Christmas Came Early at the Marchant Home!

Yesterday, we celebrated Christmas together as a family. We are flying to Utah tomorrow to be with our families for the holiday, so we wanted to do our own family Christmas morning before we went. As cute as Ty was last Christmas, he was so much more fun this year!! He was crazy about unwrapping the presents, and then completely overwhelmed by his new toys. He kept running back and forth between the new toys, trying to decide which he wanted to play with most. It was so fun to watch! It was also way nice to be able to spend the whole day together as a family. Adam is usually busy doing something on Saturdays, but he was able to delegate all responsibilities to others so that he could be with us for the day. It was wonderful! In the afternoon, we went to a nearby rec center. Adam and Ty went swimming (which Ty LOVED!) while I got in a good workout. In the evening, we had our ward Christmas party. Santa showed up at the party, and Ty sat on his lap. Ty was not the slightest bit afraid of the big guy! He just kept saying, "Ho, ho, ho!" So cute!

Ty is now 18 months old, and he is hilarious and exasperating all at once.  I have two funny Ty stories that I wanted to write down, so that I don't forget them.

A couple of days ago, Ty and I were out running errands.  We stopped at the bank, and without my realizing it, Ty snatched a pen from the counter.  Unfortunately, this pen had no cap.  We got back in the car, I buckled Ty in his carseat, and we were on our way.  A few minutes later, I heard an unearthly shriek from the back seat.  I turned around to see Ty grabbing his eye, and realized he must have stabbed himself in the eye with the uncapped pen.  To make matters worse, he had written all over his face, ears, and head with the black ink!  Of course I was driving, so there wasn't a whole lot I could do.  I simply turned the car around and drove home.  I couldn't finish my errands with my shrieking, "artistic" son in the condition he was in!

This second story made Adam laugh like crazy when I told it to him, and I could tell he was as proud as can be!  Ty LOVES basketball.  I mean, I literally can not often convince him to do anything else.  He has a basketball hoop, but it is tall enough that he can not reach it to shoot on his own.  Usually, Adam or I have to lift him up to shoot the ball.  He has recently figured out, though, that if he climbs on the rocking chair in his room, he can stand on that to shoot the basketball into the basket on his own.  The problem, obviously, is that it is a rocking chair. He has taken a few headers off it in the last few days!  Yesterday, I walked into his room just in time to see him faceplant off the rocking chair onto the floor.  He came up crying, and I asked him if he wanted a hug.  He quickly responded, "NO!  BALL!"  And he climbed right back up again.  He is definitely all boy.  

Family Pictures

A couple of weeks ago, we had a friend take us out to shoot our family pictures. Unfortunately, the lighting wasn't very good, and not too many turned out. We got a few good shots of the family, but she got TONS of cute pictures of Ty. I guess it's not too hard to get great pictures of a kid as cute as him!

Monkey Business!

I haven't really been in a blogging mood lately, but I decided that since it's a frigid 11 degrees outside, it's probably as good a day as any to post. I'm certainly not going to venture out today!
Adam was fortunate to have the entire week of Thanksgiving off of work. On Monday, we took Ty to a place called Monkey Business. They have all sorts of inflatable slides, obstacle courses, bounces houses, and other fun things for kids. Ty had a blast, and I'm pretty sure Adam did, too!

Adam and Ty on one of the slides
(I'm obviously not very good at the action shot!)

My two favorite boys