Photo Shoot - 2013

  A beautiful fall day = great chance to try to snag some photos of the boys in the afternoon sun.  I shot some photos in our backyard and then headed to the beach and park.
Here is a teaser preview ...

Playing with the leaves

 The boys deliberately looking anywhere but at me...the mom with the camera

Distracted by sticks and sand

However, I was successful.  

I did several great shots of the boys together, smiling, AND looking at the camera!

Bedtime fun

 

Getting ready for bed and having fun with play glasses.  I love Jude in these pajamas...I think he looks a little likeRalphie from "Christmas Story."  :-)

Kiddos lately

Where did the year go?  My babies are growing up so fast!
Tamlin is turning five years old in just a week or so!


What has my little man Tamlin been up to lately?

* Loving going to library to pick our books on trucks, Thomas the train engine, Star Wars, and trains.

 * Interested in Ninja Turtles...I can't believe they brought this cartoon back from my childhood!  He calls them "Injas."

* I Spy books, Pictureka, and other finding games are still big hits.

* Loves playing games and watching movies on my iPad or on his Leap-pad.  At least I can get him to play educational fun games as well as pointless games like "Plants vs. Zombies"

* Awesome at riding his bike with training wheels and using the hand breaks.

* Surprises me with his kickin' problem solving skills.  We were setting up hotwheels track and I told him we needed something to support the track.  He comes back with a tunnel from the train bin that works perfectly.  After a few attempts of cars down the track, he then concludes we need another one for stability.  Great job.

* Basic math knowledge.  Thanks to PBS, Tamlin has surprised me several times with his ability to add and subtract simple problems.

 *Working on sight words.  Of course, T-R-U-C-K is still his favorite word, but thanks to computer apps, he is starting to recognize other common words too: No, Stop, Tam, Car, Yes, Or

* Went through a growth spurt this summer and is now in size 5 clothes (not 5T, especially for shirts), though he feet are still about 10 / 10.5 shoes.


Favorite phrases:
"Something caught my eye", "Aw, Man!", "Let's do that next week" but meaning tomorrow


What about my awesome little Jude? 

He is growing up quickly to, especially with his big brother Tamlin as a role model. Jude is constantly copying Tamlin and often wants whatever he has.  Jude has a stubborn streak and certainly wants what he wants RIGHT NOW.  He certainly has the tendency to repeat himself over and over again until you acknowledge whatever he is trying to say.

* Loves to point out the moon up in the sky, especially if it is a full moon.  Twinkly stars are pointed out too.


*Nearly successful with potting training.  He has managed to get most poops in there, but we still have nighttime to train.  Yeah, little man!

* Absolutely loves bath time.  He'll splash around in the tub playing with cups, cars, and fishing hook for forever, either by himself or with brother.  He's fairly good at washing up, or at lease washing his belly, hands, and front part of his head.

* Needs to sleep with a different toy each week.  Last week it was wooden trains, prior to that was a huge plastic spider, prior to that was an airplane.  Tonight, he is sleeping with plastic construction digger trucks.  Strangely, Monster isn't the favorite anymore and sometimes he is even found neglected on the floor next to the bed.

* Very good at recognizing letters, mostly uppercase.  "M", "I", "T", and "H" are favorite ones to point out on signs or in books.

* Loves counting.  One, Two, Three, Five, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten...is often the way it goes. However, some days he does get it right all the way to ten.

*Favorite color is orange, though he has started to point out blue and grey as well.  However, orange is often the guess for red or yellow or purple.

*He still loves to play with the wooden trains and the GeoTrax (though pushing the trains, not using the remotes).  Airplanes are also still hits, especially if the propeller turns. 

* Reading and snuggle time at night is wonderful.  He is still a cuddler and likes to be in our laps, especially listening to stories.  His favorite books are about dinosaurs, trucks, and I spy books.

*Even though it is November, we are still going outside as often as we can.  Both boys love the outdoors.  Jude has just started to get the hand of the blue plasma car and is quite enjoying it.  We have a little slope of a hill along the road in front of our house, and we have just realized that you can pick up a bit of speed riding down it toward the corner.  When we are out there, we'll tell Jude "Feet up."  He then picks his feet up onto the plasma car and glides down the hill, or awaits a push from me or Tamlin.  He isn't as sure about going too fast... it seems his need for speed isn't quite as great as Tam's was at that age.  The other favorite outdoor activity is swinging...this gets such big smiles and laughs of delight!

Favorite phrases:
"Super" anything, as in "Super dark", "Super sad", "Super fast"
"No" to anything, such as "No bedtime", "No dinner", "No potty"
"Please", "Thank you" and "You're welcome"; he knows these phrases are needed to get attention and things that you want.  He says them so sweetly too.
"Share, Tamlin", said frequently throughout the day
"Go outside.  Shoes on."  He loves going outside to play.

Memory Lane

This past weekend, the boys and I drove into 'Bula to see family.  Have I mentioned yet how excited and grateful I am that we are so close now and can do a visit for a day?  Fabulous!  Anyways, this was a chance for the grandparents to see the kids and for the kids to play with their cousin Ciearra as Shelly came in to visit as well.

While the little ones played with Papa Dale and Nana, Shelly and I tackled the attic storage. We sorted and consolidated, ah, um, "stuff."  My goal was to see what was up there that could be sold at a garage sale, what could be shoved together in the same box to free up room, and what were items to come home.  My secret other goal was to force Shelly to go through her "stuff" 'cause that was what was mostly up there. 

There was success...and a few trips down memory lane :-)

We found a ton of barbies (Shelly's), Fisher Price toys (both of ours), Precious moments or something like that (Shelly's), a handful of books (Shelly's), some old highschool / college photos (Shelly's), old McDonald Happy meal toys (both of ours), random stuff animals (both of ours and some we couldn't remember), and a handful of odds and ends.  We laughed, we made "what the heck is that" faces, we found toys for our littles to play with, and we laughed some more.

In the end, we came out with at three full boxes of stuff for yardsale and emptied / consolidate 6 totes of "stuff."   Mom was excited to get some of her attic back.  I was excited to get some the empty totes to fill with my own "stuff" at our house!  Great job, Shelly,...Next time we tackle Dad's house!

Preschool

Within one week of working, Brian's hours were upped and he was being asked to come in between noon and three several days a week.  This left us with the puzzle of finding someone to watch the kiddos for an hour of two while we both were out working.  The little munchkins were just not quite trust-worthy enough to leave to their own devices :-)

I frantically made phone calls to several local daycare centers in the area.  However, just two actually even called back!  We had our fingers crossed that we would be able to get both boys into the same center and that it wouldn't cost too much.  I hoped that there would be some structure / preschool program for Tamlin and not just a full day of playing.

We struck it lucky and the local YMCA had openings for both boys.  Yes!  This center was recommended to us by our neighbor and I had visited the place earlier in the summer and quite liked the director.  Within 48hours, the boys had toured the place with Brian and I had submitted the paperwork.  The following week, they were both headed off to school for three days a week. 

Tamlin, of course, was ecstatic.  He is such a social butterfly and couldn't wait to play with other kids again.  Jude wasn't too sure what was going on.  I was worried that Jude wouldn't be too successful with the potty at a new place and that he would cry for Brian or me.  I knew Tamlin would be wonderful with his outgoing personality and love of making friends.  Brian was leery that he would miss the boys too much.

So...what happened?

The boys did fine


Jude's teacher say that he is fine with not missing his parents, eating most of his meals, and is sleeping well at naps.  His room has a bunny that is paper-trained so it hops around free.  Jude affectionately calls it his bunny.  After the first day, he has been mostly successful with the potty...though pooping is sometimes a miss still.  Last Wednesday, Jude even made a beautiful marker drawing that was sent home to us :-)

Brian's teacher says Tamlin is doing great.  The downside is that he has cried every single time I've come to pick him up to take him home.  He just HATES to stop playing and leave his new friends.  His class has preschool structure for most of the day, though some of what he is learning he learned last year, such as letter recognition. However, his class goes on field trips!  Next week they are off to the Cleveland Museum of Art.  How cool is this?!

I'm glad they are both doing well here so far...especially since we'll be eligible to have them go here year round and even before/ after school if needed.

Halloween 2013

 Halloween 2013 in our new home and new town!

Halloween this year was great because Tamlin got way more into it than before... and Jude got excited because Tamlin was excited.   We started the holiday with getting out the bucket of decorations and carving pumpkins.  Since Jude was new to this, he was a bit wary of the more frightening decorations.  He learned that spiders can be "scary" when they vibrate or move! 
As a family, we journeyed to the Halloween store to check out the latest decorations.  This is a blast since they usually have many of the animated decorations up so that buyers can make them work.  Jude jumped a mile into the air when Brian made a huge spider jump out at him!  Man, if that thing was cheaper, it would have come home with us just for our amusement.

e wWe spent one evening together at a local park turned haunted trails / family festival.  This was a hoot!  We got there early and parked in the far field because I wanted to avoid parking chaos.  This meant that we got to ride the shuttle bus over to the park entrance (and riding a bus was fun for the little ones).  The trail was "family friendly" for the first couple of hours, so there weren't people jumping out at everyone and the lights were up in the haunted houses.  Both boys were troopers, though they did hold my hands tightly when we went into the houses.  Tamlin did like the lake of floating carved pumpkins and the spinning tunnel.  Jude wasn't too sure about everything, and did want to be carried a few times.  He didn't yell or cry, but did say that things were"scary".  Besides the haunted trail, we rode a tractor hayride through blow-up decorations.  Lastly, we played several kiddy games for fun Halloween prizes.  Jude was a bit small for some of them, but he still had fun. By the time we left, there were TONS of people around us and many more trying to get in...I was VERY glad a parked off-field.  I would definitely go again next year...and will encourage the little ones to dress up to get in the spirit of things.

As to costumes, I am not usually one to make the kids dress for a theme but this year it just worked out.  I knew that Jude would be just the right size for the dragon costume we had.  Tam had worn this when he was almost two.  Jude loved it and even wore the dragon hood/ head the entire time.  He also had an awesome roar. Tamlin toggled between a knight and a race car driver for the longest time (with a brief point of wanting to be both...think knight rider).  In the end, I made his knight costume (and only had to pick up the silver fabric).  He loved the chance to flail around his wooden sword.

We decided to go Trick-or-Treating with our cousins, especially since Wakeman was treating on a sunday afternoon instead of a weekday evening.  With some minor coordination, several generations of family met up with our pack of costumed kids ready for some candy.  Even Uncle Roy and Aunt Doris made out to see everyone dressed up.  Here's a photo of the kiddos: I know the oldest is Paris and Kate the youngest girl, but the boys are Roman, Ben, and Nathan (I think). 

 Treating was great...the four boys all ran ahead from house to house, where the girls and Jude hung back with most of the grown-ups.  I had forgotten how much walking is done when trick or treating outside instead of inside at a mall.  Jude tired quickly and was carried for much of the time.  Many of the homes had people dressed up and sitting outside in lawn chairs passing out their candy.  The entire experience had the air of fun, family, and wholesomeness. 
 

 

Besides trick or treating, the YMCA held a fun night of kiddy games with candy as prizes.  This was a means to raise money for the child care center, since each game cost a whopping 25cents.  I took the boys dressed up to this festival.  It was a great chance to meet their teachers again and have fun.  Besides the games, there was hot-dogs and popcorn and cookie decorating to participate in.  It totally reminded me of my grade school carnival games :-)  Good times!  

On Halloween at the child care center, the classes had a huge costume parade through the facility.  Brian was able to walk over to see our little guys walking around in their costumes.  So cute!

After all this excitement, and with a cold rainy forecast, I decided not to trick or treat in our town on Halloween evening.  I didn't think the boys would be too upset and we had already gathered a ton of candy.  I was wrong... the boys weren't upset at all!  They LOVED passing out candy :-)  We sat in our enclosed front porch with our bucket of treats.  Tamlin kpet opening the door and yelling "We are open for business" just so anyone on the street would know that we had candy to give out.  He would drop handful of treats into the awaiting buckets.  Jude also handed out candy, but usually one piece at a time :-)  They both watched from the window and would yell excited what costumes were walking toward our door.  I laughed at their antics the entire time.

All in all, the holiday was a success...and now the decorations are down and put away...
And I am totally stoked to start the Christmas holiday season!