Fall Pictures

With the random snow storm a few days ago I took advantage of the nice weather today. I got Ty dressed up cute and filled his new wagon full of leaves and did my best to get some cute pictures, which with Ty is not easy sometimes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Helpful Ty

One of Ty's favorite things to do while in Utah was to help with anything we'd let him. He'd help me with laundry. He'd help unload groceries from the car. He'd help Papa in the office.

He'd help Grammy in the kitchen.

 

 

I'm so grateful that Ty is willing to help whenever he can, even if it sometimes makes things harder.

Dinosaurs

While visiting in Utah we went to the BYU Paleontology Museum. Ty thought it was cool and would point at one, say dinosaur, then run to the next one.

 

Papa tried to feed Ty to one of the dinosaurs. Ty wasn't too happy about it.

Grammy's Birthday

My mom's birthday is Oct 18th. I decided to have a last minute trip to Utah to surprise her. I sent Ty in the door first and she had no idea who it was a first. Then when she realized it was Ty and I she got so excited! She had had no idea that we were coming and my family did great at not spoiling the surprise. We spent a week and a half there and it was so much fun to see everyone. For Grammy's birthday I somehow managed to get everyone to work together to get pictures. When we put the pictures together to make one it said "We love you!".

When Mom opened the gift and read it she started to cry. I'm so glad she loves it and now has picture proof of how much we love her!

Tiffany and Grandma

Monday the 15th, Ty and I drove up to Littleton to visit Tiffany because Grandma Westmyer was in town. Somehow I managed to not get many photos from that day. It was probably because of how crazy the kids were. On our way to go to lunch, Ty took off to the side lawn and I figured he'd be fine, but when I looked up after unlocking the car I couldn't see him. He had run off behind the building. I quickly ran to find him heading towards a street at full speed. I caught him right as he hit the sidewalk. The rest of the day I held his hand if we were outside the house, except during some picture taking done by Tiffany. The few pictures I got were from lunch.

 

If you want to read more from that day you can look at Tiffany's blog.

http://maniacmonsons.blogspot.com/2012/10/pictures.html

http://maniacmonsons.blogspot.com/2012/10/grandma.html

http://maniacmonsons.blogspot.com/2012/10/alyssa.html

Arm of an Artist

Ty has really been getting into coloring and other art stuff lately. I pulled out some construction paper and paint and let him fun.

 We still aren't sure if he's left or right handed. He uses both pretty evenly.

 

The aftermath of his arm. That is what an artist's arm looks like.

Sleeping!

Today is night 3 of making Ty sleep in his own bed the entire night. The first night he fussed a lot and kept trying to leave. The second night he didn't fuss, but still tried to leave on occasion. Tonight he didn't fuss and didn't try to leave. I decided to try something different tonight and I left his room before he was fully asleep. I saw him get up out of bed and head towards the door, but he didn't fuss and he didn't turn his light on! Lee went in to check on him later and he was fast asleep in bed. It seems like we'll finally be able to start sleeping well again. While it's fun to cuddle with Ty I'm not going to miss the random kicks and headbutts during the night.

I've never been big on scheduling, but reading parenting advice lately has made me change my mind. I'm not too strict on the schedule, but I basically stick to the same routine. We start with a bath, then I let him pick which pjs he wants to wear. After that is brushing teeth, followed by a story. After the story is usually when he tries to run off so he won't be put in bed. I put him in bed and lock the door. We say a pray together and then I sit in a chair and try to act like I'm not there. I don't give him attention unless he gets out of bed, in which case I simply get up and put him back in bed without saying anything. After the first night he stayed in bed unless he was giving me his cup for more drink.

I've struggled with getting Ty on a regular sleeping schedule his whole life and it finally seems like I've found something that works. Hopefully I can remember to keep it up and eventually not have to be in the room at all.

2 Years

My little boy is growing up so fast! We went to the doctor on Wednesday for his 2 yr check up and it looks like he's growing great. He's 25 lbs and 35''. That puts him at approximately 5'10'' when he's an adult. Looks like the Castrey genes are taking affect.

Grandma and Grandpa Allen unfortunately had to leave town the weekend of Ty's birthday, but it was for the very important reason of house hunting. So since they weren't going to be in town we went over Thursday night to celebrate with them and let him open his present so they could see. He got a Sesame Street Cookie Monster that talks and you can feed cookies. Ty loved it and refused to let it go for the rest of the day, so he got to sleep with it. The next morning he made sure to find it again and play with it even more.

Thursday my mom flew in the Colorado and spent to day with Tiffany. Friday morning she drove down to be with us and I was so happy to see that Ty remembered her. He was jumping up and down on the couch and pointing excitedly as Grammy walked up to our place. We went out shopping and bought Ty some much needed new church pants and some shirts. I also got some new jeans since my other pair had a hole in the knee. It's always so much more fun looking at clothes with my mom than by myself. It also helps that I'm finally starting to figure out fashions and what looks good on me. Since Ty behaved well, the cashier gave him some fun stickers. Lee's not the biggest fan. I think they're cute.

 After shopping we went to eat a small lunch because it wasn't long before it'd be dinner time. We returned home and played for a while then decided to try out Taverna for dinner. Lee and I had never been but had heard that it was a fun place to eat. It's a Greek restaurant and they let some of the costumers smash plates. Mom volunteered me to be one of the plate smashers. Here's my beautiful plate that got smashed.

 

After a fun first day of Grammy visiting, we crashed and slept well. The next day was even better! I made Ty waffles for breakfast and Grammy brought some donettes.  Ty was more excited about the balloons! He even learned how to say it. It came out kind of like "boons" but it was cute and I understood.

 Later we opened presents and it seems Ty had no problem figuring that out.

 Pretty much every present he opened was followed by a super cute surprise face that I was too slow to catch.

 

 His new handy-dandy notebook! Thank you Kinko's for helping with that!

 Great action shot.

 Grammy got Ty a lot of fun car toys and Ty has loved playing with them all.

 He even has a place to play with his cars now thanks to Grammy!

 Ty recent love of Blues Clues was the inspiration for his birthday, but we didn't do too much. I planned a clue hunt, but we didn't get around to it. Here's his cake/cupcakes though.

 

 We had Ty's new best friend over for his birthday. His parents have become our best friends too. They're such a wonderful couple and it's great to have a friend close by.

 Homemade pizza was for dinner because Ty loves to help decorate the pizza. Here he is helping Grammy with her pizza.

 His preferred method of eating a cupcake.

 

Our big present to Ty this year was his very own Cozy Coupe! He has loved playing with other ones that he's found and now he's loving having one of his own.

Ty is a spoiled little boy and I think he definitely felt it during his birthday week. I love this little boy and I can't imagine not having him around. Thank you to family and friends for helping to make my boy feel special on his special day!

Chalk

With my in-laws prepping to move to Utah in a few weeks they've been going through they're stuff and deciding what's worth keeping. We went to visit and they had a little bit to give to us. One of the things they weren't planning on keeping was a small sour cream container of sidewalk chalk. We took it home and I didn't know when we'd get around to using it, but Ty decided today that it'd be a great Sunday activity. After begging for a little while, I grabbed a blanket and we headed outside. I set the blanket to the side of the walkway up to our place and let Ty have fun. The first thing he did was try to eat the chalk. Quickly I told him no, then said "color". Ty understood that and tested out a piece on the sidewalk. I showed him a few strokes and then he knew it was fine and had a blast drawing next to Mommy and Daddy.

 

 

He's been rather "hoppy" lately so I decided to draw a little hopscotch area and showed him what to do. He thought it was funny and quickly followed along. It was so cute watching him doodle and jump around. It's simple family moments like this that make me the happiest.

As usual, if you can't see the full thing, you can double click and it will take you to Youtube to watch it.