Santa Brought the Space Suit

So Jake's one wish from Santa was a "space suit" which is an astronaut costume. He requested this item after I had went above and beyond my budget so luckily Grandma Sherrie was nice enough to fill the request, even though we had to tell Jake Santa brought it.

Although he may not look excited, he really was. He was trying to be Mr. Cool Guy. Now, I have to put it on him about 12-15 times a day. Luckily he has not asked to wear it out in public.

Now you can see the happiness. Notice the astronanut toothbrush in the pocket. Who knew a toothbrush could bring such joy. Tyler got a firetruck one with lights. No more battles brushing teeth! Jake's other favorite toys were his Lightening McQueen four pack of cars, and this. My favorite is this. This is a toy that I don't mind playing with him. It's almost like playing dollhouse. He also got Richard Scarry's book "Cars and Trucks and Things That Go" which was a favorite of my brothers when he was little. When my brother came over for breakfast, he went through the pages to find Goldbug. You could see the excitement in his face.

Tyler had a fun Christmas. He is still to little to "really" understand what is going on. He ripped through his presents in about 10 minutes flat. A lot of his presents weren't toys he could play with right away. My favorite, which we used last night in the bath was this. He also got a bath mirror and bath crayons-which I really dislike. They are messy!! He enjoyed this wooden fire truck that I found at Target and his transportation puzzle which makes the sound when you put the piece in the correct spot.

After Halloween, I went to Joanne and stocked up on fun dress up things for the boys. I got a cart full of stuff for $40. Pirate swords, eye patches, hook arm, wigs, funny noses, a disguise, funny glasses, ect. They enjoyed that present and so do I:) I also got a fireman costume at Meijer after Halloween for $6 and they wear that 12-15 times a day as well.

Their big present was from Grandma Sherrie. It goes up and down, and around, like a merry-go-round.

Jake and Tyler were spoiled by the grandparents and great-grandparents- so we didn't have to do much. Thank goodness because David gets laid off in the winter and didn't get a Christmas bonus this year. Great-grandma Judy got Jake a game called Zingo! which is a lot of fun, even for David and I.

We had a wonderful, simple Christmas. We spent the day just with our little family. In the afternoon, we all made birdseed pinecones.

That evening, we had my side of the family to our house for a Heavenly Ham, courtesy of David's work. It was a wonderful, relaxing day. We made a point of not turning on the tv, and not going anywhere, just spending time together with the boys.

Ty At Two

This is what I get when I ask Tyler to smile. Should make for an interesting Christmas card. Anyway, here is my Ty At Two post, which I've procrastinated for two weeks! It is more for my memories than entertainment purposes.

• You weigh 25 pounds and you are 35 inches. When Jake was 2, he weighed 27.5 and was 37 inches. You have the skinniest chicken legs and arms!
  
  
• You LOVE your blankey and it brings you comfort, especially when you run the silky part on your cheek.
  
  
• You LOVE your sucky, which you call "a gah" it took us a looong time to figure out what you were saying and asking for. We let you use your sucky way to much. This should be a fun habit to break-um, Supernanny please help!
  
  
• You don't kiss on the lips, it's always been cheek to cheek. How European of you. Daddy recently taught you how to make the kissing noise, but rarely do you kiss on the lips, it's still cheek to cheek.
  
  
• You adore Jake and copy everything he does. This has made you grow up so fast. It is so different having a second, you imitate so much more and reach milestones faster.
  
  
• Shopping is your fave. We drop Jake off at school, and you say "shopping?" and I say "well, if you really want to, I guess we can go to Target.
  
  
• This makes you a mini me. We love shopping, we love our blankey's, and we love clean. Also, if we don't get our way, we are not happy.

• You've helped me do laundry since you were about ten months, putting groceries away is another fave, and lots of times you pick up your toys without us even asking!
  
  
• You play by yourself wonderfully. Another trait of being the second child. Jake still hasn't mastered this, a sure sign of the first-born. Sometimes I have to remind myself to stop what I am doing and play with you!
  
• Favorite things to do/play: swing, duplo legos, play-doh, dress up-especially the policeman, jumping in pillow pile, playing lion hunt-we go look for the cat or "lion" and when we find it we yell lion! and run back to our tent, playing with tractor and barn, digging in dirt in the garden, and building with blocks.

• Cars is your favorite movie. All day you ask to watch it. Funny thing is, in the two years we've had the movie, I've never watched the whole thing.

• Lately you have been coming to me saying "do" with your hands turned up like "what do you want to do?"

• You can be a turd sometimes. The first year you cried. The second year you clung to me like saran wrap. What's this year going to be? This is why you will not have a sibling close in age to you :) Things aren't always easy with you!

• Anything with ketchup or ranch and you will eat it. But, you are still a picky eater. Especially slimy fruit, (which most fruit is). But you will eat the heck out of peas, cheese, graham crackers, yogurt and juice.

• You don't really look at books during the day, but at night before bed, we have our reading time. You go to your book shelf and say "ummm". I know you are thinking which book should I pick?

Tyler, we adore having you. Your antics make me laugh all the time. It is so fun watching you and Jake play together, especially now that you are bigger. It is so cute when you say his name. It will be amazing watching you grow this year and see all the wonderful things you learn. Happy Birthday. Thanks for making me a mom! Again.

Gift Idea

My mom got my boys and my sisters two boys the Scholastic video collection. I love it! Link it here. It has all the great stories I read to the boys in video form, and each story only lasts 5-10 minutes so if I need to get something done for a minute I pop one in and then they are not stuck watching a half hour show. Plus we don't have cable so the boys don't have many options anyway. The best part is that my mom mails them a movie every now and then (she lives in Colorado) so the boys get fun mail and they don't get overwhelmed getting all 100 stories at once. She mails one to my sister too, and we also trade. It is a great idea for far away grandparents and if you want a gift for different ages that they both can enjoy.

Happy Birthday, Tyler!

I'm behind in blogging, so this is so stale, but I want to blog it for my own memories. We had Tyler's 2nd birthday party on Saturday. He loves tractors, but it was easier for me to do a dump truck theme. Here are the invites:
Call me Martha, I made them myself. I went to Michael's for goodies for the goody bags. I wanted to get plastic yellow hard hats, but I waited until the last minute and didn't have time to order them.

The boys got a truck or loader to paint, a truck magnet, and stickers. I did girly bags for the 2 girls who attended the party.

I also ordered a pinata, so everyone also got candy with their goodie bag.

I did two games, the first was a bean bag toss into the back of a plastic dump truck. The kids had to stand on a line I moved the truck closer or farther according to age. It was a good game because all the kids were different ages. When Tyler went, he threw the first bean bag and missed, so he walked up to the truck and backed it up so it was right in front of him. It was so funny.
The other game was pin the scoop on the digger. It was another all ages game.

For the cake, I made dirt cake, which is so easy-no baking! And I put Ty's in his own truck. He loved it.

I think everyone had a good time, except maybe Jake. He had some jealousy this year. He kept telling me he was going to change his birthday and it was going to be in 3 days, so start buying his presents. Here's a pic of the kids:
Note to self: don't have another baby in December. By the time I mail invites and thank-yous I don't even want to think about Christmas cards. Plus, I have to shop for birthday and Christmas presents. Yuck.