I'm leaving in the morning to help my friend Trudy move to Phoenix. So I won't be posting for a little while. We're driving out--should take us about 3 1/2 days--then I'm staying for a few days to help her get settled. So I'll be back next weekend. Maurice is on his own with the boys while I'm gone (although he does have the help of several of our friends who will be watching the boys during the day while he's at work). I still haven't packed, but I'll just get up early in the morning to do that. I am such a procrastinator!

Happy Birthday, Craig!

Thursday was Craig's 31st birthday. Unfortunately, that means he will have to stop telling people he "just turned 30".
Me and Trudy. I can't believe it's less than a week until she leaves me and moves to Phoenix! What am I going to do?
This is Trudy and Craig's favorite pose.

Yesterday I turned around and Timmy was standing there in my nightgown. I had to take a picture! He loves to try and dress himself these days....he should just stick to his own clothes.

Yesterday Pam and I took the kids to Brown's Berry patch to pick blueberries. Maddie and Isaac had a lot of fun "helping" us pick blueberries and Timmy and Chloe sat (for the most part) contentedly in their strollers eating blueberries. We then had a picnic lunch and let the kids play on the playground for a bit.



They had this awesome pirate ship playground. Isaac loved it---he's very much into pirates these days and had a ton of fun being captain of the ship. Timmy loves slides, and goes down by himself sometimes now!


They also had this awesome wooden train to play on. Timmy was all over it...he loves trains! Now I just have to decide what to do with the blueberries. I think I'm going to make a blueberry crumble today, or maybe a blueberry cobbler. The possibilities are endless!

So..........Timmy is sleeping peacefully, Isaac is playing quietly with some educational toys, my house is spic-and-span and I'm just settling down on the couch with a bowl of ice cream to watch my favorite show on TLC. Oh, wait, that's my dream life in some parallell universe. Really, today's not that bad. The boys are watching TV and eating cookies right now, which means I have precisely 17 minutes to get down on my hands and knees and scrub the layer of goo off the floor under the dining room table where Timmy likes to throw his dinner. I've already done the kitchen floor (yeehaw!) so I'm actually ahead of the game today.
I've been collecting newspapers and boxes from friends lately to help with Trudy's packing. Today we picked some stuff up from Liz, so the boys got to talk with Lexi a little while we moms chatted. Lexi crawled up between the seats of the car and shared a snack with Timmy and Isaac. It was so cute......they were just talking away and entertaining themselves for quite a while.



Last night Maurice had a softball game. He plays for a church league. The boys love getting out to the games and playing ball with all the other kids. Last night's favorite game was jumping off the bleachers, which gave some of us moms a little heart attack. We made them stop after a while. Now that Timmy and some of the other kids his age are hanging with the bigger boys, we don't want to give them any ideas!
Timmy was content to sit on the bleachers and eat his raisins. I'm so glad he's starting to like fruit more these days. I was getting concerned there for a little while. His diet is rounding out quite well. He still loves meat but is adding more vegetables and fruits. He's starting to play more by himself, which is nice for both me and Isaac! It's amazing how all of a sudden he's a toddler, not a baby. He loves to color and do puzzles, and is learning to put together Isaac's train track. My, how the time do fly.

Super Boys!

Yesterday when we got home from church the boys decided to play dress-up with Isaac's old Halloween costumes. Isaac loved his Spiderman costume last year, but wouldn't wear the mask. Now he loves the mask, although it scares Timmy. Isaac was a good big brother....he kept going up to Timmy and taking off the mask to tell him, "See, it's just Isaac".
And Timmy got to be Buzz Lightyear. I was suprised that it fit him. Craig had given this costume to Isaac for his third birthday. But Timmy is starting to wear 3T stuff, especially anything one-piece.
Here I am with my super-heroes! You can hardly tell in this picture, but I have a bruise and a cut on y left cheek. Timmy got angry the other day and chucked the baby monitor at me and hit me in the face. He's been getting mean lately when he gets tired. He just throws whatever is at hand. I just wish he weren't quite so strong! If you have any suggestions for anger management in babies, let me know.

Goodbye, Crib!

Well, my baby is growing up (again). Monday night Timmy kept asking to sleep in Isaac's toddler bed, so we decided to let him. Isaac got to sleep in his sleeping bag on the floor, so he was totally cool with it. Timmy slept through the night in the bed, and loved it! He did the same thing last night, so we decided it was probably time to let him have a bed. This is the last picture of the crib in the boys' room.I tried putting him in the crib this morning, and he hated it! He so wants to be a big boy. So, we packed up the crib this morning before Maurice went to work. I cried! It's just the realization that we will most probably never use it again. I can't believe my baby days are over.

Here are the boys in their "big boy beds". My mom had given us a beautiful antique twin bed in May. It was my grandmother's bed and had been made by her grandfather. My mom slept in that bed as a kid, so it means a lot to me for Isaac to have it now. He loves it! We've been trying to impress upon him the importance of being a "big boy". It's hard for him because Timmy is at that "everything is new and adorable" stage and Isaac is at that "I'm four and a half and I want to talk to you" stage which is less charming than annoying at times. So we've been trying to think of benefits of being a "big boy" and having a cool new bed definitely tops the list!
Timmy has been playing in his bed all day, showing it off to his friends. And once again tonight he's sleeping in it. I was worried that the novelty might wear off and he'd have trouble going to sleep, but so far so good!


And Isaac just adores his new bed. I'm having a little bit of a problem keeping him from bouncing on it, and I know boys will be boys. But the boys in our family used to regularly split their heads open from bouncing on beds and running around coffee tables, and I'm trying to avoid any trips to the emergency room. (Not that my parents actually took the boys to the emergency room......my dad figured if they quit crying before they reached the hospital, they didn't need stitches!)

Today we got a visit from one of my good friends from college, Cherise. Cherise and her boyfriend, Jeff, were on their way back from visiting family in Syracuse and stopped in for dinner. Here she is with Isaac, who was born on her birthday!
It was so good to see Cherise, although I should have gotten some Yoohoo for old time's sake.
Here is Cherise with Jeff. Cute, cuz Jeff is like 2 feet taller than Cherise.
Here is Cherise with Timmy and Maurice. This was Cherise's first time meeting Timmy.

I was glad Cherise took this picture of us. We rarely get a family photo.

Pam and I took the kids to Friendly's for luch on Thursday. We've gotten to like Friendly's, especially when they have great specials. Last month they had a deal going where you could buy for $1 a booklet of 5 coupons good for either a free kid's meal or sundae. So I have a feeling we'll be eating at Friedly's a few times this month. Maddie and Isaac both had a rite of passage on Thursday. They both went to the restroom by themselves. Doesn't sound like a big deal, but after a few years of taking a kid to the bathroom every time he has to go it's wierd to stay outside. (And yes, I did stand right outside the door.)
Timmy handed me one of those wonderful moments to work on my humility on Thursday. While we were eating lunch he started banging his fork on his plate, and I could tell some of the people dining around us were getting annoyed. Silly me, I decided to take the fork away from Timmy instead of just ignoring the people around me. What came next made a little "fork music" seem like your favorite concert. He started screaming, throwing his food on the floor all while demanding more food (at the top of his voice). When I thought he was done, I gave him some more food, which he promptly chewed first this time before throwing it on the floor. When will I learn? I wanted to just melt into the floor, especially when the manager came over and started cleaning everything up. But what are you to do? I never experienced anything like this with Isaac. Timmy is adorable, but definitely more challenging to parent.

Thursday night we decided to (finally) hang pictures at the townhouse. The boys had so much fun telling me where to hang the pictures. Isaac was a big help, handing me nails and the hammer. He got a little bossy by the end, though, telling me, "It's too high. And crooked." Timothy like telling me where to hang the pictures, usually pointing to a spot at his eye level and saying, "Here. Here." He's starting to talk a lot more these days, even stringing 2 and 3 word sentences. Mostly "Mama, I want Food!"

Friday night I went to see the Pirates of the Carribbean movie with Trudy and her boys, Brandon and Jared. Pretty good, but much too long. Made longer by the fact that the projector was broken and the movie started 45 minutes late. This is a picture of Brandon and Jared waiting for the movie to start. Brandon wanted to delete the picture so I decided to put it on my blog instead.

Florida!

Last weekend I went to Florida for the 4th of July and my mom's birthday. We had so much fun! Norm, Grace, Rachel and I treated Mom to a weekend on St. Pete Beach. Our hotel room opened right up to the beach. We were on the ground floor and had our own little patio with lounge chairs. It was so nice just to lay around and soak up the sun.


Me and Rachel On sunday night we took Mom to Crabby Bill's for dinner. They had great seafood. I love seafood! We had grouper, shrimp, scallops, conch fritters, gator tail....you name it, we ate it!
It was so good to see Norm again....I hadn't seen him since November. It was just good to be with family and soak up some sun. I can't wait to move back to Florida someday!

On Wednesday, Mom and I got to meet up with Joe and Katie Smith for lunch at Sonny's. Joe and Katie are old friends of my family....I love them so much and was very glad to see them! Joe is the one who married Maurice and I. I hadn't seen them in years, probably not since my dad's funeral. It was great to see them again and catch up a bit.