order!

Tyler went to the Doctor on his 18-month Birthday, January 20. He grew quite a bit since his last check-up. He now weighs 30 pounds, 5 ounces and is 33 inches long. That puts him in the 90th percentile for his weight and 75th for his height. He has just gotten so big!

His latest word is..... NO! However, I don't believe he always knows what it means, but I'm sure that is just a matter of time. Today he was messing with the computer buttons and I was pulling his hand away and he kept saying "no" each time, so I guess he's getting the idea.

He shared some Ghiradelli chocolate squares with me today and he loved it. He was grabbing for more, so I guess I have a little chocolate fiend on my hands! A boy after his mother's heart!

Tyler has been trying to get on top of his cozy coupe car. He succeeded a couple times using the ottoman. Other times he just tries to scale the side of the car. It has only fallen over once on him and he hasn't tried to climb on top of it again... yet. This little monkey boy has also been able to get on the couch without any help from his toys (he used to use them as step stools). Earlier today he managed to climb onto the back of the couch - not completely b/c I thawarted his efforts, but he was almost there. He also has sticky fingers - stealing everything out of my pantry and the one cabinet I can't lock. So, he walks around with BBQ sauce bottles and cookie cutters. I get a little upset with him, but it's terrbily cute when he's hungry - he will go to the pantry and open the door for us and try to reach for a snack. Now, if we could just get him to fix his own dinner!!!

Our little man is also a salsa lover. If we turn on the salsa music channel on the TV, he comes running and starts dancing in front of the TV. Just in the past week he's brought out some new dance moves. It's an easy way to get him to stop doing "bad" things like carrying around Daisy's food bowl. He can't ignore the call of the music!!!

I worked on some video footage and posted the clips in a new place on our website. There's two folders just for video - for the first year and the second year. I don't think there were any additions to the first year folder, but several to the second year.

In other news, Josh has been busy trying to get back into shape. He looks forward to doing some bike races this summer. Just about every day he is downstairs riding his bike on the rollers. Every now and then he manages to get my fat butt to the Y for a workout. Most of the time, the timing is wrong to go. When we do manage to go, we end up eating dinner at 8:00 by the time I get it fixed. And we can't always go after dinner because the Y's child care is done at 8:00. So, like I said, the timing is usually off. Just an extra half hour (closing at 8:30) would make a world of difference.

We've also been trying to eat better. Not that we really ate bad before. Josh has been packing his lunch almost every day (which has also been good for the pocketbook!) I've been buying more apples and bananas to snack on and once the ice cream in the freezer is gone, I'm not buying any more. It's only going to be for special occations - which probably means just birthdays. Salad has become a side dish we eat several times a week - although I'm not sure how long that is going to last. Tyler has been eating more table food, but not always the same table food we are eating. About half the time I end up fixing him something different. He has been doing a much better job of feeding himself, too - only finger foods. I haven't let him try feeding himself with a spoon much because it's far too messy.

Well, I guess that just about does it for now! Feel free to check out the new pics and video on our website: http://hoblet.phanfare.com/

Mr M... with a munchie mouth!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GS8GTWOSA60

Just wanted to share a bit of memories from kindergarten!!!!
Gotta love the letter people!!!!

First big snowstorm of the year!

It started snowing Friday night and hasn't really stopped. We have over a foot of snow out in our yard and it keep on coming down! We went out on Saturday afternoon after Daddy came back with a toboggan for us to slide down the hill in our yard. Tyler really liked it, but not when we would crash and he would get some snow in his face. On Sunday, Dreya came over and we bundled up and went out to play in the snow again. Tyler didn't seem to like it quite as well as his did the day prior. The moment you would put him on the toboggan he would start to whimper. It was a little colder than the day before, so that might have had something to do with it.

In other Tyler news - he's had all of his teeth (except for the 2-year molars) for a couple weeks now, so we don't have fevers and grumpiness associated with that to deal with - until the 2-year molars come in! Tyler has his 18-month check-up next Tuesday, so I'll have an update on his height and weight soon. He's been doing this diving thing when he wants you to carry him down the stairs. He will just practically jump off the stairs into your arms. Problem is - just a few minutes ago, he tried to do that with no one there. Luckily enough Josh caught him in time to keep him from smacking his head on the stairs. He's also been a big help doing the laundry and unloading the dishwasher. It's so darn cute, but it takes sooo long for him to pull out the utensils one by one. The laundry actually is a help because I don't have to stoop over to pull out the clothes, but he doesn't do so well at getting the clothes in the basket and loading the washer is out of the question!

His new favorite word is "up" - he's been saying it a lot and at the correct times. He has a laptop toy that says "up" when you push up on the mouse and he repeats after it. He also has been imitating animal noises from his See-N-Say toy. His favorite seems to be the rooster.

I uploaded lots of pictures on our website today, so take a look and enjoy!

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....