our new office...

We have been under construction in recent weeks...VERY exciting construction! We are moving things around trying to make better use of our space! In doing so, I got a new office/scrapbooking room! The "new" room is actually our old living room, and the "old" office has become a playroom! We had a custom cabinet built to hold all of my scrapbooking supplies. It looks like an entertainment center so the room can be a living room again in the future (if we ever move!). They also built me this island/work space. My projects are up high and out of reach from my little ones, and I can sit or stand while working! I am getting my editing done while watching TV, and getting layouts done in some of my "free" time! LOVE IT!!

all about tyler...

Tyler is now 3 years and 4 months old, and has grown leaps and bounds in the last year! There are so many things that can be said about Tyler....seeing that he is able to talk, we have learned so much about his personality, and his behaviors are always changing!

1. He is a "phase" kid...EVERYTHING turns out to be a phase...each phase usually lasts a couple of weeks. He recently went through a "really good boy" phase, but he is hopefully coming to the end of a naughty phase...he gets really frustrated, will verbalize that he is frustrated and then proceeds to knock something over or throw something....It does seem to be getting better.

2. He is struggling with naptime....He will go several days of just having some quiet time, then he seems to crash and takes a nap for the next few days. Not yet ready to give up naps completely, but definitely walking the fence!

3. He loves to say "love"....Every night he takes a bite of food and says, "I love, love, love this!". He tells people he "loves" their shoes or their coat.

4. He STILL loves animals...the horse phase appears to be over, but he loves ALL animals..."swim" animals are a big hit right now (that is what he calls them).

5. He JUST moved into his big boy bed! He is quite proud of it!

6. He isn't a big eater...he eats slowly too...each meal lasts about a half hour to an hour and not a ton has been eaten! The longer you can keep him in his chair the more he will eat. Desserts will actually get him to take more bites of his main food (kelsi does this too!).

7. He LOVES sledding...he will start talking about it randomly.

8. Douglas found a collection of boogers on his wall next to his bed. He proudly admitted to putting them there!

9. He is honest, honest, honest. He doesn't really understand how to lie yet...If I hear Kelsi crying, all I have to say is, "What happened?" and he will say, "I bopped her on the head." or "I pushed her down." etc....This conversation happens multiple times a day!

10. He has to know what Kelsi is doing at all times. He will leave what he is doing just to find her.

11. When he was in his crib, he HAD to have feet in PJ's. Now that he has his big boy bed, he has to have his feet out (mama & dada are this way too!).

12. Tyler loves playdough. He will play with it all by himself for quite a bit of time!

just kelsi...

I have been thinking that I want to do a special post for each person in the family....I am starting with the youngest (Kelsi of course) and I will end with the oldest! This is totally inspired by the Facebook note 25 things but I want to document US now! Kelsi is now 19 months old, and all of these photos were taken just the other day! So let's get started....

1. Kelsi's curls are still there, but the hair is growing....I am in a difficult phase of needing to learn how to do something with it! I am still mainly going with the side bow/barrette.

2. Kelsi points, and still does a lot of "eh eh eh"...Not much talking....mama, dada, juice, da (dog), baby, wawa (walk), more, scuse you, and me (starting to totally understand what "me, me, me" means and is using it alot)

3. She wants to walk on her own everywhere...everytime we get out of the car, she kicks her feet and says, "wa wa wa". Then I say, "You want to walk" and she shakes her head and says, "ya ya ya".

4. When playing, she mainly walks around dabbling here and there. She does like to pretend cook and sometimes play with her dolls. She is also quick to jump onto whatever Tyler is playing (for about 2 seconds), but if he leaves to use the potty, she is ALL over it!! She hears him say that he needs to go potty, she waits till he turns the corner and she runs over to the toy he is playing with!

4. She loves to brush her teeth...not so good at it, but just loves to chomp, get toothpaste, and once again just be like Tyler standing on the stool.

5. She has finally become a decent eater...not as much spitting out...still a MESS at every meal though!

6. She does NOT like TV!!!! I have tried every show that friends suggest their kids like, and she wants NO part...I will even sit with her in my lap, and there is NO interest...It is KILLING me! I would just love for her to sit down and watch at least ONE show with TYler....I am going to keep trying though!

7. She loved sledding...went down the hill all by herself!

8. She is at the point of just saying, "ba, ba" (bye, bye) with a wave whenever one of us leaves, or if she is leaving for Jean's house in the am....I am so happy about it!

9. She loves to hug things...I had a bag of trash hanging from a door-knob and I turned around to find her hugging it!

10. She appears to be a TRUE girl...She is obsessed with shoes, hats and accessories...shoes the most! I wear the same ugg style boots everyday, or my sneakers....I put on a different pair yesterday and she bent over, pointed at them and said, "ooooh". She walks around finding hats, mittens, and shoes and puts them on herself or asks for a bit of help!

11. She had a quick run at potty training and still wants the potty about once a day. She was peeing and even did one poop. She still wants to sit on it, but nothing is coming out, so we are done...Try it later at an older age!

kallee turns one...

This past Saturday we went to the YMCA Foxboro for Kallee's first birthday party. We got to use their new indoor playscape, eat Sal's & Mal's pizza, and have some cake. Tyler loved the slide & Kelsi loved a little baby that was there. She kept going up to him to say hello. During the playtime, Tyler & Kelsi took a break to have a snack. The birthday girl, who is already walking, was a happy camper the whole party!

calling great nono & noni

About a week ago, Tyler was playing and he picked up a pretend phone. He turned to me and said..."I am going to call Great Noni & Great Nono. I haven't seen them in a while and I want to see how they are doing." I was touched that he thought of them because it has been almost a year since Great Nono passed, and about four months since we lost Great Noni. After a minute of pretending he turned back to me and said, "They are good". He tossed the phone down and went back to playing. All I could think was...I hope he is right.

Our soon to be model...

I have an exciting first official post for our new blog...Tyler has been chosen to be a model for Snip-Its! Turns out that he is 1 of 16 winners, and I think she said 1600 entries! Totally amazing! Today we went for the pre-cut/stye. We had to drive to their Framingham office for a 12pm appointment. After a quick trip to McDonalds (to ensure good behavior on a full tummy), we had a 10 minute style...He is going to be the "typical boy" short cut! She styled him as a little businessman (side part with the comb-over), and then decided to try a little spike in the front...My personal opinion was the little spikes were much better! It is up to them though! We will be heading back on Tuesday for the actual photo-shoot, and we all have our fingers crossed that Tyler wakes up on the right side of the bed that morning!

documenting everyday life

After starting a blog for Heather Chick Photography, I realized how EASY it was! I just HAD to start one for our family! I can't wait to get started documenting our everyday lives! I am hoping to use this blog to document for ourselves the silly things that our kids say, the adorable things that they do, and the crazy things that go on in our lives...I hope that our friends and family will be able to enjoy it as much as we hope to....

My longterm goal would be to use the entries as journaling on my scrapbooking layouts, and after a year or so get it bound as a book (there are companies out there that offer this!)....

Here is to the new year of 2009 and to new beginnings!