A Few Things About Timohty

I'm not sure if I can come up with as many things to say about Timothy as Cameron...he is such a mellow little boy, not very complex and 98% of the time he is so happy. But there are a few little quirks about him I can jot down...

Timo loves to figure things out. He is always figuring out how the toy works, where the on/off switch is and to get the most from the toy. Cameron tended to just enjoy a toy for the simple pleasure but Timo always has a mission when he encounters a new toy.

All things plains, train and automobiles!

He loves to laugh! Even when tickling him so hard he is laughing/crying...he grabs your hand and wants to be tickled more. And he is such a silly boy, always trying to do some trick to make you laugh.

Just like his mommy, he eats one food at a time on his plate. He will eat all the pasta, then the chicken then the veggie. (not necessarily in that order) He doesn't like his food to touch, like his mommy but slightly picky...not like his mommy.

My little man is a tester of his boundaries. He has spent 10X more time in "time out" than his sister simply because he tests you when you say "no, no". He gives this look as if to say "does no really mean yes?"

He doesn't like to wear shoes without socks...go figure.

Timo loves music and loves to dance. His daddy has the gift of dance and Timo loves to watch him and try to imitate Daddy's moves. Whether it's in the car, sitting in his high chair eating or in the a wide open space, Timo just needs some music playing and he will dance!

One of the best traits in Timothy is his love for his little sister. If he wakes up first and you try to take him out of the room while Cameron is still sleeping, he cries out for his sister. Whenever I give him a snack, drink, or something of that nature, he asks for one for "tister". When Cameron is crying he'll come sit next to her and pat her head. Yes, they have their brother/sister moments from time to time, but it is usually followed by a kiss and a hug.

Timothy is such a sweet and sensitive little boy. I see so much of Young in him by his gental nature. We can't wait to see how the Lord is going to use his compassionate heart as he grows up.

A Few Things About Cameron

I've been wanting to do a posts on each of the kids for quite some time but there always seems to be so much going on. But this week Young is out of town so I have my evenings to try and get some thoughts down.

As the kids grow, I see their personalities coming out more and more each day. I see so much of myself and so much of Young in each of them. I thought I would get a few things down about each of them to compare when they are 18 years old.

Cameron is so emotional developed, it just amazes me. She runs the gambit of almost every emotion on any given day from so excited about seeing a fish, sad over a crayon breaking to incredibly angry at me that she turns her head away and won't make eye contact. We often nickname her the "drama queen".

The number one thing most people say about her after they have spent time with her is "wow, she knows a lot of words and expresses herself really well!"...ie, she talks A LOT. She gets that from her mommy...

She loves food! You would never know that by being in the 3% in weight, she sure does love to eat and will try anything you give her. She also loves to be up in a chair watching everything going on while I'm cooking in the kitchen. My soon to be chef.

I'm not sure how long this will last but she is extremely obedient. It just takes saying "no, no" to her once and she quits immediately. Sometimes all you have to do is say her name and she stops in her tracks. I think she gets that from her Daddy...

Little Miss Independent! She tries and tries over and over until she can master it. And she has to do it all by HERSELF! Anytime I take over just to get it done faster (dressing her) she gets so mad at me. After a few dozen tries, she can now put her pants on by herself. My mom would say she gets this from me...hum....

She loves to sing! She is forever singing songs all around the house...even when she is just sitting in her high chair eating. Her current favs are Twinkle, twinkle and the ABC song. (she only knows "ABC" but keeps singing it over and over". We listen to Childrens Bible Songs in the car and she says "ready, ready, ready" when one song goes off and is waiting for the next to come on. I think she gets her love of music from both Young and me but let's hope she gets her Daddy's beautiful voice!

We often say of Cameron that you have to earn her love but once you do, you have a new best friend. We just adore our little girl and can't wait to see what a beautiful woman, inside and out, she will grow up to be.

Cracking the Code

The kids are full of words now days and the real challenge is to figure out what they are saying. Sometimes I have to ask them over and over again before I can decode what word they just said or I'll have them take me to show me what they are talking about. Cameron grabs my finger, pulls me up and takes me into the kitchen to show me what she wants to snack on.

Here are few examples of words they say that sound the same

Bubble and apple..."bubble" vs "babble"...I can usually tell which they mean when we're in the bathroom and/or kitchen but it's not as easy when we're playing outside trying to figure out if they want an apple snack or play with their bubbles.

Up and help..."up" vs "elp"...Cameron was saying help the other day when I thought she was saying up and was getting very frustrated that I kept lifting her into her high chair instead of helping her with snapping the straps.

poo poo and peekaboo..."popo" vs "pepo"...many of times I've checked their diaper when I hear poo poo only to find out they were just playing peekaboo with me!

applesauce and octopus....it's funny to see an octopus in a book and they point to it and say "applesauce". Here is a video of their new favorite word.

Milestones...saying names!

It's a milestone for both of the kids...they are saying each other's names! Cameron actually did it a few days ago...she said "Memo" while pointing to Timo. She now repeats "Memo, Memo, Memo" over and over again. And today, Timo said "Carmom" after Cameron got yogurt all over her hands and I said her name with a very heavy sigh, "Cameron..." He just repeated it after me but it came out sounding like "Carmom". I asked him to say it a few more times and then it was back to "tister". But I have to say, it just melts my heart to hear them call each other by their names, such a sweet sound. Hopefully they will be saying their own names soon!

Park With a View--Alta Vista

We are having such an amazingly beautiful Indian Summer right now, I had to take the kids over to the best park in the city...Alta Vista Park. I say it's the best park because it has a little train you can climb all over and a merry go round for toddlers. The kids love this park too because it's really big so there it lots of room for Timo to go running..his new thing is to say "I'm running" and pump his arms up and down.


And I love this park because of the amazing views of San Francisco while I sit and watch the kids tire themselves out!

Never Too Old

Young has been wanting me to post this for a while so here it is....it's bath time one evening with daddy. Timo is such a character...it doesn't take much to make him laugh. It just goes to show you are never too old for a good ol' fashion game of peek a boo!

Halloween

As many of you already know, Halloween is probably my least favorite holiday...but having kids makes it a little more fun. I've never been one to really dress up and make a huge deal out of trick or treating so it's nice that we have the Harvest Fest at our church to give the kids a venue to enjoy the "holiday"

Having said that, I did want to start some tradition with the kids this year like carving a pumpkin. We visited a few pumpkin patches this year but ended up getting our pumpkin at the local Safeway (buy 1 get 1 free). Once we got Timo off the pumpkin (don't know why he loves to sit on every pumpkin) it was time to get started. Young drew the face on first and the kids went crazy for his marker so I got them crayons to draw on it themselves.

Young is the master artist in our family so he was in charge of carving while I headed up the pulling out slimy guts gang. You can quickly see who the kids take after by watching them carve pumpkins. Timo, like myself, loved the idea of playing the insides and seeds, while Cameron is a spitting image of her Daddy in that she wanted to draw on the pumpkin and wanted nothing to do with the "guts" and getting her hands dirty.


And the kids were so helpful cleaning up afterward...

After their nap it was time to get my little scarecrows ready and head to the Harvest Fest. Timo was a little slow in waking up...needless to say it was difficult for him to have his clothes taken off and new clothes up on. Cameron wasn't really into all the yarn on her clothes and started pulling it all off. I had to bribe them with cookies just to get their clothes on and stand still for a few pictures.



But once we got to the Harvest Fest it was an evening full of fun. Cameron had successfully pulled out every piece of yarn off her clothes on the way over so she was just a hillbilly by the time we got there. But no matter, she still had a blast getting her face painted, doing arts and crafts, drinking juice and playing the games.



Timo was a crazy man all night running around playing with the balloons, balls, bowling and eating his body weight in popcorn! Whenever we couldn't find him we just looked at the ball toss game and he was there...




All in all it was a fun Halloween. We got to carve a pumpkin, spend the evening with our friends having fun! I wonder how many years I can put off the whole trick or treating thing???

Coloring

One of the kid's new favorite things to do is coloring. We got the WonderColor markers and books for them for our plane ride and they really like coloring with them but you can only use the markers on special paper. So I figured if they like the markers so much, maybe it was time to break out the crayons again and see how they do (last time they found eating them much more exciting). With a little guidance, they actually do a pretty good job at coloring on the paper. Now Cameron is always asking to "loler". She knows were I keep the crayons and coloring books by now and will just stand by the drawer asking until I get them out out for her.
I printed out some Halloween coloring sheets off the internet to give them something fun and festive to color. Here is a short video of them coloring...

Ring Around the Roses

Here is a video left over from Ohio. I remembered it this last night when Cameron started asking to play Ring Around the Roses. This is one of her favorite games/songs. She is always spinning round and round. It's especially fun when we all hold hand and go round and round but in this video she is running solo...I think she likes it that way so she can wander around and around. She typically sings while spinning around but I think I shot this on about her 50th go round and she was tiring out.

Climbers

The kids were playing happily on the floor the other day so I took the opportunity to get some dishes done in the kitchen. Because the kids were being so quiet I guess I got carried away cleaning and was out of sight about 20min. In that time, the kids figured out how to push their stool over to the dining room chairs, climb up in them and on top of the table. I heard this banging on the table and came in to see what they were up to...this is what I found.

Timo had dumped the salt out all over the table and Cameron was reorganizing the napkins as if to say "What Mommy?, I'm just helping" Once I saw it and gasped...Timo started trying to wipe everything up but just ended up spreading the salt all over.

Once I got them down and started cleaning, I looked down and Timo was "cleaning" up the floor with a fallen napkin...almost makes up for the huge mess he made..almost...

Snaps!

The kids are all about snapping their own buckles on any seat we put them in. Strollers, car seats, high chairs, changing table, clothes...you name it and they will snap it. Sometimes they stand in front of their high chairs and "nap" their snaps over and over. Timo always gets his done first and then tries to push Cameron out of the way so he can snap hers...but she is pretty firm when she is determined. Timo was pretty quick to give out kisses when he saw he upset his sister (we say sorry and give kisses when you act in an unloving way).

Even at the park...all Cameron wanted to do was play with the snaps.

I must say it makes the difficult tasks much easier now that they have this new skill...getting in car seats, getting dresses and changing diapers is way more fun for them now!

Clancy's Pumpkin Patch, SF

We hit our local pumpkin patch Saturday and you would have never known we were in the middle of an urban city! They had it all...pets, hay tunnels, hay rides, pumpkins of all sizes and wagons and wheel barrels to haul them around in. We opted to stay local this year because the kids just aren't into long car rides right now and banking on them napping in the car is a roll of the dice. So we decided to make it pleasant for everyone and go just a few blocks away to the Clancy's Family Pumpkin Patch.

The kids stopped first to check out the turkeys and bunnies and then on to the pumpkins...or "pumpin" as Cameron calls them.

The big challenge was trying to pick them up...they started with the huge pumpkins but we moved them over to the smaller ones so they could actually pick them up...they felt so strong! But Cameron kept trying to tackle the big ones and just ended up rolling it across the ground...so determined to move it.



Cameron was totally into all the carts and wheel barrels...she tried to push practically everyone in the patch.

We took a little hay ride through the woods and kids loved it. Timo fell in love with the tractor...not surprising since it has wheels and an engine...

Guess they needed to sit on the pumpkins to see if it was the right fit to take home...

Timo discovered the tunnels of hay and went in and out, in and out while Cameron liked to sit on all the baby pumpkins...pumpkins just her size.

It was time to say bye-bye to the pumpkin patch which Cameron didn't like at all! But what a fun time we had.