The Christmas Photo

12.19.09

I have a new sympathy for people who work in portrait studios. I have a hard enough time x-raying children, and I get to use immobilization devices!

Well, I bought a cute little dressy outfit from Wal-Mart (where we spend probably 3/4ths of our money) and finally got around to putting it on Tynan so I could take some Christmas pictures. The outfit turned out to be a tad small (though you can't really tell in the pictures). I thought to myself, well he's only going to wear it for 5 or 10 minutes; I'll just return it tomorrow.


30 minutes and some spilled orange juice later, the outfit is ours to keep forever (unless I want to be dishonest at Christmas, which isn't really sitting right) and these are some of the wonderful photos we were able to obtain.


Shawn got this picture on our last attempt. After some uploading, editing, and attempted ordering on several different photo websites (arrrgh!), we are finally set to pick up copies of this and 2 other pictures at our local pharmacy. Now I'm just crossing my fingers that the prints will look okay! (Hey, here's an idea: why don't we get professional photos taken? Yeah, that's on my 17-month-old To-Do List. . .)

Hidden Tynan

12.18.09

This is Tynan's new favorite game. It is so funny! He runs into the hallway and stands around the corner. We yell out, "Where's Tynan?" "Where did Tynan go?" He giggles around the corner. Then, when a sufficient amount of time has passed, he comes running out, laughing and giggling. Half the time, he jumps on us as well. Doesn't this sound like the best game ever?

Brushing Snow

12.13.09

Helping Daddy with the snow :-)

Sports Fan

12.12.09

Tynan put on Daddy's Green Bay hat to match his Green Bay shirt. (With his ear poking out and folded over, he kind of looks like an elf. Or maybe an imp. . . )

Snugglebugs

12.11.09

Here are my two stinker-butts! Tynan saw the camera and hammed. Little imp!

Sideways

12.9.09

I haven't figured out yet how to rotate this image, and it's making me mad! Anyway, here is poor Tynan, all pooped out after daycare. He fell asleep on the way home. We came in and I put him on the couch, and he rolled over to the very edge and stayed there long enough for me to whip out the camera phone. Then I was able to take off his coat and shoes, clip his fingernails and toenails, change his diaper, and put on his jammies without him waking up. But of course, when I went to get the good camera, he totally woke up and got angry. So here is your rotated cameraphone image. Sorry!

Black Friday

11.27.09

Shawn tells me that this day isn't really supposed to be called Black Friday anymore because stores are trying to spread sales out so that people don't die during mass tramplings. (Now isn't that a cheery thought?) Well, after we slept off our Thanksgiving-overs, Grandma Wendy, Aunt Nikki, and I bundled Tynan up and hit some stores. (We waited until the afternoon though - no way were we getting up at 3a.m.!) Tynan very quickly demonstrated his interest level in shopping, as you can see. Poor sleepy boy!

Happy Thanksgiving!

11.26.09

Grandma Wendy and Aunt Nikki came to visit us for Thanksgiving, which was awesome! (We were still sad we didn't get to see everyone this year, but it was super fun to go shopping with GW & AN on Friday!!!!!) Shawn and I made a beer can chicken (cause we're classy like that)

and we crammed all of our food onto our brand new tablecloth, courtesy of Grandma Wendy, and ate till we were bursting and nap-ready! Tynan had a lot of fun too. We could tell cause he crashed right after the food, just like we did!

Oh No

11.10.09

What kind of security latch works for this?

Let's Boogie!

11.3.09

I bought some cheap children's music through Tynan's daycare that arrived on this day. When we got home, I turned it on. It was an instant hit!

Helping Daddy

11.1.09

After we all slept off our sugar rushes, we headed outside to work on widening the driveway. (Okay, Shawn worked on the driveway. Tynan got dirty and I took pictures. What can I say? It's a group effort. ;-)

Shawn is making a stone pathway thingy on the sides of the driveway so we have a bit more leeway when we pull in. He has this mold that he fills with cement. The cement is shaped into stones that make a path. It's pretty neat. Go Shawn!

Candy!

10.31.09

After walking around to a few neighborhood houses in his cute cute cute spider costume, Tynan helped me hand out candy. Well, he sort of handed it all around him while I handed it to Trick-or-Treaters. . .

We don't play in sandboxes in our house - we do candy boxes!

Carving Pumpkins

10.25.09

I got a homegrown pumpkin from Liz's Halloween potluck and I bought a second pumpkin for 2 bucks while I was grocery shopping. When I got home, Shawn and Tynan helped me work on carving the pumpkins. (See how well Tynan helped? Putting the seeds into the bowl? Yeah?)


I don't think that Tynan quite understood what I was doing inside the pumpkin, but he had a lot of fun trying to figure it out!

Here is the finished product. The orange pumpkin is eating the green pumpkin's brains!

Halloween Party

10.23.09

My coworker Liz had a bunch of people and their kids over for a Halloween potluck. I made mini cheesecakes mixed with blackberries so they would look kind of bloody and Halloween-y. There were only two left when Tynan and I were leaving, so they must have gone over well. Here is Tynan playing with some of the glowsticks. He thought they were pretty darn cool.


Tynan was in his spider costume (which he kept tearing off) and I was a witch. I had black and white stripped stockings on like the Wicked Witch of the West. I had a hat too, but they were out of the regular hats so mine had silly looking feathers around the brim. I didn't wear it very often. Tynan was pretty enthralled with all of the other children there. He also had a great time spinning the tire of the bicycle hanging up in Liz's garage. He loves wheels! Crazy kid!

Funeral

10.17.09

Here are pictures of the luncheon the church provided for us after Grandpa Tony's service. The first picture is my Uncle Alex with my step-Uncle Craig. I have not seen most of these guys for several years, so we treated it as a sort of memorial slash reunion. We told funny stories about Tony and looked at pictures of him hunting and fishing and taking his hunting dogs out and about.

Here is Tynan trying to feed my Aunt Fiona while her daughter Katrina watches. He didn't act like he was very hungry at all, little stinker!

Here is my Uncle Lawrence with Nikki and Fiona's other daughter Kateri.

Here is Lawrence again with my other Uncle Alex.


And here Nikki and I are posing with Fiona at my Grandma Jo's house. (I changed into jeans right before this picture and a T-shirt right after. . . I don't dress up very much.)

It was nice to see everyone again. I definitely missed Tony. I wish Tynan had been able to meet him.

Long Drive

10.16.09

Well, after the long drive the day before, we loaded up for an even longer drive to go to my Grandpa Tony's funeral. Grandma Wendy and Aunt Nikki came with us and we drove in Grandma Wendy's minivan. I am so so so so so glad we were able to carpool! Tynan was much better on the drive with more people to distract him!


We chose a route through Yellowstone because it was the quickest. We stopped often so Tynan could stretch his legs. One of the stops was at Old Faithful, but Old Faithful was late going off! To keep Tynan happy, we gave him a tootsie pop. Then Shawn had to hold Tynan across his lap so that the tootsie pop could drain onto the boardwalk, instead of down Tynan's shirt. He is one messy boy with lollipops!

Here is Tynan taking his nap in the car. He looked so sweet I had to take a picture :-)

Birthday Visit

10.15.09

The three of us packed up to meet family. Here is Tynan with several of his cousins and his Aunt Surae. Tynan's cousins like to crawl all over Shawn!


Here is Tynan running around at a rest stop. He was so tired of being cooped up in the car!

Here is Tynan playing with his cousin Annabelle's horsey. At first he was afraid of it and jumped right off whenever we tried to put him on it. Then all of a sudden, he jumped on and went to town. It was hilarious! He wouldn't let Annabelle get back on it again! I guess we know what Santa might bring our little imp this Christmas.

Grandma Wendy got me a Halloween themed cake. Tynan really enjoyed eating the ice cream. He had no idea what the heck we were doing when they turned the lights out to sing "Happy Birthday." I'm sure he'll figure out what it means pretty soon, though!

Here is Tynan sitting with his cousin Katie. Aren't they sweet?

15 Months

10.10.09

I've been thinking that I'll probably stop taking monthly pictures soon. Tynan learns new things every day, but he isn't changing quite as much now as he did his first year. He did have a checkup later this week, though, and he is in the 60th percentile for weight and the 90th for height. He is tall!

Today, Tynan got up very early (for him) so we could meet Grandma Wendy for breakfast.


Here is sleepy boy waiting for Mommy and Daddy to load the car. Isn't he sweet?

After breakfast we got in the pool at Grandma Wendy's hotel. (Grandpa Eric came for a work thing, and work put them up in a hotel. We took advantage!) Tynan did not want to be on my lap at all - he wanted to go play in the water like the big kids were doing. Now if only he could reach the bottom of the pool so I could actually let go of him. . .

Trying On the Costume

10.9.09

I found this awesome spider costume while shopping with Tynan and Grandma Wendy and Grandpa Eric. Tynan doesn't really like it all that much though. He keeps pulling at the hood and ripping the velcro open. Silly boy! How are we supposed to get candy now?

Tynan's New Chair

10.2.09

Tynan loves to sit next to us on the couch or rocker. But he still isn't quite tall enough to crawl onto them easily, especially when he has something in his hands. So I decided to see if he would like this little Lightning McQueen chair. We got home from the store, plopped it on the floor, and Tynan plopped right into the chair! He also gets very mad at Shawn if Shawn tries to use it as a pillow.

Tynan still likes to sit next to us though. So unless we feel like dragging him up and letting him down from the couch over and over (sort of like letting the cat in then out then in then out), we just sit next to him in his chair. Not much of a compromise, I suppose, but it'll do for now. Silly boy!

Perhaps white was not the best shirt to wear today

9.20.09

Grandma Wendy got Tynan his shirt from the Hard Rock Cafe in Vegas. It was on sale. It was really cute on stinkerboy. Here he is climbing into the curio. (Thankfully, he didn't knock the glass shelf onto himself! Don't worry, the door was childproofed within minutes of this picture!)

Well, here is the boy after lunch. I used stain remover on that shirt but it is still far from it's original color. At least with the way he's growing, he'll grow out of the shirt pretty quickly, I guess. Sorry Grandma!

Self-Timer Family Photo

9.13.09

Okay, it definitely isn't Olan Mills material, but it ain't too shabby. Right? Right?

P.S. Yes that is a bruise right in the middle of Tynan's forehead. It is a bruise in the shape of my two front teeth. Luckily my lip was not over my teeth for that collision, or I might have gotten some nice stitches. That boy needs a bubble!

Fourteen Months!

9.10.09

Well how is this for a fourteen month birthday picture? Tynan has a rice cake in his right hand. . . A rice cake in his left hand. . . And who knows how many in his mouth!

On the other hand, we know he knows how to feed himself. . .

The Park

9.6.09

Grandma Wendy, Grandpa Eric, Aunt Nikki, and Grandma Doreen came to help Shawn and I with some unpacking. We unpacked a little bit. . . and then decided to go to the park! Tynan loved it. He even thought it was funny when we held him up for the pirate picture. He also got so excited about the slide we could hardly get him to wait for us to position him at the top. What a silly boy!

Life

I haven't been doing very well at updating this blog. It looks like it has been over a month since I've posted, and pictures are two months behind! Well, a couple of weeks ago my Grandfather passed away. Shawn and I took some time from work, loaded up the car, and the three of us drove about 550 miles for the funeral. I was a bit too distracted to update.

Grandpa Tony was actually my father's stepfather. He and my Grandma Jo married when I was very small. My brother and I used to stay with the two of them for several weeks every summer. I have many wonderful memories of those times. A couple of years ago, Shawn and I drove to their house for a great weekend. Shawn and Tony talked e-Bay for hours. (As my Uncle Lawrence said at the funeral, Tony could probably sell the corner of the church podium on e-Bay within a few hours.) Tony was a wonderful man, and I will miss him.

Moving!

8.23.09

I think Tynan wanted to make sure we didn't forget him!

Well, it is definitely a challenge packing and moving with a 13-month-old. He still needs to be supervised pretty much all of the time, he doesn't understand when we tell him to stay out of the street, and he is too young to sit in front of the Backyardigans while we load things up. He also gets immense enjoyment from climbing onto, then off of, then onto, then off of, etc., the moving trailer. He pulls things out of the boxes faster than we can put them in. He pushes boxes and/or furniture around on the carpet and/or climbs onto/into them. Perhaps we should have moved last year after all!


8.28.09
Tynan running for the trailer.

8.29.09

Many many thanks to Christy, who distracted Tynan and also watched him at her house for several productive moving/cleaning hours. And to Christy's boyfriend Tighe for helping out and taking Tynan to a BBQ. Thanks also to Shawn's parents and my parents and Aunt Nikki for coming to help. We would never have finished without you guys!

Water Fountains

8.16.09

Tynan liked the water fountain so much that we decided to take him to play in the water again. This park is much closer to our house and has an enormous playground with super soft spongy stuff underneath the equipment and several water fountains. Tynan got himself soaked!

Thirteen Months!

8.10.09

Tynan is 13 months old today. (Please ignore his toys strewn about the living room. He pulls them from the toy bin faster than I can put them in!)

Beer Fest

8.9.09

Okay I know I am very very very behind on posts. . . D'oh! We bought a house, packed, moved, cleaned the old place, and (mostly) unpacked at the new house. So I think that calls for a little leeway, right? Eh? Eh?

On this day we all went to a beer festival. Shawn and I sampled different brews while Tynan sweated off his blue tinted sunscreen. (It is supposed to turn clear when it soaks in. I don't know if Tynan has my fair skin or I used way too much - he looked like an alien baby for most of the day!) To cool off, we went walking through the water fountain. Shawn had to sit out for a while because I made him drink the beers I didn't like. When we got home, both boys had to nap to recover from the heat!