Typing

Well, I typically enjoy pictures more so I share more of them than stories. Tonight however I feel like typing some of the many cute and exciting things that have happened around here lately!

Cade and Carson are both little sponges already! Cade used to just say "boo" when playing Peekaboo, but now he says "pee boo!" They love that one, Patty Cake, and of course 5 Little Monkeys which is what they're doing in the video in the last post. Those are the only ones they do most of the motions for. They love to hear me sing all their little songs - something must be wrong with their ears!!! On that note, sorry about me singing in the video. Maybe in a couple years they'll be the ones singing it! They sing most of the way home from Mrs. Charlie's - it's just not real words.

The words they say are: Mama, Daddy, Uh-oh, thank you, dog (no /g/), ball, baby, Bob (Bob the Builder - the little board books from Chick-fil-a Happy Meals, not from watching TV), duck (no /k/), quack (more like /wak/), moo, ruff (not at all like ruff, yet definitely the same noise every time and different from the word dog), tree (no /r/ - we have a cute border in their room to go with the Cloverfields bedding in their cribs - it's right there when they lay on the changing table, so we count the apples on the tree a lot), Brother (more like /buba/), bye, hello, hey, hi, book (no /k/), more (no /r/), and Papa.

We were looking at pictures tonight of grandparents, and I pointed to lots of pictures of Grandpa, Grandma, Papa, and Nana saying all their names, but Papa is still the only one they say! We sing the "Name Game" song with all the different names in it a lot on the way to Day Care. I can tell they think really hard about saying the names - especially cousin "Austin" - they always want to get his attention when he's outside playing.

Yesterday when they said ball for the first time (that is still their favorite thing to play with - any ball), Carson pointed to the ball and then pointed to a balloon and said ball again! So cute that he's associating them - language development is so fun! And, yes, the speech therapist in me sees the Deletion of Final Consonants Phonological Process, but I'm reminding myself it's developmental!

The boys have been really into chasing and getting "got" lately! They love to roll around with Mommy, Daddy, and each other! They're so cute when they chase - one will go a little ways making a lot of noise, then get quiet, turn around and look for his brother. Then the other one will squeal and they'll both keep going til one grabs the other and giggles break out!

They've been adding to their amount of hands free stepping daily. They can walk about 20 steps without falling. They still prefer crawling if it's to get somewhere with a purpose. They have only climbed about 7 stairs on our staircase, and they always bump down safely on their behinds. One of their favorite things to do now is stand up and then bend over with both hands flat on the floor and their head down looking upside down between their legs- they just giggle and giggle!

Cade has had one bandaid (other than from shots) which he tried to eat off. It actually did end up in his mouth. They've both had lots of bruises and some scratches. Cade has bit his tongue twice. Neither have had anything bust yet.

Oh, I forgot to share details from their last doctor's appointment - the followup to the one where Kevin took them and the nurse later told me they were not at all themselves in the office. Well, I took them back 4 days later. Get this - I forgot their stroller! I just carried them in one on each hip like when we go from the garage to the house. Thankfully they were back to "themselves" in the office, so they sat on my lap and enjoyed pointing to and singing about the monkeys on the wall in the well waiting room entertaining all the little girls and their moms. Then I carried them back with the help of the sweet nurses at the office (Have I said before how much I love them all! They are the best! There couldn't possibly be a better doctors office than Dr. Rabon's!) They each weigh 23 lbs. We were so entertained in the treatment room because of all the farm animals in the mural on the wall. The boys would walk over and point to the animal they wanted me to make the noise for. It was actually very manageable to handle both of them without a stroller - thanks to the totally cool van to open all the doors with all the buttons on the remote. Anyway, the bad news is the boys have Asthma. So we're on a corticosteriod twice every day now. They're doing much better with it - we're glad to know and start to do something about it to help them. The Lord continues to bless them - they're breathing so much better now.

So Daddy's been out of town all week til tomorrow - guess what that means? Mommy's changing things up again. A little background - we always held the babies upright after their last feeding before bed due to the severe reflux when they were newborns. That carried over and has been our special time at night to hold them until they fall asleep. We've always tried to go in and get them back to sleep if they wake up in the night b/c it wakes up the other twin if we don't - until the Doctor told us we were crazy and we could just go in to comfort them after bad dreams and walk back out and let them cry themselves back to sleep - they both always fall back to sleep in around ten minutes or so. That was around 12 months and about the time we realized they slept better if we put Cade in Carson's crib and Carson in Cade's. How crazy - that was all it took and we both started getting much better sleep (except of course when they're sick which is not exactly rare).

So, to my point - Change #1: no pacis (that part was easy - they were ready before now I just held on for the flight to CA and then just haven't had a good time to devote to it until now if they were really attached ). So glad they're gone (in the cabinet just to make sure we don't immediately start up with a yucky thumb-sucking habit like Mommy had)! I despise seeing 3 year olds with pacis. So bad for speech and dentition.

And - Change #2: and I'm laying them in the cribs (still the opposite of what the name above it says) awake after the bedtime routine without holding til they fall asleep. Can you believe it? I still can't!!!!! That's why I had so much time to update the blog about them tonight and why I was able to get lots of pictures in albums last night (I'm only a month behind now) and why I was able to read a good book the night before that! Wow! And they only cry for a heartbreaking 15 minutes - I'm hoping and praying it will get easier on them and less pitiful crying for me to have to listen to. Anyway, that's the reason I'm doing it now while Kevin's on a business trip. It would just be harder on Daddy to deal with that.

They are so attached to Daddy right now. It's so cute when Daddy calls the boys really want to talk to him - I usually put the phone up to their ears for a minute at the beginning and then finish talking with him. Tonight I was making dinner when he called and the boys were bouncing a ball back and forth on the tile floor (not a bouncy ball - a loud "busy ball" that clanks when hitting tile) because they love the sound and chasing after it. Anyway, Cade went in the living room, picked up that phone and put it on speaker phone for him and Carson to talk to Daddy! It was so cute! They will be so excited to see him tomorrow night!

Monkeying Around Tonight!

Tourists

We enjoy living in a touisty place! The boys loved the aquarium today! It was lots of fun! We did lots of pointing and "ooh"ing! Too bad the sun was in their eyes in these pictures!

The boys thought the Pirates exhibit was pretty cool!
And the tunnel was very intriguing!
Here's the boys posing with their favorite (ok, Mommy's favorite) the Sawfish!

They really enjoyed waving at the people as much as the fish!


Ready to dive!

Home again, home again

The babies started rubbing at their ears again in the church nursery. And we knew from all their typical signs that we'd be in the doctor's office on Monday. Sunday night was so bad - Carson could hardly breathe. I kept having to give him more treatments. Kevin stayed home with the twins and took them to the doctor's office on Monday morning. I talked with the nurse later and she said they were pitiful and that they wouldn't have anything to do with anyone other than their Daddy. I knew they were pitiful, but it was so surprising to hear it from her, because the twins are such people-people that they rarely ever show when they're upset or hurting in public. I'm home with them today, and they're on the mend but definitely taking all my attention. They're getting a good nap, so hopefully the rest of the day will keep getting better. Daddy is bringing us lunch today! Yummy!

Here's a cute story from the weekend before you see the pictures below. We were all at Grandpa Winford and Grandma Marty's house on Saturday for a very nice dinner. Cade and Carson were playing in the living room and Cade fell. He was not satisfied that someone closer to him had picked him up to comfort him, so in his cries he said what sounded like "I want Mommy!" really more like "Iwamama." (His first 3 word utterance!) Anyway, my four and a half year old nephew exclaimed with the widest eyes, "He can talk!" It was so cute! Austin has been so sweet learning about babies and being patient with them - I know he's got to be excited now as they're taking steps, playing, and talking! It's neat to think about their big steps through a child's eyes - how amazing that they can talk now when we've been telling Austin all this time that they can't because they're babies. Aren't the Lord's everyday blessings wonderful!

Here's the twins riding home from Mrs. Charlie's one day last week.


And here's the boys checking out the fish at their favoriite store - Bass Pro!

Here's Carson and Cade as they saw the neighbor's dog going by and they started to bark at him!

And here is Cade and Carson playing in the bathtub last night!

We're playing in the living room this morning after breakfast!

Happy Birthday Daddy!

The twins have the best Daddy in the whole wide world because he loves them so much! And I have the very best husband in the whole wide world because of a million little things . . . some of which include: his love for our babies, his love for me, his love for our families, his diligent hard working nature, his honesty, his brilliant ideas, his ability to make me smile when I don't want to, his locking me in the house when he leaves before me, his waking me up from the couch when I have to get up in the middle of the night to rock a baby back to sleep, his great cooking skills, his plans for our future, and a million other things . . . but most importantly his love for the Lord!

We love you with all our hearts!