Family Pictures

Of course the day we scheduled our family pictures was the day before Timothy cut his tooth. 

He was such a grumpy pants. But in spite of that, we got really adorable pictures!

The classic "Constipated Turtle" face! Now we need to come up with a "Snarling Platypus" face!

 Look at this gorgeous girl! My goodness, she is growing up so quickly!

Yeah, he's had it!

Grumpy Santa!

 We asked them to take a picture of his scar...is that weird? I just think its a tough-man photo! That is a tribute to all that he has been through!

And the last picture they take, we get a smile!

More of December

We love these giving machines that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has put up! What an awesome opportunity to help people who are really in need as a gift for our Savior! 

 I love this grumpy looking boy! his shirt says, "That's it, I'm calling Grandma!"

 Gelo is getting so spoiled with my parent's fireplace!

Evelyn can always get Timothy laughing, but this morning was something special: He was almost going hysterical! He adores his older sister!

Miracles!

We see so many miracles with Timothy! My mom has especially enjoyed having him live with her because she has gotten to experience the miracles first hand. She had a baby brother when she was 5 named Jaimie who had spina bifida. He died of hydrocephalus when he was nine months old. Timothy just hit his 9 month mark on December 5th! The week before, he gave us this surprise:

He is such a strong little man! He is using mostly upper body strength but he definitely is moving those legs! He has surprised everyone: KOTM, The spina Bifida clinic, his Physical Therapist, his Grandpa! Everyone is starting to see that Timothy is determined enough to accomplish anything once he puts his mind to it! Especially if it involves stealing fox from Angelo!

Here are some more pictures of his progress.

 Kids on the Move encourages using a ball pit to help his develop core strength. So we bought our own little ball pit for him to play in. He started crawling very quickly after that.

 Angelo is so funny with Timothy: he adores him now that Timothy throws him food from his high chair! He will bring Timothy his dog toys and drop them in his lap! And guess what Timothy does with them? EWWWW! I really have to watch those two together!

   Timothy has also started talking a little! He started by saying "MMMM!!" for "more", then he started calling me, very consistently using the same name: "Em!" After a couple weeks of that, he converted "Em" into "Mama," and "MMMM!" into "MMMooowah!" He is trying to say Dada: but it comes out "Baba". He can say "Eya," but hasn't associated it with Evelyn's name yet because we call her Evelyn too much.

Joys of Teething

Timothy just cut two more teeth: I had forgotten the sleepless nights and social anxieties and plain grumpiness a couple of teeth could cause!

Timothy had a hard time taking naps during the day unless I snuggled up next to him, then he slept really well. I didn't mind the extra sleep since he was waking me every hour to two hours through the night!

His gums got so swollen, we caved in and gave him his first popsicle! He was so excited for it and popped in in his mouth, but immediately retreated. He did not like the cold! Check out the pictures!

In Transition

While our house is being finished, we are living in my parents' home. It has been better than we all anticipated: hopefully for my parents as well. We are very comfortable with my parents. Even Evelyn is comfortable enough that it makes up for having to change schools. We have hit so many landmarks here in the two months that we have been here!

We are living upstairs in the loft and two bedrooms. Its pretty spacious, but my room has a tendency of becoming the hangout place, so it reminds me a bit of the dorms in college. We just kind of party on my bed.

    We moved in  just before Halloween, so on November 11th, as per tradition we decorated for Christmas! We decorated my parents house too, so that they would have the full impact of living with us during the Christmas season. They are sweet enough that they allowed it with good attitudes.

 Right before we moved in, Timothy got a device from Kids on the Move to help him stand. He gets strapped in and raised up to standing position: my mom calls it Timothy's Rack. He has to be in it 1 hour and 15 minutes a day to help with bone density and muscle development. He likes to either eat or play the piano with Evelyn while he does his time.

 Timothy has always loved food, but right now he LOVES food! He eats it constantly, and begs for more! "MMMMM!" He demands! And if we don't pack some food in his mouth quickly enough, he will even try to attempt the hand sign!

we took Timothy to Tucanos for his first Veteran's day meal!

 In the mean time, our house is progressing so quickly! It looks more and more like a real house!

 Michael started his new job, and he is loving it! It is located up in Ogden so there are lots of commuting hours away, but he is so excited to be doing the work that he doesn't even mind. He was released as Bishop and the Willow Springs Ward was officially dissolved and the members split between two neighboring wards. He hasn't felt the ex-bishop letdown since we moved anyway, and we aren't attending that ward. We all just miss our friends, but love the extra nights together! As celebrating for his release, he grew a November beard. 

 We started  attending our new ward and all had such a spiritual confirmation that it is where the Lord wants us to be! Even Evelyn, who had been dragging her feet a little, felt really strongly like this was home! So we transferred our records there and we are speaking in sacrament next week! There is another kid with Spina Bifida in our ward, which is so crazy, because the rate is 1:2000 people! God is so amazing the way He leads us to where we need to be!