The three new ones to our "extended" family up here in the Northern Tundra. Deacon and Halle are only two days apart and David is 2.5 months younger than Deke and Halle. I know it doesn't look like it, but Deacon is the oldest. He may be tiny, but he is mighty and he doesn't stop moving. It's so funny to watch him flail those arms and legs. David and Halle are just so cute.

Tyler had a christmas program two weeks ago. It was so cute to watch all the kids singing Christmas carols. I took video, but I'm having trouble uploading it. Very frustrating because it really is too cute and I would love to share it.

Tyler

Tyler does some of the cutest things now a days. Here are just a few stories for the grandparents...

The other day Joel dropped Tyler off at daycare and as soon as they walked in, Ethan (one of Ty's friends at the daycare) got all excited and said:

"There's my buddy, there's my buddy!"

Lydia (another one of Ty's friends) chimed in with;

"No, he's my buddy!"

This started a buddy war with all the kids claiming that Ty is their buddy. I think it has more to do with two year olds enjoying being contrary than Tyler's popularity.

Yesterday morning, I was trying to take a mid-morning nap. I had had a rough night the night before. I couldn't really sleep, but I could hear Tyler reading books to himself. I could tell which books they were based on what he was saying. He spent about 30 minutes in his room totally by himself reading. It started out with "Beauty and the Beast" and went something like this:

"Here, take this mirror so you can see me."

"Oh, no, it's the hideous beast!'" (Yes, he really did say hideous!)

"Oh, you turned into a human, yeah!"

Then he moved on to "There's a monster at the end of this book by Grover"

"You turned another page! You do not know what you are doing!" (This is being read very dramatically, I might add)

Than it was "Too much T.V. with the Bernstein Bears"

"I'm going to watch T.V all day tommorrow says Brother Bear"

"Me, too says Sister Bear"

"Me, too says Papa Bear"

"But mama disagreed and wouldn't let them watch any T.V."

He's not always this adorable, he can be so frustrating sometimes! When I'm having a bad day, he'll tell me "you're frustrated". I am amazed at his language skills and some of the big words he can say. When he tells me this, it really makes me stop and evaluate my actions too. It also makes me laugh which kinda breaks up any stress that I might be feeling.

Christmas photos

These photos are awesome. A thousand thanks to Kelly for his expert photo taking skills. These are the first photos we have had as a family of four and I love them.

Sledding

This is one of the many reasons I love Minnesota. We get to go SLEDDING!!!!
Joel and I took Tyler and met up with John and Jakob at St. Mary's. They have some great hills for sledding and we had so much fun. I also had some of the teens from the Youth Group join us. Zack, Derek, and Matt came as well. They were much bigger daredevils that I am. I'm a big chicken when it comes to going down. There was one hill where I was looking up and I thought that doesn't seem like such a big hill, but when I got to the top, it looked a lot scarier and I wasn't sure if I was going to be brave enough to go down, but I did. Tyler loved it and didn't want to go home. Neither did Jakob for that matter. Those two even got to go down a little hill all by themselves. They are getting to be such big boys. Maybe next year, their baby brothers can join them. The pastor's wife, Gigi, watched Deke for us so we could all go sledding.

I think I'm going to try to take Tyler skiing when we go in January. He loves the snow and will always walk through the deepest parts he can find.

Big Brother Tyler

Tyler's teacher told me that yesterday, Tyler was upstairs and he heard a baby crying. He told his teacher (Jesse) that it was Deacon. Jesse asked him if he wanted to go see and he said yes. They went into the infant room and sure enough it was Deke. Tyler went up to him told him "it's okay, Tyler's here." Deacon gave Ty a big smile and stopped fussing. They said he was good the rest of the time. What an awesome big brother Tyler is. He's always so willing to help out with Deke and he can be a big help when Deke is fussy. I see them interacting more and more and I love it.
Tyler is getting to be such a little man. At dinner now, he always ask Joel and I how our day was. He then listens to what we say (wait a minute, that's not what a man does, maybe I'm secretly raising a girl :0)
He then always asks us to ask him how his day was. It is so much fun to listen to him describe what he did during the day and who he played with. They have a little clique (Ethan, Lydia, and Lilliana) It's funny to watch those four interact. They'll only share with each other.

More Grandparent's pics

They bought Tyler and Deke some really cute clothes. My favorite for Tyler was the really cute Thomas the tank engine pj's. They are just like real men's pjs and they are totally adorable on him. I loved Deke's little Santa outfit that they bought him as well. It was a great visit.

Grandparent's Visit

The boys had fun with the Grandparents. Tyler really loved his Uncle George.

Bad Blogger

Ty got some ice cream on Sat. I'm not sure how much he actually ate since it seemed like most of it ended up on his face.

Just some cute pictures of "my boys". Deacon is thumb sucker and I had to take a shot of him with his thumb in his mouth.

Life has gotten so busy that I don't have time to really blog. Here are a few things that have happened in the past week.

We had a Culver's Fundraiser last Tuesday. It went pretty well and Tyler was super excited about helping. I wasn't as excited about this and neither do I think were the people that were lucky enough to have Ty "help". Having toddler fingers in your food isn't that appealing. Just kidding, I managed to keep his hands out of the food, but it wasn't always easy. He was really cute and most of the people really seemed to like him helping. Tyler was the only one that was really thrilled about the hat. I had to threaten the teens into wearing it and I felt like a dork. Especially when I was the only one there at 5:00 to start it off and they made me wear the dorky looking hat. Notice I don't have a picture of me in that hat.

On Saturday, we took Tyler to get his haircut and then we got him a flu shot. He is such a brave little boy and he took it pretty well. Hardly any tears. I was impressed. We then took him to a book fair that was going on at the Sr. High. He got his face painted and he got to meet a policeman who gave him a tattoo badge. It was pretty exciting stuff. Then Deke woke up and I had to go feed him and Joel took Ty to watch the puppets. Apparently he was quite the character at the puppet show. Joel said that he went up and touched the hippo on the nose which made all the other kids want to do the same thing. The people handled it really well and let Tyler put on his own puppet show as well. I wished I could have seen it, but Joel took some pictures of our little puppeteer.

The Zoo (or Shoe as Ty calls it)

Joel had yesterday off from work and so he took both Ty and Deke to Monday morning playgroup where they had a lot of fun playing with some other kiddos. He then dropped Deke off at daycare and took Ty to the zoo. Tyler was so excited about going. It was all he talked about all weekend and whenever we would get in the car, he would ask if we were going to the zoo. He says shoe though so it was a little hard to understand him at first. They had a really good time. They are so blessed to have such an awesome Daddy!

Friday night

I was supposed to go to Lacrosse to see CityPrayz with the youth group tonight. However, I lucked out...Only Derek and Matt were going to go and we decided to go to Perkins first to eat. Perkins took too long and we ended up missing CityPrayz. Instead we went back to the church and rocked out to RockBand. I had so much fun! Tyler enjoyed dancing to the music and Deke pretty much slept most of the time. When he did wake up Gigi took him and played with him.

Happy Halloween

Jakob and Tyler got into the dog kennel at the Sauke's

Halloween was so much fun this year. We went as a band of pirates. Do you like my beard? I made it with vaseline and coffee grounds. Jakob came over and trick or treating with us. They both cleaned up with candy. Tyler had no problem going up and ringing the doorbells and saying trick or treat. He also didn't have a problem taking more candy than he should have. They would lower the bowl down and he was grabbing as much as he could. Jakob was the well-behaved one who would only take one unless they said he could have more. Sometimes Jakob was a little shy and didn't want to go up to the door, but then Ty would take some to him. It was really cute. There was one house that Jakob didn't want to go up to and John was trying to get him to go up to the door and get some candy and Jakob said "Maybe Tyler can get some for me." That Jakob is too cute. I really enjoy watching those two play together. They have so much fun! I hope Deke and David are as close.

By the way Jenna, when we went by your house, Tyler kept asking for Kaia.

Youth Group

Tyler shot some hoops at Chuck E. Cheese. He actually made several of his shots. Such an athlete!

It has been a very busy week. It was my first full week back at work :-(
That's really been a tough transition, but we are starting to find out rythm. It was also a busy week with the youth group. We went to a concert Wednesday night in Lacrosse. It was great and I had a lot of fun. I forgot my camera though so I didn't get any pictures. It was so loud that my ears were ringing for hours after we got home. I was lucky enough to get the girls to ride with me and I have never felt so old. First they all piled into the back seat (3 girls went) and nobody would ride up front with me. I felt like such a Mom driving her teenagers around. Guess its a glimpse of my future, but it will be boys in the back instead of girls. On Saturday, we went to Chuck E. Cheese and High Roller (roller skating) Tyler, Deke, and Joel went with us to Chuck E. Cheese, but they didn't come to High Roller. It was a lot of fun. I busted my butt at High Roller though. That's what I get for trying to be cool and shake my groove thing. Way too old to be shaking my groove thing on skates. I totally wiped out. Fortunatly the only damage was to my pride.