4 year old Check-Up

Ty had his 4 year old check-up on Friday. He is getting so big! Poor thing had to get 3 shots plus the flu mist. He was limping last night because his thighs were sore. It was pitiful! After the first shot he said "that hurt" and started whimpering.

He weighs 43 pounds and is 42 1/2 inches tall. He had a hearing test and did pretty well on that. He missed the lowest tones but most likely due to some congestion from his allergies. He is often stuffy nosed, congested, and snores. So we are going to add an allergy nasal spray to his Zyrtec to hopefully clear up the allergies even more.

We are seeing glimpses of more independence which is nice! He often wants things done for him and we often remind him that he isn't a baby. :)  Friday night before we went out to dinner he wanted to change his shirt by himself. He said he needed privacy. Here is the video...I was laughing the whole time Andy was recording. Hilarious. Listen for him to say "right" when he checks to see if his shirt is on the right way. Once he spots Andy you see a smile...ADORABLE!!!

Ty loves his preschool so very much. He asks when his next school day is all the time. He just marches in by himself when Andy drops him off. He is very proud of his projects when he comes home from school and is excited about choosing a book from his very first book order.

Happy 4th Birthday Ty!

 Ty turned 4 on September 12th. He had been planning his birthday party for at least a month. He talked about it so much before it actually happened. It was quite fun to see his excitement! 

 Don't you love his birthday crown? It's from preschool and he wore it at home on his birthday and the following Friday night at his family birthday party! It was just so adorable. I love it! Luke did the same thing with his preschool hats.

 One of his gifts from Mommy & Daddy. A remote control car from the movie Cars. 

 Ok. Guess who made the cake?! ANDREW! Made the ENTIRE cake. He used a box mix but he also used fondant and mocha flavored icing for in between the layers and for the dirty icing. Wow! Impressive! Everyone loved the cake and it was delicious. I was so proud of him. He is very creative. I love the license plate. He modeled it after the yellow car above from the movie CARS. Ty said this was the best cake EVER!

 My big boy blowing out his candles. We had family over for pizza, veggies, and cake/ice cream. Lots of cousin play time and opening presents. This little guy had a GREAT birthday!

Tyler starts preschool!

Tyler had his first day of preschool this morning! He is SO thrilled to be going to school now. He was beyond ready. He will be 4 in just a couple of weeks but we started him in the 3 year old class for many reasons. He loved his teachers, his "projects", and was all smiles when Andy picked him up. He had no trouble going into his class which is wonderful news! We are so proud of our Big Boy!

Tyler Speak

Tyler says so many cute things. I guess 3 year olds talk so cute so that the parents can survive the year of the three's. It's definitely a hard parenting year. Ty wants so badly to be independent yet still needs help!! Anyway a couple super cute things he says: Tipe= "too tipe"- he says this about shoes, seat belts, pants. Adorable. I mean my heart melts every time! Malt= Ty loves to go to the malt to play with the yellow duckie. The poor thing rarely ever gets to go to the malt (mall) but he thinks the bright lights and play area are amazing!! We went to the mall on Saturday for lunch at CFA after biking at the park. He was thrilled! Wilson, Andy,my mom, and I all biked 5 miles. Luke biked 2 1/2 miles with his gamma helping him up the hills & then rode in the trailer for the second half. Ty rode in the bike trailer on Andy's bike. Ty would tell Andy "too fast" while Andy was biking!

Still fighting the Sickness!

My poor Ty has been running a fever since Saturday. He has been to the Dr. twice in the past week. This all started as a cold, then an ear infection. He has been on a stronger antibiotic since Saturday. Today the fever was lower but he has been so pitiful all week. He is barely eating but we are trying to concentrate on drinking. Yesterday his main food was combos. Tonight I got him to eat a chocolate chip cookie (which he didn't even finish) and some milk. Sunday he ate some applesauce and a biscuit. I called the nurse yesterday and they think he is ok as long as he is drinking and showing some improvement. The improvement is very small but we think there is a little. He has an awful cough and a runny nose. He is so congested I hear him snoring down the hall. Our poor baby. So hoping he starts feeling better really soon!

Party Pics!

Happy 3rd Birthday, Ty!

Today is Tyler's birthday! We have celebrated tonight just us at home. He wanted spaghetti for dinner with cheesy bread. Since Andy and I worked hard on the cake pictured below this past weekend we bought 5 cupcakes at a local bakery. Tyler was thrilled with his cupcake with sprinkles. We sang and he blew the candles out early! He couldn't wait to bite into the cupcake! He also got to open a new Lego Duplo from mommy and daddy plus a train car from each of his brothers. He was so happy! We love you SO much TW! Andy took pictures of the fun tonight so I'll try to get a few of those on the blog soon. Here are some pictures from his family party on Saturday.

The CARS wilton cake that Andy and I made on Friday night. I baked the cake on Thursday. Then I made homemade buttercream frosting on Friday and did the tinting. Andy did 90% of the decorating. I helped with some of the red stars. Team effort and SO worth it! Tyler was so excited and kept talking about his cars cake.

Six of his cousins at the park. Madelyn isn't in the picture but she was there! We had his party at our favorite local park. The weather was perfect. We decorated in the color red & cars- Ty's favorite color and party theme. The menu was planned for Ty's favorite foods: ham and cheese sliders, cheetos, applesauce cups, and sugar snap peas (on the veggie tray). He was one happy boy. He was so intent on eating that he was the last one over to the blanket for opening presents!

Blowing out his 3 candles! Guess we should have scooted the cake a little closer to the birthday boy!

Wilson reading Tyler his train card. Loved seeing that. See giant Lego head? It is a Lego storage container to hold loose legos! He kept saying "I got big wego!" He was so excited opening all of his gitfts and has had a blast playing with his new things. Thank you everyone for coming!

Ty's Visit to CCH

On Tuesday we took the family to CCH for an appointment for Tyler. This one was with the Hemangioma unit. We had not been there for a year. Ty's PWS is very faint and hasn't really changed in the last couple of years. It was darker and more noticeable when he was a newborn. The best news is the doctor's feel it is of so LITTLE concern that they don't need to see us for two years! Praise God! They chatted with me about his developments, observed him in the room, asked questions etc. They asked me how we feel about his PWS and I said we have NO concern right now! We are just so thankful that what we thought it could have turned out to be (Sturge Webber Syndrome) hasn't been a concern at all. It is so faint I would say 95% of people never notice it. So it doesn't even really cross our minds anymore. An appointment for CCH comes up and we're like "oh, yeah- that".

We are on yearly visits to neurology. We are still on 6month visits to ophthalmology. That is the biggest threat due to the placement of the blood vessels near the eye and the possibility of developing glaucoma. But God is good and our little Tyler is doing just fine!

Two Tyler funnies:
The boys have a kids coconut scented shampoo. Ty does not like the coconut shampoo. In the bath he says "I no want polka-dot shampoo." It is ADORABLE!!!

Ty sometimes pretends to be a cowboy. This week he has run through the house saying "Giddy howboy". Again sooo funny! Instead of Giddy-up Cowboy it's just Giddy Howboy! I love hearing him talk. :)

My Baseball Boy

Action shot. Look at that stance!

Tyler loves baseball. He spent a lot of time at the baseball field last spring when Wilson and Luke were playing t-ball. We recently found a Thomas bat and ball (he LOVES Thomas) so now we've been playing baseball outside, in the basement, etc. He can hit the ball pretty well sometimes!

He'll be on the baseball field soon enough!

Ty = Chatterbox!

Ty talks SO much! I love to hear him talk. It is so cute! Tonight we were driving and the full moon was shining brightly. The boys and I were talking about it and I said it was beautiful and pretty. Later I heard Ty say the moon is bootful and preddy. It was adorable. He was playing with an old cell phone today and opened it and said "Hello! Bye see you." I could listen to him talk (and sing) all day. It is precious. Anytime he toots he says "I pooped" and laughs. It's quite funny.

I've realized recently that this is the first time I've had a boyat Tyler's age when I haven't already had a brand new baby or been a few weeks away from delivering another baby. My "babies" are growing up. I don't wish for the middle of the night feedings -at all! But I miss those cute new baby grunts and all the snuggling. I love babies. But I love my big boys too!

Happy Things :)

- The other night we had sloppy joes. Tyler thought I said poppy joes. So he kept asking "poppy here?". Then he called his dinner poppy joes. So cute!
- Last night Tyler sang parts of Jesus Loves Me as I was singing to him. He really likes that song! He has only sung with me 1-2 other times. It is the sweetest thing ever. The other boys always choose Twinkle, You Are My Sunshine, and a song I made up- called Go To Sleep. For real. Luke sometimes sings with me too. That makes me smile!
- Tyler has eaten veggies for THREE nights! Our persistent eat your veggies or no after dinner "treat" (ie: a hershey kiss or a small handfull of chocolate chips) finally worked! So far anyway!! He has been eating "balls". We have a veggie tray that I make on Monday for the week. This week it has sugar snap peas along with other veggies. Tyler likes for mommy and daddy to take the balls out of the sugar snap peas so he can eat those. So of course there had to be a joke from mommy (shocking I know!) that I found some big balls for him. It's hard to resist a joke that easy! Of course only Andy and I snicker at that - thank goodness!! But my goodness! The boy ate his veggies!!!
- A day with neither Luke or Wilson getting to Strike 3!! Yea! A great day and a wonderful bedtime! Thank you Lord!
- I have exercised 3 times in the past week. :)
- An understanding friend going through a hard time even when I showed up today without chocolate chip cookies for her trip. But I did have homemade chex mix! I ran out of ingredients and then screwed up the batter last night (Trying to multitask) so I couldn't start over. Had to dump it. But she was so nice to me this morning anyway!
- My new math group at school! It's nice to change things up every now and then.

Snow Day #1

Monday we had our first snow day. I was actually pretty excited! It gave me a chance to catch up on things. I did laundry, wrapped gifts, and spent a lot of time in the kitchen. We ran a couple of errands to get teacher gifts and groceries. Wilson played in the snow for a little while but it was so cold. We have borrowed my mom's Wii so they had fun playing that too. I made cake balls and cake pops. Andy and I had fun decorating the cake pops. If you aren't familiar with cake pops, check out Bakerella's website. I took a small tin to school for our Helping Hands auction we have every year. Then I made pepperoni rolls and broccoli/potato/cheddar soup. We had a great day!

Tyler thinks cake pops are the best thing ever! But he only wants the ones covered in sprinkles...

Tyler Speak

My favorite things to hear Ty say right now...

1. "oh no!"

2. "oh gosh"

3. watch tb...buzz...downstairs

As soon as he wakes up he wants to watch tb and eat his breakfast. It's so cute. He loves Toy Story!

Ty Update

Andy took Tyler to CCH on Tuesday. He went for an ophthalmology appointment. He had to get his eyes dilated and miss a nap but daddy said the french fries for lunch made up for that! No glaucoma or any other complications at this time! We still return every 6 months to ophthalmology. His port wine stain is still very faint and unchanged since any previous updates. He went to the Hemangioma unit in August and they are now seeing him only once a year! Our next CCH appointment is for Neurology in December. These have still been every 6 months while he is still in such a critical developmental age. I'm guessing these will begin to be spaced out as well. I'm sure everything will be fine - he continues to meet all developmental milestones and is very advanced with his talking as compared to our other two boys at this age! Praise the Lord for the continued good news regarding his PWS. God is good!

Whirlwind

That's how life is feeling. Like I'm in a whirlwind. I'm trying to keep things running smoothly at home and school. So many things to juggle. I've been sick for two weeks on top of my allergies. Went to the walk in clinic this past Sunday and didn't get much help. I did get a cough syrup that allows me to sleep so that was good. Finally made it to my pcp today and found out I have bronchitis. Thankful for the antibiotic and an inhaler so I can breathe a little easier. I'm taking 3 OTC medicines for allergies, 2 medicines for bronchitis, and a cough syrup at night. I'm ready to feel well again! Thankful to have a pharmacist for a sister - she helped me out a lot last weekend in knowing what all I could take. I never would have thought I could be taking this many medications at once. That seems kind of crazy to me but she assured me it was ok as did the nurse practitioner today!

School has been good but busy of course. My student teacher has been a HUGE help. I keep getting new students. Four new students have joined my class in the past 3 weeks. It's been a little wild. I get one settled and then the next day it seems another new student is at my door. I knew it was coming- I started the year with 19 students. Now I'm up to 23. It's just been a lot of new students in a short amount of time. Next week is my student teacher's solo week and my list of things to accomplish is LONG! I'm soo grateful for the time to work. It's always weird to be there, watching in your room, and not teaching!

The boys are doing well overall. Luke loves pre-k at his preschool. He started walking by himself from the drop off lane on the second day. Tyler is cute as can be and talking a mile a minute. He loves playing and eating peanut butter now. Wilson is having set backs in the anxiety department. It's been quite difficult at times but I was so proud of him today. He had been worrying about something happening in his class at school for 3 days. Up at night trouble sleeping, wringing hands, biting nails, saying he didn't want to go on Friday etc. But today with bribing of a piece of cake after school and a trip to the public library this afternoon he used his courage and went to class by himself. That was HUGE! I was kind of dreading today because of what I thought he might be like. He surprised me and I told him many times today how proud I was of his courage. He got 9 books at the library and a piece of cake! :)

I've stopped the thankful journal and I need to start again. It really helped me to focus on the positive things from the day instead of being bogged down by the overwhelming craziness of life. I just keep telling myself to take things one day at a time. Even one step at a time. I'm an organized procrastinator. But I think my procrastination often stems from being a working mom from 7am-8pm when the boys go to bed! LONG day. EVERY day. I remember when I used to come home from work before kids and think I was soo tired. Wow. Somehow things keep getting accomplished, maybe not as soon as I'd like - but I'm getting it done! I'm so thankful for my friends and family who help me!

Party Pictures!

The cake was good!

Daddy decorated, mommy baked. :)

Thomas theme!

Playing with his new track and trains.

He is so happy with the new train stuff!

Opening a gift

Applesauce at lunch

2 Years Old!

Tyler turned 2 on Sunday! We celebrated on Saturday with family at our house for lunch. My mom brought a bouquet of balloons and he was super excited about them! The theme was Thomas and we had a homemade cake with a Thomas on it and Thomas plates. The party was very simple with very easy food. He got several train gifts and some new pj's. He loved his cake! After the party we went to buy new tennis shoes with Gamma and Terry. My mom and dad got him new shoes as part of his gift. He loves his new shoes. Saturday night after his bath he wanted them back on and cried when we took them off for bedtime. So cute! He had his 2 year old doctor visit today and here are his stats:
Height: 93%ile
Weight: 81%ile
Head: 97%ile
He is ready to try peanut butter now! Sunday I let him eat a McDonald's hamburger and fries downstairs in front of the tv for dinner while watching his favorite movie WALL-E! He thought that was pretty great. He opened a few trains from us and a train movie from his brothers. We had a picnic lunch at the park before Luke's t-ball game and it was a beautiful day. Thankful for a sweet, healthy, and very happy boy!
*Pictures to post soon...

Koclat...Chocolate!

Tyler LOVES Koclat (chocolate)! He especially loves his mommy's chocolate chip cookies! He woke up this morning asking for a cookie... :) I've posted the recipe on the blog before, but here is the link to my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe.

Recent Pictures

Tyler will be 2 on September 12! So soon! He answers almost every question with "yeah". So cute!

So we have a working camera again, time for some new pictures. Luke is starting preschool next week. He is also playing fall ball (t-ball) right now with his cousin Trey. Cute as ever!

Hello, Blog.

So much going on. Back to school has kept us BUSY! I've had things to post about but it hasn't gotten done...here are a few updates for now!
- I have a wonderful class- of only 18 students!
- Wilson has had a few rough days with going to class, but overall doing very well at school.
- Lots of intense behaviors to deal with at home from Wilson. I'm thankful that he is well behaved at school. Really. But that means he saves up all of his intensity for home. Some nights are rough!
- Doing pretty well with my thankful journal. Trying to keep perspective!
- Haven't run but 1 time since Andy left for Colorado. He was gone two weeks and now has been home for two weeks. Hmmm...guess I need to get back at it so I can do Race for the Cure in October!
- Overwhelmed is my normal state right now. Which isn't healthy. I've lost 7-8 pounds which hasn't hurt me any! 5lbs while Andy was in CO. I'm happy, just trying to take each day one thing at a time!
- I'm really enjoying being on our Leadership Team at school.
- Luke got some kelly green converse and he is absolutely adorable in them! I'll post about his back to school shopping this weekend.
- Tyler is doing well, talking soo much! So proud of my big boy. He'll be two in a few weeks. The way he says light is hilarious! He rolls his l and then adds ight. lulight is the only way I know how to type it!
- Andy and I have laughed the past two evenings watching the double rainbow on you tube and then the double rainbow song. So funny!
Hoping this weekend to catch up on some cleaning around the house...