must write

I'm tired.  But I know if I don't force myself to write I am going to regret it.

We are less than 1 week from moving into our new house.  And we have gotten a lot less done than I had originally thought we would get done.  I have quickly learned that nothing ever goes as planned when you become a homeowner.  We did get the unfinished basement done for the most part.  And it looks good for an unfinished basement.  We worked really hard on it and I am proud of us.  I took before pictures so I will be sure to take after pictures as we finish our projects around the house.  I will share one picture with you all today.  This is what we saw when we walked into the house last weekend.  And we haven't even moved in yet.

That would be our kitchen ceiling on the floor.  There was a leak in the master bathroom that must have been leaking for a couple of days.  Great!  We plan to paint the nursery this weekend and finish deep cleaning the house.  The rest of the painting and DIY projects will have to wait until we move into the house.  But Kara and I are trying to embrace the chaos.  We have a long time to work on projects around the house.  It will eventually be just like we imagine it in our heads.  We are so excited to watch the boys grow up in this house!

The boys.  I don't think I can keep up with all the changes.

Our little peanut Alex has become quite the screamer!  Yep.  Alex screams all the time.  Basically Alex screams for attention.  It stops as soon as you pick him up.  I keep trying to tell Alex that it is impossible to hold him all the time when there is only one parent around but all I get back in response is the cutest little grin in the world.  This grin ...

Needless to say that is all it takes to break my heart.  So Alex always wins.  And well he gets held a lot!

Alex has become an official crawler.  And while the little man waited a bit longer to learn how to crawl it was only because he insisted on doing it exactly the right way.  There is no army crawl.  It is a full fledged crawl.  Alex has also started to pull himself up and we often find him standing in his crib having a conversation with Jakob.  We are noticing that Alex really enjoys books.  He really likes it when you let him sit in your lap and you read to him.  We also have a future baseball player on our hands.  Alex is really good at throwing a ball.  And he seems to always do it with his left hand.  We will hold are hands at and Alex is really good at getting the ball where you want it to go.  We were given a Fisher Price basketball hoop and I can't wait to get it set-up in the new playroom.  I think Alex will love it.

Both boys absolutely love to stand at the baby gate and watch the dogs.

(like this but you can ignore Jakob cleaning the gate for us)  We officially have named Jakob the "Gatekeeper" as he spends a large part of the day opening and closing the gate for anyone who is going between the living room and the kitchen.  And now the boys are into "sharing" their toys.  So they love to stick toys through the gate for the dogs.  And if Leo or Gretel come up to the gate but don't take the toy the boys don't give up.  They will reach in and push the toy further into the room until one of the dogs picks it up and takes it over to their bed.  Needless to say we are washing a lot of toys! 

Jakob is ALL OVER THE PLACE.

I now know why we have little boys that sleep for 13 hours each night.  They never stop moving.  Jakob still does the army crawl better than any other 10 month old on the block.  He can get from one end of the room to the other in about 5 seconds.  And Jakob is pulling himself up all the time.  He will now pull himself up to a stand on our legs.  Of course this is usually when one of us is holding a fussy Alex so Kara and I are quickly learning how to pick-up one baby while we are holding the other baby.   

And Jakob is the complete opposite of Alex in the play department.  Jakob can play by himself all day long.  He gets into any toy you give to him.  And when he gets bored with one toy he will just crawl on over to another toy.  There is not a whole lot of complaining done by Mr. Jakob.  Crazy!!

The boys continue to grow.  They are in 6-12 month Gap / Gymboree and 9 month Carters.  We have problems with clothes.  We have little boys with very big heads and very skinny bodies.  There are going to be a lot of button up shirts in the future.  We have had to put away some 9 month clothes because we cannot fit them over their heads.  But if we would move to 12 month clothes the boys would be swimming in them.  They are just now starting to fit into 9 month pants.  The still even fit into their 6 month winter jackets.

Alex is getting a top tooth.  This make 2 bottom teeth (Clyde and Ainsworth) and now 1 top tooth (Morris).  I have to remember their names!!  And Jakob is FINALLY getting a his first bottom tooth (SpongeBob).  Yes.  We are crazy and we have named the teeth!  Both boys tend to get fussy with new teeth but it is not too bad.

We still have champion eaters.  They boys get a bottle at 8 am (4 oz breast milk) / 11:30 am (6 oz breast milk) / 3:30 pm (6 oz breast milk) / 7 pm (6 oz formula).  They eat breakfast at 9:30 am (waffle or pancake and a fruit), lunch at 2:00 pm (meat, vegetable, fruit) and dinner at 5:30 pm (meat, vegetable, fruit).  And of course they get snacks during the day.  They love them some graham crackers and cheerios.  We do not have a problem in the food department.  We are trying to introduce more and more table foods but it can be tough as our boys love their purees.

I am still pumping.  I pump at 6am / 2pm / 9pm which means I now sleep through the night.  That has changed my world.  My milk supply has taken a nose dive over the last couple of days and my body is giving me a lot of signs that my period might be on its way.  (insert sniffles)  Let's just say that after 18 months of no period I am absolutely dreading its return.  My plan is to continue to pump 3x per day and gradually reduce the amount of time I pump at 2pm.  And then when the boys turn 11 months old I will drop to 2x per day.  And as long as my supply does not completely bottom out I will then drop to 1x per day on the boys 1st birthday.  And then it should only be a matter of a week or two weeks before I will be completely done.  I still have a ton of mixed feelings on the whole process.

We still have wonderful little nappers.  The boys take a morning nap at 10am and will sleep anywhere between 60 minutes - 90 minutes.  They also take an afternoon nap at 2:30pm and will sleep anywhere between 30 minutes - 60 minutes.  We have been able to extend bedtime just a bit since the time change.  They now go to sleep anywhere between 7:00 pm - 7:30 pm and sleep until about 8:00 am each morning.  I cross my fingers everyday that their wonderful sleep habits continue.

I promise to get better at writing as soon as we get settled in the new house.

There is a whole 1st Birthday Party to start planning .. !!!

Mary