Family Update

Aaron really wants to go to school since his friend, Brandon, has started preschool. So we have "school" at our house about an hour or so a day. We are learning a letter one day and numbers the next day. He has done A and B and 1,2,3,4 and he loves it. He is learning the sounds the letters make and how to put the numbers in order. He does very well at night as far as wetting the bed. He went for about 2 weeks with no accidents at night so we took him to the store to pick out a toy. It was great not to have so much laundry from all the bedding and PJs! =) He acts so grown up sometimes and some of the things he says are so amazing. I can't believe that he is only 3 1/2 but acts much older. I thought 3 year olds were still babies but I am amazed at what he knows and picks up. He loves to help Daddy mow the lawn. He sits on the riding mower and steers for him! Aaron loved the pool this summer. He wears arm floaties (called his "muscles" ) and is not afraid to swim on his own with them. He loves to jump in as long as one of us catches him. He likes the water but hates for it to be in his eyes. He doesn't like to go under so that is something we will have to work on next year. But he loves that he can swim on his own now. We are going to close it up next weekend and he is upset about that. We had an aquarium for a few weeks and Aaron fell in love with the fish. I sold it and when the people came to take it away, he actually cried and was very upset. I didn't think he was that attached. I felt really bad but we can't have another one until the kids are older cuz they can't stay out of it!

Tyler is almost 22 months. He acts so much older though and wants to do EVERYTHING Aaron does. We are working on the potty training. He does well one week then goes backwards. He likes to go on the big toilet. I try not to get my hopes up too much. I know that when the baby comes everything will probably go backwards anyways. I know he is still quite young but I am encouraged at how much he really wants to. He likes to wear big boy underwear. (with rubber pants over them) During Aaron's "school" Tyler wants to do everything too. We are working on colors for him and his favorite is brown. He knows brown for sure. He loves to color. We are working on knowing to color ONLY on paper that I give him! He wants to make all the letters just like Aaron and sometimes it makes me crazy. He gets frustrated because he can't do something Aaron is. He is as active as ever. He doesn't stay still for more than a minute!
He has had his own bed now for quite a while. He would not stay in the crib anymore so we decided to just let him sleep on a mattress on the floor and he loves it. He is still up early every morning but at least he can just get up and not cry and wake Aaron now. He is so talkative now. Of course most things are unintelligible but he just chatters nonstop. He will eat anything and everything but is still a skinny tall little guy. I think he will be taller than Aaron.

I am 32 weeks pregnant now. Only 8 weeks to go- hopefully less! No, we still did not find out what it is. We will be surprised when we see it for the first time. Many things are different this time with the pregnancy but that doesn't mean anything. I crave sweets constantly! With the boys I never did. I rarely ate chocolate when I was pregnant with them. Most everything is ready for the baby's arrival. We are working on a name still but will soon have that ready as well! =) Tyler doesn't really understand but he thinks it is funny that the baby "kicked" my belly button out. Aaron is very excited and says he will take care of the baby and not let Tyler be mean to it. =) He calls it a "she" because the only baby he has really been in contact with is cousin Gracie.
I work 3 nights a week still, about 5 hours a night. I will be stopping at the end of October unless of course the baby has different ideas. I am ok with whenever this baby wants to come except Oct 31! Wilmer is still at Paychex but now their department has moved to the other side of the city. Now he has to contend with so much traffic. He is still looking to move to another department within Paychex but right now is just waiting for an opportunity. He has been working at the apartments on the weekends. We have 2 empty ones so we are praying that those will be rented out soon. God had been good to us and provides just what we need when we need it. We have all been healthy this summer and are looking forward to the fall and holiday season with all the changes to take place in our family.

Late Summer Family Picnic

We decided to have another family picnic since Dad and Mom had been away for the July 4th picnic. So everyone came up to our house for a pool party. Of course, the weather had to be chillier that week so the pool was quite cool but the actual day turned out fine. The only person missing was Zeb so we will have another family get together when he gets home (which will be holiday time). All of the kids wanted to go swimming so most of us went in the pool at least for a little bit. Stacey and Heather wanted to have a chicken fight so they elected Cody and Wilmer to be the .."Bottom" whose shoulders they sat on. Then they tried and tried to get each other off. Finally the guys had enough so they just dumped them! Almost everyone got out except Heather, Emily and I. We were just laying on the rafts. Emily fell asleep and then fell off her raft! It was quite funny! A rude awakening that's for sure. Wilmer and Cody were "sunning" oh I mean, laying out on their towels in the yard sleeping. Stacey went to lay with them but... she doesn't understand the meaning of "laying out" because she had jeans, shoes and a sweatshirt on! Check out the pictures here Stacey had made a birthday cake for me with a pregnant woman with a little baby in the belly on it. Aaron wanted the piece with the baby so I gave it to him and he thought he was supposed to eat the plastic baby too! But it was a pretty good weekend. We went to the Strong Museum for kids again with David and Melisa and brought Grandpa and Grandma along this time. It was nice to be together and now that our house is so much bigger we are not so crowded. Grandma helped the kids put on a little play with costumes at the end of the weekend. It was pretty cute and they were proud to get all dressed up. You can see the video here.

Airshow

To see the pictures of the airshow click here

We went to the airshow here in July. Usually we park at RIT (the college) then ride the shuttle buses to the airport. This year, they were using school buses as shuttles. Aaron was so excited because he has been wanting to ride a school bus ever since he learned what they were. But Daddy and Mommy weren't so excited. School buses do not have a place for strollers and chairs and all the extra junk we have to bring. So Daddy ended up in one seat with all the stuff and the boys and I were in another seat. The day turned out to be very nice and sunny, but not too hot or humid. We walked around and looked at all the planes on the ground. We could walk thru some of them, like the big cargo planes, FED EX plane, and some other big ones. Others we could just look at or stand next to. They had helicopters- army and medical, and other military vehicles as well. We saw parachuters, which Aaron thought was pretty cool, and some small plane demonstrations.
Then the big event- the Thunderbirds. They always do them at the end of course. Tyler was awake the entire day until right before the Thunderbirds started flying then fell asleep! I don't know how he could sleep as they are not very quiet but he was exhausted. I had just laid him in the stroller because my arms were falling asleep when one of the planes flew directly over the crowd ( a "surprise attack" that most people don't see coming so it scares you). Tyler opened his eyes, sat straight up for a second then laid back down sound asleep! It was so funny! Then after they were all finished, we took Aaron on the moonwalk thing that the kids can jump on. Then Tyler woke up unfortunately too early! I was hoping he would sleep at least until we got back on the bus.
I took Tyler and went to stand in line (which was hours long) to get back on the bus. Wilmer and Aaron went around to look at some more planes. Our line turned out to be shorter than the other one for the other school- ours took about an hour or so before we were on the bus. Aaron fell asleep on the way home and we brought him inside. It was only 5:30 so I let him sleep about an hour then tried to wake him up. It was impossible. He was so worn out! He slept until 4am then got up and came to our room, Tyler following behind. I had not been sleeping well either so now we are all awake at 4am on Monday morning! Let me tell you, that Monday was NOT a good day and we all went to bed early.

July 4th

For July 4th weekend, we went down to PA to stay at my parents. Dad and Mom were in Romania so we had full run of the house! =) We went to Stacey's for the day on the 4th. All of us were there except Dad and Mom, Zeb (in Afghanistan) and Melisa (working). We had SO much food so we had them call friends and all so we would get rid of it. We ended up eating that for the rest of the weekend! We had a great day and it was beautiful weather. The boys were enthralled with the big trampoline, esp Aaron. He wanted to copy all of Uncle Cody's tricks! Tyler loved the bunny and the dogs. Heather and Wilmer went riding on her motorcycles. I just sat back and relaxed. It was nice. The whole weekend was surprisingly relaxing and slow moving.

Circus

Miscellaneous Pictures of the Boys

We were able to go to a circus in June for the first time with the boys. Aunt Heather came with us. They had pony rides so the boys went on them and loved it. They liked the little petting zoo and seeing those huge elephants up close. As far as the circus itself- they weren't as enthralled and it was hard to keep their attention. We probably won't go to another one until they are older.