Dead Drive...

Most of you reading this probably already know all of the sad details but for those who don't... here it is... Back on October 11th, just 2 days since my last blog of Tyler's birthday pictures and whatnot (Thank God!), I was doing a few things in the kitchen and had put on Baby Einstein on the computer for Tyler to watch... on the coffee table... Well the segment was over so he ever so nicely carried my computer to me in the kitchen so I could restart it. As he came up to me, he decided to drop it. Only from his little 35" body but yeah... it dropped. It wouldn't turn back on so Monday I took it into the local Apple store to see what they could do about it. They tell me the hard drive is dead... they put a new hard drive in it. Our hard drive was super maxed out on space so I was fine with them putting a new one in but thought all the while they probably just wanted to sell me a new drive and that a guy I know from church (who's really good with data recovery) would be able to fix it. I took it to him and after a day of looking at it himself, there was nothing that he could do to it. It's completely dead... I was devastated at first thinking of every little picture and memory I had lost and was just overall mostly frustrated with myself as I actually sat down to transfer all of our pictures THE WEEK PRIOR but as I was doing so ran into a couple of problems and didn't have the "time" and find and fix the problem... so I just let it go and told myself I would come back to that project later.

In trying to think of all the positive's of the situation and not dwell on what happened when there is nothing that can be done, I've come up with a list of blessings that I am soooooo thankful for more than ever now!! It really could have been sooo much worse!!

• I had given my parents a disk of Tyler's birth pictures (this was before I started the blog) so I have all of those.
  
• I just transferred some of our favorites to our digital picture frame last month - 98 to be exact.
• I just transferred some favorites of the Malestic's side of the family a couple of weeks ago from our photo library - 171 to be exact.
• I had transferred 123 video clips from October 2007 to April 2009 to our external a few months back because they were taking up too much memory on our maxed out hard drive - so we have all of Tyler's "firsts" that were video recorded!! First rolling over, first babbling, first baby food, etc! I couldn't believe there were 123 of them but yeah - huge blessing to have those!!
• I've been able to get quite a few pictures of Tyler and our family from friends and family.
• I just went to use my iPod the other day and noticed there was a "calendar" option... I selected it wondering what it was and it was my entire old calendar!!! I had EVERYTHING (birthdays, anniversary's, Tyler's dates he's done things that I put in there to later transfer to his baby book, etc) in my calendar on the computer and I thought I had lost it all!!!!
  
• We had a TON of music in iTunes and was able to sync it all back to the new iTunes from my iPod using Senuti - didn't know there was such a program to reverse the sync.
• We pretty much got a new computer without spending a ton of money on a new one like we had planned - just last week we were talking about NEEDING to replace ours but needing to wait until we save up the money to do so, which who knows how long it would've been.
  
• I had just put about 60 pictures on a disk of my favorites of Tyler to put in his baby book.
  
• And the most substantial of all that I am so thankful for right now is that I have posted 194 posts on my blog, totaling just about 1,000 pictures over the last 2 years.

So overall, it definitely could have been a lot worse. I had no idea the blessings that would come out of this when it first happened and I thought I had lost EVERYTHING!

Back in the swing of things...

Can you believe it's already almost the middle of October?! I sure as heck can't!! Where is the time going? I'm 26 weeks pregnant and only have a little over 3 months to go - scary!! I know the next 3 months are only going to FLY more than the last 3 with the holidays just around the corner. Now that Tyler's birthday is over, it's time to focus on Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas and the baby and getting things ready somewhere in between all of that!! I'll post a belly picture next time I take one... maybe on Sunday... so that those of you without a Facebook getting the latest updates can see the growing happening! I had a Dr's appointment yesterday and am smaller and not gaining as much weight as I did with Tyler. Might have something to due with chasing around a super active toddler all day, yeah? I also had another ultrasound a couple of weeks ago to confirm the gender and it's definitely a BOY! I know it'll be crazy but I'm so excited to be in a house full of boys, dirt, sports and boy hobbies in the coming years! I'm feeling really good and healthy though for the most part! Just praying that these next 3 months goooooo sllooooooooooowww :) I'm not sure I'm ready for 2 kids quite yet!

Mom2Mom and Dwelling Place bible study have both started back up. I'm serving in the Publicity leadership position for M2M this year and am loving it so far. I take care of any fliers, newsletters, the M2M blog, Facebook group, etc. This session has been awesome so far and our speaker lineup for the next 5 weeks looks great - I LOVE LOVE LOVE my Wednesday mornings!! We're doing the Max Lucado study "Experiencing the Heart of Jesus" for Dwelling Place and it's been great so far!!! I love our small group and am excited to get to know the new ladies that have joined us this year! I've seen God do some pretty awesome things in my life the last few weeks and the power of prayer has been simply amazing. He is so good and I'm so excited to see what lies ahead in the coming weeks and months!

The Hiding Spot

Tyler has a new favorite hiding spot. He actually learned about it from his friend's Aden and Ava, who have a similar style dresser as Tyler's - thanks Katie!!! hahaha.... no just kidding... it was only a matter of time! He thought he was so clever when he discovered this at his own house after being at our friend's the night before and loved showing off his new hiding place to mom. He's such a ham and I love it!

A Fishy Celebration!

Tyler LOVES fish, the ocean, water, aquariums, etc. so we decided to do a fish birthday party for him this year! We kept it on the smaller side, or smaller than his first I should say and it was perfect. The weather was AMAZING and actually got a little chilly toward the end - I'm not sure how it went from 110 last week to 80 on Sunday but I was loving it and it was a gorgeous day! Tyler walked around all day knowing that all eyes were on him. If you said anything about "happy birthday" or "birthday boy" he'd get the biggest smile on his face and get so excited! It was pretty cute! Here are a few pictures from the day:

* opening mom and dad's present bday morning *

* He's obsessed with vacuuming and was sooo excited!! *

* Fishies *
* Kid snacks *
* Cupcakes - mmmm *
* Happy Birthday Tyler! *
* Great Grandmas *
* friends *
* My big boy! *
* Auntie and Ty *
* Ty & Pe-pa *
* Johnny, Chad and Michael *
* the kids loved the Nemo bounce house... and well... so did the adults *
* Papa and Ty Ty *
* Happy Birthday to you... * Chad had to hold his hand down from touching the flame... *
* YUMMY!! *
* Brother - Me - Sister *
* Mommy, Daddy and Ty with his "cheesy" face - such a ham *

Thank you to those of who you made it and to everyone who helped out the day of and brought something!! It was very appreciated and you helped make Tyler's 2nd birthday very special!

Is this what a 2 year old does?!

It has been a whirlwind of a week in the last 7 days!!! My baby boy instantly grew up when we took away his pacifier last Monday - no joke! I know he's thinking "You took away my pacifier... I'll show you who's a big boy now!" hahahah.

So we took away the paci on Monday - had a semi-hard couple of days at nap and bedtime but all was going better by Wednesday night. Sweet!!

Well Thursday morning I hear Tyler in his crib (he used to hang out in there for 30-45 when he'd wake up and jibber jabber, read books, be content, it was wonderful and I never realized how nice I had it... lol) being happy for about 20 minutes. His happiness starts to turn a little sour and he starts fussing so I get out of bed, go to the bathroom, brush my teeth, etc. As I'm about 30 seconds from going to get him out I hear his footsteps running down the hall. Chad had also been getting ready that morning so I just thought that he went and grabbed him... When we both met in the hallway with a confused look on our face realizing that neither of us got him, we knew we were in for trouble!! Ty was soooooo excited and had the biggest smile on his face!! He was so proud of himself!

Since Thursday things have just kind of been a blur... now that he can ninja in and out of his crib, nap and bedtimes take an hour to two hours to get him down. He likes to wake up, and be up somewhere between 5-5:30 everyday.... I was beyond exhausted and was sooooo tempted to give him his pacifier this morning, know that he'd probably go back to sleep as he looked way too tired to be up also, but I didn't... kind of proud of myself... So I'm up after only 4.5 hours of sleep... Any schedule that I had a week ago with him has been thrown out the window. I'm just thankful he's doing all of this now and we'll hopefully get past this and back on somewhat of a schedule before the baby's here in January.

Here are a couple of other things I found him doing in the midst of all of this too:
* Standing on top of his dresser, dancing around and banging on the window that his dresser is up against. Safe huh?
* Standing IN my bathroom sink, with the water running, taking everything out of my medicine cabinet.
* He also learned how to unlatch the lock on the doggy door so he can do that and go outside whenever he feels like doing so.
*He now climbs over any baby gate so we got another one to double stack at his bedroom so he isn't free to roam the house when he's up at who knows what time in the middle of the night/morning.
* I'm sure there's more... just can't think right now... too tired. LOL.

Even through all of this it's actually been fun to watch him and how proud he is of himself when he's "accomplished" these various things in the last week. He looks so much bigger to me now - I don't know how to explain it. I love him death even when he's waking me up after only 4 hours of sleep - Maybe God's trying to tell me to get my butt to bed earlier and make me an early riser for when baby#2 is here?? I think I'm going to try and listen! It'll probably be a good thing for us all!

Tyler is TWO!

Tyler is 2!! I can't believe how fast the last two years have gone!! Everyone always told me to cherish these baby moments because they're going to go by so fast... I wish I would've listened!! It's so hard to enjoy and be and live in the moment when they're itty bitty as I was sometimes sleep deprived, overwhelmed, always wanting him to do the next thing (roll over, sit up independently, crawl, walk, etc) and my Tyler has gone from being a baby to a big boy overnight!! I'm going to try my best to REALLY enjoy and cherish every moment with the next one now that I know how fast it really does go by.

We went for Ty's 2 year checkup yesterday. Dr said everything looked good. She was a little concerned that he's not talking more... He'll repeat a lot if you ask him to with a ton of words but he really only says 6 words on his own (mama, daddy, cookie, cracker, more and einstein) - What else does he need to say? Those are the important ones, right?! LOL! Anyways... she had his hearing tested but turned out perfect so she's just hoping for a big improvement in vocabulary over the next 6 months and we'll go from there. I'm not too concerned about it as I know he is just a BUSY boy and will get to it when he wants and has time. He knows most of his body parts and will point to them when you ask and knows lots of animal sounds! haha!! He understands just about anything I say and will do just about whatever I ask. He's just taking his time on the talking part...

Anyways... here are the stats:
Weight - 31 pounds (75th percentile)
Height - 35 inches (50th percentile)

Here are some things I love about my Tyler:

• He LOVES to dance and will dance to just about ANYTHING - not kidding!! Any type of music (from classical to hiphop), background music in commercials, music on toys - you name it! He's got soem rhythm too!!
  
• He is SUPER cuddly now when he's tired, hurts him or is just having a hard time with something. He'll let me hold him and just lay on my chest or over my shoulder until he's doing better - I'm cherishing EVERY moment of that since it's a new thing and he hasn't been cuddly in the last year or so.
  
• He freely gives out hugs and kisses all day! You've just gotta ask for one and he'll come running!
• He's been a big helper lately - Loves to vacuum, put clothes away, sweep, mop, wipes down the tables/windows
• He's our little "inspector gadget" - wondering if he'll be an engineer or something. He loves to figure out how things work!
• He LOVES electronics - remotes, equipment, iPods, phones, cameras, the list goes on! He's fascinated by them and will seek them out anywhere in our house and will get super excited if he gets his hands on one!
• He's a great eater and will eat just about anything we put in front of him.
• He's such a ham and now smiles and poses when a camera is put in front of him and then wants to come to you to see the picture afterwards - what did we ever do before digital cameras? hahah