Halloween 09

Tyler was a lion this year for Halloween and a pretty cute one at that I might add! I bought the costume in the beginning of October, hoping that it would cool off enough to be able to wear it. I was planning on taking it back if it was still to hot but sure enough, it cooled down! A lot! We had a couple of weeks of cool, chilly temperatures, especially at night, so I decided to go with it and keep it. Well... the weather decided to heat up again, a lot, on Halloween!! ggrrr... We were able to put the costume on as it was getting dark on Halloween for about 30 minutes and take pictures out front. He wasn't so sure of it as I was putting it on him but once he was in character and saw himself in the mirror, he totally loved and embraced it! It was too cute!! Afterwards we were still waiting for Chad to get home from work so we hung out, changed into a Halloween tshirt and jeans, and headed over to the Harvest Fun Fair at church. We didn't get there until about 7:15 so it was PACKED but it worked out. We were there just long enough to go in the bounce house and dance around to the music, eat some popcorn and head out as it was ending at 8:00. It was a fun Halloween and I'm excited for next year and him being more into the whole trick or treating aspect of it.

Pumpkin Patch

Araceli and I took Brock and Tyler to the pumpkin patch in Oak Glen last week! It was both of our first times and we had a blast! Other than walking around trying to find the pumpkin patch and probably looking beyond lost with our babies, and then Tyler throwing little fits because it was naptime, it was a good time! We managed to capture some cute pictures, drive/walk around the adorable town, drink yummy homemade cider and eat amazing cider donuts! I can't believe it's only an hour away from home - it feels so much further! I definitely want to make it a family tradition and have the hubby's come back with us next year! Thanks for joining me Araceli & Brockster!

* just having a hard time and being his 2-yr-old self *

* still a little upset *

* and... happy! *
* running around while Araceli nursed Brock *
* cheeeeeese *
* momma and brock *
* tyler was OBSESSED (to say the least) with the tractors *
* they weren't for show... they were real tractors... so yeah, this was the cause of the fits for the hour *
* chubby cheeks - i could just squeeze them! *

At least he's sharing...

Hahahahah riiiiiiiiiight! This is what I came out to the backyard to find...

Tyler had got a tootsie pop out of a Halloween bucket of candy we had and apparently thought he'd take it into the backyard and share it with Bailey. When I found him there was grass, dog hair and slobber all over it, and it was being passed back and forth between Ty and Bailey... YUCK!!!

SWING SET!

Tyler got a big boy swing set for his birthday from Me-ma, Pe-pa and Auntie Lolo!!! It took Chad 2 full days to put together (1 of which he had Cris helping him the whole day) and he still has one little section over to the right to go. I think we're going to hold off on it for a bit though cause it's the monkey bar portion and our little "monkey" will most likely break his arm if we put it up... He already likes to swing from the bar above the slide, which is fine cause the slide is under him if he slips, but yeah, I don't want to give him bars that are 5' up in air, over nothing, for him to swing on cause I know he will! He's played on it just about everyday since it's been up and absolutely LOVES it! It's fun to watch him climb up onto the swings or up to ladder and be so proud of himself. I know this will definitely get A LOT of use in the years to come with our 2 little boys around! Thank you again Me-ma!! It's keeping our active boy busy and tiring him out!! Mommy LOVES it!

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!