not happy

I think the boys will laugh at this picture one day.  This is sometimes what life looks like in our household.  Okay.  There are actually days when it feels like moments like this exist every ten minutes.  This picture was taken today.  Here the boys are having a really hard time getting up from their nap.  You would have thought we told them the Easter Bunny wasn't real!

Mary

easter

This is a picture of our little family on Easter morning.  We had a very nice Easter.  We kept it fairly low key.  We are a total breakfast family so whenever it is possible to celebrate with breakfast foods that is exactly what we do.  We invited my parents over for an Easter breakfast spread of yummy deliciousness.  We had French toast, scrambled eggs, sausage, muffins, and pineapple. Yum!  I even contributed to the spread with some fantastic muffins that I found on Pinterest.  And I encourage you to head to your kitchen and make a batch!!  Now! Okay.  I got off topic.  We put an Easter bunny in our front yard this year.  The boys have become obsessed with the little critter.  It’s gone as far as I am required to go downstairs at night and go outside (rain or shine or snow) and give the bunny rabbit a kiss goodnight while the boys observe from the nursery window.  Sigh.  So needless to say we wanted to incorporate the bunny rabbit into our Easter celebration.  So after breakfast Kara and I put the Easter Baskets outside next to the bunny rabbit.  The bunny rabbit is in our front yard.  So we then made a trail of Easter eggs from the back door to the front door.  The boys then had to follow the Easter eggs to their baskets.  We gave them buckets to put the eggs.  I really didn’t know what the boys would do but let me tell you it only took a second for the light bulb to go off and for little legs to start scurrying across the back yard for those Easter eggs.  Alex was picking them up at lightning speed while Jakob would try to stop and savor the moment.  It was cute.  By the time we got to the front yard Alex had realized the Easter eggs contained jelly beans and he quickly became distracted with removing all the jelly beans from his plastic eggs.  Jakob on the other hand had discovered his Easter basket and was under the impression that he had to remove the contents from his Easter basket and deposit them into his bucket.  I can see how that conclusion was made.  A logical little fellow indeed.  It was cute.  We let the boys play outside for a bit with their new Easter goodies before we went inside to conclude our celebration.  Our weather was gorgeous this year!  We could not have asked for a better day.  And in case you are wondering the boys each consumed about 54 jelly beans and then proceeded to have a major sugar crash about 2 hours later.  The candy is packed away until next year!!

Mary

bubbles

Another picture of Alex.  This was at bath tonight.

The speech therapist is trying to get Alex more familiar with the shapes you have to make with your mouth in order to get different sounds.  Jakob is starting to get the idea and says, "Hoo" and "shoes" on a regular basis.  To practice this we are trying to teach the boys how to blow bubbles.  The original suggestion was "teach the boys how to blow bubbles in their milk" .... Um?  No thank you.  So I changed it up a bit and made it a bath game.  We just have to be careful that water isn't getting sucked through the straw.  Yuck!  They had a blast watching me blow bubbles but were not able to make any bubbles tonight.  I guess practice makes perfect though.  My guess is tomorrow they will transfer this skill to their sippy cups! Sigh.

Mary

something new

I'm going to try something new with the blog.  I just don't have time to sit down and write long posts any more.  Plus by the time I sit down to write my mind draws a blank.  But I know I'm going to regret not continuing to document our crazy little boys.  We take so many pictures that I thought it would be a good idea to just post a picture as often as possible and tell the story behind that picture.  I'll be able to share so much about the boys just by doing this.  So here we go ...

I took this picture of Kara and Alex over the weekend.  Our weather was gorgeous and so the boys spent a lot of time outdoors.  It is absolutely their favorite place at the moment.  The boys are fairly good about listening to us outside and even though our backyard is not fenced-in the boys seem to stay close to us.  We Kara is putting in some raised garden beds in the backyard.  I'm SO EXCITED.  She has done a ton of reading and we even have some tomatoes sprouting in our bedroom right now just waiting to be transferred to the garden in about a month.  So Kara had been outside filling the beds with dirt and of course the boys were "helping" although I think more dirt ended up on theirs heads and in their finger nails.  The boys were obsessed with carrying these big rocks we have by our shed and throwing them into the garden beds.  And Jakob even ended up with skinned knees and a bruised shin.  Such a boy.  Our little Alex is addicted to water.  I swear the boy is a camel.  We even have friends who now comment on how much water Alex consumes in a day.  And of course as a result we have to change pants at least 2x a day because we didn't do a diaper change in time.  It is bizarre.  But the thing is Kara is exactly the same way.  Kara slugs down so much water each day.  I swear I would live in the bathroom.  She carries around a big water bottle all day and I think it gets filled at least five times.  So anyhow this is a picture of my loves on a water break.  I absolutely love it.

Mary

table for two

I've fallen a bit behind on the blog!

update - We had a speech evaluation today for Jakob.  And the results were not surprising to us as we have become acutely aware over the last month that both Jakob and Alex are significantly speech delayed.  Sigh.  We continue to be surrounded by (mostly) very supportive individuals and so I think Kara and I have moved past the "blame" phase and we are now focused on getting the boys caught-up before "preschool".  Alex is currently receiving private speech therapy for 30 minutes every week in addition to 60 minutes of speech therapy every other week through the early intervention program through our state.  We enrolled Jakob in private speech therapy today too.  And Jakob is scheduled for his early intervention evaluation on March 27th.  We also completed the paperwork to enroll Alex in the toddler preschool program next school year.  It would be 3 days per week for 2 hours each day.  It would be completely free to us.  We have decided that assuming Jakob also qualifies for services through the early intervention program then both boys will attend the preschool program next year.  We will not send one boy to the program and leave the other one home though!  We hope a year in the program will do wonders for the boys so that by the time the boys age out of the early intervention program they can be caught up to their peers in a regular preschool program.
Now let's move on to the fun stuff ...

Our crazy 21 month old little boys!  There is never a dull moment these days.  And Kara and I thought it was difficult to juggle twin newborns?  The only good thing is the boys sleep for a solid 12 hours at night!  We didn't get that when they were newborns.

Jakob - Our wild man!  Jakob NEVER sits still.  That's actually a lie.  Jakob will sit completely still if the television is tuned to Caillou, Yo Gabba Gabba, Curious George, Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood or Super Why.  But considering the boys only get about 45 minutes of screen time a day there are very few minutes when our wild man is sitting still.  Jakob is the biggest flirt in the world.  He has this smile that warms the hearts of all the ladies.  And I swear to you he already knows how to bat his eyelashes.  Kara and I already know that we are going to hear, "But she said she loved me" at least 50 times while Jakob is in high school and college.  That little boy is going to make many hearts flutter but he is also going to get his heart broken on more than one occasion.  Jakob loves with every ounce of his little heart.  His enthusiasm for everything is contagious.  Jakob can also throw quite the temper tantrum these days.  The most recent temper tantrums are revolved around the absence of sippy cups in the house.  We are on day #4 of milk/juice/water in a straw cup only and there are times where Jakob has lost his mind over the missing sippy cups.  But we now know we let the boys go way too long using the sippy cups.  It's time to move on boys.  Jakob loves to play with many different toys.  He loves matchbox cars, legos, crayons, chalk, books and any full contact sport!  Jakob's vocabulary is expanding each day.  Jakob's "regular" words include mom, hello, bye-bye (babe), mine, dog, cat, what's that, and car and Jakob signs more, eat, and please on a regular basis.  And best yet Jakob can say "J" "A" "K" over and over and over again.  I keep trying to get him to move past those 3 letters but no such luck.  There are really no favorite foods at the moment with the exception of blueberries.  Jakob can inhale some blueberries.  Otherwise food is hit or miss on any given day.  Jakob is starting to really like pretend play too.  And it is adorable.  Jakob will put on a backpack and say "bye" and give hugs and proceed to walk around the living room before doing it all over again.  Jakob also loves to march in our family marching band which seems to thrill the boys!  Kara and I always act as the drum major and the boys march behind us with their instruments.  I love it!!! And of course there is our baby doll "Pierre" who the boys love to feed.  Jakob also loves to give hugs.  The hugs have been  a work in progress though because for a short time each hug came with a big bite.  I even got an unexpected bite on the ass one night while making dinner!  Ouch.  Jakob is getting really good at doing all the motions to The Wheels on the Bus too.  And of course Jakob still has some of the best dance moves around.      

Alex - My quiet man.  Alex is super smart.  I think he will be our engineer.  If you give Alex an object he will sit for minutes upon minutes upon minutes trying to figure out how to dismantle the object.  One of Alex's favorite things to do is open all the junk mail each night.  I think I'm the only person in the word who gets thrilled when our mailbox is full of crap!  There is not a lot that phases Alex.  Our little boy is super shy around strangers but otherwise there is not an ounce of fear in his little body.  Alex will scale any object.  Alex will tumble off any object.  Alex will do a somersault off of any object.  Alex will run full force into any object (or person).  I actually think Alex would make a great wrestler.  No fear.  Alex loves, loves, loves books these days.  He cannot get enough of them.  Alex loves to open a book and find an object.  He will then run to the playroom and tear it apart until he can find the object from the book.  Alex will also point to every object in a book and wait for us to label it.  He is super smart.  I know every parent says that about their child but I'm very firm in my belief about the intelligence level of my boy.  I'm constantly surrounded by folks who are telling me where my son is lagging and then I sit back and watch my little man and I realize just how much is really going on in that little brain!  I think the number of words Alex understands is through the roof but for one reason or another he is just not speaking the words.  Alex says the following words on a "regular" basis mom, hi, bye, dog, car, and vroom and Alex signs more, please, thank you, mine, milk, eat, open, bubbles, and thank you on a regular basis.  Alex is also a typical picky toddler in the food department.  There are days he will eat next to nothing and then there are days where he eats us out of house and home.  Alex's absolute favorite food at the moment is edamame.  We are still giving Alex a combination of almond milk and whole milk.  Alex has taken to the straw cups with little issue.  Alex has been sleeping really good at night but he must have plenty of books and stuffed animals in his crib before he goes to bed.  I'm not sure how he actually fits in the bed.  Alex loves to give out hi-fives.  And he usually does it with a very serious look on his face!  It's hillarious.  Alex is not as much of a fan of television as Jakob but Alex does love Curious George.  Kara bought Alex a Curious George t-shirt today and he was beyond thrilled about it.  Alex's favorite book right now is "Mr. Brown Can Moo Can You" and "Good-Night, Good-Night Construction Site" and "If You Give a Pig a Pancake".

Our days are a blur.  But our hearts of busting at the seams with love for our little men.

Mary