2012 is Here

Technically I took these pictures in 2011 but it was on December 31, New Years Eve but I'm using them in this 2012 post because no one has seen them. Plus this is just an update on a couple of things that Ty just started doing that I feel need documenting. Oh and please note, Ty is extremely dressed down but it is his second outfit of the day and when he ruins one cute outfit he gets put in sweats. 

On New Years day after the big streamer and ball drop (I will post on this next) we had balls all over our floor from Ty's ball pit. One by one Ty brought me a ball and told me its color and correctly. Green, Purple, Blue, Red, Orange even yellow. All of the sudden Ty knows all of his colors! I started working pretty hardcore on them when he first turned 1 year old (well we also read books about color every night and have since he was 2 weeks old) but he didn't show much interest in them now did he really show that he was understanding what colors were so I didn't really push them much after that. Of course I would always point out everywhere different colors of things and apparently that worked. The kid picked up and now knows all colors.

A little side story, when he was tiny, like 2 months old, he would start to get fussy aboutl halfway through our daily 3 mile walk with the dogs. Nothing would make him happy unless I talked or sang to him. Now don't get me wrong I love singing to my child but mama can only sing 6 Little Ducks so many times so I would just start talking to him. I would talk about our surroundings and what not but that got old so I started to tell him all about photosynthesis (for the dumb readers that's the process that takes place in plants when they convert CO2 into Oxygen) its a long complex process that takes oh about 1.5 miles to describe. It kept him quiet so everyday I would explain another chemical reaction or biological occurrence to "teach" Ty to keep him quiet. It is my hope that these scientific processes seeped in his mind just like what happened with the colors.

So anyway another thing Ty knows now is all of his opposites over/under, on/off, up/down, slow/fast, night/day, dark/light, hot/cold. Its funny because one of the moms here (who incidentally has the absolute worst behaved kid I have ever been around and she's so proud of her parenting skills which are borderline abusive i.e. cold showers for wetting themselves when potty training um yeah I've seen that on Dr Phil and saw him take the woman's kid away) got all offensive when I was trying to dumb down an explanation of what a humidifier was and how it worked. She got all huffy when I tried to break it down for what I knew to be a typical South Carolina resident like "uh he knows what that is, his dad taught him" Oooookay lady, whatever that's how I teach my smart child stuff, I figured it worked for the slow ones too.

Not only can Ty say all the opposites but he can show them to you too which I just think is so impressive for a barely 19 month old. Oh and one last thing Ty knows every body part. He's known the easy one and could point to them and show you since he was 6 months old but now he even knows the "difficult" ones like shoulder and elbow and chin and cheek. He points to each one and will say it, its quite cute. I filled out this little sheet for him the other day that I plan on doing every New Years and his big goals this year are to learn to pedal his trike, sleep all night in his own bed and to be potty trained. Dang yall Ty's got a busy year ahead of him. Happy 2012 to all my family and friends!!

Ty was laughing at the retarded looking ducks in the water. 

See even the ducks are ugly and odd looking in this town. 

New York Christmas

 So here it is, our wonderful Christmas in New York. We had such a good time and the only thing that I was really disappointed in was there was no snow. It briefly started snowing while we were at the park our 2nd night there but it was just a tease. It wasn't even that cold, well for upstate New York anyway. I think the highs were in the 40s, global warming I tell ya.  Anyway Patrick and I have been together for 11 years, married for 3 and this is the first time I have been to the city where he grew up! I got to see his house and schools and parks and hangouts. It was actually so cool! He sees where I grew up all the time so this was just exciting for me. Of course everything was smaller then he had remembered except for the trees, they were all so tall now. Ty and I flew into Albany on Thrusday December 22 while Patrick and the dogs drove my car up there. Obviously we both would have flown but you know those dang dogs of ours always causing us trouble.  Here are some of the pictures for Christmas day (you probably already read about our Christmas eve in the city). Oh and one more thing, all the other blogs I read talk about their Christmas traditions, things they do every year the same which made me start thinking about our traditions and how I don't think we have any but that we do things different every year. Is that a tradition? I like to think it is. We do things differently then others and I guess we never know where we're going to be so maybe our Christmas tradition is not having any? Anywhoodle here's our Christmas.

Here were the gifts before they were torn open. I loved the stockings grandma got for the dogs, I took them with us and will definitely be using them next year. Wait there's a tradition, Holla!

Ty Surveying all the gifts. He had a pre present opening session the day we got there and every gift he opened, he would hold up for me to see and say "ooooh"  I think the thing I will miss most about Christmas is driving past houses with lights up and everyone we would pass Ty would say "ooooh pretty" in his sweet little just starting to talk voice. 

Ty loved opening gifts so he helped everyone else open theirs. 

Grandma's new laptop

Bears played the Packers on Christmas night. When we got home from NYC we discovered our dogs wearing Packers collars that grandma had made them. 

Christmas breakfast, cinnamon rolls. Look at the sleepy little face, so cute

Helping dad make bacon.

King Ty

The after Christmas mess. I put this quote on the back of my Christmas cards this year 

"One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day.  Don't clean it up too quickly."  

~Andy Rooney

This picture is perfect for that quote, I just love it. 

Christmas day the girls had matching Christmas bandanas. Sam had one too but ask me hard it is to get a picture of 3 dogs sitting still together. Yeah its pretty much impossible. 

We went over and met Pat's best friend from high school's family. Gary and Jenn. They've always been so nice and generous to Ty buying him Bears and Yankees stuff . I dressed Ty in his Christmas finest and we went over and met them and their 2 little boys (Jenn is pregnant with her 3rd boy now) it was fun and they were so nice, aside from Gary's dirty mouth I would have never guessed they were from New York. Ha!

Our official family Christmas picture for the year. I'm wearing the same dress I did last year. Yikes! Note to self, buy new Christmas dress next year!!

Ty loved this snowman thing that sand and danced, he played with it the whole time we were there. 

Gary and Jenn got Ty a new dump truck on Christmas (and some Yankee pajamas, score!) Here's my sweet boy playing with it right before bed, Christmas night. 

Grandma's pretty tree which I loved, it looked a lot like my department store tree I was impressed. Also I should not walking into grandmas house was like a Christmas wonderland, she even had Christmas curtains up!! There wasn't a surface in her house that didn't have Christmas decor on it, it was awesome!

Good Bye Twenty Eleven

So 2011 is over and the new year has started. Welcome 2012! I wanted to do this post that I saw as a year end recap to kind of wrap 2011 up. I realize I still need to post on Christmas but since its New Years Day today I wanted to do this first before I forgot or the newness of the new year wears off.  We had a fun New Years Eve too that I will post more fun pictures and post on too, don't worry. Oh and somehow my child woke up this morning and knew all the colors and how to say them all but I will do a Ty update post too. Ok so here he we go

20 Things in 2011

1. What did you do in 2011 that you had never done before?

took a spin class, planned a 1st birthday party, shoveled snow

2. Did you keep your New Year's Resolutions and will you make more for next year?

My main resolution last year was to blog more and I definitely kept up with that. I don't like resolutions though. I did lose almost 30 pounds of baby weight last year so if I had resolved to lose weight I could have checked that off my list.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Nope

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Yes my sweet grandma Pugh passed away last month

5. What places have you visited?

Myrtle Beach (twice), Raleigh, NC, Lexington, KY, Atlanta, Augusta, Aiken, SC, Austin, Albany, New York City,  Southern Pines, NC Tuscaloosa, AL

7. What date from 2011 will remain etched in your memory and why?

May 21- Ty turned a year old

8. What was your biggest achievement this year?

Blogging I suppose. My other KY blog has a lot of followers and gets a ton of hits everyday. I even got paid for some advertisements this year. However, I've slacked recently on it and I need to try and get sponsors so I can make real money on it. Oh and teaching my child so many new things and showing him the world and taking him to experience new places and sites

9. Did you suffer illness or injury?

I don't think I was sick a single day in 2011. My child still has never had an ear infection or had to go to the doctor for anything but a well check. 

10. What was the best thing you bought?

Our new TVs. My husband has wanted a new tv for so long now and we finally got 2

11. Where did most of your money go?

My student loans

12. What song will always remind you of 2011?

Rainbow Connection (I started singing it to Ty every night to go to sleep and it was in the Muppet Movie I took Ty to)

13. What do you wish you would have done more of?

Going to church but I love my church in Austin so much, its hard to go to new churches while we're on the road especially in weird small towns where the baptist church seems crazy close to the snake handlers religion

14. What do you wish you would have done less of?

Been on my phone texting, facebooking, reading blogs

15. What was your favorite TV program?

Still only 2 shows that I must watch and those are The Office and Modern Family. The Office doesn't have Michael Scott anymore but I still like it. I also discovered a new show called Dance Moms that I love and any show on Food Network.

16. What was the best book you read this year?

I read mostly religion books this year and my favorites are by Max Lucado I really need to read more but its still hard to do with a baby

17. What was your favorite film of the year?

Harry Potter 7 part 2 makes me so sad when I watch it that its the last movie.

18. What did you do on your birthday and how old were you?

This year I turned 31 which I don't like because I'm not 30 anymore, I'm in my 30s. Boo. I didn't really do anything for my bday but Patrick got up early with Ty so I could sleep in and they got me IHOP for breakfast and I ate a bunch of cupcakes and UT lost to OU

19. What national/world event stirred you the most?

The royal wedding

20. Who was the best new person you met?

Um not anyone new but a lot of old friends from High School that I was able to reconnect with because of Facebook. I wish I would have never met all the nasty people here in Aiken but the people in Kentucky were super nice and fun.