Messy Eating

We have been trying to introduce Tyler to more real foods lately. Tonight he started off by snacking on some cheese puffs while I was making dinner, then had mashed potatoes with us. Here's a picture of him enjoying his meal!

A Big Mess

Mike and I finally decided to bite the bullet and buy a new refrigerator. I've been bugging him to get a side by side fridge for years, mostly because I wanted the ice maker and water dispenser. Mike finally gave in when we noticed the old fridge wasn't keeping our food very fresh and it was such an old model it was guzzling energy. So we got a super deal on one from Sears and had it delivered on Saturday. I was up visiting my parents at the time (my mom is doing great by the way!) when Mike called me to inform me that we had a water line for the fridge but that it didn't connect anywhere under the sink.

So we had to have a plumber out on Wednesday to connect it up. I thought everything was all fine and well until I went to wash a load of dishes on Thursday night. I reached under our love seat (which is on the wall opposite of the sink) and felt the carpet was soaked. So I pulled out the love seat and stepped down only to find water spilling up over my toes. This of course happened at 9:00 pm but I called the plumber and insisted that he come over right away to rectify the problem. When he got here, he just kept telling us that everything looked perfectly fine under the sink. Obviously it wasn't--we used every towel in the house (at least 20) to sop up the watery mess on the other side of the wall. He then proceeded to cut apart our wall looking for the pipes. We agreed to a 6"x6" cut but ended up with around a 3'x3' hole at the end. Basically what he found was the hot water pipe was leaking. Upon seeing all the damage he had done, Mike asked the plumber if he was insured. The plumber got really defensive, so much so that he was raising his voice and threatening to leave. After all was said and done, he left after claiming all was fixed but that he could assume no responsibility for the coincidental timing of this mishap. End of saga for night number 1.

When we woke up the next day, I ran the dishwasher again and found that the pipe was STILL leaking. So we went over to our insurance agent's office and requested her counsel. She advised us to call one of their plumbers to fix the problem, then to call one of their contractors to estimate the damages. So this morning, we had different plumbers over who said the work the first plumber did had to be re-done along with all the compression nuts under the sink. They repaired the problem relatively quickly and inexpensively. Then we had the contractors over shortly after to assess the damage. They ripped up the carpet and lent us a high powered fan to dry out the carpet padding. They are supposed to come back Monday to figure out how much work needs to be done on the wall.

Our lovely living room--big asymmetrical chunk missing and carpet detached

Our lovely new fridge!

Happy Nine-Month Birthday Tyler!

Happy nine-month birthday to you
Happy nine-month birthday to you
Happy nine-month birthday dear Tyler
Happy nine-month birthday to you!

Many more birthdays to you
Many more birthdays to you
Many more birthdays dear Tyler
Many more birthdays to you!

Wow, Tyler is already nine-months old! We went to his nine-month check-up today and were shocked to discover he weighs 21 lbs 4 oz (55th percentile) and measures in at 29 inches (75th percentile). He’s getting to be quite the big boy! The doctor said he is looking really strong and healthy.

Now that Tyler has started crawling, we can hardly seem to get him to sit still! He can lift his tummy off the ground to get on his hands and knees but he hasn’t quite figured out how to put that move into motion. He seems to want to stand up all the time, and he is now starting to use the furniture to pull himself up. He is showing a real interest in table food (no surprise there) but he still hasn’t cut a tooth. So we are still just giving him Ritz crackers and the Gerber puffs. He is babbling up a storm and you can tell he is trying really hard to put sounds together to form something meaningful. It seems like he is learning to do something new every day and we are just enjoying watching him soak it all in!

4th of July Weekend Festitivies

We hosted the 4th of July celebration at our house this year. The plan was to cook-out and spend the day outside soaking up the sunshine and playing lawn games. Unfortunately, I didn't run that by Mother Nature first so we got rained out. We didn't let a little rain ruin the fun though. Mike still cooked out chicken wings, burgers, brats and hot dogs out on the grill (he got soaked!). We enjoyed great food but more importantly great company! We all crammed into our little front room for good conversation and a couple of very fun party games. Tyler was acting pretty good at the start of the day but towards the end of the night started feeling sick. Poor little guy threw up a couple of times for his audience. I don't know if it was all the excitement or perhaps from the Flag Cake I fed him! Either way, he was feeling like himself again by this morning. We decided to take advantage of seeing Mike's Grandma and Grandpa Ellsworth (who traveled all the way from Wyoming for the holiday) so we went to Morris today for more visiting. Here a couple pictures of the fun (unfortunately I didn't take more pictures yesterday because we were all just sitting around inside)....

My Flag Cake that I was very proud--this was the second attempt.....you'd know why I was so proud if you had seen the first attempt!

Tyler with his Great Grandma and Grandpa Ellsworth



Tyler's Great Grandpa Ellsworth is a woodworker and made Tyler this really cool wooden block set (inside the brightly painted box)

Tyler says "Thanks Grandpa! I can't wait to play with my new blocks!"

Creeping and Crawling

Tyler just recently figured out how to military crawl and he's getting pretty darn good at it. He had his eyes set on a sheet of paper so I caught him on video "crawling" to it. Enjoy!

Happy First Father's Day Mike!

For Mike's first Father's Day, I swallowed my Cubs pride and took the boys over to the portrait studio for father/son pictures in their White Sox outfits. They turned out really cute!

I want to thank Mike for being such a wonderful father to Tyler. He takes a major role in feeding him, dressing him, and changing him. More importantly, he is there every night to read him stories, tuck him into bed and sing him bedtime songs. He joins us for walks nearly everyday and he makes Tyler laugh everyday. I couldn't do it without him and I want to thank him today for everyday he does so much!

Happy Eight-Month Birthday Tyler!

Happy eight-month birthday to you
Happy eight-month birthday to you
Happy eight-month birthday dear Tyler
Happy eight-month birthday to you!

Many more birthdays to you
Many more birthdays to you
Many more birthdays dear Tyler
Many more birthdays to you!

WOW! Eight months! I am pleased to announce that this is the first month that Tyler has completely dodged an illness (thank goodness for the warmer weather)! However we’ve discovered in all our time spent doing fun stuff outside that Tyler has inherited hay fever from his mommy. So despite being bug-free, he is still suffering from watery eyes and very snotty sneezes. Poor baby! Tyler has been growing like a weed this month—he now weighs over 20 lbs, and it shows in all the changes in his development. We started giving him fruit and veggie puffs. Not only is he learning fine motor control by “fisting” the puffs to his mouth, he is also learning to mash more solid foods with his gums and tongue (still no teeth though)! He is really enjoying being able to join us at the dinner table! He now rolls over onto his tummy constantly (making diaper changes very difficult) and is trying so hard to start crawling. He’s been able to move around in a circle all month but just recently started getting some forward movement by “army crawling”. He isn’t quite able to lift his tummy off the ground yet to really crawl but it won't be long from the looks of it. Tyler is starting to reach up to grab for our hands and is helping to pull himself up to standing. He can take a few very wobbly steps forward with us holding his arms up. Tyler has been vocalizing TONS and has been babbling “ma-ma” and “da-da”, although we know it’s not meaningful yet. We are excited to see all the changes to come in this next month!

Hanging out in the backyard!