Just for fun

Tyler recently wore one of my favorite hand-me-downs from Timmy and I thought it would be fun to compare their pictures!  They are both just about a week shy of their 9 month birthdays in their respective pictures.  I don't see Timmy when I'm looking at Tyler but there are instances when Tyler gives me deja vu, like the first time wearing some of my favorite PJ's; and in pictures I can see they have matching features while they are frozen in place.  I'm definitely seeing more differences then similarities in these pictures though!

Smiley Boys!

Sweetie Pies

"We're done here, right?"

Entertaining x2

Now that Tyler is mobile and Timmy is... Timmy... Tim and I are finding it requires more of our energy to keep them both entertained all evening.  Luckily they will both sit still long enough to eat dinner.  Other then that, Timmy is creating obstacle courses on our couches, making pillow piles on the floor, throwing angry birds at us, or getting out every toy he owns, while Tyler is (okay I'll admit it) CRAWLING around trying to figure out what he can fit into his mouth!  Tim stumbled upon something they both found very entertaining the other night: see for yourself!

Timmy 3 Years 7 Months

My sweet big boy is another month older and he seemed to grow up a lot in the last month.  His bed time routine stayed the same, but suddenly seems to work, as in, he doesn't try to pop up out of bed or call us back into his room as soon as we leave any more.  He has memorized his favorite bed time books as well as our simple night time prayer, "Good night dear God, we're off to sleep, and in your watch, we know we'll keep, guide us safely through the night, and wake us with the morning light." He's also memorized our rather lengthy "God Bless" list, which is my and Tim's immediate families (and pets) plus Timmy's addition of "... and MandM and Uncle Dale." that he added two Thanksgivings ago.

He usually does even better then these videos show, I guess he was being camera shy.  Camera shy isn't a problem we usually have...

Last week Timmy spent two days telling me, Tim, and Mom, about his buddy at school, "Nate is a little bit nervous, but he'll be okay." When he told me that, I asked him who told him Nate was nervous, and he responded Mrs. B.  I emailed their amazing teacher to let her know that her phrasing of 'nervous' had really stuck with Timmy and he had been telling us about Nate, and asked if there was anything specific that had happened so I could talk to Timmy about it more.  Her response made me so proud, I'll share it here:

Oh, so cute and very mature too.  Timmy has been such a good friend during Nate's sad days.  Which I'm happy to report ended yesterday about 9:40 a.m. -- back to the happy carefree Nate.  Since the new year, Nate's been a bit sad about being away from his mom and family and was nervous about being at school and away from them (that's what we think anyway --it's hard to know exactly a  3 y.o.'s thought processes)

Timmy has been a bit bummed too because Nate was not his normal self and was not playing with him (they have become super good pals) in the same way that he usually does.  Timmy and I talked about it a few times because he was worried about Nate ("why is he sad?" "I think he misses his mom" are some things Timmy said)  --- the empathy is wonderful, esp. verbal --- many kids this age just don't even see how other kids are feeling, they hardly understand their own emotions.   I used the term nervous because of the actions Nate was using (looking sad, finding a safe/quiet place, his eyes were a little weepy, he came in crying, not wanting to play cars with Timmy) --at this age very important to point out the signs of each emotion ---- and then told Timmy "let's wish him well and he'll feel OK soon".  So we did that and so happy it worked after a few days.

We have pictures of many different emotions in class --- but it might be a useful thing to send home to all the parents....I will try and make a copy for conferences.  It's really good for the children to recognize the different way people feel and how they feel themselves.

Thanks for your concern.  I was so happy for both Timmy and Nate yest. ---to see Nate's smiling face and Timmy's support paid off--- it made me realize what a good pair they'd become!

have a great day, Patty

I am so proud of my big boy and what a good, patient, concerned friend he is!  Here is a picture that Patty took of Timmy and Nate last week as well.  It looks like Timmy may have joined Nate in the classrooms "safe place" for some quiet reading.

We had a little snow last week, less then half an inch on the grass only, and Timmy was itching to go play in it!  Mom explained to him that it was too cold for her to bring Tyler outside, so he waited patiently for me to get to Mom's after work.  She took him outside for a little while and they managed to make a snowman out of that little dusting of snow!  I hope we get exactly one good snow storm this year so Timmy can enjoy it!

Disclaimer - this post was written last week, but I waited to get the prayer and blessing videos before posting!

Brayden's 2nd Birthday Party

Brayden turned 2 on January 6th and we were so excited to celebrate with him the next day.  Jenny and Brett had his birthday at J.W. Tumbles which is a really neat play/gym place that caters to kids short attention spans!  They rotate through age appropriate activities every 10 minutes or so and the kids can run around and be as loud as they want!  Needless to say, Timmy was a huge fan of this party!

They even had a swing for Tyler, which he was happy to hang out in for the majority of the party!  It made things easy on us as we knew exactly where he was the whole time.  I did laugh going through the pictures I took, seeing him in the background of most of them just hanging out and looking around.  The biggest hits for the big kids seemed to be the obstacle course, trapeze swing, and of course the zipline.  I'm pretty sure Timmy enjoyed falling off of the trapeze and the end of the zipline as much as he liked being on them.

The kids took a short break for pizza and cake.  The train cake was Jenny's first attempt at cake making!  The staff decided it was time to sing Happy Birthday while Brayden was still working on his pizza, he insisted on not putting it down until it was time to blow out the candles!

Brayden and Timmy had about as much fun when all the toys had been put away too!  Timmy was tackling and tickling Brayden, and one time when he hadn't caught Brayden for a few minutes, Brayden laid down voluntarily and yelled to Timmy to tackle him!

8 Months

Tyler is now 8 months old and is adding to his accomplishments list seemingly daily!  He is the sweetest thing and so easy going.  Unless he's hungry or tired, it's seemingly impossible to upset him.  He doesn't complain at all when we take things away from him, which is becoming a common occurrence now that he is so mobile.  He laughs when we pull his thumb out of his mouth, even though it's his favorite toy.  He will just sit and stare at you until he catches your eye, and then he rewards you with the biggest grin.  I am so in love with this happy little guy!

When we first opened this toy from Santa I thought it might be a little too early for it, but Tyler is proving me wrong.  He started activating the spinner right away, and likes trying to catch the cars while they are spinning around.

Timmy was happy to show Tyler how to put the cars down the ramp, and Tyler did it for himself right after!

Tyler seemed to change a lot in the last week especially.  Tim says he is crawling, Timmy called it "scootin" and I'm going with Timmy's.  Tyler is not up on his knees yet, so I'm going to pretend he's still a little baby and he's not crawling!  He can get to anything he wants though.

It's funny, Timmy has been dying for Tyler to be able to play with him and chase him, but now that Tyler can get to him, I am hearing a lot of "Tyyyyyylerrrrr, you can't have that, this is for big boys, stop Tyler, I'm doinin somethin." And so it begins... :)  I have a feeling there will be a lot of moments this year where Timmy will jump to the forefront.

Luckily, he just seems to need a gentle reminder, and he will give Tyler his time as well!

Just like his big brother, Tyler's favorite first crawling targets are cell phones and remotes.

Tyler is also initiating games, with us and for himself as well.  He chased this ball around for 5 minutes!

Christmas

Christmas morning we had to wake the boys up to get things going.  I was a little surprised, I was expecting Timmy to try to get us up pretty early, but he was really worn out.  We were as excited as he was coming down the stairs, but I have to say that his reaction to the pile of gifts and his Bumblebee Power Wheels was pure happiness, without a hint of surprise.  He knew he was getting Bumblebee, the surprise would have been if it wasn't there apparently!  He climbed right in and said, "I want Tyler to sit too!" and asked me to buckle them both up.  He stepped on the gas in three short bursts, laughing and beaming, before Tyler started crying and I got him out!  Timmy was perfectly willing to get out as well and see what his other gifts were.

Opening presents was truly a joy this year, Timmy was happy to pass presents out and to help Tyler open his gifts, but if he wasn't actively doing something, he was asking, "There are more presents for me?"  After almost every gift he opened he would say, "It's just what I wanted!" even if it was something I was pretty sure he hadn't known existed until he opened it, it was so cute.  He got very excited to see us open the gifts he had picked out for us as well.  When we finished with the gifts he asked, "I wonder if Santa ate his cookie?" and he went to check.  He seemed more surprised at the bite missing from the cookie then he did from his Bumblebee!

Our next stop was Elena and Al's for a delicious breakfast and more gifts.  I was genuinely surprised by my present from them, a pair of blue lamps for our living room, and I had to laugh because the week before Christmas Tim had started talking about redecorating our living room and getting some more color in there, and we had tried to find a rug we both liked, but failed.  I found it amusing that Tim's desire for new decor ended up being my presents (and it turned out to be from both his parents, as his dad got me new curtains!) but I absolutely love how our living room looks now, so they were great gifts!

We brought Bumblebee with us and Brayden brought his new jeep over too.  They had a blast driving around on the yard and pipestem.  Steering took a little practice for Timmy, there were a few narrow misses of the yard decorations and he actually hit Aunt Becky's car tire!  He loved every minute of it though.

We spent most of the afternoon at Tim and Susan's and got to visit with Tim's Grandma, Uncle, Aunt, and Cousins as well.  We also had a delicious dinner there, though I'm pretty sure Timmy didn't eat anything but cake the entire day.

Aunt Becky came home with us and we all alternated between stretches of barely moving and lots of activity as we opened toys for Timmy one at a time and put out our new curtains and lamps.  Next year Santa needs to bring one package of every type of battery known to man.  Poor Timmy was tortured for days by toys I wouldn't let him open because we didn't have batteries for!  Timmy also tried on almost every piece of clothing he got.  For this picture he is wearing Becky's gift, the Radford Sweatshirt, on top of his Redskins Jersey from Grandad, Basketball Jersey from Santa, and Spiderman shirt from Santa.  We had to plead with him to show us his Spiderman shirt to get him out of all the layers!

And before bed I couldn't resist trying Timmy's first Christmas outfit on Tyler, here is this years Santa Baby!  Merry First Christmas, handsome boy!

Christmas Eve

We had a wonderful Christmas this year, Timmy's age and enthusiasm made it perfect automatically!  On Christmas Eve we unpacked and settled in from our trip and took care of some last minute preparations for Santa's arrival.  We went to the children's service at Timmy's preschool and got to sit next to one of his friends families.  Timmy wore an angel robe and halo through the service, but decided to sit with us instead of joining the other kids up front.  From there we visited at Tim's dad's for awhile and headed downtown to see the National Christmas Tree with Becky, Jenny, Brett and Brayden.  The trains at the bottom were a huge hit with Timmy and Brayden, neither of them wanted to leave, though Brayden was more vocal about that!  Poor Tyler was there too, but he was all bundled up in his stroller so he only made it out for one of the pictures!

We hurried home afterwards for a few more Christmas Eve pictures and to put out Santa's cookie and milk before going to bed!  Tyler was tired and not in the mood for pictures, as you can see, but Timmy was happy to do anything asked of him, knowing Santa would be arriving any time!

And when Santa was done at our house, it looked like this!

Christmas in Ohio

We were able to make a run to Ohio right before Christmas this year, which was especially nice since we didn't make it at all last Christmas.  It was a speed run, as usual, and we left on the 23rd instead of the 24th, which meant we didn't make it to the annual Christmas Eve Machak Reunion, but we did manage to see both sides of my immediate family and had play dates with my cousins and their kids.

We met the Shultz' for a yummy dinner at the Spaghetti Warehouse, where Timmy finally added spaghetti to the (small) list of things he will eat!  Afterwards we took a tour of Darren's new, and newly refurbished, home and then settled in at Donny and Peggy's for the rest of the evening, visiting and eating yummy cookies.  We got to see more of Ron and Marleen thanks to staying at Ron's house.  Timmy was happy to help decorate Ron's tree, especially putting the star on top!

The next day the boys and I went to visit my cousin Michelle and her 6 year old twins Connor and Chloe for a few hours.  The twins played very nicely with Timmy, even though he is "only three and a half" and Michelle and I had a nice visit while watching Tyler roll around.  In the evening we met Grandma, Dale, and Paula for dinner and went back to their house for visiting and gifts.  Dale is Timmy's buddy.  Ever since their visit two Thanksgivings ago, Timmy has ended our evening prayers and blessings with "And MandM and Uncle Dale."

Our last day we got to spend a much overdo afternoon with my cousin Erin, her husband Chris, and their kids Jayce and Hannah.  I've mentioned before that we stayed with Chris and Erin while they were living in Edinburgh and we were traveling in Europe for our 3 year anniversary.  Erin hinted at the time that they were starting to think about kids, and Tim was working on convincing me we were ready as well!  Jayce is about 3 weeks older then Timmy, and we are all still on the same schedule, as Tyler is about 6 weeks older then Hannah!  We hadn't seen them at all for two years, and that last visit was at the always hectic Christmas Eve Reunion, so I was really excited to have a quiet visit with them and really catch up.  I was surprised to see how interested Tyler was in Hannah, he was patting her and getting excited and smiling like crazy.  Timmy and Jayce took a little while to get on the same page as far as how to entertain themselves (it was mostly their parents fault, if we had let them jump on the couches it would have been no problem at all) but by lunchtime they were having a cute conversation about their food and then they bonded over their love of Angry Birds.  I like to think that Erin and I are a lot alike, one of our similarities is our love for photographing our children (though I'll give her credit for knowing more about what she's doing!) We definitely couldn't resist making all four kids pose for a few pictures.  It was so, so good to see them, and I'm determined not to let it take another two years to get together next!

It was a very nice visit as always, our drive both ways was incredibly easy as well.  We were happy to get home to enjoy Christmas Eve and prepare for Santa to arrive!