A day in the life of..

So yesterday I was doing the laundry minding my own business when a RAT jumped down from the shelves in the shed! I screamed and ran inside. I told Tyler about seeing the rat and he was like, "Oh mom! I wish I could have seen it, I've never seen a rat!" I told him I was was scared and ran away and he thought that was pretty funny stuff. This morning I was driving him to school and the radio was on and the reporter says, "Someone was seriously injured in Iraq..." And Tyler and busts out, "Mom! Someone was seriously injured by a rat!" He was hysterically laughing but not nearly as much as me.

Wednesday was Grandparents Day at Tyler's school. Max and Linda and my mom came in to spend the day with him. He was so excited they were coming! He even woke up at 4:45 am because he was so excited! My mom came in on Tuesday night with Max and Linda but they got here after Tyler was already asleep so my mom slept with Tyler and he woke up bright and early and woke her up too! At 5 something in the morning I could here them out in the living room so I came out to see what was going on. Tyler was just ready to start his day!

Max and Linda came to pick them up at about 7:30. There was a mass and a special song the kids sang for them and then after that my mom wasn't feeling well so she had to go to the clinic. Tyler knows that place well! : ) She ended up getting very sick and Tyler was all worried about her. He is so sweet. When he got home he told me he had a good day but that Naynay threw up. Nice.

Tyler's Boy Scout Pinewood Derby was yesterday. My dad and him worked on a car together. Tyler wanted a shiny black car with red flames - so that is what he got. It looked so nice!! My dad, Lilly, Pete and Me went to cheer him on. Every car races a couple times in every round. Tyler was getting first place a whole bunch of times! He was so happy!

He ended up getting 6th place overall! Out of 38 cars that was pretty good.

It was fun for my dad and Tyler to do together - I know Tyler was very happy.

Saturday we were in the car on our way home from the Gasparilla children's parade and Tyler and Marissa were sitting in the backseat discussing their boyfriends and girlfriends. Marissa says she doesn't have a boyfriend and Tyler says he has 15 girlfriends!! Marissa then asks him to name them all. So he starts, "Natalie... my mom.... well you better count my mom as two!" What is that about?? So I asked him why I count as two and he said, "because I love you an extra lot." Awwww.

The parade was pretty fun. Tyler got a TON of beads. He loves getting him some beads! We went with Carol, Nick and Gina again this year. And Alecia, Alexis and Alisyn. Carols friend was there with her two kids so there was just a ton of kids. The boys were playing football and just having a good time.

That night we went to Dinner with Deborah and Jeff and Jeff's family where Tyler promptly fell asleep before his food even got there!

American Idol is back! Me and Tyler are of course watching and loving every minute of it. Tyler almost bust a gut laughing last night at the police officer singing, "I shot the sheriff. But I did not shoot the deputy." The guy just sang those words over and over and Tyler was hysterically laughing. Of course after that he was singing the song. Great.

Guess who got his report card?! Guess who did awesome?! Guess who is the proudest mommy in the world?!

You guessed it. Tyler got his report card. I am sure you all remember last time. He got all E's in everything and then he got those check negatives in like 8 things under personal growth? Well he got straight E's again!!! AND... he only has one negative on the whole entire report and it is in penmanship! I'm not saying he doesn't need to improve in that area but WHO CARES!!!! He did awesome in everything else. I am so, so proud of him. We will work on the handwriting for sure, but that is like nothing in the grand scheme.

Good job Tyler! Keep up the good work.

Tyler had soccer practice for the first time since before the Holidays. He was so excited to go and asked me on the way there if I thought any of his team mates missed him. When we got there he was the first one there and then one of the other boys came running over... Tyler! Where have you been? Why weren't you at the game? (He was at First Reconciliation.) Tyler had a huge grin on his face and looked over at me and said, "I guess they missed me." How cute! The rest of the conversation went a little something like this:

Tyler: I was at confession.
Brian: What's that?
Tyler: I'm Catholic.
Brian: I have no idea what you are talking about.

How funny right? I was going to say something to him, but the boys father was there and I assumed if he wanted him to know anything about it he would have piped up right? I said nothing.

Kids are so cute.

Tyler watching the fireworks on New Year's Eve.

Tyler coming down the water slide.

Tyler, Pete and Marissa riding the tea cup things that i refused to ride.
Tyler, Marissa and me.

Tyler with Crash
Tyler and Marissa with a wizard.
Tyler before we went down the hill of Jurassic Park... All smiles...

Tyler and Marissa with Thing 1 and Thing 2.
Tyle and his mommy who he loves more than anything except God. (His words people not mine..)

This was when he opened the PSP game Star Wars Battlefront 2 and realized he must be getting a PSP if he got the game!

Opening his computer!

Here is the classic photo of him opening his PSP. He was SO happy!

He's going in!! He wasn't nervous at all.

Congratualtions Tyler on this very special day!

If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive our sins... 1 John 1:9

Tyler - May Jesus come to bless you on your First Reconciliation. May you feel His loving presence in a very special way. And as you strive to follow in His footsteps may He bless your life with many graces and lasting happiness. Blessings to you on this very special day!

Here is Tyler coming out of the confessional. If I could have been a fly on that wall! He said the priest didn't even give him any pennance - what a good boy he must have been!! I got 2 Our Fathers!!

I'm Back! The break is over and unfortunately I am back to work. Oh well - it gives me the chance to update you...

Let's see on 12/21 Tyler had a half day and that day was the day of his Christmas party. I volunteered and did one of the games for the party so I got to be there the whole time. Tyler seemed to be happy about that. After school Gregory came home with us and hung out until the evening. Tyler was so excited for the break! The next day I picked up Gregory again so the 2 of them could hang out while Charla got some Christmas shopping done. Tyler was happy to play with Gregory.

Friday we took Twix to the park and he was bad to the bone. He was barking at people and trying to fight the other dogs so Tyler wasn't having it. That night he spent the night with Papa and Lilly and played video games until his eyes bugged out!! On Christmas Eve we had still not been to see Santa yet so we went to the mall thinking there would be no one there so we could get right in and do it quickly right?? Wrong!! We waited in line for almost 2 hours in from of the family from hell! At one point 2 of the kids got away from the mother and stood on the 2nd floor above the crowd of people waiting to see Santa and started wagging their tongues and things like that when the mother yelled at the top of her lungs for the kids to get down the little boy shot the mom the bird!! In front of all those people and SANTA! Tyler looked over at me with this crazy look and said I don't think he is a very good boy. Uh yeah.
Christmas Eve we went over to my dad's and had dinner and opened presents. Tyler got some magic tricks and he is really funny trying to show you them. We will be practicing that! We had a fun time and Tyler was impressed that Papa's Christmas tree was a palm tree! Very cool. Christmas day we went to mass with the whole fam! Even Deborah!!! It was nice. The air conditioning was out in the church so it was hot!! I thought it was burning down from all the people going who don't normally! : ) Just kidding. Christmas morning was such a treat this year with Tyler. He was just so happy and excited to get his presents. He was really wondering about all the Santa stuff. He got a nice letter from Santa and he was really looking that thing over. He told me he tried really hard to stay up and see Santa. I love that he is excited like that. We baked cookies and out out cookies and milk for Santa and we put reindeer food out too. We always do that, but this year he just seemed to care about it more. When he woke up he came running in to announce Santa came and he wanted to open the presents from Santa first! I got some awesome pictures of him opening his presents too. I will post them soon. When he opened his PSP he had the biggest smile on his face I have ever seen! He had that I am so excited I need to bounce around face on, it was so so cute. I don't think I have ever seen him so happy over a present. I must give a big shout out to Santa - thank you so much for the PSP, you honestly made his whole Christmas. He was just thrilled. Everything else pretty much paled in comparison. He was pretty happy when he opened his computer as well. All the grandparents got him a computer for Christmas and he was pretty happy about that. I put his desk together and got the whole thing set up and the internet hooked up so he wants to play on it everyday. He's pretty good! He can go on the internet all by himself and navigates through things pretty well. We set it up in the dining room because I didn't think it was a good idea to put it in his room. He's a little young for that! Plus, when he goes to bed I can get on it too!

After Christmas we went to Jacksonville for 3 days to spend Christmas with my mom and Tabor. That is always nice. Tyler got video games and he played video games practically the whole time we were there! He loves going to my moms because she wakes up early like him and she takes him shopping! He is spoiled!

The two days before New Year's we went to Orlando with Pete and Marissa. We went to Islands of Adventure Friday and saw the Grinchmas events. Tyler didn't seem to really care about it but it was pretty cool. We rode all the rides and had a great time. We stayed until the park closed at 10. The next day we went to Universal and saw the Macy's Holiday Parade and all that. We rode a whole bunch of rides that day too. I think Tyler's favorite ride was Shrek. That was pretty cool. His least favorite would be Twister. He didn't like that at all. He even rode the Mummy roller coaster. He loved it!

For New Year's Eve we went over to Pete's families house and there was 8 kids there! Tyler was in heaven. He was playing video games and running all over the place. They were just having a good time. We played this really fun game that Pete's dad taught us and sang some kareoke. We did fireworks close to midnight and did the whole count down thing. This was really the first year that I was with Tyler on New Year's. He had his little horn and New Year's hat and was screaming and running all around. It was really sweet. I was so happy to bring in the New Year with him. Just exactly the way it should be. Me and him.

So let's see... I think that's it. Of course he went back to school on Tuesday and got sent home from school because he threw up!! He was running a fever and everything poor little guy. He stayed home from school on Wednesday and by that morning he was back to normal. Wednesday night we went to the circus and you guys all know how much I love the circus. I didn't love the circus this year! Shocker. They changed it and it was just different and not nearly as good. There were hardly any animals at all. There wasn't even the lady riding the elephant! What kind of circus is that?? No trapeze people, no lions, no 3 rings, no flexible Asian people... Nothing! It was disappointing. Tyler leaned over to me at one point and said, "Mom, this is NOT the Greatest Show on Earth!" Funny.

So that's it. The latest and greatest. Tyler is doing awesome and he probably had the best Christmas ever. This is going to be our year. It has to be. Good things are coming our way. Hold on tight Tyler - Happy New Year!