Happy Birthday Kyle!

Yesterday was Kyle's birthday.  It was pretty cold out, so we threw a pizza party at home with the boys. 

First thing in the morning, Zachary crawls into bed and Kyle requests the Happy Birthday song.  Zachary replies, "Dad.  It's not your Birthday.  Your Birthday is Friday.  No singing until Friday."  Not sure where he got that, but he kept it up all day.

Kyle got some gift cards for new clothes and some camo gear for his new hunting hobby.

Kyle deserves the best year ever and it feels great to celebrate with our favorite little boys.

Conversations with Zachary

I LOVE talking to Zachary now that he is so verbal.  Just have to share these so I don't forget.

Mom: "Zachary!  Your toots are stinky!  Cut it out!"
Zachary: "No Mom.  My toots aren't stinky, they're YUMMY". "YUMMY toots Mom"

Zachary at night in bed, "Mom I like to toot.  I like to toot because Dad likes to toot."
Hmmmmm

Zachary, "Mom. Andrew doesn't have (snow) boots.  I have boots.  We need to go to the Red Store and buy Andrew boots.  He wants blue ones"
- I asked his teacher and Andrew DOES have boots in fact.  I think Zachary just wanted to go to Target.

"Mom.  I want to go to the Red Store, but Max can't come.  He can only go to the Orange store with Kimbo"
The Orange store is Home Depot

We're in LOVE!

Today is Valentine's Day.  They boys had a big party at school and I wanted to share some photos Max's teacher shared with me today.

Max's class decorated cookies, read special books, and had a nice lunch (complete with centerpieces) together.

Kyle and I bought the boys new furniture for Valentine's Day.  Zachary FINALLY got his much deserved big boy bed and Max has a new dresser and nightstand.  No more nursery furniture in our house.

This evening Kyle is going to take Zachary to a Regis HS Basketball game and Max and I will watch reality TV and snuggle.  Ahhhhhh......love is in the air.

Merry Christmas 2013

Christmas was awesome for the Tormoehlens this year.  We celebrated the whole week!

It was pretty crazy to get ready this year, as Thanksgiving was late in the year and Kyle went to training in Florida for a week, so we scrambled to do the shopping and decorating.  It took a lunch visit to Toys R' Us with big lines, but the boys loved it all.

We went shopping for a new car the weekend before and it landed pretty unsuccessful, so we opened a few gifts early to put us back in the mood.  Then we went to Pam and Dave's on Sunday, and my friend Maggie's on Christmas Eve with the kids.  They loved looking at the lights in our neighborhood and talking about Santa.

The boys got lots of cool gifts:

- New Trains (The Chuggington Collection)

- Money for new big boy beds

- A new Golf Set

- A Record Player for Max

- A Science Kit for Zachary

- A Rocket Tent from Pam

Sounds Cheesy, but the best present is two healthy boys.  They are wild and crazy, but they are great kids

Merry Christmas Zachary and Max.  You deserve the whole world and are loved more than you know,

Mom

New Tent in Zachary's Room

Aftermath

Max LOVED the musical orniments

Sweet, Sweet Max

Max!

It's taken Mommy forever to update your stats, but we've been so busy!  Mommy and Daddy work so hard at work and our weekend seem to be just as wild!  We just CRAVE time with you and your brother and soak up as much time as we have in the just two short days on the weekends. 

- You LOVE your school and your teacher.  Daddy traditionally does the drop-offs every morning, but in the few that I've done, you'll lunge for your teacher.  You're the biggest guy in your class and they're working on transitioning you to the toddler room very soon

- You talk so much!  Favorite words, "Ball, Ba-Ba (Bottle), Ni-Ni (Night-night), bye-bye, flower, dog, moon, flower, cracker, "Choo-Choo"."

- You like playing trains with your bother

- You like sitting forward in your new car seat.  You must be like mom and get a little queasy in the back seat

- You're SO CLOSE to walking.  You showed high interest around 9 months and I thought you'd be an early walker, but lost interest along the way, so you're back in action!

- We celebrated your FIRST birthday with all of your friends and family at the Children's Museum.  It was a joint celebration with Zachary and you loved it.  You weren't really into your cake, but enjoyed the attention and presents.  Your favorite present was a ride-on airplane (photos below).  You race your brother on it around the house

- You like wearing necklaces (featured below)

- You love eating.  You eat everything and get upset when you can't eat big boy food like popcorn, grapes, and smoothies

- You had your FIRST Halloween and enjoyed running around the neighborhood with your brother.  You dressed up in the same monkey suit as your two cousins and your brother, but we had to squeeze you in- TIGHT!

You are a HUGE joy to our family, Max.  You are a love of our lives and we can't imagine our family without you.  You are a kind, happy, smart, and loving child and it's a joy to be your mom.  Thank you for being such a beautiful blessing in my life.

Weekend Update

This weekend was pretty wild!

Zachary had his last swimming lesson of  the Fall session.  He's been doing great and seems to really enjoy being in the water.  We even arrived early on Saturday and watched some men play basketball- he loved it!

After swimming, we attended Ethan Power's 1st Birthday and Kyle and Zachary went to a baby shower that afternoon.

On Sunday, Zachary and I went to Austin's third birthday party at Monkey Business.  (Zachary kept calling it the "Monkey niss-niss")  Zachary was so excited to jump in the bouncy houses and ate quite a bit of pizza.

Zachary was nice enough to bring back some party favors for his brother (Max was napping over the party) and it was fun to watch them play together.

Great weekend!  The Boys are having their birthday blow-out this Saturday!!  Where has the time gone??!!

After Party With Your Pants Off!

Happy Halloween!

Last year, Zachary wasn't into the Holiday.  I'm guessing now that his costumes were always too itchy for his Eczema, but we ended up wearing a skull sweatshirt and he enjoyed ringing people's doorbells.  Zachary also shows little signs for liking sweets, so I ended up eating most of his loot. Fail.

Kyle and I have been talking a lot about Halloween this year to get him excited.  We carved pumpkins last weekend and Zachary enjoyed putting 'flashlights' in them. (I bought flameless candles- go me)

The big change was the costumes.  We tried a few times to get him into a Halloween store, but most had the scariest costumes and decorations up front and we couldn't even get him in the store.  We tried again on Saturday and came out (very quickly) with a Lightning McQueen costume.  I still couldn't get him in it hours after we bought it, but eventually he gave in and seemed to like wearing the muscles.

Here are a few of pictures of his photo shoot.  Hope we get it back on him this weekend!