Birthday Celebration Part 2

This past weekend we went to Minnesota to celebrate Tyler's birthday with Dan's family. We had a fun time and Tyler LOVES playing with his cousins. Marisa also decided it would be fun to tie dye some t-shirts. Talk about a flashback to my Girl Scout days.

I want to throw this picture in first. We went to a zoo and this was the first time Tyler actually fed an animal. I think he saw his cousins doing it and was inspired. (notice the t-shirt!)

Here I am carrying Tyler's cake as everyone sings. I'm not sure if you can see it but Tyler has the biggest grin on his face.

Blowing out the candles

Opening his presents.

For Tyler's cake I decided to make a rainbow cake that I saw online awhile back. I took pictures of the process because I'm geeky like that.

Here is the batter mixed into 6 different colors.

The colors in the pans ready to go into the oven.

After I frosted it, it looked like this. I loved that no one could tell that the inside was a rainbow of colors. It was a fun surprise!

And then....I cut into it and this is what you saw! very cool! It turned out really well and I was pretty darn impressed with myself. =) It wasn't a hard cake to do, but it was slightly time consuming. Less time consuming than piping hundreds of stars all over a cake though. I did not miss piping stars.

Birthday Celebration Part 1

Last weekend we drove to Indiana for a few days. It was a pretty quick trip but we were able to celebrate Tyler's birthday with my family so that was nice. The weather was pretty awesome too! I have a lot of pictures so let's get to it!

His birthday breakfast at Bappa and Nana's house.

Tyler with Bappa and Nana (holy cow is it impossible to get a toddler to pose for a picture)

Then we went to Grammy's house. We got him a Curious George balloon which he loved (and still plays with)

Isn't the picture above impressive? Tyler is looking at the camera and smiling and George is turned just right so you can see him. Dan took the picture. It took about five tries before he got it though. One of those tries was this one which we thought was funny. The balloon is placed perfectly to make it look like Tyler has a monkey for his head.

Tyler was very into his birthday this year. He blew out the candles right away and looked thrilled when everyone sang to him. Here is a family picture!

Tyler opened his gifts like a pro.

Tyler with Uncle Brad (side note: this was after Tyler opened his presents and we discovered he was in such a great mood that he was willing to sit with someone and smile for the camera. Once we discovered that we had him sit with mom, dad, uncle brad, and grammy. We got some great pictures!)

With Grammy

Practicing his couch yoga

One day we went to Fair Oaks Farm. We had been there before but Tyler was pretty young. This time he was able to really get into it. It is such a fun place to go. It is a Dairy Farm and you can take a bus tour and see the whole operation. If you've ever seen the show Dirty Jobs, they visited here one time for a show. I won't go into details what the dirty job was.

Here is Dan timing himself to see how fast he can milk the "cow".

Here is my favorite part of the bus tour. The cow lazy susan. Okay, they call it a carousel. It's such an interesting process and I find it fascinating that the cows know what to do. I don't want to explain the whole thing but basically the cows get on, they get milked, then they get off. This thing runs all day except for a few breaks when they clean it.

Then we went to the birthing barn where you can watch a cow give birth. Since this is a dairy farm calves are being born all the time. We happen to get there as this woman starting pulling out a calf. Here's the newborn calf!

Awww...mamma cow licking off baby cow

While all that was going on there was another cow who has just given birth so we got to watch her baby try and stand up. He was so cute wobbling all over the place. I felt like cheering when he finally figured it out.

They have some fun kid stuff there, like this jumping thing. Tyler (and Dan) thought it was pretty fun.

Tyler was pretty excited about going on this train. I wasn't sure at first if he understood that we wouldn't be riding with him. He climbed in though and seemed happy until it started up with a big jolt. His face immediately went from happy to concerned. He didn't cry at all and even seemed to enjoy himself, but when asked if he wanted to go again he said, "down."

Happy Birthday!

Tyler turned three years old today! It seems like he just turned two! We've had a nice day celebrating with family. He was really good at blowing out his candles and opening his gifts. I am planning on posting pictures soon!

Happy Birthday to my big boy!

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?