Buds

These two boys of mine are best buds!  Tyke started saying "dada" yesterday and he pretty much hasn't stopped.  At first we thought we were just hearing things but he keeps saying it, and he looks at Chad a lot when saying it, so we're just going to assume he knows what he's talking about!  

Tyke LOVES his daddy so much!  There are times when he has had enough of me and all that will make things right in the world again is for his Daddy to hold him and play with him.  Almost always, as soon as Chad takes Tyke he calms right down and just grins and coos.  I love it!

Most nights before bed Chad will get on his iPhone and play a truck racing game.  When the game starts it totally gets Tyke's attention.  The kid is a little techy!  He loves trying to grab phones, remotes, laptops, etc.  Tonight was no different.  Chad had his work cut out for him with all of Tyke's help!  Tyke was talking, growling, grabbing, anything he could do to distract his Daddy.  It was hilarious and I'm glad I was able to catch a few shots of all of the fun!  

Tyke and Chad are lucky boys to have each other and I'm one lucky girl to have both of them!  Life is good!

Enduro Races 2013

We got up bright and early today and headed to Mona to Grandma Cheryl and Grandpa Terry's house.  They were gone to Oregon to visit the Robertson Gals so the rest of us, my sisters and I, decided we'd all get together and do some major yard work!  We did awesome if I do say so myself.  We got trees and shrubs trimmed, weeds pulled, garden tilled and yard mowed.  We spent a good 4 or 5 hours working until the job was done and we were dying from heat.  Tyke spent most of the time in his playpen in the shade being entertained by his cousin Callie Jo.  After finishing up we came home and took one long family nap!  

We had just woke up and were trying to decide what to do for dinner when Aunt Jenny called to see if we wanted to go to the enduro racing down at the fairgrounds.  We had about 5 minutes before start time but decided we'd do it!  We hurried and gathered a few things for the Tyke man and then headed down to the fairgrounds.  

Tyke LOVED watching the bikes race!  He was totally into it.  There was some pretty good racing and pretty good wrecks.  We had a lot of fun!  Tyke's nose started running pretty good and he was rubbing his eyes hard so we left early and came home.  

It was a long, fun filled day.  We're so glad we got to spend time with so much family.  We're super lucky to live where we do so that we can work, play and have fun with our family!

Update

Baby food green beans have officially been retired at our house.  Last nights round two went worse than round one.  Tyke had about four spoonfuls and was gagging so bad.  I felt bad but wanted him to at least finish what we had dished up for him.  Spoonful number five got denied.  Tyke turned his head away in disgust so hard I thought he was going to break his neck!  So in to the garbage the green beans went...

Yummy?

Our little guys is such a great baby food eater so far!  We haven't tried too many things yet but what we have  tried he has loved.  We started off feeding him rice cereal and bananas for 2 days and then took a 5 day break because things got backed up and we felt like we were doing things all wrong.  We introduced Tyke to prune/apple juice and that got things moving again so we started back up with the solids.  Our second round of foods we have felt a lot more comfortable.  We studied up and got lots of advice from the sisters and feel like we're doing things right now!

We still haven't gotten a high chair for our little guy.  Stephanie and Seth are being generous enough to donate theirs to us since they won't be needing it anymore.  We really need to go pick it up but we're procrastinators and forget.  Tyke has been sitting in his bouncy seat which is pretty much a big no no when trying to feed the kid.  He goes crazy and kicks the entire time.  We don't have to worry about him blowing bubbles with his food, we have to worry about him kicking the food out of our hands! (which he did to Chad today at lunch, made a BIG mess!)  This kid can bounce, and last night he kicked so hard he gave himself his first "owie."  It didn't even phase him but we immediately put a stop to his fun.  He had blood everywhere for saying it was just a little nick on his heel.

Tyke is a champ at eating his rice cereal!  We fed him only rice cereal for 4 days and then we introduced him to carrots.  We let him choose what veggie he wanted to try by placing three different kinds in front of him and using the one that he grabbed.  I've heard how messy carrots can be but Tyke loves them so much we haven't even gotten a drop of them on his bib let alone anywhere else.

Green beans, well that's another story.  Tonight we tried green beans for the first time and we made a huge mess with them!  The look of green beans is disgusting and if I had had my picky way we would have thrown them in the garbage.  We want Tyke to experience everything though, so we made him suffer and eat them.  He didn't like them at all!  Every bite he was pulling faces and nearly gagging.  I'm not sure if we'll make him eat them 3 more nights or not (to get the 4 days in).  I think maybe we'll give it another try tomorrow night and see if his taste for green beans has changed.  I'm such a picky eater and Chad is not, we want Tyke to take after his Daddy!  So this boy of ours is going to experience everything whether he likes it or not!  I LOVE these faces he pulled while eating.  Chad and I had a good laugh at poor little Tyke's expense. =)

The other thing Tyke hasn't liked is a cherry slurpee.  I know, it's so bad to be giving our baby slurpee tastes but we just had to!  I think it was the cold that turned him off.  His face was priceless but unfortunately we didn't get a picture of it.  We do need to brag though, while drinking my slurpee he kept grabbing at the cup so I stuck the straw in his mouth to see what he would do.  Our 5 month old Tyke sucked the slurpee up the straw and quit when it got about a half inch from his mouth!  I was so impressed and proud and he was confused!  I don't know what we'd ever do without our Tykers and all the entertainment he gives us!  We love you buddy! =)

Father's Day & 5 Months Old!

Today was Chad's first father's day!  I think it's safe to say he had an enjoyable day.  We started off the morning with sleeping in and I attempted to make breakfast (Chad is the breakfast cook in this house!).  We had a super lazy day today!

Tyke and Chad are best buds and it just melts my heart to watch them growl, laugh and play together!

Chad's mom came and visited for a while and then we headed to Mona for a Kay family barbecue!  We stopped at my parents house first for a quick visit and to give Grandpa Terry his father's day gifts.  Our barbecue was at Rick and Lucinda's house.  We had yummy chicken and all kinds of salads and deserts.

Tyke and his cousin Kayson....3 weeks apart in age!

Quite a few of the Kay family showed up so we had an awesome get together!  Rick and Lucinda sure know how to put on a party!  After dinner everyone got involved in a serious game of kickball!  At first it was adults (mostly the guys) against the kids and then it turned into everyone against the moms.  It was great entertainment and a perfect way to finish a great day!

Tyke had fun visiting with his cousins and was such a good little boy.  He even sat up on the grass all by himself!  Chad and I were super proud of our little guy!



Tyke has so many great guys in his life, but especially his daddy and grandpa's!  He's so lucky to have such great examples of what good guys are.  We love all the daddy's in our lives and wish them a very Happy Father's Day!

Tyke and I are so lucky to have Chad in our lives!  He's the best daddy and husband ever!  I love watching him with our Tykers.  They're best buds and I can only imagine how much better it's going to get!  Tyke is so lucky to have such an involved daddy.  Chad is the best!

Tyke is 5 Months Old!

This weekend marked one year since we announced to our family and friends that we were pregnant!  And today our little Tyke man turned 5 months old!  I can't believe how fast it has gone!  He's the best baby ever and makes us so, so happy!

Tyke is a smart little thing and voices his opinion about everything!  He giggles and smiles and coos if he's happy.  He wiggles and squeals if he sees something he likes or wants.  He growls and grunts if he doesn't want to be held a certain way or wants to be left alone.  It's nice not having to question what he wants or needs.

He has sadly stopped sleeping through the night the last week or so.  I'm hoping it's just him readjusting after the time change from our Oregon trip we just took.  He's getting up more during the night than he ever has, like 2-3 times a night.  On the bright side though, he ALWAYS wakes up with a smile on his face and is happy as can be!

Our little guys is always on the go!  He wiggles and kicks and rolls to get where he wants to go.  He has a blast in the exersaucer and goes crazy jumping and spinning in it.  He's getting pretty good at sitting up all by himself.  His balance is pretty good with it but he's lacking in the strength to hold himself up for very long.  Plus he's such a wiggle worm he knocks himself over a lot!

Tyke is enjoying eating like a big boy.  He even drinks out of a sippy cup with no problem.  It makes him look so big to be holding a sippy cup!  We haven't gotten too adventurous with the baby food yet but he seems to really enjoy the rice cereal.  He especially loves to blow bubbles and kick and bounce while we're trying to feed him.  It's a total mess but so much fun!  Oh yeah, and he hates wearing bibs.  They're necessary though.

Tyke is in size 2 diapers now and still wears anywhere from 3 to 9 month clothes.  It's a bit of a chore getting his diapers changed and getting him dressed now because he wiggles so much.  He knows he's being a little stinker about it too!  We enjoy it though.

Tyke loves the great outdoors!  He's content as can be if he's sitting on the grass or has his toes in the dirt.  He loves watching his daddy mow the grass.  His little head turns back and forth as Chad makes his laps across the lawn.

Tyke has finally found his toes.  He stares at them and grabs at them and even tries to eat them.  He's usually not very successful with that but he's getting better.

Tyke enjoys walking around the living room with our help.  He's a natural!  Since day one (about 2 weeks ago) he has walked perfectly without any training.  He's flat footed and knows to put one foot in front of the other.  Chad and I are curious to see if he'll be an early walker or not?

His eye color still hasn't gone one way or the other.  They are an awesome blue/hazel/green/grey color. They're the oddest color I've ever seen but fit our Tykers so well.  It will be interesting to see if they ever make up their mind of what color they're going to be.  Although we're perfectly happy with them being unique.

This boy of ours is loved more than he'll ever know!  He makes his Mommy and Daddy so very proud and happy!  We love you Tykaroni!

Our Entertainment!

Our little guys is the best!  He puts a smile on our face daily!  It's so much fun to watch him grow and learn!  Today as we were sitting on the couch he started sucking on his lip.  Luckily I was able to catch it on video.  He's not hungry (he had just eaten), he just thought it was fun to play with his bottom lip.  We sure get a kick out of our little Tyke man!!! =)

 

Oh Baby! (Food)

Chad and I finally gave in and fed Tyke baby food!  The plan was to wait until he was 5 months, which is only days away, but it was like waiting for Christmas Day for us....we couldn't stand it!

On 6/11/13 we headed to the grocery store and bought a thing of rice cereal and stage 1 bananas.

By the time we got home poor Tyke was starving, it was almost an hour past his usual 3 hour gap.  We mixed up a batch of rice cereal, which I thought was too runny but we followed the instructions exactly, opened up a thing of bananas and fed the boy!  He really liked the rice cereal.  He kept looking at us with a confused little face, but not a disgusted one.  It was so cute!  Bananas were another story.  He liked them at first, but the more we shoveled them in the more gaggy he became.  His facial expressions were priceless!

The next night we did the same routine except we made the rice cereal a little thicker.  Tyke ate it right up and enjoyed the bananas too!

Tonight we decided to take a break from baby food because our little guy seems to be a bit "backed up."  We need to go shopping for some different varieties of food and get on a good schedule for Tyke.
Also, tonight, Tyke got his toes to his mouth for the first time!

I can't believe our little guy is at this stage in life already!  We're sure having fun with him and look forward to every new day.  Life is good!

Oregon 2013

We just got home from our first out of state family vacation of the year!  We ventured up to Bend, Oregon to visit my sister and her family for a few days.

We left super early Tuesday morning, around 2:30 a.m.  Our plan was to leave early so that Tyke could sleep through most of the twelve hour drive.  Well by the time we made all of our stops for fuel, food and stretching our 12 hour drive ended up being closer to 14!  We had a good long stop in Vale and Burns Oregon.  Tyke was a good little traveler but enjoyed getting out of his car seat every chance he got.  We got to Jo's place late that afternoon and Chad went with my Dad to help on the ranch while Tyke and I relaxed with the girls.  I was so excited to see my nieces but needless to say Sophie wasn't that thrilled to see me.  She kept pushing me in the back and saying "get out!"  She's a sassy little thing for sure!  That night we had a good dinner of BBQ chicken sausage, corn on the cob and strawberries.  It was a very summery meal and hit the spot.

Wednesday morning we got up and ready and headed to the Sisters fairgrounds.  This years annual Robertson Ranch Jackpot was moved from the ranch to the fairgrounds because it hasn't gotten so big.  We spent probably a good 4 hours there watching bull doggers compete and I got to be the official photographer.  I had no clue really what I was doing but I think I got some pretty sweet shots!

Chad and I were getting hungry and there was no food at the venue so we loaded up our fam and headed into Sisters to see what we could find for a quick snack.  We ended up getting street tacos for me and a burrito for Chad at a little taco shop.  We got our food to go and went and found a park to picnic at.  While there Stephanie and Seth and fam showed up.  We had a good long visit while their kids played on the playground and then we headed back to the fairgrounds for the awards ceremony and after party.  The after party went well.  Jo and Alex had it catered with yummy Hawaiian food (if you ever visit Bend, visit the Aloha Cafe...AWESOME food!) so I was in heaven.  We ate and hung out for a while.  Grandpa Terry gave Tyke his first taste of an ice cube.  Little guy thought that was pretty cool! (no pun intended....)  There was a live auction to raise money for a couple of cowboy crisis funds.  They raised around $3K from it!  After the auction the awards were announced and then we went back to Jo's house.  We spent the evening outside enjoying the weather and roasting marshmallows for s'mores.  It was perfect!

Thursday morning we got up and ventured south to Crater Lake!  We bought Subway sandwiches (Oregon Subway's have gluten free!) snacks and drinks and started our long drive.  It was about an hour and a half to get there.  We took the north entrance and stopped at the first overlook to check out the view.  It was so pretty, just like we remembered (Chad and I visited Crater Lake on our honeymoon).  I think the north entrance was a little more scary of a drive than the south but it was a really pretty drive.  We headed on south to the visitors center and took a good long break to have a picnic and check out the souvenir shop and then we headed back to Bend.

Chad and I got a hotel room for that night and Friday night.  We checked in and I took Tyke swimming with Brooke and Callie Jo.  We swam for about an hour and then got cleaned up and headed back to Jo's for a pizza party.  We took Tyke back to the barns to check out the baby horses.  His first view of a real live horse!  Tyke had a lot of first on this trip....  After pizza we started up the fire pit and roasted s'mores again!  

Friday we did a little shopping and then headed back to the hotel to do some major swimming!  We had quite the gang in the pool.  It was so much fun!  The more Tyke plays in the water the more he likes it.  He now kicks and splashes like crazy compared to his first swimming experience in St. George.  We swam for an hour or so and then called it quits so we could all get ready to go to the Sisters Rodeo!  Tyke's first rodeo!!!  Alex was competing and we were all excited to go and support him.  The rodeo was pretty good.  Tyke paid more attention to his toes than the actual rodeo.  He also tried his hardest to get a hold of the pink cowgirl hat in front of him.  The wind picked up about 20 minutes into the performance and got bad enough we opted to put Tyke back in his seat so he could be protected from it.  Chad and I eventually decided to just leave.  It was getting close to the end of the rodeo and we didn't want to fight the traffic. Also, it was time for Tyke to eat.  On our way out of the fairgrounds Tyke fell asleep so we decided to detour on the way back to our room and get an ice cream.

After much debate all of us Utahn's decided that it would be best if we headed back home on Saturday instead of Sunday.  We were all sad to go and leave our Oregon girls a day early but it worked out for the best for the kids.  Before leaving Bend we all did a little shopping and then went to lunch at the Black Bear Diner.  The kids got spoiled by Grandma and Grandpa and each got a stuffed teddy bear.  After lunch we said our goodbyes, which are always so hard to do, and we headed for Idaho.  Stephanie and Seth made it to Twin Falls and stopped for the night.  Chad and I and my parents made it to Boise and called it quits for the day.  We definitely didn't make good time like my sister and her family but we had had to make a few stops to feed the baby which slowed us down quite a bit.

The view from Heather Jo's back yard!  

Our stay in Boise wasn't the best but it was cheap.  We shared a room with Grandma and Grandpa and to be honest it was lots of fun.  We ate dinner at an expensive steak house.  The prices about made me choke!  Luckily the manager of the place let us order off of the sports grill menu which was more our price range and taste.  The guys got burgers and my mom and I shared a huge plate of nachos.  Our room was small but it worked perfect for the night.  We all stayed up late, except for Tyke, and watched TV and talked.  It was nice.

Sunday morning we got up and hit the road.  We decided to get breakfast at McDonald's in Mountain Home.  Chad and I were the lead car and took the wrong exit which took us way into town to a McD's.  If we would have stayed on the freeway until the next exit we would have saved about 30 minutes by hitting the McD's right off the freeway.  Live and learn.  Anyway, while we were eating Tyke decided it would be a good time to cause a major blow out!  It was awful and we ended up throwing away clothes and tearing apart his car seat before we left.  We made a quick stop at the Walmart for extra diapers (we cut it close and had 2 left by the time we got home!  We could have survived without the Walmart trip but that's a chance we weren't willing to take.)  Once we got on our way we stopped in Twin Falls to check out Shoshone Falls.  It was pretty awesome and I'm glad we got to do so much sight seeing on this trip!

We made it home around 6 p.m. and were so glad to finally be home (we were also glad the trip home was split up between 2 days, man it took forever!).  We quickly unpacked, did laundry and called it a night!  It was such a great week spent away and with family!  We're so glad Heather Jo and Alex invited us up to visit and can't wait to make it back again!

Tyke was such a great little traveler!!!  He hardly fussed at all but he definitely let us know he was in the back seat not happy about 24+ hours of car seat time!  Enjoy this little video of him protesting.  He did this for a good 45 minutes!  As long as he couldn't see the camera he would growl, as soon as he spotted it he stopped.  Such a goofy kid we have!  Love you Tyke!!!!