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!!