Halloween & Thanksgiving

Ahhh...November - a good time to (finally!) post about Halloween and, most currently, Thanksgiving.

I made Tyler's costume this year - a monkey, of course I took great care to make shoe covers adn a detached "hood" with monkey ears and everything, but he would not wear the hood. We carved pumpkins at mom's house like always and someone even gave us a HUGE pumpkin to carve. We went to the Trunk 'n Treat at Olive Knolls Church, where I work, and Tyler was one of the first to play some of the trunk games (before it got too busy). As soon as it got dark and everyone was there, he was done. He was entralled with the train they had there for the kids to ride, but only rode for about 30 seconds before signing "all done". :) But he wanted to follow it around - cool enough to follow but too scary to ride, I guess. All the pictures are on facebook, so please click here to see them.

We did Thanksgiving on Andy's side on Thursday and then did it all again yesterday at mom's. One of the traditions is to race the cars. Here's Tyler "racing his car" (though his remote didn't work).

Then this year, mom made cookies for us to decorate. Here's Andy's...

And here's mine...

Tyler was more about eating his cookies, than decorating them. In fact he got really upset at me for putting a dollop of frosting on his cookie. Guess he's like me in that regard - more cookie/cake, less frosting, I always say. :)

We are thankful for all our family and this great country. We have many blessings.

Next weekend I am running my first ever 5k! I've been training for a while, but I'm a little nervous because it's a hilly trail run and all my running's been on the treadmill or outside on flat pavement. But I figure, since it's my first race, the goal is just to finish - I'll work on a better time the next go-round. :)

Hope you all are well and are having blessed holidays!
Love,

The Johnsons

Just an Update

Hi friends and family,
Things have been crazy as usual around here. I've been sewing a dress that I am no longer sewing, more explanation to be made on my sewing blog after this post...but needless to say, that's been an exhausing endeavor! We've joined a new small group at church and at work Andy's in a class this week and I've set out to completely re-do the websites. Here's one I've mostly finished...just waiting on some information to bulk up the content.

Tyler-man has been talking A LOT - last night I got out his baby book to record some of what he's been saying. He says "ka-ker" for craker, very enthusiastically and repeatedly says "hi" and "Bye" with a cute little wave, says "mon-ghee" for monkey, "shoe", calls coffee "pak-ee", asks for "help", says "uh huh" for yes, "oh no!", "blah" for block, "sha" for sword, and more! Here's a fun pic of him trying to wear my shoes. :)
Pastor Terry found him this cute CARS toddler bedspread and here is Tyler appreciating it.

Somebody's been eating mommy's home made cookies...

Oh - and for those of you not on facebook, here's my new haircut and color. :) Time for something different... hahaha

Love y'all!
The Johnsons

Tyler's Art Explosion

Since Tyler's started daycare at the school where I work, we have had an abundance of almost daily art. It's so fun and since there's so much of it, we are sharing with whoever will post it proudly on their fridge! :) Right now he is learning about circles. We have, what I like to refer to as an "impressionist piece" on the fridge where a small, medium and large circle on a page are colored in with dots and dashes. There is another one from church with animal stickers on it saying, "God made everything"...However, so far this one is my favorite.

HAPPY

SAD

I really feel the sadness - like he is beside himself. Hahahaha. Is that not the greatest or what! :)

:)

So last night, Tyler was responding to us by placing his first finger near his mouth and looking very serious, sometimes accompanying it with a stern "no". Of course, our initial reaction was, "This boy is CRUISIN'!", but then I got to thinking about it and mentioned to Andy that we might not react too strongly until I talk to his preschool teachers. I thought perhaps they were playing a game with him or something that and he was doing it innocently. Boy, am I thankful I had that thought because when I asked this morning, one of the teachers thought about it and said, "OH! 'No more monkey's jumping on the bed'". HAHAHAHAHA. They had been teaching the kids that song all last week and this week, so that explains it!

Just thought you might enjoy that story. :)
Love, The Johnsons

Vacation Pictures and my sorry excuse for not blogging...

Hi friends and family! I have so many things to show you, but our computer told me it has no more room for pictures, so I thought I had to take some time off until we saved up enough to get another one. HOWEVER, a friend of mine in passing conversation mentioned that she posted pictures straight from her camera - DUH! So here goes.


In mid July we went to Santa Cruz. Here are some of the pics we caught...

Here we are at the pier with a pelican:Here are some of the sea lions basking in the sun:Tyler eating an ice cream cone (haha...looks like he has a beak)

Here's Tyler on the Helicopters (he didn't like them so much)This was his favorite ride - the CARS...The first time he went on it, he didn't look real happy, but not sad either. Then when I went to get it when the ride was over, he signed "more" to me! hahaha. So we went on this one about 4 times each on two different days. He also liked to drive the Pepsi TrucksAnd the boatsAnd this was after our beach day...i really hope the sand around his mouth doesn't mean he was eating it, but you never can tell with this kid. :)
For some reason, Tyler's been all about his swing. We've found him a few times after he's crawled up in it and have tried to explain that he's a "big boy" now. Now we store his diaper bags there so it seems to deter him so far. :)

Tyler is 18 months now and able to come to the preschool where I work. I think he really loves it! I asked him the other day as we pulled up if he was ready to go to school and he smiled, nodded his head and said, "Uh huh!". Then he toddled right up to the door and ran in the room to play. This was his first week and my co-worker Cindy was nice enough to snap some photos., Since they're not mine, I only have a link for you, but it should work - if not, let me know and I'll figure something else out, but you won't want to miss them - they're so cute. CLICK HERE.

Anyway, now that I know how to get pictures on here without putting them first on my computer, hopefully I'll do this a bit more. I hope you all are well!

The Johnsons

Promised Video and Pics

Hi family and friends,

Well, as I looked through our videos, there wasn't anything entirely exciting. But for your amusement, here's Tyler getting his grove on - guess he's a real Bakersfield boy, bustin' a move to some twangy tunes...

And as mentioned in the previous post, here's a picture of "Lounging Tyler" showing us how it's done:

And since Andy is SO OLD now, we had a few people over for a semi-last-minute fiesta! Here's the buffet line...

Some of the guests...

And the birthday boy with his birthday pie...

Happy 30th Andy!

May Update

Hi friends and family! We are cruising right through May and FAST! Tyler is so much fun and growing smarter day by day! He LOVES to help daddy water the garden - look how the corn is taller than he is now! :)

A few weekends ago, Grandpa Greg came to visit on his motorcycle. Tyler wasn't too thrilled about it, we were surprised to find out. He looked very concerned when we put him on it and even whined a little until Andy got on with him. This is the best picture we got - he just wouldn't quite smile, but that's okay - it's a fun photo anyway! :)

Last week, Mr. Independent decided he wanted to go somewhere - he was just tired of being home, I guess. So he grabbed his diaper bag and dragged it into the kitchen...

...and to the back door. We said, "Oh! I guess we'll see you later! Bye!" and he said "Bu-bye" and waved. He then proceeded to the door and knocked. I guess we're too boring for him!
So to mix it up a bit, we thought we'd go to the beach! Tyler liked having a big sandbox to dig in without any "no-no's" (most of the time he wants to dig in the garden and that's not cool). We tried to go in the water, but he had this love-hate relationship with it. When I first took him down, it was a little too scary, so I took him back to where we had "parked" our towels. Then, a few minutes later he pointed at the water so I took him down again. I held both hands, standing behind him and he just kept walking out into the water. If I hadn't held him back, he would have surely walked straight into the deep part and gotten whisked away! So we stood like that for a bit and let the waves come up and hit his legs and he seemed to like it, but then got cold and wanted "up". The next day we went it was the same thing - not liking it, then liking it, then being done and wanting to go up and dig some more. It was a lot of fun to watch him experience it all.

I think I have some videos we've taken lately that are still on the camera. I'll try to get those up soon. Other than that, Tyler's been doing all sorts of other fun and entertaining things. He's very close to crawling up on the couch. Andy had him up there the other day and he found the remote control, leaned back on the pillow and pointed the remote at the t.v.! LOL. Unfortunately, there's no photo for that one! :( Hope you all are well and we love you!

The Johnsons