Tim's Birthday, also known as the day we met Bryce Harper!

Well, I am behind by a few posts, but Tim's birthday was so exciting that I'm going to go out of chronological order (gasp!) and write about it first!  We had been planning for a  month to go to the National's game with friends to celebrate Tim's birthday.  While Tim was looking at tickets for the group the day before, he was listening to a local sports show, the Sports Junkies, and called in for a contest, winning himself one hell of a birthday!  He won two tickets to section 130, Row S, aisle seats, passes to go on the field for batting practice, and a meet and greet with Bryce Harper, the National's 19 year old Rookie Phenom!  We immediately agreed to ditch our friends and take the boys, and it was easy for me to say that he should take Timmy out on the field with him, Tyler and I would watch from the stands.

We arrived nice and early, sang happy birthday to Tim and got in our Nationals gear.  We waited for our early entrance at the Nat's store, where we picked up an official Harper jersey for Timmy to wear.

Tim and Timmy were escorted down to the field and got there in time to see the players warming up for Batting Practice.

Tyler and I were shown to the location we could watch from.  I was disappointed with our spot, we were way up high on the mezzanine level, I had thought we would at least be in the stands by the dug out, but I was told that part of the stadium wasn't open yet.

Luckily, just a moment later, the intern showing us around got a call from his boss, two more field passes had been made available and Tyler and I were invited to go on the field as well!  We ran down as fast as we could and I was so happy we were able to join Tim and Timmy!  There were only two other guys who were getting to meet Harper with us, the staff with us said that it was very, very rare to have a meet and greet, so that made it feel even more special!

Standing right in front of the National's Dug Out, we had players and reporters walking right past us the whole time, not to mention batting practice going on as well. Tim recognized and spoke with a few sports writers.  F.P. Santangelo, the National's Color Analyst was thrilled when Tim said hello to him by name and came over to talk to us.  He was very happy to pose with Timmy too!

Michael Morse smiled at us as he went into the dug out and then he waved to and smiled at Timmy and Tyler as they alternated waving at him.

Harper and Zimmerman chatted for a minute by the helmets before Harper took his batting practice and Zimmerman gave an interview in the dug out.

Finally it was time for our meet and greet with Bryce Harper.  Harper was very polite and shook each of our hands as we introduced ourselves.  We chatted for a moment and had Timmy turn around so Harper could see he was wearing his jersey.  Harper posed for a picture with all of us and then he asked us if we would like him to sign Timmy's jersey and we said absolutely!  Tim asked him to sign a ball for each boy, dedicating it to them.  I asked him if he would take a picture with Tyler so Tyler wouldn't have to be jealous of his big brother in a few years.  Harper laughed and agreed, but when he took Tyler out of my hands, it suddenly became obvious he was a 19 year old kid, he really didn't know what to do with a baby!  He got him situated quickly though and I'm so glad we asked for that picture!  Finally Tim requested one more autograph, getting his own Harper jersey signed. We all wished him luck as he headed for the dug out and we were shown off the field.  It was all just so cool!

From there, we went to the Stars and Stripes club to enjoy some air conditioning (It was 106 degrees during all this, btw!) to look at our autographs, relax, cool off, and get some food.  But mostly to stay in the air conditioning until game time!  Luckily by the time we made our way to our seats the sun was behind the stadium and it was pretty comfortable out.  We did have the four of us squished into two seats so Timmy quickly got restless.  I took him out to find a hot dog, the bathroom, and to say hello to Baba and Grandpa who had come to the game as well.  We went back to our seats to join Tim in watching the President's Race, Timmy has decided that Abe is his favorite.  :)  Then all of us headed over to my parents section because there was more space.  Timmy was exhausted by this time, so we wandered over to the Red Porch, where my parents had gone to eat dinner and sat with them for the 8th inning before heading for home.  It was a fantastic day!

Timmy's Super Hero Birthday Party

Timmy picked the theme for his 4th birthday party, he was very clear, he wanted a superhero party!  Tim and I got behind that quickly, inviting everyone to come in costume or a superhero t-shirt, and it was a very easy theme to get ready for, thanks to the Avengers movie having just come out!  Tim made these incredible invitations, I'm going to sign him up for Etsy!

Timmy decided to be Superman and he wanted a Batman cake.  He quickly agreed to our ideas for being Wonder Woman and Batman.

He suggested that Tyler be The Hulk and Tyler was apparently ready for the part, look at that face!

Grandad and Susan came as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and the Reporter April

and Baba, Nate, and Brayden wore superhero shirts.

We were blessed with perfect weather, it was a beautiful 80ish degrees, so we were able to do all the fun stuff we had planned, and keep the party mostly outside.  With 5 of his classmates coming, each with a sibling and two parents, as well as a bunch of our friends and family, I don't know what we would have done had there been bad weather forcing us to have all those people inside our little house!  We started the party with the moon-bounce.

Then we had a Superhero Training Course which a few of the kids tried, where they saved a teddy bear from a ball pit at the end of!

While they ate lunch we set up the water slide which was a huge hit, despite the freezing cold water!

I am quite proud of the cakes!  I saw a picture of this cake pan on Amazon, but the listing was just for the instructions.  When I started looking to buy the pan itself, I found out it was from 1977!  I was able to buy a complete set on Ebay and I was so excited, you use the same pan for both Superman and Batman, just decorate it differently!  Mom came over the day before to help me decorate them, but I can take real ownership of having done it for the first time, and it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, just very time consuming!

Timmy had a piece of each cake and wandered around eating by his friends.

The number of presents Timmy got was staggering!  He had lots of help getting them opened and enjoyed playing with them the rest of the day.  Tim and I got him a Transformers Bumble Bee bike which he seemed very excited about, he jumped right on.  We have not had the chance to take him back out on it yet, I'm sure he will do much better with shoes though!

I had fun finding lots of prizes for the goody bags.  Brayden was especially fond of the stickers!

It was great to see everyone, we were thankful so many of our friends and family came out to celebrate with us!  I heard from a lot of the parents afterwards, it sounded like all the kids had as much fun as Timmy did!  

To Timmy, at 4 Years Old

Timmy ~ You are too much!  You keep us busy and entertained and worn out!  You are changing all the time again.  And you are so big!

You are so smart. Your memory is amazing. Aunt Becky sat down to watch Monster's Inc. with you yesterday and you asked her, "Have you ever seen this movie? It's about two nice monsters, Sulley and Mike Wazowski, and they have a child to keep away from the bad guy and get back to her door."  I was impressed.

You can deduce, reason, and negotiate too.  You are always giving me if/then statements. "If I eat this sandwich then I can have another rice krispie."  If I try to change your deal you tell me that only you make the deals!  Sometimes these conversations end with time out.  The other night you wanted a piggy back ride as I was taking Tyler upstairs for bed, you had been riling him up so I tried to get you to stay down stairs.  Instead you stood in the hallway, hitting a balloon against the wall just to make sure I knew you were still there.  When I finished tucking Tyler in and came out of his room you stated, "You owe me an apology because you hurt my feelings because you wouldn't let me in Tyler's room."  I argued that you owed me an apology for not listening instead and you smiled at that.  I think you are starting to understand more that your actions cause a reaction, not the other way around.

You want to sleep in our room every night.  You tell us how beautiful our room is, that you're afraid of the dark, that you don't like your room, that you love us so much and you just want to snuggle all night.  During the school year we had a rule that you could sleep in our room on the weekends but you had to sleep in your room during the week so you would have lots of energy for school.  You bought that without too much argument, but now that you don't have school you have no boundary to accept.  When you have been an extra sweet boy all day or we are extra exhausted we let you sleep with us but most nights we tuck you into your own bed, just to have you let yourself into our room whenever you wake up, somewhere between 2 and 5 am.  One night you were sneaking in right after Daddy had come to bed and he asked you, "How come you're sneaking into our bed?"  Your answer was, "Because I like it here and I just have to take a little nap in my room until you change your mind about me."  My heart broke a little and I hope that I explained to you, in my half awake state, that we don't have to "change our mind about you" we always love you and want to snuggle you too, it's just that we all get a better nights sleep when we are all in our own beds!  Daddy has pointed out to me that you won't always want to sleep in our room, I remind my back of that on the mornings after you have taken over 3/4 of our king size bed.

You are a jokester.  You tease all of us but especially Daddy.  Now you will start to do something that is on the borderline of misbehaving, just to stop yourself (sometimes after a warning look) and shout, "I'm just teasin'!" When Aunt Becky came home last weekend, you hadn't seen her in a while, and we've gotten to see a lot of Aunt Jenny recently, so you accidentally called her Aunt Jenny a few times. You realized that this was a good way of teasing Becky and you started to do it on purpose!  You had her getting scared you had forgotten who she was until you started laughing and telling her you were teasing after each time!

You are enamored with all the small things.  My favorite Timmy phrases right now are, "Can you believe it?" and, "That's so awesome!"  You point out shapes in the clouds during our commutes.  You play pretty well with Tyler, but as soon as he puts something in his mouth you take it back, rub it all over the carpet and say, "You made it all wet!  I don't want your germs!"

I think you are more of a handful now then when you were two!  You frequently skip taking a nap, sometimes for several days in a row which means that eventually you hit a wall.  Before passing out it seems that you give us everything you have, not listening, hitting, whining and crying, being too rough with Tyler... and then you're asleep.  It's like a little tornado runs around our living room for 10 minutes!  99% of the time though you are our sweet, helpful, good natured, big boy, and we love you 100% of the time!

Chris's High School Graduation

The baby of Tim's family graduated high school last week, and I think the whole family breathed a little sigh of relief.  ;)  Not that Chris was in danger of not graduating, he actually received an advanced diploma because of his course load!  It was more of a chapter closed kind of feeling, and everyone is so proud of him!  This fall he will be at Radford with Becky.

There was a shortage of tickets because graduation was held inside the South Lakes gym, so we thought only his parents and siblings were going to get to attend.  At the last minute he found out he could get additional tickets though, so Al, Susan, his nephews and I got to see him walk as well!

After our photo shoot the whole group went to dinner at Outback and the celebration continued the next evening with a cook out at Elena's.  Congratulations Chris!