Ty's First Halloween

One might think that since Ty isn't old enough to ring doorbells or eat candy he might not have done the whole Halloween thing, but no! He was honored to be given Mason's first costume (I nannied for Mason and his twin brother when they were babies and somewhere there are pictures of me with Mason in the adorable elephant costume) and he managed to wear it on four separate days. One of those days was a photoshoot with Mason's mommy, Andrea. He also wore it to the Jiu Jitsu school to show off and made it through about 5 houses of trick-or-treating before completely crashing because it was bedtime. It was so funny to see him all dressed up and interacting with other kids...he is generally a pretty mellow guy around other kiddos and Halloween was no different. He was happy to watch everyone, but was most happy to pull the grass up (a preferred pastime!). 

Mommy's little elephant

A happy pumpkin, a blue spider, an elephant, a chicken, Cinderella, Gossie the duckling, and two little devils!

Ty with his buddies, Emma and Katelyn

Emma was adjusting Ty's ear I think

A princess and an elephant :)

My serious little guy!

Not so serious now!

Seriously...could he be any cuter??

Diving for the grass!

With his herd

Just wants that grass....

Happy Halloween!

Half birthday!

Ty was six months on October 22 and of course I said the same thing I say every month when we mark  another month gone by: where does the time go?!? But this month I had another thought, too: I want a grown up camera. Yes, that's right...me, the one who was VERY verbal about not understanding my parents' large cameras that were used to take artsy fartsy pictures...yeah, now I want one. Why? Becuase my child cannot be captured by a point-and-shoot camera. He moves too fast! The shutter can't keep up! I was literally in near tears trying to capture his cute little smile on camera because EVERYTHING came out blurry! He is so on the go these days you just can't get a good one....so I sort of became his paparazzi and just let him do his thing while I snapped away. So enjoy my feeble attempt  at documenting this momentous milestone. Ty is such a fun, easy-going guy! He keeps amazing (and surprising) us with all of the gross motor milestones he has been hitting. Before he was six months old he started crawling and pulled himself to stand!

Ty at six months:

--weighs 17lbs 14oz (exactly 10 lbs gained since his birthday!).

--is 27.5 inches long.

--does a funny thing we call the booty hop: he sits on the floor and hops his butt off the ground, like jumping, but on his booty. He usually giggles while he does this :) It's definitely a preferred activity!

--crawls, pulls to stand, and would really like to be able to climb the couch. He pulls himself up on the armrest of the couch and then pulls with all his might and stands on his tippy toes and lifts each leg alternately to try to climb....crazy kiddo! He is seriously so strong!

--eats avocado and green beans (zucchini coming this weekend).

--was working on teeth and this past weekend cut his first tooth!

--loves to feel different textures. He lives to get his hands in the grass and while he cuddles on my shoulder he likes to reach his hand up the back of my neck to play with my hair.

--loves bathtime and playing with his rubber duckies.

--has a favorite hangout: the mats at our Jiu Jitsu school! He is SO happy be on them! He does his bouncy booty hop thing, rolls around, crawls everywhere, gets into the bear crawl position and puts his bum in the air to make a pyramid, watches the big boys roll around, and laughs hysterically as he does all this!

--is old enough to get bored with his toys and let me know it!

--babbles and chats...lots of important things to talk about!

--has become very independent! As long as he knows Mommy or Daddy is nearby, he is happy to explore or to entertain himself with toys.

--is very motivated by the cats. He wants them...wants to touch them, pull their fur, put his mouth on them, play with their toys, chase them down the hall, laugh as he tries to grab their swishing tails...it's all fun with the cats!

--(Eliot just sadly reminded me of this one) is in a bit of a "Mommy" phase. I'm the woman of the hour these days. Sometimes its very sweet and and sometimes its really hard to not be able to hand him off to El when he needs some snuggles. I remind Eliot regularly that so long as I'm a source of food, I'm pretty cool, but that someday he's going to be waaaaaaaaay cooler than me. Ty loves his Daddy and is happy in his arms, but if he's upset, he's a Mama's Boy :)

--never. stops. moving!

Need that grown up camera!

More, mom? Seriously?

Wiggling

Making his way to the bookshelf

See the red mark? Bonked his head on the bookshelf. This is a regular occurrence...at least once a day he has a welt/bruise/red mark on his face! 

Inventory...one of his favorite activities.

See! All blurry!

Hair! This kid's hair can't decide what to do! It's super kinky curly in the middle and down the back, but straight everywhere else. We lovingly refer to it as "the curlhawk."

Reading

Getting ready to eat

Adventures in Solids

Ty recently hit another big milestone...solids! After researching, reading, and exploring all kinds of options, I was pretty adamant about not starting until he hit six months. I also wasn't sold on rice cereal (ask me why if you're interested), so we skipped that part. I was totally sold on baby led weaning so we started on avocados. However, after a few days of a lot of gagging, we switched to a more traditional approach of feeding him purees. He does really well with it and I still feel like I can follow his cues while still letting him explore a variety of tastes and textures. But the pictures of him feeding himself are obviously much more fun :) 

Huh? Not sure about this yet...

Most people say Ty looks more like Eliot, but if you know me well, you will recognize this facial expression as being all me! It's the thinking face...people always think it means I'm mad, but really I'm just thinking! Ty is clearly thinking hard about his avocado :)

The end result

Add caption

Nom nom nom!

Picking Pumpkins at the Patch

It's my favorite time of year! Pumpkins, cooler weather, seasonal Starbucks drinks (major sign of the season if you ask me!) and a whole bunch of "tradition" things. If you know me, you know that I'm allllll about doing things the same every year. Growing up I always spent all the holidays in various locations with varying sides of all of my families, so I think I clung to little traditions that I could do the same every year. If you ask Eliot he will tell you that this has definitely carried on into adulthood! My last two years living in Davis I worked as a nanny for two very special little boys, Mason and Avery. Twins born at 25 weeks gestation, my two years with them were pretty amazing. I started working with them before Avery was even home from the hospital so I got to be a part of a lot of their first traditions. One of them is that every year I go to the pumpkin patch with them. Usually this means that El and I head down the hill to Davis, but this year they were kind enough to come up our way and brave the Apple Hill crowds! Mason jumped on the bungee jump, Avery got a purple guitar (which he informed was not only purple, but also had a "purple sound"), and Ty got to pick out his first pumpkin (with a little help from Mommy and Daddy)!

Mason jumping!

Our little pumpkin

In a sea of pumpkins...

Touching (and tasting) any pumpkin he could get his hands on!

A squinty, sun-in-our-eyes family picture

Happy Birthday, Grandpa!

Happy birthday!

This week Ty and I went out to West Sacramento to see my dad at work and deliver him some cookies for his birthday. Ty wore his CHP shirt proudly! As I was getting Ty out of the car and heard shots coming from the shooting range and screeching tires from the driving track I was reminded that in a few years Ty will probably LOVE going to the academy and seeing all the cars and the shooting range (something I have to get over: boys and their love of guns). In the meantime, I feel like quite the intruder whenever I go because I walk across the campus in civilian clothing with a baby strapped on my chest!

Two happy guys!

A Day of Family

One of the nice things about where we live is that we are less than 30 minutes away from Eliot's parents and my dad and Maria, an hour away from my grandparents, and about two hours away from any of our other California family (bay area, Chico, etc.). And while he is not yet aware of how special it is, Ty gets to see four of his six grandparents regularly, as well as his three great grandparents and lots of great aunts and uncles!

Today we went to my grandparents' house in Stockton and visited with them, as well as my aunt Frieda. Then we went to my great grandpa's house with my dad and Maria and visited for a bit. I hadn't seen my great grandpa in at least 10 years so it was a special day for all of us! From there we went to Lodi to see my uncle Pete and aunt Lynette. So today Ty saw his parents, grandparents, great aunts and uncle, great grandparents, and great great grandpa...pretty impressive!!

With Great Grandma Honey

All smiles!

Ty with Grandpa and Great Great Grandpa

Grandpa "Grover"

I grew up very close to my grandparents and aunts, uncles, and cousins, so family is very important to me! It's important to me to call my grandparents each week and enjoy the time we have with them. It's my hope that as he gets older Ty grows to appreciate and enjoy family. I was not ever close to my great grandfather, but I remember visiting him and how I have always called him "Grandpa Grover" (no idea why...his name is Gilbert). I loved our visit with him today and enjoyed hearing him talk about where he is from in the Philippines and his experiences when he came to the US in 1929 at the age of 14. He said he worked for "10 cents an hour, a dollar a day!" leveling the ground. He went into the Army in 1943 and served for two years in the Philippines. He spoke very clearly about his love of the New England Patriots and said he was waiting to watch them at 5pm :) He takes a blood pressure medication and a daily vitamin...my dad said he takes more medicine than that and Grandpa Grover's response was, "No bullsh*tting?" When we asked how you can live to be 97, he said, "Take that!" and pointed to his vitamin :)