Kyler's Birthday Parties

We celebrated Kyler's birthday with three different parties. The first party was with Erik's family. Both sets of Erik's grandparents came, as well as his parents, brother and sister. We had dinner, cake and ice cream, and opened presents. It was a nice evening, so we were able to eat outside on our back patio. Here are some pictures from the first party:

Yay, it's my birthday!!

Kyler's cake! (Okay, I know that "Happy" is in really fat writing, but I was having trouble with the tube of frosting...)

Kyler with his Great-Grandma Tonderum

One of Kyler's presents! Erik's mom cross-stitched this for him, very cool!

Another present, a sand and water table!! We will have fun with that this summer!

The second birthday celebration was on Kyler's actual birthday, April 12th. That was a Monday, so we just celebrated with the three of us. We had dinner together, Kyler opened his presents from mom and dad, and then we took him to Four Queens for his first taste of ice cream! He also had his first cupcake with his ice cream. He wasn't quite sure what to think about either one. Below is a picture of his first bite of ice cream; however, his opinion has quickly changed, whenever Erik or I has a bowl of ice cream, Kyler is sitting right next to you, leaning over the bowl because he wants some and then he gets mad when it's all gone! :) The same was true with his cupcake, he wasn't sure what to do with it, and was more interested in playing with the frosting than eating the cupcake; however, by that Saturday, he definitely wanted to eat the cupcake instead of play with it! Below are some pictures from Kyler's second celebration:

Opening his card from Mom and Dad (he loved opening the cards and got mad when we took it away to open the present)

Opening one of his presents, a Bible!

Sitting forward in his car seat on the way to Four Queens!

First taste of ice cream...

The "aftermath" of the cupcake!

Our final celebration was with Ashley's family the weekend after Kyler's birthday. Ashley's grandma, parents, brother, aunts, uncles, cousins, and old babysitter all came over to celebrate (21 people in all!). We had dinner together, opened presents and had cake and ice cream. It was nice out again, so we were able to eat outside. We were especially thankful that it was nice for this party because we wasn't sure where we would have put 21 people for dinner in our house! Below are some pictures from this celebration:

"1" Year cupcakes!

Ashley's brother, Ben, Ashley's grandma, and Geneva and Henry (Ashley's old babysitter) eating dinner.

Opening presents!

The family watching Kyler open his presents

Kyler eating his cupcake at this party!

We are so thankful for all of the family that took time to come and celebrate Kyler's 1st birthday with us! Kyler is so blessed to have all of these people in his life! Thank you also for the wonderful things that Kyler was given, he has been enjoying playing with and wearing all of the wonderful things that he got!!

One Year Old!!!

Kyler is one year old today!!! One year ago today, I had been having contractions since about 6 am the previous morning. I had hardly slept at all the night before because of the contractions and we finally decided to head to the hospital about 3:00 in the afternoon. We got there and found out that I was 4-5 cm dilated, were admitted to the hospital, and about 5 1/2 hours later this little guy entered the world!

Kyler Erik Blanchard, about 1-2 hours old

3 months old

6 months old

9 months old

One year old!

Hi Mom!

Soooo big!

Happy boy

Give me the camera!

Hard to believe our little man is one year old today! There were times during this past year that I thought would never end; however, looking back on them they are done and gone! Other times seem to have gone so fast as we are already at 12 months and the days of Kyler sitting in one spot in one room are long gone! Our little boy continues to be such a blessing in our lives. He is on the go all the time! He is not walking yet, but he crawls everywhere, including up the stairs multiple times a day. He pulls himself up on everything (including the toilet) :) and will walk from one thing to another. He loves to walk with you, but has to be holding on to you with both hands, he doesn't like to go one-handed and gets mad if you make him do it, even though he will stand next to something and hold on with one hand or he will lean against it with no hands and play with something else... :)

We have been working on doing more and more finger food with Kyler. We have been giving him some things for a while now, but are working on making his whole meal finger foods. He's not quite sure about this as he loves to be able to just "suck down" his food and not do any work to get it to his tummy. :) Another thing with eating is that we have sucessfully made it one year with breastfeeding!! I feel like this is something to be proud of, I know it doesn't work for everyone, but we made it the full year! Kyler is down to just a couple feedings during the day that we will be slowly eliminating over the next couple of weeks. I am kind of ready to be done, but again hard to believe that this "stage" is over. :)

Kyler has been doing a lot more talking this month he has been pretty vocal for a while now, but I think it has definitely increased this past month. He has discovered his "n" and "d" sounds and almost has the "g". His favorite words are "ba ba ba" or "bop bop/bob bob". We joke about "who is bob?" "what bob are you talking to Kyler?" around here. :)

We love you so much Kyler! You are such a blessing to us! Happy 1st Birthday!!!!

Love,

Daddy and Mommy

Easter Sunday 2010

We had a great time celebrating Easter this past weekend! Friday night we went to the Good Friday service at Naz that the students put on every year. I always like hearing about the students' lives and their different growth stories. Saturday we didn't do much, Erik had to be at the church for a while to get ready for Sunday, but we did get our refrigerator moved back!! (I'll post more on that later). Then on Sunday we went to church at 9:00 with my (Ashley's) family and then after church, we headed up to Denver (Iowa that is, not Colorado) :) to my aunt's house to have dinner with my mom's side of the family. It was such a nice day, the kids got to be outside and play. This was our 2nd Easter as a family of 3! Kyler was born on Easter Sunday last year, so we spent the day in the hospital, it was nice to be with family this year!

We are so thankful that we have a God that sent his Son, Jesus, to die on a cross for our sins. And, we are also thankful that He rose from the dead and is alive!! We hope you also had a great day celebrating Jesus' resurrection!

Our family!

Happy Easter!!

Hmmm, Mom, enough pictures....

These eggs taste pretty good!

Hanging out with grandpa

Ashley's cousin, uncle and brother.

Ava and Ryan playing with bubbles.

5 Years Ago Today...

I had spent the past week on a mission trip in New York doing these things...

Seeing the Statue of Liberty

Riding the Subway

Hanging out with friends

Doing prayer stations in the subway

Seeing Times Square

And ended up here on Thursday night (the final and "free" night in the city)...

Empire State Building!!

I walked around, took this picture...

Turned around, and this person (my boyfriend at the time) was standing there!!! (He wasn't on the trip...)

I gave him a hug and this is what he did...

Got down on one knee, and asked me to marry him!!! (I obviously said yes!!) :)

Engaged!! :)

Erik-Thanks for making this one of the most memorable days of my life!! I can't believe it's been five years since this happened, can't wait to see where the next five years takes us in life! Love you!!!

11 Months and Moving Up!!

Kyler turned 11 months old yesterday! Our little boy is growing up so fast! He has had some big "firsts" this past month. He finally got his arms and legs coordinated so that he is crawling on his hands and knees. He was definitely on the move last month and could get where he wanted, but it was with more of an "inch worm" style. Well, the inch worm is no more! He has figured out how to crawl on all fours and is getting quite speedy with it. Another thing Kyler has figured out this past month is how to pull himself up on things. He easily pulls himself up on his musical table, the footstool, a laundry basket, a plastic container, a box, or whatever else he thinks looks interesting! It is providing new challenges for Erik and I as we have to keep a better eye on him now. He hasn't quite perfected how to get down from standing yet...he does okay sometimes and other times he cries because he wants help. Kyler has also figured out how to go up the stairs. We have two stairs and then a landing and then the rest of the staircase to go upstairs. He has recently figured out he can get up the two stairs and then look out the window that is by the landing.

Kyler now has 4 teeth!! He got his first top one around Valentines day and the 2nd one came in just this past week. Kyler also still loves to eat, I think he eats just about everything that we stick in his mouth. :) (Which is great, I would rather have it that way for sure!) We are working on him feeding himself, which he can do pretty well if he decides that the food needs to go in his mouth instead of being played with. I often watch him put a puff in his mouth and then hit the other one until it lands on the floor.... :) Another thing with eating...Erik and I joke about how Kyler is the human vacuum; he picks up little pieces of fuzz, lint, and threads off of the floor and puts them into his mouth so fast! He puts fuzz into his mouth faster than he puts food! We hope this phase passes soon...

Well those are some highlights from this past month...we have been enjoying the warmer weather and being able to go out on some afternoon walks! Below are some photos from the past month, have a good weekend!

Standing at the footstool :)

Hi!!

Heading up the stairs...

All ready to go for the first walk of the year!

Crawling to the camera

On his knees...

...to standing!!

"Ooooooooo" is one of his new favorite phrases!

Looking out the landing window!

Kitchen Update!

It has been a while since I have done a blog post about our kitchen. Well we are still working on it, and lately we have been making some steady progress!! I realize we did have a small "distraction" (a little guy named Kyler) :) in the midst of this project, but hopefully we will be finished soon! What we really have left to do is to finish stripping, sanding, staining, and finishing all of the woodwork. And the thing about it is, it just takes a lot of time, so we continue to plug away! Here are some pictures of the progress over the last couple weeks!

Erik staining the window!

All done!

The doorway and window stained!