Alright… I need your opinions

I am trying to decide on what picture to submit of Tucker for a cute baby contest. The winner receives $125,000 towards a College Education. So, please leave a comment and let me know which one I should submit. THANKS!

Sometimes we miss the little things…

The last couple of weeks I have been trying so hard to get Tucker to learn “head”. Every chance I got I would point to my head, his head, David’s head, do whatever I could to get him to learn head. I was getting so discouraged because he just didn’t seem to be catching on. Well, I was so focused on teaching him “head” that I was missing out on the other things he was learning. So, here’s the latest on the little things…

If you ask Tucker, “Where’s Tucker?”, he will point to his belly with both pointer fingers and to the best of his ability say, “Tucker”. It literally made my day the first time I noticed that he did that. When you ask him, “Where’s Daddy?”, he’s really getting good at pointing to David. By the time we get to Mommy I think he’s lost interest in the game.

Tucker has caught on to what it means to close things. Last week I asked him to close David’s dresser drawer, and after he did we clapped for him. So now he will walk around closing anything he can and then turn to us and start clapping waiting for us to clap.

Clapping is his latest obsession. Ever since the drawer closing, anytime he does anything that we ask him to do he wants us to clap for him. Our little Ham! :)

“No” is being learned quite often lately. He loves to get into anything and everything, but he’s quick to respond when we say no… most of the time.

We love Tucker so much. We sometimes wonder where our little baby went, then we look at him and remind ourselves that he just turned into our fun toddler. He’s got such a personality and we love watching it grow and expand every day. He still loves going to the child care at the courthouse, which makes me so happy. Next month David and I will be leaving Tucker for the night with His older Sister so we can get away for a night. I’m nervous… not for how Tucker will act but for how I will handle being away from him. It’s nice to know that he’ll be an fantastic hands and he’ll have SO much fun with his cousins.

Here are some recent pictures.

This is how we often find Tucker. We can’t put anything close to the edge. :)

This is the face he usually gives us when we say “No”. He’s pretty sure the open mouth grin will help him get away with anything. Sometimes it works…

Sometimes he gets away with a “souvenir” of his latest conquest.

Last but not least, sorry for the blurry picture and red eyes, but I had to share this with you. Can you see the curl over his left ear? That is what the back of his head looks like now. I LOVE IT!

PS. I promise he wears clothes. This was after bath time. We usually let him run in a diaper for awhile because he LOVES it! :)

You’re Gonna Miss This

Yesterday afternoon Tucker decided that he didn’t need an afternoon nap. That resulted in Tucker driving me NUTS all afternoon. At one point I was so annoyed because everywhere I tried to step he would step there in front of me. UGH! As I was getting more and more frustrated I heard the song that happened to be playing at the time. It was Trace Adkins “You’re Gonna Miss This”. How ironic that as I was thinking, “I can’t wait until you grow out of the ‘I always want to be where you are’ stage”, the verse about the Mother apologizing about her kids is what I hear. At that point I just picked Tucker up and gave him a big kiss and hug, told him I love him. Then we sang and danced to the rest of the song. Funny how these things happen. :) Here is the song for you to enjoy…

Make that 7… total

Yeah, remember in my last post when I said Tucker has 2-more teeth. Well, we found another… his lower incisor. Yup! It’s poked through and ready for use. So that gives him 7-teeth in total. I have a feeling that he’s going to get quite a few teeth over the next few weeks. Here come the cheesy TEETHY grins! :) Again, I’ll get pictures when he lets me.

2-More Teeth

Yup, Tucker has two more teeth. You would think that they were his eye teeth on top because they are RIGHT there ready to come through. But no, they are his molars on top. I didn’t even realize it until last night when we were playing and he had his mouth open SO wide from laughing. I felt bad that I didn’t realize it sooner. I did notice a few days ago that he was chewing more things on his back gums. Well, what I thought were his gums. Now that we know he has teeth there we are noticing  that he chews almost everything back there. We gave him some Sour Patch Kids this morning and instead of biting it off with his front teeth, he chooses to use his back. Silly boy! :) As soon as I can get a picture I’ll post it for all to choose.

Christmas… Finally! (with good pictures too!)

Ah yes, every child loves the staircase. Crazy kids! :)

Well, let’s see. It’s now January 7th, so I thought it would be a good time to update the blog about Christmas and New Years. Since there hasn’t been any Holidays since, I suppose it’s still good. :)

Our Christmas Vacation started on 12/22. While I was packing for our trip I decided to scare Tucker because he loves it. I got him good and he was laughing so hard that he lost his footing and fell on the door hinge resulting in…

Can you see that nasty huge goose egg. Poor kid. I don’t know who was crying harder me or him. After about a minute he stopped and wanted to play more, but I was still crying. I felt so horrible. But, he’s ok, no permanent damage.

When David got off work we headed up to Tigard to watch the OSU v. BYU bowl game. Since 1/2 of David’s family are BYU fans, and the other 1/2 are OSU fans we thought it would be fun. Well, it sucked…  enough said.

On 12/23 David hung out with his Dad while I went to lunch with my Mother-in-law, and my two sister-in-laws. We went to California Pizza Kitchen and it was DELICIOUS. Dang I love that place. It was fun to get out with just the girls. That evening we had Christmas with David’s family. Tucker was extremely distracted by the candles lighting the fireplace…

He did pause long enough for a picture…

And then eventually he got interested in opening presents…

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Early on the 24th we got on a plane and headed down to Sacramento to be with my family. I was SO Excited because this was the first Christmas in 3-years that we have been able to spend with my family. I was even more excited because I just knew that Tucker was going to be SO much fun this Christmas, and he sure was. Before I go on I have to share these pictures with you. We flew right over Crater Lake and I was able to get some decent shots with my phone camera. It was SO beautiful!

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Once in California we went to breakfast with my parents and enjoyed a rather quiet Christmas Eve. My parents took us out to dinner with my Grandma to a delicious steakhouse. How cute are my parents here. :)

And here is our Christmas Eve Family pictures…

After dinner we went home to my parents house for some Christmas Eve traditions. We started the tradition this year of reading “The Night Before Christmas”, opening Christmas Eve Pajamas, and saying what we are grateful for that year. It was really fun. Here are some pictures from the day.

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I got a really cute picture of Tucker with his Uncle BJ (my brother). BJ is always so excited to see Tucker, and as soon as Tucker warms up to him he LOVES his Uncle BJ. So, I LOVE this picture of the two of them…

After Tucker went down for bed we played cards with my parents and headed off to bed so Santa could come. :) The next morning Santa sure did come and Tucker had SO much fun playing with all of the paper, and also the books, puzzles and toys that were mixed into it. :) Here’s an album of picture for Christmas day. One of my favorite things of this Christmas was watching Tucker interact with all of his cousins. I loved watching him sit at the table with his cousins like a big boy. And since he was the only boy cousin there Christmas day, all of the girls just LOVED him to death. :)

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My Mom got my Dad a surround sound system for Christmas. So on the 26th Mom and I took off with Tucker so that the installers could come and get their stuff done. My Dad was in Heaven since he’s been wanting these Bose speakers for YEARS! I had so much fun shopping with Mom. We used to go shopping a lot before David and I got married, so whenever we are in town we have to make up for lost time. :)

The rest of our time in California was spent visiting with family and just enjoying our time. I always love going to California and visiting with my family. There never seems to be enough time to do all that I want to do, and visit all who I want to see. We weren’t able to see any of our friends this time, sorry, but when it’s a short trip you have to spend as much time with family as possible.

David and I headed home late in the evening on the 29th. Apparently Oregon got a bunch of snow dumped that evening, but fortunately it didn’t affect our flight. However, it did take us a little bit longer to get home form the airport. We wound up staying at David’s parents house that night and headed home early the next morning.

On the 30th we were able to visit David’s best friend, Scott, and his Daughter, Ella, while they were in Tigard for the holidays. Scott’s wife was visiting a friend while we were up there. Here’s a cute picture…Tucker and Ella played pretty well together, and much to my surprise Ella and I became quick friends. She was very cute and cuddly that evening. She has quite the cute little personality, and David and Scott are always happy to catch up. After we left Scott’s we were able to go to an Engagement Party for David’s former roommate and his fiancé. They are the cutest couple and we are SO happy for them.

New Years Eve was pretty quiet for us. We went to dinner with some friends and then came home, watched a movie and we were in bed by 10:00. Yup, we are officially old. We were awake at midnight, I was barely, but we did wish each other a happy new year, and then I was quickly back to sleep.

David actually got pulled over on New Years Eve as we were coming home from dinner. We were both confused because it was 1-block from the restaurant.  Turns out he forgot to turn the lights, and since it was New Years Eve it gave the cop a reason to check if we were drinking. We were glad he only let us off with a warning.

So, there’s our holidays in a nut shell. We enjoyed our time with family but most importantly we enjoyed watching Tucker figure the Holidays out even more this year.

So, here’s to an exciting 2010. So many plans this year, and so many changes to possibly come. As with every year who knows exactly what it will bring, but whatever it is, we are ready! :)

BRING IT ON!

Yes, we are still alive

My goodness, it’s amazing how much blogging you miss when you send your laptop in for repair and then go out of town. ESPECIALLY around the holidays! I have SO much catching up to do! I REALLY want to just forego it all and call it good starting from now, but for journaling purposes, I will play catch up. :)

Here is what you have to look forward to. (And a list for me to remember what to blog about)

12/23 – Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa Mize

12/24 – 12/29 – Christmas with Grandma and Papa Boehrer

12-30 – Visit with Scott and Ella Rufener

Oh…. and LOT’S of Pictures