20 Months!

Timmy is now 20 months old, which is getting ridiculously close to Two Years!!! Timmy has always been a big sports fan, but he's recently gotten a baseball tee and raised his basketball hoop, which has brought many hours of fresh entertainment for all of us. This weeks latest trick with basketball is dropping the ball infront of him before picking it back up to shoot, I think that he's dribbling...

The teeball is cracking me up. We leave it sitting out and at this point he'll just wander over and take a smack at the ball from time to time. He hit a couple of really good ones this weekend!

I think basketball is his current favorite sport. He even gets excited when it comes on the TV. My favorite part is his happy dance, he sways back and forth, stomping his foot and applauding for himself!
Notice his nice form and follow through for both the bat swinging and shooting the basketball?! Tim didn't have to work with him for long to get him to use both hands to swing the bat or to back up and shoot the basketball from a few feet back instead of just dunking the ball, he's a quick student!

One thing I am learning about my new camera is that I should not be allowed to use the 'Sports' setting, as I could make flip books out of Timmy sledding, shooting hoops, swinging the bat, and several other more mundane activities!

SNOW!!!

We had record snow in Virginia last week and are still recovering from it! The snow started early on Friday the 5th and we got well over 2' of snow before it stopped late Saturday. Tim's brother, Chris, decided that he wanted to get snowed in at our house and he and Tim tried to keep up with the snowfall by digging out Tim's car every few hours. They still worked at it for a solid 2 hours to get it out of it's parking spot Saturday evening. Ofcourse, they had time to build an igloo and play with Timmy while they were outside too.

Timmy really enjoyed the snow this time. Our neighborhood association is responsible for the roads and sidewalks, so they are always cleared pretty quickly. Timmy loved running up and down the sidewalk and sticking his hands into the mounds of snow on the sides. He didn't mind getting picked up and dropped into the snow either. When he would fall down, if he couldn't get back up on his own, he would just start crawling! Whenever he would see any of us putting on shoes or hats he would start clapping because he was excited to go back outside!

On Sunday we went to my parents to dig out their driveway as a fundraiser for our upcoming cruise! We realized that Tim might lose his parking spot if we were gone all day, so we dug my car out of the driveway first and moved it to the street. We were amazed at how bad the main roads still were! Chris helped us shovel and it took the three of us two hours to do their house! We visited for a while after the work was done and then headed home to watch the Super Bowl at our house.

The government was closed Monday to Thursday so Tim was off, but I ventured out for work on Tuesday. I brought Tim's sister, Becky, back with me, she was ready for a change of scenery. We spent a lot of time watching movies while we were home. Tim and Chris played a whooooole lot of Hockey on the Xbox while Becky did homework and I kept myself busy with various projects around the house. Thursday evening we all took turns playing Guitar Hero and Timmy even got in on the action.

Friday Tim and I both went to work so I dropped his siblings off on my way in. I should mention that my car is STILL stuck in the spot infront of our house, my mom actually came and picked us up Friday and then I used her car the rest of the day! Hopefully Tim will be able to get my car out today since he is at home for President's day. Apparently we could get up to four more inches of snow today! The piles of snow on the sides of the road are impressive, some of them could stick around into April I think!

My Sweet Baby Boy

Last week Timmy and I spent some time together that I want to make sure I never forget, so I thought I'd share it here.

As some background, as soon as Timmy turned one he started sleeping through the night every single night and that lasted five full months. It was wonderful! This all got thrown off right before Christmas, when he had a cold, and then the problem was magnified when we traveled to Ohio. Now Timmy is back to sleeping through the night 6 days a week on average, and usually when he wakes up I can get him to lay back down and go to sleep in his own bed. Every once in a while he gets himself extra worked up, or I'm extra tired, and I cave and bring him into my bed. It always makes me feel a little guilty, I know I'm supposed to let him learn "self soothing techniques" and while I enjoy cuddling all night as much as he does, I know it makes him think I'll bring him into our room whenever he wants and I'm really making the problem worse!

Well last Monday night Timmy woke up about 2 am and after a couple of attempts at getting him back to sleep, I caved around 3! We snuggled up and I dozed in and out of sleep while Timmy quietly babbled to himself sweetly. Every once in a while he would lean over and pat my cheek or play with my hair and one time he even gave me a hug and a kiss. I was awed at how gentle he was being and wished I knew what he was talking about. Every time his little pats woke me up I would give him a kiss and drift back off to sleep. The last time I woke up was about 4 am. When I told Tim the next day he said he knew, he had been listening to him jabber and Timmy had been rubbing his back too!

Tim and I have known from the begining that we are extra lucky parents. Timmy was the happiest baby I've ever even heard of and he has been very healthy too. He has changed a lot again recently but really only has one word so far "Eat" which gives him some frustration that occasionally leads to a little tantrum. At the same time, he has started helping clean up his toys, and he has learned to be gentle with our pets, and he gives hugs and kisses goodbye as many times as he's asked to! The way that he was so gentle, almost nurturing, to his parents in the middle of the night really makes me happy. I am so lucky to have my Sweet Baby Boy!

Valentine's Day Project

Tim and I have been doing a lot of reorganizing around the house, trying to reclaim and organize our storage areas (garage, closet under the stairs, and guest room). This has been quite an under taking but has paid off nicely. A large part of the organizing was getting a new cabinet into the closet under the stairs, which allowed me to move all of my scrapbook and craft supplies out of the guest room, into said cabinet. It also gave me a chance to remember what exactly I had in my craft supplies and remind myself how far behind I am in my scrapbooks!

To get myself back into practice I enlisted Timmy, and a bunch of supplies that I already had, for a little Valentine's Day Project. I had a bunch of pink hearts already cut out from making a friend's wedding shower invitations and a package of prefolded cards. I set Timmy up with some red crayons and a bunch of the hearts and let him color them as much as he wanted to. I will put pictures of the final product up after Valentine's Day, I don't want to ruin the surprise for his Grandparents. ;)

And here is our final product!

19 Months!

Timmy turned 19 Months last week and he had a cold at the time so he was not feeling (or looking) very photogenic. Since I am behind in this post I will just let Timmy speak for himself about what is new with him. :)

Congratulations to Jenny, Brett, and Brayden!

Last week was a very exciting one as our family welcomed Baby Brayden to the World! Brayden was born around 2:15 on Wednesday afternoon, weighing 6 lbs 14 oz and measuring 20" long. Jenny had a planned c-section and is recovering amazingly well! We were very dissapointed not to be able to meet Brayden at the hospital, but becuase of flu season only grandparents were allowed to visit. We were among the first to welcome Brayden home on Saturday though! He is so sweet and tiny and he slept and cuddled almost the whole time we were there.

We brought Timmy with us to meet his first, first cousin and he wasn't too sure about him to start. He wasn't thrilled with either of his parents holding the new baby, and he didn't even want us to take pictures of Brayden! I guess he's a little too used to being the center of our attention! After being there a while Timmy found some fun things to do and got comfortable and then he was happy to check out his cousin. He even gave him a couple kisses on his nose and patted his head gently.

I can't wait to go visit next weekend! I need another baby fix! Congratulations again Jenny and Brett!!!

Christmas in Virginia

Christmas morning we got Timmy up to open a few gifts at our house before heading out to spend the day with Tim's family. The first gift Timmy opened was a wooden train puzzle and he was so excited about it that we couldn't get him to open anything else! Tim and I opened our gifts while he played and then we headed out to his mom's house.

Elena and Al had a nice breakfast for everyone and we visited for a while. Timmy was more interested in helping Becky open her presents then opening his own! Chris is infamous for believing that whatever is shown on the box his present is in, is his gift. We definitely had him believing that we got him a snuggie this year. He was much happier when he saw the custom redskins jersey inside!

Our next stop was Tim's dad's house and another round of gifts. Everyone got us such nice presents and seemed to like the gifts we passed out as well. We sat around relaxing the rest of the day and had a delicious Christmas dinner with everyone.

When we finally got home Timmy had a chance to open some more of his gifts and actually get to play with them. His geotrax are awesome! He actually figured out how to work them before we did!

The morning of the 26th we went out to Tim's Uncle's house and got to see the extended Jones family for a while and Timmy got to play with his cousin Brandi. 

Then it was back to Elena's for the Shillingburg family Christmas party. We played another round of White Elephant Gift Exchange and then the kids all enjoyed one of Timmy's Christmas presents, a moonbounce! They had so much fun in it, it was so cute!