Tyler turns 2! (Wk 105 part 1) - visits the OC Fair and goes Swimming

Happy Birthday Tyler! This week was quite a full week, and to save myself some time tonight (and you guys from a super long post), I will be splitting this week's post into two parts. Tonight's blog will include all the fun activities from the week, and tomorrow (or Wednesday's) blog will be all about Tyler's crazy birthday party! If you want to know when that post will be coming, be sure to subscribe to this blog so that you'll then get email notifications. :)

Tyler turned 2 this week! Whoohoo! We have lots of fun stuff to tell you about. To start off, a silly picture of Tyler smiling with a mouth full of food. Or was it milk. I don't remember - but I thought it was quite silly. He had just finished eating and was very anxious to watch Thomas the Train - and dance (of course) to the songs. I don't know what caused it - but he still loves his music AND Thomas the train.

We decided to do a low key birthday for him this year on his actual birthday - didn't make sense to celebrate twice since he was having a big party on the weekend. On that morning, I said 'Happy Birthday!' to Tyler, and he replied with a big 'NO!!'. He didn't like me singing the Happy Birthday song to him either. Strange... here's a family picture on Tyler's birthday.
At school, they had popsicles! I was a little bummed that most of Tyler's friends had already transitioned to Pre-1 and Tyler didn't get to celebrate with them. He just started his transition (with a few other kids) this week. They sang Happy Birthday to him and he clapped afterwards. Oh yeah, and not sure if it's just for the birthday boy... but Tyler got a little tiny pony tail in his hair too. heehee.
When Tyler came home that day, he totally knew it was his birthday. He already will sing the Happy Birthday song from time to time, but now each verse was: "happy birthday to you... Tyler!" And when prompted, he could tell us how old he was. (Good training at school huh!) Here's a video of Tyler telling us how old he is.

His birthday present that day was a bubble lawn mower. It blows bubbles while you push it, and it makes sounds like a mower also! Tyler really enjoyed it.
Tyler's favorite dessert is frozen yogurt from Yogurt Land! That night, we had some frozen frozen yogurt (yes, double frozen. we'll freeze some for Tyler since its much less messy when he eats the yogurt harder) and we put a candle in it. How cute is he in this picture! Wish I could get him to smile and pose like that on command! Here's a video of us singing happy birthday to Tyler and him blowing out the candles. :)

This weekend was quite busy! My sister Kareen and her husband Andy came down for the birthday party and Saturday was quite hectic! Saturday was actually reserved for 'party preparation' but we totally distracted ourselves. Sigh. Even with Tyler's party the next day, I procrastinated!

Saturday morning event? Swimming! After the excitement Tyler had last week from swimming, we decided to take him again with K&A. We got all dressed and sunblocked and headed down the street to our community pool. Tyler was ready! Here he is with his pale sunblocked face waiting to get to the water.Unfortunately, when we got there, we realized the pool was closed today since there was a Swim meet going on! 8am-3pm. ACK! Plan change! Tyler was pretty adamant about swimming (he kept saying 'water? water?' and motioning at the gate) so we had to come up with plan B quick. Luckily our friend Mariam has a community pool also and 1 call later we were swimming! (Thanks Mariam!) This time around Tyler totally remembered how much he loved the water, and no popchips were required to get him in the water. We had a lot of fun!
After swimming, we headed home and got ready for event #2. The Orange County Fair! Seriously, I don't know what we were thinking. Swimming alone can be quite draining... but off we went. It was SO hot! Here's Tyler at the petting zoo.
Totally not afraid of animals. They had lots of different ones - camels, llamas, baby everything. I learned that not all camels spit, only the ones with 2 humps (vs the 1-humped one that was there).
After the petting zoo Tyler got to take a pony ride. I was actually pretty paranoid about him riding this pony - there's no one standing there next to him in case he falls! The attendants assured me that he would be fine - they don't even stop the ponies when they put the kids on - it's a walking start! Tyler was a pro though, knew exactly what to do. I was a little overwhelmed watching him all by himself - he's all grown up!
Here's a video of Tyler riding the pony. He's so friendly, he waves at everyone as the pony walks by!

One of the things we bought that day (aside from overpriced food!) was this super mister. It really is quite awesome. You put (ice-)cold water in it, pump it a few times, and press the trigger. Result? A refreshing cool mist of water! On this ridiculously hot day it was a lifesaver...until Tyler realized how it worked. Then everyone was a target and had to be on alert on not getting soaked.
Some fun moments - lots and lots of livestock. That's the point of the fair, isn't it? We even watched a milking demonstration. Tyler's getting good at taking pictures in those cut outs too.
Here's a photo of Tyler when we visited Centennial Farm last year, he was just walking I think! This one next is him actually through the cut out.
Fast forward past Sunday and the party (see next post!). We had a yummy dinner at our favorite Korean restaurant Shik do Rak!
And Yay also because our friends Jeff/Joan and their 2 boys were able to join us too! Wow, my diaper bag sure is huge!
And lastly, today we had lunch with our friends Shirley/Jesse who came by to drop off a present for Tyler. We had yummy noodles at A&J.
Good times! Thanks for Kareen and Andy to making the trip down here just for Tyler's birthday party!

Happy July 4th! Tyler goes swimming and is on TV! (Wk104)

Happy July 4th everyone! Hope you guys all had a fun long holiday weekend - we did! Holidays are always lots of fun for us, but also super tiring! Here's Tyler showing some American spirit with his little flag...ok so he wasn't too thrilled on holding it for a picture right before bedtime...haha!
We celebrated the holiday at Irvine's Concert on the Green. The event (to support the Irvine Police) promised bounce houses, face painting, live music, etc., and a great firework show! We were every excited to check it out!... but we were pretty quickly disappointed. Their bounce houses were sitting in the sun so they were super hot to touch, no face painting to be found, and the live music didn't start for another couple of hours! Boo! At least we got to take some pictures in this huge Army truck that they had on display. It was actually this Army truck along with this giant cannon thing. It was pretty crazy!
We realized that we were not properly prepared for the day's festivities. People had tents/canopies/chairs/drinks/etc all set up in their own chosen areas on the stadium field. We had nothing. Plus the idea of keeping Tyler up that much past his bedtime (fireworks start at 9pm and Tyler sleeps at 8pm) made me nervous about the possibility of a super cranky kid the next day. We headed home, but Will's parents (who were with us) were able to at least go back later in the evening to enjoy the show. Amazingly, Tyler slept through the whole thing (we're pretty close to the school and can definitely hear them loudly go off) - but even crazier - he slept through the whole night without a peep! Maybe he needs loud distractions when he sleeps... Anyway, here's our family picture from the holiday!
This week is a precursor to another big occasion: TYLER turning TWO! Whoohoo! Wow, does time fly by fast or what? I still can't believe it sometimes. Will and I often reminisce on baby Tyler and get all sentimental. Now he's toddler/preschool Tyler! To prepare for his birthday party, we took him to get some photos. This is my favorite one! How cute is HE!
It was really difficult to get him to sit/stand still for these photos. He must be out of practice (we used to take him monthly!) and we ended up bribing him with snacks to try to get him to not move. We were only semi-successful as the first photo (above) was the only one I really liked. Here's a little collage of some of the other shots though.
This week we also had Tyler's 2 year doctor checkup. Tyler's slipping on the scales! From 18 months (27 pounds - 66%) he's now at 24 months (28.5 pounds - 64%). I can't remember his height back then, but it was 95th% and how he's at about 65th% at 34 inches. Tyler is reaching his genetic potential. heehee. He enjoyed getting his height measured - it was his first time standing still on the scale!
This weekend we also decided to take Tyler to hit our community pool! We've taken him a few times, but he was always so little. This time we actually got him water inflatable toys! Man, was it TOUGH to get him into the water though. Tyler LOVES water, but he can be a big chicken. We literally bribed him with a popchip for every action. First it was to sit on the edge with his feet in the water, then it was to stand up, then it was to take a couple steps..etc etc. Here's a video of Tyler with his inflatable horse - looks like he's having fun, right? At the end I ask if he'll come out a little further and he says "no" and then demands "more chip" before he'll do anything else. Smart kid...

After a lot of coaxing (and many more chips), Tyler was in the water with his horse! He LOVED it! First we took turns holding him and pushing him around the pool. He got such a kick out of me going underwater or doing handstands and flips. He'd keep asking, "more!" After a while, we didnt even need to support him anymore and he was happily kicking around the pool (of course we were very close). He did have one incident where his face kind of got into the water (not happy about that!) but he seemed to forget pretty quickly. Whew!
Here's a video of Tyler kicking to turn himself in circles by himself. I was really surprised that he felt secure enough to hold onto the horse all by himself! :)

I threw in this picture just because I liked it - punk rocker Tyler. I think it actually says that on his shirt he wore for his photo shoot.

After the photos we stopped by Macaroni Grill for a quick lunch. Here's a short video of Tyler eating his food. Near the end, he offers Will some macaroni and then pulls it back last minute! hmph! Then when Will is trying to catch some dripping cheese, Tyler gets upset and shakes his finger at him and say 'No ba-ba'. haha!

Whew, we also made a trip to the Discovery Science Center this weekend to help our friend Julie promote their new Smokey the Bear exhibit on the Channel 5 news. It was a really cool exhibit - lots of fun stuff for Tyler to play with! Here's Tyler playing around the campire.

The exhibit was teaching kids about protecting the earth, and leaving no footprint behind - good stuff like that! It also had a boat that you could (magnet) fish from! Very cute. Here's Tyler rowing the boat while Will fishes.
Here's Tyler 'watering' a baby tree.
Here's the clip from the KTLA website. That's Will and Tyler on the still image of the video! We're on real quick around the 1:15 mark. :)

Afterwards, we played around the Science center for a bit. It's always fun! Tyler really loved the Dry Ice/Smoke exhibit. Here he's playing with Will on it.

And with me!
Here's a quick video of Tyler just happily jumping/bouncing on the exhibit. He bounced on that forever and watched the smoke come up.

We also got to meet Smokey the Bear. Tyler has always been afraid of life-sized animals...there's no love lost there! Unfortunately we couldn't even get a decent shot with Smokey. Aww.

Tyler also really enjoyed this one exhibit where you throw balls at a stationary wall and it measures how fast the ball was traveling. You actually have to throw the ball pretty far - way too far for Tyler to do it. Solution? Put him inside. Problem solved!
Here's a short video of Tyler and his BFF Vincent running around throwing the balls. Notice they're still missing. haha!

And lastly, my dear friend Mariam celebrated her 30th birthday this past weekend! Happy Birthday M! We had a DELICIOUS dinner at this restaurant in Newport Beach called Nesai. The food took a while to get there (we had a large party) but it was definitely worth the wait. My risotto was seriously perfect. Yum! Here's a photo with some of the girls that night.
And here's our group picture. :)
Have a good week everyone! Stay tuned for next week's post -> Tyler's 2nd Birthday Party!!

Tyler visits the dentist! (week 103)

Favorite quote of the week: "bunny eat it!". Tyler said that when we gave him a raw baby carrot. I was like, what? He is talking so much more - he'll say things like 'it goes there' and 'I like mush-rooms'. Yes! You heard right. My son, crazy as it may be, likes mushrooms! Blech. He also loves watermelon again.
Tyler had his 3rd dentist appointment this year. His first and second appointments last year prepared him well for this one, because he was really good! Here's a picture of Tyler and Will playing video games in the waiting room. (We had to change pediatric dentists because Tyler's under my insurance now). Here's Tyler with his new dentist, Dr. Lee. What I liked about Dr. Lee was that he was super gentle, and actually took the time to show Tyler what he was going to do before he did it. For instance, before he polished, he showed Tyler how it would feel on each of his fingers first. It really seemed to calm Tyler down. I sat there, literally, with my mouth open in shock, as Dr. Lee cleaned, polished and flossed his teeth. Flossed! Now we floss Tyler's teeth every morning and night, and he LOVES it!

Tyler got to choose a toy from a toy chest after he finished. He picked this little tiny camera that would make clicking sounds when you pressed down the button. I thought it was really cute that he was pretending to look through the viewfinder - until I tried it out and realized that you could actually see cartoon animals through it! Even cooler - with every click, the picture would change to a different animal. I was quite amused...and played with it for awhile. :)

Auntie Trina came by one day (with yummy Yogurt Land, thanks!) and played with Tyler for a bit. He loves playing with her!

The cord on my iPhone charger was starting to come apart (danger!) so we headed to Irvine Spectrum Apple store to see if I could get it replaced. We didn't have an appointment at the Genius Bar and decided to do stand-by. Tyler was SO excited to see the mini-carousel and was literally screaming and shrieking in excitement to get to it. However, as soon as I bought a ticket and it was our turn to get on, he suddenly decided he wanted nothing to do with it. Sigh. Good thing I was able to get a refund. We had to wait a while, and Tyler really enjoyed sitting with Will and playing some computer games.

Good news! All the wood is gone from our backyard now!...we hired a great handyman to haul it all away and he did it quick! Unfortunately, not much else was done. Next step? Get estimates for putting down synthetic turf! Whoohoo!

We did get to see a lot of family this weekend though, so that was nice! My brother Lindon and his wife Michelle dropped by (to pick up some of the wood, a couple hours too late! - I had totally forgotten). Tyler was SUPER friendly with them - I'm talking running and jumping onto their laps for this picture - friendly!

Will's parents were also here and we all hung out, made a Costco trip, and had dinner together. Here's Tyler playing with his favorite toy (blocks) with his grandpa.

Tyler will seriously play with those blocks EVERY night after dinner. We'll build them up, he'll knock them down, and then we'll build them up again. Repeat about 5x a night. In between building, he'll make a running jump into his inflatable bouncer. Hey, anything that burns off energy, right? :)

We headed up to Hacienda Heights the next day to pick up some tools from my brother (think sledgehammer and other heavy duty stuff!) and stopped by my parents' place first. Tyler really enjoyed being in their yard (huge yard with lots of fruit trees) and especially liked picking dandelions. Yay - helping his grandparents weed! Here's a short video clip.

Tyler also have been really warming up to my dad too. He actually made a running jump into his arms from the stairs when my dad came home! Whoohoo! Here they are drawing on the whiteboard - my dad was showing Tyler how to draw a pig. :)

And lastly, girl picture with the boys! We got together for Sunday brunch at Pinot Provence at the Westin in Costa Mesa - had great reviews on Yelp - but I, unfortunately, wasn't too impressed. Plus the service was slow. And the restaurant was almost empty!

Have a great Fourth of July everyone!

Happy Father's Day! (week 102)

Happy Father's Day everyone! Whew, what a Father's Day weekend we had - we made super progress on our deck demolition. Will and I had put in a some hard labor last week but it just got too difficult with Tyler walking around. Thankfully, we saw both sets of parents this weekend, which meant: grandmothers to watch Tyler! Here's the progress after Saturday:
And after Sunday! We have SO much wood. My next task is to find someone to come and haul it away (relatively) cheaply. Anyone need some firewood?

I'm pretty psyched that the tearing-out-phase is completed and we can finally move onto getting some putting-green-ready grass in. Finally. :) Hopefully things will go smoothly. I am so ready to get Tyler playing out there again.

So with it being Father's Day and all, Tyler decided to pitch in and help with some chores. This vaccuum is my new best friend (is that sad?). I may have talked about it before but I don't care - I use it at least twice a day. I LOVE IT because it's 1) lightweight (my Dyson is super heavy) 2) it's cordless (super quick to use) and 3) the dustbuster pops out if I need it. I have a 2 year old which means crumbs ALL over the floor. It drives me nuts to step on something. Sweeping wasn't working because it just wasn't getting everything and my Dyson was such a pain to lug out when I didn't need all that power. The result? A cordless dust buster that attachs to a full vaccuum frame. Ahhh, true love. :) Ok enough, I'll try not to comment on it again. At least not be so crazy about it...

This is a cute photo we got from Tyler's school camera. Apparently they had shredded a ton of paper and let the kids play in it in a kiddie pool. haha! How cute is that? That's one of the reasons I really love Tyler going to school - he gets to do stuff that I'd never think of, gets to socialize with his friends, and learn so much as well. I've been checking out some other daycares that push more of an academic curriculum, but seriously, Tyler's 2. I'll take my time on laying on the academic pressure, hehe. Not sure if I mentioned it last week, but Will is now on the PTA at our school. Go Will!

Here's a video of Tyler and his friend Kayden playing. You can see how fickel Tyler is - not cool with his friend Zane putting the paper on him, but fine with the teacher doing it. He really is crazy opinionated like that. For instance, when he wants to watch Thomas on my iPhone through the YouTube app, I can't CHOOSE a video from the search result, he has to actually look at them and pick the one he wants or he throws a fit. Sigh.

On Saturday my in-laws came over. Wow, what a difference some professional tools make (Will's dad has a contracting business). He had a power drill that I absolutely fell in love with - it kicked our drill's butt. Seriously. It made such a difference in the amount of effort it took to unscrew the million screws we did. It was really hard work but we plowed through while Will's mom watched Tyler. Unfortunately, Tyler didn't like being away from us, so she kept a watchful eye on him as he watched us. Double unfortunately, he got a splinter from a fall (was REALLY not happy about Will pulling it out with a tweezer) AND also a scrape on his scalp! Ack! Afterwards, Tyler gave his Yeh-Yeh a much needed back massage. :)

Here's Tyler with his Nai-Nai. It was good that they had some one on one time- it gave her a chance to let him warm up to her. Tyler usually only has Yeh-Yeh on his mind when they visit. He is a little crazy happy when it comes to his grandfather.

On Sunday my parents came by with my grandmother. We finished pulling out the remaining support beams and moved all the wood to the side of the house. There are some wooden posts pounded vertically into the ground that we'll have to work on some other time, but YAY anyway. We got my dad a framed family photo from the house boat trip we all went on last Summer (10 adults, 4 kids on 1 boat!). He loved it. Here's a photo of my parents with the frame and the card. (My dad loves to fish, and the card has a grandfather dog and a baby dog with fishing hats. heehee).

Tyler was really great with my mom that morning as we worked in the yard. She took him for a spin around the block in his bike and then in his push-car while he picked flowers along the way. Awww. By the time they made their second round, he had fallen asleep so we got to have a quiet lunch - yippee! Here's Tyler with my parents and grandmother.

We were pretty beat from all the labor but that's no excuse to Tyler. We blew bubbles in the yard aftewards. It was so funny - Will would blow them in Tyler's face and he would run screaming and laughing... and then come back and wait for more.

Tyler's getting good at blowing bubbles too!

We headed to BJs later in the afternoon. We actually came here last year and got a free BJs pint glass that said Father's Day 2008. They were running the same promotion this year so we got it again with 2009. Maybe it'll be a tradition - who knows? How sentimental eh? Here's Tyler coloring seriously as we waited for our pizookie.
Happy Ba-Ba Day Will!
Afterwards we headed to one of our favorite parks in Northpark (totally a private park but...). I didn't realize what great upper body strength Tyler has - he can totally support his own weight for periods of time. He loved sliding across the zipline - thrill-seeker!
Here's a video of them:

Here's another video of Tyler showing off his buff arms. :)

Here's Will and Tyler checking out the big stone bunnies. We had barely parked when Tyler started shouting 'money! bunny!' and went running for them as fast as he could. And Yes, his shirt does say I love Daddy in Chinese. He actually wore that shirt last Father's Day (check the archive link on the right) - thank goodness that I'm cheap and I buy his clothes super big. :)

Surprise! Tyler can do math!... not.
Crawling through a tunnel.
Our little King.
Girl picture of the week!
Oh, and had to throw this one in so I wouldn't forget. I got to tour the Sea Launch last week - it's a Boeing company - think of an oil rig that travels out to the equator and launches rockets with satellites! It was SO cool, we got to go on the launch pad AND the command ship!
Whew, what a week this has been. Tyler's night terrors seem to have gotten a little better but are still keeping us up at night. Last night he was crying out being itchy, and the night before I somehow woke up in the morning in his bed and had no recollection of getting there! The worst thing though, was a few nights where he insisted on having a 'snack' in the middle of the night. I'm talking 1am or so. Sigh. We tried to resist as much as we could, but eventually gave in after a bloody surprise (totally freaked me out! Tyler had this crazy double nostril nosebleed). We even took him to the pediatrician's the next day because he had another one that night (soaked a circle into our mattress) and a bad one at school! Yikes! We'll need to keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't take too long to clot next time.

I think that's it. After this post tonight, I WILL send out the evite for Tyler's birthday. I have seriously been lagging. Now that I wrote it, I must do it! Anyone want to volunteer to be our professional photographer for Tyler's birthday event? :) Usually my brother would do it but he's out of town that weekend. :(

Have a good week everyone! (especially to my cousin Stephanie who I recently found out is engaged! Congrats!)