LOTS OF UPDATES BELOW!

I've been busy today! I started updating posts this morning before the boys woke up and I just finished during their afternoon naps! Enjoy catching up on us!

BRADY'S 11 MONTHS OLD!

Our little guy only has one more month to go and he will be ONE! He is so close to taking his first steps and walking all around! Brady points at everything now. I love that he does this, because I feel like I can actually teach him now and tell him what he's pointing at. He does have 4 teeth now. 2 top and 2 bottom. Some of his favorite things to do include: playing basketball, playing catch with any kind of ball, making a mess in Tyler's room, eating, climbing and coming back down the stairs, playing with anything that Tyler is already playing with, and walking behind his truck.


By next week, he will be on all "people food." We are finishing up the baby food that we have in the cupboard and that's it! That is so exciting for me! We also just purchased two cans of formula to get us through this next month and we now will never again have to buy formula! Yippee!!! Now if we could only get him out of diapers, we'd be rich! :)

This next month will go extremely fast. Brady's first birthday is on our first day of school. August will fly!

NEW NIGHT LIGHT

Tyler had been waking up anywhere between 6:15 and 6:45 everyday. For him, this is pretty early. When I look through my parenting magazines, I rip out any pages that I think have good information or products on them and I keep them in a file. I had remembered a night light that I had seen. I went to my file, found the article, and ordered the product-Good Nite Lite. It is an awesome night light that you set timers on. One timer for the night light to show the moon (we have named him Mooney) and one to have the moon change to sunshine (the name of our sun is just that, Sunshine). We are very creative when it comes to naming things around here! We have Mooney set to shine his blue moon at 7:40 p.m. That way, when Tyler comes up for his bath, he knows that it's time for bed. It's night night time!

Sunshine shines at 7:00 a.m. Tyler knows that he cannot get out of bed or leave his bedroom until Sunshine is awake. Then he can say, "good morning, Sunshine!" and is able to leave his bedroom.

This is an amazing invention and has been wonderful for us! The first morning we set the sunshine timer for 6:45 a.m. Tyler came out of his room at 6:50 and was so excited to see Sunshine. I'm pretty sure he sat there and stared at it for that 5 minutes before he came out of his room.

The second morning and from then on, the sunshine timer has been set for 7:00 a.m. Every morning he is just as excited as the last to see his Sunshine!

If you are interested in this product, go to goodnitelite.com

It is $35, but totally worth it! Not only does it give you a few extra minutes in the morning, but Tyler has been coming out of his room well rested and happy instead of lack of sleep and grumpy!

NEW ALLIGATOR POOL

Our swimming pool on the back deck was getting a little moldy, so we went out to Wal-Mart to purchase a new one. We ended up with an Alligator that has a sprinkler in his head. It's pretty cool! We first set it up in the living room. Tyler's actually giving Brady a hug!

Tyler loves to slide down the front of the Alligator, over the freezing cold sprinkler and into the pool.

Brady checking out the sprinkler with Grandma's help.

Brady loves to lounge in the pool.

RANDOM PHOTO UPDATE

Here's some random photos from our summer so far. Brady absolutely LOVES to play basketball! He can also stand up by himself for awhile if he's holding onto his basketball.

Mommy and Tyler cuddle time.

"Say Cheese!"

Brady had a dirty diaper right before bathtime so we let him play bottomless for awhile. Here is Tyler trying to get Brady to go upstairs by luring him with his bottle.

Such a happy boy! This was before that second top front tooth came down. This was still when he had just his one.

Fun bath time.

Tyler helping Grandma clean the corn before we freeze it.

Brady "helping" in the kitchen while Grandma Mary, Lee, and Tyler freeze corn.

Lee absolutely hates to weed eat, so it doesn't get done much. Lee was out weed eating, so Tyler had to get his and his goggles to help.

Weed eating the driveway!

Both boys watching their daddy weed eat.

Tyler painting inside because it was too stinking hot and humid to be outside!

TENNESSEE TRIP

We spent four days, in Tennessee, at Lee's parents house last week. We decided to travel and drive through the night on the way there and the way back. It is a 12 hour drive! The drive down was miserable. Brady didn't sleep much, but cried a whole lot! For the trip back, we decided to switch his car seat around, hoping that it would help. Not sure if it was his car seat facing the front or that it was just pure exhaustion, but Brady did much better sleeping on the way back home!

We spent time out on the boat and time playing cards. Lee's grandparents made the trip down from Ohio to spend some time with us and see the kids.

Tyler absolutely loved everything about the beach. He swam like a fish and enjoyed playing in the sand. Brady also enjoyed the water, however, he would get cut short of boating/swimming time, due to needing a nap.

Lee, Mitch, and I took Tyler to the zoo one morning. Tyler loves the zoo and got to see some new animals at this zoo. Our zoo here does not have any elephants, which is a bummer, because Tyler loves elephants! Tyler was able to see elephants for his first time at this zoo! He was in heaven!

Tyler was also able to fish for his first time. His first cast out and not but seconds later he got a bite and caught a blue gill. Within 15 minutes he had caught 2 blue gill. The second time that he tried fishing was off of the neighbor's dock and he caught two catfish! What an awesome fisherman! It's a good thing he actually caught fish, because I'm not so sure he'd be "into it" otherwise.

Besides the long traveling time, it was a good trip and some fun was had with Lee's family! Thanks for a great trip, Reynolds'!

I'm adding the picasa link to view some pictures of our trip. There are way too many to actually post on the blog. I've added captions to some, but definately not all! Enjoy!

http://picasaweb.google.com/darceyreynolds/July2010TNVisit?feat=directlink

If it doesn't work when you click on it, you may have to copy and paste.

LET'S GET OUT OF THE HOUSE!

I have been home from school for 5 weeks and we have 5 more weeks to go! I enjoy staying home with the boys, don't get me wrong, but it's always so nice to do something and go somewhere to get out of the normal daily routine. Two weeks ago I was going crazy at our house! Thursday, after their afternoon naps, I took them to Altoona to do some shopping. It was a good afternoon with them and helped me stay a little more sane! Friday morning, they both woke up extremely early. I knew it would be a difficult day for all of us if we stayed home and did our normal. So, I waited until about 8:00 a.m. and gave my Grandma Kriz a call. She didn't have plans for the day, so I asked if we could take a trip to come see her. She, of course, said that she would love for us to come. We were out of the house by 9:00 and on our way to Grandma Kriz's! The boys enjoyed playing at Grandma's and I enjoyed it as well! Grandma lives across the street from the ball diamond and the city park, so the boys really enjoyed spending their time across the street. Tyler and I played kickball on the ball diamond while Grandma and Brady cheered us on in the dugout. Then we spent plenty of time over in the park. Both boys enjoy swinging and Tyler loves all the slides and tunnels! According to Tyler, Grandma Kriz makes the best ham and according to me, Grandma Kriz makes the best potato salad, and according to Brady, Grandma Kriz makes the best green beans, so we all enjoyed our lunch! Thanks, Grandma, for a great few hours away from our home and at yours!

Brady playing with his truck in Grandma's yard.
Tyler mowing the sidewalk and the grass.

Grandma Kriz and Brady hanging in the shade, while I push Tyler on the swing.

Grandma pushing Tyler on the swing.

Playing pat-a-cake with Brady.

Grandma giving some love to both boys.

IT'S OFFICIAL....HE'S A BIG BOY!

Tyler is officially a BIG BOY! He has been pee trained for almost 3 months now. Now we have mastered pooping in the potty and are finally poopy trained! It has been 2 weeks since I have changed a poopy diaper! (of Tyler's that is.) We now go through 1 diaper a day for Tyler. This is huge and saving us so much money! He wears underwear all day, even through nap, and only needs his nighttime diaper for sleeping through the night! Yeah, for Tyler! We are so proud of him!!!

In the picture above, Tyler was playing school. He put his backpack on and made underneath the kitchen table his school. He sat there and would talk to himself, or maybe to the teacher or his friends??? He would come out from under the table to come talk to me and then would say, "bye, I'm going to school!" All I said was, "okay, have fun and be nice to your teacher and be nice to your friends!" I then would ask him what he learned at school today and he anwered with, "toys!" Toys were of course in his backpack, so he said that he learned more about the toys that were in there! He's so funny!

FOURTH OF JULY IN ST. CHARLES

We took the drive to St. Charles for the fourth and had a great weekend! Besides the drive there and the drive back, everything went very well! Tyler did a great job on the trip to and from, even with being potty trained now! He's awesome! Brady, on the other hand, hates being in his car seat for a long period of time. This was difficult for him and for us. We did alot of fun things while in St. Charles and the boys had a great time!

Here we are at the Fox River. Looks like the boys don't really want to be in this picture!
They loved playing in this water table.

Lee, Luke, and Billy. Great friends!

Darcey, Jessica, and Steph. Great girl friends!

Brady using the walker with a weight on front to slow it down.

Don't they all look handsome in their red, white, and blue!

Luke, Dylan, Lee, and Brady. Swimming on the fourth was wonderful!!!

Tyler swimming like a fish!

We had great weather on the fourth and the pool was the best place to be!

Again with the water table. It was a try at cooling them down.

The water table didn't cool Tyler down much, so Jessica got out the sprinkler. He loved it!

Driving the golf cart.

Happy Fourth of July from the Reynolds'.

The last day for the boys to play and they played hard!

...Until New Years Eve!