Fall in the Twin Cities...

Even for a colorblind guy the Fall colors in the Twin Cities are amazing.  Here's a picture I took this week of downtown Minneapolis.  For those not familiar with MN, you can also see St. Paul in the distance on the right side of Minneapolis.  It's been a beautiful Fall...hope we survive the Winter:).

Sad day in the Timothy household

Just yesterday Doug and I were talking about what a good sleeper Ollie is, but I think today marked the start of a new phase.  About 20 minutes after laying both boys down for a nap I heard Ollie's door open and out walked Ollie! There was no big boom of him falling so I was really confused.  I put him back in his crib and 30 seconds later he opened his door again.  I lamely attempted to put him back in a couple of more times before I decided I just needed to lower his crib to the lowest setting.  Ladd wanted in on the fun so he unlocked his door (from the backside) and they both tried to make it as difficult as possible for me to lower the crib mattress.  

I proceeded to put Ollie back in his crib (with a bottle, figuring he'd doze off while he drank) and put Ladd back down for a nap.  10 minutes later Ollie walked out his door again without a sound.  After the third time I decided I needed to see how he was doing this and put the video camera on the dresser when I left him.  


This is totally worth watching:

After many more futile attempts of putting him back I went into Ladd's room (because he had let himself out again) and set up the pack and play.  I set up the camera just in case and waited and this is what I caught:


I desperately needed them to nap because we have reservations for dinner tonight so we went on a drive and within minutes both were sleeping.  I love car seats. Added bonus I now had time to blog this and figure out a way to keep Ollie in his crib tonight.

Preschool

Ladd started preschool this fall and loves it.  All he talks about is my teacher... and my school...  He was genuinely this excited on his first day. 

Pictures of our boys!

Just wanted to post a few quick pics of the boys for their shama's.  Captions are from recent conversations...

"Dad, can I have some money's so I can go see Shama?"

"Uncle Potty better keep his Flowbee away from me when I visit this Christmas"

Ollie seriously said that!!

Up North...

For as long as we've lived in MN we've heard of people heading "up north" for the weekend.  Until earlier this month we'd never been "up north" as a family.  We had a great time up in Brainerd, MN for a long weekend and now understand why everyone heads "up north".  It was great to relax a little and spend time as a family without all the distractions of home.

First of all, there's the food!  OK, so the food wasn't great at our resort but Ladd, Ollie and I loved the chocolate cake.

You should have seen my face before Darci made me wipe it off...it was good cake!

We had a great time swimming.  Ladd took swimming lessons this last year and apparently only remembered the part about jumping in.  I was never there for the lessons and assumed he knew what he was doing:)...until he didn't come back up.

The boys favorite part of the trip was playing games.  Bingo didn't last that long but...

they loved driving cars and shooting bear and moose (you're welcome, Dad).  We didn't get a picture of Ladd's favorite game, the Candy Crane...needless to say we won tons candy that was older than Pac-Man.

We had a great time at the beach playing in the water and playing bocce ball.  I hate to admit this, but Darci absolutely destroyed me at bocce ball.  

We went on a pontoon ride around Gull Lake and guess who loved it?

These next three pictures are only half the story.  Picture Ladd looking out over the dock and seeing all the birds.  This conjured up a bunch of questions for a 3 year old...

Ladd: "Dad, why are the birds just sitting there"..."why aren't they flying"..."why...", "why...". 

Dad: "Ladd, you should go scare the birds":).  

His eyes got huge and he took off running and roaring.  

At this point there were several people laughing behind us...hope they didn't hear me!

Over the last few months Ladd has begun working on his "funny" faces.  All of our requests are now followed by googly eyes, a tongue, smashed face or crossed eyes.  Here's one of the many tongues he stuck out at us.  In all fairness, Darci's mom warned her that she was going to get 10 kids just like her.

This picture says a ton...Ladd's mad that he threw his sucker stick out of the carriage and now has to retreat 50 yards to pick it up, Ollie's wondering why anyone could be sad when they just ate a sucker while standing next to a horse and mom is being a good sport and trying to pose for a picture:)  The boys loved seeing the horses, but still love grandpa's horses the best.  

And finally, the real reason everyone goes "up north"...it's the home of Paul Bunyan.  This is one of the millions of statues of Paul in the Brainerd area.

Like I said, we had a great time.  The people were extraordinarily nice at our resort and catered to our boys.  We didn't get a lot of sleep but who has time to sleep when you're having so much fun.

Ragnar Relay...long over due!!

It feels like ages ago but it was only last month that Darci and I, along with 10 others, ran the Great River Relay.  We had an absolute blast running up the Mississippi river with our friends.  We improved by 4 seconds per mile compared with last year:).  Here's a recap of the race:

Here's van 1 at the starting line.  At this point I was the only one that knew what we were getting ourselves into...everyone was excited:).

7 minutes to til our team started, this is the best we'd look for the next two days.  This could also be the stopwatch that Dave and Maile Wilson were using to time how long Ladd had been up.  We owe the Wilson's big time...Neither of them got any sleep on Thursday night (seriously).  We still feel bad about it and now love the Wilson's even more!

Here's Darci on her first leg.  A cop almost pulled her over for going faster than the speed limit.  The first leg of our race was in rural Wisconsin, we saw a lot of corn.  Darci started off with no regard for pacing herself and ran this 5.6 mile leg faster than she wanted and even threw in a sprint at the end to cross before the guy in front of her.

No, I didn't carry a glow stick with me throughout the race, I was coming into the exchange and handing off our slap bracelet...not sure which is worse, running with a glow stick or slap bracelet.  Either way, I barely made the 6.6 miles and was happy to get the first leg behind me.

We obviously didn't win the "best costume" award.  Had I known that running in undies and spandex was welcome I would have ran so much faster.

Here we are getting ready to start our second leg.  Between leg one and two we rested in Stockholm WI, population 99.  We took a great swim in the Mississippi river to rinse off and tried to get some shut eye (didn't work).  We started leg two around 8pm and ran until 2am.

Darci straightened her hat for this picture after seeing herself in the previous pic;)  This is about the time it starts to feel weird that you're actually going to being running in the middle of the night.

This is where we slept from 3 to 5am thanks to the ear plugs Darci brought.  Had David not been watching the clock there's no way we would have been up and ready when van 2 got to the bridge.  

Here we are after our last leg...4 of the 6 in our van can all be quoted as saying, "this was so fun and I'm so glad we did this....but I'm never doing it again".  It only took a day or two for most of them to start talking about the "next time" we do it:).  We were all trashed but had a great time.

The race ended near downtown Minneapolis.  Darci was ready for her bed.

No blisters for me...just Camie and Darci.  The good news, my toenail fell off a few days ago.  

Here's the whole team at the finish line.  We ran the entire 193 miles at an avg pace of 9:04 min/mile...that's just over 29 hours.

I know Darci loves me because she let me stand this close to her while smelling like I had just run 20+ miles and hadn't showered in days.  

Father and Sons Outing

A few weeks ago Ladd and I went on a great father and sons campout with our ward.  Ladd chased the big kids around all night and could barely sleep because he was having so much fun.  We were the first to get there and the last to leave.
Ladd tossed and turned all night...and gave me and Clayton (Ladd's good buddy who was staying in our tent) a few body slams.  It was all fun and games until 12:30am when Clayton said, "Doug...Ladd just bit me".  Needless to say, no one got much sleep until our afternoon naps the next day.  Here are a few pics from our adventure:

Ladd hanging out with the boys

This is how much Ladd loved camping!

More summer happenings...

Warning: Total Radomness from this summer.

Rodeo just 5 minutes from our house- Ladd loved riding the horses.  If you don't believe me check out this close-up of him

Second time around with his much needed cowboy hat.

Watching the rodeo from the grassy hill.  Loved it!

Ollie's hair has been a little out of control.  This is what happens when we try to comb it.

Business in Front

Party in the back- just how we like it.

Awesome Minneapolis Pops Orchestra in the park (Lake Harriet) with the Hillyards. 

Ideal

I've found that one of the biggest struggles I have with my boys is keeping Ollie safe from Ladd.  There is a lot of intentional and accidental violence such as: wrestling, shoving, pinching, pushing Ollie off furniture, poking, leashing Ollie with anything he can lay his hands on and dragging him around like a puppy, drenching with water, tipping Ollie's booster and chair over (yes Ollie has been in it both times) smashing fingers in doors, etc.
Ollie isn't completely innocent he spits, hits, bites (I think he's outgrown this) and throws toys at all of us, but can you really blame him.  Honestly, Ollie inflicts enough pain on himself to be worried about permanent damage.  Just yesterday he repeatedly climbed on the couch and did head dives onto the wood floor just for fun.
The other day I had asked Ladd a billion times to stop touching (hurting) his brother, but he couldn't help himself.  The final straw was an innocent enough shove, but I couldn't take it anymore so I put Ladd in his room with some toys and told him to play by himself for awhile.  Shortly after, Ladd started crying under the door and pleading "Ollie come get me, Ollie come let me out, OLLIE!"  Ollie responded by going over to Ladd's bedroom door and they passed books under the door for about 20 minutes...... it was a nice 20 minutes.

More details..

Just in case anyone was wondering what I was doing while Doug was off frolicking in "a little bit of heaven"  last weekend, I have a couple of pictures to illustrate:

It started like this:

Moved on to this:

(Ladd helped with this one while I was upstairs getting dressed)

And ended like this:

(Ladd sick with a double ear infection, Ollie teething, and one tired mama even more grateful for all her husband does when he's home)

A little bit of Heaven

When I told my Dad that I was moving to Minnesota the first two things he said were: "find me a great place to go white tail deer hunting" and "let's put together a trip up to the boundary waters".  I'm happy to say that I've now fulfilled one of the two requests, well sort of.  All the credit goes to some family friends, the Youngquists, who put the whole trip up to the boundary waters together.  My dad and I were just along for the ride. 


For those that don't know, the boundary waters are in the Lake Superior National Forest.  When you look at a map of MN it looks like most of the 15,000 lakes in the state are in this national park.  Needless to say, it was absolutely beautiful.  Our first night was spent in the International Wolf Center (the fact that my dad slept here is a story in and of itself...he's been looking for a wolf pelt).  Once on the lake we fished, canoed and listened to stories (when you get three grandfathers together that are full of great stories there's no stopping them).


Best part of the trip was the 10 hours I spent with my Dad driving to and from Ely, MN.  It was great to catch up with him and chat about our lives.  I'm really grateful for all that he's taught me in my life about the outdoors, his family, patience & understanding, supporting a family, the gospel and so much more.


Here are a few pics from the trip:

This was near our base camp...no cell phone coverage here!

This guy wondered into camp one evening...

  

This mosquitoes hauled him off at dark

At least we know he's listening

A couple of months ago we decided to start Family scripture study with Ladd.  It has proven to be very interesting.  

The first night  I tried to get Ladd excited to read by getting him his own Book of Mormon and telling him how special it was.  We went through the pictures one by one and he seemed very intrigued.  After reading I told him we were going to put his new special book in the drawer next to his bed while he slept.  About 5 minutes after I left his room he started yelling.  "Get it out! Get the book out!"  He told me emphatically to get the book out of his room. I think the picture of Samuel the Lamenite scared him.  I took the book out of his room and placed it on the toy chest outside of his room and walked away.  Not 5 seconds later I heard "Put it in your room!!! Mom, put it in your room!"  

We've continued reading every night (found a copy of the BOM without pictures) trying to do anything to keep his attention on the scriptures including having him pick out words he knows.  Usually they are words like Jesus, Jerusalem, And it came to pass, God, etc.  This is how it went tonight

Doug:"Yea..." 

Ladd yelled out: "Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!". 

Doug continued: "... and there will be One..." 

Ladd starts singing to the tune of ABC "One, two, three, four..."

Some nights go better than others.

Primary Songs

Ladd LOVES all the primary songs and can be found singing them throughout the day.  The other day while we were at Costco Ladd started BELTING out "I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." The only problem was that was the only line he sang over and over again.  I couldn't stop laughing because everyone was looking at me like "Look at that poor brainwashed child."

Another one of his favorites is "Follow the Prophet".  Sometimes he sings the right words, but most of the time he makes up his own lyrics.  Yesterday the chorus went like this "These are my undies.  These are my undies. These are my undies. I put them on. " I think he's going to be a song writer

Ladd turned 3!!

Ladd hasn't been able to stop talking about his "dirtday" (birthday)  for the last couple of months.  Every time we asked him what he wanted for his birthday all you would say is "popporn & chloclate" so it was pretty easy not to disappoint. 


He wanted cupcakes for his birthday and he helped me make them.  Since his birthday fell on a playgroup day I took advantage of the opportunity to have an impromptu party by bring the cupcakes to the park.  I wish I would have had my video camera with me when all the kids sang him happy birthday.  He was beaming with joy- it was the cutest thing I've ever seen.  The picture below almost captures it, but not quite.   We finished off the night with a trip to the New Hope Cinema Grill sans Ollie (thanks to the Christensen's).  It was a fun little theater where you sit at tables and they serve you dinner during the movie.  We watched "How to Train Your Dragon" which was a little too scary for a 3-year-old, but he loved it all the same. 

Opening Grandma Rae's present

What you may not know about Ladd:

1.He has the sweetest voice I've ever heard and it makes me melt

2. He loves babies and especially his brother

3. He's a master at puzzles

4. He loves dinosaurs

5. He is almost potty-trained

6. He's still taking naps - Hallelujah

7. He loves for his mommy to rock him at night

8. He can run for miles

9. He's not stubborn- we can get him to do almost anything if we act excited enough

10. He loves to go anywhere and asks me every morning where we are going, however he's awful at sitting in a stroller

11. He has a pretty good swing

12. He LOVES ice cream, tomatoes, pizza, chips & salsa, and popsicles

13. He loves all his friends and talks about them all the time

14. He misses his Shamas and might be visiting them soon.

15. His favorite color is Orange

16. His favorite animal is a Lion

17. His favorite show is Diego or Dinosaur Train

18. He's still sleeping and it's 9:15 am- I think he may be sick.

We absolutely LOVE our little Ladd and we are so thankful he's ours! I honestly feel so blessed to be his mother and don't know why I got so lucky.   Happy Birthday little Ladd.