My little helper

Tyler has become such a helper lately. He loves to help me with the dishes or dinner. Last night, I asked Joel to do the dishes since I had to feed Deacon and Tyler had to help him. I don't think Joel was quite as thrilled about it as it does take about twice as long with Ty's help, but I don't want to discourage him. Anyway, Tyler likes to rinse the dishes and then hand them to us to put in the dishwasher. He also likes to help me with some deserts that I like to make. We'll get his stool and he'll pour in the ingredents and help stir it all up. His favorite part is licking the spoon clean when we're all done with the mixing. After that I clean up and he just started helping me with the clean up and ever since then he's loves to help out in the kitchen.

Tyler is also so wonderful with his baby brother. The other day Deke was getting fussy in his swing and Tyler goes over and says "He's crying." He then proceeded to make shhing noises and when Deke quieted down, he was so proud of himself for being able to get him to stop crying.

Birthdays

We had people ask us twice if they were twins. Halle and Deacon are two of the cutest babies. I'm only slightly biased :-)

We celebrated a lot of birthdays recently. Kaia had her birthday on Weds. She turned 2. She is such a beauty and a delight to be around. I love watching Tyler and Kaia play together. We also celebrated a friends birthday tonight. Dean turned 30 and his wife Amy threw him a suprise party at Rocky Rocco's pizza place. Tyler and Kaia had a lot of fun dancing to the music.

Goodview Days

This past weekend was Goodview Days. Saturday afternoon, we took Tyler over there and let him play on a few of the rides. He really loved the bounce house. Daddy got in there with him the first time. Then we went and played in the park for a little while.

Today, Tyler cracked me up. We were watching Seasme Street this morning and they were talking about saying the alphabet. I asked Tyler if he could say the alphabet. I know he knows the abc song so I though he would sing that. He turns towards me, grins really big and says "yes, alphabet." Then turned back around to finish watching the show. It just cracked me up. I don't think he even realized what was so funny about it. Later this afternoon, after his nap, I asked him to come take his medicine. He stops, looks at me and says, " Not right now, I'm busy." And then proceeded to move all of his toys from his room into a laundry basket. He is such a funny kid and I have so much fun with him.

Reward Chart

Before Deacon was born and especially after he came, Tyler started regressing on the potty training. He's been potty trained now for about 6 months. We weren't too suprised when it happened as we were kind of expecting it, but we didn't know how to help him through it. We had tried really praising him, but it didn't seem to be working. I found this reward chart on Supernanny.com and it has worked wonders. He gets to move the little pirate guy up everytime he goes potty in the potty and when he gets him all the way up into the pirate ship, he gets a special prize. Sometimes its just candy, but I've been trying to avoid that even though its the easist one. Since we started this, he has not had an accident in over a week. This reward chart is one he got to color in himself. I wasn't too sure if he would understand it, but apparently he does. Now when he goes in the potty, he can't wait to move his pirate guy up. Sometimes he tries to skip some steps and put the guy right in the pirate ship. It's pretty funny because he'll then turn around and say. "I'm in the pirate ship!" and expect to get something. We make him put it back on the right spot, but it cracks me up when he tries to sneak it by us.

Tonight, Joel was going to put Tyler down and I was feeding Deke. Tyler came over to me to give me a hug good night and then he asked to hug Deacon. I told him he could so he wrapped his little arms around him as best as he could and then he gave him a kiss on the head. It was so sweet!

My funny Tyler

Today, I tried putting Tyler down for his nap at 12:30. I could hear him playing in his room and reading his books so finally a little after 2:00, I decided to take him for a car ride. That usually knocks him out and I had an errand to run anyway. I went into his room to free him and I saw him in his bed playing with his cars and trucks. I told him we were going to go somewhere so he could get up and he comes up to me, gives me a big hug and tells me that he slept good. I had to

laugh at this and tell him that he didn't sleep at all. He then tells me that he wakes up and is ready to go. So we get in the car and head to Walgreens. I pick up our prescription and am still not seeing any signs of tiredness from this kid, so I decide to go get him a haircut. He was so good there and he got a sucker for being so very good. Plus, he looks so very cute with his hair cut. On the way home, I look in my rearview mirror and I can see Tyler nodding off, but he is determined to finish that sucker. His eyes were closed and he kept blindly trying to stick the sucker in his mouth. He would get it in there and then he'd start to drift off and it would fall out and he'd wake up and put it back. It was one of the funniest things I think I've seen in a while. Finally, sleep claimed him and the sucker stayed down. He had sticky sucker all over his face as you can see in the picture above and me being such a good mom did not want to risk waking him by washing his face, so he went to bed with that sticky sucker all over his face. I'll wash it off when he wakes up.

Fun Times

We baby sat Kaia last night. Her parents went to a wedding and we got to enjoy her company. Tyler and her had fun dancing to some music and then having Joel read stories to them. At one point, Kaia saw the camera and wanted to see the pictures so I started taking pictures of the two of them. I couldn't get her to smile for the camera though.

Tyler likes to lay near Deacon and he's starting to understand about being gentle. When he plays with Deacon, he says "I'm gentle" . Deacon is now close to weighing what Tyler did when he was born. It's hard to believe how much Tyler has grown. He is such a big boy now.

Last year, I bought a bike trailer for Tyler. He wasn't as into it last year and I couldn't get him to wear the helmet to save my life. This year, he understands when I tell him we're not going for a bike ride unless he wears the helmet and he actually wants to wear it so its not even an issue. He had so much fun riding in it today and it's great exercise for me. I know that Joel's in the picture, but I did take him for a ride twice and I'll be the one taking him in the future as well.

My growing boy

Deacon is up to 6lbs, 9oz now. He's gained over a full pound since we left the hosiptal a week and half ago. Today, I think he's determined to try to reach 7lb with the way he's been eating.

I also finally got a true taste of what having two babies will do to a person. Things have been easy up until today. Deacon wanted to eat constantly and Tyler was needy. Not a very easy day for me trying to juggle the needs of my two boys. As soon as I'd put Deke down, he'd want back up to eat again or to just go back to sleep. He did not want to be put down and Tyler wanted me to hold him as well. If I wasn't breastfeeding, I think this would be much easier. There's just not much I can do when Deke is attached. Hopefully, the next few days will go back to being the easy ones that I got accustomed to.

The block beside Deacon is one that Tyler put in there. He gave Deke the block and said "here is something for you to play with."

Tyler holding Deacon
Tyler playing with his legos.

It's been awhile since I last blogged. Things are still going good here. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. This has been way too easy and we'll probably pay for it as Deke grows up.

Here are a few shots of Tyler and Deacon. Tyler loves to hold him and we get a lot of cute pictures of him doing that. He can be such an awesome big brother sometimes. Last night, we left our Carerings meeting and by that time Deke was hungry. He was crying in the backseat and Tyler leans over and says "It's okay, we're almost there". He also kept saying that he thought Deke needed a diaper change. That kid has a nose for the dirty diapers. Yesterday was my first day home alone with my boys. I'm planning on sending Tyler to daycare on Monday, Wed, and Friday. He enjoys playing with his friends and I think its good for him to keep his schedule. Tuesdays and Thursdays he'll stay home with me. He was so good yesterday. When he finished playing with his legos, he picked them all up without me asking him to. He just started doing it. He is such an awsome kid and we are so lucky to have him.

Dr.s' Appt

Deacon had his first Dr. Appt today and everything is great. He's already back up to his birthweight which Dr. Hadaway said she doesn't expect that until the 2nd week. With the way this kid eats, I wasn't too suprised. He was 5lbs 5 oz when we left the hosiptal on Sunday and he's gained it all back in one week and is back up to his 6lbs 1/4 oz which is exactly what he weighed at birth. At any rate, he's doing so good that we don't have to go back until he's 2 months old.
Other good news is I got a sleeper! (at least so far, but I don't want to get too excited about that just yet) I only had to get up with him once last night for a feeding. My first week with Tyler is all a blur because neither Joel nor I got much sleep that first week. Joel and I were worried that having a new baby might mean that Tyler would be up more during the night as well since Deacon's cries might wake him, but that hasn't happened yet either. Neither one of my kids seems to be bothered by noises during the night. I've got to run. Another poppy diaper to change...