Mole Season

Well spring seems to have finally hit P-town. And with spring comes the moles. Since we talked about the mole hunter in an earlier installment, I thought it only appropriate that I let you know how our first hunting expedition went. Tom set 6 traps yesterday, 3 of them sprung today while we were at work, and two of them caught moles! Here is a picture of Tom, Dunkin, & Gracie with their catch. And I'll just say that one day and six traps has been twice as effective as two years of flooding and digging! Not to mention the yard isn't any more of a mess than before.

Dunkin, Tom, & Gracie with Their First Kill This Season

And since this is Tommy's blog, I should probably let you know how he is doing. We started oatmeal this week. Not as big a hit as the rice cereal, but this could be clouded with the fact that he is still teething and seems to have a little cold. We'l probably switch back to rice and see how that goes but other than that same as usual. He still loves his daycare and loves to play in his jumper and his spinny seat. Below is a video from a couple of weeks ago in his spinny seat.

Tommy in His Spinny Seat

Back in P-Town

The big weekends are over for a while and we're back at home for a bit. So back to the regular school, work, and fun. We had dinner at Texas Roadhouse and Tommy got to sit in his first horse saddle!

Tommy Riding a Horsey Saddle

Today, after working on Mark's movie screen we went to BW3's and Tommy sat in a high chair at the big table for the first time. He did a great job pushing all of his toys off the table right towards Daddy. Hopefully he always pushes them that way!

Tommy Sitting Like a Big Boy

Tommy Playing at the Big Boy Table

Easter in Galion

After Akron we headed down to Galion to see everyone there. G. Gramma L., Aunt Judy, Aunt Kay, Uncle Gene, and Aunt Janet all came to visit and see Tommy. It was a packed night with so many people to see but we had a great time.

Tommy & Aunt Judy

Grammy, Aunt Janet, & Tommy

Grampa & Tommy

Jenny, G. Gramma L. Tommy, & Grammy

Grammy & Tommy Having Cereal

The Day After

More Easter fun back at home base. After our Easter baskets we played with R2D2. Not only did Dunkin and Gracie not know what to think about him but Tommy sure didn't either.

Chris, Tommy, & R2D2

The day after we headed through Akron to visit Grampa K. and Dudley.

G. Grampa K., Tommy, Tom, & Dudley

G. Grampa K., Gramma, & Tommy at Parasson's

Tommy Holding onto a Spoon

G. Grampa K. & Tommy

Happy Easter Day

Tommy's first Easter was a full fun-packed day. More cereal for breakfast, some fun time in the jumper, and a quick change into his Easter outfit. Uncle Chris was home at the same time and he finally met Tommy. We had our usual holiday feed of city chicken and such and then Easter basket time.

The Whole Family

Tommy & Uncle Chris

Tommy & G. Gramma S.

Gramma, Tom, Tommy and his Bunny

Tommy Talking Up a Storm

Hanging Out in Cleveland

We headed home to Cleveland on Friday to celebrate Easter with the Fam. Lots of hanging out at home so Tom & I could both get over our colds. That explains Tommy chilling with the remote here. What a remote!!!

Tommy & the BIG Remote

Grampa & Tommy on the Couch

We've continued with our morning cereal ritual. Tommy eats about two tablespoons each morning. And by eat, I mean wear. We're getting a lot better though and getting about 80% down the pipe. And since he's constantly on the go, we brought along Tommy's jumper to help him burn off some of those calories.

Tommy and His Rice Cereal

Tommy Posing in his Jumper

Happy Easter

We just wanted to say "HAPPY EASTER!" to everyone. We're celebrating this year in Ohio. May everyone have a safe and wonderful day and find lots of chocolate from the Easter Bunny.

Tommy & the Easter Bunny

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Those photo ops are getting harder and harder. Not only is he moving around more but he also HAS to have something in his mouth at all times. Most of the time this means his hands. So just to clarify, the shirt says "Kiss Me, I'm Irish". Which I figure some small part of him must be.

Happy Green Beer Day

We've had a pretty big week. Tom has been off on a business trip so Tommy and I have been hanging out just the two of us all week. Things have gone pretty good. He had his four month checkup yesterday. Tommy weighs 14 pounds, 14 ounces. I'm pretty sure from carrying him around that that is just shy of a metric ton! Car seat carriers were not made for short people with wimpy arms.

Tommy Chilling in His Spinny Seat

And last but not least, the doctor said to go ahead and try some rice cereal. So we did. I wouldn't call it a success...but I also wouldn't call it a failure. He ate a few spoonfuls. I definately have to work on my technique.

Tommy's First Bites

First Wisconsin Dells Trip

With winter almost done, it was time to make the almost annual trip up to Wisconsin for the fun-filled combo weekend of snowboarding and water park fun. This year Amy and Trent joined us. We drove up Friday evening and stayed at the Wilderness Resort where they have three different indoor waterparks! On Saturday, the boys head over to Cascade to hit the slopes for the day. They had a great time showing off their trick skills in the terrain park. So nice out all day that no coats were needed! While they were there Amy, Tommy, and I got in some early waterpark fun where we hit the lazy river and splashed in the kiddy pool.

Then on Sunday we all spent the day in the waterpark. First though we hit the buffet for breakfast. Tommy is starting to grab for stuff. He even grabbed the spoon and looked about ready to use it!

Tommy holding the spoon

Tommy, Amy, & Trent after breakfast

Once breakfast was over we headed back to the room to finish packing up and get ready for the water. Tommy was all dudded up in his Hawaiian shorts from Brian and Jen and the Dubai rash guard from Amy and Troy. With this and his life jacket from John and Lindsey he's totally ready for a summer of fun! I sure hope he likes the water. Since Tommy has really been into grabbing a hold of anything and everything, (hair, fngers, hood strings, etc.) it's nice he can finally grab his own string to chew on.

Tommy chewing on his hand and shorts' string

Finally we hit the waterpark again. Tom & Tommy went all around the kiddie park. Tommy just missed the huge deluge of water coming out of the tipping bucket, got to run under the curtain of water drops, and tried to figure out if he likes getting splashed in the face or not. Tom tried to take him down the slide but they only do single riders. So I guess that will have to wait till next year. After that we spent some time in the lazy river and then went to the wave pool where Tommy jumped and splashed like crazy. I can't wait till next year so he can run through everything himself!

Tom & Tommy by the waterdrops

Tommy getting splashed

Birthday Surprise

Tommy is 4 months old today. My how time flies. We've had a rough couple of days lately. He's been pretty fussy and keeps waking up twice a night when he had been sleeping all the way through to 5:30 or 6:00. So were running low on steam here. He's been big into drooling and keeps his hand in his mouth all the time, so I'm surmising that he could be teething (although there is no telltale tooth showing). We have our regular doctor appointment next week so I'll find out then.

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Now for the surprise part...Tommy was taking his regular bath tonight. And we were having a great time. Lots of talking and splashing. Just a grand old fun house. Well Tommy kept "tooting" off and on in the water which was kind of funny. Then he "tooted" some more...and some more...and then he "pooted". Right there in his little blue bathtub! Fortunately the timing was good as we were at the end of the bath so I pulled him out laid him face down for a quick wipe-a-roo, and all returned to normal. Gross!

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Tommy So Proud of Himself After His Little Mess

Tommy Checking out Those Yummy Hands

Fun at Grammy & Grampa's

So even with all the snow we all had a fun weekend. The puppies truly enjoyed the snow. Even Dunkin wanted to play chase. I just didn't want to go trail-blazing through all the drifts in my hiking shoes.

Hoss, Gracie, & Dunkin in the Snow

Tommy worked on his grabbing skills. He opens and closes his fingers, but he hasn't mastered the art of turning his wrist yet to get the fingers in the right spot. But just like Dunkin he likes having two toys at once.

Tommy & His Toys

Tom and I had a great time at Elias and Kristen's wedding. Even with the weather being what it was they had an amazing turnout with around 250 people. Pretty cool. Unfortunately, the worm did not make an appearance this time. The night just wasn't quite long enough.

Tom & Jenny at the Wedding

Grammy and Grampa had a great time with Tommy all weekend. Plenty of bottles and diapers to keep everyone busy. And some splashing time in the tub to keep it interesting. A lot of my old stuff is finding it's way out of the basement after these long thirty years.

Grammy, Grampa, & Tommy

And as always the puppies were in the car long before anyone else. They can't stand it if you go anywhere without them. They have some serious abandonment issues.

Gracie & Dunkin Ready to Hit the Road

Blizzard '08

Here it is...nearly spring...and where did we find ourselves this weekend. In the middle of a BLIZZARD! Here we are dreaming of the arrival of warmer days, Tom is wearing shorts, I've got a light jacket with me because it is really great weather in P-Town. Forties, clear, and sunny. Can't ask for anything better this time of year. And then we get to Ohio. Snow blowing across the road at 40mph. Cars, trucks, semis, and police in the ditch. Traffic backed up in Columbus taking 4 times as long to get where we're going. And all this is the day before the blizzard.

But after traveling 500 miles, hearing countless crying spurts, and filling the tank 50 times, we were not going to miss Elias and Kristen's wedding. So on Saturday morning, we got up and left Iberia around 11am. It took more than 45 minutes to get to Mt. Gilead, something we can normally do in less than 15. On the way we learned what "whiteout" means, saw one semi-truck in the ditch, and learned to drive down the middle of the telephone poles since we couldn't see the edge of the road.

Semi #1 Stuck

Then the fun really started after Mt. Gilead. The highway was really clear so we figured we'd keep heading the same direction. And then we found another semi-truck in the ditch. This one had two huge tow trucks there to pull it out and they had the whole road blocked. So we figured it couldn't take that long. Wrong-o. 30 minutes later we could finally pass. And then five minutes later we ran into the same tow truck again. But this time he was in the ditch.So we made it to the freeway gas station about 2 hours after we got started. We filled up, I told the guy we'd been following that he should clean off his rear bumper because he had so much snow, nobody could see his tail-lights and filled up on some snacks.

Waiting on the Tow Truck and Semi #2

Somewhere in Morrow County

Then we jumped on the interstate where we got to follow four snow plows that were working the road in tandem. Which made for some slow going but some decent roadway. Thsi whole time we're listening to the radio and they are announcing all the closings in Columbus. So we knew we had to go to the mall because we forgot some of our dress up clothes back in P-town. Then we come to find out that Polaris is closed...no problem we'll just go to Tuttle. Yep, that was closed too. I guess we can wear t-shirts to the wedding.

4 Snowplows in Tandem

After 3.5 hours of driving, we made it to our hotel for an early check-in. Then on the way what do we see but an F-350 working on pulling another semi-truck out of the snow. Does the insanity ever end? Oh, and by the way, Target was open so we could get clothes there. Whew!

Is that a 350?!?!

This Old Man

One of our favorite passtimes is to sing silly songs...so if you can stand my voice go ahead and watch.

Tommy & Jenny singing This Old Man

Checking Out Our Boat

This Saturday was a fun-filled day of playing blocks, doing our taxes, and seeing our boat. What a combo! Tommy's best time is in the morning and early evening. He is so happy and ready to play. We played with our blocks and sang silly songs and worked on our counting this morning while we waited for Dunkin, Gracie, and Daddy to get up.

Tommy Counting his Blocks

Then up to the office to do our taxes. (Hopefully there's a refund this year.) Tommy played in his jumper for a long time giving us plenty of time to get everything entered. A bottle of milk and a short nap later we were pretty much done. In the afternoon we headed north to visit Troy and Amy. They hadn't met Tommy yet. Plus Tom needed to get the prop off the boat because it had gotten bent...AGAIN...last summer. So we met at their house and found a new surprise waiting for us. A brand new puppy, Vette. She's 12 weeks old, 2 pounds soaking wet, and terrorizing both their cats, Marge and Stubby. We'll get a picture of her and Tommy together soon.

Tommy, Tom, and Their Boat

Tommy Gnawing on his Monkey

Amy and a Snoring Tommy

Tommy in his Jumper Seat