Happy Halloween 2011

Halloween was a lot of fun again this year!  We started our Halloween Festivities on Friday with a party at Timmy's preschool.  The kids wore their costumes to school and paraded into the sanctuary where moms and siblings were anxiously awaiting them.  They were supposed to be leading us in a sing-a-long, but they were all audience-shy!  A few of them did some of the movements or sang along to the choruses, but the teacher repeatedly promised that they are more involved in class!

The little witch kept trying to unmask Timmy, finally I heard her ask, "Are you Timmy or Henry?" (Henry is the other blonde hair, blue eyed boy in class!)

Tyler, anxiously awaiting the performance!

We all went back to their classroom to help them make paper bag pumpkins and eat a special Halloween snack together.  Mom and I made juice box mummies, a little idea I found on pinterest that got rave reviews.  I love having Timmy's school right around the corner from work so I can take advantage of all of these activities!

Earlier in the week we had gone to Timmy's preschool for their Fall Festival.  The highlights there included raking leaves, jumping on hay bales, finger painting, playing in corn, and face painting.

Timmy helped me make a pinterest inspired snack for that too, acorn cookies!  One of the other mom's said, "Oh, you're one of those creative mom's!" when she saw them, I had to confess to my inspiration after that!

But back to Halloween!  Friday evening after work we got Timmy and Tyler into their costumes and met Jenny at her school for their annual Halloween Parade.  It was a great event, the teachers all dressed up and stood at their classroom doors with candy and the students paraded around the school, trick-or-treating!  I took Timmy around several of the hallways before we settled into Jenny's class to play with her smart-board and other activities.  Timmy thoroughly enjoyed it, it's good having an Aunt that teaches Kindergarten!

From there we went to dinner with Elena and Al, but Timmy didn't want to take his costume off!  (Last year, if you remember, we couldn't get him into it!)  He got lots of smiles from the staff and patrons!

Monday I managed to swing by Mom's house for about 5 minutes to take pictures while Timmy and her scooped out a pumpkin and began carving it!  Timmy still doesn't like getting his hands in the goop... I have taught him well!  ;)

Timmy's "mean face" was the inspiration for the pumpkin!

After work I got the boys into their costumes at my parents and Mom helped me pose them for their annual costume photo-op.  Then she and I took them around to a few neighbors houses.

Our next stop was Tim's dad's house, where we met up with Jenny, Brett, and Brayden for dinner and the majority of our trick-or-treating.  Brayden was absolutely adorable in his costume, and when he ran his arms, all four of them, flapped like wings!  It was too cute!  Timmy and Brayden had a blast running from door to door and both did great with saying "Trick-or-treat" at each door and Timmy threw in the occasional, "Happy Halloween!"  Timmy also enjoyed passing candy out to the other kids and took notice of their costumes.  I think Bumble Bee was his favorite, but he did say that Batman could beat Bumble Bee up.

We wrapped up the evening at Elena's house for a few more pictures and a few more neighbors houses.

When we got home Timmy seemed very happy with his haul!

Cox Farm 2011

Two Saturday's ago we made our 3rd annual trip to Cox Farm to enjoy fall activities, photo ops, animals, and slides.  This year we went with Aunt Jenny, Uncle Brett, and Brayden.  We had a wonderful day and got some cute pictures.  When we got home I managed to accidentally delete them instead of save them... and I was devastated!  I always say that Cox Farm is the perfect way to spend ONE day a year.  It's a little pricey, and it's definitely more fun for the kids then the adults.  Luckily, my wonderful husband and sister-in-law agreed to go again this Saturday!  I literally wanted to go just to recreate some of the pictures I had lost, but Grammy and Aunt Becky joined us on the second trip, and we ended up doing a few new things and Timmy got braver and tried bigger slides, so I'm glad we ended up going two weekends in a row!

We had never been on the hay ride at the farm before but went straight to it on this visit because the line wasn't nearly as long as we had seen it before.  It was actually the longest hay ride I have ever been on and I was surprised by how elaborate the route was.  We went through corn fields, mud, wooden cut out scenes, the pond(!), saw live animals, and there were even actors along the route.  

The slides have been a big hit every year, but Timmy always takes some convincing to go down them at first, then he loves them.  The first weekend we finally talked him onto the smallest one, but he would not go down anything else.  On our second trip we convinced him to try a second one, and then he was all about the slides.  He even went down a huge one that you sit on burlap bags for, sitting between us.  The whole way up we talked about how we would race down and see who was the fastest, and he was excited, until he got to the top and looked down.  He tried to back out of it, then asked to sit on Tim's lap, and finally sat between us and held hands.  He wanted to do it again as soon as we got to the bottom!

Brayden on the other hand enjoyed the slide a lot the first trip to the farm, and wanted nothing to do with them on our second trip!  When Grammy put him on the slide he managed to stop himself half way down and she had to walk down to get him off of it!  Jenny gave it a try too, but he just wasn't interested.

Both Timmy and Brayden were very interested in the animals, there are goats, pigs, horses, and cows throughout the farm.  The cow was the hit this year, both of them fed the cow and milked it!

Timmy also enjoyed trying a little obstacle course that ended with a rope swing on both visits.  He was excited about it because it was like Survivor, which he enjoys watching with us because of the physical contests that they participate in.  The rope swing was packed the first week so he only tried it once, and he had stood on the knot but hadn't gotten his hands up very high so he fell off almost immediately.  This visit, Tim helped him sit on the knot and hold higher and he was much more successful.

Tyler came along on both trips to the farm as well.  The first time I carried (all 18 pounds of) him around in the Bjorn carrier because it was pretty muddy, but on our second visit we were able to use the stroller.  Giving him stroller rides provided entertainment for all three of the cousins for a while!

We stopped at several of the photo op set ups, Tim and Timmy in the train one is a recreation of one of Timmy's favorite pictures of them, that we took last year.  Poor Tyler was sleeping when we wanted to take our family picture but we got him out of the stroller and in the picture anyways.

On the way out each person gets to select a small pumpkin or gourd to take home.  Timmy was very sure of what he wanted on each trip and enjoyed selecting just the right one.

It turns out that Cox Farm can be the perfect way to spend a few days in the fall!  :)

40 Months

I feel like Timmy is turning into a little man!  His communication level is just astounding, he will actually tell me a little bit about his day at school or at Baba's, which I love.  He is enjoying learning new songs at school, last year they were all nursery rhymes that I knew, so I could figure out what he was singing and join in or help him out if he forgot a word, this year I don't recognize them all.  He's been singing one that starts, "Black cat, black cat...." and then he says two more lines, but I have no idea what he's saying, and he wants me to sing with him.  Yesterday, waiting in the drop-off car-line he asked me to sing him a song, "You know, the song about _________.  Sing me that song please."  Unfortunately, I did not understand the word(s?) that belongs in that blank, and he was not giving me any other hints!  So sometimes his songs are hard to understand, but in general his speech is very clear and his vocabulary and understanding (and use!) of descriptive words frequently surprises me.

I regularly talk to Timmy at bed time about what we're going to do tomorrow so I think he has a pretty good understanding of the concept of tomorrow.  Yesterday on the other hand is anything that has happened in the past, not just yesterday.  I am trying to help him with that now by talking during our morning commute about what we did yesterday.  Timmy is a very happy guy and he will express himself with words pretty well.  My favorites to hear are, "I can't wait, it's going to be SO much fun!" or, "I'm so excited to _______!"

Timmy will even occasionally communicate for Tyler... but it's usually when Tyler is being quiet, not babbling, so that kind of surprises me.  I'll even ask Timmy what Tyler is saying, when he is babbling, but Timmy just says, "he's telling us a story" which is what Mom and I would say when Tyler first got talkative.  But other moments, when we're all playing on the floor together, Timmy will interpret Tyler's silence.  Recently Tyler was on his back and I leaned over him, and my hair fell towards Tyler's face and he smiled.  Timmy said, "Tyler says he likes your hair, it's so pretty."  I guess it's Timmy's phrasing that surprises me, saying "Tyler says" instead of just saying, "Tyler likes your hair."  I will try to think of some more examples.

Spoiler alert for Tyler's next update post, but he is rolling over now, and has been since October 7th.  I think that is more frustrating to Timmy then when Tyler just stayed put, because now he thinks Tyler is really ready to play.  Timmy will run over to Tyler, lay on the floor and put his head on Tyler's tummy and squeeze on him, getting grunts out of Tyler, and when we tell him he needs to be more gentle, Timmy says, "I neeeeed to hug him!" which is adorable and I'm so happy he loves on Tyler like that, but he still needs gentleness for now!  Last night I melted a little bit, he was in that same pose with Tyler and he was quietly saying, "I love you, I love you sooo much!"  What more could a mother ask for?

Another highlight of the past month for Timmy me is that he has gotten up in the middle of the night a few times to go pee, without waking me up to make me witness it, and has put himself right back to bed!  The first night he did it I didn't even know, in the morning I had been praising Timmy, "You were such a good boy last night, you went right to sleep and didn't get out of bed a single time, good job!" But he corrected me with, "Well, I got up and went pee, but I got right back in bed."  I was shocked and excited, and I got to witness a repeat of this the next night when I heard his door open because I happened to be up feeding Tyler. I was so happy as I watched him over the monitor, tucking himself back into bed and getting all of his stuffed animals situated, any reductions to the number of times I wake up at night are happily accepted milestones!

I guess the last thing I should mention in this post is that we have recently discovered that Timmy is an Angry Birds prodigy.  I guess he first saw it on Tim's phone, it has now been downloaded on mine and all of his grandparents phones as well!  He will find one of our phones lying around, and can turn it on, unlock the screen, do the swype password, find the apps, turn on the game, and beat the puzzles.  He understands how to aim, to get more power, everything!  The first time I played Angry Birds, I got to a level that took me more then 3 tries to beat, and I quit.  Timmy has currently beat 22 puzzles on my phone, on his own.  I'm hoping this early understanding of physics will continue and translate to good grades in high school!

5 Months Old

Time is flying again, I can't believe that Tyler is already 5 months old, and yet it feels like he's been in our family forever.  I can not express what a content baby he is.  I say it every month, but it can not be coming across as strongly as it should be.  He is so content, it is unbelievable!  The latest proof of this is my new realization that he is perfectly happy to be put into his crib WIDE awake, and he just coos at his mobile for a few minutes and drifts to sleep.  I have been able to do this at what I considered to be a good nap time during the weekend (when I wanted to take my shower) and also several evenings when I've been exhausted but he's still been wide awake.  It has been mentioned by several family members that you can forget Tyler is even in the room, and that if a parent were ever going to leave their child somewhere on accident, Tyler would be the child it would be possible to do that to!

Tyler is very engaged with us now.  He loves to be upright and looking around the room, but he has that baby habit of looking at everything and everyone except the person who is actually holding him.  If he's in his excersaucer or swing, you will suddenly realize that he is staring at you intently; I think he's wondering, "why aren't you looking at me?"  As soon as your eyes meet he rewards with you a huge grin!  With all of his quiet, contentedness, he does let you know if there's something he needs.  He fusses if he's been in one place for too long, if he needs a diaper, or if he's hungry.  But he just fusses, he gives ample time to react to his need before crying.  Tyler still wakes up once a night to eat, and that he is more vocal about, he doesn't let mommy wake up a little before coming to get him!  I am hopeful that he will start sleeping straight through soon, but he is a big boy, so I don't know what it will take to get him to stay full through the night.  Mom took him to the doctor for me yesterday because of a lingering night cough, and we found out that he is now 18 lbs 2 oz, that's over a pound bigger then his 4 month check up, which we went to a week late... so he grew that much in just 3 weeks!

Since my last update post he started eating rice cereal, at 4.5 months old...

Developed a fondness for his toes...

and he is a champ at tummy time now too!

We are all getting anxious for him to start rolling over, especially Timmy.  I looked up from the dishes one evening to find Timmy rolling Tyler from his back to his stomach repeatedly!  He was doing it very gently, I think he must have been watching how we do it, but I still intervened on Tyler's behalf.

I am just feeling overwhelmingly blessed these days, Tyler's contentedness seems to be contagious!