Happy Anniversary

Thirty-three years of marriage
and still holding hands.

Some Firsts

Baby laryngitis

Timbo got his first shoes and they are so...

here is where you expected me to say cute but really when a mom envision all the future adorable shoes her baby will wear it wouldn't be these. I don't figure when my belly was growing to a gargantuan size that I imagined his first shoes, or any of his shoes for that matter, would be white leather, flared out to twenty-five degrees and with a big gold bar in between.

They are pretty similar to the shoes Jeff wore as a wee little baby.Man, he can make anything look good!

Now he is showing off the top.

Flashback Friday

When Kati and Bear where born we knew who they looked like. Really from the second I saw my Bear he looked just like Jeff's baby pictures to me. And Kati looks so much like me as a child my brother comments on it all the time. Well, when Timbo was born we couldn't see a resemblance to either one of us. Sometimes I see a little Bear and sometimes a little bit of Kati but no one particular person stood out to me. That was until I was looking through photo albums from Jeff's childhood.

Can you see a resemblance? Maybe it's just me. I think he looks like Jesse as a baby, not Jesse now, but Jesse then.

Now in these pictures it's the cheeks and nose that look similar to me. What do you think? Leave me a comment, do they look alike or not?


(Really, I shouldn't be leaving any posts about Jess since he said he really enjoys counting how many words I spell wrong on the blog. What's a girl to do that was never taught phonetics?)

Cake time with Kati

Kati made birthday cakes for me and Jeffrey. The green one was Jeffrey's, it was strawberry and mine was cherry. She was so cute and set plates with drinks too.

Timothy stole my fork, poor guy probably thought there really was food on it. Kati wasn't upset she just didn't really like him slobbering all over her stuff and asked very politely if I would take it away

.....this is what Timbo thought of that

This is a slide show of a bunch of things; Christmas with my family, Jeff's family, us, and our tradtional IHOP breakfast. Hope you enjoy it.

Merry Christmas

Timbo's first taste of steak

6 month well visit

Today we went for Timbo's well visit. He is the "perfect American boy", he is in the 50 % for everything.

weight: 17 2.5
length: 26 1/2
head size: 44cm

I just love to see a baby gnawing away on his toes. Two days before Timothy got his first casts he found his feet for the first time so there hasn't been any chewing action. He found his feet and toes the night he got his casts off but it took him until Monday to start chewing on those feet. You know I was quick to get my camera but he would always stop before I could get the picture. Well I caught him today. It was so cute I considered eating a toe myself but then I remembered how smelly baby feet can be. Why is that exactly, it's not like he is working up a sweat with a long jog in the mornings. He does nothing all day and yet his feet still smell.

I have been waiting and waiting for this. Thanks God for my early Christmas present.

My baby is six months old today. That's half a year y'all. I think I might cry.

Youth Christmas Party

Last night was the Youth Christmas party and it turned out well. Jeff and I were a little nervous at 6:20 when only one person was there. It ended up just fine; I'd say we had around twenty kids. Some of the kids were even visitors and that is always nice. We ate, we played games, Bear peed his self, we opened gifts, Kati spelt drinks, it was good times.

Jeff read the youth the Christmas story, no not the story about the man that goes "Ho, ho, ho", but the true Christmas story. The same story that we read every Christmas eve, the same story that was read at Jeffrey's home every Christmas eve as a child. The one that tells of our Lords birth to a virgin. Ya know, the one that gives you the warm fuzzies to think of all that baby sweetness wrapped in swaddling. After he read the story he encouraged the youth to think past all of that and think about the reason all that baby sweetness was brought here for.

I ask that you pray for them; that they will really take the time to consider that. Pray that the visitor we had will want to come again; that a seed was planted in their hearts and they will have a desire to learn more about our precious Lord and Savior.

Is it wrong to be in love with your shower?

And you thought you came here to see cute pictures of my kids.

I don't know why I haven't blog about this sooner because really around here this is big news. I mean big big news. My mother-in-law can attest to this. While she was here, after the birth of Timbo, if she was going to give the kids a bath it would take about thirty minutes of only letting the hot water run to get a good bath. Now-a-days it was more like forty-five minutes. And that was just a bath for the kids. If I wanted to take a bath it seemed like an eternity. I like by baths so hot I look like a lobster when I get out, no e-mails please I am sure my internal organs are damaged beyond repair.

Anyway I won't bore you with all the details of how it was fixed but we fixed it. I say "we", it was really more like Jeff fixed it and I sat on the potty (lid down, thank you very much) and watched him work. I really like doing that kind of thing and I had planned on working on it myself, but really should I be aloud to work on major appliances if I only know the names of their parts as doohickey and thingamabob. Major appliance, that can't be the right word but you know what I mean.

My point is, we have water pressure again. I don't have to leave the water running while we go grocery shopping anymore to give the kids a bath when we get home. I can turn it on and in a few minutes it's bath time!!!!!

It's the little things in life that please me people.

I hope your shower this morning was just as refreshing as mine.

Construction

We just had to stop and watch how the crane works

Just to make you smile

Life never gets old around here

I asked Bear to get dressed and this is what a found

We are cast free

I needed one last picture of my cute boy in his casts. Doesn't he look so festive!

And here he is when they are finally off. When I first sat him down he was a little wobbly

Pre-casting

...six weeks later

Pre-casting

...six weeks later

precious feet

his first time in p.j.'s with legs in soooooo long

look ma, no casts
show off

When I got home Brendon was just so excited to see Timothy's socks. He just had to come over and rub on them.

Hey Grandpa, check me out, I can stand up!

What are these called again? Toes?

Check out those long legs
Bear couldn't wait to hold him

(Thanks for watching Kati and Bear for me, I bet Grandma is jealous you got to see 'em first)

He wasn't to sure about the exersaucer at first

the same thing with the b@th. He warmed up after a couple of seconds.

So here we are the next day at the place to get his braces. It turns out they are really shoes with a bar. We may have to wait up to two weeks before they come in. When they do get here Timothy will wear them at night only. When he gets older he will wear special things inside of his shoe. Maybe for years.

I am excited it's just the years stuff is kinda hard. I know we are truly blessed but it doesn't mean that all of this doesn't make me sad. You can also see when he stands up that his ankles roll like Jeff's and that is really upsetting.

Still just taking it one day at a time
and again today his feet are the most beautiful feet I have ever seen.

Yes, I will eventually post about Timbo getting his casts removed. Don't get me wrong, I'm very excited it's just kinda anticlimactic. Sorry Grandmas I know y'all are probably dying to see his sweet feet. Believe me I know I can't stop staring at them. He is probably sick of me kissin' all over them.

Flashback Friday

Katibug 3 months

Brendonbear 8 months

Timbo 5 months

Tonight, well this morning I guess( you'll have to bear with me as I ramble it's late and I'm tired), I was looking at old stuff on the blog and watched Timothy's sonogram. When we went for the sono we asked them to check the feet as we have with every baby. They looked and said he was definitely not club footed but looking back now I can see the curve. I am glad that they were not able to diagnose his metatarsus addcutus back then. At the beginning of the braces I was so depressed. Yes I know that things could have been much worse but it didn't change the fact that something was wrong with my baby that I couldn't fix instantly.

Before each casting I get to see his feet and I am so amazed at the progress. I just kiss all over those feet and long for the day when the casts will be off permanently Well the day has come, its today. Today I will get to bring home a baby that is cast free. I will get to give him a real bath. I gonna havta remember socks. This kids hasn't had to wear socks in nearly two months. I'm just beside myself with excitement, maybe that's why I can't sleep.

When Jeff went to the Doctor for himself on Monday they talked a little about Timbo. I knew he was getting new braces after the casts came off but I didn't realize how long he would be wearing them. I began to feel a little depressed again but I have decided to only look at today. Today his feet are healing and looking good. That is what matters. I will let tomorrow deal with itself. Today his feet are beautiful.

Timbo and his blanket got in a fight during tummy time

5,704th trip to the zoo

As you can tell, Brendon was more than excited

When I planned our trip to the zoo I figured we would only be there a short time considering Timothys age and that the older kids would be walking the whole time. Imagine my surprise when we stayed nearly six hours. You are probably thinking I have lost my mind but I have actually come to a realization....at the zoo I am the mom I want to be. When at home I have "things to do". I am continuously saying "in a minute", if I do it at all. At the zoo there are no dishes to be washed, laundry to fold, shelves to dust, or floors to vacuum. At the zoo there is only free time to feed as many fish as we want and stare as long as we want at the monkeys.

I am considering moving in

I didn't really think Timothy would enjoy himself because of his age but boy was I wrong. This was our first stop. The chimps were wild, swinging from the lights, jumping from here to there and clapping like crazy.

Here are our fish
On the way home Kati said we forgot to see the ostrich. She was so busy with her fish that she didn't notice the birds right across the water even though we were probably there for twenty minutes.

Brendon really wanted to feed the birds so I let him be a big boy and buy his own bird food. He threw the dollar at the guy and walked away without any food, I had to send him back. He did a great job, I was very proud.

Timothy loved the bird house. He really wanted to touch one

so close, so close

man, I just missed him

got him

He was so happy in there

What a cutie

Even more cuties

We went back to visit the chimps again and found this family with a new baby in the outside exhibit. Brendon and I stood right next to the glass admiring the new baby. I got really excited because the dad started walking toward us and I was thinking how nice it was going to be for Brendon to see him close up. So there we are admiring with Bear just inches away from the glass and with the dad chimp just a few feet away when all of the sudden the chimp runs straight for the glass and throws himself right into it. Poor Bear starts hollerin' "That monkey hurt me!"

We stopped to see the gorillas again too and where lucky enough to have one sitting right by the window

As you can tell Timbo likes her but if you look closely to this picture and the one before it the gorilla is not looking back at him but somewhere else

She only had eyes for Kati

We went to another window and again, look closely, the gorilla is still staring at Kati

Kati got up and moved to the other side of the glass and guess who moved too
(still staring)

The kids were ignoring her while I was taking pictures but she wasn't going to have any of that, she knocked on the glass to get their attention! (She did this three different times)
(still staring)

At one point another little girl came up to the window and I asked my children to step back since we had been there so long. I kid you not when I say that the gorilla was craning her neck all around to find Kati.

Kati loved the gorilla some much too and wanted to know things about her. Kati cared so much that I stepped completely out of my comfort zone and went to find a zookeeper. I waved to her through the glass and she was nice enough to come see what the crazy lady wanted.

We found out the gorillas name is Fred (yes it is a girl), she is 17 and has never had any babies (Kati wanted to know). She also has a half sister (she was in the background of one of the pictures)

I just had to add this picture. He was having so much fun playing in this crack.

I should brag on my big kids here and tell you that they walked the whole time and didn't complain once!