Pre-Christmas week - Santa, grandparents, trains and drums! (Week 128)

Just a few more days until Christmas is upon us - yay!  We've been getting into the Christmas spirit around here - lots of talk of Santa Claus and presents!  I've been telling Tyler lately that Santa likes little boys that listen and use the potty.  Tonight was an exciting moment though - Tyler used his potty STANDING up!  It was awesome!  A couple boys at his school already do this and I would mention this to Tyler but he was never interested.  Over the weekend one morning, he was excited to try (so were we!), but when he stood there all aimed - we kept getting big farts from him!  It was pretty hilarious!  Today though, he stood in front of his little potty and insisted on bending his knees/crouching - and it resulted in a clean pee! whoohoo!  Only parents can be so excited about something so silly huh! Go Tyler!

This weekend was quite exhausting and fun-filled.  We headed over to my inlaws' place on Saturday morning.  Usually we go there, hang out, each lunch, and then head back by noon so that Tyler naps his mid-day nap on the drive home.  Totally didn't happen this time.  He was having such a great time with grandma/grandpa that we ended up staying until past 4pm.  What WERE we thinking!  Everything was peaches until Tyler insisted on watching Thomas on the computer (via YouTube) and wouldn't leave.  Ugh. Huge meltdown.  After finally getting him calm (after kicking and screaming) into the car, we turned on his lullaby music (which we always put on when we're ready for him to nap) and he angrily declared that "I no want sleeping.  I want TALKING!!".  Sigh.  He was even grumpy after the hour+ (traffic delayed ride) nap that he took.  We learned our lesson.

But look how cute and snuggly he was with his grandparents!  He's giving them their Christmas present early - a GPS navigation!  Tyler is such a techy huh. 

And here's one with both grandparents.  Super sweet Tyler = very happy grandparents!  Tyler was running around giving kisses left and right, dancing to music, and showing them his toy trains.  Yay Tyler!

I thought this picture below was pretty funny.  Tyler likes to play on their situp bench.  Here's grandma doing a situp and Tyler holding her feet and telling her to do another one!  Trainer Tyler!  Give me another one!

Here's a short video of Tyler playing ball with grandpa.  He is STILL working on catching and throwing. :)  Amazingly, it was this ball that Grandpa gave Tyler in the car that finally calmed him down from his meltdown.  We'll be sure to keep it handy!

Back up one day, Friday night we headed over to my friend Nancy's place for dinner in Orange.  Gasp!  What? Out for dinner in the evening somewhere not super close?  Yes.  Even I am surprised and impressed with us.  It's a VERY rare occasion that we do this.  Factoring in Friday traffic, we didn't get to Nancy's place until close to 630-7pm.  Double gasp!  Baby steps - we are learning to be more flexible with kids - and the night was a lot of fun!  Tyler was super stoked that we made our own pizzas for dinner - he LOVES everything pizza - he loves eating it and pretending to make it for Will at Pretend City and at playgrounds.  Now he finally got his chance to make real ones! 

Yum, here he is putting chicken sausages on his pizza.

Finished product!  I am totally going to do this at home every once in a while - Tyler really enjoyed it and it was easy to do. 

Here's a video of Tyler making his pizza.  Super cute and fun!

Tyler did really well hanging out with all the grown ups.  He brought his trains and (as always) they kept him occupied.  I still find it amazing that he knows all the names of his Thomas and Friends trains.  We're thinking of not giving him anymore for Christmas since he insists on lugging them everywhere with him!

Tyler was SO excited to see Auntie Trina!  She is the Tyler Whisperer - all night he wanted to sit with her and play with her and talk to her and hug her and kiss her!

Here's a picture in front of Nancy's Christmas tree.  No hands on my tummy so the black is hiding how huge I'm getting! I'm suffering from house envy - their home was just completed in October! It's so modern and clutter-free.  Love it!

Wouldn't this picture have made a great Christmas card? :)

Tyler also made a new friend that night - Greg!  It was cool watching them hang out because a lot of times guys in Greg's age range are not so into playing with little kids!  Tyler liked watching his Thomas DVDs with him.

At the end of the night, Tyler discovered Rock Band upstairs!  Will got a quick clip of Tyler playing the drums.  The good thing about this - Tyler couldn't possibly hit it as hard as I'm sure Nancy's husband Wei does!  Whew - no worrying about breaking it!

Sunday we headed to Fairview Park in Costa Mesa.  This was the same park that we went last month - they have free model train rides the 3rd weekend of each month.  The special thing about this month? Santa was visiting!  We headed out bright and early (after a yummy breakfast at our old favorite breakfast joint - Omelette Parlor) to ride the trains and see Santa.  However, Tyler decided last minute (like right when it was our turn) that he didn't want to talk to Santa.  Argh!  He was so great last weekend with the Nordstrom Santa!  All our coaxing didn't help and we decided to leave (you have to take a train back to the station).  Tyler had a mini meltdown (not sure about what) and on the train ride back to the station I think he realized that his behavior was unacceptable and told me that he was ready to listen again.  Whew.  Second time around with Santa - yay no problems!  I think he just wanted to make sure he was still getting Thomas the Train presents for Christmas... :) You can't tell in this picture, but they're sitting in front of the model trains.

It was an exhausting morning though - either that or I'm just getting much more easily tired!  In the evening we headed up to Irvine Park Railroad to ride a much larger train and see Santa.  We did this 2 years ago when Tyler was barely 6 months and thought it was really fun.  We skipped it last year (bad experience with a mall Santa so I knew Tyler would have none of it!) but figured we'd try again this year.  We met up with our friends the Garners.  The place was packed and lit up.

Here's Tyler and Kaden, the carolers!  Cute!

Unfortunately, they were sold out of tickets!  Ack!  2 years ago, when we went, you just bought tickets and waited in line.  Now it seems you have to buy tickets for a certain hour increment (5-6pm, 6-7pm, etc).  When we got there, both the 5-6pm and 6-7pm time frames were sold out, and we knew there was no way we could keep the boys meltdown free until 7pm!  Sigh.  So we decided the Santa Bounce House would have to do...

Here's Tyler in the bounce house!  Super fun!  They let a handful of kids go in at a time for 15 minute increments.  However, the kid working the bounce house let in a much older child - maybe like 5 - in with the group of 2-3 year olds.  The 5 year old was CRAZY bouncing around all over the place and Jennifer and I watched him with unease.  Then he bounced over to Tyler and DELIBERATELY knocked him over.  GASP.  O M G.  Like completely hands out knocked over my little Tyler.  Needless to say I became one of those moms.  Tyler is on his butt yelling "I don't like it!!!!!" to the kid, Jennifer is yelling at the kid, and I'm at the entrance yelling at the entrance teenager to get that bad kid out NOW.  Yikes!  The teenager called the (devil) kid over and told him he needed to be more careful - one more incident and he would have to come out.  Hmph - totally didn't satisfy me but hmph.  You can bet Jennifer and I were watching that kid with eagle eyes and giving him not-so-nice looks.  Hmph!  Meanwhile Tyler had already forgotten and was bouncing around again with his buddy Kaden.  Like, I do expect tumbling into each other and stuff in a bounce house - but this kid was much bigger than the other kids - was bouncing much harder and was actively running into them on purpose.  Totally not acceptable.

Last picture of the night - Tyler and Kaden washing their hands and discovering the blow dryer.  They found it extremely hilarious to have it blow on their heads!

Hope everyone has a great Christmas!