Our Quiver: Another weekly update

Once again another week has passed and I'm trying to catch up. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm having a hard time believing this is the last week of September. It doesn't seem like that long ago I was posting about Matt's day off on Labor Day! But anyway, here we are. Let's see...Tyler has a lot of fun playing with his cars and has acquired quite a collection of them, as they have been potty training rewards. We need to find a better place to put them because the gallon ice cream bucket isn't cutting it anymore! He is talking more and more on daily basis it seems, and more of the words are much more understandable than they were even just a few months ago. He's starting to put sentences together better, but still gets sentence structure a little backwards. I've heard him ask the "Why?" question a few times over the past few days and when I respond with an answer, the response he gives is "Ok." Glad for that instead of the "But why?" :) He remembers people & family connections, even of people he hasn't seen in a long time. I will often hear him tell me of how he & Bria rode in Grampa Mac & Grammy's car to church and that was back in July! He will also tell me that when Grammy takes off her glasses, she kind of looks like Joyce. :) He loves playing with cousin Sawyer, but has also found enjoyment in antagonizing him. For example, if Sawyer is playing with something, Tyler will go over and take it just to see Sawyer's reaction, which quite often is exactly what Tyler was going for and will continue to do these types of things to him. We have seen a little more defiance in him recently and we're both hoping is a phase where he's still testing out the independence limits and as long as we're consistent, will end soon, but who knows? No doubt about that sinful nature though. ;) For the most part though, he's still a lot of fun.

Bria's walking very proficiently now. Still takes a tumble or two when she's trying to get somewhere in a hurry. But I know it won't be too much longer before she is RUNNING after Tyler. She has almost 6 teeth now (meanwhile the little boy at church who is 2 1/2 months younger than she is already has at least 8 if not more!) and still eats just about everything in sight. She's always hungry and even though I haven't weighed her recently, I would be surprised if she has hit 20# yet. She can sign "all done", "please", "cat", "more", and "dog". Every once in awhile she will also sign "thank you" but that one is still pretty sporadic. She loves to jibber jabber and still loves to give her light-up-her-whole-face smiles to just about anyone who pays attention to her. We've also noticed that she has started folding her hands when we pray before a meal. We never taught her that, must be something she picked up from watching Tyler, but it's very cute.

In other news, we are planning a trip to Pittsburgh, PA in about 2 more weeks. Well, technically it's only another week from this Thursday. Or 11 more days, if you must know. ;) But hey, who's counting, right? :D Geneva Homecoming is October 10th and since Matt had some vacation days that he needed to use before the end of the year and we haven't met our neice Lydia yet, we decided to drive out for a long weekend. We'll leave Thursday afternoon/evening (whenever Matt can get off work, he's hoping by midafternoon (3:30ish), drive all night while *the kids sleep* and get to PA early in the AM on Friday. Then we'll stick around until Tuesday, the 13th and head back to KS. I'm really looking forward to it. :) My parents will be able to come down too, so at least we'll get the majority of our family together. I'm super excited and Tyler is too. (Matt & Bria are too, they just don't show it as much we do! ;)) We have a sticker calendar going so Tyler can see that the visit is getting closer.

And of course, the weekly bunch of pictures. I've actually slacked off taking pictures over the past week or so. I'm sure my sister is thinking "Yeah, right." but it's true. :) Hope you enjoy them, nonetheless!