Easter 2011

We had a great Easter celebrating the death and resurrection of Jesus!  Our Easter kind of started the weekend before, as we went over to Erik's parent's house for dinner to celebrate his dad's birthday.  While we were there, Erik's mom had set up an egg hunt in their basement for Kyler.  He had to go around and find 40+ plastic eggs.  There were also some mini Cadbury eggs too, that Kyler had to find and he kept calling those "rocks". :)  Kyler wasn't quite sure what to do at first, he wanted to just find an egg, shake it and then see what was inside.  But after a few minutes he got the hang of it and wanted to "find eggs". :)  

On Good Friday we all went to the student-led Good Friday Service at Naz.  Kyler did really well and sat through the whole service.  I think it helped that a couple of Erik's custodians were talking and so he knew who they were.  The pew hymnal also turned into a drum towards the end of the service too... :)  Erik and I came home and put Kyler and Norah to bed, my parents came over, and then Erik and I went back to the 9:00 service to see a couple more of Erik's custodians speak.  We joked that we couldn't remember the last time we were out past 10:00 pm as we drove home after the service. :)

On Saturday morning Kyler went over to my parent's house and dyed eggs with them.  With all of Kyler's birthday celebrations the two previous weekends, I had forgotten about egg dying...luckily my parents came to the rescue and helped Kyler dye some eggs!    

My mom had found some sort of machine to do the egg dying for you?  She said next year she would just go back to the cups with the dye in them. :)

Saturday evening we came back over to my parent's house and had an Easter egg hunt over there.  Erik had to be at church again, so it was a nice break in the evening to have some fun over there!

On Easter morning we got up and got ready and went to church at 11:00 with my parents.  I really wanted a couple of pictures of Kyler and Norah in their Easter outfits...yeah, you know how well that works to try and get a 2 month old and a 2 year old to sit still together and look at the camera..... :)  Here's the best we got! :)

An Easter kiss from her big brother!

Sweet Norah all dressed up!

Best shot of both of them together :)  (Notice Kyler has Norah's headband...)

After church we headed up to my Uncle's farm for Easter dinner with my (Ashley's) side of the family.  My Aunt and Uncle live on a farm about 45 min Northeast of here, just past Sumner.  We don't make it up there too often, but I knew Kyler would love to see all of the tractors!

Best family photo :)

My parents, brother, and our family (this was the best attempt here too...) :)

My Aunt and Uncle have this gator that they call the "Ladybug".  My two Uncles took turns giving the great-grand kids (Kyler & Norah's generation) rides around the farm.

More riding :)

Norah taking in all the action!

It is becoming more fun as Kyler is getting older to teach him about Jesus.  We kept telling him on Sunday that "Jesus is alive!" and he would then say "Jesus alive!" for quite a while after Easter.  It is so fun to watch our kids get older and start to understand the meaning of holidays and have different traditions that go with them.  We are also so thankful for our families and how we are able to celebrate with them too.  We hope you had a blessed Easter as well!

Birthday Parties!

We had three birthday celebrations for Kyler's 2nd birthday.  We started celebrating the weekend before his actual birthday on Saturday evening.  We had a "family" party, where we invited both of our families over to celebrate.  Everyone came over about 5:00 and we started with a dinner of pulled pork sandwiches, fruit, cheesy potatoes, and chips.  Kyler didn't eat a whole lot as his 2nd cousins were here to play and there was so much going on!  I think we had about 25 people here total! :)  After dinner the kids played for a bit outside and then we opened presents.  Kyler was more interested in opening presents at his birthday than he was at Christmas.  He's starting to get the hang of it now and realizing that there is something fun inside! :)  After presents we had cake and ice cream and sang "Happy Birthday".  Kyler needed a little help blowing out his candle as we haven't been practicing much, oh well. :)  Here are some pictures from the first party: 

Kyler's Basketball Cake!  His birthday theme this year was sports balls. :)

The Birthday Boy before his party!

Great-Grandma & Grandpa T eating dinner with Geneva and Henry (Geneva is the lady who babysat me when I was little!)

Kyler eating dinner with his Grandpa and Great Aunt and Uncle!

Playing outside

Opening presents!

Asking Great Uncle Roger and Aunt Cheryl for help getting the toys out of the package!

Singing "Happy Birthday!"

A picture with "Kyler 2" the special airplane Henry made for Kyler.

Kyler's real birthday was April 12th, which happened to fall on a Tuesday this year, which is also Erik's day off, so it was fun to have Erik home to celebrate Kyler's birthday with us all day!  We didn't do anything too out of the ordinary.  Erik and Kyler went to Fareway in the morning, then we had lunch, Kyler napped and we played outside for a while because it was a really nice day out.  We had one of Kyler's favorite dinners-skillet casserole-and then had some basketball cupcakes for dessert!  After dinner we went on a walk up to UNI and looked at the panther statue outside the Union (something else Kyler likes to do) and then came home and opened presents from Mom and Dad!  Here are some pictures from Kyler's real birthday:

Opening presents...

An Aquadoodle! Kyler LOVES pens/drawing/pencils so we thought this would be a great non-messy toy for him! :)

A baseball bat and tee!

We had one last birthday celebration for Kyler the weekend after his birthday-a friend party!  We didn't do a friend party last year, but thought he would enjoy it this year since he is really starting to know who people are.  So we invited a few of his friends over with their families to help him celebrate.  We kind of followed the same type of set-up as with his family party; we ate dinner, played, opened presents and had cake and ice cream.  It was a fun time with all the little kids running around!  Here are some pictures from his friend party:

Basketball cake!

All the kids ready to eat dinner!

Mason, Denver, & Jillian helping open presents.

Singing happy birthday!

It's hard to believe our little man is 2 years old!  They have been a great two years and we love the little guy Kyler is becoming!  Thanks to everyone who helped us celebrate, we are very blessed!

Kyler is TWO!!

Kyler turned two years old on April 12th!!  It's hard to believe that we now have a two-year-old at our house!  At two years old, Kyler is our energetic little man.  He loves to run around our house, going from one room to another constantly.  Kyler loves balls of all kinds, footballs, basketballs, soccer balls, baseballs, it doesn't matter what kind of ball it is, he loves to play with it.  He also enjoys any types of sticks with balls.  Whether it's a wooden spoon, his golf club, or a stick from outside, it usually turns into a tool to hit a ball around the house or outside.  

Pounding is another one of Kyler's favorite past times.  I know I've written about it before on here, but Kyler loves to drum and pound.  Last night he had gotten a drink of water from a Peppers cup, and when he was done with it, the cup was turned upside down next to his drum so he could pound on it.  I then came out later to find a hole in the bottom of the cup from his pounding. :)  While we sat at the Good Friday services, Kyler got out all the hymnals and Bible from the pew, piled them up and then started to drum on them with his hands.  

Kyler loves to talk too.  There isn't really anything he doesn't say.  It's funny because he actually makes you aware of what YOU say because he picks up on phrases or words that you say and will repeat them.  The other day Norah was in the swing and had some bubbles coming out of her mouth, so Kyler grabbed the burp rag and wiped off her face and then says "good job", because that's what we say to him when he helps out. :)

One new thing Kyler has done this past month is count.  He has counted from 1 to 13 all by himself.  We have done some counting with him, but think he has figured out some on his own from watching Sesame Street. :)  I don't think he understands the true numerical value yet, but the fact that he will count and get it right is pretty good!  He usually likes to count when he's in the bath and will sometimes start at seven and go up or some number in the middle. :)

Kyler has taken a liking to climbing on things.  He isn't quite tall enough to climb on to the couch yet, so he has discovered that he can put his drum next to the couch and use it as a step to get up there.  He has also been caught climbing into the pantry cupboard, and up onto this built-in step thing we have in the kitchen.  He can also reach quite far across the dining room table.  Kyler has also discovered how to climb onto the chair that is at the computer desk in the kitchen.  As Erik said the other day, "nothing is safe any more!" :)

Kyler eats just about anything, there really isn't something he doesn't like.  However, if we eat something for a meal, and he enjoys it, and then we have the same thing for leftovers a couple days later for lunch or something, he might not touch it.  I would say his favorite foods right now are mac n' cheese, pizza, ice cream and m&ms.

Sleeping has its ups and downs with Kyler.  He has never slept great and it continues to be a struggle.  He takes one nap a day, usually for about 1 1/2 to 2 hours.  At night he is usually up once, sometimes twice.  He had done great sleeping the whole night about a month ago, but has since regressed....we continue to work on that. :)

It has been a fun and crazy two years and we love our little guy so much, we are so blessed to have him as part of our family!  Here are some pictures from the past month:

  

Two Years Old!

All dressed and ready to go outside! :)

Trying to help Norah

Eating a snack in the wall before it came down!

1st ride in the double stroller!

Going down the slide with dad at the park

Riding his John Deere tractor!