Christmas was different this year...fun... but different. With Scott not being able to take some time off work, we stayed behind in Nebraska and had a mini family Christmas. Before I show those pictures, here is a video of Tyson as a crawling machine.There are ups and downs to it. I love that he no longer cries when I leave his sight, he just comes to find me instead and stops to enjoy objects around him. He is a ton happier now that he can move. However, he is one curious George and likes to "explore" his surroundings. He crawls with a big, almost mischievous, smile.

Here is our tree and gifts laid out ready for Christmas morning. Then there is Tyson and Scott coming down the stairs. I love how Tyson is overlooking all the goodies waiting just for him.

I love this picture of Tyson because his mom is making him sit for a picture and all he wants to do it go get his toys!Call us bad parents but we only got Tyson one toy (plus some little gadgets in his stocking) but he won't remember. Luckily he got spoiled by his grandparents too. So anyway, we got this Lion walk-to-ride toy where the seat fold up to have a handle which he can push around to help him walk. He liked it alright....
...However, we grossly underestimated how big our child really is. He towers over his little toy. We were decieved by the 9-36 months label on the box. Do we have to start getting 5T toys now??Tyson enjoying more of his toys

We went over to a couple in our wards home for some light snacks and sandwiches and by the time we got him back loaded in our to head home, he was pooped! Christmas is hard work!Our attempt at a family Christmas picture.

We hope you all had a very Merry Christmas!

Picture Time!

When we went to Utah for Thanksgiving, Scott's side of the family had pictures taken. We decided to get our first official family photo too and boy does Tyson steal the show! Well, I think he's cute at least. We had to hold his hands down because he was getting so excited and waving them around. Crazy kid. Scott and I both have no top lip...especially apparent in this photo. Tyson has no chance for getting equally sized lips. The second phot is the whole family together. They are getting to be so big and for the most part, the kids are smiling pretty good! Tyson has his classic "stare" in this shot. It's probably hard to see unless you click on the picture to make it bigger.

Bubba in the Bath

I can't help but love bath time with Tyson. He loves to play in the tub and will immediately go from a tired grouchy boy, to a happy one instantly. He totally has a bubble butt and I love it! On another note, he is starting to crawl! And by starting, I mean really wobbly and only short distances, but we are very excited! However, I know we don't quite understand what mobile really means and trouble we are in for.

We also put some lights up on our house. They are not much and the picture is bad, but its a start for us and we are very proud. Thanks to Scott for getting up on the ladder and making sure the spaces were just right in between the plugs and also taking some down to switch with another set of lights because they weren't working right the first time!

I might also add...look at the weather here! As I'm typing this tonight, my little widget thing on the side says it is 3 degrees!!! That does not factor in wind chill either. When we went to church our car said it was 11 degrees and when we left it was 4. We go to church from 1-4...the warmest part of the day! Crazy...I don't think I'm quite ready for all this. At least there is no snow...yet!

A lot of everything

So I've been out of the blogging loop for a little while. Getting back from Thanksgiving vacation, and then trying to organize our mess of a house this week has been quite a chore, so my apologies to my sister...the blogging nag...that I have not posted! Thanksgiving and the weekend prior were quite the whirlwind of events. My little brother got married so we got to spend some time with lots of family which was fun, yet loud with all the little kiddos (10 kids under the age of 6) around. We went to the Utah-Colorado State volleyball game, watched the football game (Go Utes) and saw Twilight, oh yeah, and had a wedding/reception in there too! Lots of fun!

My Grandpa Evans and sister, Kristin

The newlywed couple....very cute

That drool is all-natural baby!

Yes...his shirt does say, "I was Born Awesome" When you are 10 pounds at birth, you are allowed to wear such shirts..shout out to Rissa in the background.
Volleyball game with old teammates and roommates Jackie w/Cole and Taryn. It was so fun to meet up with them again and visit! Jackie got this next great shot of Tyson...I love it! Aren't you glad I'm raising him right?? (Eat lots and cheer on those Utes!)

Thanksgiving with the Howard side was fun too! Definitely louder than home and Tyson had some adjusting to do but did well. He did get sick and got the rest of the bunch sick too, but what else to do you expect with 12 grand-kids running around! I don't have any pictures of Thanksgiving because my camera went on the fritz (as seen with the volleyball one above), but luckily I got up early with the rest of the crazy bargain shopper people in Utah and hit the sales. I got a great deal on a new camera and felt the adrenaline pumping as my sister-in-law and I maneuvered through the crowds of people at Target to get it and other big deals! We hit 4 stores in 4 hours and had so much fun. It was the first time I had ever gotten up early to go and definitely got rewarded! Wahoo!

Lastly, since being home, I've been on Scott to go and get a tree with me. It has been cold here recently, though no snow, and I knew our good luck would run out. Thanks to the advice of ward friends here, we heard of a place called Santa's Woods. You park by this barn, take a hay ride pulled by a large John Deere to a "forest" if you will, and browse around looking for the "perfect tree". Once found, they come and cut it down for you, haul it away to shake it and wrap it up in netting for you. Meanwhile, you ride back to the barn, drink free hot chocolate, drive back down to have your tree tied on top of your car for you!! Such great service! You'd think with all this, the tree would be expensive, but only $6 a foot. And being the bargain hunter that I am, discovered that if you bring some cans of food in, you get 5 bucks off! So we got a 6 foot tree and all that service for a whopping $32! Silly me, forgot my camera so you'll just have to envision it all. I got one picture once we got home. They probably hated tying it on our little car, but what are you going to do? We will definitely be going back next year camera in hand!

Our redneck version of getting a Christmas tree....tie it to the top of your little car! And that is Tyson asleep in the backseat.

9 months

Watch out everyone...hide your children and your loved ones....King Kong is coming your way!! Tyson's 9 month appointment was today. He weighs a whopping 27 lbs. and is 33 inches long! Way to go buddy! I'm going to get really buff hauling you up and down the stairs! You'll show those cousins of yours what's up in a couple days when you see them. We are so excited for our upcoming Utah trip.

Finally!

We closed on our home yesterday! I was so excited all morning and couldn't wait until the walk through. It doesn't really feel like its ours..mostly because I'm still in my stupid apartment as we speak! We're trying to shuttle all our boxes over between now and Saturday and then move the big stuff that morning. Which includes our bed. I just want to sleep in our new home already and I'm seriously tempted to just put the blow up mattress on the floor.

Here were are laying on our new carpet. Scott was good to comply with all my strange picture requests. I still need to take our family shot on the outside of the home, but it's been rainy and muddy outside.

Sitting in front of the fireplace.
In the cubby hole above the fireplace. Our new kitchen. I love Tyson's huge smile in this one.

Tyson has been doing this funny, cheesy face thing where he smiles, scrunches up his nose, squints his eyes, breathes through his nose. It makes me laugh. His two top teeth are also coming in. They seem big...not that anything on this kid is small. Scott and I are already worrying that he'll get either of his parents bad teeth genes.
Tyson is not crawling as of yet, but he can get up on his knees and rock back and forth. Then he just falls flat on his stomach. Kind of like a belly flop. Hey...don't judge him...its hard to get that 25 poundish body moving.

Go UTES!

You can take the girl out of Ute country but you can't take the Ute out of the girl! Last night we were "watching" the Ute game vs. TCU. We don't have cable, so the best we could do was pull up the radio website to listen to the game and then watch this gametracker thing from ESPN.com that shows where the ball is after each play. Nothing high tech. I didn't think I'd be that into it, but old loyalties die hard! Scott was laughing at me at how into this game I was. For those of you who don't know or care about this game, just humor me as I explain it to you! Utah was 9-0 prior to this game. Also, (sorry BYU fans) TCU beat BYU, so a lot was at stake. It was a nail biter and I'm glad it came out in the Utes favor! Check out the countdown at the right for the next big game! Ignore the cute pajamas. Hey mom, at least they match!

I took out the picture of my victory dance. Not so cute.

Halloween Re-cap

We were going to try to meet up with some of the members in our new neigborhood while they took their kids around trick-or-treating and we'd just push Tyson around in a stroller, but we missed them, so we just checked our house (it has sod!). We didn't want to go home just yet, plus Tyson was in his costume, so...we decided to go to Wal-mart. Scott didn't want to leave Tyson in his costume and I did, so we compromised and kept him in his costume! :) That's where these pictures come in. I didn't get pictures of Tyson trick-or-treating but I did get him in a shopping cart at Wal-mart!! Cute little monkey.
Notice how the pants and arm sleeves are all too short. Does he belong to our family or what? Poor guy. This is only the beginning for you!

The little Wal-mart greeters at the exit loved Tyson. These cute little old ladies were oohing and ahhing over him. They even took a picture of him and of course gave them their signature smiley face sticker right on his belly. Classic. Maybe we should have stayed home and passed out candy instead.

Hope everyone had a fun Halloween!

Big boy chair!

I've been feeding Tyson in his bouncy seat for the past while simply because there was no room in our small apartment for a high chair. He started not eating his food as well so action finally had to be taken. Poor guy. I've debated about whether or not to get a full blown high chair since I hate how much room they take up and found this little booster seat that can change settings as they grow. He loves it! And he looks like such a big boy!
It's fun to watch him chase around his Cheerios.

I got him one of those Biter Biscuits things and stripped him down knowing what a mess they could make and I'm glad I did. I don't know if you can fully see how covered he is in a drooly grainy cookie mess, but he loved it. No surprise there. This kid didn't get this big not liking food!

This face says, "What mom? Don't mind the big crumbs dripping down my chest, all over my diaper and blanket, and in my thigh rolls."

His two top teeth are starting to poke through too. We love teething time!

Pumpkin Patch...

There's a great pumpkin patch here in Omaha..actually Gretna, Nebraska and we got a good deal on tickets from Scott's work. It's a pretty big production (similar to Cornbelly's at Thanksgiving Point but bigger). Saturday was a fairly nice day (60 deg) so we decided to take advantage of it because I think it might be the last for awhile. I've always loved to go to pumpkin patches and of course it provided some good photo ops for Tyson. I totally forgot to bring Tyson a jacket (I know bad mom), but we had lots of blankets, his gloves, and hat that hopefully kept him warm enough. We didn't stay too long, but got to see pig races and some animals that Tyson didn't know what to think of. We are excited to go next year when he will be able to enjoy it a little more. Scott was good to let me take lots of pictures. My camera wasn't working at the beginning when the light was better and I was so sad, but after working (and stressing) with it for awhile, we got some pictures and I was a much more pleasant person.

Tyson thought these pumpkin things were pretty interesting.

He's pretty tall!
He mostly enjoyed eating the steering wheel of this old tractor. I didn't think I was in the picture as you can tell by the way I'm avoiding the camera.
Enjoying the pig races.
His hand looks like a catchers mitt in this one..its so big!
This was the face as we were loading him in the car. He was done!