32 Months!

I noticed that sometime over the fall my blog lost it's monthly entry +special events format, and I realize that will probalby be a permanent change once I have two little boys to write about, but I'm going to try to get back to it while I can! On his 'birthday' this month we stopped by Grammy's house and she gave him a bunch of Thomas DVDs, so as soon as we got home he asked, "I watch a moooie please?" So we set him up with the laptop, and he found a very comfortable way to watch!

Timmy keeps looking and acting older and older seemingly every day now! We got him a much needed haircut last weekend and it made him look so much older too! Timmy has bounced back and forth in recent evenings asking for us to play with him on the floor and playing beautifully by himself. I love listening to him when he plays by himself! He typically plays with his Disney cars, which are about matchbox car size, but all characters from the movie. They talk to each other by name and are just as polite as Timmy, using 'please' and 'thank you' all the time, and even an occasional 'you're welcome'! He's starting to evolve from just smashing into each other to setting up races or having Sherrif chase everyone, telling them to slow down. I also notice him using places from tv shows we've watched. Recently, every car he had was in a race to climb a mound of blankets he named "Mistletoe Mountain" which is the name of the mountain on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. The last time I saw him playing with his Thomas and Friends trains in my mom's basement, he was almost reinacting a scene we had recently watched on that show. Percy had a very, very long train, and stopped at the bottom of their Mistletoe Mountain and said "beep, beep, Toby, can you help me please?" and then Toby pulled up behind Percy and helped him push the load up the mountain.

Timmy just helped Tim with the painting of the new nursery. Every time Tim went in there and shut the door, Timmy was right behind him knocking on the door asking, "You need help, Dad?" He put a sanding block to good use and used his toy hammer when it was time to nail in the trim, and he did a lot of the clean-up help. When he saw the final product his response was "Wow..." and that continued for a few days whenever we went in to change his diaper. "Wow... Dad do that, and Timmy do that too!" It was so cute to see him wanting to help and I like seeing him be pleased with his work as well!

Recently

Recently Timmy has learned a lot of new words. But there is a difference in these new words. We are not sitting and teaching him these words to help him name things so we know what he wants anymore: "Mom, Dad, Ball, Milk, Chocolate Milk." He is learning these words from outside sources, so they catch me completely by surprise. It's incredible.

On Monday I had lunch with Mom and Timmy right after preschool. Timmy was tired and hungry and generally whiny. He was going back and forth between cuddling up under my arm and throwing his crayons on the floor. One throw, he hit his hand on the table and because he was so tired it made him burst into tears. He told me, "Mooom, I'm soooooo saaaaaaaaaad!" I had heard this phrase from him before, when turning off his good night show to tuck him in, or some other obviously upseting situation... but just moments later the waiter put Timmy's Macaroni and Cheese infront of him. Timmy smiled and lit up and said, "Mom, I'm happy again!" and started eating! He's been telling us that different activities (Playing with Playdoh, going to Chuck E Cheese, going to Baba's, even taking a shower) are "so much fun!" for months, but this was the first time I heard him describe himself as happy. It made me very happy to see how easily his little world shifts back to happy after being sooooo saaaaaad too. :)

Another new word that I'm not in love with is "nothing" he is adorable when he says it, he shrugs his shoulders up and wrinkles his nose and smiles and says "uhm, nufing" but it gets him out of trying to explain again when I don't understand him telling me something the first time, and he's already telling me he's doing "nufing" at school!

Another cute new word is "Alwiiiiiiight." He says it in a cute but begrudging tone even when it's in response to doing something that he actually wants to do. "Timmy, let's play cars!" "Alwiiiiiiiiiiiight...." Tim particularly likes how he says sorry, and sometimes asks him to say "Sowwee Da" before doing something, just to hear him say it! Timmy is so silly with the word sorry. He will say it for almost no reason at all, unless he's actually done something that needs an apology! For instance I asked him if he knew where the remote was and he told me, "No, sowwwwwee Mom." Sometimes he'll even add, "It was an accident" to these uneeded appologies. "It was an accident" is also used to describe things that happen that he clearly did on purpose, but knew he shouldn't have. And getting him to say sowwee for something like that usually takes a little timeout!

We recently discovered that Timmy has a bunch of his favorite books memorized too. Tim was reading him Personal Penguin while tucking him in one night, and paused to cough, and Timmy finished the rest of the words from that page! When we tested it, we realized he knew every word in the book! Same for several other Boyton books and a few Curiuos George stories too. I have also found exactly one children's cd that doesn't drive me insane so far, so when Tmmy requests to hear "his songs" we listen to the same thing over and over again. During our commute home yesterday he asked for his music, but instead I turned the radio off and asked him to sing with me and what song we should sing. He literally asked me for song after song from the same order as the CD!

Speaking of our commute, Timmy now has a complete understanding of rush hour. Driving home last night he told me, "We go home, the lights are green and red, and we go fast and go slow and go fast and go slow" I couldn't believe it. I am glad that he has started to grasp this though, because for a few weeks he would beg me when we were in stand-still traffic, "Go fast Mom, please, please, please, please" repeatedly.

Baseball

This weekend neither Tim or I was feeling great, so we all stayed in our pj's most of the weekend and barely left the house! Tim did come up with several fun new games for he and Timmy, and then there was baseball. Timmy probably swung at over 200 pitches before getting tired the first time they played, and he played again later to show off for Aunt Becky over skype. He did a great job keeping his feet and hands on their marks. His best hit of the day flew across the room and straight into the lamp shade! They better stick to the ball pit balls while inside!

Christmas 2010

For Christmas this year we had to skip our annual Ohio run at the last minute because of a business opportunity for Tim. While it made for a very odd feeling for me leading up to Christmas, Tim did everything he could think of to make Christmas extra special for us anyways. We had a wonderful time. On Christmas Eve Day we ran last minute errands and wrapped a few presents before going to lunch and the Children's Christmas Eve service. Timmy really enjoyed himself, the kids all sat at the front of the church to hear the Christmas Story and see it acted out by other kids. From there we visited at Tim's Dad's house, mostly so we could show off Timmy's adorable shirt! ;)

Then we made a trip downtown to see the National Christmas Tree. The whole way there we had Timmy excited about going to see a Giant Tree, but the model trains surrounding the bottom of the tree were definitely what caught his attention. We were pleasantly surprised to see that Thomas the Tank Engine and his buddy Percy were part of the decorations!

When we got home we watched a Christmas movie and I baked cookies for Santa. Every time Timmy asked, "Doin' Mom?" I would tell him I was making cookies for Santa, and he would say, "No, cookies for T!" He was not thrilled at the idea that Santa was going to come and eat all of his cookies, but he posed for an adorable picture anyways!

On Christmas morning we had to wake Timmy up so we could get our busy day started. He took his time coming down the stairs, but his eyes lit up when he rounded the corner and saw all of the presents that had appeared under the tree over night. He opened his presents all on his own this year. The items from his wishlist all got him excited, as well as a set of Toy Story 3 figures Daddy had found, and a Pillow-Pet that I picked up after he pointed them out to me, by name, at the mall the weekend before!

Once we opened everything at our house, we made our way to Tim's Mom's house for a delicious breakfast, visiting, and more gift giving. We also posed for some group shots that came out really nicely!

Our next stop was Tim's Dad's House for another round of visiting, presents, and a great dinner. We got a lot of great gifts, especially Timmy, but I am going to have to rearrange his room to make everything fit! Tim's Uncle and his family came over in time for dinner and we all played Wii Pictionary for a while too.

To wrap up the day Tim, Timmy and I went to the annual "Ice!" display at the Gaylord Hotel at National Harbor. The display area is kept at 9 degrees so they supply the visitors with gigantic blue coats! This years theme was How the Grinch Stole Christmas, the entire story was told in carved blocks of ice, at a larger then life scale! Timmy watched the movie a few times this year, but he doesn't particularly enjoy it, because the Grinch is so mean, but he liked walking through the scenes and pointed out Max every time he showed up.
Sunday we all laid around the house being fairly lazy, watching food network and football. Timmy tucked himself in on one of his new pillow-pets and slept there for 4 hours! That evening my parents came from Ohio straight to our house for dinner and the last round of presents. And that wrapped up our Christmas!

Christmas Prep

Christmas preparations seemed to take the entire month of December this year. Because of this, and Timmy's interest in everything in the house, we went a little on the sparse side for Christmas decorations. Timmy was a big helper though, especially with decorating the tree. He really enjoyed placing the (plastic) bulbs on the tree, and then rearranged them from time-to-time. Halfway through decorating, he stood still and stared at the tree before saying, "The Christmas tree is beauuuu-ti-ful!" It made me melt.
but later he said, "Uh-oh, no star up in the sky" (anything out of his reach is apparently 'in the sky') so he was very happy to help Dad put the star on top.
We did occasionally notice that Timmy had added to our ornament collection, finding various cars and balls nestled in the branches.When he helped put the finishing touches on, the bows, he turned right to me and my camera and said, "Ta-da!"
Timmy's preschool class had a Christmas Party that the parents were invited to. The kids decorated and ate sugar cookies and then sang a little medley of songs for us. We had been getting previews of their little concert, as Timmy would break into parts of Jingle Bells and Rudolph while wandering around the house, it was great! We got a light dusting of snow the day of his preschool party. His teachers said that he pointed out the window saying, "I go outside now?" all morning. He absolutely loves the snow, insisting he gets to walk in it and touch it every time we go outside, throwing snow balls and eating the snow off of his gloves. On one car trip I asked him to stop licking his gloves because the snow was all gone and he was just making them wet. A few moments later I heard, "Snow!" and turned around in time to see him start licking the snow... off of his shoe!!!
All of these preparations left us all needing good naps! Luckily we had a beauuu-ti-ful, warm place to take them!

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

This weekend we took Timmy to a great Christmas Event right on the Plaza where I work. We had been starting to plan our visit to Santa Claus, and after last year's meltdown on his lap, we wanted to have Timmy fully prepared and excited to see him! I had taught him that Santa says "Ho! Ho! Ho!" and that he should tell Santa what he wants for Christmas to make sure he knows what to bring. Timmy's list is "two Bwu-ways, two tees, and two cars!" Which translates to two movies on blue ray (thanks to Tim), two trains, and two cars! He is pointing out Santa Claus and Christmas Trees every time he sees them, so I was optomistic for this years photo-op.

Santa arrived by barge on the lake, and we sat with all the other families to watch his approach. Timmy pointed, waved, and said "Ho! Ho! Ho!" back to Santa as he arrived. We got in the front of the line and watched a few other kids talking to Santa, and Timmy was smiling and practicing his list the whole time, even as we were next in line. As I started to move him forward, onto Santa's lap, I could feel him tensing up. He did not cry this year, but he did not smile either! He kept his gaze mostly down and away, and his hands were either in fists or he was wringing his fingers the whole time. I do think he managed to very, very quietly tell Santa what he wants for Christmas, but it's a good thing Santa has helpers!
After we rescued him from Santa's lap he was anxious to check out the rest of the activites. He got right into the petting farm area. He liked the pig the most!

We also decorated a Gingerbread Man, though Timmy ate more of the decorations then he put on the cookie!
There were also craft vendors, samples from the restaurants, a magician, and carollers. It was a great event, and the best part was that all of the activities were free! Timmy really enjoyed it too. Afterwards we went to lunch and the mall where Timmy turned into a maniac... I guess that's what we get for skipping nap and being so busy! Timmy smiled and waved at Santa at the mall too. The funniest thing to me, was how excited Timmy got when I showed him the pictures of him and Santa, "Santa and Tee!" Maybe he'll be ready for him on Christmas Eve!

Thanksgiving

Well this post is a little late but I blame the hectic time of year! We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year, it involved lots of company, friends, and stretching the dinners out throughout the long weekend! On Thursday we had our first dinner of the day with the Jones family at Tim's Uncle's house. I think they have the biggest variety of traditional foods for their celebration, everything was so good! Our other dinner of the day was at my parents, with Grandma, Dale and Paula, and Ron all in town! Timmy really enjoyed having some new faces around, and invented unique games to play with each person, Ron's game is shown below.

On Friday we hosted the 10th Annual Mock Thanksgiving at our house. We had a great group this year, only a few people were missing from it really feeling complete! Mock Thanksgiving Day is definitely in the running for me for favorite day of the year. We do not see our friends as often as we would like any more, especially the people who have moved out of NOVA, and it is always so great to see them any chance we get, but having all of these people who have been such a big part of our lives, all in one room at the same time, just can't be beat! Half of the people in this picture were in our wedding, the other half are mostly their other halves! I just love it! Towards the end of the evening Timmy decided to play paparazzi with Aunt Sami's camera. Most of his pictures got the person's face, but also Timmy's finger... a few of them came out like this:
But he took this one too! This is one of my favorite pictures of AM and Nat, I can't believe Timmy took it! I watched him stop and line up this shot, the girls are leaning into the couch, you can see from the angle of the countertop, they were not sitting up straight. He looked at the window on the camera and tilted it, making the girls straight in the picture! I was in awe!
On Saturday we had our fourth and final dinner at Tim's Mom's house. We never really had left overs, all fresh meals! Lots of company came to Elena's as well and it was great to see everyone. Timmy even had someone his age to play with, cousin Dylan! He was Dylan's shadow all night long, they were so funny to watch!

On Sunday Tim and Timmy hung out at home while I headed downtown with Mom, Grandma, and Ron to the Newseum. I had never been, it is such a great museum! I definitely recommend it to anyone, they definitely have something to cover any individuals interests. The roof of the Newseum has this incredible view and a studio that shares the same view: