boat world

My older brother, Brian, designed and built his own boat. We celebrated his accomplishment at the launch party for Problem Child 2. Highlights for Tyler: checking out Brian's new boat, running all over the marina, and pointing out nearly every boat with "Bow, Bow!"

fencing anyone?

Tyler was hanging out in the kitchen going through the cabinets as all inquisitive young kids do. He found this new toy and entertained himself by shrieking each time he put the "mask" to his face.

i see it!

Tyler points everything out now with "I SEE IT!" It is such a high pitch squeel but it is so cute. And he usually says it several times in a row with such enthusiasm. He also points out planes when he hears them roar overhead with "I HEAR IT!"

panda love

I think it is getting serious. :)

b-words

For some reason Tyler has recently picked up several b-words. Banana (now ba, along with the sign), balloon (boon), butterfly (buh), bus (also buh), box, and blue (boo).

zoo mania

We took the opportunity to join up with Alex's college friend Nikki and her family at the National Zoo while they were in town. Tyler had a ball running around with Laurence, nearly 5, and James, who is less then 3 weeks older than Tyler.

Tyler praticed his animal noises and added two new ones (moo for cow and oo-ooh for the gorilla) but used his lion roar the best and most often. During this trip Tyler fell in L-O-V-E with the panda bears (just as Mommy did as a kid). He latched onto a panda in the gift shop, cuddled for a few minutes and then was fast asleep! All the action wore him out. But now he has his panda as a memento of his adventure.

happy 4th

The Campbell family headed to Atholton Park, which is very near our new home. We watched the small parade, but it couldn't have been more spectacular for Tyler. The charge was led by several emergency vehicles including two fire engines, which made his day. And the candy thrown from the boats, tractors, cars, wagons and scooters wasn't that bad either. The girls seated next to us shared some of their acquired lollipops with Tyler. He's already a hit with the ladies.

jokester

Boy does this boy love to joke around! He knows he's not to go up the stairs alone so he kneels at the bottom and half lifts his leg as though he's going up and then waits for our reaction and giggles uncontrollably! And then he repeats this over and over again. Or he finds a winter hat and pops it on his head in the summer. Oh the hilarity!

anniversary dinner

For our fourth wedding anniversary we celebrated (two days late) with our traditional dinner at Ruth's Chris. Following the anniversary gift guidelines we were supposed to give each other a gift of fruit and flowers. Great minds think alike! We ended up with two edible arrangements. Yummy!

Jamie and Phil came to babysit Tyler during our evening out. I'm not sure who had more fun. They took Tyler to the park, built block towers and even gave him a bath. The best babysitters will be awesome parents!

oodles of noodles

After a long-standing ban on any pasta while at home(on Tyler's part), he's now found a love for mac&cheese!

rock n' roll

In Tyler's room I have a collection of Boyd's bears and a few of them sit on a miniature decorative rocking chair. On this day Tyler pulled the bears off and decided to take a seat himelf!

animal rights activist

My stuffed animals have the right to stay on the ground!

executive

Don't call me, I'll call you. Tyler is all about technology and he likes to test things out in Daddy's home office. We can't keep him away from remotes, phones, cells, hands-free headsets, blackjacks, computers, and fax machines.

new home

Tyler's new home in Columbia come August 15!

over the ledge

The house search has been so stressful on Mommy (i've had trouble eating and sleeping--our offer on a house in Ellicott City was topped) that Tyler pokes some fun at her by clinging to the ledge between the dining room and living room. Could he be implying she's over the edge? :)

no wah!

Tyler came home from daycare saying, "No wah, no wah!" I couldn't figure out what he was saying but he didn't seem like he'd stop any time soon. I called his daycare person, Deb, and asked what it was because I knew he learned it there. Finally after lots of thinking, we figured it out! Deb says after each cool story from a child at daycare, "No way!"

backpack

Tyler's newest words: backpack and bobos. Both from Dora and Diego. Those silly bobo monkeys! He also used the word "nana" rather than sign language for a banana, but hasn't kept using the word. He still uses half words and half signs but between the two we are able to communicate with minimal frustration.

house sold

Bittersweet news: Tyler's first home has been sold! Now starts the scramble to find a new one! Here Tyler, at the Long&Foster realty office, makes some calls.

big boy seat

Tyler loves to act like a big boy. Here he sits at the big table eating his snack.

dad day

On Father's Day, other than giving his own Daddy lots of loving, Tyler took his Grampy out for brunch. Tyler ate pancakes, which really meant he dipped his fingers in the syrup like a bear with honey. Oma, Uncle Dylan and his girlfriend, Christine, joined as well which was a treat. But for Tyler nothing could top the three or four fire engines that raced by while we were leaving!

still my favorite

Tyler's most-loved book is still Good Night Gorilla. He thinks it is SO funny!

car waves

Tyler is supremely fascinated from anything and everything CARS! It's probably the word he uses most often. As we walk Daisy, he points to each passing car and tells us that it is a car. And now he's started to wave to each one. He's so adorable, he gets noticed doing this! We even caused a line as people in their cars all paused while passing to return the wave. He's now recognized as the car waver and even if he's not waving at first a person will stop their car to say hi to Tyler.

mohawk

Daddy and I were having some fun during bath time!

19 months

Growing by leaps and bounds. We had another showing this evening (we've averaged one per day which is craziness, no one can tell me the market is slow if you've prepped your house properly!) so we ended up eating out at Red Robin. Tyler loved the TV in the floor, the balloons and the yummy food.

hanging with simon

Well, with three house showings and an open house today, we had to spend the better part of the day out of the house. The gracious Howeses let us hang with them and the boys had a blast together. Highlights? The fish!! The toys! Hide-n-seek in the laundry room! And the bucket seats that provided endless fun (let's get out, climb back in, hop out...)!

dinner at simon's

While Daddy was in Oakland, Simon's parents were gracious enough to invite Tyler and me over for dinner and a playdate. It's really fun watching the boys. They still play separately, but now they interact a bit more. They had a great time despite Tyler gently trying to push Simon off the rodeo horse toy and closing Simon's head in the toy trunk. Oops, can't always be perfect. :)

primary colors

Last week I taught Tyler some colors. The next morning when I asked him to show Daddy suddenly Tyler had amnesia. This morning (after several days without quizzing him) I asked him to point to a red dinosaur and he did. Then I asked him to point to a yellow dinosaur and he did. I asked him to point to a blue one and, yep, he did. When I moved on to green I lost him. So he's got the fundamental three that are used to make all other colors. How fitting for an artist's son.

pee

No this isn't a diaper story...while wearing his new shades for the first time, Tyler also said plane for the first time, which sounds like "pee." He said it each time a plane passed overhead. By the last time he managed to eek out a "peen!"

shades

"My future is so bright I gotta wear shades!" Tyler loves to look at planes during our outings but the sun hurts his eyes. He's also shown interest in our sunglasses so I got him his own pair of green Go Diego Go shades. Once he figured out that he could see through them he enjoyed them and left them on the entire time we walked Daisy.

food signs

Well, they say the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. Tyler is showing early signs that this is true. He is constantly picking up new verbal and sign language words. He can pretty much go through his entire mealtime sign language book and sign the words on each page. Recently he's added the signs for banana, drink and all done to his repertoire.