Five for Friday, a fun "work" week

This has been a very enjoyable work week for me, because I have had something fun and not work related to get out for every day!

1. Monday I worked from Suzanne's house in the morning, and took lots of snuggle breaks with Tyler and Stella, while Suzanne volunteered at the Preschool Fall Festival.  There were also lots of snack breaks, Tyler showed me around the kitchen and had me help him to help himself to lots of yummy things!

2. Tuesday was my turn to volunteer at the Preschool Fall Festival.  I got to see Timmy playing happily with all of his classmates, not just the ones he already knew from last year.  He also pointed out several friends to me that he has never had class with, just met on the playground or through Caleb.  I took a shift at the apple carmel dipping station, where it was mostly repeat customers, including Timmy.  The rest of the time I enjoyed wandering around, watching Timmy play with his friends, and chatting with his teachers.

3. Wednesday I snuck out for a while to go to the SJN Mom's Group Halloween Party.  Timmy and Tyler both love their costumes and they are ADORABLE! No sneak peek here though, you'll have to wait for the Halloween post!  Only about half of the kids were actually in costume, but it was a good turn out and the kids all played very nicely together and enjoyed the snacks that were brought in to share.

4. Thursday I decided to meet Suzanne, Stella, and Tyler for music class.  These pictures are actually from the last time I went, but it's pretty much the same thing each time.  Tyler enjoys the class a lot.  He is very helpful, passing out instruments to the babies and helping to collect them again when it's time to put them away.  I enjoy the cuddle time while he sits on my lap checking everything out and watching the teacher with the guitar.  Stella does more spinning then sitting, so Tyler eventually gets up to dance with her.  He definitely likes the class, he is smiley the whole time. 

5. Also, through out this week, Joe has been working for Miller Architects, so I have at least had lunch with him each day, and the last few days he's been in the office all day.  It's nice to have a coworker I actually enjoy talking to and to eat lunch with!

No office breaks with my babies were planned for today, but I did end up running into Suzanne, Stella and Tyler at Target around lunch time, it was great to get a surprise afternoon snuggle!  Tonight we start preparing for a fun-filled Saturday of the last T-ball game of the season, Jenny's Baby Shower, and a Costume Birthday Party for the boys' friends Carter and Callie!

Timmy 4.333 years and the Presidents

As I prepared to write this monthly update post on Timmy, I realized that I haven't done one for him since his fourth birthday!  This certainly wasn't planned, but with vacations interrupting my schedule and so much else going on, they slipped by me.  Luckily, I was already planning to write about Timmy and the National's Presidents, and that will cover a lot of what Timmy has been up to the last four months!

We went to a lot of baseball games this summer, and even after loving meeting the characters in Disney World last April, it took a little convincing to get Timmy to like getting up close to the Presidents.  Uncle Joe working with them, and sometimes even being one of them, helped a lot!  Once Timmy decided he liked the President's, they quickly became the most important part of all trips to the ball park for him.  Timmy's current signature picture pose is the thumbs up, because, as he told me, that's how the President's pose.

Back in May ~ Keep me away form that thing!

Early August ~ With Uncle Gecko

Late August 

Again in Late August

As a recap for anyone who might not know, these President's aren't just there for photo-ops, they run a race between the top and bottom of the 4th of every home game.  And since the beginning of team history, 7 years ago, Teddy Roosevelt had never, ever won the race, no matter how much craziness or cheating there was during the race!  This bothered Tim a lot, and Timmy didn't like it either.  He pulled for Teddy every race!  As the National's season got better and better, rumors started flying that Teddy might finally win.  Tim guessed that if Teddy was ever going to win, it would be the last regular season game this year, so he took Timmy to that game.

And Teddy finally won!!!  You can watch the race here if you like.

Teddy celebrating right after his first ever win!

The line to take pictures with the President's was even longer then usual that day, but having an Uncle in the business has it's benefits!  Joe managed to pull Timmy up and he took the official first fan photo with Teddy after his huge win, and we have Secret Service who will vouch for that!

We also took Timmy with us to the play off game that I went to.  Unfortunately the National's lost, but Teddy won again, as he did during all of the home play off games!  It was actually one of our favorite races they've done, they came out in aloha shirts and did a dance performance, and Joe was Thomas Jefferson that day!  When we went to see the President's we asked for them to dance for Timmy and they obliged.

Timmy waits patiently after having his picture taken for the crowds to clear, because then the President's get silly and playful.  I suggested that Timmy race a president and Uncle Jefferson lined up.  Teddy was the finish line and declared Timmy the winner, and Abe came over to congratulate him.  Timmy was in heaven!

Of course Timmy has other things going on to update you on too!  School has started and he loves it again this year.  He's in class with his best buddy, Nate, and a few other friends from last years class.  But he does complain that he isn't in class with Caleb, Henry, or Reagan (the little girl who called him Pooh Bear).  Blastball Season is also well under way and Timmy looks forward to his practice and game every week.  He's drawing houses now, thanks to Ms. Suzanne, and drew Mickey Mouse for me last week too!  Both were happy surprises!

Another new, and very helpful, accomplishment is that Timmy can now buckle himself up in the car, completely unassisted!  He has also figured out the remote control, he can now turn the tv on, get to the recorded programs, and turn on his own shows.  I'm not sure how I feel about this, but if he ever gets to the point where he goes downstairs and turns on Saturday morning cartoons for himself, instead of waking me up, I think I will like it!  He is also still the best big brother Tyler could have asked for, and is always praising, encouraging, loving on, teasing, and torturing Tyler around the clock!  ;)

Tyler's Nursery, again

I had been wanting to photograph the boys rooms ever since getting Tim the wide angle camera lens a few months ago.  This was the perfect opportunity, so here is Tyler's room too!

Tim did such a great job, the scheme, paint colors, and trim were all him!  I really love Tyler's room.  There are some decorations that I made that I had not highlighted before.  My contributions to the nursery were making Tyler a cross stitch:

redoing a shelf that had been in Timmy's nursery:  

 

The inspiration was his Baby Shower Invitation

And re-framing a card that my mom received at her baby shower for me, from Aunt Marleen, that had hung in my room when I was little:

The nursery is just perfect, I think it's just the right mix of cute and peaceful and playful!

A New Big Boy Bed

We have been thinking about putting the boys into one room, whenever we feel that Tyler is ready for a big boy bed, for a while now.  We had seen a style of bunk bed we liked a few months back, and Tim has been keeping his eye out for a good deal on one ever since.  He found an amazing deal on the perfect bed this weekend!  So he drove to Maryland to pick it up and we unexpectedly spent Saturday evening putting it up and rearranging things in both of the boys' rooms.  Luckily Uncle Joe had come over to watch the West Virginia football game, and didn't seem to mind being put to work afterwards... too much.

With the high ceilings we have upstairs, he actually has more head room on the top bunk then the bottom, even I can stand up on the top step!

My view from the top step!

Timmy decided immediately that he wanted to sleep on the top bunk.  The bed has a staircase instead of a ladder, so I'm comfortable with him climbing up and down in the middle of the night if he has to go potty.  Most nights Timmy still asks to sleep in our room, but he's good about sleeping in his own room when we remind him that he has school the next day.  After setting up the bed, Tim asked him if he wanted to sleep in our room or his new bed, and Timmy chose his own room.  Same thing on night two!  Who knew that's all we needed to do!  Although, tucking him I tried to tell him that I couldn't climb up there to snuggle before bed, and he suddenly said he missed his old bed.  I climbed up those narrow stairs very quickly after that!

We were excited about the built in storage in the bed, especially with the prospect of having both boys clothes in the room, but the drawers under the bed are surprisingly shallow.  When Tim lifted up the bottom mattress to make the bed, he realized we could store stuff behind the drawers, and since I had about a dozen bags of clothes that are too small for Tyler but too big to send to their cousin (who we'll be welcoming to the World next month!!!) stashed in Timmy's closet, I was excited to move all of that out of the closet and under the bed!  Next project, reorganizing the closet that suddenly has empty shelves!  I've already ordered a bookshelf that will now fit inside the closet, so he can keep his books and some toys in there, without the whole room being over crowded and messy looking.

Tyler at 17 Months

Tyler is almost a year and a half old now.  It's kind of funny, with Timmy I clung to his "month" with everything I had, I would not round up at all when people asked his age, if it was close to the next month, I'd say, "He'll be __ months on the 17th."  With Tyler, I've been thinking of him as "a year and a half old" for several months already!  He just seems like such a big boy.  I know it's because he has Timmy to watch, learn from, and copy.  Tyler started running in circles around the ottoman as soon as he could walk, because he saw Timmy do it.  Tyler also will sit and play with little toy figures, super heroes, scooby doo, what have you, because Timmy does it, all though Timmy just took an interest in these little figures in the last 6 months or so, as he's learned to really use his imagination.  Tyler is just tossing them around or trying to make them stand up, but he is content to play with them, not just try to eat them.  Tyler also "raced" a car around the ottoman repeatedly yesterday.  One thing he does that baby Timmy never did is give the car sound effects, Tyler makes the engine noises.

I couldn't help but make all of these comparisons this weekend, as Tyler was wearing one of my absolute favorite outfits of Timmy's while we watched Timmy's Blast Ball game Saturday morning.  I never know what to expect out of Tyler at the practices and games, sometimes he really wants to be playing too, but sometimes he is happy just to watch.  Before the game, Tyler wandered over and put a ball on the tee and hit it (okay, his bat bumped the tee and the ball fell off, but he knew what he was supposed to do.)  He stayed close to me for the rest of the game, clapping for Timmy after every one of his hits, happily playing with the real baseball he'd found,

(This picture came pretty close to capturing his mischievous expression, which I see A LOT!)

and mimicking "ready" position.

I can't believe what a big boy he is already!  He added a few new words this month, and he's grasped the use of "no" even better.  We've all been battling a stomach bug this week, and yesterday he was particularly cranky, so I was considering putting him down for an extra nap.  After changing Tyler's diaper I approached his crib like bed time, he started bouncing in my arms, shaking his head no, pointing towards his door and said, "No. Go! Go!" as he waved towards the stairs!  He is good about seeing what he wants and gesturing for it, but I'm looking forward to him figuring out words for when he wants to eat or drink especially.  When he gets fussy though you can play the guessing game with him, he shakes his head no while you ask him if he wants various things, and rewards you with a huge grin when you finally get to what he's after!  He also emulates the sound patterns we make all the time.  As I put him in the car seat or in clothes, I'll say "one arm" and he'll copy, "uh ahhm" and Grandad got him to copy sounds for Susan, Beau Beau (their dog) and Grandad yesterday.  Tyler also loves to sing.  He'll make up his own songs and babble away on his own, or if Timmy sings a song, Tyler will hum the same tune a moment later.  Words can't be too far away!

National's Clinch the Division!

Tim and I enjoyed another exciting evening at National's Stadium last Monday night as we watched the National's clinch the NL Division Championship!

The Nat's had two ways of clinching the division that evening, if they won the game they won the division, and if the Braves lost, the Nat's would win the division.  Unfortunately, they did not pull off a win themselves, but down 0-2 with two outs to go in the top of the 9th, all eyes in the stadium were on the Braves/Pirates score instead of the field.  I'm not sure if it was bandwidth overload, or if the Nat's turned off internet service, but they definitely froze the scoreboard, and no one could get an update on their phones.  They waited til the top of the 9th was over, and a cheer started above the team bench as the players themselves were told the Braves had lost and they had won the division!  Finally they put it on the scoreboard.

 Before starting the bottom of the 9th, the Presidents came back out to celebrate.  This also meant that Joe celebrated on the field!

After the game, the jumbo tron showed us the team celebrating in the locker room.

After the players came back to the field, Michael Morse ran over to Left Field to celebrate with the fans. We had a nice encounter with Morse back in July when we met Harper as well, you can read about that here. Morse started right in front of us and we got sprayed with some champagne.  Then he ran over to the corner and opened another bottle of champagne for those fans.

 

Around the 45 second mark of that clip you'll see Morse open a new bottle of champagne, and the cork fall in the grass near the warning track.  See the nice man in the red shirt and blue hat, making sure no idiots jump onto the field?  After the celebrations died down and the other fans had left, we convinced him to give us that cork!!!

The team stood in front of their dug out for a long time as they congratulated each other and gave individual interviews.  Teddy stood nearby, but the rest of the Presidents and their secret service stayed on the third base side.  I noticed Joe and his buddy make their way over to Teddy, getting closer and closer to the team, until they reached their boss.  They were quickly on their way back towards third!

After a lot of celebrating in front of the dug out, the whole team took a lap around the stadium and high fived their fans!  I couldn't reach, but Tim's hand is in the center of most of this clip, he's wearing a red sweat shirt.  :)

 

It was a really cool experience to be there, Tim is very good about taking me to the big games!  We went to Philly for the Nat's first ever game.  Tim's been to every opening day, I've been to at least half of them.  We were there for Strasburg's first game too. And now this!  We have our Playoff Tickets in hand, I'm looking forward to experiencing the playoff atmosphere!  They're off to a 1-0 start already!

The Force

I've been slowly weeding through the thousand or so pictures from our September Disney trip, but I just couldn't wait any longer to start posting something!  Timmy fought Darth Vader while we were there this time, and he did great.  He still practices the same combination against Tim now that we're home.  :)  I told him that we need to watch Star Wars now, so he knows just how scary that was!