Jayden's 1st Birthday!!

Well the little guy (well not that little I guess) is already 1 ! Man does time fly! It's hard to imagine what life was like prior to a year ago. It's amazing how these little people make such a huge difference in your life. You not only revolve around them but your life is forever full of silly things they do or learn and constantly laughing at how goofy they act and what type of reaction they'll give you next :)

Here's his 1 year portrait:

A couple since birth as well:
and the hair :)

Jayden Walking

So within the last week or so Jayden went from just standing to taking steps to walking around our house. He's very proud of himself and gets really excited when he's walking. He's now just started being able to bend over and pick things up :) This video is when he just started taking steps.

The last few weeks

Well I haven't posted much in the last few weeks, it's mostly because whenever I went to post I couldn't think of anything. But now looking back at my pictures of October I guess we did do a few things.
In the beginning of the month we went to Tyler's Titan hockey game opener. Just about the whole family was there from both sides I think and along with tons of friends which was nice to see. The Langley Events Center wasn't full as was hoped ;) but approx. 500 people showed.





"Opa! Wear you're hat backwards"
- Thomas








Then one day we went to Oma's house to help pick the kale. Well Jackie and me picked along with our big helpers Nathan and Jaxon and Jayden helped Oma wash the kale. At first he didn't realize there was water in the tub but then he got a bit deeper and started really "helping".

Jayden has found his new favourite thing in our house. My drawer I throw all my misc. plastic, bottles, baking stuff etc. etc. in that he beelines to about 5 times a day. He manages to literally throw out the rolling pin every time without hitting his toes. I'm still waiting for it to happen. Every bottle nipple he pulls out he must think is some type of soother, so he starts sucking on it.

A regular site in the kitchen

Jayden Discovers the Toilet

The other day the bathroom door was left open and as I was washing the dishes I heard water splashing around and thought, "where is that coming from?" Quite quickly I realized Jayden was, no doubt, playing in the toilet! He even thought of taking his rubber ducky in so that he could play too :) So of course before I bathed him and changed him because he was soaked I had to take a few pictures.

Start of Fall

Things are getting nice and busy again. I'm doing a bootcamp twice a week, had my first one last Saturday and I'm still sore. But it's pretty fun and it's helping me get my but in gear and be more active. I also started coffee break today, it was just a social but it seems like it will be a good bible study. Our theme is "How Bright is Your Torch?" kinda like the Olympic theme but changed up a bit :) and we're studying a book on the parables of Jesus. There's a good mix of ladies in the bible study, along with a bunch of new Moms so I'm looking forward to it.
Tyler is also quite busy as usual during the school year. He's teaching catechism again this fall which is going well and he also has the TA stuff to do for a couple of profs at Trinity. So he's getting that teaching experience under his belt:) Tyler also decided to try out for the Trinity Titans hockey team this year. He's on the team which he's quite excited about, but he's not quite ready to play yet because his shoulder isn't quite healed up. The opening game is Oct. 2nd at the Langley Event Center and he'll be playing. I'm told to tell everybody because they want a full house. It's going to be very busy with hockey, but the coach is quite flexible and I don't have to worry about this taking over our lives ;)
Jayden has learned to stand up while holding onto something now. His crib was the last place he figured out, but it hasn't been a nightmare because he knows how to plop down onto his bum. He's quite proud when he finds a new place to stand and starts flapping his arms everywhere and then falls. The nursery wasn't so great last Sunday, as I was babysitting and taking care of other kids while he climbed up my legs and fell about 4 or 5 times, hitting his head and then screaming.

I don't know how many pictures I have of him like this.

He also finds my camera to be a nice toy and so taking pictures is always a challenge because he attacks me. As you can see.

September Long Weekend

So we went on our last camping trip of the year to Shuswap. I had never been to Shuswap so now I can say that I've been there, done that and will probably go back if given the chance. We spent one afternoon at the beach and then Sunday we got rained out with some serious downpours that Jayden loved watching. We did manage to keep dry though through the rain, but without campfires at night it got pretty cold! Another interesting part of it was that we were the only couple with a baby. It was probably an eye opener for the two expecting couples:) as Jayden was teething and not so great at night and they were also amazed at home much stuff you have to bring for just one kid. Tooth #3 has arrived, and that's 3 teeth in about 1 month and there might be more coming. Besides the cold weather we had a really good time with a bunch of fun couples :) I really did a bad job of taking pictures, so none to post of that trip:(
I finally finished making the pillow cases that I started about 4 months ago :) The reason I started them was because my nephew Jaxon wouldn't sleep with a big pillow and I found a small kid's pillow at a store and told my sister that I could easily make a pillow case out of some nice soft cotton material. Well I made one and then stopped, so now there done, finally! It doesn't help I started them in the summer when sewing is the last thing I feel like doing :)

Well that was just a quick post for now. Have a great day!

Surgery & Lake Whatcom

On August 20th Tyler went for shoulder surgery. He had a cyst an inch by inch big in his shoulder socket. It had given Tyler a constant achy pain in his shoulder for the last 3 years and it wasn't until about a year ago that he thought he should go for an MRI to see what was wrong. It especially got sore after he would use it a lot during work and usually after a few days of working he couldn't get his wedding band on because his hand would swell up. If you remember the story, that's why we thought his wedding band was too small the night before our wedding day, and the morning of our wedding he went to Spence to get a bigger ring so that I'd be able to put it on during the ceremony :) We didn't clue in what was going on until a few months later...Anyways so he's recovering quite well and should be good as new in a couple of weeks. If you look closely at the picture you can see 3 small incisions that were made during the surgery to remove the cyst.

Since Tyler's off work we thought we should take some more holidays and so all of us Vandergaag's headed out for Lake Whatcom in Washington to a 3 day family holiday. Jayden really wanted to go kayaking but Dad said he wouldn't be able to reach over the edge to help paddle ;)

The Vandergaag grand-kids Whatcom 2009