Friday, April 24, 2009

Fun and games

I think the best method for diet and exercise is the Ty Michael plan! I know I burned more than a few calories while we were playing last week. We have toys for Ty in the family room, but a week or so ago I took Ty downstairs to where we have the toy and game closets. There are all sorts of fun things in there.

One of the first things Ty discovered was the shopping cart. It has held up really well for the past 15 or 16 years as one of Melinda's toys. Ty liked putting a baby in the cart and wheeling down the hallway. Every now and again he'd take the baby out and hold it carefully. He also liked the pink Barbie car and the other toy cars. We took turns rolling them down the hallway.

One of his favorites was the old electronic keyboard. The kids have used that to accompany their dances for YEARS! Ty loved pushing the buttons that play the various rhythms and songs. He also liked the Bop it! game. We're great dancers, Ty and I.

We played and chased and laughed and crawled. Like I said in the first paragraph it was one of the best workouts I've had in a while. Every now and then we'd read Brown Bear Brown Bear What do you See for a small break.

I like being silly with Ty.

Love,
NS

Papa!

Last Friday we took care of Ty for a bit so that Carynn and Jamie could work on their patio. They were at the stage where they were putting down the pavers in the sand. Well, Ty loved helping a little too much and every time they'd try to smoothe the sand he'd play in it. I think that's perfectly understandable. After all that is what sand is for. Anyway, we said that we'd love to have him come over so he did.

We had a fun time playing. At one point Ty picked up an older family picture that I like to leave out. It was taken in 1993 when we lived in Oregon. My friend had taken our "official" family portrait and then thought it would be fun to pose us differently. Michael's holding a rake, Carynn's pretending to style her hair, Lynette's talking on the phone, Bret's posed on his mountain bike, Melinda's holding a doll and I'm pretending to read a book. Ty held the picture, pointed to Michael and said, "Papa." Then he bent and kissed the picture. It was so sweet to witness his spontaneous gift of afffection for his grandpa. Ty loves his Papa and Papa loves Ty.

Love,
NS

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Easter Fun

We had a great weekend celebrating both the lighter and significant sides of Easter. On Saturday morning we joined Carynn, Jamie and Ty for their ward Easter celebration. There was yummy food (egg/sausage/hashbrown casserole, biscuits and gravy, cinnamon cake, orange slices, orange juice), singing by the Primary children, a spiritual program on the Savior and finally the Easter Egg hunt.

The weather wasn't cooperating (not a surprise really as the weather hasn't been cooperating for a while) so we didn't know if they'd do the egg hunt inside or outside. The rain stopped enough that they opted for outside so we joined Ty and his parents for his first "official" Easter Egg hunt. They had a special area for the 3 and unders behind the church. The plastic eggs (filled with candy kisses) were scattered out in the open on the wet grass.

At first Ty wasn't quite sure what to do. Being a bright boy he caught on fairly quickly and gathered his eggs. When he realized that they had candy in them he wanted to stop after every egg and get the candy out, but he was persuaded to finish hunting. He really "got" the concept of the eggs needing to be put in the basket when he picked them up, however, instead of gently placing them in the basket he tossed them in. The hunt didn't take very long which was good since it was cold and wet. We all took pictures and some video. Hopefully some of them will turn out.

On Sunday, Carynn, Jamie and Ty joined us for dinner so did Melinda, Landan and Landan's mom. Landan's dad and grandpa were supposed to come to dinner too but they were sick. After dinner the kids hid the eggs I had creatively colored (watch out Martha Stewart)for each other. They hid them in the living room and got really creative considering that all 12 eggs were in one area. They also "hid" the eggs for Ty. He liked finding the eggs but again had some "placing versus throwing" issues when getting them into the basket. There were definitely some cracked eggs. He also threw an egg towards the basket (it went quite a way) which was retrieved by one of the adults.

He had a moment where he took a bite out of the egg, shell and all. You should have seen his face when he realized that he didn't like the taste of egg shell AND egg.

A good time was had by all!

NS

Monday, April 6, 2009

Binoculars

Yesterday Carynn, Jamie and Ty came over to watch General Conference and to have dinner with us. Michael had the binoculars out as he's keeping track of the birds as they return and (hopefully) set up housekeeping in the nestboxes on our property.

Ty found the binoculars and immediately put them on, but under his nose. Papa showed him how to use them, but he still likes to wear them under his nose. When he holds them with the lenses reversed he can see his Papa quite well.

I loved it when Ty ran to me when I held my arms out to him. Carynn said that he recognized that he was coming to Nana and Papa's house. Yay!

Happy Spring!

NS