Happy October!

Hello everyone! It's been a while since we've posted anything new here - sorry for that - but it's been a busy month and a half. As a result this will be a pretty long post.

Annie is doing fine and will be 20 months old next Tuesday. She's moved up to the toddler storytime at the library which she really enjoys - she's been singing the songs she's learning at storytime to us at home. She's also enjoying her toy castle and her princess dolls... "Daddy play castle?" and "Mommy play castle?" are two of the questions we've been hearing a lot lately.

Annie's also been telling us about her dreams lately. She woke up crying in the middle of the night a few weeks ago and Kelly asked her if she had had a bad dream. That started a conversation about dreams and since then, when she wakes up, we've been asking her what she dreamed about. Last night it was "I dreamed about snowman" but she's also apparently dreamed about both sets of grandparents, airplanes, and tennis. That last one puzzled us for a while until we realized she had seen people playing tennis at the park across the street not long before.

In non-Annie news, our van was involved in an accident a couple of weeks ago and has been in the shop ever since. Our van was parked off the shoulder of the road and a driver fell asleep at the wheel and smashed into the back of the van. Luckily, no one was hurt - no one was in our van and the young girl who hit it walked away.

So, for the time being, our van is in the shop and we've got a rental car from the insurance company.

In happier news, we spent a long weekend in New Jersey a week or two ago for "Aunt" Kerry's and Barry's wedding! Kelly was the matron of honor and was pretty busy helping out with wedding preparation which meant I was on baby duty all weekend but we all had a great time. At Joanie and Jordan's wedding last December, Annie was not even walking, but at this wedding she was dancing and grooving with everyone.

This is actually from the rehearsal, not the wedding itself, but you get the idea.


Annie playing with Makena and Lily at the rehearsal.


Annie and I at the wedding.

LJ was nice enough to let Annie try out his new football helmet during the reception.

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Although we did have an 80-degree day last week, most days have been cooler lately and it seems that fall is finally here. This afternoon the three of us drove up to Reynolds farm in Waynesboro to pick up some pumpkins and to take Annie on a hayride.

Finally, we just wanted to share some of the better recent photos we've taken.

This is Annie's friend Eve. The two of them are enjoying their plastic ice cream cones. Annie still calls the white one "Evie's ice cream".

Annie was very insistent that she have a turn at Wii last month when Kelly and I were playing.

While we were in New Jersey for the wedding we were able to borrow Uncle Dave's bike - Annie couldn't stop talking about going for bike rides.

Peekaboo!

-Joe

2nd Prize for Tim!

Timothy Mix has won 2nd Prize in the 2009 Mirjam Helin International Singing competition in Helsinki! Congratulations Tim!!

I should be able to link to some photos and videos of the finals and awards ceremony later, so check back if you're interested.

Way to go Tim!!!

...and on to the Finals!

Tim has made it into the finals of the Mirjam Helin International Singing Competition in Finland! He is one of 8 contestants (4 men and 4 women) selected out of the original 50 or so who began the competition last week. He will sing again on Wednesday - the finals begin at 11AM eastern time (6PM in Finland). Tim will sing 3rd which means he'll probably sing sometime between 11:20AM and 11:30AM eastern time. The finals are broadcast live on Finnish television and will be available to watch over the internet here (scroll WAY down to "Final 12 August 2009").

Tim's semifinal performance has been posted in its entirety and can be seen here. Tim is the first person to sing in this video so there's no need to skip ahead.

Way to go Tim!

Semifinals!

Hi again - just writing to say that Tim has made it into the semifinals! He sang again early this morning (USA time) and at the moment there is a video clip of one of his songs available to watch here. (As with the audio clip linked to in the earlier post you do have to wait a bit for the video clip to start.) I don't know if they will make his entire performance available to watch or not but if they do I'll post a link to the video. Congratulations Tim!!

The competition website has also posted some photos of the first round - you can see Tim's photos here.

-Joe

Wedding photos and Finland

The new Mr. & Mrs. Tim and Emily Mix!

Hi everyone -

Just wanted to do a quick post to get some of the photos from Tim and Emily's wedding online. I've created a web photo album where you can see the photos we took on the wedding day. It was a truly beautiful wedding - the setting and ceremony were both fantastic and it was just a great time.

Mr. and Mrs. Mix are now in Helsinki where Tim is competing in the Mirjam Helin International Singing Competition. This is the second time Tim has competed in this competition - he won 3rd prize in 2004, the last time the competition was held.

It looks like the entire competition will be broadcast over Finnish radio and if I read the information correctly, will be archived on the web so that anyone can listen to Tim sing even if they miss the live feed. The finals round will even be televised, so if Tim gets that far I can link to the video. Anyway, for the first round of competition Tim sings on Monday August 3rd at around 11:30AM EST! Click here to listen! (Added Aug 4th: Tim's part of the competition has now been archived. Tim is the second contestant in the 6pm-9pm group of the first day and sings from about 21:00 to 36:00. The audio player took a few minutes to start up on our computer so you may have to wait a bit before it starts up.)

That's all for the moment - hopefully in a week or so I'll have a chance to do a post with more pictures. See you soon! - Joe

Joe, Annie, and Kelly at Scoopuccino's in Potsdam, NY!

Tim's new website

Hi - just a quick note to let you all know about my brother's new website: www.timothymix.com! Tim doesn't have as many baby pictures on his website as we do on ours, but it's still worth checking out.

Congratulations to Tim on the new website and - of course - to both Tim and Emily on their upcoming wedding!

-Joe

16 months!

Hello! Believe it or not, Annie has just passed her 16-month birthday and has been picking up new words and skills like crazy. As you can see in the video above she can now count to 10 (although until very recently she tended to forget about 7) and as you'll see in the video at the end of this post, she's starting to get the hang of the alphabet too. Just in the last few days she has started to occasionally say "okay" or "otay" instead of "yes", and has begun to use some two-word sentences, such as "Daddy sleeping" or "I sitting". She's also very interested in the various cars and trucks that pass by our house and routinely announces whether the sound she hears (she's too short to see out the window) comes from a car, truck, motorcycle ("mo-circle") or train.

Annie sporting her new shades.

Annie climbing on her slide in the backyard. She can climb up on her own but still wants to hold someone's hand while going down.

At Annie's 1st birthday party, she didn't really understand what to do with her cupcake. By the time cousin London's 1st birthday party came around, that problem had been solved.

London and Annie showing off their hats a week or so after London's birthday.

Blast! For some reason, this car key is not unlocking the door! I don't understand!

All set to go to the park, where Annie can SWING!!!!!

Smoothie time!

Annie, Kelly, and Grandma White (the photographer here) checked out the carousel at the Columbia mall while Pops and I saw Star Trek in IMAX.

Annie is doing two of her favorite things in this picture - sitting (she wants to sit on everything) and reading her favorite book - Jazz Baby. This is one of about 50 pictures we have of Annie reading Jazz Baby. Luckily, you can renew books from the library pretty much indefinitely.

As mentioned above, Annie has picked up most of the alphabet - some letters are clearer than others, but it's nice to know that she was listening all those times we sung to her - usually in order to keep her occupied while changing a diaper.

See you in a few weeks! Also, stay tuned for what should be a very exciting post in August with pictures from Uncle Tim and Aunt Emmy's wedding in upstate NY at the end of July, as well as the White family picnic in early August!

-Joe