Poor little craft table....

I wish I had a room devoted to crafts, but our house definitely isn't big enough for that, so I have settled for a craft table. This is my craft table. But notice there aren't any crafts on it. Instead there are books, notebooks, pens and a calculator. It has been like this for almost 9 months. That makes me sad. I am in the process of studying for a really big test. Thankfully that test will be over on Friday, so I am hoping my table can get back to normal. (Technically this will be the second attempt at the test, the first didn't go so well....)

So wish me luck, as I set out to pass my test and get my craft table back!!

Big Shoes to Fill

Daddy is a Police Officer. The schedule is hectic. Sometimes when we are getting ready for bed he is getting ready to go to work. His job is really dangerous and important. He has some really big shoes to fill ( I mean really, those shoes are a size 12!)

Picking Apples!!

We visited Sky Top Orchard this weekend to do a little apple picking!

We searched and searched for the best looking apples .... Fuji and Granny Smith were at the top of our list.

Tyler really got into picking the apples .... but he definitely liked eating them a lot more!

We had fun but apple picking is hard work!

We like Tractors Too!!!

See we like Tractors too ...........

OK .... so maybe not big ones like our buddies Wes and Josie .... but Granddad's John Deere seems to be the new favorite toy at their house!

PS - We even wear our camo hat when we sit on the tractor ....

A blast from the past ...

OK .... so not to far back. Not even 2 years. But I was looking through my pictures and I found what is probably one of my favorite pics of Tyler and Kyle. He was so little.

It just makes you wonder how they go from being that small to getting so 'big' in such a short time!

New Floors!

We have lived in our house since December 2006. The moment we moved in, I have DREAMED of putting in new floors. The carpet wasn't horrible. I just always felt like it was 'dirty', that I could never get it clean enough, even with my Dyson (one of my most prized possessions). Well 3 years later we finally got the chance to replace the carpet!

We decided to go with laminate floors. Mostly because of the cost and plus we heard that they were pretty easy to put in. Don't be fooled ... that doesn't mean that Kyle and myself put these floors in without any help! I was able to get three guys from work to come over and put the floors in for me (they gave up a whole Sunday to do this and I appreciate it so much!).

They started around 8 am and ended up finishing around 5-ish. It was definitely a full day.

I talked about always thinking the carpet was dirty. Well that fear was confirmed when they started ripping up the carpet. I definitely could have done without seeing what was really in the carpet , i.e. the stains on the backside of the carpet. (In our defense ... we bought the house from someone and I like to think that they made those stains!)

After a lot of hard work the floors were finally done. Don't they look wonderful!!! I am really pleased with how well they go with the furniture.

*** Special thanks to Alex, Jason and Clayton for spending a whole day putting these floors in. They look wonderful!****

Happy St. Patrick's Day

This past weekend was the St. Patrick's Day festival in Five Points. It is a pretty big deal here in Columbia. Kyle and I have been before but that was "BT" (before Tyler). We wanted to take Tyler this year so we decided that we should go and but this time we would go early enough to catch the parade and leave before the crowds got too crazy.

Tyler really enjoyed the parade, but I think he mostly enjoyed sitting on Dad's shoulders. He could see everything up there. This was really the first time that we attempted the 'shoulder sit'. Once Tyler got up there, he didn't want to come down.



The nice thing about going so early was that Tyler could walk around without getting run over. ( He is definitely over riding in the stroller.) So of course we had to go check out the green fountain.


On a different note .... March 17, 2010 is St. Patrick's Day. And Tyler's class is having a party (I think they use any reason to have a party!) Like a good momma, I signed up to make cupcakes.

They were pretty delicious (if I do say so myself) ... and my taste testers agreed.

Snow (and it was more than flurries!)

On February 12th, 2010 Chapin, South Carolina got snow and it was more than flurries. This is a really big deal, since we usually don't see any snow and if we do it is just a few flurries ... nothing to write home about. The weather forecast was calling for inches, so when it started I had my fingers crossed.

Tyler got picked up from daycare by my mom that Friday, and when they got home they went outside to watch the snow come down.

In just a couple of hours, the yards were covered in snow. And it kept coming down.

Of course we all had to get our pictures taken cause when are we ever going to see this happen again!

The next morning we woke up to 5 inches of snow! It was beautiful!

Valentine's Day!

For Tyler's class we needed to make a Valentine's Day box. You know, a decorated box that everyone can put their valentine's in that they brought for you.

So we started with one of Tyler's shoe boxes.

I had him 'decorate' the paper that I was going to use to wrap the top of the box with. (Please disregard the clothes on the table in the background. We were in the middle of washing clothes ... it seems we are always in the middle of washing clothes!)

By 'decorate' we mean finger paint all over the paper. He is very good at fingerpainting. They must do a lot of it at day care.

Then I cut out little foam hearts and glued 'googly' eyes on them.

And here is the end result! I was trying to go for something that wasn't to girly. I think it turned out pretty awesome!

The Greatest Show on Earth!

Tyler and I got invited to the circus today! I wasn't planning on taking him this year because I didn't think he was 'old' enough for it. But I was convinced to give it a try .... and I am so glad I did. Tyler absolutely LOVED it.

As you walk up the stairs to go into the Colonial Center there are tons of vendors. And the first thing that caught Tyler's eye were the light toys. He made a bee line straight for them. So of course I gave in and got him one!


It didn't take him long to figure out how it worked.

I think Tyler's favorite was the elephants. (probably because we just learned how to make the elephant sound and use our arm as the elephant's trunk.)

Tyler lasted for 3/4 of the show, but he finally just gave out.

Static!

Question of the Day: Does your couch have static electricity?!

One of Tyler's new favorite past times is climbing. He will climb on anything, he especially loves the couch. As he was climbing, I noticed something was happening to his hair!

It kept getting bigger and bigger and crazier the more and more he climbed over the couch.

So as you can see, our couch definitely has some static electricity!

A Review of 2009 (using pictures!!)

So I have seen this done on a couple of blogs so far and decided to steal the idea. It is basically a year in review using pictures. As I was going through all our pictures I realized that 1) most of our pictures are of Tyler and 2) he has really grown up/ changed this past year. This year he had his first birthday, learned to crawl then walk, got his first tooth, starting talking .... etc, etc ....

January (7 months old)

Relaxing in the chair!

February (8 months old)

Just so cute!

March (9 months old)

On the porch!

April (10 months old)

Starting the belly crawl

May (11 months old)

We did a lot of belly crawling...

June (12 months old)
Birthday time!


July (13 months old)
A favorite summer activity: hanging out on the porch.

August (14 months old)
Hanging out with his best friend, Wes
We got our first tooth too!

September (15 months old)
Someone is ready for football season!
Started walking!

October (16 months old)

Family time at the zoo.

November (17 months old)

Funny face

December (18 months old)

He is starting to look like a little boy!