Valentine's Parties

Well I thought I had covered all of the school events from the 2014-2015 school year in my wrap up, but these cute pictures from both boys' Valentine's Day Celebrations were left out!  I am so happy that I am able to go into the kids' schools for these kinds of activities!

NYE 2015

For New Years Eve this year my parents were still in town and willing to babysit.  We went out to RTC with Billy, Jeff, Nicole, Josh, Suzanne, and her sister Michelle and her husband, Jerry.  We had dinner at M&S Grill and then went to World of Beer for the count down.  World of Beer was packed but we ended up finding a spot on the ADA ramp right next to the stage.  The band was really really good!  Nicole brought baggies of grapes for everyone to eat at midnight, I believe it is a Spanish tradition (?) to try to eat all 12 grapes as fast as you can at midnight.  We had a lot of fun!

Just after midnight!

Us with all of our kids' Godparents!

Timmy made it to midnight too!

Christmas 2014

I'm officially on the last post for 2014: Christmas!  We went to Ohio the weekend before Christmas.  When we first got to Ohio we left the boys with my parents at Ron's, and Tim and I went out to have dinner and drinks with Darren and Erika.  It was such a nice visit, and the food was delicious!  The next day we went to our favorite Ohio place for watching the Redskins games, and the Shultz' all came to watch at least part of it with us!  Then we all went to Marleen's house for dinner and more visiting.

The next day we did some shopping and took Mom and Dad to the same restaurant Darren and Erika had taken us to!  Later we had dinner, visited, and opened presents with Dale, Paula, and M&M.

On Christmas Eve we attended church service at UCP, both boys chose to be shepherds this year.  I was pleased at how intently they paid attention to the service.

When we got home I started setting up cookies and milk for Santa, Timmy had the great idea to put out carrots for each reindeer and water for them, and Santa as well.

Then something really awesome happened while Timmy was getting ready for bed.


Poor Tyler was using the toilet when Timmy spotted Santa, luckily Tyler saw him on his way back up the pipestem!

On Christmas Morning we made the kiddos wait for us to go upstairs.  Timmy rushed up and checked to see how much Santa ate.  Tyler was dragging, he was not feeling very well.  They both waited, reasonably patiently, for Uncle Chris to arrive before starting to open gifts.

After presents and a delicious breakfast we went to Tim and Susan's.  The pictures do not show the extent of wrapping paper strewn about!

After present opening, Jenny and family went to see the Hedges, and Tyler and I went home for a nap!  We rallied in time to get back to Tim and Susan's for a delicious Christmas dinner.

The evening of December 26th, Mom and Dad arrived at our house from Ohio, and Joe came over too to open gifts.  (Tyler had been napping on the recliner before they arrived, but was wide awake within moments!)

The next day, we went to see VT play in the Military Bowl in Maryland, as part of our Christmas gift from my parents.  It was a wonderful Christmas!

An update on Tyler's Rainbow Monster's

I've written about Tyler's Rainbow Monster's a few times, here  here, and here.  Last Christmas I video'd him talking about them and it has a lot of the basic information about the Rainbow Monster's in it.  I am thrilled that 10 months later the Rainbow Monster's are still alive and well.  (Inside Out has me devastated about the day that they will no longer be a part of our lives!)

Some more recent Rainbow Monster highlights include:

Before our most recent trip to the Magic Kingdom, Tim asked Tyler if he was going to ride Splash Mountain now that he is tall enough.  Tyler said, "No, I rode it once and I didn't like it."  Tim told him that he had been too short the last time we went and Tyler said, "I rode it with my Rainbow Monster's"  Tim asked how the Rainbow Monster's were able to get into Disney World, Tyler didn't miss a beat, "They're invisible..." (the 'duh' was clearly implied!)  Tim's last question was how they got there; they flew of course!

Over the summer, The Pavlus' were coming over for weekly swim lessons and dinner.  Caleb must have been hearing a lot about the Rainbow Monster's, because in the car with Suzanne one day, Caleb asked Tyler if he could go to the Rainbow House with him some day.  Tyler enthusiastically said yes.  Suzanne kept trying to hush Caleb and later told him the monsters aren't real, but that he better not dare tell Tyler that.  Caleb was very confused.  I told Suzanne not to worry, Timmy tells Tyler that they aren't real all the time.  Tyler always checks with me and asks if I believe they are real though.  I always say yes.

For a short while, Tyler tried to use the Rainbow Monster's to keep from going to bed at night, telling me that the Rainbow Monster's come and take him away for the night when I don't let him sleep in my room.  Other night's Tyler would just matter-of-factly announce after prayers that the Rainbow Monster's were sitting on the couch in their room.  When we are saying our God Blesses, Tyler will frequently ask us to pray for his Rainbow Monster's boo-boo's, and those frequently reflect something that has happened to Tyler recently, or someone else that we are praying for.

One day a month or so ago Tyler got super excited about it being his Rainbow Monster's birthday and that we were all invited for their party.  Tim and I said that we were excited to finally go to his Rainbow Monster's house.  Tyler talked about it all day, I'm pretty sure he told Susan and Tim Sr that they were invited also.  When nighttime came, he even had us waiting outside on the driveway for a while for the Rainbow Monster's to pick us up.  Finally he agreed to go to bed.  The next day Tim asked Tyler why the Rainbow Monster's never came.  Tyler said they did, and had taken just Tyler to the party, we could go some other time!

2014 My Boys

So the good news is I only have two posts left from 2014.  The bad news is it's October 1st, 2015, and I have done very few posts for this year!  Anyways, this post is just a collection of pictures and videos of the boys from throughout 2014 that I still want to get into the blog, if the pictures look familiar it's because some of them made their way to facebook in a timely manner.  Back stories will be mostly captions.

This is where my children brushed their teeth for months, both perched on the toilet. This is from last March, now Timmy stands on the floor and Tyler has taken over the spot on the toilet lid.

 This is how Tyler finally figured out how to take his shirt off for himself

I took this picture one morning because it was Tyler's first time wearing this hand me down jacket of Timmy's.  It also turned out to be the morning of the day that Tyler fell down the stairs, so the last picture of him before his little forehead scar!

Mustache Day at school during Spirit Week

I guess when we gave him minion socks, we should have realized they would be largely used as puppets

I only caught him sleeping like this once, and I loved it

This is the beginning of Tyler's love of building blocks!  I was so impressed with the neatness and symmetry of even his early creations.  (Also, see the bandaid from aforementioned fall down the stairs!)  These blocks with the aliens were a favorite toy for many weeks.

What I see when I first wake up most mornings, true in June '14, true now.

Father's Day 2014, Tim and his Mini-Me's

Tyler with his buddy Dempsey, and then acting like a dog

The last week of kindergarten Timmy brought home a little cup with a seedling, PawPaw replanted it for him and it bloomed the day we meet his 1st grade teacher. I took it as a good omen for 1st grade smile emoticon

The soundtrack of my life, still to this day.

Taken at half time of his first soccer game, he had already scored his first goal.  He switched into a much more defensive player for the rest of the season though!

My handsome, happy, big boy

A new birthday party phenomena, Video Game Trucks!  Multiple screens, multiple game systems, and lots of controllers, all delivered to your driveway for a couple of hours!  Timmy had a blast at this one and he's invited to two more coming up this month!

A special treat for Tyler after his first morning of Speech Testing.  He was a happy boy!

 Back on October 30th last year, he's grown up so much in the last year!  This is Tyler trying to trick Uncle Chris with the "which hand is it in?" game, but not quite grasping the concept himself....

Timmy's Fall school photo from last year, so handsome.

Timmy's name in legos!