Week 99 - Tyler gets a big boy bed and graduates from the Toddler Room!

Happy Toddler Graduation! This was a fun week, Tyler officially graduated from his Toddler room! Over the next few months, him and his toddler room friends will be transitioning into the next class - Pre-1! Yikes! This is a big deal, because now they're going to be sharing their playground with the big kids - up to 5/6 year olds! They're now going to be little fish in the big sea, whereas before they were, eh, the only fish in their little pond. :)

Ok, so it wasn't really a 'graduation' but more of an Ice Cream Social for all the kids and their parents. Nevertheless, it was very cute and fun. Here's a picture of all the kids that day. Tyler had JUST woken up from his nap when it started (3pm, he takes normal 3 hr naps at school!) and was groggy and wouldn't sit at the table... unless I sat with him! ha!
Yummy, ice cream with lots of toppings! Not surprisingly, Tyler did NOT like ice cream (even though he loves frozen yogurt). I thought he'd at least like the strawberries, but one of the teachers told us that he had choked on a big one (that we had packed for his lunch) earlier. Sigh. That sounds like Tyler - he loves strawberries so much that he just jams them in his mouth! The teacher said it had kind of scared him, which was maybe why he wasn't interested in any that afternoon. The one bite of ice cream I fed him he spit out..all over his clothes!

I am really going to miss Tyler's teachers! Two of his teachers had even moved over from the infant room, and we've really gotten to know all of them. Here's Tyler with one of his teachers Daniela. They love the kids and the kids love them - it's cute, they know all of their personalities and have cute nicknames for them.

Tyler and his bff Vincent! Thank goodness Vincent is not in the first wave moving over to Pre-1, but will be moving over in July. Still too soon for Tyler though, who won't be moving over until August. He's going to miss Vincent!

We hung around, played with the kids and chatted with the other parents for a bit. Tyler loves their little play cottage windows! He's going to be one of the big boys now left in the toddler room, especially with kids from the infant room moving over too!

Tyler is such a copy cat! Here's Vincent standing on his dad Pat's shoulders. As soon as Tyler saw that, he came over to me with his hands up, waiting to get picked up. Yikes! That's me pointing at Will and telling him to go to daddy to do it. :)

Good thing for dads! I'll let Tyler sit on my shoulders (still very heavy) but I didn't think it'd be very safe for him to be standing on my shoulders! Tyler didn't really get the hang of it yet though, he kept his knees bent so Will had to do all the work in holding him up!

There are cages with bunnies in the lobby that Tyler likes to say 'bye bunny!' when we pass through. That day they were grazing in the garden area so we stopped by to say hi. There were even baby bunnies at one point earlier in the year!

Tyler loves his music! Here's a video of Tyler playing his trumpet (thanks Grace for the toy!). I have no idea how he knows to move it around up and down like a real trumpet player! It's funny, when he hears a certain song, he scrambles to get up and play or dance. :)

This past weekend Kareen came to visit. Yay! Tyler loves his 'er-yi' (2nd aunt)! He always takes a little bit to warm up but afterwards is super friendly and silly. They were playing together all Friday night and it was all fun.. until Tyler bit Kareen! I'm talking bite-marks! He did say sorry and gave her a kiss though afterwards. Grrr- Tyler! I don't know why he's been so bite-ish lately, he'll bite anything!

Here's a video of Tyler and Kareen in the car listening to the Wicked soundtrack. Tyler loves to sing, and we can actually tell when he's singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and the ABCs (ok, same tune, but still!). He also likes itsy bitsy spider. :)

Saturday morning we headed out to the Irvine Rummage Sale. I was very excited - it's basically a giant garage sale that the city holds at a nearby park. Lots of junk. I was on the lookout for a tricycle and a train table, but wasn't successful. :( Here's Tyler checking out the goods...

And here's the loot we scored! 2 sets of slides ($7 together) and a climber ($20)! I know, the climber seems awfully expensive compared to the deal we got on the slides but that climber is like $130 new!

Some other goodies. A rocking elephant that I've always wanted to get Tyler but was too cute to pass up ($15), a little wooden rocking chair ($5), an elephant/giraffe riding stick that plays animal sounds ($3), building blocks ($5), and rain boots ($1.50)! Ok, so I didn't get a train table or a tricycle, but I think we made out pretty nicely. :)

Afterwards we headed out to Pasadena for dinner with the family. We never drive that far! Tyler was very happy to see his grandfather though! Poor grandpa had hurt his back and couldn't really pick up Tyler, but Tyler insisted on playing with him!

We had a yummy multi-course Chinese meal, delicious! Tyler tried some smoked duck too! He doesn't really eat new things unless I bribe him though...sigh. He does love his fruit though! Here he is eating an orange slice.

Here's a funny video from that night. Andy and his dad had made a bridge with their arms and Tyler was hesitant to walk through. Tyler motions Kareen to walk through--safe! And then Andy's mom goes through as well--safe! Hmm... seems safe enough, right? Tyler decides to head on through and ... proceed to get CAUGHT! haha! My favorite part is after getting caught, he slowly moves away by backing up towards the wall behind him. heehee.

Group picture! This is our 'extended' family. It's myself/Will/Tyler, Will's parents, Kareen/Andy, Andy's parents, and my brother Lindon/Michelle with my parents. It's nice that we all get together. :) My inlaws are actually going on a Russian cruise with my parents in August - lucky them!

On Sunday we headed back over to my parents place. I think I've mentioned many times that they have a ton of fruit trees. My (and Kareen's) favorite are the Thai Guavas. O M G. I love them. They usually bear fruit later on in the year but for some reason there were a handful now! Whoohoo! We always fight over them they're so delicious. Here's Tyler checking one out that we had just picked. He saw Andy toss one up in the air (and catch it of course) and immediately started throwing them up (without catching them). Kareen and I tried to stop him to save our precious guavas!

Here's Tyler and uncle Andy drawing on the dry erase board at my parents' place. He loves to draw - but we never let him use markers! I was in the next room and I'd hear Andy say something like, 'please don't get the marker on my clothes!' Haha!

Oops, random picture that made it in - a mulberry from my parents' mulberry tree! How weird is this! We grew up eating mulberries (and raised silk worms too!) but I have never seen one so weird. When my mom first showed me I screamed and jumped back, I seriously thought it was a giant worm or something. Haha. It was quite tasty though!

Ok, back to Tyler. :) Here's Tyler and Uncle Andy at the Chinese restaurant where we had lunch. Tyler was so excited to see the fish and the lobsters. I'm always surprised when he can tell the difference between a lobster and a crab!

We brought along Tyler's new (new to us anyway) bag of blocks and Tyler had a fun time building things. These are like beginner legos! Kareen got this picture, Tyler is so happy playing with them!

Will and Andy then would build these tall structures of the blocks, and Tyler would run in and knock the whole thing down. No joke, they did this like 5 times and Tyler never got tired of it! He is such a destructor!

Side note: Will and I squeezed in a trip to Knotts Berry Farm this past week too! Wow, it's been like ages since we've gone - and I think it's been like almost 10 years since I've really even been on a roller coaster or something. I feel old, the first rollercoaster REALLY freaked me out! It was good though, we went through the entire amusement park pretty much in 2-3 hours. It was some good mommy/daddy time. :) Since we're so cheap, here are some shots of us on the ride. heehee. This one was called the Accelerator - kind of like Superman at Magic Mountain in that it's super fast in the beginning.

This was the last ride we went on - Silver Bullet. I think this was my favorite one - lots of loops but no giant drops!

And we bumped into Snoopy too! (Funny part, we were walking down an alley and there was a shack that was the 'jail' and Will peeked through the window and there was a manequin inside the building. We heard a voice say something like 'hey there' and Will said 'hey', and the voice said 'how are you doing' or something. We totally thought it was canned/animatronic response, but then the voice said 'that's a big bag your wife's got on her, could fit a lot of stuff!' and I looked down and realized he was talking about me! For some reason, it freaked me out, and we were wondering where the video camera was or something! I ran away. (Yes, I'm a chicken.)

Funnel cake! omg I don't even know how many calories are in this thing, but can you really go to Knott's and not get one? I was kind of bummed we didn't get ice cream and whipped cream, heehee. Tip: only the place inside the park makes them fresh, whereas the place near the entrance uses frozen ones.

This past week we had Tyler's bff Vincent over one night also! It was quite amazing, I was a little worried since Memorial Day they were pretty crazy together. But that night they were GREAT! They were calm during dinner and shared toys afterwards! No meltdowns at all! Here they are washing their hands before dinner.

Here's a video of the boys in the car ride home from school. It starts out with Tyler holding ALL of the stuffed animals in the back of the car. Amazingly, he's willing to share with Vincent! At one point, Vincent even gives him back one monkey and points at the other monkey, and Tyler knew to give him the other monkey! Yay - progress!

Ooh, I got this monkey neck pillow for Tyler. I always see his neck all crooked when he falls asleep in the car and thought this would help - and it totally did! How cute is that!

Big news this week - we finally got Tyler's big-boy bed frame! We've had Tyler sleeping on the twin mattress on the floor lately (kind of a transition for him to a bed instead of a crib). When he falls asleep, we'll take him off the matress and put him back in his crib. One night this week though, he woke up in the middle of the night, and managed to jump/climb/fall out! We heard a big Thump! It totally freaked me out, poor Tyler was crying on the floor. He was fine, I wasn't. Perfect timing since the bed was already on order and we put it together on Sunday. Last night was his first night in the bed all night, but we kind of cheated because he woke up around 2am and I crawled in with him. But yesterday was a long day for him, so I figured we'd ease him into it. No freebies tonight!

Arrrrgh! I picked up this pirate hat for a dollar at Target. It's so cute! By the time Tyler was done playing with it though, he had bitten off one of the ends. Sigh.

Lastly, a video of Tyler playing with his ball popper. I swear, that toy has been his favorite even before he was 1! Definitely a hit! Favorite part? Him laughing so hard he falls over on his back after getting knocked in the face by a ball at the end. :)

Have a good week everyone!