Play Ball

The boys love to play ball together. We all sit on the floor and Thomas rolls the ball to Jerry. I help Jerry catch the ball adn push it back to Thomas. Sometimes Jerry kicks the ball back with one or both feet. Jerry can actually reach out and catch the ball by himself. Mind you, it is a big ball (kick ball size), but still, the kid reaches out to catch it. Sometimes he picks it up and tries to eat it. I would imagine all Thomas can see is a ball with legs. Jerry just laughs and laughs while we play. It is his new favorite game to play. Several times a day Thomas asks to play ball with Jerry. I am going to try and get a picture to post. The hard part with that is he gets so distracted watching whoever else is in the room that he forgets to play ball. I am also going to figure out how to post a video clip of the boys playing ball so you can see how cute it is and hear Jerry laugh (any suggestions?). Playing ball with these two can make anyone smile. And if you don't smile, then pooh on you, because these boys are cute.

For Amanda

Disclaimer: My dear sister, Aunt Amanda, is in Greece, and is requesting blog activity. She seems to think that Thomas poured honey all over the computer since there hasn't been a post in the last couple weeks. Please forgive any seemingly ridiculous posts from now until January. They are the small little things that go on around here so we can keep her informed of what her favorite nephews are doing.

Amanda, here are the pictures of Jerry in the Teddy Bear outfit, just like I promised. Sorry, none of Thomas in his "Cranky" outfit yet. Isn't his grandpa face/mouth so funny?!? Can you tell he is all over the place?

We went to Hickory to visit grandmamma/Gingams on Saturday. While there Thomas shared little individual bags of cookies with cousin Andrew. Thomas ate his bag rather quickly, imagine that. While we were there, he kept trying to eat the bag he gave to Andrew. There was also another extra bag so the boys would have choices. I went to the bathroom, and when I came out I saw my aunt SJ make a little circle with her fingers and point at a cookie on the floor. The gesture was aimed at her sister, my wonderful mother. I think she may have also said something along the lines of she (me) hasn't noticed. I did notice. Thomas had opened the bag and helped himself to the cookies. When I asked Thomas what he was doing he said "I have a big idea!" Of course he is smiling and puts his little hands out to the side like this was something very great and exciting. Now, you tell me, how easy is it to keep a straight face and tell your kid he should not have done this when your mother and aunt are laughing almost to tears mere feet away? All I could say was" Yeah, it was a big idea."

Oh well, what are you going to do?

Thomas also knows that Aunt Amanda is in Greece. He also knows it is a long way away. He has no idea what he is saying, but he knows where she is.

He also loves teh movie Cars. His favorites are McQueen and Cranky (aka Mater). Any time the song comes on the radio he asks me to turn it up loud. I feel a soundtrack purchase coming on, and oh yes, the movie will be added to our collection.

ON the Jerry front. The kid crawls EVERYWHERE!! Nothing is safe around here. He found a crayon Thomas left on the floor, attempted to eat it, colored his face, and also colored my carpet. Yep, we went from red marker (which came out) to purple crayon on the carpet (I have yet to work on getting the crayon out). He also hates to be alone. If you walk away, he will follow you. We also had our first ear infection today. Hey, Amanda, he had wax buildup in his ear and Dr. DeFlora couldn't see in one of his ears. Jerry also likes to sit up in his bed and try to pull himself up. He as successfully pulled himself to standing on several occasions, but not in the crib yet.

The boys love to play together. Thomas can make Jerry laugh like nothing else. He finds something that makes Jerry laugh and then does it over and over. Both of them will sit there and laugh and laugh and laugh. I can't tell you how many times Thomas says "Jerry's awake! I go get him." Thomas runs upstairs and I take my time. What, it isn't like he's crying or anything. When I get to Jerry's room I find Thomas in the crib playing with baby brother. Very very cute. One day I will think to take a picture.

Correction

OOPS, sorry Amanda. The sunglasses are not my cousin's, they are my sister's. I was informed of the difference between Amanda's and cousin Sarah's glasses (sorry if I put an unnecessary "h" on the end of your name Sarah).

For those of you keeping up with us regularly, I put up 2 new posts yesterday - the monster baby and the beach pictures that I was finally able to load.

Aunt Amanda, we will miss you!!! We are down to hours now.

Big Baby

Jerry had his 6 month checkup today, and surprise, he's huge.

The kid is now 20 lb 2 oz and 30 inches long. That would be 75% for weight and 95% for height. I think Tyler may be right in saying we know who the father is, but the mom is still in question. How on earth is a kid of mine that tall?!?!

The doc also said don't even bother with baby food, it will run us broke (in my head I said "You mean, more broke?"). She said go for the table food. Give him the same stuff Thomas eats, just smaller, minus the few foods like eggs, PB, honey, and the others you are "supposed" to stay away from for a little longer.

Yup, he's a tank.

Also, the bugger, cute bugger, started crawling last night. Boy am I in for it now. Thomas running and Jerry crawling. Say goodbye to the hair I have left. Dare, I have no idea how you do it with twins (HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY BOYS!!!). Jerry does the military low crawl (daddy is proud of this one), on his hands and knees, and on his hands and toes. Yep, you got it, he is ready to walk now, and I am so not ready. Tyler says it is payback for me enouraging Thomas to crawl and walk early. Whatever.

Just for fun, we measured the rest of us, well, those of us home this afternoon, and the results are in. Thomas is 34.2 lbs and 39 inches tall. He grew 3 inches since March. Sounds like time for new clothes, again. Mom is an undertermined/unmentioned lbs and now 5'1". For those of you keeping score, that is an inch taller than I have been since I was 15. Granted, Aunt Amanda did the measuring, but I will take what I can get. In case you are math challenged like I am, this also puts Jerry at 1/2 my height. No joke, the kid is half my height already, and Thomas is an inch shy of 2/3 my height. In my math brain, the kids should be an average of mom and dad's height, guess not. Aren't genetics fun in how they can fool us?

Love and hugs to all of you, since I am sure we haven't seen you lately. And with Aunt Amanda being in Greece for a semester abroad, there will likely be more frequent posts to keep her up to date. Sorry Amanda, no webcams here yet for you to see the boys. This will have to do for now.

Take care and enjoy!

Upload Success - Beach Pictures

I finally managed to get the rest of the beach pictures up. Gotta love Thomas and the beach hair. Really, nothing in it but salt air and the wind. We have a series of the shorts sagging lower and lower, but your imagination can fill in from dry to the point of the picture.

As for the sticker boy, I think the smile says it all. He also has one on his neck, one curling around his ear from behind, and numerous others on his legs and arms. He has a long jellyfish sticker going from his knee to his ankle down his shin. "Silly silly Thomas" as he would say.
Jerry is quite stylin' in his shades. In the first pic he is wearing his own hat and his own shades. These are so cool, they have a strap that goes around his head and velcro holds them on. Much more baby friendly than other ones I have found. Target is my friend. In the othe picture, he is wearing my cousin's movie star glasses. You see what happens when I leave my kids with Amanda... well, we never know what will happen, but hey, they all have fun, and it sure is cute!

What a Day!

Talk about a day that would have been perfect to not get out of bed. No, I don't mean the weather, I mean just pretend the day didn't happen and ignore everything that did.

I love my kids, I really do, just keep that in mind. I also understand that most of you will probably laugh at me, but at the same time say a little prayer of thanks that you weren't me today.

Things started off bad when the kids woke up earlier than usual. Not by much, but just enough to be a difference. Probably didn't help that I was waking up like my sister (one of those people you avoid as much as possible for the first as least 30 min).

We had finished breakfast and I was pretending I was still in bed. I hear a noise in the kitchen, a mere 15 feet away. Whe I look over I see that Thomas has climbed up and is standing on a chair. He has the top off the Rubbermaid cereal container, and is helping himself using one of Jerry's stacking cups. Before I can do anything, he manages to dump the cereal all over the table and the floor. Later in the day he decided it would be fun to smoosh the cheerios that I hadn't quite gotten all up yet. Read further and you will see why I didn't get them all up.

Thomas, who is almost potty trained, decided to pee on the living room floor (he is horrified any time he does this and stands there crying for me, as if I can help him at this point in the not-so potty process). This was after I had told him to go several times, but Sesame Street was just too exciting.

Next we had the marker incident. Here is me, being so good and doing the dishes. Not sure what made me go into the living room, but I wished I hadn't. Dear, sweet, wonderful, creative, all boy Thomas was having a blast. He had taken Jerry's bottle and was shaking the formula into a stacking cup. Gets better. He then was taking the cup and dumping it on a lovely picture, aka a huge red blob colored with marker. Hmmmm, what happens when liquid meets marker. You got it, red marker all over my living room carpet. Be proud of me, I didn't yell. I did, however, tell him to clean up every single little piece of paper (yes, the paper was so wet it had fallen to pieces all over the floor, plus the pieces that Jerry tried to eat and ripped apart). Silly me didn't realize there was still formula on the paper, so he dripped half way to the kitchen before I caught the fact that he was dripping red even further across my carpet. After a nice long sit in time out he got to watch TV while I cleaned. I was not about to let him help me with that cleanup.

After several hours of cleaning, a few stressed/panicked calls and emails about how to get red marker out of carpet, we went from red to pink. A few more hours, a trip to Target for more clenaing stuff, and we were mostly back to grey carpet. For future reference to those of you who don't think this can happen to you, rubbing alcohol works, Zout works, spray Oxy works, but the real winner is 1 cup warm water mixed with 1 scoop oxy powder. Every now and then while I was cleaning, Thomas would say "I make a red mess," or "Mommy clean up my red mess." At least he knew what had happened. And yes, thank you mom, I do realize that there was no way he could have realized that dumping formula on his picture would cause it to bleed all over my carpet; he was just having fun being a boy.

Oh yeah, and to add to a not so funny situation, Thomas had also given Jerry a formula bath. That's right folks, the baby's hair was slicked down and crunchy. Thank goodness Jerry's formula bath was much easier and quicker to clean up.

Looking back, I should have taken pictures, but I bet your imagination can do a fabulous job creating your own picture.

Moral of the story: If you don't want to get out of bed, don't. If you do, you will wish you hadn't. (Becky, my sister-in-law, told me that when you have a day that you don't want to get out of bed, that is the day you shouldn't take your eyes off your kids. Note that she told me this while she was telling me how to get marker out of my carpet)

And yes, I am now able to laugh at my day and find the humor in the whole mess.

Hope I was able to make you feel better about your day. Or maybe you can look back at when your kids were little and did things like this, and laugh at me while telling me that this too shall pass (and they will have their own kids that do the same thing to them, as my mother so kindly reminded me of one of her similar days involving a gallon of milk from when I was small).

Lolly

OK, my cousin asked the question, so I will answer it for all.

Why is my mom called Lolly?

Here goes (someone correct me if I mess this story up, please). When mom and her sister (Susan Jane) were little, SJ couldn't say "Malinda" so she called my mom "Lolly." Mom hated this. When SJ got older and had kids of her own she told them the story and one of her kids adopted calling mom Lolly, just to be irritating. Well, by this time, mom had grown up and it was no longer irritating.

Fast Forward. Rachel is pregnant. Mom says she is too young to be a grandmother and refuses to be called any variation of grandma. I must say, we had quite a bit of fun calling her all sorts of g-ma names (Granny, g-ma, g-mamma, grandmamma, and the list goes on). She said if people her age (at her office, specifically) are having kids, she can't be a grandma. The whole thing turned into a joke as time went on and baby came closer. We asked what we were going to call her, "Mom's mom"?!? Well, that was just a mouth full, so we shortened that to "M's M." Then we decided that this one would get confusing and turn into "M&Ms." Then Tyler, being the goober he is, said that if we were going to do that, why not call her "Skittles." So for a little while she was skittles and we brought her many bags of skittles, just for giggles kicks.

Eventually someone, probably Amanda, suggested Lolly. Mom agreed that it was a good option and it stuck. So now we have Lolly.

She still insists that she is not a grandmother, the kids are her daughter's kids, but she isn't a grandmother (yeah, explain that one). Now, if she won't respond to you, just say "Lolly" and she will turn around as quick as can be. It is also helpful to call her Lolly in large crowds, because there is only one Lolly and lots of Moms, especially at family gatherings.

And now you have..... the rest of the story.

Mudcats Game

The beach post is up, you just have to scroll down. If you want more pictures, I can email, and I will continue to try and post the pictures.

Tonight was the Mudcats game and we all had a blast! We had lots of friends show up, along with Lolly and Amanda. Thomas loved the french fries and Lolly's drink. Gabe, Thomas's friend, got a ball and Muddy even sighned it. Rachel's appearances are over for the season, but there is always next year to do it again. It may be small ball, but it's the best there is. Come to a game with us, its a blast!!

Working on It

I really am working on getting that beach post up. I am having picture issues and Blog is not quite cooperating, so I get frustrated and quit until next time. I promise, it is coming.

PS, Singing at the Mudcats again on August 22, game at 7:15 (Tuesdays are cheap hotdog day too!!!). Same seats as last time, so far as I know, for those of you interested.

AHHHHHHH, the Beach

We had a blast at the beach and didn't want to come home. Thomas had more fun than he knew what to do with. I think it took him a week to catch up on his sleep. Poor Jerry had a bit of a rough go at it. Poor kid fell out of bed, fell out of bed again (I swear, I put him where he wouldn't fall off, just ask my Aunt who rescued him), and he rolled over and got stuck between the wall and mattress. In spite of all his bed related injuries, he did survive, and got tons of attention from my cousin. Thomas played in the big water and loved it. Mom had a serious task of getting his head above some of the waves, and as a result recieved a few in the face, but he was great. Thomas only got one good one in the face, but went right back out.

Lolly had fun at the Dollar Store before she came, and stocked up for Thomas. The best goodie of all was a Nemo kite that flew surprisingly well. Thomas ran and played with it for quite some time, and even Jerry got in on the fun. Yes, my child is running around on the beach wearing nothing but a diaper, and I don't care, he's 3 so you shouldn't care either :)

Thomas also managed to sneak into the water another day without swim trunks on. He was wearing denim shorts, so the wetter they got, the heavier they got, and eventually they fell off. I especially liked his beach hair. Not a drop of product in it, I promise.

For added fun, the power went out Friday afternoon as dinner was cooking. Beach humidity, no power, and hungry people, not a good idea. So, how do you entertain a 3 year old when the power is out and you aren't allowed to open the doors to go in the house? You put stickers all over him. Yay Lolly for getting stickers earlier that day. Thomas had stickers on his nose, behind his ears, on legs and arms, on his forehead, and the back of his neck. He was a walking underwater creature sticker exhibit.

All in all, it was yet another fabulous trip to the beach and we can't wait to go back. Hopefully, Daddy will get to go with us next time. Next stop in our travels, Atlanta GA, here we come!