Wordless Wednesday: We Learned Our First Letter!

Weekend Fun!

This weekend was busy and fun, and we spent it having a great time together and also getting to spend time with several of our good friends!  Some of our weekend activities included:  Playing racquetball and basketball (Chad), fun at Birdies class at The Little Gym, swimming with the Rollow family at their awesome pool, shopping at the mall, going out to lunch with my friend Natalie kid free (Me), and a play date for Chloe and Brady with their friends Sam and Abby.

I only had a chance to snap a few pictures, mostly all from the mall, nevertheless, here they are:

These little strollers shaped like cars & trucks are in high demand at the mall.  You can rent them, but they almost never have any available!  We lucked out this time and got a double decker one!  

The kids enjoyed riding the Carousel.  

Carousel!

We found this swim shirt and bottoms on Clearance at Old Navy!  What a great deal!  

Too cute! 

We also found a Lightning McQueen swim shirt for Brady, we had to get it naturally!

Love it!  

We found this at the front of Old Navy where they try to get you to buy a bunch of random stuff while waiting in line.   It worked in this case since the kids didn't have a "Boo Boo Buddy" yet, and we couldn't resist an Elmo one! 

Happy end of Monday to you all, hope you had a good start to your week!

While You Were Sleeping...

I don't have an actual alarm clock anymore.  Usually I wake up to the sound of Brady clamoring for me to come get him from his crib.  He usually gets up around 7 to 7:30 AM, and I see no reason to get up any earlier.  Chloe normally gets up around 8 AM so Brady and I play until she wakes up and then we start breakfast.

Whenever I wake up on my own and I don't hear the sound of any child stirring, I always panic.  I have to go in their rooms and make sure they are OK.  It is always fascinating to me to see the kids while they are sleeping, because I rarely get to.  When they are asleep I don't usually go in their rooms because I don't want to disturb them, and also because that is my time to accomplish things around the house or take some "me time".

This morning was one of those mornings.  I woke up around 8:15 AM (I know, what a lucky dog!) and not a creature was stirring.  Chloe woke up about 10 minutes later so I went to get her and we played for a while.  It kept getting later and later and eventually at 8:50 AM I had to go in and peek at Brady again just to be sure he was OK.  This is so unusual for him, since he is ALWAYS the early riser.

I went to his room and found him sleeping so soundly and peacefully I had to watch him a few minutes until he twitched because he was just so STILL.  I took this picture of him this morning:

I took this picture at 8:53 AM!!!!

He woke up a minute or two later, most likely due to the flash on my camera, and we started breakfast like normal, just an hour later than usual.

In case you were wondering what Chloe was up to while her brother slept, here she is pointing out a cow to me in one of her favorite books, right in the middle of saying "Mooooo".

"Moooo!"

Wishing you all a well rested Thursday!

Wordless Wednesday: So You Think You Can Dance?

A Progress Report

I feel like I haven't had time to sit down and write a regular update about the babies' progress in a while.  Things have been a little crazy around here, and by the time the babies are in bed my brain is too tired to blog.  They are changing so much and learning every day, so I need to write down a few things so I won't forget.  I also have some pictures I took yesterday morning to share later in the post.

General:  We continue to learn about shapes, colors, opposites, animals, animal sounds, puzzles, numbers, counting, and letters.  We are also attempting to learn when something is yucky or dirty and they shouldn't touch it or try to eat it (i.e. trash cans, diaper pails, dog/cat food, etc).  We've been working on incorporating please and thank you into our daily interactions as well.  Here are a few things they've learned recently:

Vocabulary---It seems like the babies are learning a new word or two every day now.  Here are a few they have picked up recently:

• Up and Down
• Yummy (sounds like umm eeee)
• Yes (sounds like yessssssssssss)
• Book
• Umbrella (sounds like ummmm ellla)
• Oval
• Apple

Sounds---Here are a few of the sounds they know:

• A cow says Moo
• A sheep says Baa
• A horse says Neigh
• A dog says Woof Woof 
• A car says Beep Beep

Potty:  We have introduced the potty and each child has their own potty.  We talk positively about the potty and we have this book Chloe loves to read about going to the potty.  She gets really excited at the end when the baby goes to the potty because I make a big deal out of it, LOL.  We ask each child if they want to sit on the potty each night after bath time.  Chloe is interested in the potty and does sit on it, Brady is not interested at all yet.  They aren't ready and we aren't ready to start full fledged potty training.  Right now we are at the stage of letting them know what the potty is and helping them to get more comfortable with it.  

Really fun stuff:  The kids are so sweet and generous with hugs and kisses now.  They spontaneously give each other a hug at least once a day.  They give their grandparents kisses by licking the iPad screen on Skype.  At bedtime we stand at their doorways (side by side) and they give each parent a kiss and then give each other a kiss goodnight.  They love music, particularly 80s music, and enjoy having 80s dance parties in the afternoons.  They can now "ask" for something they want, sometimes pretty specifically.  Brady brought me Little Blue Truck to read the other day and said "Beep Beep" to get me to read it to him.  Chloe brought me Yummy Yucky to read and said "Umm Eeeee" (Yummy).  They really understand and know a lot of things, even if they can't say the word, they do know what the object is since they can correctly point to many objects, shapes, and animals in a book or in real life if I ask them too.  Their smiles and laughs are the highlights of my day.  They are great babies and I am so proud of them all the time.  

Challenges:  Trying to get clothes on or off either child.  They are absolutely too busy to sit still long enough to be bothered with putting on or taking off clothes.  Forget trying to brush hair or put Chloe's hair up.   Climbing and jumping on the couch.  This is a big one, they scare me to death.  I am constantly saying "Be careful!" or "Bottoms Down!" but Chloe just looks at me, stands up on the couch and says "Up".  Opinions about food.  Brady is the main offender on this one.  If he doesn't like what we put on his tray he takes his arm in one sweeping motion and just knocks it all on the floor.  Ah, life with toddlers.  :-)

Drinking:  This one is a little random, but after trying nearly every sippy cup ever made we still never found one that the kids loved to drink from.  We found one that suited our needs in that the kids tolerated it and it almost never spilled, but that was about it.  Last weekend when we were out to dinner, we decided to try giving the kids the little cup with the lid and straw that comes with most kids meals.  To our delighted surprise they were really good with the cups and drank a ton of milk from them!  We bought similar cups and have been using them at home with a lot of success.  The kids are drinking more milk, so we are happy!  Chad even found a Cars set of cups for Brady, and he just loves them!

Whew!  No wonder I haven't had time to write that all down!  If you made it this far, here are a few pictures from yesterday morning for you:

"What are you doing, Mom?"  

Showing off his cool Cars cup

Just drinking from a big kid cup, no big deal...

Chloe can do it too!

"What?  Nothing to see here..."

I forgot to put this under "Challenges".  Chloe is a notorious kitchen towel thief.   

She loves to walk around like this.  

Happy Wednesday to you all, hope you are having a great day!

Sunday Afternoon

This afternoon we took a trip back to the park to play for a little while.  The weather (temperature wise) was amazing since there were storms all around us but none coming towards us.  This meant we caught a little breeze and it was only about 83 instead of the typical 100 for July in Texas.  We enjoyed playing in the cooler weather for a little while and then took the kids for frozen yogurt.  

It has been a relaxing weekend around here and we've enjoyed just getting to spend quality time with one another.  I was able to snap a few pictures at the park today.  I am back to using my DSLR, so I have enjoyed the better picture quality I am able to achieve versus the iPhone.  

Hope you all are winding down a fantastic weekend!

Happy Fourth of July!

Happy Fourth everyone!  The kids and I enjoyed a fun filled day celebrating with Chad home from work.  Our neighborhood has a parade, but it started at 8 AM, and oddly enough the kids slept in (and so did we!) so we missed it this year.  By the time the kids had breakfast and we were all dressed, all of the morning festivities were already over.  

While driving around the neighborhood, we discovered a playground that we'd never seen before.  It is further back in the development than we'd ever ventured.  We assumed that the small playground next to the clubhouse was the only one in our neighborhood.  The larger playground we found today is next to the tennis courts and overlooking one of the lakes.  It also has a set of swings for babies and a set of regular swings.  The babies really enjoyed being pushed in the baby swings!  We tried to coax them both to go down the slide, but they were not ready for that just yet.  

Later this afternoon we went over to our next door neighbor's house for their pool party.  The babies had a great time swimming and playing in the pool.  We didn't go to any fireworks displays tonight since the babies were in bed by 8 and the fireworks around here didn't start until 9.  Next year I think they will be old enough to stay up late enough to see the fireworks and we look forward to taking them!   

Fireworks went off in our neighborhood starting at 9 and are just ending now, so almost an hour.  There were so many people setting off fireworks and they were all so beautiful.  We are not talking little fireworks, these were like professional grade fireworks!  Chad and I took the baby monitor outside with us and we got to see quite a display!  

Happy Fourth ya'll, and Happy Birthday USA!  I hope you all had a great holiday with your families!  I will leave you with a few pictures from the park earlier today.