Happy 100 week! Tyler goes to a birthday party!

Happy 100th Week Tyler! Not sure if this really is a momentous occasion or not, but still, yay - 100 weeks! :) Tyler is rapidly approaching his second birthday, and every day Will and I giggle about the silly things he does. That really is the best adjective for Tyler: Silly! He's quite a happy kid, always cracking up and laughing. I wonder if he'll be the class clown or something... as long as he's the smart class clown I guess? hah!

This past week we embarked on a massive do-it-yourself project - tearing out the deck! Many of you may be familiar with our wooden deck, with it's multi-levels and unfinished surface - perfect for splinters and scrapes for an active toddler! I had been wanting it out for a while, especially with Summer approaching, and was so excited to get started. Little did I know how much work it was going to be - Will and I put in a couple hours this weekend and were exhausted! Keep in mind, we're really only 1.5 people because one of us is always keeping an eye on Tyler. To be fair though, Tyler was GREAT! For a while he would collect all the million of screws I was getting out of the wood and put them in a plastic bag. (After a while, he'd say 'No!' when I asked him too - even he has a limit). Then he'd sit on a seat to the side and cheer Will on, yelling 'Go Ba-Ba! Go Ba-Ba!' That was super cute. :) Who knows when we'll finish - but I'm already envisioning Tyler running around happily (and safely!) when we're done. Here's Will at work with his little cheerleader.
Here's where we're at as of today. The most annoying part are the tons of screws. Each board has 6 screws, and, by my calculation, there are 40 boards in a row with at 6 rows, and this isn't even counting all the steps! That makes 240 rows x 6 screws = a zillion screws to get out! The worst part is that the screws are so old that some are totally stripped and we end up having to use a crowbar to get the board out. And then there's the surprise underneath - ANOTHER set of boards! sob sob.

It's been a full week since Tyler started on his big boy bed and things have gotten (a little bit) better. What started out as 2-3x a night of Tyler waking up was only down to 1 last night! Yay! I still did end up falling asleep with him though, so we've got a lot of work to do. Will and I discussed and discussed what the best approach was, and thought we'd try something out Friday night. The result? E P I C F A I L . seriously. Friday night, Tyler insisted that BOTH of us sleep on the bed with him. That will NEVER happen again!!

So Tyler's friends are slowly leaving him at school as they transition to the next classroom. Tyler actually asked Will to use the little kid potty at school! I think there are kids in his class (Tyler included?) that ask from time to time, but it was cute having him go to the bathroom on one of their mini toilets! I can't wait until Tyler's potty trained, he gets the idea, but I figure he'll let us know when he's ready.

Here's Tyler with his bff Vincent. They have matching jackets - how cute are they!

Vincent is the sweetest boy, when we pick up Tyler, he'll always come running for a hug. :) How fun would it be if we had had twin boys? hah! .. pretty exhausting I bet!

I was at PetCo the other day and happened to look through their clearance bin while Will was making a purchase. Guess what I found? Is this considered cruel and unusual punishment? Haha. This cute little arrow headband for dogs - $1 - fit Tyler perfectly! hahahaha! I swear he liked it, he kept asking me to pick him up so he could look at himself in the mirror. :) (check out the drool on Tyler...sigh...)

Sunday we were brave and headed to Manhattan Beach in LA. Gasp. Seriously. Anyone who knows us is probably gasping also. We really just stay in our little part of the OC - we rarely leave! It was quite a beautiful day and we thought we would be adventurous and attend a friend's birthday party! It actually wasn't that far, and Tyler napped most of the way anyway. Happy First Birthday to Alexis! Here she is with her parents (our friends) Olivia and Chinson!

We've been throwing some ideas out for Tyler's birthday, and this birthday party really helped me make up my mind - we're totally having a park birthday party! We were going back and forth for a while... A Kid's Gym? An inflatable party place? At our place? Some place else? Now it's time to start planning! We're hoping to send the Evite out by the end of the week - so stay tuned! Here we are with Olivia and Alexis. Tyler is so big compared to her!

The whole time at the park Tyler was distracted by this specific seagull. It was like this seagull was taunting him to follow him. Tyler was super excited to see a bird that big that wouldn't fly away - it'd just scurry away as Tyler ran after him. It was hilarious.

Here's Tyler chilling in a little ball pit they had set up. I was afraid he was going to be a bully since he was one of the bigger kids in there, but he did fine. Not sure why he's so into sticking his tongue out lately though.

Check out my belly girls! Tyler loves his belly. At bathtime, after we take off his shirt, he'll look at his belly and slap it a couple times and laugh. It's so funny!

Back to Tyler's nemesis. This bird would let Tyler chase him all around the park! At one point, Tyler fell, and the bird actually stopped, looked at Tyler, and waited for him to get up and start chasing him again. Seriously, the bird was getting his kicks playing with Tyler!

Dang, I didn't realize how huge seagulls were! We found out later that this seagull was quite the menace, and had been scoping out the party site. Chinson said it would swing by and just grab anything and take off! We probably didn't help the cause by giving it some bread...

I can't remember what was going on here, but Tyler got quite solemn after he got his juice box. Not sure if this was after the bird flew off or not. Tyler had a lot of juice that day - which is just different for him because we rarely give him juice. Lately though, with his, um, softer BMs, we've been offering it more instead of milk. Gross huh!

Ball pit! Oh my, how Tyler has grown!

Tyler was all over our friend Jason and his bubbles. He seriously loves bubbles. Maybe I can get, like, a bubble artist or something for his birthday...

I threw this picture in because I thought it was funny. Thank goodness for Tyler being old enough to change his diapers standing up, and our SUV having enough room in the back to do it! Spread'em Tyler!

Our friends were nice enough to let us take a bunch of balloons home, and Tyler was THRILLED! I don't even know how they fit in the car, but he would look at them and start singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (those pink ones had stars on them). After we got home that night, and today too, he'd grab the balloons and use them to bump into us and bounce back. He thought it was hilarious.

Still feeling adventurous, we stopped by this Orange County Super Pet Adoption event they were holding down here in Irvine. We figured it'd be fun for Tyler to see some animals, of course no way we were going to adopt any! Here we are in front of this giant cat in the entrance.

There were so many dogs and cats and animals there! Having Mojo is already a lot of work with having a kid, I know we're not going to be getting any new pets for quite a while. Tyler enjoyed looking at all the animals, and I especially got a kick out of the chickens they had there that were super feathery. Here's Tyler playing with a little super cute puppy!These blocks we got last week - who knew they were so fun. We spent almost an hour today just stacking them up, knocking them down and stacking them up again. I can be quite picky about the structure and color pattern, but after a while I gave up because Tyler kept stealing pieces from my building! Hah!

And lastly, the girls picture of the week!

Have a good week everyone!