To Timmy, at 10 years old

I cannot believe that you are TEN!  That number is so big!  That makes me so old!  As I posted on Facebook on your birthday, "No one has affected my life and heart as much as this one. Turning me into a mom and growing into a person I am so proud of I could burst."  You totally turned Daddy and I into the people we are today, into parents, into a family.  You entered our lives easily and nothing has been the same since.  I have not been bored since the day you were born.  I have not felt alone or lonely or without purpose or motivation.  My life is split into before Timmy was born and after!

You are a sweet, sweet kid.  You still love to climb into our bed and cuddle with us, you regularly slip your hand into mine while out in public, and you greeted me with a (awkward) hug in the middle of the cafeteria the last week of school, knowing that you wanted to hug me but that you would be teased, which you were.  You are a great friend and a fantastic big brother.  You are open with your feelings, telling people when you miss them and when you feel hurt.  I hope you never stop. You acknowledge the every day things, you will see me carrying the laundry basket and thank me for doing the laundry.  You wrote a 'story' about me in computer lab, it said, "She's nice and fun she always cares for me. She always comes to see me play sports. She works hard on everything she does."  You are impressed when Dad tackles a new project around the house, surprised he knows how to do whatever it is.  You notice how many hours Dad puts into Little League and miss him when he's at meetings at bed time.  This doesn't mean that you always show appreciation or make things easier on us though!  You might put baseball pants inside out on the floor, instead of right side out in the hamper, the same day you thank me for doing the laundry!  But I'm working on you on that, and it's validating just for you to notice, most of the time.

You have gotten so big!  You are officially taller than M&M and approaching Baba's height.  Your new tennis shoes are too big for me.  You are now 4'-9 3/4" and you've also filled out, you are solid and strong.  You are big enough for some new chores now too!

We got you your own phone, for various reasons but you can largely thank Movie Pass.  But you have started running home from school, walking Sonic, going to friend's houses from school, and being left home alone for short stints, so it was time.  It's worth mentioning just to share this video.

You continue to be a friend to everyone in your classes, but you definitely have your best friends.  The Three Doritos voted to add a 4th this year when Carson joined your school, but the three original members are definitely still BFF's.  

You and Caleb get super excited to see each other every chance you get, though visits are further between then any of us would like!

Your birthday party was an epic pool party again this year, there were at least 40 kids, mostly 4th graders with some younger siblings.  You had a blast and I loved seeing you smile all afternoon.

You are undoubtedly a baseball player.  Over the past year you have really taken pride in your playing.  Not to say that you don't have other interests, or that you never complain about going to practice.  But when you're on the field you own it.  We are wrapping up All Star season right now and there are few things I love more then watching you play third, hitting, and running the bases.  I recently overheard you telling Tyler that his upcoming season, moving up to AA, is when baseball will really click.  You have big plans to play lots of catch with Tyler this summer.  The second half of this season, and into All Star season I have seen a big change in your attention on the field.  I have regularly heard you being the first and loudest to respond, "Yes, Coach!" and you are the first to call out and charge at bunts.  Your running is smart and you have made some great tagging outs.  I have not heard a coach tell you to get into position or pay attention in months, you already are.

During your House season this Spring, there was a game that Dad had to leave early to attend a League meeting.  You had a fantastic game, great fielding, great hitting, great pitching.  On our drive home I was telling you what a great game you had, and you kept asking what time Dad would be home.  I asked you, "Why are you so worried about what time Dad is getting home?" and you answered, "Because I want him to congratulate me."  I let out a little laugh and you said, "What? I'm always working hard so he will be proud of me."  I told you that was a very honest response!

Pitching during said game

You had a big Spring activity wise.  The Warriors did a tournament in Dewey on Saint Patrick's Day  Weekend and in Manassas on Memorial Day Weekend, giving you guys a chance to have fun on and off the field!

You participated in Running with the Stars after school and ran a 5K with the club and Aunt Becky at the end of the season.  

Your House team won the regular season with an 8-2-1 record and you were a leader and star on the team.  

You also played flag football and that team won the Championship game as well, with plenty of plays by you helping to get them there, racking up interceptions and breaking up passes throughout the season.  (You missed the actual Championship game though, due to an All-Star game at the same time).   

Interception!

You have also continued with Piano Lessons, and you take pride in your friend's surprise when they find out you play the piano, you like that, "You wouldn't think from looking at me that I play the piano."  You did wonderfully at your recital a few weeks ago.

You had an absolutely fantastic school year!  It was the first grade that the classes had two teachers, moving between their classrooms during the day.  They were an amazing team and they loved your classes as much as you all loved them!  You actually cried when showing me selfies you took with your teachers on the last day, an emotion you haven't shown at the end of a school year since preschool!  Your grades were great, and you really started to shine in history especially.  We still need to get you on track with your multiplication facts, but you tested well enough in math that you were selected for AP math next year.  There was very little homework this year, which was great for our schedule, but I'm worried about getting you back into the swing of homework next year!

One of many field day victories sealed in this clip! (You're not competitive at all...)

If I didn't talk more about how you are with Tyler, I would be leaving out a huge part of your life.  You are still a great big brother 99% of the time.  You show frustration when you're asked to do more then him, or to run upstairs to get something for him, or to set a good example for him.  One night even ended in you sobbing that you didn't want to be the oldest and that we 'love Tyler more because he's little and cute.'  But the more typical Timmy loves waking Tyler up for school with cuddles and sneaking him into your bed when I've told him to sleep in his own.  When Tyler recently went for a sleepover at Grandad and Susan's you begged to go too, and went to bed early, bored, when I suggested Tyler get some time there to himself.  Just this week Tyler was overtired and missing me while I was at work, so you called me for him and let him talk to me, and when I asked you to give Tyler a big hug for me, you said you were already snuggling him.  You are both quick to defend the other when one of you does get into trouble with us.  And you are more then worthy of all of his admiration of you!  You guys turned your whole room into a fort the first day of summer and won't let me take it down, you've been playing in it and sleeping in it every night.

One more example of the great kid you are turning out to be: I was watching the 4th grade kick ball game on the second to last day of school, talking with your teachers.  You and Nate were on one team, Logan and Josh on the other, and it was very competitive.  You were pitching and Catherine came up to kick (she has multiple developmental issues, and has been in your classes since Kindergarten) and she kicked the ball right back to you.  Several of your teammates yelled for you to get her out, you shrugged and threw the ball... 10 feet behind her.  I almost cried, and both of your teacher's said, "Awww," and then made comments to me that knowing you, it didn't really surprise them that you had done that.  (And this was all you, not a mandated class rule, a few plays later one of your teammates got Catherine out as she was running to third.)

Just keep doing what you're doing buddy, you are on the right track!  We love you so much!

Mother's Day 2015

Back to playing catch up on some old posts that still need to be written...

Mother's Day celebrations started early thanks to Tyler's preschool class having a Mother's Day Gathering.  The kids sang us songs and then served us breakfast, it was adorable!

On Mother's Day we went to church, took some pictures with the boys, and then enjoyed a belated Easter tradition, dinner at PF Chang's!

First Family Cruise 2015

I am officially too far behind on my blog to think that I can catch up in chronological order... so, I'm jumping forward to last years big summer vacation, our first family cruise.  As we are starting to prep for another family cruise in a few weeks I want to get some of the details down from our first one before they blend together.

The boys started noticing commercials for cruises and saying they wished they could go on one.  Tim and I don't have to have our arm twisted to go cruising, so we were happy we were able to make it happen last year.  Baba had been in town visiting us on her way home from Ohio, so she actually took Timmy down early and he had a few extra days in Florida before the rest of us flew down.  The trip down was both boys' first flights!  Baba said that Timmy didn't show any nervousness.  Tyler didn't either, as long as he was buckled!  Once we realized this we tortured him a little bit, you can see his hilarious reaction in the video below!

We had two days at Baba and Grandpa's before the cruise.  Unfortunately Tim started experiencing severe neck and shoulder pain and he was in an extreme amount of pain for the majority of our vacation.  When we got home he found out he had herniated and ruptured discs and spent months rehab-ing his injuries.  It was horrible timing and limited what he could enjoy with us on the trip.  He was a trooper whenever possible though and we still made fantastic memories.  Our first day in Florida we mostly relaxed, we did go to the Disney Employee's only store and dinner at Port Orleans.

On Friday we went to the Magic Kingdom.  We all got to ride the 7D Mine Train, the first time for the four of us!  Tyler was also finally tall enough for Splash Mountain.  Another first was meeting Tinker Bell, Tyler just loves her.  He told her all about how he sees her at our house sometimes (any time light is reflecting off the walls or ceilings, to this day, he yells out "Tinkerbell's here!"  She nodded and told him that she comes to check on him quite often.

Tyler would lift his hat and say "I'm Tyler" to anyone who called him Goofy, I guess he wanted to make sure Goofy knew too!

Meanwhile we were keeping Donald waiting, who had hands on hips and foot tapping, Tyler was thrown off by this and a little nervous to pose with him for pictures!

Top left is pretty typical of how they approach rides, Timmy's hoping we won't make him ride, for no good reason, Tyler can't wait to get on!

(It just happened to be our 18th dating anniversary too!)

We had reservations at the Polynesian Hotel and had amazing sushi, it poured the whole time we were eating, and stopped for us to head back to the Magic Kingdom!

The next day Baba dropped us off at Port Canaveral and we boarded the Carnival Sunshine.  We went to St Marteen, St Kitts, San Juan, and Grand Turks, with three days at sea as well.  Tim and I had sailed on the Sunshine before, but it had been completely renovated since then, with updated dining areas, theaters, and a whole new aerial obstacle course, and water slides and a kids splash pad that the boys and I got a lot of use out of.  The boys thought the ship was just so cool.  They never showed any sign of nervousness or sea sickness at all.  We got some lunch and then the boys and I headed to the splash pad and little playground to let Tim rest.

Our first two days were days at sea.  The boys and I spent a lot of time at the splash pad and in the pool!  The ship had a bunch of Dr Seuss characters and activities.  One afternoon at sea we were in a Seussville parade and listened to story time with the Cat in the Hat.

Another afternoon at sea the boys and I competed in a Scavenger Hunt through the Camp Carnival play area.  We had to have photographic evidence of each item, like take pictures with all of the crew members we could find, visit every floor of the ship without using the elevator, chicken dance in the lobby, put a smiley face on one person's forehead, and make a funny face in front of the "whale tail".  We had a lot of fun doing it, and we got first place which earned us camp carnival medals and a ship-on-a-stick trophy!

Our fist stop was St Marteen, and Tyler was ready for it.  When Ty woke up that morning he asked, "We get off the boat today?"  Tim and I had been to St Marteen before and it is a beautiful island.  We took a taxi to a beach right next to the airport, where you can watch airplanes take off and land directly over your head.  It turns out that it was a pretty touristy spot with very little beach, more rocks, and our taxi driver saw our doubts about getting in the ocean with the kids there.  He suggested another spot nearby and it was an amazing beach with free public access, there were chairs with straw umbrellas and a little hut of a restaurant so we were all set.  (We did get to see a plane land while we were turning around too!)  We all floated around the clear water and Timmy did his first snorkeling with me.  I couldn't believe how quickly he took to it! 

Tyler did not like us snorkeling without him, but he managed to find some kind of fish of his own when he picked up this rock!

We wore Tyler out, he was asleep before dinner arrived; Timmy entertained himself by playing photographer

The fourth day was at St Kitts.  This island we took a longer taxi ride to get to the beach we wanted, and the driver stopped on the way at an overlook and offered to take pictures for us because you can see two Oceans from this point, on either side of a mountain, the Caribbean and the Atlantic!  It was so beautiful!  We got to the beach and there was a gorgeous restaurant there but it was still free public beach access and they had a masseuse.  Tim had his first ever massage to try to get some relief from his pain and he liked it so much he set one up for me as well. Timmy and I snorkeled again, right at the beach, but then we also walked across a rocky area to an inlet we heard others talking about and snorkeled there too.  Timmy watched a teenager dive underwater in his snorkel gear to get an up close picture of a fish, the next thing I knew, Timmy was on his way to dive down too!  I put a stop to that right away and told him he had to stay on the surface, there was plenty to see!

The next day was San Juan, which Tim and I have been to before and were underwhelmed by, we didn't really have anything planned for the day and Tim was in a lot of pain, so we decided not to even get off the ship.  Timmy gave the aerial obstacle course a try and the boys and I went put put golfing on the top deck, enjoying the fairly empty boat.  Timmy's eyes did get wide when we pulled out of the port and he saw the fort though, I'm sure he'll get to check it out during another trip!

The last stop was Grand Turk and it is a new favorite island.  All we had to do was walk to the end of the pier and we were in a great tourist shopping area with a pristine beach and a giant Margaritaville with a huge public pool!  In the area of one block we had everything we could have asked for!  We played in the ocean and Timmy and I snorkeled again.  We went back on board for a free lunch, and then checked out Margaritaville.  Timmy did boogey boarding and surfing in a wave machine while the rest of us floated in the pool and watched him.  It looked like so much fun but was clearly pretty hard work, Timmy kept thinking his turn was over and trying to leave!

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The boys and I enjoyed several of the shows during the trip, the juggler was especially good and did a funny bit where he had an audience member lay down on the stage, blindfolded, for the juggler to juggle axes over his body, once blindfolded he switched out the real axes for something much safer, and "dropped" one on the poor guy who leapt from the floor to about ten feet in the air instantly.  The boys still talk about this!  Timmy got to participate in another evenings entertainment, game show night.  He got called on stage to play Guestures and got to do a team bowling/yahtzee game.  (Poor Tyler was sobbing in the audience, he wanted to be picked to go up so badly too!)  The other team went first and ended up with a decent roll, but Timmy was the first to go on his team and bowled a large straight, so his team won instantly!

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Our dinner and room crew took great care of us.  They knew Tim was hurting, and our wait staff would rush to get us all of the courses, though Tim frequently left before dessert anyways.  At the same time, our housekeeping crew would rush to clean our room while we were at dinner, because some days that was the only time that Tim left the room!  Every time Tim did leave the room, he returned to bags of ice waiting for him and his neck. Our waiter loved the boys, he told us he had nephews the same ages at home.  There were lots of silly games played at dinner.  Tyler loved the butter dish cover, and would "pass the butter" to Tim which would just be the cover, without the butter dish underneath, and Tim would act surprised and Tyler would crack up.  Tyler really bonded with the pretty dining room hostess, he would run ahead of us each night to say hi and hug her on the way in, and she would stop by our table to talk to him too.  They were so sad to say goodbye to each other the last day, she asked if she could take their picture on her phone too!

It took me 3 dinners to teach Timmy how to do that finger trick!

There were a lot of other on board activities that we enjoyed.  Our favorite evening activity was watching movies on the ship deck.  Tim could sit comfortably in the hot tub through the whole movie and the boys would hang out with him there or they would wrap up and sit next to me on the deck chairs.  We watched Inside Out, Avengers Age of Ultron, and a Fast and Furious movie too.  Tim also tried acupuncture one afternoon for his neck, though it didn't have the results he was hoping for.  The boys loved the arcade which we went to a few times.  The kids loved Camp Carnival, but they did argue with us every time we wanted to take them there, then they'd argue every time we picked them up too!  We went to the art auction one afternoon and I fell in love with a painting that Tim liked as well, so we added to our collection.  Tim walked into the casino for just long enough to win enough to pay for his acupuncture, massages, and our art, so that was amazing!  Of course, there was ice cream! And lots of towel animals!

Tim was never up for family photos, but I did make the boys dress up for one of the dressy dinners and take pictures with me after.  The last night at dinner, I finished off all the wine and then went to the photo gallery and snuck taking pictures of a bunch of our pictures (way to pricey to buy them all!).  Timmy was particularly a good sport for the photographers!

The big piece of news from the ship was Timmy finally losing his first tooth!!!  Tim pulled it out at breakfast on the 2nd to last day!  (His 2nd loose tooth came out one week later, here we are 11 months later, and he hasn't lost any more yet!)

Baba picked us up from the port and we spent one more night at their house before flying home!