How about Corn?

For almost 2 years I have asked Tyson the same question everyday. "Tyson what should we have for lunch today?" No response, followed by: "How about________?" Typical day today, and once again I said, "Tyson, what should we have for lunch today?" and low and behold I got a response. Tyson said: "how bough cworn?" (I didn't misspell corn, that's just how he says it). Me: "you want corn?" Tyson: "cworn...beans". That meant corn and green beans. So that's what we had for lunch, corn and green beans (I also threw in some bread and avacados). It was so nice to actually get a response to my question, and I thought it was a perfect response and a perfect lunch with my perfect little talker of cworn.

Lukey Love Spaghetti!

We gave Lucas Spaghetti tonight for the first time, as you can see, he LOVED it (just like his momma does)!!! I love the concentration he has (in the 2nd to last picture) trying to get those noodles in his mouth. What a cutie!

Ahhh Mom...

Why do you always have to be giving me kisses?

The Desert is in bloom!

Although I miss the green of Washington, the desert can be a beautiful place as well. Our yard has started to bloom and I think the results are so beautiful. All of these pictures are of plants in our yard. Except the cactus with the giant flowers on it (that's from our neighbors yard). We are looking to get one of these so I took a picture to take to the nursery, and decided to snap a few more. The little white flowers are paracantha's on trellis' on our fence (which is a cinder block wall) they have red berries in the winter. We also have our first nectarine's starting to grow after we planted the tree almost 2 years ago, yea!

Desert Bloom II

Ode to a 2 year old

Tyson turned 2 on Friday April 4th, 2008. First let me say I can't believe I have a 2 year old. He has grown so much in the past 2 years and it is so exciting for us to watch him learn new things everyday (like today he said 2 new words: beans, as in green beans, and bus).  We sort of celebrated his birthday twice. Once with both sets of grandparents while we were camping in Zion's national park a few weeks ago, and then we went to a Chucky Cheese type place on his birthday. This picture is of Tyson after he climbed up the Skee Ball game. I think he was after the green Alien who was ticking us both off. It seems like since he turned 2, an alternate bi-polar little boy has taken over Tyson (I have my suspicions about that freaking green alien). He freaks out over the weirdest things like not being able to run around the house with eggs. Or, he walks up to Luke for no reason and just smacks him in the head. Hmmm. He does have some amazing, wonderful things as well. I love how fast he picks things up, I love how new and exciting everything is. It's so cool to me that he does his abc's and 123's and is now learning the sounds, P: pah pah pah. Nothing makes me smile like when he sings Jesus wants me for a SUN BEAM! Or when he throws his arms around my neck and says: "Nigh Nigh, luv you toooo" at 11am.  2 is definitely tough, but I'll take it because I know all too soon the "terrible 2's" will be a thing of the past. 

BaKetball

Tyson loves anything to do with cars and any type of ball. His new favorite thing is BaKetball (he doesn't say the "s" yet in Basket ball). He loves to watch it on TV and to try and play it as well. I found him the other day putting any type of ball he had through his hoop including his football. If you're wondering how he's "dunking" it all ready, see the last picture. I also found that he pushed the lawn chair to the hoop so he could "shoot" his hoops a little more effectively. 

Sidewalk Chalk...

Tyson and Lucas drawing with sidewalk chalk...(Luke: "hmmm wonder how this stuff tastes?")
Lucas eating said chalk....
Tyson intent on his chalk drawing...
Lucas intent on doing what ever Tyson is doing...this ends with Luke grabbing the chalk, and Tyson wacking Luke on the head. There are no photo's due to my attempt to stop the madness.

sick II

It didn't get better yesterday, it got WORSE!!! By the afternoon we were all suffering from the stomach flu. I got puked on twice, really gross. You've never seen such a sad state of affairs. Happy to report that today everyone seem a little bit better.

Sick

So if you get grossed out easily, don't keep reading. 

My kids have been sick the last day or so, I'm not sure what the deal is. Sunday Jim got up with the boys, and Tyson began to throw up for no apparent reason. After I got up, he continued to puke 4 other times through out the day. Yesterday I thought we were in the clear, until he had it out the other end. Better than cleaning puke out of the carpet though. For some reason last night Lucas was up more than his usual 5am snack and I didn't figure it out. Turns out he had also thrown up in the night all over his crib.  Then this morning at about 3:45 I hear Tyson on the monitor throwing up again. 3 sheet and blanket changes, jammie changes, and 1 mommy change later, I finally got to sleep about 6:30. That was just in time for Jim to bring in Lukey because he had to go fly. Tyson was up at 7:15 and started with the diarrhea again. Then Lucas started with it. I won't even complain that I've been sniffing Zicam nasal spray for my head cold for the last day. Needless to say we've forgone the gymnastics and park for the day and are now just trying to survive. I vote when everyone is sick, it's ok to stick your kids in front of the tv, right? Like Jim said this morning, when it rains it pours. What causes this nastiness? Is it a virus? How do I keep from catching it? HELP!

*The picture above of Lucas pretty much says how we all feel. To see his usual everyday cuteness you'll have to scroll down to previous posts, he doesn't always look this...sickly.

Vacuum Part II

Thanks for the advise everyone, here's what we choose. We shopped the Dyson (I wanted to get it because it rhymes with Tyson, and I like their commercials), the Kirby (not quite ready to drop over a grand), the old standby hoover, and the Oreck. We picked this one because, it works great, it's ONLY 9 LBS, we can take it in to the oreck stores for the yearly "tune-up" or if we need something fixed instead of having to send it in. Also I really like that all of the extra features like cheerio picker uppers, and upholstery cat hair suckeruppers, and blind dust cleaneruppers are on a separate canister vac. That way when I need to do jobs that don't involve actually using the vacuum part, I can tote around a small canister vac thing(it goes over your shoulder with a strap or you can just hold it) instead of the whole vacuum (plus I kind of get to look like a ghost buster while doing that-cool). It also helped that my grandparents had one for like 20+ years and my grandpa is going to get another one (the highest model that's like selfpropelled and stuff). Anyhow, thanks again for the advise to the blog posters and the emailers. Oh, and by the way we do endorse this already, we've cleaned up 2 puking incidents (ty was sick all of yesterday) and a spilt bag of cheerios. :)

Vacuum Advise

I'm looking at getting a new vacuum. Ours sucks, or rather doesn't suck and that's why it sucks. We've purchased 2 vacuums since we've been married and I'm about done buying one every couple of years. Does anyone have any recommendations? Ask around, or get back to me with you advise please!

marcibalser@hotmail.com

Gymnastics

Tuesday's are Gymnastics days. We are in a parent tot class at the rec center with Tyson (Lucas joins us unofficially), and he loves it. His favorite thing to do is the balance beam, he especially loves it when his daddy isn't flying and gets to come to class. At the end of class, each child gets to pick their favorite activity of that day and perform it for the rest of the class. Ty always picks the balance beam. Lucas usually finds a way he can have fun too, 9 more months and he can be an official gymnast too.