Easter weekend

Tyler and I went out to pick out his easter basket. Tyler picked a baseball basket and carried it around most of the day on Saturday. My family has a tradition to have a easter basket filled with goodies hidden somewhere in the house to be found before worship on Sunday morning. We filled his basket with gummies, marshmallow peeps, and a basketball hoop for the bathtub(which has made bathtime even more exciting now). I hid it behind the couch and we searched together. He was so excited to find it. We had some good friends come into town (aunt Jenny,uncle Smitty, and Lawson) and we all went to Jenny's parents house for lunch after church. Her parents have an amazing yard with a huge garden. We took Tyler and Lawson out to the flowers and got some awesome pictures of them in their easter outfits. It turned out to be a beautiful day. We have a ton of pictures to add to our web site which we hope to have added soon. Thanks to everyone being so patient with us. Tyler and I leave to fly to see my family in a week. I'm so excited to take him to the beach again. The last time he was on the beach was when he was about 7 months. Tyler loves water and being outside so much I have a feeling this trip will be a lot of fun.

Getting adjusted

We have finally gotten somewhat settled. We are mostly unpacked, aside from the movers putting a few things in the storage section of the garage that doesn't belong there. Once we get that sorted out and take the storage boxes to storage we will only have things to hang on the walls. It is such a pretty city, Tyler and I have been out taking drives to try and find things around here. We live in a nice neighborhood with lots of sidewalks,and lots of dogs (Bailey seems to bark all day long at the dogs taking walks). Tyler and I have already been out walking. Although now so we don't always take the stroller, he likes to walk with mommy. He doesn't always want to hold mommy's hand, since he is a big boy, but until he gets a little more steady on his feet mommy holds his hand while on the sidewalk. He and Bailey have formed quite a little bond. He really likes to share all his snacks and meals with Bailey. I have to make Bailey leave his room when it's nap or bedtime, he just ends up being more of a distraction from sleeping. Maybe one day when he is in a big boy bed Bailey will be able to sleep with him. Tyler really likes dogs, Granny has even taught him to tell you what the doggy says. Granny traveled here with us and stayed for almost a week to help us get unpacked. Actually she was here for Tyler but she had the best time and we were able to get unpacked so much faster. When she left for the airport Wednesday morning there were some tears shed by both Tyler and Granny. He didn't like it when she walked out the door which made Granny get more upset then she already was. We are already setting our traveling schedule so we will be spending some quality time with Granny, Grandad, & Papa, Nana very soon.

Tyler's BIG birthday

We celebrated Tyler's birthday on Saturday the 8th so that we could have the party with all our friends from Atlanta. We had a really good turn out with about 35 people there. Tyler brought in family from all around, Granny and Grandad, Aunt Angel and cousin Megan, Aunt Faye and cousin Liz, and Papa (Nana wanted to be there so badly but was staying home to care for a family member who needs 24 hour care) The party was a baseball theme since Tyler's favorite toy is his plastic bat. We sent out invatations that looked just like tickets to get into a baseball game. We set up the house with lots of red and white balloons and streamers, and Tyler was dressed in his red t-shirt with a big 1 on the front. There was a concession stand for the food, the kids all were given play money and had to pay for whatever food they wanted. The concession stand was stocked with cracker jacks, big soft pretzels, hot dogs, chips and baby ruth bars. We had a baseball pinata set up and Tyler got to give the first couple of hits. Tyler had his own baseball smash cake, which he enjoyed VERY much. The big cake for everyone else was chocolate with fresh strawberries in the middle, decorated with a baseball field. We handed out party favors in cardboard popcorn boxes filled with baseball stickers, soft baseball, baby ruth bars, baseball bubbles, and bubble gum inside a small baseball bat. Tyler had so much fun, and so much sugar that day, he never really went down for a nap. It was a great party.

Moving

Well, as many of you know we are moving to North Carolina where we will be for approximately a year and a half. We have been somewhat preparing for this for about 6 months, however it still seems unreal that the time has actually come. This will explain the going away party pictures. Leaving all our close friends is not an easy thing to do. Tyler and I have enjoyed many play dates, in fact he just went down for a nap after playing pretty hard with Allie, Ada, Roxy, and Lawson. The move is a lot easier to swallow since we know we will be back here after Chad's project is finished in NC. Many of our friends at church tell us we will be missed but Tyler is just not allowed to move. We of course will be making regular trips to visit but we know that Tyler will change quite a bit over the time we are in NC. We are preparing for his big 1 year birthday party before we move. We were so happy that it worked out to have it here with all our friends. Tyler will enjoy having all his friends here. We will try to get all his party pictures up as quickly as we can, of course the move may delay them a little.

Tyler walking like a pro

Within a weeks time Tyler has become quite the pro walker. He spends more time up walking than crawling now. He is quick on his feet and is a master at turning corners. We have a feeling that he will be running by the time his 1st birthday is here. It's so unbelievable that our baby will be 1 year old in 2 1/2 weeks. The time just flies by. He is getting a large collection of teeth in, all at the same time. Two of them are his molars so it hasn't been too fun for him lately. He and our dog Bailey are becoming good buddies, after the loss of Bigler it's fun to see them bonding. Tyler enjoys throwing Bailey's toys and gets so excited when he brings them back and drops them at Tyler's feet. Tyler has found the game of feeding Bailey his cherrios to be the best game so far. The only thing we are working on with Tyler is teaching him that we don't kiss Bailey with your mouth open.

The good, the bad, and the busy

Well, first of all please accept our appoligies for time getting away from us. We have had such good intentions to sit down and blog yet somehow times gets away from us. Tyler is a very active boy and keeps us on our toes. He is closer to walking without aid from us or any toy, wall, etc. He is so cute when he gets going, he will just laugh as he walks about 5-6 steps at a time before crashing to the floor where he laughs even harder. It seems that he wakes up every morning to doing something new. He now signs for milk, which he does first thing in the morning while we are changing his diaper. He signs for eat, and more "please". All his signs seem to revolve around food :) His words are Dadda, Mamma, Nanna, Pappa. He loves the "where's mommy's nose, eyes, ears, mouth" game, which he is extremely good at. His cousin Brayden is up visiting this week, at only 2 months old Tyler is very confused on why Brayden isn't playing with him like he would like. However, he is very gentle with him and puts one finger on his face and hands. Tyler just loves being around other kids, which makes us look forward to expanding our family. We begin again with the agency next month. We have also been a bit occupied with our precious first born dog, Bigler, who we are very afraid is nearing the end of his life. At only 8 years old we were not prepared to deal with this just yet. He seems to have a disease that the doctors can not seem to determine. At any rate he is declining fast, and after going blind over night a couple of days ago we are faced with the unpleasant conversation of what to do next. We have spent a small fortune on many tests, blood work, etc. and just don't feel like we can put our baby through any more. He has been such a good dog for so long we want to do what's best for him. We take a small sigh of relief that we are not at the age where Tyler will ask where Bigler is, although we know one day we will be faced with that conversation. Tyler is a good buddy to our other dog Bailey so we are hoping that will help Bailey not be lonely.

Christmas at home

On Christmas eve we had some friends over and had an early afternoon Christmas meal. Tyler had some presents to give Peighton and Reese, and Tyler had a couple gifts under the tree from them as well as from Uncle Jared and Aunt Jessica. He wore himself out playing with Reese and Peighton and all his new toys. As tradition for us we opened our stockings later that night. Chad and I were so excited for Christmas morning we could hardly stand it. Unfortunately Chad woke at about 2:00 am Christmas morning feeling terrible. He tried to gather strength to enjoy Christmas morning breakfast with us and opening the presents but spent the rest of the day on the couch. His fever got up to 104 at times. He did scare me a bit so I went between playing with Tyler and all his new things and taking care of Chad. By the next morning he still didn't feel much better so Tyler and I took him to the doctor and found out it was strep. It wasn't the Christmas we had anticipated but he is much better now and making up for time he lost out of playing with Tyler. Even though Tyler had no idea about this Christmas we know next year he will probably be much more excited for Santa.