Easter

We had a wonderful Easter this year, going to church and visiting with all of our family!  We started celebrating Saturday evening with some Easter Egg coloring.  I was very surprised when Timmy came home from preschool with an egg he had dyed, last year we had just given him a crayon to color on an egg with.  But Mom braved her kitchen floor and we let Timmy dye his own eggs this year. 

He started out very patiently, dying one egg at a time, and singing us songs between checking on his eggs in the dye.  We went through the ABC's first and then I think 8-9 times through BaBa Black Sheep.  He wasn't interested in singing any other songs, and when he lost interest in that one, he started playing more with the egg in the dye.

He did a really good job of getting the eggs in and out of the colors, he only dropped one getting it out of the cup.  He did knock over the entire cup of blue dye trying to get a different egg out though!  But he sure had fun!

By the end he had green fingers and a blue leg!

On Easter Morning we had time to go through our baskets before heading off to church.  The Easter Bunny was very good to all of us, but he made 4 stops for Timmy!  The haul of candy in our kitchen looks more like Halloween then Easter!  Timmy received two Chuggington Trains from The Easter Bunny and he was ecstatic!  He did ask where the other main character was, and since he is entering the "Why?" phase, he also asked "Hmmm, why the Easter Bunny leave these trains?" As well as asking about everything else in his basket.

After a breakfast of Jelly Beans we headed off to church.  Mom, Dad, Joe, Elena, Al, Becky, Chris, Jenny, and Brayden all attended the same service with us!  We were told that Brayden and Timmy played very nicely in the nursery together, and the music at Service was really fantastic.  After church we stopped by my parents house to get Easter Baskets there and to see them open presents, it was their FORTIETH Anniversary!  We then went to P.F. Chang's for lunch, as has been our family tradition for probably the last 5 years or so.

After lunch we visited at Tim's Dad's for a while and enjoyed the beautiful weather and their beautiful yard.  Timmy ran around playing baseball and with sidewalk chalk and chasing the dogs.  He was in heaven! Finally we went to Tim's Mom's for dinner and more visiting.  Brayden and Timmy even posed for a quick photo-op for us. 

34 Months

Timmy hit 34 months yesterday and although I've been blogging pretty regularly recently, I wanted to write down a few more things about him at this point.  He still plays by himself beautifully a lot of the time, his cars and trains provide hours of distractions for him.  His trains mostly go around his little mat with train tracks, and they help each other pull large loads.  His cars usually line up for races, either on the ottoman or the TV table.  It's funny, his trains are very helpful and polite to each other, I hear lots of "please" and "thank you" and the occasional "bust my buffers" (!) which is how the trains treat each other on Thomas and Friends.  His cars on the other hand like to crash into each other and are more apt to chase each other roughly and say things like "slow down" "come back" and "watch what you're doing" which is in line with how the cars speak to each other in the movie.  I prefer playing trains with him... 

Some of my favorite words Timmy says are "Allthebody" instead of "Everybody."  He came up with this term all by himself, and although I don't repeat it back to him, I will be so sad when he switches to "everybody" instead.  It is so cute when he says "allthebody"!  Tim recently tried to teach him "water" instead of "wawa" which he still says, and I just looked at him pouting and asked him not to take that away from me yet either!  ;)  Another phrase he started on his own a while ago was "Hey! Watch what you're doing to me!" He says this if you accidentally bump into him, or when Tim is wrestling with him. I think it's Tim's favorite phrase.  Ofcourse, my absolute favorite thing that he has started saying, without prompting, is "I love you sooo much!" and it just makes my day when I get an unsolicited hug and he says that to me! 

Beyond those babyish terms, Timmy's speech and sentence structure and understanding have grown radically recently.  He asked me "Why?" three times in a row the other day, but it hasn't taken hold as his primary word yet.  We were doing a lot of stuff around the house this weekend and Tim had tools out upstairs.  I had moved a package of screws into my room, hoping they would be out of sight, out of mind, but Timmy went in looking for them.  I let him bring one out and he got his plastic tools out to fix something.  Next time I looked, he was back in my room.  I said, "Nope, out of there, you already have one screw, Mom said no more."  In response he held up his empty hands and said, "No Mom, I'm not taking more screws, I'm just walking around!"  That type of explanation and cause and affect understanding have come out of nowhere recently.  A brief Time Out episode last night ended with him saying, "Sorry for not listening Mom" before he was told what he needed to do to get out of his chair.

Speaking of Time Out, Timmy seems to be hitting the Terrible Two's more now then in the past year.  But I'll admit, I'll take his Terrible Two's actions over a lot of kids day to day tempermant!  When he decides he wants to do something he asks a million times, even if your response to him is that, "Yes, we can go take a tubby, as soon as we eat dinner."  The Yes action has to be immediate to get him to stop asking!  If your response is "No" it receives a whiny "But I want to _________" and more asking.  There have only been a handful of times that he has dropped to the ground crying over something, and none of those episodes have been about anything in a store.  The only public ones have been over leaving the playground!

Another big milestone is his increased interest in reading.  Tim or I read a few stories before bed every night and Mom reads to him throughout the day.  He has started 'reading' the stories back to us when we are done, and in some cases he knows almost every single word, and he mimics our phrasing and emphasis on certain words.  A lot of books he will say certain phrases along with us while we are reading to him.  He knows his alphabet and all the letters by sight, it's one of those areas that I can still watch him learning.

The kid is still obsessed with being outside, running, and going to the playground.  He is one happy kid with this beautiful weather right now!

Easter Egg Hunts

Timmy got to enjoy two Easter Egg Hunts this year.  The first one was through his preschool and it was fun for us to get to see him interact with his school friends.  The little boy next to him in the first picture is Nate from his class, and the little boy he is chasing in the last picture is Francis, who is definitely his best friend.  The look of joy on Timmy's face in that last picture just makes me melt., he absolutely loves being outside and loves playing chase!  He was very excited on his way to the Easter Egg Hunt, Mom says he sang the whole way there, "I'm going on an egg hunt, an egg hunt, an egg hunt! I'm going on an egg hunt! So. Much. Fun!"  We asked his teacher, and it was not something they sang in school, he made it up all on his own!

 

Egg Hunt #2 was through the church playgroup that Mom takes him to, and it was the second year we've gone to it.  They set up a bunch of other activities for the kids to play with until it's time for the egg hunt, and Timmy had a blast.

Timmy is changing on me again, I swear he got taller again, and I can really see a change in his face in these pictures.  I guess it's just in time, I'm going to go into shock when I see him and the baby together, I swear it was just yesterday when...

Pre-Baby Brunch

This past weekend Elena, Jenny, and my Mom hosted a Pre-Baby Brunch for me.  I was reluctant to call it a baby shower, because I know that you used to only have a shower for your first baby, but people kept asking if I was having one, and I loved the idea of getting together with all my friends.  I have not been keeping in touch as well as I would like since I've been pregnant!

Mom and I did the invitations with my new Silhouette cutter that I made Tim buy me for our anniversary.  I thought they came out really cute!  Jenny did the decorating and found fun games for everyone to play, knowing about my obsessive scrapbooking she even found a game for people to write me advice using candy bar names and she printed everything on coordinating monkey paper so I could keep them in my scrapbook!  The food was all delicious too!  Everything turned out so nicely.

 

 

 

And it was so nice to see everyone!  Besides Sami, who I manage to see at least every other month, I think it had been 4-6 months+ since I had seen any of the other guests!  It was great to do a little catching up, but it also made me miss everyone more and feel like I needed dinner dates with them all individually to really catch up!  Hopefully everyone will be able to come out to meet the new baby after we're a little settled, and we can catch up then!

 

  

 

 

 

More Pregnancy

3 weeks from tomorrow I will be done being a pregnant woman (for a few years anyways) and I will be the mother of two instead.  I am ready to be done being pregnant this time around!  I am definitely looking and feeling pregnant right now.  I am lucky if I sleep 3 hours before having to wake up to pee.  I know this is going to continue with feeding the baby, and be just as often, but I'm figuring at least I can get comfortable on my back or stomach between feedings!  My feet are also getting swollen quickly if I am standing for too long... and in my hot office with no A/C until June 1st... my feet are swollen just from sitting, by shortly after lunch.  I will be wearing sweat-capri's by next week, I'm sure!  This weekend I pushed myself to get the basement organized and my feet were so mad at me that they were itching!

I am also torn between happy and sad because of how the new baby will affect my relationship with Timmy.  I am just as excited to see him in his new role as Big Brother as I was to see Tim in his role as Father last time.  I know Timmy will be wonderful at it!  It just will be different too.  This weekend when Timmy woke up, I talked him back into his bed to cuddle with me.  I'm trying to take every opportunity to give him my undivided attention and just talk to him and cuddle him as much as possible.  I even find myself agreeing to get on the floor and play choo choo trains for longer periods of time this week.  It has been amazing watching him grow and change seemingly every day, and I know that will continue, and we'll get to watch the baby do it too.  It's just one of the many situations that will come up in life that will force the dynamic of our relationship to change, hopefully this one is hitting the hardest because it's first, and because of my hormones!

On the positive side, I love that the delivery is just days before Mother's Day!  :)  Yes, my gift expectations are higher then usual, but Tim always delivers with gifts!  ;)  This baby is still wiggling around like crazy, which I love.  Timmy has felt the baby move a bunch of times, and he likes coming over to snuggle with the baby and give my belly kisses now.  He recently received a doctor's kit as a gift, and he immediately put the stethoscope on to come listen to the baby.  He and Mom will be coming to my next appointment Wednesday morning to hear the baby for real.  We are getting so close!!!

The Nursery and Timmy's Big Boy Room!

Tim painted the nursery a few weeks ago and Timmy's room shortly after. We took our time getting some much needed accessories, and even though a few things still need to be hung up (okay, well I have to finish making them first...) in each room, I couldn't resist photographing and sharing the rooms any longer! I knew I wanted cutesy, baby jungle animals for the nursery theme this time around, and Tim leaned heavily towards monkey's. When we settled on this adorable bedding, the rest of the room came together easily! I am making a cross stitch for this baby like I did for Timmy (don't worry, it will probably get it's own post when it's complete!) I hope to have it finished up in the next week, and can't wait to get it framed and hung up over the changing table! I'm also repurposing a shelf that was in Timmy's nursery, and hope to have it finished soon too. Most of all, I can't wait to meet our little monkey next month! Timmy immediately loved the nursery, I mentioned before how he helped Tim with the sanding and other things. He still walks in and says, "Wow!" So I was really anxious to get his room done shortly after the nursery, I wanted him to feel like his room was special and new too! We were all in his room when Tim started peeling off the Winnie the Pooh wall paper border, and Timmy actually tried to stop him, "No Dad, that's mine!" But we explained to him that we were going to put up new things in his room and he was okay with it, and he loves the end result! Timmy's Big Boy Room is Disney Themed. His current favorites are Toy Story and Cars and he loves Mickey Mouse Clubhouse too, so we incorporated all of them and a few others. When Tim and I couldn't decide which themed wall paper border we wanted, we showed Timmy the pictures and let him pick! :) This is actually how we settled between our top two choices for the baby's name as well! Haha! Anyways, Winnie the Pooh remains in the artwork between the windows and in the crossstich I made while I was pregnant with him. The large Pinochio painting was purchased for Timmy on our cruise last year, we were missing him so much and it reminded us of him, so we splurged! If it weren't for our Peter Max painting, Timmy would have the only real art in the house! I think Tim's gone a little crazy with the fathead stickers already, but he's angling towards adding one more! My hope for this room is that it can keep growing with Timmy, that we can change out pieces and parts with new favorites, I figure chances are good that something Disney puts out will continue to entertain him for years to come!