Kevin is Six Months Old!

Kevin is now six months old and so I thought that I would post some pictures focusing on him (since you know that big brother is going to be there with me as well wanting his picture taken too). :) We went to his six month checkup and all looks good. For the first time since birth, he passed his in office hearing exam and everything else checked out as well. He measured in at 26.5 inches long and weighs 17 lbs, 4 ounces. So this puts him in the 60th and 45th percentiles, respectively (according to our doctor). He did get three vaccinations, and wasn't happy about that, but otherwise was a happy guy.




At six months Kevin is starting to scoot around and tends to just roll a few times if scooting doesn't work to get where he is going. He is loving solids, and though he still isn't a fan of green beans, he will eat anything else without protest and now eats solids twice a day. He is a chatterbox, and tends to have very in depth conversations with Tyler, and Tyler will then translate for me (grin). Kevin enjoys his pacifiers still, but seems to prefer his thumb and when he gets tired he will snuggle in (love it) and suck on his thumb.




It is hard to believe that he is already six months old!!!! Time just flies!








Smiling at Tyler.


Sticking his tongue out. His "thing" today has been to have his tongue always out! I wonder if he just discovered it or something. . .


Another smile at Tyler. Tyler is good at getting Kevin to smile or laugh.

A happy guy!

Always paying attention to what Tyler is doing! It was so hard to get him to look at me!

Taking a picture of Kevin. (My attempt to get Kevin alone....Tyler LOVED this as he finally could take his own pictures!).

Taking a picture of me.

Snuggling with brother.

They are both giving me the same look here. Can you tell that iti s almost nap time! They look so tired! We had had a big morning of going to the gym (they play with other kids their age there), then to a playground so Tyler could slide (since the gym wouldn't let them outside this morning because it was too cold and he REALLY wanted to slide), and then pictures outside! Definitely a big day for them both and both are now napping giving me a chance to catch up on blogging!

So tired they are.

Mr. Kevin smiling yesterday.

What a great smile from such a happy guy!

And so hard to believe that our six month old was once this little guy!

Thimmesch Boys Plant a Tree

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Grandpa needed to plant a tree and requested Tyler's help. Tyler couldn't wait to help with this project and was very excited when it was time to go to the store and pick out the tree. They picked out an apple tree (with the official title being something like Adam's crabapple if I remember correctly...so Tyler was excited that it had daddy's name).




Anyways, he couldn't wait to start helping and once daddy around on Saturday, they started. Aunt Mary took a lot of pictures for me and since Tyler had recently made some mp3's with Grandpa of three songs, I thought that I would make a quick slide show of them all. :) There are some pictures thrown in there as well of Tyler and Grandma blowing up a swimming pool. And I love the last pictures where Tyler and Grandpa go get Adam with the hose, only to have Tyler then spray Grandpa once they got Adam. :)




Sometimes a big shovel works best.

And other times a small one.

But either way it is lots of work!

But there is nothing like finishing the job


and taking a picture of your handy work!



And a video of ALL of the pictures plus Tyler singing three songs for you! :)

Car and Cookie House

Thursday morning, Grandpa Thimmesch, the boys, and I all drove to Grandpa's sister's house. It turns out that Aunt Carol's husband Steve, is a huge collector of Hotwheels. I had always heard the stories of his collection, but little did I know how big it truly was.

So Thursday morning Grandpa asks Tyler if he wants to go to a Hotwheel house to look at cars and play. Tyler immediately stood up, put his hands in his pockets, and was ready to go! Unfortunately, for him neither Grandpa or I were ready, nor had we informed Aunt Carol that we might be driving up! So, seeing how excited Tyler is, Grandpa and I rush around so we can get on the road, cleared our plans with Aunt Carol, and took off on the hour and a half car ride to Aunt Carol's.

Tyler did great on the car ride and only started asking "where we are" with about ten minutes left in the trip. When we arrived he didn't show any shyness at all and was pretty excited to find Curious George on a tricycle in Aunt Carol's living room. Immediately, Aunt Carol took us down to see the "cars" and little did I know how many cars there were. Just amazing!


Upon seeing all of the cars and seeing Tyler wanting to touch them all, he became excited and I became nervous. The last thing I wanted to do was for one of us to break something! But, Aunt Carol and Uncle Steve were quick to point out that a lot of kids had played in the basement, and were quick to show Tyler the cars and toys that he could play with. While Tyler was playing cars, Uncle Steve gave me a tour of his collection (explaining how things are organized, what makes a car valuable, his favorites, etc.). I was just in awe of everything, and am very appreciative of the time he took to explain things to me as I know that he had taken time off of work that day to visit with us all.



I have included some pictures, and let me stress "some", for everyone to see. As I was taking pictures it quickly became apparent that I could not properly document the collection and so I stopped. I think that they will just have to make themselves a tourist destination...as I think that you could spend an entire day just looking at everything!

As you can see, Tyler had a lot to look at and play with. Tyler's absolute favorite thing though was a race track that Cousin Brian set up for him. It involved two "garages" that would shoot out the car around an oval track. I don't think that Tyler has ever seen cars move by themselves like that, and that seemed to be the case as he started laughing, with the most genuine laugh I have ever heard out of him. I just really enjoyed watching him giggle and laugh as the Hotwheels would race around the track.

Watching the car whiz by him.

Laughing uncontrollably once it passed him! Oh, too much to watch him.

It was what happened next though that just shocked us. After watching several laps and laughing as the car raced by him, Tyler decided that he needed to run too! So Tyler took off running laps around this track trying to catch the "red" (there were lots of cars, but he still talks about catching the "red car" when we talk about our trip) car. He ran and ran and ran. It was really funny to watch because he was trying his hardest to catch up with the car. And we were all giggling, because what a funny response from him! You would think that a child would just want to sit and push the car through the garage, knock the car off, or add more cars. But, this was not the case for Tyler. So he ran until he started to get wobbly on his legs and then I started getting nervous. I just had visions of him falling over from exhaustion and taking out a case of Hotwheels! Yikes. Fortunately, Grandpa picked up on my rising stress level and called a timeout for Tyler to catch his breath. :)

Once he was stopped, we all decided that some lunch was in order. We went downtown and ate at a fun malt/hamburger shop. It was really a fun restaurant, and we all had a good time visiting. Tyler sampled Aunt Carol and Grandpa's milkshakes and ate all of his big hamburger in a flash. I guess that all that running around was quite the workout! He had a good talk with Aunt Carol....cars....his age....favorites....and how to spell Iowa (Tyler says "I O W A, Iowa, Let's Go Hawks" every time you ask him to spell Iowa...hehehe...what a little Hawkeye fan already!). :) The only downside to the lunch was when Aunt Carol tried to help him eat MORE of his milkshake (it had melted and she took away his spoon) and Tyler was confused about her intentions. He gave her quite the look, but once she showed him how to drink the rest of it, they were buds again! :)

After lunch, we went and looked at a store for some Iowa stuff (always on the lookout when in Iowa) and then headed over to the "cookie house" per Tyler. The "cookie house" is Aunt Carol's next door neighbor Pat's house. Pat is always baking something and after a quick sample, is indeed quite a good baker. So we went over to introduce ourselves and Tyler was beyond thrilled to get to go to a cookie house. Sure enough, there were dozens and dozens of cookies in the house freshly baked! And Tyler was beyond excited to get his very own cookie to try!



After eating the cookie and pointing out Aunt Carol's flowers (he loved the yellow ones...go figure), it was time to play our last few minutes downstairs before heading home. We took a few pictures before leaving.

Kevin slept on the entire way home, while Tyler talked to Grandpa and me and Tyler opened up and played with some new Hotwheels (thank you again for those Aunt Carol and Uncle Steve!). He was just so excited to go to both a car house and a cookie house in the same day. And in fact, the next day the first thing he said that he wanted to do was go to the car house! And when we told him no, asked next if we could go back to the cookie house! So, I know that he had a blast, and so did we. It was fun getting to visit with Aunt Carol, Uncle Steve, and cousin Brian, and hopefully we can meet up with them again sometime soon.

Scrabble Cake

While we were in town, Aunt Mary and I decided to bake Grandma Thimmesch a birthday cake. Given that Grandma is always up for a Scrabble game, we decided to try to make a Scrabble cake. It was our first time to work with fondant or make a cake filling, so we were a litle nervous but in the end, we were both very excited with how it turned out, and couldn't wait to show it to Grandma!

Scrabble cake!

More scrabble cake!


Lemon cake with raspberry filling.

The Scrabble champ with her cake.

Bathroom and Cow

We spent part of last week and the weekend in Iowa so Adam could work on some projects there, and we could visit with family. The trip down was fun, but by far our longest trip ever. It took us a little over five hours to drive the three and a half hour trip! It was a good trip overall, just had many unexpected stops upon Tyler's insistence to use the restroom. This was his first time to request said stops on a long car trip and so we fulfilled each request as quickly as we could and tried to ignore how many we were making. (Fortunately for our sanity, we only had to make two stops on the drive back.)

Anyways, on the first day that we were back, Grandpa Thimmesch had a big project for Tyler...fixing a shelf in one of the bathrooms upstairs. Upon hearing that Tyler was needed to help, Tyler ran off to find his toolbox and hardhat while Grandpa went and got his tools. Tyler couldn't believe how big the play toolbox was at Grandpa's house and was very excited to find his own tape measure and a hammer in it. He insisted on wearing his hard hat (putting it back on quickly when it would fall off) as well and seemed a little surprised that Grandpa wasn't wearing one too.

Getting ready to start work.

Hammering in the anchors.

Helping Grandpa hammer.

Fixing Grandma's shelf (note that it is not broken) without having to be asked.

Tyler was beyond thrilled that they had fixed the shelf and couldn't wait to tell Grandma about it. In fact, Tyler reminded EVERYONE every time he went into that bathroom during our stay that that was "my self" and that he fixed it. :) Unfortunately, for Tyler that was the only big project that required fixing for that day and he took the news well once Grandpa told him that he would need help later in the week planting a tree (pictures to come).

Kevin was not as excited about fixing the shelf and preferred to have some tummy time instead of help. He did have a fun moment later in the day though when Grandpa helped him ride a bouncy cow that he really seemed to get a kick out of.

Just got on the cow.

Having a blast.

Telephones calls and projects. . .

The other day Tyler and I decided to make a craft. It was an idea I got from one of my magazines . . . take an old cereal box and cut it up to make a magazine/book rack. Fortunately, for us, we had just finished up a box of cereal and so I grabbed that, some scissors, and tape. Tyler diligently helped me cut up the box (he loves using his scissors) and patiently listened as I told him what to do next (help me fold here, put some tape here, wait and do nothing, etc.). :) Before long, we had it done and Tyler couldn't wait to go put it in his room. He picked out all of the books to put in it and couldn't wait to tell daddy about his craft! It has been a hit since, so I thought that I would take a picture of it. We are now diligently trying to eat cereal so we can make another!

After the success of that project, Tyler asked to do another. So this morning I was thinking of what we could make. And while I was browsing all of the blogs I check, I found it. Ice cream cookies! I love this new blog, bakerella.blogspot.com, and LOVE the pictures she takes of her creations. I only wish I could take pictures like that!

So Tyler helped me make a small batch of chocolate chip cookies before his nap time and then headed off to nap while they cooled. In the meantime, Kevin hung out with me (as he woke up from his nap about five minutes after putting Tyler down....go figure). Kevin was in a VERY talkative mood (probably because Tyler doesn't let him talk much or because Kevin liked the idea of making cookies...who knows) so we called Grandma G. I told grandma that Kevin was looking to talk and handed the phone to him and OH did he talk. For five minutes straight, he jabbered, laughed, and squeaked while grandma talked to him. It was so cute to watch. And by far his favorite part was when she would say "Kevin, Kevin, Kevin" and he would just giggle!!! After five minutes though he decided to start tasting the phone and at that point he had to end his phone call despite his protests.

Eventually, Kevin worked himself back to a nap and wouldn't you know it but while I was putting Kevin down I could hear Tyler playing in his room. So I go in and tell Tyler it was time to finish his project. He helped me cut the cookies into cuter shapes and watched patiently while I scooped the ice cream on. Then, it was all him as he rolled the creations in sprinkles that he chose. He was loving it. The hardest part though was the constant battle of him wanting to eat all of the cookies and me explaining that we had to wait for daddy (earlier in the day he told me that they were daddy's cookies, but once they were all baked in front of him I think that he changed his mind). So we got them all sprinkled and put them in the freezer (after a few pictures of course), and that is when Tyler told me he wanted dinner. I asked him what he wanted and he told me "milk and cookies" with a grin that was oh so cute, but just not going to convince me. When I told him no and his "please" attempts failed, he decided that he actually did not want dinner and instead wanted to go play. Ha!

Cutting the cookies into a cuter circle shape.

Testing out the scrapes.....