Tyler turns 11 months

My little guy is growing up so fast. The baby I hadn't even met yet a year ago is now almost 1 year old. Who wouldn't love this adorable little face, chubby cheeks and winning, mostly toothless smile?

Eleven months brought the end of the DocBand, a new found love of the outdoors and balls and an increasing hatred of self-propelled movement. While his brothers are playing baseball and riding scooters down the driveway, Tyler is perfectly content to sit on the sidewalk and watch them. He loves to just sit and enjoy the fresh air. While inside, he doesn't last even one minute on the ground by himself. He is ever whining and crying to be picked up by mom. Not so outside. Outside he'll sit forever and just observe.

At one of Cole's first Sporties classes I discovered that Tyler loves to catch and throw balls and is actually fairly skilled at it. Nothing brings greater excitement to his little face and body than having someone roll the ball into his lap so that he can turn around and throw/roll it back. His brothers as well as his mom love to do this with him. http://youtu.be/FK6KC126Mz4; http://youtu.be/H3eNaP4JabY; http://youtu.be/9foqBT3f74g

Tyler finds no greater joy in his day to day life than watching his brothers play and doing his best to interact with them. He loves to sit in their room and explore their toys while they are doing whatever it is that they do to occupy their time. They are truly the Three Amigos and/or The Three Stooges, depending on the minute of the day.

Tyler has gained more independence in the eating department of late. Rather than just baby food these days, he enjoys pancakes, crepes, graham crackers, apple slices, raisins, chicken nuggets and other finger foods.

Despite Tyler's best efforts to avoid it, his mobility has improved. More than anything Tyler continues to hate being forced to make himself move from place to place if it involves being on his belly...except when he's on his bed and it's time for a diaper change or to get dressed. http://youtu.be/eeoDgaBuN5w
Tyler is such an adorable little kid. We are excited to celebrate his first birthday very soon.

The joys of spring

I love winter but I love the beginning of spring. The trees are blooming, the weather is warmer, the days are longer and it brings baseball. Grant started his second season of T-ball. He is one of the older and biggest kids on the team. He is also one of the most skilled. Above are highlights from his first game. http://youtu.be/wY5TByDS1rw

Of course, spring also brings with it the crazy wind and cold weather bouts that are forgotten from year to year until they start and you say, "Oh yeah. Why do I always forget this part?" This game brought with it insane wind and cold and managed to blow in the annual mid-April, post-bloom snowstorm. Poor Cole had gotten nacho cheese all over his jacket at a church function the previous evening and when the boys decided it was time to stop playing Wii and head out into the snow his jacket had just hit the dryer. We rounded up every sweatshirt and jacket we could find and layered him up to go play outside with Grant. Grant revived stair sledding and Cole enjoyed eating the snow.

Easter April 2012

Our Easter was fun this year. It started early with Cole's Lenten sing at Peace Lutheran Preschool. He was adorable. When he walked in with his class he looked upset and I learned after the performance that one of the little girls in his class was so wound up about the performance that while holding his hand walking down the hall to the chapel she had twisted his hand "really hard."

I loved watching him do this: http://youtu.be/9-rXd0YzQo8 (this video is long but I had to get the whole thing on camera). After the performance we went back to his classroom for cookies and tater tots then he went with his friends to the playground. All the other parents had to go back to work, except me. I was so grateful for this. I could have taken him home early but he loves to play outside with his classmates so Tyler and I went outside to watch him play.

Kitty came into town for Easter weekend. Her timing was perfect as we were already headed to Phoenix that Saturday for a baseball game. We went down Friday night and slept at Oma's to see her. We were able to leave Tyler with Oma and Kitty during the game thank goodness. We met Papa at the game. Grant spent the majority of the game right by Chad's side watching the plays. Cole spent most of the game at the kids play area doing anything but watching the game. This meant I didn't watch the game either. After the game we went to David's house for dinner.

We got home at 11:30 PM the night before Easter. Easter still had to be put together. Of course, the boys were up at 6:30 AM checking their baskets and ready to hunt for eggs. Chad and I dragged ourselves out of bed to do Easter morning. Luckily, Tyler stayed asleep until about 8:30 so we could go back to bed for awhile. This is our Easter egg hunt: http://youtu.be/Whn54qGP0UQ

A day in the life...these days anyway

These boys keep things very lively. Grant and Cole bounce between the love and the hate in their typical brotherly love/hate relationship. This of course causes Cole to bounce between his surprisingly loud belly laugh and his even more surprisingly loud "Grant just did something to torture me" cry. The nice thing is that if you don't like what you hear, just wait 10 seconds and it will change. I know you're looking at the pictures of Cole and wondering how can this be, but oh, please trust me it is.

All three boys love to spend time outside, playing ball, soaking in the sun, spending time with the neighbor boys, John and Ben, and enjoying the beautiful Flagstaff weather.

Cole is enjoying his Sporties for Shorties class. The second week of each four week session is climbing. Cole is not too keen on climbing. He tried it when we first moved here but after no more than 30 seconds declared himself done and refused to try it again until Sporties climbing rolled around. Because it was his coach and not me asking him to put on the harness and give it a shot he agreed. He did get on the wall but this video says it all: http://youtu.be/In_G5rqvg_g

Here are some other videos of Cole at Sporties:
http://youtu.be/v2vQ2Qp03Ds
http://youtu.be/35NFYftjDMg
http://youtu.be/lEXMmvWI78w
http://youtu.be/yifcEaPDRzY

We saw these 10 deer playing and grazing in the meadow by our house on the way to school the other morning.

Below is the laundry that accumulated due to my slacking. It took me an entire week to get through this massive pile.

Spring Break 2012

Spring Break was action packed this year. I took the boys to Phoenix to visit Oma, Shelli, David, Melissa and Andrew for a couple of days then to Prescott for a day to see friends. At Oma's we played around, did some shopping, relaxed and enjoyed some extended family time. The boys stayed up way too late and woke up way too early. They played hard and slept hard. The boys and I shared a king size bed. However, the boys naturally gravitate towards each other and me while sleeping so we are a big pile up of sleeping Mellens.

As is traditional with Spring Break in northern Arizona it snowed...and snowed a lot. Two feet to be exact. Church was cancelled. The first day of school after Spring Break was cancelled and the second day of school after Spring Break was delayed by two hours. It was an amazing snow. We had fun for several hours in the snow on Sunday. We raced in the snow, took turns shoveling the driveway, threw snowballs and built a sled hill with the excess snow. However, our day did not start out so fun. The morning started out like this: http://youtu.be/OGcbn-jkcQQ

The sled hill was not very long or steep but it provided a lot fun for all four of us for awhile. We just kept piling on the snow and packing it down with our runs down the hill. Cole always made it the farthest. Here are some videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vF
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M
http://youtu.be/YyY03UjZcCY
http://youtu.be/qlzAH9WeY8w
http://youtu.be/bNIqNz9nsGk
http://youtu.be/a2-RrfFYsiQ
http://youtu.be/F7M7Pvf8pYE

There was so much snow that sledding was just as amazing the next day as it was the first. Grant invented stair sledding. Our porch stairs are so steep and there was so much snow that Grant found the giant plastic sled from our garage gave him lots of speed and lots of thrill. All it gave Cole was a mouth full snow and eyes full of tears.
http://youtu.be/qyNKj8dwV08
http://youtu.be/jBVL-MH7Aus
http://youtu.be/PDVNK7vP5pA
http://youtu.be/EY4aQyKqH1Y

On day 3 of the snow there was still enough snow left for the boys to make a fantastic snowman. This snowman was the result of Grant's sole and unadulterated creativity. He dressed it, found the sticks for the arms and put the gloves on the sticks all on his own. Chad and I were inside while the construction was taking place. I love that Grant got a carrot for the snowman's nose, while Cole got a carrot to snack on while Grant worked.

Needless to say, by Tuesday morning when it was finally time to take the kids to school after their extended Spring Break, I was more than ready and the house beyond in need of a good cleaning. Of course, the house cleaning didn't happen for a few more days because what's the point when snow, slush and mud just keep getting tracked through the house.