10 months old!

Today Timmy is 10 months old. According to the Wii Fit he's weighing in at 18.8 pounds. He has become quite mobile this past month. He's gone from getting up on hands and knees, to the injured army man crawl (you know the one with one arm laying limp and using only one arm to crawl) to the swimmers crawl. He looks like he's swimming in the carpet. So we have now reached the era of the gate for fear that he will fall down the stairs when we're not looking.

He is really starting to enjoy his toys more and more. He's learning cause and effect. He knows that he can push the buttons and make the toy do its thing. It's amazing how much the older boys like his toys as well. I guess that it's just something new to them. I can now put Timmy in his bed with a couple toys and he will play happily while I shower or when I am referreeing the others.

Eating is more entertaining for all involved. He was avoiding vegies at all costs. Finally I gave him canned carrots and chopped them up. Once he could feed himself there was no complaining about eating the vegies. So much for buying vegetable baby food. It's ok though. The older boys are benefiting by Timmy not eating it. I've been sneaking vegies into their food for weeks now. Ssssshhhhh- don't tell.

Up on hands and knees

The Crawl

On the Farm

Today Matt went on a field trip to a local farm called Frying Pan Park. It's a small farm geared towards children complete with a hayride and a playground. Matt had fun while he was there (despite falling and cutting his knee on some rocks). He said, "we went on a hayride, but there was no hay." It's basically a trailer with seats pulled by a tractor. They learned how to milk a cow. I asked Matt if he got to milk a cow. "Yeah. But it wasn't a real cow. It was a wooden cow" Apparently the makeshift cow has tits that the kids can squeeze and water comes out instead of milk. The pigs smelled and "the baby pigs, I mean the piglets, even squealed"

Thomas' preschool group went there a couple weeks ago. He thought the bunny's were stinky (but the cows and pigs were ok). He liked that there was a little door just for the chickens to go in and out of their home. It was overcast that day with lots of puddles. Thankfully I planned ahead and brought his rubber boots. I think he enjoyed jumping in the mud puddles more than looking at the animals. Here are some pictures.

Walking in puddles.

Petting a sheep.

Moo cows.

Thomas and friends "fishing" in the puddle.

Thomas and friends puddle jumping.

I'm reminded of a song by the Imagination Movers called "On the Farm". Here's a fuzzy clip of it:


We really enjoy watching this show that is on Playhouse Disney. We saw them at a free concert a couple years ago at the Kennedy center. They discribed themselves as "the Beasty Boys meet Mr Rogers". Pretty funny. I actually looked them up on Wikipedia a while ago. One of them, Scott, (the long haired guy) is an award winning elementary school teacher. They are from New Orleans and 3 of them lost their homes in Hurricane Katrina. The one with the red hat (Dave) is an architect and he helped with several designs to rebuild buildings that were distroyed. Anyway, if you have the Disney channel, check them out. You'll be singing their catchy tunes throughout the day.

Happy Mother's Day!

Speed. I am speed.

Last night our ward had a Pinewood Derby for an activity. Everyone who wanted to make a car was invited to do so. We did it last year as well. Last year we had my dad to help out with the cars and we borrowed a friend's saw. This year we didn't have access to a saw so we came up with designs for rectangular cars. Matt had a Wii car.

Thomas has a bus. We even wrote "Thomas County Schools" on the bus. The yellow blur you see in the picture of the race track is Thomas' bus winning!

The boys had a lot of fun. Their cars did quite well. They each won a few races and got to race against each other. Thomas got 6th place overall and Matt got 8th. Not bad for two rectangular cars to get in the top ten!

I'm a nerd. I love to dress my boys in matching clothes. I have to admit that it is getting harder to find clothes in size 6 that matches size 1. They sure are cute though. (I'm having issues with putting my pictures up in this post. Sorry if the words are all jumbled in with the pictures. Dumb free blog)

Bedtime plotting and princesses

Last night the boys were goofing around as usual and we had to separate them. Matt usually gets put into our bed. Well, moments later we hear pitter patter upstairs and we find that Thomas has also gone into our bed. As long as they go to sleep I don't care where they are. I decided a while later to check on the boys. They are talking nicely and so I don't interrupt. I did, however, stand there and listen for a while. This is the conversation I heard:

Matt, "Hey Thomas. I have to tell you something."

Thomas, "What?"

M: "Did you know that I really like Princess movies?"

T: "What?! "

M: "Ha! April Fools!"

They both giggle.

T: "Hey Matt. I really like mermaid movies. April Fools!"

More giggling.

M: "We have a lot of princess movies. We need to get rid of them"

T: "Yeah. Maybe we should sell them"

M: "Who should we sell them to?"

T: "I know! Claire. She likes mermaid movies"

M: "She really likes princess movies. We'll sell them to Claire."

I left as they were plotting on how to get rid of the movies. I was a little worried that they would actually try to clear them off the shelf and get rid of them. I don't think the boys have ever seen any of the princess movies. Thomas did see Little Mermaid at Claire's house and enjoyed it. I keep telling them that there are battles with swords and dragons, and a big beast, and magic, but they still won't listen to me. We do remind them from time to time that there is a princess in Star Wars as well. Maybe the boys would like it better if Cinderella or Belle had a blaster or lightsaber.

9 months old

Timmy has officially been out of the womb longer than he was inside. It has gone by so quickly. Why does time with a baby always go faster than time being pregnant? Oh well. We have a lot of updates on Timmy this month. He is still sleeping through the night in a bed (well, a pack and play). I can even put him down while he is awake and smiling at me and he'll put himself to sleep.

He is sitting up completely on his own. It's nice to be able to put him down in front of a box of toys and he will stay put for quite a while. He enjoys taking the toys out and I keep putting them back in. What is his favorite toy-you ask? Well, it's his socks. He loves to take them off and then wave them around and then put them in his mouth. If you catch him in the act of taking off his sock and ask him, "are you taking your sock off?", he will smile and then laugh triumphantly when he gets it off. He is even really good at taking them off while sitting in a grocery cart.

Timmy is a good shopping buddy. We go to all sorts of stores together. He's a very social person and will charm anyone who is looking at him. In fact he charmed a lady in the check out line by waving at her when she was waving at him. I told her that it was the first time he had ever done that and she was very proud of herself that she was instrumental in the development of a new trick (I overheard her in the parking lot talking about it on her phone!). He also thinks it's funny to shake his head "no". I recently bought him a duck bath tub. It is the perfect size for him and I don't have to waste a ton of water filling up the tub. I don't have to constantly hold him and worry about him hitting his head on the tub because the sides of the duck are very padded. And, it quacks and echos in the bath tub. I highly recommend getting one. Well worth $11.Last week he pushed himself up on his hands and knees. He can only hold it for a few seconds and then he flops down on the floor. It's only a matter of time before he's crawling. He is getting better at eating. He refuses peas and squash. It is almost entertaining to watch the reactions to the foods he doesn't care for. The grimaces, the shudders, the gags, the spitting out, aah, it's wonderful. Too bad an adult can't get away with it sometimes. I've been giving him the Gerber Puffs to snack on and he really enjoys that (as long as he can't see the entire canister because then he wants the whole thing. The boys enjoy feeding him and it is easier to go places as well. Recently he didn't want to eat his cereal and so I decided to give him a tactile experience and let him squish the cereal on his tray. He thought it was great and even tried to get food in his mouth. The boys thought is was hilarious! He will also take a bottle very well and will drink formula if needed. This is a huge change from what I dealt with when the other two were younger.

We drove down to Asheville, NC a few weeks ago and Timmy was an ideal baby in the car. He took naps, we stopped twice for bathroom and nursing, and he only fussed a couple minutes before he just looked out the window. It was a very nice trip down and even back (although for the last hour the boys were hitting each other, but all in all it was quite nice). While on vacation Timmy mastered going down a slide.

Matt wrote this on my parent's driveway. He'd getting very good at reading and writing.

Quite an eventful month. He's such a happy fun baby. I may just have another one!

(Not an announcement! Are you kidding me? He's only 9 months old! I would be crazy to try to have another one now. I'm just saying that he makes having a baby look easy. That's all, Nothing more.)

Happy Easter

I found this video earlier and I thought it is appropriate for Easter. Let's remember the real reason for Easter.

Learning how to read

It is amazing how well Matt is learning how to read. He reads things everywhere we go. It's so fun to hear him read books to his brothers. I recently got a new cookbook (no big surprise there). Matt read the title and apparently I got a book called, "Mastering the Girl." I wonder what that book would be about. Hmmmmm.....

8 months old!

Timmy is now 8 months old. It seems just like a week ago that I was writing about his 7 month highlights. Let's see, what has he done that's new this month?

Well, he slept in his bed. He is now sleeping in his Pack & Play and I will keep him in it until after our vacation. He is rolling all over the place and can push his entire torso up on his arms. It's only a matter of time before he gets his knees up under him. Then I'll really have to clean the floor on a regular basis. He can do the "beached whale" really well. You know the move- it's where he's on his stomach and his legs and arms are off the ground kicking wildly. I actually tried to do it. It's a full body work out.

We're still working on introducing new foods. When there is a food he doesn't like he closes his lips very tight. He's very stubborn. He actually refused applesauce the first 4 times I offered it to him. He gobbled up the entire jar when I first gave him peaches. We'll try peas next week. I'm sure that will go over well.

Timmy got to have his first play date this past month. His friend (who is 3 months younger) flew in to stay with us. The first time he saw her he tried to grab her hand. Then she went in for the kiss. She watched him a lot as he showed off his rolling skills. We also went over to a friend's house who has twin boys. They are a couple months older than Timmy. They entertained him and made his laugh alot.

I realized that I don't have too many pictures from the last month. I wanted to get one of him sleeping in his bed. Oh well. He are a couple of our big boy.

Giving up the car seat

Last Friday night Timmy gave up sleeping in his car seat and slept (the whole night) IN HIS BED!!!!!!


He did this because his friend, Caroline, was flying in the next day and she needed to use his infant car seat. Isn't he thoughtful? He gave up the car seat for her and just in time. He rolls onto his stomach and sleeps quite well. Of course the first few nights I checked on him about every hour because I found him with his face planted into the mattress and that freaked me out. I guess after a couple days he figured out that it's not comfortable to sleep on his face and now he turns his head just fine. It's been nearly a whole week now and I am so happy....


Until 2 days ago when I found out that his crib is being recalled. If you have a crib made by Delta check out this site.


The web site said that I will be sent a kit to install safety measures on the crib, but until then I should stop using it immediately. So now we are going to have to try to get him to sleep in the Pack & Play. I'm so frustrated. I was so excited to have him sleeping in his crib and now we might have to start all over again. Granted it's important to keep him safe.


At least he'll be prepared for spring break when he'll have to sleep in the Pack & Play anyway. I should look on the bright side...at least I'll have a child who will sleep in that thing. The other two didn't.