Not Nine

He is not nine. Not my first baby.

But he is. It doesn't seem possible that I've been his mom for nine entire years. He loves to hear the story of when he was born, how it had snowed more that a foot and how we were up all night. Then when we dozed off and he started crying Adam and I had that moment where we realized we were really parents and we had to take care of this little human.

It's so awesome to watch him grow and change and develop. He's such a cool little person. He does great in school and chatters away about the smallest things. He makes friends easily. He's sensitive and sweet and funny. He loves computers and video games and anything technological. He is steadfast that he wants to be a YouTuber when he grows up. He is still a picky eater and still small for his age (something he is aware of and a little sensitive about). He is full of energy and fun!  He loves his little brother and always wants to be affectionate to him, even when AJ resists! He wants a little sister, which breaks my heart just a little!

He had a great birthday (I'm late posting this, of course. His birthday was January 28). Friday, I took a long lunch and drove down to have lunch with him at school. The school is about a 40 minute drive from work (since traffic wasn't an issue) but the look on his face when he was me made it well worth the time! He knew I was coming, of course, but boy was he excited!

Might have to zoom--Running to me with his arms out

Happy to see me--or the McDonalds I brought with me

Saturday we did our usual errands and let Tyler pick where we ate lunch. He chose Arni's because he loves their cheese fries. It poured rain all day, but that didn't stop us. Both boys needed new shoes, so we stopped at Target after lunch. AJ got yet another pair of Paw Patrol shoes (in a size 12!) and Tyler got his first pair of (SOB) big boy shoes in a size 1. I know most kids his age have probably passed this milestone before the age of 9, but not my little guy!

Posing with Target Dog (in their old shoes)

I spent the afternoon running around like mad trying to find his birthday gifts. I succeeded, but it took 7 stores and paying $15 more for one item than I would have paid if I'd ordered the darn thing online, but oh well!

Sunday was his actual birthday. I baked chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting (and letter candies and sprinkles, per Tyler). We let him pick dinner and he wanted to order pizza. He got two new games for his Nintendo Switch, a game for his DS (see above note about loving video games), plus Monopoly Pokemon (see note about paying $15 too much), a Minecraft hat, several game pieces for his Monopoly Gamer board game (which is actually a pretty fun game), and a gift card(that's from us, Michelle, Angie, and her finacee Jon). He was thrilled with everything, of course!

Loot!

Wonder what he wished for? And AJ being cute even blurry.

All smiles

Opening said loot

The boys love their board games. We have at least 4 versions of Monopoly alone

 I could tell he felt special all weekend and loved every second of it and that just makes my heart melt! I just love these boys more than I could ever have imagined possible!!!

Oh, I must include a couple random AJ pictures...He's been going through a phase of skipping his nap (yes he still naps at 5 years old. Because he can and because he is cranky by 7:30 if he doesn't!  The kid also wakes up at like 5 am most days, which is annoying, but he just seems to have his own schedule)--anyway, he keeps falling asleep before bedtime. Photo evidence:

Fell asleep sitting up

Mid-bounce? Not really. He was actually pouting and fell asleep.

And so my baby turned nine. We aren't talking about what number comes next. I still have three hundred and fifty-odd days before I have to think of that. We are also not thinking about how I registered AJ for Kindergarten recently...

Belated Eight

Bad Mommy!  I missed doing Tyler's birthday post!  In my defense, it has been BANANAS lately. Work is busy, we've got the house listed and we're house shopping, etc etc, etc. Anyway, I missed it. My baby boy turned 8 on January 28th and I have to mark the occasion.

Toothless cutie!

This year, Tyler's birthday was on a Saturday, so we ate lunch with him at school on Friday. I also brought M&M cookies for his class. Saturday, we had a nice lunch with my dad. Angie and her b/f Jon also came. We had O'Charley's, Tyler's favorite. We went home and I planned to make cupcakes.  I turned on the oven to pre heat it while I mixed the batter.  When I went to put them in, the oven was still stone-cold. 

Of course.

Long story short, something in the oven had stopped working. We were able to fix it after a couple of days, so no big deal in the end, but we had to make due with store bought cupcakes.

Gifts and his Gaga's favorite potato soup finished the day!  Almost.  After he went to bed, he actually started throwing up! :( Poor guy. He actually had a stomach bug (or something) twice in two weeks!

So who is Tyler at 8 years old?

He's a smart cookie. He is a solid A student at school, maybe one B in handwriting (he got that curse from me).  He was slipping on his reading tests a little, so we started working harder on reading comprehension and now he's right back to his high scores.

He still loves all things electronics. We used to limit "screentime" with him, but we've slowly let that go. It's just what he likes. He's no couch potato and he does play games and read some too, but he's just not into toys too much.

He does love a collection. Yo Kai Medals, Pokemon cards, and stuff animals are just a few of the things he's collecting right now.  We just got him a new bed to help fit all his animals! He insists on toting a bunch downstairs every day, so we got him a little grocery bag (TMNT of course) to carry them in.

Still a picky eater! That really hasn't changed much. I'm still hoping that he'll expand his food likes someday.

He weighs 52 lbs and is 4 ft tall. He's smaller than average, but right on track for him.

He tells a great story, he's so darn cute! Especially right now, because he's missing a couple teeth (see evidence of this cuteness in the pics).

I love him to bits, that sweet, sensitive, smart little man!

Checking out his bday loot

Heartbreaker!

Forcefully Four

October 12th is here again already! My not-so-little AJ-Bug is four years old today!  I can't believe it!

He is going to wake up from his nap any minute, so we're going with bullets here!  Here's what AJ is like at FOUR!

• He's my rough-and-tumble boy!  He's constantly jumping, rolling, bouncing and taking risks. I see ER visits in our future. So far, no major injuries, but he did dislocate a bone or tendon in his elbow a few weeks ago--and it was just a minor fall! Luckily the immediate care doc figured it out quickly and within minutes he was saying it didn't hurt one bit!
• He's talking a lot these days--and MOST of it makes sense! He still has some speech issues, namely he can't say "l" sounds and a few others.  It's cute to hear him talk, but I hope it works itself out eventually so he doesn't have issues in school.
• He is an EATER!  Sometimes we have to MAKE him stop eating! I wish he'd eat some veggies, but he loves fruit and he eats way more meat than Tyler ever has! We have a lot more things to choose from with AJ.
• He is definitely not a laid back child. He has quite a defiant streak that we are struggling with lately. He will completely ignore instructions, or do something again that you've just told him not to. We are doing our best to be consistent and stop these behaviors, but it's rough sometimes!
• That said, when he's good, he's so good and sweet! 
• His favorite thing in the whole wide world is to be TICKLED! Seriously, it's my part time job.
• His favorite book is "The Book With No Pictures". It's hilarious and he knows it by heart and can recite it.
• He likes to watch Paw Patrol, Blaze, and Loud House.
• He loves to play board games. We've been playing a lot of Chutes and Ladders and Candyland, along with a few others. He is getting at least 4 new games for his birthday!
• His best "buddy" is our old fat cat Tippy. He just adores her.

Tyler's on fall break, so I took a few days off work. Adam will be off tomorrow and Friday too. Mom and I took the kids to Conner Prairie (a living history museum) and had a good time. As predicted, he woke up and after some tickles is now playing with a birthday gift, so I'll leave you with some photos of his birthday cuteness!

In a covered wagon

Me and my boys!

Aw he looked down!

Paddling a canoe

Tyler taking a turn

My Tyler-man

Stupendous Seven!!!

MOM FAIL!  I wrote this post last Wednesday, the day before Tyler's birthday, with the intention of adding the pictures Thursday after the kids were in bed.  Yeah. That didn't happen. I totally forgot and then I kept remembering when it was not convenient to finish it!  Such is life!  So here it is, a few days late!

My baby is SEVEN years old!  I really don't know how that is possible.  I can't remember my life without him!  He is just the most incredible gift, the smartest, sweetest, most amazing little guy in the world and I can't believe he is my son!  Like last year, I'm going to go down to the school for lunch (with McDonalds) and we'll have Steak N Shake for dinner, with chocolate sprinkled cupcakes for dessert!  Things have been terribly crazy lately(have I published my update post yet?), so instead of planning a big family party, I decided to take Tyler and a couple of his friends to Monkey Joes (a bouncy/inflatable place) for a play date, so I am working on arranging that soon!

Here are some things about Tyler at 7!

• He's doing really great in school!  He loves his "special" classes, especially PE.  He seems to do pretty equally well at math and reading so far.  He reads extremely well and seems to comprehend what he's reading well.  He is doing well at spelling too.  He has quite a few friends, although his best friends aren't in his class this year.  
• I've fought it for awhile, but I'm coming to grips that he's a gamer.  We tried to limit screentime for years, but now we are sort of shifting gears and focusing more on making sure that a good amount of screentime is educational.  He just loves video games, just like his daddy.  We closely monitor the subject matter, of course.  It's fun now because he can play games that have words and storylines, because he can read them himself.  I've had to accept that games are what he really likes, he's not very into playing with toys! Recently, he's also gotten into Skylanders, a video game that uses small figurines.
• He still shocks me with his vocabulary. I keep thinking he'll stop surprising me, after all, six and seven year olds can be pretty well spoken, but when he uses words like "apparently", it still makes me smile.
• He's still my super sensitive sweetheart!  I would have never thought I'd have a child MORE sensitive than I am, but he seems to be!  We struggle sometimes with him getting upset about silly things, or getting upset because he ASSUMES something upsetting will be happening. I'm trying to work with him to keep calm and ask first, then if the result is upsetting, crying is justified.  I can't blame him, I certainly know tears can't always be controlled, but I hate when he gets upset needlessly.  He's also a worrier!  I'm always telling him to let me do the worrying!
• He's still on the smaller size for his age.  He went to the doctor back in October, I think?  At that time, he was 3 feet, 9.75 inches and 46 lbs.  I'm guessing he may have gained another inch or two and probably a little weight, but not major growth spurt, I don't think. Finding pants that fit in the waist and are the right length can be a challenge!  He is mostly in boys extra small clothing, although they are a little bit big.  He also wears size 10 boys shoes, only one size larger than AJ! He hasn't lost any of his teeth yet, either!
• He's still a picky eater. I've tried and tried, and we've made some progress on getting him to TRY new foods, but we haven't had a ton of success with him actually LIKING the new foods. He's also not terribly consistent.  He loves McDonald's chicken nuggets and the chicken from a frozen meal we get for him, but he won't touch any other kind of chicken. He loves cheese. He still doesn't really eat any other meats, aside from a little bit of bacon.  He likes strawberries and bananas and green beans and corn on the cob. He likes Steak N Shakes vegetable soup and O'Charley's Chicken Noodle soup.  He will try just about any kind of pizza, and most of them he will eat a decent amount.  He also loves when Mom makes homemade potato soup or rice and Chinese food.  He has an incurable sweet tooth! He also shares his daddy's love for loaded cheese fries!
• He is a great big brother!  AJ likes to see what he's up to and Tyler loves to make him laugh!
• He likes music. He'll hear a song on the radio or in a store and recognize it. I guess they listen at school sometimes.  Compared to AJ, who tells me "No gank (thank) you!" when I sing, I'm happy!
• He is giggly, lively, always moving, and he LOVES to talk!  Even when he is playing a game, he's wiggling and talking to himself about it!

I love him more than I could ever have imagined loving anyone! I am so grateful to be his mommy!

One last birthday note:  Tyler's sweet friend made him a birthday card that totally cracked me up! 

Quite the impressive Turtle!

If you can't read it, it says "No cake, eat your candles.  It's a joke."  LOL!

Three's CraZee!

My BABY turned THREE on Monday!  I didn't get a post up, due to the fact we were off enjoying a few days off as a family.  Tyler is on Fall Break for two weeks, so Adam and I took Monday through Wednesday off work.  But more about that in the next post-now all about AJ!

So what is AJ like at 3 years old? He is wild and silly and loud!  He's definitely more willful than Tyler, he definitely knows the word "no" and we're working hard on getting him to understand that he isn't allowed to tell us know when we ask him to do something!  He makes us all laugh though, he's truly such a character!  His favorite thing in the WORLD is to be tickled!!  He's constantly asking to be tickled and then saying "Again!" over and over!  He really can't get enough!

Tyler and AJ are really very different kiddos.  Physically, Tyler looks more like me, and AJ resembles Adam.  His hair is pin-straight, just like Adam, although it's lighter in color than his daddy.  He's also got daddy's double "swirl" in the back of his hair, which makes haircuts a challenge!  He's big for his age, while Tyler has been on the more petite size since about a year old--In fact, AJ is only 5 inches shorter and 10 lbs lighter than his big brother!  He's more rough-and-tumble than Tyler was, more confidant and physically active.  He loves to run and jump and climb and keep us on our toes!  Tyler was such an advanced talker, and while AJ definitely makes himself heard, it often pretty tough to understand him!  It all means something to him, but sometimes we're left shrugging!  Tyler is actually pretty good at translating for us!  I'm not worried about his speech at this point, he's come a long way, but it's different for us to have a child that doesn't speak as clearly as Tyler did!  My favorite word from AJ?  Chocolate!  It sounds like "Twacwate"!

AJ's likes and dislikes at 3:  He loves cartoons, particularly Paw Patrol, Bubble Guppies, Blaze and the Monster Machine, and Team Umi Zoomi.  They are all on Nick Jr and he got a lot of toys from  Blaze and Paw Patrol for his birthday and he's having oodles of fun with them.  He's got a great imagination, he is always acting out little scenes with them.  He still loves playing with his Thomas trains, but he doesn't watch the shows very often any more.  He likes to read, though he prefers to sit on his own and look at books over sitting and reading them together. He has to be in the mood to sit still to do that, and it doesn't happen often!  He loves to be outside and free to run around.  Food wise, he's less picky than Tyler by far!  He loves pretty much all fruit, especially strawberries and cuties.  He loves chicken nuggets and pizza and sausage links with scrambled eggs and toast, and macaroni and cheese with applesauce (I always make applesauce when I make kraft mac n cheese and now he can't have one without the other!).  He only tolerates drinking milk, so much so that we started strictly giving him juice only if it's thinned by half with water.  He doesn't like a lot of vegetables, so we're working on that, but he ate a bunch of cooked broccoli at a buffet last week and we were thrilled.  He doesn't really care for cake or ice cream, so his preferred treats are cookies, especially Oreos, or candy, especially m&ms.

Dislikes: Bedtime!  He usually says "Aw!" or whines a bit, and he's actually been acting scared when I try to put him down, so we're working through that.  He also gets absolutely PETRIFIED by the most random things, like Barbie commercials or the movie Frozen!

We celebrated AJ's birthday with a small family party in the backyard.  We grilled out hamburgers, hot dogs, and sausage.  We also made scalloped potatoes and had lots of fruit and veggies, chips, and cookies and cupcakes for dessert.  The weather was gorgeous, warm but with a nice breeze and sunny.  AJ had a great time running around the yard with Tyler and Toby and Lizzy (his cousins)--we usually make him stay close to the patio, but we let him roam and he was loving it.

I can't believe my little rainbow baby is a big three year old boy.  The time has gone so quickly!  He's got such a great little personality and I can't remember what life was like without him! 

Here are a few pictures from the party!  Love that little bugaboo!

Hipster wears his hat backwards

Aunt Chall on the far left, Dad, Aunt G and "Uncle" Jon

This pic killed me, he's shrugging his shoulders up like "Aw, for me?"

Presents!

Not overly impressed with cupcakes

Tyler hanging out in a tree