Tyson turns 3

Unbelievable how fast three years has come and gone. Tyson's birthday on July 22nd just snuck up on us. He weighed in at 44 pounds and 44 inches!! LOL...he's a quare root!! But he is also a wonderful, sensitive, loving, kind, (a little ornry), little boy. He's really taken to being called a "big boy". He knows what that means, and loves it when we call him that. He has always wanted to hang with the bigger kids in our court, wherever he runs into one, so this new moniker comes at just the right time for his taste. Mama and Papa got the mother of all gifts for him this year though with his very own motorized bumper boat that, get this, shoots water up to 30 feet!!! No one is safe in the pool (or out for that matter) now. I believe both him and Lucas would rather just shoot the water gun than drive around in our pool!! But what they don't know is that daddy found an adult sized motorized bumper boat for next year at a clearance sale at Meijer. (Hope it works!!) So it's on with bumper wars next year!! It's great that we were able to celebrate GG's b-day and Ty's together as we spent the day in GG's practically brand new home.

Indiana Beach, Uncle Raul passes away, and Tyson learn to ride a bike!!!

We try and get up to Indiana Beach at least once a summer. This time it was the McGill employee picnic again. Bill and Vicki, Jeremey, Steph and Zeke along with the Barker's all headed up to Monticello. It was a great day, but like usual, the boys were good for as long as they could be, then, post-naptime....look out. But Daddy had to work anyway, so we just packed it in and cranked up the a/c and the boys were out before we got out of the parking lot. It was a great day.

My Cuban Uncle, Raul Cabeza passed away this summer and I went to Dallas for the funeral. It was so great to be out there for it. The memorial was so beautiful and personal. I asked my aunt Phyl if I could play at the begining as people were finding their seats. I just wanted to try and add a little bit more of a personal touch. But the stories that were told were so moving. I guess I didn't realize Uncle Raul was only the fourth pilot ever hired by a brand new airline "Southwest"!! Right out of Purdue, still a Cuban national, he defected and became an American. Too many stories to try and type them all now, but he will forever be missed.

I guess when I got home I was more than just a little shocked to see my (almost) three year old, Tyson, riding a bike like a champ!!! When I left for the funeral, he had literally no concept of forward propulsion. No idea how to push his feet in a circle and make the bike go. And in a span of less than 3 days he was cruising....FEARLESS!!! I was so proud. Took about an hour of the most boring video, but it was so great seeing him on that thing. He would take a fall here and there, but nowhere near as much as I would have guessed him to. Must have had a great teacher.....Mommy!!

Fourth of July and lots of Summer things happening!!

It was our 5th annual Fourth of July party and this year we didn't have any rain, even though the threat was there!! Pretty hot, but the pool was a little cool for my thin-blooded South Carolina brother, Keith, and his brood. LOL. But nothing got broke, no one got hurt and the beer didn't run out. So I guess you might call it a success. It's so great having the South Carolina Barker's come back and let the cousins play together. Although Anika has an Indiana best friend in Kennedy Younker. They might as well be cousins!! All are getting so big and wonderful personalities. Just too short of a visit, like usual. One big difference this year was that I didn't break my wrist this time around!! Sweet.

SO MANY NEW THINGS AND CHANGES!!

Spring, Summer and now it's fall. We've even seen our first snowflakes....translation.....bad dad for not blogging more often.

Where do I start? Well, back in May it finally started to warm up and they boys did some fishing at GG's (Great Grandma's) house. Tyson did a really good job pulling them in mostly by himself and Lucas held his own, not wanting to be out done.

You might know that we love the Saugatuck/Holland area of Michigan. We have made three trips up there since we last blogged and they were all wonderful. Beautiful weather. Lots of family and friends came with us. Our first trip was just our family and the boys had a ball. It was still a bit chilly and we found some indoor entertainment in the form of a massive facility called "Crazy Bounce". It has three story inflatable slides in the shapes of sharks, alligators, sabre tooth tigers and various other things. Tyson just calls it the "bouncy place". Talk about two hours just flying by. A really neat part of this is that mom's and dad's can have just as much fun going down all the slides. We loved it. We got to see our friends, Joe and Lynda Petty again. They are kind of like adopted grandparents for the boys while we are up there. They even came down here to our pool party on the Fourth of July. Great people. So we had lots of sand, playing and "bouncy place" during our first trip this summer.

Tyson's first stitches!! If you know our little guy, you know he is quite the helper. Forever he's picked up our purple dustbuster and cleaned up his own messes. Well on June 14th, he dropped it on his foot and he needed stitches. It took off about 1/3 of his big toenail and split the skin requiring 3 or 4 stitches. He was a trooper and tried to be brave as the needle to numb the pain was administered. He was very proud that the dr. called him "a lot braver than most of my adult patients". We were proud too. He did pretty good keeping medicine on it to help the healing, but there were moments when it was not in the cards. To be expected, I guess.

Our second trip to Michigan involved Sabrina's cousin Jody, her husband Chad and their daughter Arieli. It was great to see the cousins interact and since Arieli is a 4 and Tyson was almost 3, they were able to play together really well. Lucas was always in the thick of things too!! It was a lot warmer this trip and we had lots of time at the beach and "bouncy place" again. It was Jody and Chad's first trip to our little hidden gem and we think they loved it. We swam a lot in the pool at the hotel and had a ball.