Wildlife Refuge

Did you know that this Saturday my little baby turns 3? 3! He has already entered the 3 year old stage by throwing temper tantrums at the drop of a hat. Surely there is more to 3 than that! We will be celebrating his birthday a couple different times with different families. I decided to not have a "friends" party this year but I doubt I'll be able to get away with that next year. I also have no themes for his birthday. I'm really being quite lazy about the whole thing! I am hoping to make a cake at some point and if it turns out as spectacular as I hope it will, I will post pictures! For now, here are some random pictures of our latest adventures.

A carousel ride at a local neighborhood festival.

Every year we have a family get together at a lake. If you remember, last year Tyler did not like the water as seen here:

This year he had much more fun splashing around with Dan!

On Sunday we took advantage of the perfect weather and went to the Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge for the first time. It was a great day for a walk along the native prairie plants. Unfortunately, I took a wrong turn and we walked the 2-mile trail instead of the half-mile trail. We were pretty excited to see the end of the trail, it was a long walk. Tyler did really well though!

Dan and Tyler walking along the trail. Look how tall the flowers/grasses are!

Checking out some flowers along the trail

Some views from the walk

I really like the architecture of the building and how they made it fit into the prairie landscape.

We saw a Bison and an Elk roaming around. I added arrows so you could see them in the photo. We were pretty far away.

(Bison)

(Elk)

Me and Tyler taking a break

The best part about 2 miles worth of pavement? Racing! (isn't Toddler running so cute?)

Ahhh...summer

Dan told me I needed to update the blog. I aim to please, so here I am! I really thought I would have a ton of pictures to share, but I don't. I am feeling overwhelmed by my schedule. You should see our August calendar, it's crazy. In fact, the rest of the year is looking very busy. Not sure how that happened. The summer, however, has been very fun! I think Tyler is at a fun age where we can go out and do stuff and he actually enjoys it. Also, the weather has been awesome so we are getting out more than I think we might if it had been more humid. I am not a humid weather kind of gal.

It doesn't look like Tyler will be going to preschool this year. He has to be potty trained and it just isn't happening. He really likes peeing in the potty and wearing big boy underwear, but he doesn't seem to know when he has to pee. If he doesn't go to preschool it will not be the end of the world since he would've been a "young" three.

Can you believe he is going to be three soon?? I can't believe it. He is good at counting and letters right now. It's fun to see how fast he picks up on things.

His speech therapy is still going. When he turns three we will start seeing a new therapist who will specifically work on his articulation. He had an articulation assessment done and it showed that he leaves off the ending of words and tends to replace them with an "s" or "sh" sound. He also leaves out the middle of words. Leaving out the middle is normal up until age 4 but leaving off the ending should've been corrected by now (self corrected, that is). Anyway, none of that was a surprise to anyone but they needed to do it so that his next therapist will know exactly what to work with. Instead of working on particular letter sounds, they will work on getting the endings onto words and that will help him get a wider range of sounds. Even though he is improving, he is still a year behind. But improvement is good! His current speech and language pathologist said his speech should be fine by the time he gets to kindergarten. I hadn't had anyone give me a length of time before so I was surprised by what she said but I was also a little relieved because he seemed to move so slow. I guess that's normal! She said speech takes time. He said an exciting (exciting to me) phrase yesterday. He said, "my friend." This is a great phrase because it includes a pronoun!

Okay, now to the pictures! Cat pictures first! Here they are cuddling with a teddy bear. I'm amazed they let me put the bear on them and take a picture. hehe.

I never posted finished photos of the patio. It turned out great and it is so nice to have a place to sit! I moved the pool right next to the patio so I can put Tyler in the pool and then sit in the shade of the umbrella and read while he plays. I have a hard life!

We went to a bird show at the zoo. It was pretty cool. You may recognize the guy from tv. I'm pretty sure I've seen him on Letterman, or one of those late night shows.

Baby ducks! Aren't they all cute and fuzzy?!

A family photo!

Pavers and Planes

The patio is moving along. Dan is doing a fantastic job. He only has one part left to do and then I will be able to take pictures of the finished product! It will be nice to be able to use it this weekend when my dad and stepmom come to visit. Let's hope everything turns out okay! (it will probably rain the entire time they're here, or something)

I forgot to take a picture of the first layer which was stone. But here is a picture of the top layer of sand. You can see that Dan is starting to lay the pavers. These large pavers are the ones we got from friends. The new, smaller, pavers we bought are up in the top right of the picture. Stacked next to the air conditioner.

Today we went on a tour of a small airport nearby. It was with my MOMS Club. Tyler's friend Kara went with us since we were watching her today. The craziest part was the weather. Mid July in Iowa and it was cold and windy.

Here is Kara standing in front of this plane (Tyler was clinging to my leg). I forget what the plane is but I do remember it is fast and the guide said it can fly from here to Minneapolis in 20 mins. A trip that would easily take us 4 hours by car.

Kara and Tyler standing in front of a crop duster. I told them to stand together and this is what I got. I just realized it looks like Tyler is covering his eyes. He is not. He is shielding his eyes from the sun. The sun which was being blocked by the very overcast sky.

I'm so proud of this picture! Two toddlers, looking at the camera at the same time, and no weird facial expressions! This one is pretty obvious. They are in the cockpit. All the kids thought this was pretty cool.

Dan and I heading out on our date to see Harry Potter. Aren't we cute?

Some Tyler stories

I've had a couple interesting coversations with Tyler lately.

A couple days ago I saw him paging through my bible.
I asked him, "what are you doing?"
He said, "read."
"Are you reading about God?"
"No, Jesus!"
He was in the New Testament.

Yesterday he found a teddy bear of mine and he walked over to me while giving it a big hug.
"Are you hugging the bear?"
Pointing to the bear, he said, "sad."
"Why is he sad?"
"Ow"
"Did he hurt something?"
Holding up his leg, he said, "feet."
"He hurt his foot? How did he hurt it?"
Then he vaguely pointed somewhere. The rest of the day he walked around with the bear reminding me frequently that the bear was sad. At one point I asked if the bear had a name which kind of confused him but then I started to hear him say poopy so I'm hoping that's not what he named the bear.

Speaking of poopy, he has pooped on the potty twice now! He asked both times. I'm not expecting any miracles out of this but it's still exciting!

By request...

Tyler's tribute to the King of Pop

I love the market!

I love living in Des Moines. There is so much to do and so much to see. It's big, but not too big. One of my favorite things about Des Moines is the Farmers Market. There are so many booths and it is so busy, but it is relatively easy to get to and from and we're really not too far away. My last trip I decided to snap a few pictures from the parking garage. I wanted you to see how busy it gets. Unfortunately, I didn't do it until the end so there weren't many people. Oh well! It's so crowded that I don't go with Tyler. I just don't want to push him around in the stroller. There are always plenty of strollers (and tons of dogs!) but I don't want to bother with it. So it usually turns into time out with a friend. The parking garage is pretty much in the middle so I got a good view. There are also some side streets that you can't see. This trip I picked up some zucchini and yellow summer squash to make this pasta primavera.

Here are some pictures of me and Tyler hanging out on the couch. Dan remarked at how pale Tyler is. Finally, someone paler than me! It's also a true testament to how well Target's sunscreen works. =)

The patio work has begun! Here is a before picture. You can see the pavers stacked up on the right. Those are the ones we got free from our friends. We are buying more from Lowe's to go with them.

And now there is a big hole!

Here is Tyler helping out. This is why you have kids right? To put to work around the house?

Tyler and daddy working together.

Happy 8th of July!

Okay, so I missed the 4th by a few days. Hope everyone had a good holiday. We headed to Cedar Rapids to visit with Dan's family. We were planning on a trip to the lake on the 4th but it was a crummy day so we went on the 5th instead. Oh well. We've had a good mix of being busy and not being busy. This weekend we have no plans but the next two we do (okay, I'm not sure if seeing the new Harry Potter movie counts as "having plans"). Dan is gearing up for an outdoor project. He is planning on putting down pavers in the backyard to create a patio. Some of the pavers are free from friends which is such a blessing. It will be nice to have a place to put our outdoor table and chairs. We also have big plans for landscaping in the front since there currently is none. Too bad plants cost money! Not sure when that plan will happen. Let's move on to the pictures, shall we?

Tyler and I went to a parade with his friend Kara and her parents. Here is Tyler clutching his snack cup in one hand and the candy he has snagged in the other.

Tyler and Kara being forced to stand next to each other for a picture.

Tyler enjoying his new pool in our backyard

Des Moines has a lot of wading pools that are free to visit. One of our friends rented one out and had a pool party. I thought it was really nice but I heard it can get really crowded during its normal operating hours.

Tyler and daddy pouring some water. This is the "deep" end. It was 1 foot and 4 inches deep.

I made this mailbox for Tyler using an empty diaper box. I got the idea from a blog. I think between Tyler and the cats, it may get destroyed soon.


I have a lot of envelopes sitting around so I made some out to different relatives and drew on a stamp. I also had junk mail but Tyler seemed concerned that he was playing with unopened mail and kept trying to give it to me.

Like I mentioned, it rained and was cloudy on the 4th so we took Tyler to an indoor play area. It was nice because we were the only ones there at first. That's a very ideal situation for Tyler. Daddy spent most of his time crawling around with Tyler through the tunnels. Tyler had a lot of fun and wore himself out!

On the 5th we headed out to Dan's brother's wife's parent's house on the lake. Got it? It was a fun day of swimming, boating, and eating. Here is Tyler waiting to leave on the boat, looking a little apprehensive.

Maybe he was apprehensive because he knew we were boating out to this rock so mommy could jump off of it. This is a picture of Dan's sister, Holly, jumping off. The rock didn't seem high until we were on top. Then after I jumped I couldn't believe how long it took to reach the water. I'm happy I jumped off of it so I'll never have to do it again. I'm not sure how clear the picture is. The place where we jumped off is above Holly's head and to the left.

The Itsy Bitsy Spider

You know what's odd? I haven't taken any pictures this month. No pictures for June. We've been busy, but not with picture worthy things I guess.

I thought maybe I would give a speech update on Tyler. He says a lot of spontaneous words now. I think it's to the point where there are too many to name. His phrases have picked up but most of them still involve "Mommy this" or "Daddy that". They really want him to say more phrases that involve descriptive words (like big, small, etc) or verbs. Colors don't count because he says colors for everything so we're trying to move past that. His favorite word is definitely, "nope!". He picked that up from me and now if you ask him a question that's his answer. If you ask him a question and his answer is yes, he will only make an affirmative sound, not say the word. After harping on him for quite awhile about this I realized that's exactly what I do. Having a kid is a great way to learn your habits! Another word he knows really well is chocolate. Can't imagine who he picked that up from!

He occasionally requests to do Itsy Bitsy Spider with Dan. I think Tyler recognizes that I can't sing and Dan can, so Dan is the lucky one to do this all the time. I think Tyler is going to be able to sing because he doesn't sound that bad with Dan. I like the look Tyler gives the camera at the end.

May was busy!

I'm so glad May is over. It was fun but it was very busy. I'm now ready for the summer to slowly creep along. Does that ever happen? It will be Christmas before I know it. A few weekends ago Dan and I celebrated our 6th anniversary. We dropped the kid of with the grandparents (yay!) and headed to Maquoketa Caves State Park. We hiked and explored caves for a few hours. The weather was perfect and the park was gorgeous. When we were done we headed to a bed and breakfast for some relaxation. It was a great weekend!

Dan heading into the main cave which is big enough to walk through (my kind of cave!).

This is called balancing rock or balanced rock or something like that. Not sure if you can tell in the picture how it looks like it's ready to roll off down the hill.

Here I am!

This is called the natural bridge. I decided I needed to be in the picture so you could get a feel for how big it is. Can you see me? I'm the small speck of blue in the center of the photo.

Dan crawling into a cave. Crawling into caves is not my thing.

It had rained a lot that week so the park was very lush and green. It was so nice to be outside!

Last Saturday Dan ran his first half-marathon! It was in Des Moines and is called Dam to Dam. He had been training for awhile for this race. He did a great job (just beat his goal time by 30 seconds). It was exciting to head downtown and see him run for the finish line. It was NOT fun trying to find him after that. =)

Here he is running towards the finish (you can see him between the two women in the foreground)

Tyler checking out dad's medal

Done! I'm so proud of him!