Tyler plays the violin! (week 97)

Hi everyone! wow this week sure is starting to heat up - blech - I am SO not a fan of the heat here. I can already see our power bill doubling in the coming summer months...did everyone feel that earthquake yesterday? funny how unphased we've become about them - I was in the bathroom, waited a second, and then jumped in the shower. :) Tyler didn't even notice in his sleep! Which reminds me - not sure if I mentioned last week - but Tyler has a big boy bed now! Ok, so it's just a mattress, (waiting for the bed to get delivered) but it's a big first step!

This past weekend we headed out to Huntingon Beach to scope out their annual Duck-a-thon. It's a charity event where you purchase rubber ducks, and then hope yours (among thousands) is among the first 50 that reach the shore once they dump them all off the pier. If you're in that lucky 50, you get some pretty awesome prizes!

We started out the morning by heading over to HB bright and early in the morning to have breakfast at the Sugar Shack on Main Street. We've been wanting to go there ever since we first heard of it few years back, but never got around to it. The plus side of having a toddler that wakes up super early? We can go to a breakfast place early and not have to wait! Yay! The food was ok, but strangely there wasn't anything really sugary on the menu. Not even waffles! Here's Will and Tyler on the patio - they ran out of high chairs (other families with the same idea as us!) and Tyler had to use a booster seat. He sure loved his fresh squeezed orange juice!

Not such a fan of the kid's meal. It was huge! He did eat some hash browns though.

Wow, the Main Street/Downtown area of Huntington Beach sure has changed since the last time I was there...maybe a couple years ago? There were new buildings up, even a whole new shopping center (the Strand, which had its grand opening that day). Here's a family photo of us on the pier. Good thing it was still overcast that early in the morning.
They had these giant bulldozers filled with little rubber duckies that were about to be dumped into the ocean. We didn't stay for that (Tyler's naptime was creeping up) but we did get a photo of Tyler with the 'duck-mobiles'.

They even had a Kid area with a bunch of bounce houses and activites especially for little kids. Our last bounce experience (Easter at Irvine) Tyler was so crazy about them - so we were really surprised when he was totally not feeling them this time. Argh! We had even bought him a $10 wrist band that gave him unlimited time to all of them! Grr. When I finally got him in one, he was content just sitting on my lap. That's Tyler for you - always keeps us guessing. We did get to decorate some rubber ducks though - that was fun, and messy!

Tyler only wanted to use the color blue, and only wanted to color the duck's heads - on both of them! We did get him to stick a furry green ball on the head though. I think we were supposed to go back and pick them up after they had dried ... pass!

Here's Tyler in front of the Pier Plaza sign - he looks so tiny! I'm glad we headed out there, even though HB is a little far for our tastes (I know how lame are we!). We did pay for it a bit though, Tyler fell asleep on the drive home, woke up when we got home and wouldn't continue his nap ( he usually doesn't even wake up). So his usual 1-2 hour nap was cut to about 40 min. Sigh. He was quite a cranky terror that night!

So, Tyler has been counting a lot more - although we're quite sure he's just mimicing us. He can get up to six or so, but there's always some incoherent number tossed in there. I don't mind. :) He's been really into reading books even more lately. At bedtime, he'll even pick the Chinese fairy tale for me to read - maybe it's because my Chinese reading totally puts him to sleep!

When he gets board of reading a book, he'll go 'book-boarding'. We don't really know where he picked it up, but he likes to put the book on my legs and then balance on them. Plus he only likes it if its kind of wobbly - totally cracks him up...

This weekend Tyler also got to meet an old friend of mommy's - Kim! Kim used to work at Boeing with me, and is now working at Yahoo! We haven't seen her since Tyler's baby shower - I can't believe time has gone by so fast! We had lunch at Stonefire Grill, and Tyler was actually pretty well behaved!
Anyone that's played with Tyler knows that he LOVES water. LOVES it. He'll scream 'WA-WA!!' anytime he sees a fountain (he's finally starting to say it correctly too, thank goodness) and loves water play when he's at school. So, Will and I thought it would be perfect to get a little inflatable pool for Tyler. And it's a really cool one too (on sale at Target of course) - it has a little slide as well as a dragon that sprays water. I was REALLY excited as we set it up during naptime this weekend, thinking how much fun Tyler was going to have playing in it. After Tyler woke up, we put him in his swim shirt/shorts and lathered on the sunscreen. He saw the pool outside and was excited to check it out ... but when we actually got outside - he had NO interest at all in getting in it. Argh! All he wanted to do was play with the dragon head that was spraying water out. I even got in, hoping to entice him, but no luck. Oh well. Maybe next weekend...

Here's a cute picture of Tyler playing ring-around-the-roses at school with his friends. It is SO cute to watch him playing with them!

Tyler always has so much fun at school! I always wish I could just stay there and watch him secretly - it's so fun the way the kids all interact. Here's a video Will got last week - our boy genius, spinning himself in circles until he becomes dizzy and falls down. The next Einsten! :)

This weekend we also showed Tyler his new violin. I didn't actually mean to show it to him (was showing a friend) and Tyler saw it and was hooked. I was pretty wary about it though, I had already pictured him smashing it into tiny pieces. But he was amazingly good with it! It was actually quite shocking. I showed him how to hold it and he LOVED it!

We even got him to pull out some (ouch on the ears) notes! For now, I think we'll stick to the piano though, much less breakable. :)

Our visit from our friends lead to a special treat for Tyler - playing foosball! I don't think Tyler's ever even see foosball actually being played - he just thought the table was some sort of fun obstacle course to walk across. He was very serious and excitedly watching the ball and moving his one stick. :)

Look at that concentration! His favorite part? Putting the ball through the hole to start each new round - he did it really well!

Here's Tyler with our friend Mariam! I am so happy that he's getting better at letting people hold him. I'm always like 'Yes!' to myself when this happens - it means I get a break. :)

Superman Tyler. He was running around quite crazily with this towel on his head, and he'd also hold the side parts of the towel and 'flap' his wings. :)

Go Super Tyler!

A special treat for Will and I this week - Tyler's school had a Parent's Night (aka date night) and we got to have dinner with friends! A quiet dinner, without me telling Tyler every other second to be quiet, or not throw his fork, or don't spill the water, or, or, or,... Our destination - my favorite prime rib place - Five Crowns! Here's our weekly girl picture also!

I'll end this post with a video of Tyler playing his little toy piano. You MUST watch it- it's super cute! Tyler can sing and play the piano at the same time. Lately he's been singing 'mommmyy mommmy' . :)

Have a good week everyone!