10 months old

Tyler is quickly approaching his 1st birthday!  (I've got birthdays on my mind since Claire just had her 3rd birthday party today.  More on that later.)  Why does his babyhood have to go by so quickly?  To make matters worse, he's decided to start walking.  For me, that sort of signifies the end of babyhood.  Sigh.  But on the other hand I am so proud of him!  Can you tell I have mixed feelings about all of this?

Here is what he has been up to:

One of Tyler's great loves is our dishwasher.  If the door is open he HAS to sprint over and yank out the rack.  Pretty good work for such a little guy.

Another one of his loves is the vacuum cleaner.  He helps push the canister all over the house.  He waves happily as he does it.

Ah, the piano.  Tyler cannot get enough of the piano.  Instant smiles whenever we sit down to play.

He can walk independently, but apparently it is much more fun to push anything and everything around the house.

I love bath time with Tyler!  It's a party!

It's difficult to get pictures of Tyler walking, since he just makes a beeline for the camera.

He does seem to be naturally drawn to anything with wheels, which is different from his sister.  Balls too!  The kid seems to have already figured out how to play catch.

Flexitarian! Again...

That's right, we were flexitarians up until a few years ago when I reintroduced meat into the household on account of having Claire.  I thought it was necessary to expose her to meat so she would get necessary nutrients.  What's a "flexitarian" you say?  It's Brian's ingenius label for us who eat vegetarian at home but on occasion eat meat when it is convenient (meaning, prepared for us at a friend's house or restaurant).  In other words, we're lazy and cheap.  We're so lazy, we're not even going to provide you with all the reasons why we're doing this!  But here's a good link (and good recipes) with the basics: http://www.vegetariantimes.com/resources/why_go_veg/

Claire and Tyler did not have a say in this decision, but they're usually pretty happy so long as I'm serving up tofu on a regular basis.  It's like candy to them!  Weirdos.

What could be more graceful...

than a toddler in a tutu?  Here's Claire donning her full get-up that she got from Santa.

Don't worry, we went upstairs to check on Tyler after we made the video.  He was fighting sleep!

Christmas in Oklahoma

I'm not going to lie and say it's easy to drive an hour in traffic to the airport, fly 3 1/2 hours, and then drive 2 hours with two young children.  However, I sure am glad we did it!  Tyler and Claire were actually pretty good during all the travelling, and they had such a fun time with my family once we got to Ponca City.  We arrived late christmas eve, so we had to hustle and get the kids situated and in bed.  In the morning, Claire was still in such a daze she could do nothing but stare at the christmas tree.  No wild and crazy shrieking, whooping or hollering.  Just standing there quietly and contemplating things.

Mind you, this was at 8 in the morning.  That's sleeping in for her!  Things got underway and before long Claire was back to her energetic self.  We made a proper mess of the house as we opened gifts.

Surrounded by new objects that he had not yet slobbered on, Tyler was in heaven.

Grandma Becky surprised everyone when she whipped out an accordian from her bedroom closet and started playing it.  Santa had given Claire a mini accordian.  What a coincidence!

We had fun visiting with my brothers and sister, as well as cousins galore.  The real celebrities though were Papa Mike and Grandma Becky! 

One of Claire's favorite daily activities was feeding the birds with Papa Mike.

Yes, the kids got a castle from Santa.  No, it's not structurally sound and the big bad wolf could make easy work of it with a sneeze.  But the kids loved it and Claire spent a good chunk of time coloring it.

We couldn't bring home some of the gifts (like the castle) in our luggage, on account of heft.  This turns out to be a good thing because Papa and Grandma are planning a road trip out our way so they can deliver the toys.  Another opportunity to get spoiled, yay! 

We hope you and yours were spoiled for the holidays too.