happy Mother's Day! + First airplane ride! (44 weeks)

Happy Mother's Day everyone! It's my first official Mother' s Day - and even though it was spent on a plane, Will still got me some beautiful tulips and YogurtLand! I'm hoping next weekend I'll get a chance to sleep in or something. :) I think Tyler likes tulips too! - he was quick to pull off a bulb - sniff sniff. :(What a week - we traveled to Houston to visit my older sister Grace and were there for 4 days - I can't remember the last time Will/I traveled somewhere for so many nights - I literally have no recollection. It worked out well since Grace had the week off and she has so much baby gear that we didn't have to pack much. I was stoked - I was really looking forward to a break from work!

Here's Tyler at LAX - I was super nervous about traveling with Tyler for the first time - horror stories from coworkers and everything! We ended up flying out of LAX instead of John Wayne since SNA didn't offer any direct flights, and we didn't want to have to deal with catching a connecting flight. We got to the gate with lots of time to spare, which was great! Even with Southwest's new boarding policy (families aren't allowed to board first anymore), we were able to board pretty early since we checked in literally 24 hours before our flight. We brought our carseat also so took up 3 seats (who'd want to sit in the same row as a baby anyway!) This photo is dark but if you look - Tyler is smiling! Yay planes!Improved/touched-up image by Uncle Tony! Thanks!
We packed a ton of stuff to take on the plane with us - lots of snacks and toys for Tyler. Tyler actually was really well behaved - thank goodness! He was in a good mood on the flight out and nursed during takeoff and landing. The flight attendants LOVED him! They would come by and smile and giggle with him, and say how they wanted to take him home with them. They even gave us a 'first flight' certificate for Tyler, signed by all the flight attendants and the pilots! Yay - Tyler's first flight went really smooth!
So we had made the not-so-smart decision to not check in our luggage. It just never crossed our mind to do so, since we never do! So imagine this - 2 pieces of luggage, an umbrella stroller, a carseat, a big diaper bag and a camera bag. It was NOT fun lugging all that around. Once we got to Houston, I was really feeling how heavy everything was and thank goodness an airport person saw us and gave us a ride! Whoohoo! I was SO happy! Tyler was a ham (as usual) and just kept smiling at the lady - she loved it also! Here's a photo of us on the little shuttle.Grace picked us up and we filled up her minivan. 4 carseats - crazy! Later on we actually added a middle seat in the middle row - so this minivan actually seats 8! Will spent most of the time between Grace's 2 older kids (Annie - 3 and Adam - 2). Tyler was forward facing most of the time - gasp! - but he was really not liking rear facing. He REALLY liked watching the DVD player though...we should really think about getting one of those installed on our CX9.
Tyler took his baths with his cousin Ryan! Aww, it was so cute. Look how chunky Tyler is! I learned some good techniques for quicker bathing, and some good bath products to buy as well!
Grace's house is HUGE (it's in Houston), brand new and awesome! Plus they have so many toys and books. Tyler's favorite thing to do there at first was to pull all the books off one of the bookshelves. Seriously! He'd pull them all out, we'd put them back and then he'd repeat the process. Look how happy he is!
Annie was so great with Tyler! She would play with him and Tyler loved it - he'd just smile and laugh. It was really cute to watch.We ate out a couple time (and had lots of boba). Here's Tyler at this yummy mexican restaurant - Berry Hill (doesn't sound Mexican!).
We also ate at this place called Japaneiro's - a fusin of Japanese and Brazilian food. Interesting combination huh - we had yucca and plantains - and so did Tyler! Tyler was busy most of the lunch smiling at the other patrons in the restaurant around us. .. so much that a lady from the table next to us actually asked if she could hold him and show him to her daughter who was at another table! Sometimes I wonder if this is just a phase, but he is just such a charmer with everyone. He LOVES to smile!So, one of the days we took Tyler out for a walk to help him take a nap (his schedule was a little wacky), and BOY was it hot. Seriously HOT. Grace's stroller had a temperature reading on it, and it started out at 84 degrees from the garage. Every few minutes I'd press the button and it would slowly rise: 84, 88, 92, 95, 99, 100, 103, 108, 110, 112... Geez! Up to 110 I thought it was entirely possible, but 112 I'm not sure. Plus there were no large trees for shade (it's a new community). MAN it was hot.
Here' s a closeup of Tyler - even he looked unhappy with the heat. He did eventually fall asleep though.
One of the things that we did there the first couple days was feed these crazy ducks/geese at a local lake. There were SO many different types of them, and they were super not afraid of people.
Tyler wanted to be fed too...There was even this mom duck that had 12 ducklings! They were sO cute and would follow her around in a line and then crowd up to get the bread we gave them. It was so cute!! Annie and Adam even tried to help Tyler learn how to walk (not successfully though... in time!)
Tyler's new favorite toy was this trumpet toy. This photo actually looks like he's about to play it!
A highlight of the trip was the trip to the Splashpark at their community. It was SO much fun. I can't even remember the last time I went swimming, and Tyler has only been in a 1 foot pool moving around. This park had a playground/slide in the water and water fountains to play in too! Tyler at first was a little iffy in his floating thing, but he quickly warmed up and LOVED it. He would squeal and laugh and jump. Even with the fountain areas, he'd crawl around to different ones and stick his hands in the spraying water. It was SO cute.


Here's a video of Tyler and Will going down the slide - you can see it better actually at the youtube site since there's an option to view it in higher quality. Anyway, if you look closely, Tyler is totally squealing and excited at the top of the slide! He LOVED it!


On our last day there we hit up the Houston Zoo. It was VERY humid and quite smelly. But still a nice visit to the zoo. Here's Grace with Annie/Adam and myself with Tyler.
Tyler got to ride a carousel for the first time! I later got on with him and found out that that wasn't allowed. Oops!
How cute is this meerkat!?
A photo of Tyler and his 3 cousins. He really enjoyed playing with them (and all of their toys!)
Doesn't Tyler seem like he actually knows how to play piano here?
The flight back was even better than the flight out! Tyler was super curious to look out the window as we were taking off, but then I nursed him right after and he slept for almost 2 hours! It was still pretty tiring holding him for that long though and my hand actually went numb. In the end, he never even sat in his carseat on the plane.
Even though we were super exhausted from a long day of traveling (we didn't get to our car until like 11am and we had been up since 3am), we stopped by Will's grandmother's place in Monterey Park to see some of his relatives. They were all very excited to see Tyler.
And lastly, his 44 week bear picture!