Sweet Chauncey

We've always said that our dog, Chauncey has a select few in his circle of trust but once you're in, he is the BEST. It looks like he's let little Ty-Guy in to his elite pack. 

Yesterday, I walked into the playroom to find this:

I quickly grabbed my camera and caught a few more interactions between the two.

I had to remind Chauncey to be gentle but Tyler didn't seem to mind the nuzzling from his big-dog friend.

This is my favorite.

Blogging is Hard When You Aren't Sleeping

Gosh. It's been a while since I last blogged.
Little man Ty-Guy still prefers a visit from mommy at least twice a night so I am a slave to an early bedtime which majorly cuts into my blogging time. Any little free time that I do have goes to Thriving Home blogs so this little blog gets the leftovers.

My apologies.

Where to start?

Here is a cliff notes version of our life right now:

• Adelyn is two. She is a chatterbug. Talk talk talk all day every day. 
• She learned how to swim this week (with assistance from a little floaty strapped to her). Regardless, she still kicks and paddles around the water like a little fish. I love that our child loves the water already. 
• She just spent almost a week down at "Nanakuk." Austin and I were there the first 4 days with her and left her down there to hang out with Aunt Nice and Uncle Pete for two more days. 
• Tyler is such a smiler. I LOVE it. He coos and grins with the best of them. I'm pretty sure he is going to be an extrovert. 
• Our neighbor's house caught of fire a few nights ago. Turns out it was likely arson. We also found out there has been some stolen dogs in our neighborhood as well as a break-in a few blocks away. Austin and I have beefed up security at our homestead by adding a fake ADT sign in our window as well as a "Beware of Dog" sign on our fence. Our timeline of finding a new house has possibly been moved up a bit. 
• Austin and I are currently in a friendly competition of not eating desserts for a week. If one of us caves, the other gets to choose the next three movies we watch. We are considering changing the competition to see who can go the longest. We love our desserts around here so it's been hard on both of us. 
• We have gone blueberry picking twice. Adelyn doesn't seem to mind if the berries aren't blue. :)
• Adelyn got sick two weeks ago. She turns into a major cuddle bug when she is sick. Poor thing. It took almost four days before she finally kicked the bug. 
• Nana introduced Adelyn to ice cream cones. Now she wants one with every meal. Thanks, Nana.
• We spent the fourth of July with some great friends at a really nice house in Rocheport. Event though a random rain storm blew in, we had a good time. 

I think that wraps up things for now. Here are a few random pictures from the past few weeks. 

Ta-ta-ta-TWO!

Well, it's official. We have a two year old!
On June 9th, our little lady turned into a two year old. Her birthday was a busy day filled with Crossing Kids and a birthday party with the grandparents that afternoon. Her birthday party with her little buddies is coming up this weekend.

Adelyn is the only grandchild on both sides of the family so you can imagine that she was not short of any gifts or attention.

Adelyn's current fascination is with animals. She talks about animals all day long. She wants to carry her animals everywhere with her. We use them as bribery to get her to eat, get in her car seat, go outside, take a bath, you name it. If her animals are doing it, she will too. So as you can imagine, she got lots of animal toys for her birthday.

 She also got her own little vacuum to play with. She likes how it makes a similar noise to the real thing but not as loud and scary.

She also got a playhouse, slide, and tricycle from her grandparents. 

Her birthday lunch consisted of ribs made by great-grandpa, garden salad, Panera bread, baked beans, pineapple, watermelon, and chips. YUM!

Of course we had some cake to celebrate as well!

 She didn't quite get the concept of blowing out the candles. Daddy had to help out with that part a bit.

When we told her to take a bite of her cake, she went face first into it. I wasn't too surprised but the scene delighted the grandparents and great-grandparents. 

One of the first things she did with some of her new animals was line them up to look out the window.  This is pretty much a daily routine around our house. 

 Little Ty-Guy snoozed through most of the birthday party but Adelyn didn't mind. More attention for her! He found a cozy home in the arms of grandma.

Two year old Adelyn has been pretty fun. Here are a few things I probably won't remember about my two year old in a few years:

• She loves to watch "Dona" (Dora) in the afternoon. Occasionally accompanied by an Elmo's World. 
• She goes to bed at 7:30 and gets up between 6 and 6:30 usually. She typically takes an 1.5 nap in the afternoon around 1. 
• She has recently learned the phrase and how to use the word "Mine!"
• She loves to give Tyler his pacifier and talks to him in her baby voice.
• She also loves to say "Mommy." She probably said it over 75 times before I came and got her out of her crib this morning. 
• She wants to do everything by herself. "No help," is often the phrase we hear. 
• Her favorite foods: blueberries, noodles, pizza, cheese, peas, pretzels, and of course cookies. 
• Her favorite playmate is Eleanor. They have such a sweet little friendship. She also loves to play with Brooks. 
• She loves to dance. She has a few particular songs that she requests and she sways side to side as it plays. 
• She loves the song, If You're Happy and You Know It as well as Old McDonald.
• She loves to have daddy throw her around on the bed. I don't like to watch because he throws her so dang high!
• Her names for family members are as follows:
• Nana (my mom, Janny)
• Gare (Gary)
• Grandpa P (Paul)
• Grandpa Wiz (Liz)
• Aunt Nice (Leslie)
• Pete (Peter)
• Whoa (Will)
• Her grumpy times usually fall around either lunch time, post nap, or around 5-6 at night. 
• She loves to play outside. Particularly in water. Especially in her animals are involved. 
• She knows she can test the boundaries when I'm nursing Tyler (SO frustrating for me!)
• She knows her alphabet already! I really don't think we can take much credit for this. She latched on to an alphabet puzzle and just learned her letters one by one. Now she can recognize them everywhere. It's crazy!

The past two years have brought some long days but short years. We are seeing a beautiful, confident, independent, young lady emerging from the fussy little baby we had in our arms two years ago. I'm thankful for her bursting personality, sociability, expressiveness, and lovable spirit. 

Happy Birthday sweet girl. We love you. 

"Mine"

I saw a new side of Adelyn today. We've seen hints of it on the horizon but now we are fully emerged in a new stage. Her favorite new word is, "Mine."

The "mine" is delivered sharply, loudly, and authoritatively.

Oh goodness.

While this had proven to harmless thus far, this "everything I see is mine" attitude did not go well with our little play date with her BFF, Eleanor.

From the moment Eleanor came onto Adelyn's turf, Adelyn declared war. It was very much a one-sided battle, however. Eleanor seemed to be confused by this new Adelyn she was encountering. Every toy Eleanor went to play with, Adelyn would intervene declaring possession.

The first 30 minutes that Eleanor was at our house, Adelyn was in timeout four times. Both Eleanor and I were wondering where the fun-loving Adelyn had gone and how a smeagol version replaced her so quickly.

After a lot of intervention and some quality time in time out, Adelyn finally chilled out and was able to play a little better. They had a great lunch together as you can see below.

They did great coloring together until Adelyn decided she had seen enough of her crayons get used and cut off Eleanor's supply in a rather creative way. I was laughing too hard at this gesture to reprimand it.

It's not fun to see the dark side of your child. You want to believe the best about them and not think of them as the trouble maker. It's easy to make excuses for her but the reality is we have a strong willed, slightly dramatic toddler with lots of opinions on how the world should work. I'm thankful for a daughter with personality and heart but am also learning that parenting this type of child is going to be a long, hard process. Lord help us when she turns 13!

Hopefully we can navigate these hostile waters quickly and be done with this stage before she loses too many friends. Hang in there Eleanor!

Memorial Day Weekend

We had such a great Memorial weekend. It started off with a day in St. Louis. We got the whole family on the road by 6:45 a.m. and headed straight to the zoo. Since Adelyn is totally in an animal loving stage we knew she would be in heaven. She loved it. 

She was particularly facinated by the choo-choo train. 

It was so fun to show her new animals and to see her reaction. We were almost as excited to see her reaction as she was to see the animals she had only seen in books or on TV.  The weather was perfect too. 

Tyler was a champ through the traveling. He slept the whole way there and pretty much snoozed through our time at the zoo. 

Here we got a close look at some "Elphonas" as Adelyn calls them.

A highlight of the day was a carousel ride with Grandma Liz. She of course chose to rise the "Roar" (lion). 

After the zoo we grabbed lunch with the grandparents (Paul and Liz) and headed to my friend Carly's house. It was such a great way to spend the afternoon and evening. Not only were there loads of kids around to play with but I got to hang out with some of my best friends. It is so refreshing to be around friends who have known you for years and years. There was no agenda except to simply hang out and catch up.

It was fun to see our kids interact and get to know each other. Little personalities were very apparent.

This picture just captures a glimpse of what the day looked like.

Ty-Guy just chillin.

Peyton and Reece. They are such sweet little girls.

 Goofy Dada and Adelyn eating pizza.

This picture was quite the task to capture. It might have involved some bribery of brownies in order to get them to sit still.

Here are the ladies of The Council. Sara was dearly missed at this gathering. 50% of the ladies in this picture are pregnant too. Can you guess who? Hint: Not me.

Oh how I love this picture! Pretty soon all the kiddos aren't going to fit into one picture.

Adelyn and Everett attempting to share the car. Yeah, that didn't go so well. At least Adelyn wasn't all that good at sharing. Guess that happens when she's been an only child for almost two years. You can see the territorial look in her eye.

Here is the Meyer clan. Soon to be a clan of four!

We returned home that night exhausted but happy with how fun the day was.
Uncle Will came in to visit on Monday. Adelyn loves Uncle "Whoa." He plays a great game of hide and seek and pretty much gets bossed around and is fine with it.

So overall, the weekend was great. I'm excited that summer is finally here!

Thankful

I can't believe it's almost been a month since Tyler joined our family. I don't know if it's flown by or if it seems like he's always been here. 

I don't know if Tyler is an easier baby or if I am just less stressed but I can safely say that round two has been SO much easier. Even enjoyable. Yes, there are moments in the middle of the night that I'd rather be sleeping than getting up to replace a pacifier back in an unhappy infant's mouth. And yes, there have been moments that both kids are crying at the same time and I'm not sure whose needs to address first. There have been moments of stress for sure but I just feel different this time around. 

Let me brag on my little buddy some: this guy is a pretty good sleeper at night. He wakes up to eat every 2.5-3 hours but (knock on wood) goes right back to sleep. He commonly passes out mid-feeding and almost always goes into milk coma after eating. He just loves to eat. We have been calling him our little hog lately because of how frequently he wants to chow down. He cracks us up with his hilarious newborn faces. When he smiles it absolutely makes my day. He's not crazy about his carseat but once he gets his initial fuss out he usually just chills out. I think our prayers for a "chill baby boy" are being answered. 

Adelyn is still doing great with him. She loves to give him kisses before she goes down for a nap or for bed. She has replaced her sympathy crying with an "Uh oh, baby... uh oh, baby...!" She asks to hold him but usually only wants him is her arms for 5-10 seconds before she is shoving him off and ready to play with a toy. 

Speaking of toys- this girl is obsessed with animals right now. It's all she talks about. She wants to play with her toy animals. She requests animal shows. The first thing she says when she wakes up is, "Animals?" We are making a trip to the St. Louis zoo a priority in the next few weeks. Her world will explode! She is talking like crazy and cracks us up with what she says. She also might have tried to nurse her toy lion the other day. That one gave us a good laugh. 

It slowly feels like life is resuming a normal pace. Austin is done with seminary for about a month so he's been around a lot more which has been GREAT. We are also blessed by all the meals and favors people have done for us recently. I've run a few errands with the two and it went fine but it's a lot of work! 

Not sure how to wrap this up. I guess I'm just thankful right now. For a lot.