Baby #3 is a...

By the way, we found out last week that the baby to be born in 144 days (dang babystrology baby-counter) will be a BOY!

P.S. We are accepting name* suggestions.

*The names Jarman and Sherma will be omitted from consideration

Portraits

Our good friend, Nancy, took some great pictures of us before the holidays. Our intention was to use one of them for our Christmas cards. Unfortunately, we got too busy and lazy to send one out this year. Please don't take us off your card list for next year! We promise to get them out next year!

Anyways, there were so many good ones. Here is a sample of my personal favorites:

Love Affair with a Garage

As Valentine's Day is upon us, I thought I would share a love story. But, this is not your ordinary love story. It is the story of the love between a little boy and a garage:

It all started a few years ago while visiting my parent's house. Even at 12 months , Tyler was extremely interested in being able to open and close the garage. He would beg to be granted the right to push the button at all hours of the day. Unlike the one at our house, my parents had a "newer" garage - the kind that runs up and down on a track and has windows. Our garage door at home was an old wooden door that simply lifted up and stuck outside of our garage. It had no windows and was apparently not too interesting for Tyler. Sure, he enjoyed pushing the button, but he would not beg at all hours to watch the garage open and close.

The nursery leaders at church told us about how he would sit for long periods of time in front of the "Little People House" that had a garage door. He would stare at it, and move his little cars in and out of that garage slowly opening and closing the door with such concentration!

I searched stores for a toy that had a garage door, so that he would have as much enjoyment at home, but was not able to find a single one. Unfortunately, the "Little People House" had been updated years ago and did not have the movable garage door anymore. I was even tempted to purchase one on Ebay, but the prices were just too crazy to justify it. Besides, this was just a phase, right?

Fast forward 3 years, and Tyler still is obsessed with garages. When we drive up and down our street, he likes to tell me which houses have opened or closed doors. If one is moving, he will scream until I stop the car and allow him to watch it.

A few weeks ago, our old garage door completely broke. This was an answer to Tyler's little prayers as we now could upgrade to a newer model. There is a whole new level of excitement over our garage! I cannot tell you how many times a day Tyler will ask me questions like, "So Mom, how do you like our new garage?" or he'll say, "Do you know that our new garage has windows?" or "Do you think the light on the garage will turn on soon?". This happens at least 3-4 times a day! When we are getting ready to go somewhere, Tyler will schedule whether it is his or Dylan's turn to open or close the garage. But, when we are in the car on our way home, he always lets Dylan close it. This is because he can run inside the house and watch the door close from our front window!

I am not sure how long this affair will continue, but I wanted to make sure that we don't forget Tyler's first true love.

Happy Valentine's Day, Tyler. I will let you open and close that door as much as you want on February 14th!


***Oh yes, and as I pulled up our blog to post this,Tyler asked me to click on the picture of Arthur with the Sparkler's (from the post below). Once the picture enlarged, he whispered in my ear, "Do you see the garage in the picture, Mom?"