The Thornburgs

Meeting Baby Elizabeth

2012-02-19T14:53:00.000-05:00

Tommy and I got to meet my friend Ashley's baby, Elizabeth, for the first time on Saturday morning. I also got to see some other friends, one that I haven't seen since I was pregnant.

Aww! It's almost half of the 118 Fowler girls! (You might remember Holly from this post from our babymoon. Haven't seen her in forever!) I love how Tommy is pointing at Elizabeth like he's telling Ashley's mom, "Make sure you get the baby in the picture!"

Here's a close up of little Elizabeth. Aww! Such a cutie!

Tommy was cashed by the end of it all. We only stayed a couple hours but he was exhausted! He was fairly well behaved for being in a non-toddler proofed house. He didn't send a ceramic tea set crashing to the floor (It was perfectly eye level! I couldn't believe he didn't want to mess with it!). He did want to poke Elizabeth in the eyes (what is it with kids wanting to poke babies in the eyes?) so I had to stay on him. But he was quite the good boy! Yay Tommy!

It was so fantastic to see all those girls and catch up. I hope we get to do that even more now that I'm closer. Oh and I have to post this outtake from the group picture session. This picture seriously cracks me up. I'll let you figure out why.

The answer to your question is: No idea! ;-)

Godmother and Godson

2012-02-19T14:34:00.001-05:00

Traci came over on Friday night to visit her godson.

Tommy LOVED it! He was showing off all his toys, running around, and playing peek a boo. He was having a great time!

I love this picture. Look at his face! So excited!

Thanks for visiting Traci! Both Tommy and I had a great time! We need to do it again! :-)

Clifford the Big Red AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

2012-02-19T14:20:00.001-05:00

There was a note sent home from daycare saying Clifford the Big Red Dog was coming to visit and read a story. Tommy loves dogs so I was looking forward to hearing about this. Tommy's teacher sent me pictures from the big event.

Apparently it did not go very well. Turns out, a giant red furry dog is horrifying.

Here's a lovely picture of his entire class screaming in terror. Why do we think it's funny or cute to subject our kids to this sort of thing? Do you know how many screaming Santa pictures I've seen? I don't get it.

Maybe it's character building or something. His teacher said they really enjoyed the story at least. ;-)

Happy Valentine's Day!

2012-02-15T23:03:00.000-05:00

From King Thomas!
I've been experimenting with Photoshop lately. I finally figured out how to layer. So I 'layered' a heart diaper and a crown on the little man. The fun is just beginning! :)

Tommy did all kinds of fun Valentine art projects that he brought home. I thought one in particular had a cute message.

Since you may not be able to read this, it basically says that although he may get his hand prints everywhere, his hands will only be that small for a short period. The hand prints on the picture are so that we can remember when his hands were that small.
Awww.... oh sorry. I'm not crying. My eyes are just a little sweaty today.

(I haven't actually watched an episode of Flight of the Conchords but I've seen lots of youtube videos of their songs.)

But stellar job on the glitter Tommy T!

Want to see a flashback of what Tommy looked like a year ago on Valentine's Day?

He's changed just a little bit. :-)

Yes, this is the header in color. Yes, he's wearing Christmas pajamas. It was a double holiday celebration!

HAPPY VALENChristmasTINE'S DAY, EVERYBODY!

Daycare Update

2012-02-15T21:34:00.000-05:00

So how is Tommy doing at daycare? Well I think he's having a BALL. (Har har har)

Tommy's teacher brought in an inflatable pool and filled it with plastic balls. It's his very own ball pit! He HATED it at first. But all the sudden this week, he decided he loved it.

Fun!

Also, the cook for the daycare sent home a note with Tommy asking what kinds of things we were feeding him at snack time. I sent a note back and listed all the snacks we've been feeding him. It's mostly cereals (Chex, Cheerios, Kix) and Rold Gold pretzels. I also listed a couple specific brands of bread we can feed him because the soy content is 2% or less. I told her we were giving him toast with almond butter on it. The following week they had set up a "Tommy Shelf" where all his special food is. They made a special "Tommy's Mix" which is a special Chex Mix with no peanuts. Just chex, pretzels, and honey nut cheerios. They also bought almond butter! How great are they?

They told Andrew all about his special foods when he picked him up today. Andrew thanked them and told them they didn't have to go to all that trouble. Miss A (the cook) said, "We just couldn't stand to see his poor little face broken out." Awww. We feel so bad that he has to have special treatment but it's nice that they're willing. Now he just needs to grow out of it. You can do it, Tommy!

14 MONTHS!

2012-02-12T22:02:00.000-05:00

The little man is 14 months old. Wow. So what's he up to these days?

Discipline/Testing Limits

Well he's definitely a toddler... and a stinker. He's just in the beginning stages of testing our limits. He loves to stand on his rocking chair. We tell him over and over again to sit down please. He does. But then he gets right back up and stands up again. Stinker! And we know, this is just the beginning. He's also starting the independence thing where he wants to do everything himself. I wanted to sweep up the mess he made at lunch and he grabbed the broom from me so that he could do it.

This is not a bad thing. Maybe we can put this kid to work! :-)

He is also starting to throw fits. Oh joy. If we tell him to do something and he knows he's not supposed to, he will plop his bottom down and scream. Fun.

Repeating a Favorite Word

He is on a kick where he's repeating his favorite word 'dada', constantly. It's actually embarrassing when we go out in public because anyone that walks by will get called dada. Men, women, children... they are all dada. Even Tommy is dada. We show him a picture of himself and he says, "DADA!" I know he understands that I'm mama and that he's Tommy but I think he's just on a dada kick. That's what I keep telling myself anyway. :)

Righty or Lefty?

It's still too early to tell obviously but he's definitely a right handed eater and a left handed thrower.

Watch out! That's another habit I'm trying to get him to break. He will stand less than a foot away from you and just peg the ball at your face.

How much does he understand?

We are amazed at how much he understands. My hairbrush was laying on the floor of the bathroom and he picked up and starting brushing his hair. What? When did he pick that up? We better watch ourselves! No more cussing. :-)

But look what he did to his hair! Now where did he pick up how to style it into a mowhawk! Ok I'm kidding. That was me. But look at how LONG his hair has gotten!

He shows us more and more of his personality every day. He LOVES to give hugs and disgustingly sloppy wet open mouth kisses. He also loves to dance whenever he hears music. He will do a squatting dance and a wiggle dance. Videos to come of course.

He still loves throwing balls.

He's quite stylish too. What a stud.

What a silly boy! Always entertaining!

Happy 14 Months, Thomasaurus!

Tommy Likes The 'Sauce

2012-02-11T22:03:00.000-05:00

Look at that face! He certainly knows how to entertain!

YEAH TOAST!

2012-02-09T22:11:00.000-05:00

So he is allergic to soy and there is soy in pretty much every bread in the grocery store (But why?? I don't understand). Andrew combed every label and found a bread with the soy in the "less than 2% of" category. Guess what his favorite new food is??

HE LOVES TOAST! Cut it into pizza slices and top it with almond butter and it's super tasty after school snack!

But watch the sippy! That almond butter sticks to things.

SuperBowl Par-tay!

2012-02-08T21:49:00.000-05:00

Wait, there was a Superbowl? Is that why we had a party? Well anyway, Andrew dressed Tommy that day. He dressed him in red for the Patriots. He was rooting for the Pats because he made a $10 bet with a guy at work. I hope you paid the man, Drewfus. :-) Anyway, a red outfit means bring out those red squeakers!

Once the Superbowl finally started, Tommy was ready to go to bed... still in red. (I said. Are you well-fed? How's your head? Ok I'm done.)

But then he saw my phone.

Look who learned how to take pictures!

He actually took this one of my bro. I'm impressed, Thomas!

The Neals were there. Look how big Harper is getting!

Tommy continued to shoot hoops during the game. He's more of a basketball guy.

Wyatt shot some hoops too!

Harper did not. She's more of a football girl. She kept her eye on the game.

Heehee! Wyatt is having a good time!

Looks like all the kids had a good time. I think every single toy is out of that toy box.

Congrats Indy on a fantastic Superbowl!

New Favorite Game

2012-02-08T20:50:00.000-05:00

Clean up! Clean up! Everybody clean up!

Tommy's favorite new game is to take towels out of the towel drawer and throw them on the floor. His second favorite new game is putting all those towels back in the drawer. It is quite a scene to watch. It would be WAAYYY too long for a video so enjoy this .gif instead.

Go Tommy Go! Wouldn't it be nice if we could convince him to do this with his toys? :-)

FaceTiming Dudes

2012-02-08T20:16:00.000-05:00

Whenever Andrew has to go out of town for work, we try to FaceTime with him if he has WiFi in his hotel. Tommy is starting to understand now that if Dada is not home, he will probably show up on my phone.

It's Dada! Isn't technology amazing?

Anytime my phone rings, he runs to look at it and says Uh oh! or Dada! Now he gets excited. I caught this reaction on video.

Andrew's WiFi was not working very well so it kept cutting off but Tommy's reaction was awesome.

Bath Time is So Much Fun

2012-02-01T21:40:00.000-05:00

Someone realized it's possible to start undressing himself before his bath. Hasn't quite figured out the velcro yet.

Tough Luck

2012-02-01T14:44:00.001-05:00

So after Tommy was in the hospital, I stayed home with him on Tuesday. It was a nice day outside so I decided to take Tommy out for some fresh air. I walked out the back door and turned around to go back in because I wanted to get a different hat for Tommy. I immediately realized I had locked myself out of the house (and I panicked).

Now the first thing most people say when I tell them this story is "Well we usually keep a copy of a key under the mat or something." Well that's nice but it didn't help me at this date and time. But don't worry. It is NOTED.

So I'm locked out on a fairly cold day IN MY PAJAMAS. I haven't had a shower. I didn't have my phone on me. I walked from door to door carrying a bundled up baby trying to find a neighbor that was home. At the third house, I finally found a nice couple that was home. They let me in and let me use their phone. I called Andrew. He was in Bloomington. I told him I would try calling my dad. I called my dad and he was actually just on his way out the door to come down to Lafayette because my mom had made some food for us.

Tommy and I hung out at the neighbor's house for about an hour. They have a 9 year old grandchild so they haven't had to have their house toddler-proofed for quite awhile. Tommy definitely took advantage. He was into EVERYTHING! Right before my dad called, he had pushed over one of their potted plants and it broke, spilling dirt and water all over their wood floor.

Then my dad called. He had easily gotten the lock open with a basic tool without causing any damage, thank goodness! MY FATHER, THE HERO! (Just like Gérard Depardieu except without all the crazy hi-jinks)
Phew, crisis solved.

THEN Thursday after we had taken Tommy to the allergist, I was minding my business on my way to work. I was turning left off of a busy state road when all the sudden my car was flying across the road! I was rear-ended at an angle and my head hit the driver's side window. I pull to a stop and get out and this young woman jumps out of her giant Dodge pickup truck and says, "My parents are going to kill me!" I said, "Huh?" She said, "Do you see that car over there in the ditch?" It was about 30 feet away. She said, "That's my car. I just slid off the road last night and I was coming to check on it." Two wrecks in less than 12 hours! Are you kidding me? I actually felt sorry for the girl who just hit me at that point. I called 911 and the officer that showed up was wonderfully nice and helpful. My car was still drivable luckily so I was still able to drive the rest of the way to work.

My poor, poor 'Nox.

You wouldn't think that was $3500 worth of a damage but it is!

Check out my fly rental! Picture me rollin', eh??

So yeah, bad things usually come in threes. I thought we'd be done! But then Tommy got sick this morning... Read on... (Are we done yet? I think so.)

Tommy's Been Talking to Little Peggy Ann McKay

2012-02-01T14:13:00.001-05:00

So Tommy threw up 3 times this morning from 2 am to 5 am.

Hey Break? The Thornburgs are trying to catch you!!! We're waiting!

Anyway, he went back to sleep at 5 and got up at 8 in a pretty good mood. I had already told work and daycare that neither of us were coming. After 8, he ate some rice chex, bananas, pears and never vomited again. He was the happiest of happy campers. What... the....??

Does this look like a sick child to you?

You have to see the expression on his face in this video. Watch out, Grover!! :)

I'm starting to think he was playing hooky. What's up with that? He just wanted to stay home with Mommy today. :-)

So What's New With Tommy?

2012-01-29T22:27:00.000-05:00

We brought him home from the hospital and had to continue the breathing treatments. He got better and better every day. We decided that even though our doctor said he could go back to daycare on Thursday, we would keep him out the entire week. Andrew and I switched off a few days and Gram Cyndi thankfully took Thursday and Friday.
He was quite the high maintenance kid. He had to take his chalky antibiotic twice a day. He had an eye ointment the doctor wanted us to use once a day. The breathing treatments were every 4 hours. The breathing treatments were REALLY hard on his skin so we had to constantly use lotion and Aquafor on his chapped cheeks. The antibiotic upset his stomach so we had to give him a probiotic. Since he's allergic to milk, he can't have yogurt so we use this stuff called Culturelle in his bottles or applesauce. I think that's it. Phew.

So after all that, we realized he had an appointment with the allergist on Thursday morning. They said after his eventful weekend, we could still bring him in so we did.

Holy crap, did he HATE the scratch tests. But we needed to find out if he was allergic to a few other things for sure. We had him tested for several tree nuts, wheat and soy. We found out that he's not allergic to almonds, pecans, rice and wheat! Yay! But he is allergic to brazil nuts, hazel nuts, and cashews. We were excited that he wasn't allergic to wheat since gluten is in EVERYTHING.

So this weekend he was finally truly back to himself. His eczema is mostly gone because we were able to stop the breathing treatments.

His appetite returned with a vengeance! (Unless it's a growth spurt again!)

Chug it! Chug it!

He is in a good mood all day long, even at bedtime (which is usually when he would have his breakdowns).

He is sleeping much better.

This post brought to you by the letter E.... sort of. :)

He is finally Tommy T again.

Thank Goodness!

Tom-my's back, alright! (Yes, that's a Backstreet Boys reference. I had to.)

We're just so glad he's back to normal. Being sick is the worst. He's going to be so excited to see his friends at daycare tomorrow!

Ladies Who Lunch

2012-01-29T21:12:00.000-05:00

After I was a guest speaker at a local meeting on Saturday morning (yeah, I'm a pretty big deal!), I met my friends for lunch at Christos. It is so nice seeing these girls again on a regular basis! After lunch, the girls went to meet Ashley's new baby, Elizabeth, for the first time. I couldn't go because Tommy is still contagious for 2 weeks. RSV is NOT something you want to bring around a newborn. So I went home and I plan to meet Elizabeth some other time.
But thanks for lunching with me, ladies!! Meet you at Arni's in February! :)

How I Didn't Want to Spend My Weekend: Bronchiolitus Edition

2012-01-22T23:53:00.001-05:00

Let me rephrase. It wasn't a crappy weekend. It was a crappy week.

So let's start on Tuesday. Tommy came home from daycare with a low-grade fever. Not usually anything to worry about but they told us that a girl at daycare had pneumonia. The next day I decided to keep him home because he still had a fever. He also had a horrible cough and would cough so much that he would throw up. I called the doctor and gave the symptoms. They said they would like to see him. The doc told me he probably had bronchiolitus. They gave him a breathing treatment with a nebulizer. I brought him home and was instructed to call them in the morning.
That night it became obvious he wasn't feeling well.

The next morning I called them and updated them with his symptoms. They ordered a nebulizer for him because he was still wheezing.

The winter weather took a turn for the worse. Andrew was out of town but my dad happened to be in town running errands so he offered to get the prescription and the nebulizer so I didn't have to take Tommy out in the 5 degree weather. We continued the breathing treatments. After I stayed home with him on Wednesday and Thursday, Andrew stayed home with him on Friday. He called me at work on Friday saying things were not looking good. He took a video but I can't post it here. I can't watch it. It was so awful to watch him struggle to breathe even during the breathing treatment. Andrew took him back to the doctor and they said he needed to be admitted to the hospital. Those are not words you want to hear.

We got our room and our wonderful nurses set us up with everything we needed.

He was so very sleepy that day. He slept most of the day Friday at the hospital. He was miserable.

My mom took this picture. When she sent it to me, I had no words. I had so many emotions looking at this picture. I had stuffed myself into Tommy's hospital crib trying to calm him down. Andrew and I felt so completely helpless.
Tommy most likely got RSV (or possibly another very similar virus) from daycare and it caused his bronchiolitus. Now RSV usually isn't anything more than a cold in most people. But premature babies, kids with crappy immune systems, and kids around cigarettes often get more serious illnesses (i.e. pneumonia and bronchiolitus). Since Tommy was born two days after his due date and no one around him smokes, I guess we have to assume the subpar immune system might have something to do with it. I feel so helpless since I've done everything in my power to pass on immunities to him with nursing for an extended period and whatever else I could do but I guess you can't win 'em all.

Tommy got to wear this lovely peach colored gown during his stay.

I swear the pants they gave us to go with the gown were for an 8 year old. They were HUGE! We had to roll them from both ends!

During the night on Friday, his oxygen levels got so low that they had to put him on oxygen. When they put those tubes in his nose, we knew we weren't going home on Saturday.

Can I just tell you that he LOVED wearing the nasal cannula? (Where is that sarcasm font again?) No, he did NOT like it. He fought us tooth and nail to keep from wearing it. Plus his eczema was flared up so he would scratch, remember it was there, and then yank it out over and over again.

He wore it like this a lot because he would pull it out of the those holder sticker thingies (that's a medical term). He was still getting some oxygen and he was sleeping so I let it pass.

He was so good at ripping the tubes out of his nose that he at one point had them wrapped around his fingers. He knows how important grip is! :)

Andrew appreciated that the IU Health hospital had a nicer futon than when we were in the hospital to birth Tommy. MUCH more comfortable. (There were a lot of similarities to our first stay in a hospital suite with this one. We checked in on a Friday, there was a nasty snow storm, we were there for 3 days, 2 nights. We didn't sleep. We were a little traumatized. We wanted to get the heck out of there and we were extremely happy to leave. LOTS of similarities!)
I wish you could see the winter wonderland happening out the window. Andrew's blanket covered body definitely matched the blanket of snow on the landscape. Poetic, no? :)

Poor kid. He was so cute even when attached to machines. He would get extremely ticked when he realized his wires and cords would only reach so far. But hey, he was up and moving around on Saturday morning. It was a good sign!

We got him out of those itchy PJs and put on a Purdue sleeper. He played Itsy Bitsy Spider on the iPad with dada. You know, they were concerned about his one pound of weight loss (as was I) but thank goodness he has that gut, huh? Really comes in handy in situations like this. Plus it's super cute. :)

By Saturday night, he was feeling much better. Much less lethargic. Breathing easier. They let us detach him from the machines.

Then it was DUNKING TIME!!! I love this picture. Reach!

So cute. I can't say enough nice things about our nurses. They had this toy room set up down the hall and since Tommy is so contagious, we could only go get a toy or two and keep it in the room. Well our awesome nurse Steffany dragged the hoop down the hall (it was full of sand in the bottom) to our room so he could dunk the basketball. How nice is that??

This picture shows that Tommy is feeling better. Why, you might ask? He began throwing his peaches on my tray. Little stinker. I spot 3 or 4 pieces. He's got good aim!

Like his parents, Tommy wasn't a big fan of the hospital food. But hey, everything else was great so we shouldn't be complaining.

Saturday night was also a rough night. He needed oxygen again after his breathing treatment but not for very long. (It usually would dip after his treatment.) We also found out just how restless of a sleeper he really is. He was all over that crib. Look at his little hands coming out by his feet. Too cute.

On Sunday we were finally released. HOORAY! They asked us if we wanted to carry him or if he might want to ride in a wagon. We chose the wagon.

He LOVED it!

That boy couldn't have been happier about leaving the hospital. He missed his Grovers (yes he has several) and his basketball hoop!

So now we just continue to monitor his improvement. He's on an antibiotic for his ear infection (just add it to the list) and he has to continue the breathing treatments. Other than that, he just has to get better. He can't go back to daycare for another week or so which is fine. We don't want him picking up anything else on the tail end of all this business.
I'm just so glad it's over. It was a rough week.

Snow Snow Snow!!

2012-01-12T23:08:00.000-05:00

We are just now seeing how much having a child makes everything new again. Like snow!

The look on his face was so incredible. He had no idea what it was but he was so excited!

He even did a Michael Flatley Riverdance step (snow makes you want to dance!).

It was about 20 degrees so we only spent about a minute outside but it was enough to capture the look of amazement on his face. The awesome thing is there is so much more to discover. I can't wait!

Tommy and Friends

2012-01-11T21:04:00.001-05:00

His BLUE friends, that is.

Big hug for Super Grover! (Sorry it's out of focus but the kid moves FAST!)

Like Father, Like Son

2012-01-11T21:01:00.000-05:00

Jeez... Think they're related? :-) Wow.

Eating with a Spoon

2012-01-09T22:43:00.000-05:00

Mr. T is starting to use utensils to eat. Boy, is this going to be interesting!

That extended fake whine (Aaaaahhhh!) cracks me up every time! I love it.

New Baby Time!

2012-01-09T22:40:00.000-05:00

A huge congrats goes to my awesome friend Meeghan and her equally awesome husband Raymond who welcomed a new baby boy to their ever expanding family on Saturday.
Meet Rhett Alexander!

Rhett is on the left and his fairly new cousin Tyler is on the right. Meeghan's sister had a baby three months ago. These two boys along with Rhett's older brother, Little Raymond (he's 2 years old), get to grow up together! How awesome is that?

Congrats Meeghan and Raymond! He's a keeper!! ;-)

The First Kid's Meal

2012-01-09T22:30:00.000-05:00

One of our favorite eateries when we lived in Da Bend was Chipotle. Mmmmm organic burritos! Yummy! So we were sad when we moved because the closest Chipotle was in West Lafayette. Not close enough! But then one day we were driving no more than a mile from our house. Lo and behold A BRAND NEW CHIPOTLE! They followed us here.
They thought to themselves, "Hmm a large chunk of our gross profits is missing in the last quarter. Oh no! The Thornburgs moved??? AAH! Quick! Buy the old Krispy Kreme, gut it, and get that restaurant opened STAT!"
They also probably found out we procreated and that there is another whole human being to add to their net income. We're just three human garbage disposals hungry for mexican food flavored with spicy pepper adobo.

So yeah, Tommy was christened with cilantro this weekend. We took him for his first kid's meal. It was very exciting for us to add him to the mighty Chipotle tradition. Tommy ordered a carnitas taco kids meal. Guess what?

He LOVED it! Yum! Flour tortilla! Pork! Lettuce! Rice! Beans! A meal fit for a king! A toddler king, anyway.

They have a nice "Special Diets" Menu on their website too. Only wheat and soy? We can manage that. Nom nom nom nomm!!!

He really didn't leave much behind for a toddler. He just had trouble seeing over the lip of the tray. If those high chairs were a little taller, he might have eaten even more!

Of course we brought Kix for dessert.

First trip of many many maaaaannnnnyyyy more trips to Chipotle. I hope you're excited to join us in the family tradition, Tommy! Yum yum yum yum yummmm.......

Spaghetti is Awesome in So Many Ways

2012-01-09T21:47:00.001-05:00

We gave Tommy his very own plate of spaghetti today. I think it would be an understatement to say that he liked it.

He could not shove it in his mouth fast enough!

No time for forks!! Smush!

He was having so much fun. He was cracking himself up!

That smile and that laugh. I just can't get enough.

Such a silly goose! What is that face??

Ohhh pa-sketti! It's the best!

Yayyy!!

What's this plate for? Throwing?

Putting it on my head? Turning it upside down? (I love how the one piece is almost a perfect circle. He's a spaghetti artist.)

How about putting the plate behind my back?

Drink Break!

Wait, do I have something on my head?

Oh Tommy T. We had so much fun eating spaghetti tonight.

So what do you think, Thomasaurus? Would you like to eat spaghetti again???

Blackhawks vs. Red Wings

2012-01-08T22:55:00.001-05:00

For Andrew's Christmas present, I got him tickets to a Blackhawks game in Chicago versus the Red Wings. If you know nothing about the NHL, you need to know that these two teams are arch rivals.
Here's some Wiki info:

The rivalry between the Chicago Blackhawks and the Detroit Red Wings is the most intense rivalry in the Central Division.^[17] It has existed since 1926–27 and continued from the Original Six days into the present. These two clubs have faced each other in more regular season games than any other two clubs in NHL history, except for the total number of regular season and playoff matches between the Bruins and Canadiens.

I doubt that most NHL fans would get their info from Wikipedia but you have to remember who's writing this.

So the Friday after Christmas we drove up to "The Miami of Canada" (Ha! I Love Wikipedia!) to attend our first NHL game. We were soooo excited.

We had awesome seats for being in the upper level. We were in the front row and right by the Don Julio bar. Very very cool! We even arrived an hour early just so we could check everything out.

So you can see our view from our seats but I just wanted to remind you how awesome the lens on my camera is. That's the goalie! Now that's a ZOOM!

Hey it's Patrick Kane!

Now I would like to know how you get to be a Zamboni kid? Owning a jersey is obviously a requirement.

A special message before the game is to watch for flying pucks. Guess who sponsored it? A dentist who does Dental Implants! Genius.

The United Center is quite an arena. They really know how to pump you up during the starting line up.

It was like watching a movie on the jumbotron. Jeez!

Blackhawks + Red Wings = Boat loads of red jerseys

I said Toews was cute once and Andrew continued to refer to him the rest of the night as "That guy you find attractive". :-)

Star Spangled Banner Time!

This place is full of traditions. The Blackhawks have a National Anthem tradition where the crowd cheers, screams and claps during the ENTIRE singing of the National Anthem. The permanent singer is Jim Cornelison and I've linked his name to a great interview with him. They also bring out members of the USO to stand with him on the ice while he sings. It's really an intense experience. We've seen it on TV so many times but nothing matches being there in person.

Just like any professional sports team, there are partially dressed girls involved. We weren't really sure what they were doing. They had shovels. I was wearing my winter coat INSIDE so I'm sure they had to be freezing.

Within the first few minutes of the game, we got to see a fight. Awesome! Throw down those gloves and sticks! It's fightin' time!

They were shoving each other into the glass. It was crazy!

The refs broke it up eventually. Boo! :)

GOAL!!! The first time they scored they played Chelsea Dagger by the Fratellis. I didn't get a video of it myself but I did find someone else's. They were sitting at the very top of the United Center. Wow. That's high up there.

Don't think we didn't get out of there without buying something! I tried to convince Andrew to buy a styrofoam cowboy hat.

He went with something much more appropriate and wearable. Excellent choice, my man!

We also picked up something for Tommy. A slightly cushy hockey stick, puck, and his favorite, a BALL!

Awww, look at the happy couple enjoying their first NHL experience. (I didn't have any Blackhawks attire so I stole the hat I got Andrew for Christmas.)

We ate a dinner of champions at the game. Hot dogs and beer!

While we were eating, I noticed that they have one of the TV's above the concession stand turned to the CW network. I guess they've got something for everyone.

We went to the United Center bar after the game and drank more beer. We had a super fun time just the two of us. We know it's important to take time for ourselves now that we're parents but we did miss Tommy a lot.

He really enjoyed the gift we brought him. Future hockey player in the making! :-)

Oh and one last note... Guess what the mascot's name is?

Awesome!

We once again interrupt this blog...

2012-01-03T23:18:00.000-05:00

To bring you some Ron Swanson.

Parks and Rec is one of my favorite shows. If you aren't watching it, you should be!

GROWING!

2012-01-03T23:03:00.000-05:00

Tommy has been putting it back lately. We think he may be going through a growth spurt. We'll see what you think.

He's been sleeping more lately. He's also been eating everything in sight!

He can't be satiated!

This sounds like a lot of food to me. What do you think? Tonight he ate a cup of applesauce, Kix cereal, a serving of turkey and a sippy cup of water. But that's not all...

Then an hour or so later he had some milk, ate a small bowl of broccoli and a cup of mandarin oranges! Oh and more Kix! That kid LOVES Kix! And plain broccoli? Barf! But he loves it!

He loves it so much that he screams for more!

Mmmm broccoli!

So we also think he has grown lately too. It's really hard to tell but we've noticed his dunking skills have improved. This picture was taken on Christmas day. He really had to reach for the basket!

This was taken today around a week and a half later. Holy Godzilla! MONSTER SLAM! TOMAHAWK JAM! I think the boy grew a foot taller! (Morganism).

Balls and Books. The kid loves them. Why not try to put them together? I have a feeling that won't be the last odd thing he tries to put in that hoop. Or a toilet. Better protect my iPhone. :-/

Christmas Visitors

2012-01-03T22:36:00.001-05:00

Not only did Santa stop by our house for Christmas but we were also blessed to be visited by some friends too.

On the Friday before Christmas, my friend Krissi and her boyfriend Joe stopped by to meet Tommy for the first time.

They stopped by on their way from Birmingham. They hailed from Alabama and they were fixing to get to West Lafayette. Sorry, I had to. ;-)

Then on Monday after Christmas our friends the Glovers stopped by with their son Jack. You might remember them from these posts.

Tommy immediately got SUPER excited to see him. He grabbed him right away and put his hands all over his face.

Tommy wanted hugs!! Jack was like "Um mom, what is this guy's deal??"

Then Tommy accidentally knocked Jack down and he his head hit the floor. It didn't phase Jack whatsoever (he's a tough guy) but it must have scared Tommy because he burst into tears. He didn't want his new friend to be hurt! So empathetic! :)

So then he hugged Jack AGAIN. "So sorry bro!"

Then it was play time!
We're just two towheads and we're having a good time!

Jack also brought along a gift for Tommy for his birthday. A drum with lots of other musical instruments inside!! I'm not sure who enjoyed it more, Tommy or Dada!

It was fantastic to see you guys! Thanks so much for stopping by!

The Many Outfits of Christmas Time

2012-01-03T22:16:00.000-05:00

Tommy had several pairs of Christmas pajamas. I tried to remember to take a picture of them all but I did not succeed.

Christmas booty!

Adorable sleeper. Yeah, once I discovered I could take pictures of Tommy while he slept, there will be no end to the pictures I will take of him sleeping. :)

All sprawled out

Here's a new outfit that Tommy got from Janie for Christmas. Aww! Go Boilers!

He's number one!

Purdue warm up pants + Moose Sweater + plaid hat = Tommy L. Jackson.

Over the river and through the woods to Grandma's house he drives!

The boy is classy kid. He wears fancy hats while he reads.

Finally here's a picture of Tommy's awesome BIRTHDAY SUIT!!

Awwww mom!

O Christmas Tree

2012-01-03T21:52:00.000-05:00

Our Christmas Tree was beautiful. Until...

Tommy realized that all the ornaments look like BALLS! He would try to grab and throw any glass ornament he could get his hands on. So we removed all the ornaments from the bottom 3 feet of the tree.

It looks like we ran out of ornaments as we got to the bottom of the tree!! Oh Christmas memories! ;-)

Tommy's Second Christmas

2012-01-03T21:47:00.000-05:00

Tommy put the 'new' in newborn for Christmas last year so this year was a little bit more exciting. We gave him his present on Christmas Eve. We had wrapped it but we decided to go ahead, open it up and put it together while he was napping.

He came down from his nap to find his awesome new basketball hoop!

Tommy's favorite word is BALL so he was pretty excited. I'm not sure if this is a jump shot or a squat poop.

He loved his new gift. He shot it from all angles! He used every ball he had too which is seriously like 30 different balls (only a slight Morganism).

Dunk it!!

Don't eat the ball!

Then Tommy opened his other presents. He was pretty excited. After opening gift after gift after gift in the month of December, he certainly was getting the hang of it.

After we opened gifts, we went to Outback for our traditional Christmas Eve dinner. Tommy is giving a noisy little boy behind him the stink eye. :-)

But then Tommy became the noisy little boy since dinner took longer than he liked so Andrew walked him around the restaurant. If you look close, you can see Tommy reaching for the TV.

When we came back, Tommy ate Christmas sugar cookies. Special Christmas sugar cookies with no milk or eggs! Or as I like to call them, Gross Cookies. :-) No eggs, fake milk and soy butter makes for rock hard ucky cookies.

This picture of my half eaten (yes I ate quite a few of them) rock hard cookies makes me think of those Pinterest Fail pictures I've seen. Nailed it! Here's another favorite.

I wish I would have taken a picture of my cookies as I had them originally displayed. I had a candy cane (which Tommy is looking at in disgust in the first picture), a snowman and a few stars. They looked nice. They tasted like corkboard.

The next day we went to Christmas at my parents house. Tommy's favorite chair! A lot has changed in 7 months huh?

He mostly grew a bunch of hair!!

We had LOTS of fun. We sang karaoke! My favorite song to sing was Friday by Rebecca Black.

I didn't take many pictures on Christmas day because my mom was taking pictures. So I may borrow some from her and post more.

Until then, Tommy's second Christmas was a great success. Merry Christmas, Tommy!

Purdue Game at Conseco

2012-01-02T18:22:00.002-05:00

On December 17th, Andrew and I went to the Crossroads Classic at Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. We were super lucky that our friends the Gradles offered us these awesome tickets. You might remember the Gradles from here. Thanks again for the terrific tickets! You guys are the best!

Our seats were amazing!! Actually they weren't quite that good. We sat two rows in front of where we were supposed to sit on accident and got kicked out by the correct ticket holders. Whoops.

This is where we actually sat. Still amazing!

We try to go to the Purdue game at Conseco every year but we usually sit near the top in the nose bleeds. This was quite a treat.

We were sitting so close to the floor that we were actually on TV! We were watching the game and all the sudden our phones started going off. "Hey I just saw you guys on CBS!" People texted us and sent us these pictures.

The kids behind us were the main focus on TV at that moment. They were dancing and we were just in the scene. When this picture got posted on Facebook, we were tagged and the kids' parents were also tagged so we found out that the kids behind us were actually the sons of one of Andrew's fraternity brothers. Small world huh?

On the way home, we actually ended up following the team home. We were all hanging our heads from the loss. :( Better luck next time guys! Keep your heads up!

One last note from the day... The Crossroads Classic was called the Close the Gap Crossroads Classic. Because we were having a hard time trying to figure out what exactly they were, I'll just let their twitter feed try to explain what we heard OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN that day: YourHeartHealth Black, Latino, Indian Americans, Alaskan Natives & Asian/Pacific Islanders die at earlier ages from #heartdisease.

So at every possible chance, there was an advertisement at the game telling us really grim facts about heart disease that made you look at the hot dog you were eating and feel pretty stupid. Andrew said, "I didn't realize this game was sponsored by DEATH." I guess their advertising was pretty effective. :)

Time to Chill

2011-12-21T20:59:00.000-05:00

Sometimes after a long day of daycare, Tommy likes to relax in his chair.

I've seen Andrew do the same thing with more of an adult beverage in hand.

Pears are Delicious!

2011-12-15T23:06:00.000-05:00

We interrupt this blog about Tommy...

2011-12-15T22:48:00.000-05:00

To bring you MORE TOMMY.

Tommy LOVES baths so much that he tries to climb into the tub himself. He just can't wait!

Ok fine, if you won't let me get in the tub, I'm outta here!

Tommy's Grover Party!! Part Three

2011-12-15T22:40:00.001-05:00

So we've covered the decorations, food, cupcakes, allergy free cooking and desserts, infectious diseases... but we HAVEN'T covered the FUN of the party.

We set up a couple tables in our dining room for chowing down on tacos. Hi Maria, Mandy and Aunt Erin!

My cousin Christina on the far left and her future husband Josh on the far right were able to come up from Carmel. Uncle Adam and Great Aunt Debbie are in the middle. Everyone is enjoying the Mexican feast! :-)

My friend Lindsey and her daughter Elise came. Elise hung out in Tommy's high chair while Tommy was napping for the first HOUR of his party. Way to be fashionably late, Tommy T!

Travis, Drew, Aunt Cait, Gram and Pop all hanging out in the kitchen.

Susan, Nora and Wyatt played with toys.

Drew and Meredith had to leave early so we went ahead and opened their gift. He got the cutest little sweaters and a pair of jeans.

He looks like he loves them! Kids love clothes, right?? :) I know PARENTS love clothes! They're my favorite!

He found the chair we got him nestled away with all the gifts. Yay! Something to climb on!

Aww, Tommy and Uncle Adam!

Isabel loved the cupcakes!

So did Max!!

In fact he made such a blue mess, Ashley had to clean him up.

Lots of kids and lots of toys... it's playtime!

Lindsey and Elise enjoy the show.

Tommy with his squeaking red tennies (Thanks Aunt Meeghan!) plays along while his drooling begins. It's not too bad at this point.

"Hey Mom! Can we open presents now??"

It was finally time to open gifts. Do you think Tommy is surrounded by enough gifts?? It's like a gift fort! I actually had to dig through the gifts to get to him.

It is WAY more fun to bang on the gift boxes than it is to actually open them.

It's also more fun to wave the gift boxes too!

You have to pay attention when opening gifts. If you're not careful, you'll end up opening the same sweaters you opened earlier! Whoops.

Tommy got LOTS of cool stuff. He got a super Grover!

He got several riding toys. He got a bouncy cow.

Hello Mr. Bouncy Cow!

He got a Wheelie Bull. Interesting that the kid who is allergic to milk got a cow and bull. :)

He also got CAT Rider truck. Look at his shirt now. His drool spot grew a bit, ya think?

All cooled off in a Grover short-sleeve, he got back on that truck! BEEP BEEP!

Time for a reading break in the Thomas chair!

Hey who's been eating the Oreo mouths off the cupcakes? As it turns out, it was Grandpa and Pop! They were both eating the Grover mouths!! I should've bought more Oreos!

There were a lot of people and a lot of gifts to open. Everyone crowded in the living to watch.

We were really crowded in there.

They were sitting everywhere! Tommy is a popular guy!!

Once the party was over and things settled down, we had some family time.

I think picture is cool. Tommy loved going UP with Grandpa especially when he could see himself!

Tommy's Thornburg Picture with Aunt Cait, Aunt Erin and Dada.
So Tommy, are you one or six?? ;-)

Happy First Birthday Tommy! Hope you had a wonderful time!! We had so much fun at your birthday party. Here's to many many more!!

Tommy's Grover Party!! Part Two

2011-12-13T22:45:00.001-05:00

Let's get back to Tommy's party. Before we do that, we need to talk about what lead up to the party. On Friday morning, I took Tommy to daycare. He had a little bit of a rash on his face. It wasn't terrible but it was spreading. I got a call from Tommy's daycare. They said they were concerned because the rash had spread to his diaper area and his legs. I said, OH CRAP and called the doctor. They said that they should probably see him and just in case he was contagious, bring him in the back door. The doctor checked him over and said, "I don't see any signs of infection. I think it's just an allergic reaction." We said, "Are you sure? He has never had a crazy rash like this spread to his diaper area." I mean, come on, we are the Rash Experts, remember? "Also, we're having a huge birthday party on Saturday with lots of little kids." He said the same thing again so we believed him and went on with the party plans.

Friday night he slept pretty well but when he woke up, he looked a little worse than this...

We were not very pleased. His rash wasn't getting any better. Plus it was his first birthday. Waaaahhh! :( His diaper area and legs looked wayyyy worse. Poor kid. :( So we racked our brains trying to figure out what he had to eat. We came up with the margarine that I had put in the first recipe of the cupcakes I had made in preparation for his birthday. (It didn't make sense that margarine would affect him so badly but we went with it.)

So let's talk about allergy-free baking for a second.

I searched and googled and yahooed my way through truckloads of recipes trying to find one that sounded decent for a birthday cake (you gotta have CAKE). I finally settled on two. One recipe uses vinegar to make the batter rise and the other uses cornstarch, sugar and milk (or a milk substitute).

So I tried the first recipe with vinegar. It was the one that everyone told me to try and it's all over the Allergy Free Network website. It is a Depression era recipe which uses no milk or eggs due to the rationing at the time.

I found the second recipe on a girl's blog (blogs are the BEST). It was an eggless yellow cake. I substituted almond milk for regular milk.

Question: At this point in the story which one do you think tasted better?? :-)

So in this picture the corn starch recipe is on the left and the vinegar recipes is on the right. I made six of each. Each recipe calls for a stick of butter. That's a lot of butter in 6 cupcakes. I used margarine but there's still milk in margarine. Sorry for that, Tommy. I was still learning. Also, I incorrectly thought that I had cocoa powder for the Wacky Cake. Whoops. So I added extra vanilla extract to try to make it sweeter. Just a small mistake. :-)

Even the batter looks different (cornstarch bottom, vinegar top).

I popped them in the oven.

They began to rise. Cornstarch was rising a little better than the vinegar.

Hey, did you fill those cupcakes a little full??? Just a LITTLE.

Not too shabby!

I was going to make my own icing until I found that Wilton's chocolate frosting had no milk, eggs or peanuts in it. SWEET! But, um, what the heck is in it if there's no milk? Yikes.

Mmm, warm cupcakes!

Andrew and I tried both recipes with the frosting. The cornstarch cake was like a super sweet corn cake. It was pretty tasty! The Wacky Cake tasted like Play Doh. It apparently really needed that cocoa in it. BLARGH.

So the yellow cake it was! Tommy gave it a try sans icing and ATE IT UP. He LOVED it! He couldn't shove it down his gullet fast enough!

Mmm mmm good!

So the day of his party, we chose the yellow golden eggless cake. But Tommy needed to eat his lunch first. (You may or may not notice that I removed all the rash I could from each photo.)

Peaches?? WHERE'S THE CAKE?? :-)

There it is!

He needed a little help blowing out the candles. He thought about it though. :)

Then it was time to DIG IN!

YUM! First time having frosting! Especially CHOCOLATE! MMMM!!

He didn't go full force with the mess on his face. I was surprised.

He did make a mess out of his high chair though. The cake was pretty crumbly so that was easy to do.

Time to stop for a drink.

Then back to it!

Maybe I should try smashing it?

What do I need this plate for anyway??

So let's take a step back and talk about the rash again. We thought it was just an allergic reaction right?? We took Tommy in for his 12 month appointment the Monday after his party and our doctor told us that it was Hand Foot and Mouth Disease. Double Awesome!! The doctor also said he was probably most contagious Friday and Saturday at the party. So Tommy probably infected everyone that was there. Awesome times ten! So I contacted everyone with kids at the party and apologized profusely. I think the saying is s**t happens. Well it definitely does. But it's a fast moving disease and the doctor okayed Tommy to go back to daycare on Monday. He's scabbing up and healing pretty fast, thank goodness. Poor poor kid.

Did I mention he had 3 shots on Monday for his 12 month appointment? Now we think he's sprouting some more teeth. Once again, he WILL catch a break... very soon. Say it with me now... very soon.

Oh and don't worry. There are still tons more pictures from the party. Continue to stay tuned...

Tommy's Grover Party!! Part One

2011-12-12T20:56:00.000-05:00

As you know, Tommy loves Grover. So we threw him a Grover Birthday Party.

Now everyone knows who Elmo is. But not as many people know who Grover is. If you google Grover Party Decorations, you will see that I can get a banner and a stuffed doll. That's about it. Such a bummer. But never fear! SUPER GROVER IS HERE! Actually Super Mom just decided to make her own dang decorations. It's not hard to cut out Grover faces out of construction paper. I even did it free hand. I just worked on it a little each night while we watched tv.

So here are the big Grover heads.

And here are the little ones.

I also had a super special shirt made for Tommy to wear to his Grover party. Oh Etsy, how I love thee! If you're interested, this shop owner was wonderful to work with, did an awesome job and makes other characters. You might have to check her out.

So on the day of the party, we hung up all the Grover stuff and VIOLA! A Grover Party! It's really just that simple! :) HA!

We have an ugly hanging light in our kitchen that we covered with Grovers. We also hung pictures by red and blue yarn in the windows.

Everything was red and blue. We had red and blue balloons. Grovers were hanging from everywhere.

There were even Grovers in the guest bathroom. Friend and fellow blogger Ashley said, "Did you seriously tie yarn around the toilet paper rolls?" I said, "Seriously." I had a lot of yarn! I had to try to use it somehow! :)

We had red and blue M&Ms (which are ridiculously expensive, WHY?). Red and blue treat bags.

I found a red and blue 1st birthday hat that Grover wore most of the time.

We even had Grover cupcakes! I used French Vanilla jelly beans for the eyes with a dot of black frosting, pink sixlets for the nose, and Christmas oreos for the mouth.
They were a big (ridiculously messy) hit!

I hung his monthly milestone pictures in the window with yarn.

Since there were several games on that day that guests wanted to watch, I also hung Sports themed pictures over the tv.

Look at our handsome little man in his Grover T-shirt. Could he be any cuter?

Stayed tuned for more details on the party! Part Two to follow soon.

Tommy Turns One: One Crazy Year

2011-12-12T20:18:00.000-05:00

Thomas Michael, you are a year old. Holy mostaccioli. Where did the time go?

Here's my first photo shoot of you the day we were leaving the hospital. We were waiting to get the OK to leave since a huge snow storm was brewing. I snapped this picture before we left while you were laying on the hospital bed.

This was you near Christmas time. You were the most gorgeous newborn. Just look at you! Perfect little features, super long hands and feet. So alert and just taking it all in.

You grew very quickly. The time went so fast. I probably took about a thousand pictures of you before I went back to work. That's probably not a Morganism.

You had so many sleepers. That's all you wore for the first 6 months I think. So comfy and warm!

Then the smiles started. Oh dear, watch out folks. We have ourselves a charmer right here.

You had the best onesies, sleepers, outfits... just the best clothes. Where did all our awesome family and friends find these great things? I didn't think boys had cute clothes. Turns out, they have LOTS available for boys now.

Boy, you had absolutely no hair. My little cue ball. :)

Photo shoots became a regular occurrence. Especially with hats. I LOVE that puppy knit hat. I also love that it still fits on your noggin.

You have quite the little belly and it sticks with you. People can't resist touching it like the Pillsbury Dough Boy. Woo hoo!

This was the last of the photo shoots at our South Bend house. We came back on the weekends but it was such a crazy time that we didn't have time for our photo shoots on the black leather couch anymore.

This was about the time that we thought you had conquered your ever present eczema. We started the steroid. It was clearing up nicely. Ahhh, nice to have that over and done with.

But it didn't go away. It didn't make you any less cute though! Nothing a little photoshop can't fix!

Then all the sudden, hair started appearing. Just a little at a time but there was definitely hair growing in. We couldn't decide for the longest time what color it was going to be. It looked like a different color at any given time.

You really grew up fast once we got through the worst of the eczema. All the sudden, it was like a total awakening. You started rolling over. You started sitting up. You started rocking, then crawling, then pulling yourself up. It was amazing how fast you developed.

Then we finally sold our South Bend house and bought a house in Lafayette. By that time, you were WALKING. It was amazing. You would take a couple of steps here and there. All the sudden you were RUNNING!

And CLIMBING! You were (and still are) FEARLESS! Hey mom, how about you let me stand on this rocking chair? That's not dangerous, is it?

Around this time, when your eczema still wasn't quite going away, we had you allergy tested. As it turns out, you are allergic to everything and that was the cause of your skin rashes (oh and the vomiting, don't forget the vomiting). You got to celebrate your first Thanksgiving with real turkey though! You were a solid food eating champ. You LOVE turkey. Your allergy-free diet isn't too taxing for you. Meats, fruits, vegetables... You're not complaining!

At your new daycare, they had a Christmas program. What? Are you big enough to be in a Christmas program?? Well as it turns out, you are! You did great! You jingled those bells so hard you dropped them. You weren't afraid of the spotlight in the least! In fact, you waved to all the parents who were waving at their kids. But because you're so dang cute and charming, they waved at you too!

Now as your first birthday has come and gone, it's amazing to see you where you are today. You're incredibly smart. You love to talk and already have several words under your belt. You are running, pointing, laughing, playing and just an all around fun kid. You can rock in your rocking chair. You can dance while sitting if you hear music. You LOVE books. You can SAY book. You are AWESOME.

So here's to you, my awesome little man. Here's to a year of screaming, crying, vomiting, scratching, itching, changing daycares four times, moving out of the old and into the new house, teething, smiling, giggling, laughing, loving, hugging, talking, singing, crawling, walking, running... most amazing year of our lives yet.

Happy Birthday Tommy! The best is yet to come!

Tommy's First Haircut

2011-12-11T22:13:00.000-05:00

Let's just start with... Tommy NEEDED a haircut. Seriously. His hair was all over the place. Just above his ears was the worst. The rest of his hair wasn't bad. But that hair above the years made him look like he was trying to impersonate Krusty the Clown. So before his big boy birthday party, we had Steph cut his hair.

Steph is my brother's girlfriend and she owns the Hairman on campus. If you haven't liked The Hairman on Facebook, you really need to do that ASAP.

On to the Haircut...

So Steph has cut many kiddos hair 'round these parts before. She was fully prepared.

Tommy, however, was not.

We tried having him hold toys but that wasn't working. So she just tried to use the Be As Quick As Possible route.

How nice are those drool and snot spots on my sleeve?? Awesome.

He's not a big fan of people touching his hair apparently.

There, all done!

Look at that BIG BOY!!!

Thanks so much, Steph! He looks fantastic!

Jack Turns Two!

2011-12-11T21:44:00.000-05:00

Jack turned two last weekend and we were invited to his Super Awesome Pool Party! The party was in Plainfield at this place called Splash Island. It was sooo cool! It is owned by Plainfield Parks and Rec. It's basically a HUGE rec center. It has a huge gymnasium and a running track above it. It has an indoor AND outdoor water park. It's quite a facility. I would love to have something like that in my city.

So now that I also have a child with a winter birthday, I appreciated the pool party idea. I wasn't too excited about getting in a swimsuit at this time of year but it was worth it for the kiddos.

Tommy wasn't quite sure what to think of this pool experience.

He warmed up to it pretty quick. What a cutie!

Did I mention they had a lazy river? This place had EVERYTHING.

Including a basketball hoop. Tommy saw this from a mile away. He was pointing and yelling "BALL BALL!" (which is his way of saying, Hey Mom and Dad, I would like to point out that there is a basketball hoop and basketball right over there and I would like you to take me there so that I may play with it. RIGHT NOW.)

He literally had a BALL. He loved it. He picked up on the whole basketball goes in the hoop game immediately.

He also picked up on the slam-dunk-one-arm-hang very quickly.

He really had a wonderful time. He didn't get any pool time this summer since we were busy moving and being temporarily displaced. But he made up for it at this party.

See what I mean?

He didn't want to let go!

This picture cracks me up. He got a little ahead of himself with grabbing on the rim and the ball came back and smushed him in the face. Whoops! Don't worry, he was too busy to be upset.

Tommy's friend Emily (you may remember her from this party) decided she wanted to play too.

She didn't want to let go either!

Here's birthday boy Jack!! This guy knows how to have a good time!!

We had a little room off to the side to eat food and cake.

Look at all that red icing!!

Um, why so serious???

Look at this kid! Hilarious! He's going for that Phantom of the Opera look I think.

We had an awesome time. Happiest of birthdays, Jack!!

Polar Express Day

2011-12-02T23:06:00.000-05:00

The day after the Christmas show, Tommy's daycare had a fun relaxing movie day since they knew a lot of the kids would be up past their bedtimes that night. They asked that all the kids wear their pajamas. They were going to take a trip on the Polar Express! I thought it was a really neat idea.

The Polar Express is one of my favorite books. I can't wait until Tommy can experience the magic of this time of year.

The whole day was Polar Express themed. They had Polar Express coloring pages. He didn't really follow the directions. You were supposed to color the boy, not the conductor! Tommy makes his own rules.

They also had tickets to get on the train! Love it!

They told us they were going to try to watch the movie at some point during the day but they knew the babies class wouldn't last very long. The only time Tommy has ever paid attention to the TV is when the Muppets showed up on ESPN one morning. There are no Muppets in the Polar Express.

Here's Tommy T playing in his Monster PJs when Andrew came to pick him up. Wow, Tommy. I think we need to work on picking up after yourself. Look at that mess!

Looks like he had a super fun day!

Tommy's First Christmas Show

2011-12-01T23:17:00.001-05:00

Tonight was Tommy's first Christmas show. I didn't think we would be attending a Christmas show for him for many years. But his daycare puts on a cute little Christmas show for 1-5 year olds that go to the daycare. It ended up being a pretty huge event. There are tons of kids that go to this school. We had no idea! It was a BIG show.

We couldn't believe how many people were there!

Each class sang several Christmas songs. There were prayers and scripture readings. It was a nice little event to kick off the Christmas season. It was 30 minutes but for your viewing entertainment, I was able to cut it down to about 2 minutes. Now you get to see Tommy's Christmas show too!

Make sure you pay attention at around 1:16. That kid loves to wave!
And eat jingle bells. :-)

This was Tommy's attitude about going to the Christmas show instead of staying home to play with his toys.

He was pretty darn crabby but luckily he did really well during the Christmas show. Phew. We were worried.

Doesn't he look nice in his Christmas attire?

After the show, we went back to his classroom and played for a little bit.

He loved showing off his toys.

Awww, big hugs for dada.

Look at how happy he is! It must have been the stress of performing! They did practice ringing those jingle bells for two whole days!

The Christmas Programs were super fun to throw around.

When we got back home, he did a little rocking and posing in his rocking chair.

He's such a good rocker!

Merry Early Christmas from Tommy!

Updates...

2011-11-30T23:30:00.003-05:00

Andrew said I couldn't leave you all hanging so here's an update.

We saw the allergist today. He basically said for about a month we need to be super strict with making sure he gets absolutely no dairy, eggs or peanuts. The wheat and soy we can work with a little since it's lower on the spectrum. If we didn't have that little leeway we would have given up grocery shopping tonight. It was rough. Before we went to the grocery store, we threw away all the foods we couldn't eat anymore (if Tommy can't eat it, none of us will. It's a family Wolf Pack!) So this is what our pantry looked like after we did that.

Let's see... Pretzels and baby food. That's all we have left. Turns out, you should really read the labels on your food. I had no idea how many things have peanuts, milk products and eggs.
And everything else has wheat and soy!! You gotta be kidding me!!

So then we made our way to the grocery store. Cool hand Tommy wanted to look cool riding in the cart.

Sorry it's a little blurry.

He cracked us up when he took them off. You could just see his face reacting when his eyes adjusted to the light. It was like he was on drugs! "Whoa, man! Groovy!" Haha!!

So we shopped till we dropped. It took a lot of reading but we bought food for us to eat.

Our allergist said that 90% grow out of their milk and egg allergies by age 6 or so. He said kids rarely grow out of the peanut allergy though. He's seen about 5 out of maybe 200.

But hey, Tommy's one of a kind. I can definitely imagine him doing such a thing so we'll just hope for the best.

He also had us start giving Tommy a small amount of Zyrtec twice a day. He said that he had read about studies in Europe that the children were given medications like Zyrtec for extended periods of time and it ended up decreasing the their chance of getting asthma. Something like that. So it's worth a try I guess. If it helps with the eczema and allergies, we will be super excited.

Tommy took the tiny dose and this is how he was sleeping when I checked on him a couple hours later.

That boy was tired!!

After a month on the Zyrtec we can reevaluate a little.

It's going to be an interesting month. Wish us luck!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

The Results are in... Dog Dander, Milk, Eggs, Peanuts, Soy, Wheat

2011-11-29T21:46:00.001-05:00

So what do the above items have in common? They are all things that came back positive on Tommy's allergy test.

Oh boy. But it does explain a whole heck of a lot. It explains the scary vomiting episodes, the over abundance of mucous/constant colds, and that wretched awful eczema. It's very nice to finally have some answers. There are definitely worse things in the world. We are lucky that it's only food allergies and that he will hopefully grow out of them soon. It will be difficult to deal with at first but we will figure it out. Turns out, there are lots of people who have kids with these same allergies. I have lots of people I can contact, commiserate with, get recipes from, etc etc. Talking to them is very encouraging.

Tomorrow we have a doctor's appointment with an allergist so we will learn more. What we know now is that egg whites and milk are the highest intensity. Then dog dander and and peanuts are on the same harshness class. Then soy and wheat are lower but still considered moderate to high class levels. Yikes.

So I guess it's a plus that I'm still nursing him because after cow's milk and soy milk, we're not really sure what to feed the poor boy to make sure he gets all the nutrients he needs. That's why we're seeing an allergist.

But that also means that I have to change my diet too. It's possible I may be going on that super fad Caveman diet until Tommy weans. Meat, fruits and veggies and that's about it. Hoo doggie. That's brutal. No cheese, no breads, no pre-packaged foods, no candy???? I doubt I will do that. I will resort to making my own damn bread out of alternative flour and crap before I give that up.

So stay tuned for more allergenic updates after tomorrow. I'm sure we'll have plenty.

For now, enjoy some pictures of a fairly rash-free Tommy. Here he is in all his glory, free from the photoshop attacking I usually have to do to the rash on his face.

He's SO HAPPY at the doctor's office!!!

Taking most of the dairy out of my diet has really really helped. But he broke out on his back on Friday night after I ate eggs at Cracker Barrel for breakfast that day.

Now we know!

Thanksgiving Numero Deux

2011-11-27T19:17:00.000-05:00

On Saturday, we had my side of the family over for Thanksgiving. I didn't take as many pictures this time.

Tommy enjoyed his time with my side of the family too.

I have some random photos from that day that I took after dinner. Notice he dressed up in his Thanksgiving best again. :-)

This picture cracks me up. He's giving kisses!! Wet slobbery face smacks. :)

Flash problems! I think someone else was taking a picture at the same time.

We played a couple different games that night. We played the game of Things, I think it's called. We laughed a lot. One category our responses were big boobs, big butts, big trees, and Facebook. You probably had to be there. We thought it was funny.

Tommy sat patiently with his Kix and enjoyed the company. He laughed and screamed a lot too.

We used the Mustache Me app on my niece.

Looking good, Isabel!

Beardy McFacial Hair

We also played Fish Bowl. You each write four names on a piece of paper and then you have 3 rounds to guess the names. The first round you can say anything but sounds like or rhymes with. The second round you can only say one word per clue. The third round you act out the names. It is a LOT of fun. We were laughing so hard by the end of it.

We also used the Zombie Booth app on ourselves that we learned about from Andrew's uncle Andy. Man that thing is cool. Check out our results.

Zombie Andrew!

Zombie Pumpkin-style Andrew!!

Zombie Morgdorg! Scary!!

Zombie Mummy-style Tommy. Luckily it doesn't even look like him so it won't give us nightmares, hopefully.

Zombie Dad!

This app is so cool. The zombie is ALIVE in the app. It will eat your finger if you touch the screen. That's where the blood came from in Andrew's pumpkin zombie picture. Very very cool. You better try it.

Oh yeah, what was this post about again?? Family, giving thanks and togetherness? AND ZOMBIES???

Anyway, Thanksgiving #2 was also a huge success. We had a wonderful time. The food was amazing yet again.

Happy Thanksgiving once again!!

Thanksgiving Numero Uno

2011-11-27T18:18:00.000-05:00

Tommy had his first Thanksgiving celebration on Thursday. We had visitors from Chicago, Syracuse (IN), and Columbus (OH). Andrew's uncle from Columbus brought Tommy a hockey jersey from the Columbus Blue Jackets hockey team.

It's a little big still but he's only going to get bigger!

Tommy wore his Thanksgiving best for the occasion.

Look at him go!!

Of course he drooled right dow the front of it as soon as he put it on.

Tommy had a great time playing with his family.

He loved his cousin, (second cousin? 1st cousin once removed? I don't know) David. I promise he did, even though he looks like he's choking him here.

He also gave him lots of high fives.

I snapped a picture of the kitchen right before Thanksgiving dinner was served. We have something like 50 feet of countertop and we still don't have enough room. :)

Tommy enjoyed his first taste of real (not pureed) Thanksgiving turkey.

He also ate some Thanksgiving bananas... because that's such a thing when you have an almost one year old.

Uh oh! That tryptophan must be kicking in!

Tommy got to open a Christmas and birthday gift while we gave thanks.

He got a book, a puzzle and a super cute outfit plus some hand-me-downs worn by his cousin David.

Did I mention that he loved his cuz?? :-)

Aww, dada and Tommy giving thanks for so many things.

Like cute turkey butts.

And fun rocking chairs.

The next morning we went to brunch at Cracker Barrel.

Try not to eat that crayon, Tommy T!

Look at that fancy rocking chair!!!! We were definitely blessed with beautiful weather for our Thanksgiving weekend.

Andrew's aunt and uncle also brought us this sweet baby carrier.

Happy boys!

Look at that face! What a goof!!

Our first Thanksgiving at our new house and also Tommy's first Thanksgiving was a huge success! So much to be thankful for this year. Happy Thanksgiving!

Baby's Here! Yay!! (EDITED: She has a name!!)

2011-11-27T16:29:00.001-05:00

****They picked a name! Harper Marie Neal****

The title to this post is the exclamation of Wyatt at 8:33 am yesterday morning when Wyatt's baby sister was born two weeks early.

This is how I found out. (I knew before Andrew! Nana nana boo boo!) Travis had just joined twitter. I happened to be checking Twitter Saturday morning and I saw the picture above posted saying "It's a girl!"
I said, "OMG! They had their baby!" Andrew checked his phone and he had a message from Travis. Baby Girl Neal is here!

Isn't she just the cutest thing?? Look at all that dark thick hair! Awww!!
Let's do a quick compare shot with Wyatt as an infant...

I see definite similarities!!

She still doesn't have a name as of yet. Don't worry, we didn't bother them about it at all. ;)

We came bearing gifts of myrrh. Just kidding. But we did bring a Big Brother book for Wyatt, and a few things for Katie and Baby Girl Neal.

I didn't get a picture but these are the little boots we got for Baby Girl Neal from Target. Too funny.

And then there was this! Now THIS is too-too (Get it? TUTU!?!?!) CUTE!!! :-) I wanted to get something over the top frilly but I had to tone it down a little. (Yes this is toned down. At least it's not pink!)

Here are some other pictures of Baby Girl. She was 7 lbs 15 oz and 20 inches. Look at how tiny she is!

Here's a picture of the LADIES!! Finally, it's not such a boys club anymore. :-)

Right before we left, she took a huge dump on me. HA! But lucky for me she kept it all in her diaper. She also woke up and opened her eyes! What a sweetie!

Awww a family picture!

Congrats Neals!! You have a beautiful ever-expanding family!

Mustache Me? Mustache YOU!

2011-11-22T23:02:00.001-05:00

Have you gotten Mustache Me for your iPhone yet?? Well you should. You can create darling pics like these:

Fu Man-Cute! Eh, I tried. :-)

Beardy McNoShave with wild bath hair to match.

Handlebar in a high chair

Hope you have fun with it just in time for Movember!!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

11 Months!

2011-11-22T22:51:00.000-05:00

Once again, I'm late posting his 11 month growth update. We've been quite busy lately so I offer my sincerest apologies. :-)

Back to Tommy. Tommy turns 11 months old this month. It's crazy how close he is to being one year old. The time has gone by so fast. It's really incredible.

It's also incredible that I'm able to get a single shot of him sitting still. He's constantly on the go! He won't sit in that chair for more than a few seconds before he's trying to climb out of it.

He is seriously such a little boy these days. He amazes me every day with the things he does. Some things he's been doing lately that just boggle my mind:
-He has figured out how to work the squirt toys in the bathtub, sort of. He will squeeze it under water to make it bubble but he doesn't hold it under long enough to have enough water in it to squirt out.
-He likes to put things in other things. If there's an opening, he will find something to put in it. Does the bouncy ball go in the laundry basket? Does the sock go in the bathwater? They do now!
-He will spend inordinate amounts of time trying to put lids on things. He worked on a little cup with a lid that is supposed to hold snacks. He tried and tried and tried to line it up. He eventually got it! It was so cool to see him do it. He also tried to put a lid on a bottle. He didn't figure out the spinning part of the lid but he was able to cap it. That was very cool to see.
-He walks more than he crawls now. He's realizing he can reach things while standing up so he stays upright much more of the time. He takes tiny little steps but he is really starting to move. Just tonight, he walked in a circle for 5 minutes while waving pieces of Kleenex around. It looked like he was having a ball!
-Speaking of that incident, he tried to put the Kleenex in his mouth and both Andrew and I would tell him "No". He would look at us and then go back to waving the Kleenex around again. It was awesome. He's getting so very smart.
-He says mama, dada, uh oh, doh doh, baba, and and many other sounds. He only knows what the first three words actually are. He talks constantly. It sounds like he's telling the most amazing stories. Wish I knew what he was talking about! :)

I love his little shirt with the elbow patches. So cute! So manly!

He loves to climb on his rocking chair. We've got to keep on eye on him because he wants to climb it and stand on it! He's such a daredevil!

He wears shoes pretty much all the time now since the kitchen floor is slick in his socks. He loves to play by himself and with others. He has a lot of fun while doing both.

He loves to rock that rocking chair.

Here's comes Tommy, rounding the corner, gaining speed! :-)

Look at how BIG he is! Such a little man already!

Happy 11 months, Thomas!

Wyatt Turns 2!

2011-11-20T23:38:00.001-05:00

Wyatt turned two over the weekend. His birthday party theme was John Deere! We were running a little late but we got there in time for him to open presents.

Wyatt's uncle Kyle, being the good uncle he is, got him a hammer made out of nerf material.

Umm, I don't know if you can tell but he loved it.

We had a great time watching him open presents. He would open each one and said, "Open it up!"

Wyatt's cousin Emmy was there. It was nice to see another baby with light barely visible hair. :-)

Katie was nice enough to get Tommy and Emmy gifts so they wouldn't feel left out. Tommy got a sweet pair of shades in his gift bag. (Look at those baby blues!! WOW!)

While Wyatt was opening other gifts, Tommy snuck over to check out one of Wyatt's recently opened gifts (a penguin that shoots balls out of his mouth).

You can see Tommy sneaking away with the penguin in a box while Wyatt hugged his John Deere blanket. Little stinker! He must have really wanted that gift!

I think we're going to have to work on sharing earlier than normal with this kiddo. But hey, can you blame him? This toy was awesome!

Then came big reveal #1. Wyatt was surprised to find a Thomas the Tank Engine Table that he could run his trains around on the tracks. Very cool.

All the kids got a kick out of it. Tommy was a little taken aback! (I really don't know what he was doing in this picture.)

Emmy was shocked and surprised too!

Look at all the trains! How fun is that? What a cool gift!

The little ones kept playing with the table while Big Reveal #2 happened...

Wyatt got a John Deere motorized vehicle! You should have seen him go!

He was flying all over the yard!
I was trying to figure out what the name of the tractor was so I googled it and I found this picture that I had to include.

Haha!! He looks like a mini Larry the Cable guy! Too funny.

After they convinced him that his tractor ran out of gas (because he would have driven it around the yard for weeks straight), Wyatt came in so we could sing him happy birthday.

He blew out his candle! What a big boy!

He loved his strawberry cupcake. So did we. They were YUM-O!

The theme was super cute. Green and yellow M&Ms, plates, and plasticware. John Deere hats, napkins, and noisemakers. Wyatt was in heaven.

Tommy was interested in riding the John Deere tractor. Sorry, kiddo, maybe when you're older.

For now, Tommy decided he would just push Wyatt around on his Mickey plane. We were cracking up.

Go Tommy go!! What a strong little dude!

Happy Birthday Wyatt!! Two years old already! Where did the time go?

Thomas Michael, Baptized

2011-11-20T22:59:00.003-05:00

On Saturday, we had Tommy baptized. A big day! We had him baptized at the same church where we did our pre-cana, where Wyatt was baptized, and where Wyatt's Aunt Claire got married.

Here's the man of the hour.

At first, he tried to escape. :-) But then he settled in for the ceremony with his parents and Godparents Travis and Traci.

We all got to bless the little man with a cross to the forehead.

During the ceremony, Tommy got a little restless so I fed him a steady diet of cheerios to keep him occupied. One of the cheerios got loose and fell into the marble basin you can see above. Travis said, "That is one holy Cheerio." Luckily it fell into the part that didn't have holy water in it so I was able to pick it up.

During the ceremonies, there is a part where Father Joseph says two prayers of Exorcism. During this exact moment, Tommy choked on a cheerio and almost threw up. Both Andrew and I had visions of green pea soup soaking Father Joseph's vestments. Don't worry, Tommy was a good boy and kept it all down. :-)

Also during the ceremony Tommy decided to reach over and shut Father Joseph's book. Even he got a good chuckle out of it.
Good thing he had bookmarks. :-)

It was almost time for the dunking!

Tommy was quite afraid of what was going to happen.

Until he realized it was just like a bath. No big deal!

Then he wanted to get in the water!

He blessed him with oils. The fragrance stuck with him for days.

He blessed mom...

and dad...

and the Godparents.
Then it was all over.

Traci and Tommy got some quality time after the ceremony.

Then we posed for some pictures.

Tommy posing with Gram and Pop.

Parents and Godparents and Godbrother Wyatt.

Godparents only. This was the last picture because Tommy was totally donesies with just about everything at this point.

We came back to our house ate food while Tommy napped. I told Andrew to get a cake that said, "Baptized by Fire" like the Spinnerette song but it wasn't really appropriate for the occasion.

When he finally woke up, he opened his presents.

What a big baptized boy!

Tommy Walks and Does Other Things

2011-11-16T23:00:00.000-05:00

Yes, Tommy is really walking these days. I pulled some clips together of several videos I took. Here are some highlights to look for in the video.
1.) Sorry for my annoying mom voice. It probably won't go away until I'm a grandma. Then it'll be an annoying grandma voice. Dang it.
2.) He's still pretty wobbly. But those are some strong thighs!
3.) He says Caca. Nice.
4.) Waving diapers around is hilarious.
5.) When you fall down, the only thing left to do is a sitting hip thrust and then look at the ceiling.

Tommy's First Basketball Game

2011-11-16T22:13:00.001-05:00

Tommy watched a lot of basketball as a newborn. But on Monday, Tommy attended his first basketball game in person. Not only was it his first basketball game but it was also a Purdue game!

Hey Robbie!!

Look at that hustle and bustle outside of Mackey Area (or maybe shady camera work).

There we go. A clear picture. But don't look so excited to be there, boys.

Tommy's first look inside!

Check out the players running on the floor!

First Purdue family picture. Aww. Tommy looks a little... well, terrified.

He most certainly wasn't terrified of the man's head in front of us. He kept wanting to grab it for some reason.

What are all those kids doing??

Well Tommy, that's the Paint Crew. They are there to say "IU Sucks" about 15 times per game.

Oh no! Purdue's free throw shooting is terrible tonight!!

Don't worry Tommy. Robbie will make the team shape up.

Mackey Area had some renovations done over the summer. Check out the super fancy gold rich people seats. They come with an iPad or a caribbean vacation or something.

Grandma and Grandpa were at the game that night too. The zoom on my camera is incredible. I'll show you what I mean in a little bit.

Yay! Go Boilers!

I don't know if I mentioned this but Tommy is still teething. It feels like this set of teeth have been coming in for about a month now. Ugh.

Another lovely family picture. :)

Grandma was getting jealous and had to come over to our section to hold Tommy for a little bit.

Then like any grandma would do, she stole him and went back to her seat. Now check out this zoom. Here you can see Tommy and Grandma sitting in their seats. (Uh, that doesn't look like Grandpa Mike.)

This is the actual view from our seats. Can you see them?

Here they are! Now that's one incredible zoom!

The game started pretty close to Tommy's bedtime so we were pretty mean parents to keep him up so late. Grandma tried to get him to go to sleep but the Paint Crew kept waking him up.

Hail Hail to Old Purdue!

GO BOILERS!! Happy First Game, Thomas!

The Reason Why We Bought a House with a Basement...

2011-11-16T21:17:00.000-05:00

There were tornado warnings in our area earlier this week. At Tommy's daycare they piled all the kids into the restrooms and that's where they were when Andrew went to pick him up. The skies were dark and the wind was terrible. It was pretty scary out there for awhile. Andrew took Tommy home and they went in the basement just in case it got any worse. While Andrew and Tommy were chilling out in the basement, he took this picture and sent it to me with the caption that said...

Riding the Storm Out.

Max's 2nd Birthday

2011-11-15T23:07:00.001-05:00

Over the weekend we went to Max's 2nd birthday party. I can't believe he's two already! Where is the time going?

We all piled in the kitchen to watch him eat cake.

All except for Tommy. He felt like being a loner with the mega blocks.

Aww, the Goldmans posing for a family pic.

Tommy got to hang out for the first time with someone that was born a week before him. Say hi to Emily.

Emily was so funny. Tommy tried to take a ball away from her and she yelled at him. She even had the head shake to accompany it.

This picture turned out amazing. Austin is trying to make Tommy jealous I think.

Tommy enjoyed playing in Max's chair. He looks mighty comfortable!

We brought a gift for Maximus.

It was a talking chomping cookie monster. You can feed him cookies and they would go into his back pack.

But as soon as the button was pressed and Cookie Monster started talking, it freaked Max out. We felt so bad!! Poor guy!

But seriously, think about it. There is a MONSTER who eats all your COOKIES. He has crazy googily eyes and has a creepy voice. Terrifying.

Max decided to brave Mr. Monster again but he made sure to keep his distance.

Until he started talking again.

But don't worry! He and the Cookster were fast friends the next day.

Tommy also got to play with Jake. Jake is the son of my neighbor Bryan growing up in Rensselaer. Isn't that weird? Bryan's wife was sorority sisters with Max's mom. Max's dad is friends with both Bryan and Andrew. Small world!

But growing up in a small town where lots of us went to Purdue, that sort of stuff happens. If you would have told me that our kids would play together some day, I would have never believed you.

Later that evening, the Staffords showed up and well... everyone decided to take their clothes off. (They did this last time too I think.)

Tommy is appalled. He would never disrobe!

Even little Nora got in on the naked action.

Naked Horse Riding!!

Tommy's such a prude. :) Still wearing clothes!

Now here's a less scary gift. A magnetic drawing board thingy. Everyone loved it. Even little Nora who in her PJs looks like Herbert's dog on Family Guy.

You like popsicles?

Anyway, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAXIMUS!!

Great Adventures in Eating

2011-11-07T22:14:00.002-05:00

It's nearly impossible to feed this boy. He grabs the spoon from me every time. Then it ends up all over his face.

So instead of baby food, how about noodles?

Maybe we should boil those noodles first, huh Tommy?

Two Bears Fans Go to a Colts Game

2011-11-07T21:57:00.000-05:00

On Sunday we were offered tickets to a Colts game. They were Bakers Daniels Club tickets.

From the name and the ticket price, we thought we were in for a taste of the high life. Turns out Club does not equal Suite. No free food/drinks. Waaahhh. Sniff, sniff. But it was still so cool and a lot of fun!

We were incredibly lucky to go to a game where they opened the roof. It was an absolutely beautiful day.

Check out that giant... window? I don't know but it was cool.

That's also a giant Jumbotron. How big was it, you ask? Can't you see the tiny ant-like people below it?

At least one of the bears fans was enthused. Andrew is not so amused.

We were up on the fourth level but I still tried to zoom in as far as possible to see if I could get a picture of Mr. Manning. I'm pretty sure he's NOT in this picture. But hey I tried.

The Colts scored a single touchdown the entire game. :( But they scored!

Streamerworks! Paper fireworks? Confetti? Whatever you want to call it, it was neat.

I saw an old lady wearing the streamers later in the bathroom. Not sure if she just got hit and didn't know it or if she was doing that for fun. :-)

We joked about the Colts cheerleaders. We couldn't help it. "Oh crap, what was the next move in this dance? Was it shaking my boobs or shaking my butt? I can't remember." "Either way, everyone wins."

See, I'm just being mean. But then they go and put on their chaps. At least they don't wear blue sparkle panties with them.

You can find them in da club!

This is the Baker Daniels Club. It's a nice (huge) area where they have good food, shorter lines, nice TVs and couches. We took advantage.

Then we went down to the floor level to see Kevin.

Kevin took us to his seats which were 5 rows up. Holy crap, we were close.

As soon as we got there, our entire row cleared out. They probably saw us and said, "Whoa, look at these bozos. I'm getting out of here." Or maybe it was late in the 4th and the Colts were playing horrendously. :-)

I don't know. They look like bozos to me!

Oh wait, nope. These are the true bozos. I can't even explain what's going on here.

Aww, a nice one. ;-)

If all the fans wouldn't have left so early, we never would have seen the horseshoe in the stands! Thanks Colts fans! :)

Check out the close up! Did I mention we were ridiculously close?

Very very cool.

Lucas Oil, you made a beautiful facility. I will gladly come back anytime you want to give me free tickets! Go Colts! :-)

Oodles of Noodles

2011-11-07T20:49:00.000-05:00

Tommy is trying new foods... like noodles!!

Often they are too difficult to pick up with his fingers so he tries to pick them up with his mouth.

Another try!

They're slippery little suckers!

I believe he thinks that if he just shoves his hands in his mouth, a noodle or two will get in there with them.

Sadly most of the noodles did not end up in his mouth...

Good try, Tommy T!

Halloween Part Deux

2011-11-07T20:30:00.001-05:00

Zoinks! Was that a ghost??

On Halloween night, Tommy wore his Halloweenie PJs.

We read some books as a family on the floor. This is by far his favorite book.

Lift the flap books are the best.

Is that a full moon for Halloween??

Then he turned his attention to Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.

Let's listen to Tommy read the story.

What a great storyteller!!

Tommy Plus Grover Equals Fun Times

2011-11-05T21:17:00.002-04:00

I love Grover from Sesame Street for reasons such as this...

Also for reasons like this...

Oh John John. If you weren't probably my age by now or older, I would say that you and Tommy Tommy should be friends. (They make similar high pitched sounds! So much to talk about!)

Love it. But did you know Grover has a Facebook page?

Anyway, I'm not the only one who likes him. Tommy is a huge fan too. So is his dada because of this book.

One day when Tommy was fussy in the mall, we bought him a tiny Grover. He has loved it ever since that day.

Ah Grover, my best bud! Notice his sweet Super Grover shirt!

He likes to carry him around in his mouth like this. I can't believe this is the first time I've taken a picture of it. I guess I'm usually too busy laughing.

Grover gets to ride around in his little push toy.

But Grover is most often swung around Tommy's head.

Oh good old furry lovable Grover.

Gamers

2011-11-05T20:46:00.001-04:00

Andrew finally got our den set up for what else? Gaming.

Tommy wanted to help him play.

WHOA! That's total pwnage, n00b!

Maybe I can play better with my feet. HIIIIII-YAAAH!

Happy Halloween!

2011-11-05T11:31:00.000-04:00

Halloween is my favorite holiday and now I get to share it with my little Thomas man. Check out the super cute Tommy the Tiger!

RAWR!!

Look at him! He looks like a toddler here!

Such a cute little booger.

He looks so cute in this costume and OF COURSE he hated the hood being on his head.

We have several pictures like this.

Tiger Tommy is not amused with the tiger hood.

So we decided to take some pictures of him without his tiger hood. Boy, does he look old.

How's that tongue taste?

This is one of my favorites.

I guess he didn't hate the hood that much. He certainly looks like he's having a good time.

I love the tail. Too funny.

Such a big boy!

We have all these little nooks and different areas in our backyard that are great for pictures. This house was MADE for photo shoots.

Aww, look at him gazing into the future. :-)

Wow, it's kind of ridiculous how adorable he is.

Family picture! Do you like our costumes? We're new parents who didn't get out of our pajamas for pictures. :)

After pictures, it was time to come inside and play.

He looks like he's falling off his scoot-around toy. I don't think he was but since it was more than a day ago I don't really remember. :)

We joked that this will probably be the outfit he picks out for himself when he's 3. But really, who doesn't like a pair of crazy tiger pants?

Aww, sweet baby boy.

Happy First Halloween Thomas Michael!

Friday Evening with the Goldmans

2011-10-30T13:12:00.001-04:00

On Friday, the Goldman family came to visit us. It used to be a lot harder to go see them (3+ hours) but now they're only 40 minutes away. This is just mind-boggling to us. Friday nights used to be off the table for social activities because the traveling took too long to have any time to do anything else. But now we can do things during the week! WHAT? People come over to our house DURING THE WEEK... Friday nights... SUNDAYS? How awesome that we're not relegated to Saturdays only for seeing friends. Yay!

So back to Friday night. (It's Friiiiday, Friiiiday, Get-ting down on Friiiday.) Grant, Ashley and Max came over. We ordered pizza. We put the kids to bed then we partied. (Party and party and... YEAH! Party and party and... YEAH. Fun fun fun fun. I cannot believe that video has almost 5 million views.)

The little boys ate dinner together while the big boys went to get the pizza. I was so ticked when I saw this picture on my computer. It's the only one where they are both looking at the camera and it's bit out of focus. Bummer.

Max is a talky dude. He had so much to say. Such a cutie.

The boys played in their PJs. Check out Max's cute slippers. Max enjoyed watching football.

Tommy apparently did not. He just learned how to shut off the TV. That kid still loves pressing buttons.

But Max was cool with it.

Max showed Tommy how to do his animal puzzle.

Respect, BRAH! (We watched the latest South Park that night.)

I love this pic. Max is wrapped as a baby burrito!

Breakfast time!

Max is munching on applesauce and bananas while Tommy had some teddy grahams. Kids diets are awesome. :)

Then Max showed us his dance moves to "I Like to Move It, Move It" from Madagascar.

I LOVE this picture. Max is showing off his marching skills!

Just two guyz and they're having a good time.

I showed Max how to take pictures and he took a lot (gotta love digital cameras). I thought I'd show some of his best work.

Check this one out! He's getting better!

Then it was back to dancing to "I Like to Move It, Move It".

He had spin moves and everything!

Then it was time to get dressed and head home. Aww, party time is over. :(

We had a great time, Goldmans! Cannot wait to do it again! We have Showtime for 6 months by the way. So we can record a bunch of episodes about the hardest working men in Vegas for future parties. Respect BRAH!

He likes to move it, move it.

2011-10-30T00:07:00.001-04:00

We took Tommy to the mall recently and he changed a chair into a walking device. Please try to ignore the fact that he is barefoot. We went to buy him shoes directly after this. :-)

He does the same thing at home. He uses laundry baskets and several of his toys and pushes them across the floor. We finally broke down and got him a push cart type of toy. He is LOVIN' IT. (I apologize for the annoying mom voice.)

GOOOOO!!!

New Daycare

2011-10-29T22:51:00.000-04:00

So how did Tommy's first week go at his new daycare?
He can't really tell us how it's going because the only words he says are dada and GO! But let's look at some baby indicators.

1.) Eating
Old Daycare: Tommy was eating maybe half or less of a small container of baby food. Plus he often didn't finish his bottles that I sent. Oh yeah, and did I mentioned the EGGS????
New Daycare: He eats a whole medium sized container of baby food, crackers, teddy grahams plus both his bottles.... and no stinking eggs.

2.) Sleeping
Old Daycare: He would take an hour long nap a couple times during the day. The week we were moving into our house, the afternoon lady decided not to put him down for an afternoon nap because (she hates us?) she thought he would probably nap once we got home and we would be able to get more stuff done. Thanks so much, lady. That really worked. *eyeroll*
New Daycare: He sleeps for 2.5 hours usually at lunch time. They have a separate room for the cribs. It's dark and quiet. He goes down really easy. It takes him about 5 minutes to fall asleep on his own. Good boy!

3.) Diaper Changes
Old Daycare: He was changed maybe 4 times a day. He always came home in different clothes because there was poop on his clothes somehow.
New Daycare: He is changed 6 times a day and always comes home in the same clothes.

4.) Sleeping at Home
Old Daycare: He would wake often at night.
New Daycare: He sleeps through the night.

So yeah, I would have to say that things are going very well at the new daycare.

Tommy loves "gym time" in the morning.

He doesn't cry when we drop him off or pick him up. He does whine a little bit to let us know that he will miss us. (He's a good boy!) But he usually crawls to the nearest toy and puts it in his mouth.

He's in a class with other one+ year olds. He is by far the youngest. But he doesn't seem to mind.

He has to wear shoes because they have slippery floors. Check out that shoe wearing kid! He's looking over his report card for the day.

Apparently he doesn't think he ate enough. Yum Paper!

He is having a little trouble with the transition and all the changes of late (new house, new daycare, new schedule). He's pretty grumpy at night when he comes home. I can't put him down or he cries. But as soon as I nurse him, he's completely back to normal. He's as happy and fun as can be. He just needs his mama. :) He won't say it though. He's still stuck on saying dada all the time. One of these days... :)

But after the first week, we are totally pleased with the new day care. Hooray for Kiddie Kollege! (Do you think that's been trademarked by the K-loving Kardashians???)

Monkey Boy!

2011-10-23T23:36:00.000-04:00

Gram brought Tommy a new hat this weekend. Check out his new sock monkey hat!

So cute it's ridiculous!

Not for long though. Not a big fan of wearing things on his head.

And it's off. Cute while it lasted! Or maybe he's saying- I don't need a hat. I'm already cute. Duh. :-)

Homecoming!

2011-10-23T23:32:00.000-04:00

We went to homecoming at Purdue this weekend. Purdue WON which is fantastic but we wouldn't know any better. We were too busy catching up with friends that we hadn't seen in a long time.

We were able to catch up with the Deichmans. We haven't seen them in a very long time. We were both kid-free that day so we spent the day talking about.... our kids. :-)

Lower was in town from Bloomington. He's a Hoo-hoo-hoo-HOOSIER now.

The Staffords brought their kids. This is adorable Nora. She is beyond cute. You may remember her from Diane's belly here.

Here's Jack. You will also remember him from these posts.

Wyatt was in attendance too whom you know from these posts. Jack and Wyatt had a jolly good time.

Lower, get away from those kids!

My bro Adam came and visited our tailgate. The bro-in-laws ate Indoor Smores together. :)

Here's Jack in an adult sized tailgate chair...

And Wyatt in the just-his-size bear chair. I did not know they made these. They are awesome!

Awww! Look at little Nora thinking about crawling and wearing a fabulous hat. So cute!

Hey everyone! Jack wants to make a speech!

His audience was ready to listen! More friends we haven't seen in awhile, Bowman and his girlfriend Erin sitting on either side of Andrew.

AJ and his girlfriend Ashley flew all the way from Colorado.

As is appropriate at these things, someone got out the whiskey. I don't think Andrew likes the taste. :-)

People were walking around selling stuff all day. There was a boy selling Fannie Mae candies. There was a guy selling bracelets for the American Cancer Society... and then there was a guy selling obscene stickers as you can see here.

We got to meet Chloe! Chloe was born the same day that Tommy was! Not kidding. Within hours of each other. Aww! Chloe and her parents, Casey and Jill, and Chloe's grandparents were tailgating not very far from us. Check out the Go-Pod. That thing is AWESOME for tailgates! So cool!

At Chloe's tailgate, they were celebrating Casey's 30th birthday with a candy cake.

Also with this insanely awesome looking sandwich! Like Joey from Friends, one of my favorite foods is also sandwiches. :)

On the candy cake, there were liquor candies on the top! Very cool.

So... beer, whiskey, liquor candies... all led to the following pictures at our house at about 10 pm...

GARLIC BREAD... GOOD!

IS IT???

So during our kid-free day, what did Tommy do? He was at home with Gram and Aunt Erin.

Aww, look at those happy Boilers!

Boiler up and Hammer down! Happy Homecoming!