Two Years since the Due Date!

Wow! Praise God! It's so easy to forget that they were premature! Of course they were both 2 months early and only 4 and a half pounds when we took them home from the hospital! Definitely premature. As easy as it is to forget that they were premature and teeny-tiny, I'll never forget what they went through. We pray every day for the Lord to bless them - to keep their hearts beating and to keep them breathing. It's the daily miracles that I'm so thankful for! I know the Lord has blessed them greatly and that He has amazing purposes for their lives! It takes God's control to keep a baby that little breathing with a steady heartbeat. I know it! I've witnessed Him doing it every day! And I know it's Him keeping them now and helping them to grow healthy and strong! I love seeing what He's doing in their lives every day!

Portfolio pix!

The boys are enjoying a popsicle and airplanes!

The boys found some pretty flowers at the Riverwalk!

The boys love to move pine straw from one bed to another!

Cade looks like ET to me in this picture!Carson's popsicle was all over him!
They enjoyed driving with their popsicles!
My friend April posed for me just a couple of weeks before Luke was born!
And this was the model at Gene Ho's studio!

Play-Doh and I Love You

Carson and Cade like to open all the play-doh containers and name all the colors over and over again. And again!

They did try to mash it some and press it in the molds every once in a while.

Then they named some more colors.

In my last post, I somehow crazily forgot to mention my favorite thing that the boys say: "I WUV YOU!" They mostly only say it on the phone, but it's so cute when they say it!

I wanted to throw in this picture because it shows Cade using his left hand which is mainly how he eats. He mainly colors with his right. I've been trying to pay extra attention to it, because it seems like it's been half right and half left as far as hand-dominance. I know it's really too early to tell, but it's so evident with Carson that he's right-handed. We'll find out eventually, of course! For now it's just so super-cute to watch them learning everything!

Bath and playtime fun!

The twins have so much fun taking a bath!

Cade loves it!

Splashing is so much fun!

Carson likes the new tub toys!

We had fun playing with the boats!

These boys still amaze me with their grasp of language! Their speech is getting better, too! They put sounds on ends of words consistently now and get most sounds right (and actually work very hard to make sure we hear the ending sound "Boat" is pronounced with a very airy, let's say plosive ;) /tuh/ at the end). Definitely nothing that alarms me. Back to the language! They say 5 and 6 word sentences here and there, but almost always talk in at least 3-4 word sentences: "Car-Car ride Daddy's boat." "Daddy cook cheeseburger." "I want more dirt (dessert)!" "Cade ride Mommy's ban (van)!" They know most of their classic colors when pointing and naming colors on toys or books and when picking crayons. They love to color pictures and put stickers on pictures and themselves!

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They know triangle, circle, and square - they love for me to cut their fruit in shapes or squirt easy cheese in shapes on their food! They love dips - Carson actually ate all ketchup for dinner last night - ketchup and syrup are the favorites, but they also go for BBQ sauce, cool whip and cheese dips! When Dr. Rabon told us we could start giving them peanut butter and pretty much anything we were eating once they went to their 2 year old check up, we were like: "Oops, we started doing that already." They love to eat! They are still very opinionated about foods they like and don't like and request cheeseburgers, poptarts and candy more than any other food items!

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They understand such cool concepts like opposites and metaphors! Carson will say: "Cade cup full. Car-Car cup empty!" They'll say something like "bird red like fire trucks!" They get so excited when I praise them for exhibiting these fun learning concepts. One of my favorite things to hear is the boys saying, "My Mommy's here!" (with that long Southern drawn out heeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrre) when I get to DayCare to pick them up! I also love to hear them say, "My Daddy's home!" when Kevin pulls in the garage - as if I don't already know that he's home and that he's their Daddy! They love to tell me what's going on: "Daddy park boat truck garage." and "Daddy park work truck outside." They came up with that way to label which truck Daddy is driving - his personal truck is the "boat truck". Now Cade thinks he's as big as Daddy - he'll be riding along on his little truck in the house and stop and say, "Cade park work truck garage."

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When they're playing hide-n-seek and looking for something or someone, it's so cute the way they say: "Noooooooooooooooooooo!" with such an increased pitch at the end of the long drawn out o. They love to dance and can actually make it off the floor every time they jump now! They love to giggle and laugh and tickle and be kissed. They give such sweet kisses!

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Recently, with them having so many ear infections again, they've been learning how to tell us more about what's going on. They used to just say "ear hurt" for ear infections or "teeth hurt" for teething, but now they throw in eyes and nose every once in a while to let us know they're really in pain and having a hard time dealing with it! They definitely know how to ask for medicine and are still so good at taking anything we have to give them. In the midst of it all, they've been so sweet to each other! Carson was not handling things well for a couple of days and Cade would climb up in Kevin's lap with Carson and pat his back or twirl his hair to make him feel better. If Carson was in the floor whimpering, Cade would go lay down beside him. Just to be there with his brother! Aren't they so sweet! If one of them wakes up from naptime in the crib before the other - he'll ask about his brother until finally we have to let him in to wake him up. Usually they say "Good Morning" but sometimes it's just plain old: "Get Uuuuuuuuuppppp!"

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They are very interested in the potty and Carson has peed in it twice. Cade likes to stand there on the stool and hold his tinkertoy and point at the potty making hissing noises! Guess we're gonna have to get into that before I'm ready. We'll be buying a little potty before too long, I guess. And soon it will be time for big boy furniture!!!! So exciting! I hope they'll like bunk beds - I think that will be so much fun eventually - once we rule out falling out of the low bed without rails.

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The boys love to try to read, and thanks to the fun books and videos Bopa and Nana got them, they are reading several words already! Elephant, Tiger, Eyes, and Gorilla are the only ones I can say they definitely know! It's really cool to watch them learning! The little "wheels" are "just a turning"!

Playset fun!

Carson parked his car in the playset "garage"!
Cade doesn't understand why Mommy won't put the camera down and put him up top to slide!

Now he's happy because I told him I would lift him up!

He's getting ready to slide!

He's ready to go!

And he pushes off!

There he goes!

He hit fast and Carson was ready to go up the ladder, too! I had to slide with him because he got scared, so no pictures of Carson sliding today!

Carson is carrying the pinestraw to Cade's pile!