TRICKS AND SUCTION ANIMALS

Driving his car and talking on the phone already!
Here's the suction animals

He IS having fun and it's NOT hurting him

Bringing the diaper to Lee. Behind the diaper is a huge grin. He is so proud of himself as we are saying, "Yeah, Tyler! Good Job!"

Getting the diaper out of the basket!!! :)

Tyler has started to do things that we ask him to do. It's awesome!!! The best is when we ask him to go get us a diaper and he does! Then, he will also take the dirty diaper to the garbage! He is also finding and learning body parts. He does get confused with these easily, but we are still working on them. He does know where his feet and legs are. He will pat his belly when we ask him where his belly is, but usually only when his clothes are off and his belly is bare. When he is eating, he knows where his mouth is. And for some reason, we are getting the nose and the ear confused with one another. But this has been a really fun stage--getting to watch him understand what we are saying. When it's time for us to leave in the morning, I will tell him it's time to go bye-bye and he will go sit by the door to the garage and wait for me to put his shoes and coat on. Which by the way, he says 'shoes.' He does a lot of 'tricks' these days and will usually do them on demand. Unless of course he's got a lot of people watching him. This weekend our friends Katie and Sarah were here for Friday night and Saturday morning and Tyler didn't really feel like showing off his tricks to them. He does do them, though!

Lee found out today that Tyler's barn animals can also be used as suction cups. So...he took a few of them and stuck them on Tyler's face. Tyler didn't mind--he actually thought that it was quite funny!

THE FLU!

Since last Saturday night, we have ALL had the flu! Tyler kept it up with laying low last Sunday and then having diarrhea all day on Monday. Lee threw-up at work twice on Monday and did not feel well into the night Monday night. He woke up feeling fine Tuesday morning and went to work. I threw-up twice late Monday night and have been sick the entire week! Supposedly when you're pregnant, these things last a bit longer. I took Tyler out to daycare and I stayed home from work both Tuesday and Wednesday. I did end up going back to work on Thursday, but am pretty sure that I was a complete witch to my students. It was a terrible week and I'm glad that it's finally over and I'm starting to feel better. We go to the doctor tomorrow to have an ultrasound and see how the little baby's doing! We'll let you know how it's all going and how the baby's growing. Hope you are all feeling better than what we have this past week!

PJ'S AND THROW-UP

Tyler was not wanting to stand still for the PJ picture, so Seth was holding him up in the back. Jenna was trying to make Tyler happy by using the fish-face. Emery is on the left in the green and Nora is in the pink.

Last night we went to our friends', Jenna and Justin's, house in Indianola. We had a great night of catching up with them and our friends Tory, Joe, and Emery, Lindsey and Brodie, and Cara, Seth, and Nora. We had dinner and just sat around and talked. It was so nice to see everyone and catch up. It was also great to have Tyler, Nora, and Emery together. They all three haven't been together since the girls were 1 month old! They are now 9 months! I kept telling Cara and Tory how little, small, and skinny they seemed to me. They both were weighing at around 19 lbs. It's been a long time since Tyler has weighed 19 lbs.! I actually looked back this morning at my journal for Tyler to see how much he weighed when he was 9 mths. old and how old he was when he weighed 19 lbs. The answers: at 9 mths. old Tyler was 26 lbs.! And he was only 5 months old when he was 19 lbs.! Yes, we realized a long time ago that our child is not going to be small and petite! This is fine. He's a big, healthy boy who's going to grow up to be a big, healthy, very tall boy like his dad! Around 7:30 we got all the little ones into their footsie pj's. My friend, Jenna, decided that she would also get into hers. Her footsie pajamas, that is. Apparently they do sell these in adult sizes and Jenna owns a pair. So, we got a picture with all four of them in their pjs! Too funny!

We got home and put Tyler to bed. At 1:00 I woke up to hearing coughing/heaving coming from Tyler's room. I new exactly what was happening when I heard and ran to his room to open his door and almost pass out from the terrible smell of vomit. I yelled down the hall for Lee to wake up and come help. He, of course half asleep, ran down the hallway. I picked Tyler up, who was screaming, and started to undress him, as he had throw-up all over him.

Darcey: Lee we need a wash cloth.
Lee: wash cloth--okay.

He left the room to get a wash cloth and came back in with a dry wash cloth.

Darcey: Lee I think it needs to be wet.
Lee: wet--okay.

He left the room again to wet the wash cloth. The next time he came back into the room, I believe that he was finally starting to wake up. I had gotten Tyler stripped and handed him off to Lee so that he could get washed off. I stripped the bed, got out a new diaper, onesie, and pjs for Tyler, and ran everything down to the washing machine. Tyler drank a little milk and then went right back to sleep.

Once we got back to bed, I kept telling Lee that I hoped this was it and he wasn't going to throw-up anymore. At about 1:45, 45 minutes after the first spell, I heard a little cough. I asked Lee if he heard it and with no time for him to answer, we heard more coughs/heaves and both got out of bed to run to Tyler's room. We went in to find more throw-up and Tyler starting to scream again. I felt so bad for him I just stood there and cried for him. And then we started the process again. However, this time I handed him off to Lee still dressed and while he was walking him across the hall to the bathroom to get cleaned off, Tyler was still not done throwing up. He took a few minutes to finish what his stomach needed him to finish, while I got the bed stripped again and new, fresh, sheets and blanket put into place. Lee got Tyler all cleaned up and I cuddled and rocked Tyler for awhile before putting him back to bed. I got back to bed and Lee said, 'I hope he's done, because we don't have anymore sheets for the bed!' Luckily, he fell right back to sleep and slept, throw-up free, until 7:15 this morning.

He hasn't been eating great today, but he's been doing and acting fine. I believe that we have been lucky with his illnesses. Tyler is 15 mths. old and this is his first time experiencing vomiting. This is also the first time that he's been sick at all since the middle of December. We are lucky that he spends his days at daycare with just one other child. This way, we are not always taking him to the doctor and always having to pay for all those antibiotics!

It was an eventful night last night and we are trying to spend the day today catching up on our sleep.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

Happy V-Day, buddy! Mommy loves you!

This is Lee showing Tyler how to cook steaks.

Lee helping out in the kitchen with the chocolate covered pineapple!

"Round and Round and Round he goes, where he stops nobody knows!" When we sing this song to Tyler, he will start spinning around. It's his new thing and it's hilarious! He didn't do it well for this video, I think because he's having too much fun dancing, but thought I'd still share the video. This was one of our three family dance parties that we had on Valentine's Day!

LOTS OF NEW PICTURES!

He loves to read books! He does have his favorites, but really, any book will do.

Pimp Daddy!
The day he wore this outfit, I could not stop laughing at him. He looked awesome! This was an outfit given to him from Tom, Jamie, and Laken Petrie for his Birthday. Very humorous, yet very cool!

What a stud!

Finally, Grandma got him to play nicely with Bailey. Bailey and Tyler were actually friends for awhile. It was nice!

This past Tuesday we got to go for a long walk and play outside for an hour or so. It was wonderful!!! Here, Tyler is having his afternoon snack in his stroller.

Playing outside on a Terrific Tuesday! Look--No Snow!

Ahhh...How sweet!

This was cracking me up. If you own a salad lettuce spinner, you may recognize Tyler's hat. This is the piece that goes inside the bowl that actually drains the water out when the lettuce gets spun. This is also his first "cheesy smile" for a picture.

Tyler was trying on my slippers and attempting to walk in them.

Watching Dad snow blowing outside. Yep, we got snow again!

We have been having some great times here at the Reynolds house. Tyler is just so much fun to be around. We usually just lay low at home and play, but we have some great times here! This past week, we had a couple days of beautiful weather. ALL of our snow melted and we got to spend the afternoon playing outside. It was wonderful! Tyler had the time of his life and wandered around the sidewalks and our yard. IF I needed to steer him in a different direction, he would get very upset with me. He wanted to go where he wanted to go and that was it! Stubbornness--I think so! People say he got that from me--oops! And....when it was time to come inside, I carried a kicking and screaming child through the door. Poor thing was not ready to come in from the outside. However, about 15 minutes after we got inside, he was ready to crash and ended up taking a hard nap. The outdoors really wore him out!

Tyler is really loving books right now. Book after book. He will bring us one book, listen to or look at the pictures, and then go to get a new one. This could go on forever, it seems! But, I'm not complaining, I'm very glad that he's into his books.

To explain the picture of him sleeping....I never get to see him actually sleeping! We lay him down, leave the room, and then don't go back in until he's talking to us, waiting to get out of his crib. On this particular morning, I had to go in to wake him up. Usually when I open his door, he will wake up, because he is such a light sleeper! This one time, he did not. So, I went back downstairs, grabbed my camera, and took a few pictures. This did wake him up, but he still woke up happy! It was the cutest thing!

I had a four day weekend this past weekend, and it was a great break! I got to enjoy time at home with Tyler. We had an awesome weekend playing at home! We also had a really good Valentine's Day. It started with a big breakfast, played all day, and then we had our traditional V-Day meal of steaks, twice-baked potatoes and sweet and sour green beans. Dessert was red velvet cupcakes and chocolate covered pineapple! It was delicious as always! Yes, I said pineapple, but the strawberries looked terrible, so we picked a different fruit and it was so good!!! I'll add some pics from our V-Day soon.

HATS

About a week ago, Tyler woke up one morning and wanted to wear this hat that always hangs from a shelf in his bedroom. In the past, he has worn it for a couple minutes and then takes it off. On this day, he kept it on all morning--Throughout getting dressed, breakfast, and the whole ride to daycare. He was loving the hat and looked so cute! I was hoping he would be a hat wearing boy! Since this day, he has wanted to wear a hat everyday. I love it! Course in one of these pictures the hat was tilted off to the side. Not on purpose! By the way, this is how happy he always is during his breakfast--he's such a morning person!

WALKING THE PUPPY

Tyler received this puppy from my mom on X-Mas. He started to realize what the point of it was, just a couple weeks ago. Now, he takes the puppy for walks all the time! It does make a little 'woof' sound as you walk it. Tyler loves it! If the dog falls onto its side, Tyler will stop to put it back on its feet and then continue walking. It's really cute.