I hope you have a few minutes!

WARNING: This post is FULL of pictures!

I finally finished uploading all of our summer pictures! It was quite a chore. It's amazing to me to see how much Tyler has grown since the beginning picture.

As I'm sure all of you mothers out there know, it's a challenge to keep a toddler happy all the time. We've been trying to keep busy this summer. Here's a recap of what we've been up to the past three months:

Day 1: Sitting at home.
Going to lunch at the Long Beach Town Center
Playing with pens at work. I guess every little tike has to taste a pen sometime. :)

Playing outside. Who knows what he was looking at.

Happy Fathers' Day Daddy! You're #1!!!!

Playing with his birthday presents.

His first beach trip!

What is a shovel and what does it do? Just watch Kaylee...she'll show you how it's done.

Matching sandcastles!

All that hard work shoveling sand and this is all I get?!?

We took Tyler to the Aquarium of the Pacific. He absolutely loves fish so he definitely enjoyed it.

Look at those HUGE blue eyes!

4th of July...having lunch in Grandma's backyard.

Kaylee was making him crack up. She was "ROAR"ing at him. She taught him well because now they both do it to each other.

Doesn't this picture look so natural? Not posed AT ALL.

Swimming at GGs' house.

This was the only picture I got of all of us...sorry Tyler's not looking.

Tyler and my cousin's little boy Kendrick.

Playing on the swings.

Going down the slides. Don't they look like they're deep in conversation?

Wurtz Family reunion. There are a lot of people missing!

What's a reunion without lots of food?

What a trooper! He missed his nap that day and he was still a champ.

It was SOOOO hot! The reunion was in Temecula and we were outside the whole time. Luckily my Grandma bought these little pools for the little kiddies.

Leslie and I cooling off in the other kiddie pool.

One of Tyler's favorite things to do: play with balls!

"Mommy, do I HAVE to stay inside today?"

I have to give a little background before we get to the next picture. Anyone who knows Tyler knows that he LOVES his food. One of his first few words was "Nummy!" I'm not joking when I say this child would literally eat ALL DAY LONG if he could. Needless to say, we're not worried about his weight anymore. At his one year checkup he was at 18 pounds 11 ounces...a little on the light side. When I took him a month later for the rest of his shots he was 20 pounds 10 ounces. (I'm so scattered these days with my hectic life that I actually forgot he had his 15 month checkup this week! I felt so bad! We rescheduled for next week so I'll let you know his current stats then.) ANYWAY...sorry, I got a little side-tracked. For some strange reason Tyler hates when I go into the kitchen. The second I set my foot in there he just starts crying. Doesn't he know that the only way to get the food is to go in there? He's a little pig and is never satisfied with the meals that I give him so he always needs seconds. This one day in particular he wasn't happy with his cereal and then his blueberries. This is what I got to experience:

This went on for what seemed like forever. He didn't care that he still had half a cup of milk to drink. He wanted more food! I felt bad but I had to take a picture just so I could share this with you all....and to show him when he grows up just what I had to deal with. :)

I did finally give in and give him more food. This is the best I could get out of him though. He wasn't a very happy camper that day.

We decided to take a stroll around the complex. Tyler loves looking up at the trees every time we go outside.

He was looking especially handsome that day so I had to snap a few shots.

He's a little Mischief Maker just like his hat says.

One of his famous faces...every time he hears an airplane.

He loves to read books. I am a very lucky mom because Tyler will just wander into his room, sit down, pull all of his books off the shelf and read. Every once in a while he'll decide he wants me to read them to him but he's pretty content on his own most of the time.

Daddy and Tyler in their matching Frank Gore jerseys. Look at those handsome boys. I'm so lucky to get to be with them every day.

A new favorite of Tyler's is pillows. He needs ever pillow off of the couches so he can throw them in a pile and lay on them. He puts his head down and says "night night." I have four extra pillows that I keep special for him to play with but apparently four isn't enough - he needs 10!

A few weeks ago we decided to take Tyler to the Orange County Fair before it ended. He loves animals and knows what most of them say. Here he is with daddy (who HAD to feed them...for Tyler's sake of course.) Tyler wasn't sure what to think of them at first but quickly warmed up to the idea of these real life animals rather than the ones in his books.

Wide eyed!

Look mommy! Moo moos!!!!

I think cows are one of his favorite animals. He was pretty excited to see them and kept saying, "moo."

Looking at the baby pigs.

I made Pat put his face in the hole...he wasn't too thrilled.

Tyler was a much better sport!

Look at all the loot we came home with. Pat won the big monkey by shooting a basketball into one of those deformed hoops. He had two shots and made it the second try. I won at Skee Ball but we obviously didn't need another huge toy so he said to pick two medium ones. I wanted the dogs but apparently those are small prizes so he gave me three small and one medium (the frog). I gave one of the dogs to Kaylee and Tyler has the rest. If you didn't notice Tyler was giving the monkey a kiss. He likes to give him hugs too.

I was very proud of myself - I didn't get anything to eat at the fair. I really wanted a funnel cake but decided I didn't need it. That definitely wouldn't have helped with my diet! Pat on the other hand couldn't resist the fair food. He saw a guy walking with one of these sausages and needed one for himself.

Tyler and I in front of the huge cow. (I wanted the whole thing in the pic, but Pat didn't understand that and cut off it's head.)

Tyler drivin' the John Deere tractor.

Why is it that folded laundry is so temting? Every time we fold his laundry he has to take it out and play with it. He decided to put this towel on and walk around the apartment.

Look how nice; he's actually willing to share. His milk and his pacifier - his two favorite things. Little do you know...he just pretends he's going to share but when you go to take it from him he snatches it back and just smiles. What a little tease!

We finally experienced Tyler's first fat lip. He actually got two bloody lips in one day but the first time didn't result in a fat lip. The second time...that's a different story. There were two bloody teeth and LOTS of tears!!! I took him outside to distract him with no luck. The second he got his hands on that phone he was a new baby. I don't know if you can see the fat lip but it's on the top. I'm sure it was the first of many but it made me very sad.

I'm so sad that my little baby is gone, but excited for all of the experiences we are having now. I no longer get to sit and cuddle with my little boy, but every once in a while he comes up and gives me a big hug and that makes me feel much better.

PHEW! I've been working on this post for three weeks now and am relieved to be done. I thank those of you who actually read this far!

Coming Soon...

Update number 2 will be coming shortly...I promise. Look for what we've been up to this summer!

The Big One!

Unfortunately, none of the pictures of Tyler's birthday turned out on my camera. They were ALL blurry...stupid camera! I finally went to my parents' house and got all of their pictures off of their computer. I went and bought a cupcake on his actual birthday since his party wasn't for a few days and it was a big hit! We haven't found a food yet that this kid doesn't like! Doesn't that look like the face of a satisfied one year old?

Mommy & Tyler at his party.
I made this cake for the guests. I had all intentions of making a monkey cake, but I was way to busy to take that on so I decided to experiment with marshmallow fondant. It turned out okay.I made a separate little cake for Tyler with a little monkey on the middle.

Luckily Kaylee was there to help blow out his candle. What would he do without such a good cousin? Thanks Kaylee!

We can't believe that Tyler is already 1! He started walking the day after his party and has been running all over the place ever since!

I think I got a little carried away with the camera!

These pictures are from a couple of weeks ago. We went to the park four times in three days. I decided that since I never know if my pictures are going to turn out clear or not I would just take a million and see what I came out with. I couldn't figure out which ones to post so I thought I would just put up a slide show with a bunch of them. Enjoy!

Photo Overload

I know I say this a lot, but here I am again...doing some catch up work. Every day I think, "I should update our blog tonight." But when I sit down I realize what a huge job it will be since there is so much to document. So, here it is finally. Hopefully I will remember everything since I have to go back two whole months! This first picture is so funny. One morning I went to go get Tyler in the morning and when I walked to his crib this is what I saw:

(I must tell you though, his legs were NICE and toasty!) This next picture is just us playing. Don't mind my red eyes. I wore my contacts and one of them had a tear in it but I was driving to a baby shower by myself and I couldn't take it out.

Tyler was feeling exceptionally photogenic this day so I couldn't resist. The many faces of Tyler:

Gotta love him! I mean, just look at that last one again. What a smile! This next picture is what Tyler would do since he couldn't crawl. He would walk his feet forward and then move his hands while on his head. Where did he come up with that? Whatever works, right?

Ok...many of you may think I'm crazy for this next story, but whatever. Tyler's hair has been driving me crazy for a while now. It was hanging over his ears and I kept wanting to cut it. Then one day we were at church and someone said to me that Tyler had a mullet. That was it; it was getting cut...and soon! That Wednesday, March 11th, I sat him on the changing table, gave him a toy, and started cutting.

Here is the before picture:

After: "How do I look?"

"What about this side? Is it even?"

That same day Tyler also got his second tooth. Then on Friday he pulled himself up for the first time on our TV unit. Monday this is what I found after his nap:What a big boy! Tyler is definitely a BOY. He loves any kind of ball and is a great basketball player. I'll try later to figure out how to post a video on here, but I don't know how yet. I almost forgot...Thursday, March 19th Tyler FINALLY started crawling! He's all over the place now.

Playing guitar:

This right here is Tyler's whining face. I just thought I would share with you. He's not ALL smiles. We see this face quite often actually.

He loves reading. He likes to take every book off the shelves and look at them. He actually likes to take every toy out too and not play with them. Kids!

We started giving Tyler some of those little Gerber Graduates puffs and one day one didn't quite make it into his mouth. "What, do I have a booger on my face or something?"

Mr. Handsome

Tyler giving kisses to his "friend." They play every morning.

Our little Sports' Fan. Patrick and I got to go the Angels' game a couple of weeks ago. We sat in the eighth row just in front of 3rd base. They were GREAT seats. It was also free blanket night! We didn't even have to pay for the tickets...even better! We did forget our camera though. :(

We were going through Tyler's 12 month clothes a couple of weeks ago just to see what he has already. We bought this little onesie when I was pregnant and Pat has been looking forward ever since then to the day when Tyler could wear it. We tried it on and it fit perfectly. Daddy is very jealous though because he doesn't even have a jersey yet. Boo hoo....Too bad they got new uniforms this year!

Happy Easter!

Once again we decorated eggs with Rebecca and Jaime. Something tells me it will be a little more eventful when Tyler can join in. I made one for each of us: Patrick, Kelly, and Tyler.

The finished products: Pat's are in the back & mine are in the front in case you couldn't figure that out. ;)

I was in charge of bringing dessert to Easter dinner and I always feel like I have to come up with something new and exciting. Let me just ask, "What was I thinking?" I made these little cheesecake eggs. They took two days to make and were a PAIN in the rear! They were delicious though.

Pat got to help me "decorate" them. It was a little more exciting than the regular eggs.

I had also bought some strawberries the day before so at the last minute I decided to dip some of those too. TASTY! I love strawberries.

We didn't get any real Easter pictures of Tyler since he spit up all over his sweater! Here he is in his church clothes though. I bought this gate to take to work but it's too big. It works great in the living room when I can't keep an eye on him. He loves to just walk around the edges. We just put a bunch of toys in there and he's good to go.

I just love this kid so much!

I think he was trying to escape!

I think that's enough pictures for one post. There are plenty more for a second post very soon. I PROMISE it will be soon!

"Happy Two" Kaylee!

This incredibly cute little girl turned two last week. I can't believe it! It seems like I just posted about her first birthday. We love our niece so much. She had an Elmo party last Saturday. It was lots of fun as you can see.

I made an Elmo cake for her and the more I think about it the more glad I am that she didn't want a Dora party! I found the idea for this cake online and it seemed so easy. Unfortunately, things did not go as planned. It said to draw the picture on wax paper and cut it out. Place it on the cake, trace around it with a toothpick and remove the wax paper. The outline will be there for you to fill in. Sounds easy enough, right?I found the picture online and re sized it to fit the cake, traced it on wax paper, cut it out, put it on the cake and traced it, removed the wax paper, and there was no Elmo there! All I could see were the eyeballs so I had to freehand the whole thing...no fun! Then when I mixed the dye into the frosting it must have heat up too much because when I was using the star tip for the fur it just came out as runny blobs so I just filled the whole thing in and textured it myself. It turned out much better than I expected considering all of those little pitfalls. All that mattered was that Kaylee like it...I'm sure she wouldn't have cared if it looked like a big red blob though.

I think she liked it, don't you?

This is what Tyler did the whole time Kaylee was opening her presents. I tried getting some better pictures but I hate my camera because they ALL turned out blurry. Boo hoo! I miss my red camera so much.

Kaylee made out pretty good...she even got a CAR for her birthday! I thought you were supposed to get your first car when you turn 16...times have sure changed. We took Tyler to the park the other day and there was a girl driving this convertible through the park. It was very realistic! What will they come up with next?