GO SOX!

The highlight of our week so far has definitely been the White Sox winning over the Twins to put them in the playoffs. The Red Sox were already in, so we just needed that win to have both of our family teams on the road to the World Series. The White Sox game was on Will's birthday, and the win was probably the best present he could have received. Tommy wanted to celebrate for both teams, so we decided to get out his White Sox hat (compliments of Uncle Jeremy) and his stuffed Green Monster (compliments of Great Uncle Billy). Here he is, happy to have both Sox teams in the playoffs! GO SOX!

New Fall Wardrobe

First of all, Tommy and I would just like to say,
Happy Birthday, Dada!!! We love you!

Now that the weather's starting to cool down a bit, Tommy's breaking out the new fall line of fashion:

His chocolate brown henley with khaki "FOOTBALL" print flows nicely into his rugged khaki cargo pant. Not pictured: brown velcro sneakers pull the whole outfit together. (I found it quite appropriate that there's a football game going on in the background of this picture.)

Here, Tommy shows off his handsome denim overall, perfect for the cool fall weather (special thanks to Mimi for sending this adorable outfit Tommy's way). Suspender straps keep these pants from slipping during Tommy's many hours of extreme play. The lime green onesie adds a spash of color to the denim, and ties into the green vine that the monkey is swinging from. An all around classic look for fall. (And here you can see his chocolate brown shoes that go so nicely with almost any outfit. Here, they happen to match the monkey quite nicely.)

I hope you have been inspired by these outfits and will go out and try to create some of your own. (Can you tell that my new favorite show is "What Not To Wear"? Somehow I just happen to take a break from my school work and cleaning during the show's time slot on TLC. Curious, huh?)

Bigfoot

They say you never really know a person until you've walked a mile in their shoes. I've never known anyone to literally attempt that until now. Tommy loves to walk in our shoes. I'm pretty sure it's not the safest practice in the world, but everytime I turn around he's trying to step into one or another pair of our shoes. We should probably end this favorite past time pretty quickly because I can just hear the conversation in the emergency room:

"Excuse me maam, are you this boy's mother?"
"Yes, Doctor, I am."
"I see. And how did your child break his ankle?"
"Well, it's like this. He was walking around in my shoes and. . . "
"Wait a minute. Walking in your shoes??"
"Yes"
"I see." . . .

Here he is, playing with his trucks while wearing my shoes. Cute, but probably not the best idea in the world.

A Boy and His Vacuum

Basically, Tommy wants to do everything that we do. He loves to put on our shoes and walk in them (I'll be posting those pictures next), he loves to have his own pot and spoon to stir while I'm in the kitchen, and most curiously, he loves to vacuum. Up until recently, Tommy has had a love-hate relationship with the vacuum (more hate than love). When he was just a little guy (compared to now when he's a big boy), he wouldn't go near the thing and would cry as soon as we turned it on. Slowly, he became more and more curious and eventually sneaked up behind it and quickly gave it a slap before scooting off in the opposite direction. Since it didn't get up and follow him, he slowly moved back in for another quick poke. This went on for probably a month before he finally got up the nerve to knock the thing over. Upon its demise, he decided it would be OK to try and pick up the handle. And now instead of crying when we get it out, he cries when we put it away. Yesterday Tommy had his first ever ride on a vacuum. No, we didn't get a picture of that because we were both trying to hold him on and push the thing. Today, he actually did a little vacuuming himself (with Dada's help). So here he is working his magic in the hallway and the living room. It's not actually plugged in - he still gets a little nervous at the sound of the thing, but he sure does love to push it.

Hiking Adventures

Dear Bloggers,

Please forgive our lack of recent posts. Other important and time-sensitive projects have demanded my attention, but now that I can breathe again, here, for your viewing pleasure, is a collection of photos from our waterfall hiking adventure.

It was a lovely day for strolling through the woods with friends. First, we headed back the "easy" trail to Hooker Falls. Tommy did pretty good while we were walking but immediately wanted to get down when we got to the base of the falls. We got him out, took off his shoes and let him stick his feet in. Too bad we didn't have his bathing suit (or more importantly, our bathing suits since technically Tommy could have gone swimming in his diaper) - he would have loved to go for a swim! Here he is peeking out behind Will at the base of the falls.

I took this picture from the overlook above Hooker Falls. We were all impressed with the water flow considering WNC's drought.

Next we headed up the steep gravel trail to Triple Falls. I like this picture of Tommy - he looks like he's saying, "Hey mom, what gives? Another picture?" We like trying to figure out what Tommy's thinking or saying based on his expression. He talks a lot, but doesn't say many words, although recently he's come out with some things that sound pretty familiar. For instance, the other day he brought me his cup and said, "ma cuu", which we translated as "my cup". Then last night, he reached up for the phone and said, "owannaseeat", which we tranlated as "I want to see that". He also said, "masues" while reaching for his shoes yesterday. We'll add these words to his ever growing vocabulary which currently consists of mama, dada, all done, gone, duck, and bye bye. He might have said guitar today, too, but that could be a stretch.

Yeah, so. . . back to the pictures.

After snapping some pictures from the overlook, we headed down the steep trail to the bottom of the falls. Here, we got Tommy out of his backpack so he could walk around on the rocks and wade through the shallow pools of water. He promptly sat down in a puddle and soaked his shorts. Here we are wading through a pool at the base of Triple Falls.

A pretty bunch of flowers growing by the trail on the way down to the waterfall. . .

After spending a sufficient amount of time spashing in the water, we packed up and decided to finish the trail up to High Falls. Here's a shot from the first overlook. Can you see the covered bridge at the top? That was our destination.

As you can see, Tommy loves sticks, especially ones that are way too big for him to walk and carry at the same time. Daddy is trying to give him a "Tommy-sized" stick, but no no dada. Tommy wants the BIG stick (which happened to belong to a member of our group. She didn't know she was bringing Tommy a walking stick.)

We made it to the top, sat on the bridge and watched the horses walk through the water and then headed back down. Tommy was getting pretty tired by that point. Here he is taking a break in his backpack.

After our hike, we had a great barbecue with the group and then headed home to put Tommy to bed. He was wiped out! Can't wait until our next hiking adventure in October!

There are lots more pictures to share. Hopefully they'll be up here sooner than later. Happy Weekend!

Mountain State Fair

This morning we woke up in a fog - literally. Tommy must have overheard our plans for heading to the fair today because he was up before 7 and immediately wanted to put his shoes on. After getting them on, we ran over to the sliding door, eagerly pulled back the curtain to check the weather and. . . fog. Gray clouds, light rain and a thick fog that completely covered up our beautiful Carolina mountain view. I was worried. What if we can't go the fair? No need to panic. We're not leaving for a while, maybe the clouds will burn off and leave us with the perfect end-of-summer day to walk amongst the wild rides, fried foods and strange animals. We almost didn't make the trip, but decided to brave the drizzle and keep driving. We never did see any blue sky this morning, but that was ok because we were too busy checking out all the exciting things at the Mountain State Fair!

I think it's safe to say that Tommy thoroughly enjoyed himself. He loved looking at all the animals and was so amazed at all the rides, especially the one called, "Freak Out". (I was a little freaked out by that ride myself.) We didn't actually go on any, just walked through to check them all out. But wait a minute, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start at the beginning.

Here's a picture of our first stop. That's a sheep in the background.

And here she is up close! Kinda cute and smelled a whole lot better than Mrs. Sandburg's goats! Tommy liked looking at the turkeys, but was a little nervous when they started up that gobbling business. Better get used to it Tommy! That's your future school mascot! GO HOKIES! Gobble Gobble Gobble!
I love this picture.
A gray day, but look at all the bright colors of the fair!
Ooooo, the ferris wheel!

And here's one of Will and Tommy next to what looked like a cross between a cow, a horse and a camel. Tommy looks a little scared.

After the rides and the animals, naturally, we had to partake in a classic fair food: funnel cake. Tommy had a couple small bites but opted instead for his whole wheat crackers (what?!). On the way out, we grabbed a caramel apple to bring home.

A fun morning was had by all. Tommy was totally wiped out when we got home. He had a quick lunch and has now been sleeping for almost 3 hours! He needs to rest up for our hike tomorrow. Hopefully the weather will hold off for us again.

Hope you enjoyed your small look at the Mountain State Fair!

Happy Friday!

More Visitors!

What a treat! Visits from grandparents two weekends in a row. You can bet Tommy was excited about that! Here are a couple fun pictures from our weekend with Grampa and Jeannie.

We like to call this first one, "Giddyup Grampa!" Tommy loves piggy back rides! If you can't tell, that's a wooden spoon he's holding in his hand. Watch out Grampa - Tommy's not afraid to use that thing. Seriously.

Unfortunately, we didn't take too many pictures. Grampa and Jeannie had a disposable so I just didn't think about getting out the digital. Here's an older shot of Tommy and Grampa. So cute.

We had lots of fun visiting with Grampa and Jeannie. We spent quite a bit of time down at the park, walked up through the neighborhood, smelled the grapes (reminded me of home and the old grape vine on the fence!) on the trails at Jackson Park and took the tour of the historic Carl Sandburg home. That man had a ton of books! Amazing. We learned quite a bit about Mrs. Sandburg's goats from the nice ladies who had the unfortunate job of cleaning out the male goat pen. And for the record. . . those goats were extremely stinky. Ew.

If the weather's nice, we have some fun things planned for this weekend. If it doesn't rain, we may head out to the Mountain State Fair tomorrow to see some more animals. On Saturday, we're hiking the waterfalls at Dupont with the group. Perhaps there will be pictures to share. Something to look forward to! I'm also thinking about doing a "Tommy Through the Ages (0-15months)" sometime soon. To prepare you for these (hopefully) upcoming pictures, I'll share one from a past trip to the falls and one from Tommy at the ripe old age of 4 days.

We made the trek a year ago when some family came down to visit. Here's Aunt Ki-Ki and Gramma with us down by the water.

How cute is he?! So sweet.

Until next time, bloggers.

Favorites

I love this picture. Mimi took it through the leaves of her tomato plants.

This one is just funny. And apparently shocking.

Happy Thursday.

Weekend Fun

So those videos that I tried to post yesterday finally decided to work this afternoon, so here they are for your viewing pleasure.

The first is of one of Tommy's favorite past times - SLIDING!

This seond one shows off Tommy's fantastic moves on the dance floor. . . or in the sand at the playground, whichever. Any place is the right place for dancing as you can see from the way Tommy breaks it down out there next to the slide. We've been trying to get a video that includes Tommy's bouncing, swaying and twirling, but so far, this is the best we can come up with. The other day as we were walking through a store, Tommy stopped every few steps to sway along with the music that was playing over the loudspeaker. Hilarious.

First Day of "School"

Don't worry, Tommy's first day of school wasn't as traumatic as this picture makes it look. You can just imagine what he's thinking: "Please, Mommy, please don't leave me here! Please!" He did cry when we dropped him off, but the very nice teachers assured me when I picked him up, that he stopped soon after we left and had a great time playing with all the other kids. Before we left, he even gave one of the babies a hug. How sweet! He'll be attending the week day school (at our church) twice a week, which may end up being harder for me than it is for him. At least Daddy is just upstairs and can check on Tommy every once in awhile.

The following picture was taken soon after he got home from school - as you can see, he's still his happy self!

I'll dedicate the rest of the post today to a picture and a couple videos from our weekend with Gramma.

Just kidding . . . the videos were taking way too long to post. I'll try again later. Have a great day!