Jimmy's First Birthday

Poor Jimmy, already suffering from pretty severe second child syndrome.  For Ben's first birthday we traveled to Argentina, all Jimmy got was the east coast. The little guy did manage to finagle three separate birthday observations though.

He is as jolly still as he was when he was fresh out.  He loves to smile and laugh and has a wicked little temper.  He learned how to signal "more" at daycare and uses it in pretty much every situation.  as Doodoo puts it "He manages to live his whole life perfectly knowing only one phrase".  He started officially walking on Nov 13 (he has been taking single steps for a while but actually branching out and taking multiple steps repeatedly) and loves food.  He is all about bananas and can get huuuuge chunks in his mouth and not choke.  Thankfully.  He copies his brother and is almost stronger than him now.  He bulldozes him and can crawl up into Ben's bed and harrass him when we read stories at night.  He is a big time mama's boy.  He can say Mama, Dada, Daddy, Ba (Ben), Nana, Uh oh, Thank You and signals the crap out of "more".  He is addicted to Portos' water bowl and if not just putting his hands in it can be found putting Ben's toys or trying to stand in it.

He pretty much has a constant ear infection, switching from drops in one ear to drops in another.  We recently had almost two weeks off drops but restarted them today.  He sure doesn't complain much though.  He still spends most of the night in our bed.  That is my fault though, I am too lazy to sit in his room and get him down multiple times, I want to sleep so I bring him with me.  He still isn't weaned and I think I have a little addict on my hands so I don't know when that will happen.  Anyway back to the party business.

We did a little one at Grandma's. Originally I thought it would be great to have us all together to do it, forgetting that she doesn't eat much sugar and there isn't enough room in her room for all of us and cake and kids and crumbs with no dogs to clean up.  We did it anyway though downstairs and gave some life to the dining room.

 I think he liked how it felt more than how it tasted.

More please!

We did go up to Grandma's room to open a couple small presents.

 

His actual birthday was the day of the burial so we didn't do much special that day, just a big lunch and the wait staff brought some ice cream for the boys.

When we got home we did one for the four of us as Martin and I had a couple little presents for him to open. 

He was soooo dirty.  I think it had been a week since either of them had been bathed.  This lower picture is a clean faced and haired Jimmy.

Do you want to go to a museum in OUR nations Capitol !?

We embarked on our first air travel as a foursome to Philadelphia and Washington D.C. to bury Nana and Poppop in Arlington National cemetery and to allow GG (Great Grandma) to meet her great grandsons.  All things considered it was actually quite easy.  We had a direct flight to DC and had a minivan waiting for us there.  Ben was super excited to ride on the Light Rail in the morning to get from our parking to our terminal.

 Yes we are those people at airports that everyone looks at with evil side eyes and dirty glances as we have tons of stuff impinging on the overhead bins.  Little do they know I am all about stuffing everything within arms reach so it all gets put in the one square foot of space they allow for one's personal bubble whilst traveling in coach.

 Ben was stoked to have the window seat but not at all happy to have Jimmy anywhere near him.

And Ben got to ride a real train and meet an actual conductor once we were in Wayne.  We wanted to check out the new house the got built where Nana and Poppops had been so we drove our van and Saaron and Ben rode the train from Wayne to Devon.

Then we ventured out to Valley Forge Park.  It couldn't have been more beautiful.  We left a white and snow covered Minnesota to arrive in what some would call past peak in the East Coast but what I would call fall.  So nice to see colors again.

Jimmy appreciated the significance of the location more than most of us did.

Then we decided to have a little precursor to Jimmy's birthday since the funeral was going to be on his actual birthday and we didn't know what was going to happen.  The little chunkster wasn't as in to cake as I would have imagined.  Maybe it was just that particular cake.  More on that on the other post though.

Grandma even consented to photos with the boys which about blew my socks off.  The whole experience at her house was so nice.  I was very nervous as I remember not being able to ride the stair chair elevator thing and having to be very careful, with two boys I didn't see careful in the cards but it worked out amazingly.

Ben was given permission to ride up and down as many times as his little heart desired.  He loved it.

Grandma did not consent to this picture, but it was a wonderful moment so I decided to "check my email" just then and happened to capture it.

Grethel even got in on the Jimmy action.  Ben got a little stir crazy up in Grandma's room so would sometimes come down and the most amazing chef in the world is apparantly a toddler whisperer too and she and Ben would play on the couch.

We had to leave to get down to DC to check in to the hotel and meet up with the rest of the family.  We had a couple free moments to take in some sights though. . . These two.  Can't help but re-enact wedding photos whenever given the opportunity.

Giulia has been in DC pretty much since college (except for a stint in NYC) so she was so kind as to meet up with us in the epicenter of tourism that is the National Mall to go to the Air and Space museum on a Sunday.  And I got to meet her man.  Her man that she has been with for 10 years and I have heard all about, through the ups and downs, the multinational long distance thing that they had going for TEN years and survived.  What a great thing.  And you know he is good when you have to chase an over tired and hypoglycemic three year old around while dealing with an overtired and sick of being in the stroller one year old and never lost his cool swagger.

How can you not stop for cheesy photos in these locations?!

As we were walking around I kept thinking that someday DC is going to be what ancient Greece is to us now with all the statues and monuments and what not.  Whatever, it is cool to see. 

Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate for the burial.   It was a very special ceremony for something that happens every 15 minutes every day of the week every day of the year.  Their gravestone overlooks the Airforce Memorial statue thing which is only fitting.  After the ceremony we had an Irish Wake at a pub.

It was great to see Matt and Alex and to meet Matt's lady friend.  She's a keeper I hope. 

The kiddos did really well all things considered.

And Ben got to compare his tats with some real ink.

Two different generations of James with some DeWolves thrown in. 

It was short and sweet and unfortunately too long since seeing this whole part of the family but it couldn't have goon more smoothly.  Until next time.

Halloween 2014. Brrrrrrrrrrrr

Benjamin has been looking forward to Halloween since last Halloween.  He likes to talk about ghosts and pumpkins and especially candy.  Wow does that kid love candy.  Really what kid doesn't but to see that euphoria take hold upon seeing a bag of candy it is something to witness.
We have been talking about costumes for a while, for a bit we were going to go as superheros, then we were going to be ghosts and ghostbusters, then skeletons but at the last minute Jimmy was too crabby and tired and Ben defaulted to last years costume as a ghost. 

That didn't stop me from dressing them in the skeleton jammies and forcing them to smile together.  Ben is so over this whole smiling cutely for the camera phase of life.  That's ok. 
We had a lot of fun last year with Kate and Claude and Abigail so did a repeat.  Again, they blew us out of the water with a family themed and coordinated outfit so I quickly removed a spider decoration and put it on my head.

I was OK with Ben going as a lion because it was the first really cold night and he could easily fit his winter coat and pants under the warm suit. 

He was better at going to the houses this year and actually said Trick or Treat and Thank You.

And he even found one of our neighbors who was a lion tamer with no lion to be tamed.

Before things got all cold and October rolled into the coldest November in 30 years we had our last warm bout of Indian summer, luckily it happened to be on a Monday when I was home so I decided why not have a picnic.  After an entire summer of warm weather and never actually loading everyone and lunch up to a blanket in the yard.  Look at the joy on Ben's face.

Things improved when I made a pile of leaves for him to play in.  The back has TONS of leaves but we are neglectful dog parents and Portos gets to go out and do his thing and we clean it every time we mow.  Well, we haven't mowed for a while and brown leaves hide the other brown surprises in the back so those are not safe leaves for playing.

Jimmy wasn't too sure what to make of it all, but saw Ben having fun so decided it wasn't too bad.

We all chose our decorations this year. Ben chose his when he was still heavily in his going to be a ghost phase.  We did much better than last year, we had them done at least four days before Halloween.

Mino is THREEEEEE

What a little man he is too.  He learned about manners at daycare so says "Thank you mommy for cooking tonight."   He likes to take off his own shoes and likes to pick out his shirts.  He is a hoarder.  He comes to it naturally but will carry as much as he possibly can with him when he is supposed to go brush his teeth or help his dad in the car.

He loves the movie "Mr. Incredibles" and all things Ninja Turtle (Thanks Uncle Aaron for that one.)  And Batman.  He learned that eating vegetables gives him big muscles so whenever he does anything he talks about his big muscles but has his father's taste for veges.  He learned what shy meant and whenever we are in public he acts the part then comes home and talks about how shy he was.  He loves to run as fast as he can and calls himself Dash.  He needs his "Frozone Agua" at night  -  a sippy cup with ice cubes.  He learned how to tug at heart strings and yell "I want my daddy" as you are trying to walk out of his room at night in the most pitiful and pathetic little voice.  He listens to EVERY SINGLE word we say, so we have to be careful.  He repeats choice phrases back at us that we use with him "Don't talk to me like that Mommy!"  His favorite book right now is a picture book about Boston where he has to find different animals from Franklin Park Zoo that escaped into the city.   He gets scared very easily so we have to be very careful when we have the TV on.  He likes to wear socks.   He likes to take baths with his brother then flip himself into Jimmy's crib and wrestle with him before going to bed at night.  His favorite snacks are babybel cheese and cheddar bunnies.  He knows it is a special occasion when he gets hot cocoa in the morning to watch cartoons.

Look at that cheeseball chocolate grin.

 He is a little lover (unless he is hungry, then watch out.)  He has been in a daddy phase for the last year but loves us all.  He gives everyone in the house a hug and kiss before heading into his room to read stories before bed.  He likes to get his haircut.
Our little Benjarvis Green Bellies is three.

The above are from his birthday party in Clintonville, he couldn't quite get the concept of blowing onto the candle down.  Martin jumped in at the end to help him.  And while he is three, he ate only the frosting off his cake and made it look as if he got a smash cake again.

 He got the blow perfected for his actual birthday.

 Goofball.  We love you!