Birthday Weekend

This past weekend we were in Minnesota celebrating FIVE birthdays. The triplets turned 4 (!) and Owen turned 6 (!). It was also Dan's brother's birthday. I'm not sure what birthday it was for David. I just know that he's OLD. Aside from the frigid temperatures it was a fun weekend. Tyler enjoys running around with his cousins and playing with all of their toys. In fact, I have a fun video of Tyler, once again, showing off his musical geniusness (is that a word?).

I'm very excited for this weekend. I will be leaving on Friday to fly down to San Antonio, TX to visit my Aunt. My mom and brother are also going and it should be a fun weekend. Ever since learning about the riverwalk in a design class in college, I have always wanted to see it. Anyone notice that I did not mention Dan or Tyler? They are staying in Iowa. Don't I have a great husband?

In the process of writing this, the speech pathologist came to work with Tyler. She seems excited about his progress. He is expanding his vocabulary and saying more two word phrases (most involve the word please or the word bye). He is also responding to the question, "what's that?" That's encouraging because normally he would have to repeat the word but now he is saying it on his own more and more. Dan and I try to get him to say descriptive words with his usual words. Like Tyler says bus, so we say good job, and then add a word to it like yellow bus. Sometimes I start to annoy myself by constantly describing things all day but I can tell it's working so it's completely worth it. =) He has also started saying Mommy. He doesn't say it too often but it's nice to not be called Da anymore (although, I still hear Da occasionally).

Alright, time for some pictures from the birthday weekend!

Here is Evan showing off some of his loot

Ariana smiling sweetly for the camera

Owen with his new Star Wars toys

Singing to Evan (singing was done in order of birth, with the exception of David)

This is the only picture of Brandon I got the entire weekend.

Ariana looking pretty excited about her cake

Owen blowing out his candle

David with his cake

And finally, a video of Tyler rocking out on the drums

Made some changes

I'm getting more familiar with blogging so I thought I would add some new stuff to the side of ours. I use Google Reader and follow a lot of blogs. If you like reading blogs, but don't use a reader, you must start today! The reader prevents me from having to go to each blog everyday to see if there has been an update. I leave the reader open all day and if any of my blogs have been updated, it lets me know! Anyway, I thought I would link to the blogs I like to read. If the blog offered a button (basically a logo with a link) then I added it to the side. All of the others are listed below the buttons. The cool thing is they each have a link, show what the last post was, and when the last post was made.

Hopefully you'll find some new blog that is interesting to you. I will warn you though, it's addicting!

Yay for warmer weather!

Not much going on in the Thorpe family right now. That's not a complaint, sometimes it's nice not to be busy. Tyler and I are looking forward to warmer weather so we can go outside more. He doesn't seem to be excited about the snow so we haven't had many trips outside this winter. I continue to enjoy my MOMS Club which gives me options of activities for us each month. It's a great way to get to know what's in your city.

Alright, time for some random pictures from the camera!

Here is Tyler catching up on the grocery ads

Tyler helped me make some banana oatmeal cookies (found here http://windowtowhimsy.blogspot.com/2009/01/hello-sweet-goodness.html) They were incredibly yummy. He refused to have his picture taken with the cookies but I caught him off to the side.

There is a gymnastics school nearby that has open play time for toddlers. It's a lot of fun and Tyler enjoys running around. We met his friend Emma there.

Yesterday we went to the library to meet Clifford. We were late and had to sit in the back. We stood in line to meet Clifford. When we got to the front Tyler cried and refused to touch Clifford or to stand near him for a picture. At least I expected he would do that. It was fun to just get out of the house.

Another Milestone

I was thinking about January and how much Tyler has changed in just this month. He started sleeping in his big boy bed and he said some two word phrases. Another item to add to the list is he is officially enrolled for preschool in September! Did you know that enrollment starts 9 months (or more) before class begins? I'm glad I did, or we'd be on quite a few waiting lists. I'm very excited about preschool. I think Tyler will really like it and I can't wait to buy him his first backpack!


I don't have any pictures to post today. I've only taken one since the last post and it was of some apple banana bread that I made. I was going to post a picture and the recipe on here for everyone to use. That was before I tasted how bland and gross it was. So, instead, here are some dinner recipes that we tried out last week and ended up being really yummy. I got them off of www.sparkrecipes.com which is a "healthy" recipe website. I did an advanced search for low cal recipes and these were the first two I made:

Slow Cooker Chicken Taco Stew - this makes 14 servings so I made it all and froze half.
http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=188808

Sweet and Sour Ground Beef - we use ground turkey to make it even healthier. If you haven't tried ground turkey before, you should. You really can't taste much of a difference and in our case, it's cheaper than ground beef.
http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=130368


In my last issue of a parenting magazine I get there was an article called Mad at Dad. It talked about how moms get mad at dads for not spending time on the details of parenting, are clueless about the kids needs, and they get more time to themselves. I just gotta say, Dan is not like that at all. Dan gives me plenty of "me" time. He acknowledges that I need it. One of my favorite things he does is when he comes home from work he plays with Tyler. This lets me prepare dinner in peace. Sometimes, if dinner is already in the oven, I read! I know it can't be easy for him. It's not like he hasn't been doing anything all day.

So thanks Dan, for not being a "mad at dad" kind of guy!

Maybe we should have given a lesson?

We never really went through with Tyler how to sleep in his bed. We just placed him in it one night and figured he would stay that way. I went in the other day to get him up from his nap and this is how he was sleeping. He must be one wild sleeper. (and yes, when I saw him I said, "don't move! Let mommy get the camera!")

I'd also like to report on his speech. He started speech therapy in December and the therapist and I had to come up with a 6 month goal. The goal is for Tyler to use phrases. Today he decided to start with the first two! He said, "banana please" and "bye Lisle." He is repeating after us but he would normally just repeat banana and then repeat please. But today he put the two together! It was exciting for me.

A bed, shelves, and snow. Oh my!

Tyler's first night in his big boy bed did not go very well. He fell out once (we had pillows on the floor) and got up numerous times during the night. I was very tired the next day. The second night went much better. He only got up one time around 6:00 because he thought it was time to get up. He really likes his bed though. He now wants me to change his diaper on his bed which is fine with me. Usually when I say the word diaper he would throw a fit. Now it's exciting! It's on his bed! yay! The cats are also enjoying his bed. For some reason they both like sleeping on the pillow. I don't care if they sleep on the comforter but the pillow is off limits. Libby actually slept on the comforter during Tyler's nap yesterday. I can see why she would want to be with him like that. I mean, he's so nice to her. Always pulling her tail, pushing her around, her throwing his body on top of her.

I thought I would show the three pictures I took of Tyler and his bed so you can get an idea of Tyler's personality.

Picture #1 - I tell Tyler I want to take a picture of him on his bed. He's all excited and climbs up onto it and sits there. I aim the camera and tell him to say cheese. He says, "noooo!" and throws himself onto the bed.

Picture #2 - I figure that's the best I'm going to get so I walk away and Tyler starts repeating, "cheese, cheese, cheeeese, cheeeesssseee" wanting me to come back and take a picture. I'm pretty sure the same thing is going to happen again but I take a picture anyway. He does well.

Picture #3 - Yay, we got a good picture! So, we're done right? Nope! Now he's all, "how about I sit on my pillow and you take another picture?"

I tell him no more pictures and he gets upset. sigh. Now that we have a cars and trucks theme for his room we can find stuff for the walls and get it decorated.

Moving on. Our basement was really lacking storage which was causing our stuff to sit around in large piles. It was a mess. After we got back from Christmas, Dan went to work on building some shelves. He did an awesome job and they really help out and keep that side of the basement nice and organized.

All the stuff has been moved out and the wood as been moved in.

Empty beautiful shelves!

Now filled with stuff (mostly baby). This area was looking nice and open until we had to move Tyler's crib and chair down there. Oh well, at least we have the space to store it!

More empty shelves!

This is holding a lot of my kitchen overflow (there's more on the way too!) and some other random things. (More kid overflow too!)

All three shelves

All three with stuff!

Hey look! More pictures!

And here is a random picture. I looked at our backyard today and noticed this hole in the snow. What's weird about it is there are no foot/animal prints around it. But something had to make that impression. What was it and where did it go?

Random Happenings

Tonight Tyler is spending his first night in his big boy bed! He was very excited about all of it but he got up after Dan put him down and he did not want to get back in. It took some convincing but he did lie down again. He seems slightly confused about what's going on. Hopefully he will adjust well.

We've got a lot of snow here. It keeps coming and coming. We were supposed to have a blizzard last night but not much happened in Des Moines. Heck, we went shopping at Target! A blizzard can't keep me away from Target.

Dan's sister got Tyler this shirt for Christmas. She's very humble.

Tyler likes to climb into this container and have us bury him in his blocks




The MOMS Club had a tour of Petsmart and we got to pet some animals.

Happy New Year!

We had a very busy Christmas that included a 10 day tour of the family. We came back to Iowa on Tuesday exhausted but happy that we got to see everyone. Tyler was definitely into opening gifts this year. He actually seemed more excited about tearing off the paper than what toy was inside. I'm sure that will change next year! I have a lot of pictures to share so I'll get right to it.

Opening gifts at Christmas #1 in Minnesota

A view of all the kids opening gifts (it can get pretty crazy!)

Tyler really enjoyed Ariana's Hannah Montana guitar

Tyler and Evan hugging

We went to visit my friend from highschool/college, Lissa and her family. Here is Tyler with her daughter Emma. So cute!

Opening gifts at Christmas #2 in Indiana

When we went to visit my dad in Indianpolis we visited the Children's Museum. I have been anxiously awaiting the day Tyler would be old enough to go there. I have very fond memories of visiting the Children's Museum all through my childhood and even into college. It was so fun to see him get excited by things and really participate.

The first thing he did was go down the slide they had set up just for winter. Normally there are stairs where this slide is. On the right is Tyler in Dan's lap and on the left is Uncle Brad.

There was a special toddler area that we went to. Tyler really enjoyed playing in the water and then at the sand table.

One of my favorite parts of the museum is the carousel. Tyler was really excited by it so I was more than happy to take him. The longer we waited in line to get on, the more Tyler was looking like he didn't want to do it. Being a wise mom I knew he would enjoy it so I took him on and literally had to wrap myself around him to keep him on the horse (this was while everyone was finding a horse/animal to ride). I felt like such a bad mom because he was really trying his hardest to get off the horse and I was trying my hardest to keep him on. Then, it started moving and oh boy, I have never seen Tyler perk up so fast! All of a sudden he's sitting up straight and smiling. He loved waving at people, especially daddy, as we went around. Don't moms always know best?

Chilling with Uncle Brad at the dinosaur exhibit

And finally, an exhausted Tyler with daddy as our time at the Children's Museum came to an end. We'll be back for sure!

I forgot to add something!

I can't believe I forgot to mention this. I have to say, when I was attending Ball State I never thought I'd see the day when the football team made it to a bowl game. On January 6th Ball State will be playing in the GMAC Bowl against Tulsa. Unfortunately, it is in Alabama so I will not be attending in person. I can't even watch it on tv because we don't have cable! I will have to follow along via the internet.

GO BALL STATE!

This one's for Lissa

Since Lissa complained about my lack of posting and I need to get old pictures up before Christmas, today I am posting random pictures that go back into November.

This tree's leaves stayed so red for quite awhile. It was nice to see them right out front on those dreary November days.

Tyler loved playing in the leaves. We kept the pile around just for him.

One day I went and got Tyler up from his nap and I placed him on his floor so he could wake up. I left and when I came back to check on him he was asleep on the floor which has never happened. I of course had to take a picture. I guess he wasn't ready to get up!

I've really enjoyed the MOMS Club that I joined. I love getting a calendar of activities each month for Tyler and I to do. This picture is from a tour of a truck place. Everyone got in the truck and took a ride. I actually thought it was pretty fun seeing the cab and the little sleeping area.

Over the weekend Dan and Tyler went out to play in the snow. If you remember, last year when we took Tyler out in the snow he cried. This year he walked around in it but didn't like to get his hands wet. They made a snowman who melted later that day. We had a really warm weekend.

Yesterday the MOMS Club toured a fire station. I thought it was a lot of fun! It took Tyler a bit to warm up to the trucks but once he did I was able to get a picture of him in the jump seat.

And finally, some videos showing why we'll be getting Tyler a big boy bed after the holidays.