One of my biggest parenting fears....

Would be one of my little boys crushing any of their beautiful little fingers in one of our doors!  They love to play with the doors and it is hard enough to protect one little guy, but I'm always afraid one will have their hand by the hinge and the other will slam the door!!!  Then my fear intensified when my girlfriends' little man had a bad door experience. (click here for the story)  Sam is doing much better now, but I sure hope we don't have to experience this.  

Being the safety/child protection frequent shoppers we are, Keith found these things you can put on the door if you have them open.  Certainly not a perfect solution and can't protect them in every situation, but now we can leave our front door open and not worry about them crushing their little fingers.

18 month appointment

Today we had the boys' 18 month well appointment, which ended up lasting a little over two hours!  Overall, they are doing well, but we are still trying to figure out what is going on with what we think are allergies!  Carter has had a cough and runny nose for weeks, but his lungs were completely clear.  Dylan has had the same, but he didn't like the sound of his lungs.  So he thought we should do a chest xray to make sure he didn't have pneumonia.  We had to do a chest xray when he was 4 months and I was not there, so this was my first experience.  I pulled this image from the web, because I did not anticipate the situation.  They made him put his little legs through these two holes in this table, hold up his arms and crunched him with this plastic tube.  She preferred that he was crying because it helps to get a more clear picture.  So of course he started crying instantly when put into this thing and I started to try and calm him and talk to him so he knew I was with him even though he couldn't see me, but the tech asked me to stop so she could get a good image.  I FELT AWFUL!!!  Luckily it didn't take to long.  But seriously, this thing is just mean. 

 

His xray came back great.  They also took blood for both boys and are running allergy tests for them.  In the mean time, we have Carter on Allegra and Dylan on Zyrtec and a new neb steroid.  So we will be back to doing that 2x a day:(  He is also thinking his tear ducts may have a clog again, so we need to make an appointment to see the eye guy again.  We will go back next week, so the doctor can listen to Dylan's lungs again and we will see the results from the blood work. 

Another concern I had was I noticed Dylan had a vertical ridge on his forehead.  I probably wouldn't have thought too much about it, but my girlfriend had just experienced this with her daughter.  He confirmed that the ridge is from the suture closing sooner than normal, but he wasn't concerned about it at all. 

Coincidence or "twin thing"

Today Carter was lying on the bed and the nurses were prepping to draw blood and I was holding Dylan.  Strangest thing, the second that needle went into Carter, Dylan screamed and started to cry.  Carter didn't cry at all! 

The Stats:

DYLAN

Weight:  26 lbs, 5oz (55%)

Height:  34" (90%)

Head:  19.3"  (81%)

CARTER

Weight:  27 lbs, 13oz (74%)

Height:  33.5" (81%)

Head:  19"  (63%)

This is the biggest weight difference they have had. Usually they are within a pound of each other.

Wordless Wednesday

It's not easy being a dog, when you live with these two!

Tonight I gave Stella some popcorn because I feel bad for the poor girl.  First off, she can barely see because her hair is so long.  Keith was going to take her in on his off Friday last week, but remembered at 6 pm that he was going to take her.  Hopefully we will squeeze that in this Friday! 

Keith said both boys chased her around for about 15 minutes, each with two large kitchen spoon in their hands.  Then Sunday afternoon, they were chasing her around with wipes trying to give her a nice little wet wipe bath.  Not that she couldn't use the bath, but good thing she is fast!  You should see all the things they try to clean with the wipes! 

Some of our favorite backyard games!

I think we have logged more hours in the backyard this summer than we have the entire time we have lived at our house!  Here are some of the boys' favorite games....

Dylan is really into these rocks by our deck.  He usually brings them to me, and I of course thank him and sneak them back to where they belong.  Of course, we are getting a collection in the sandbox.

Carter loves to swing!  Usually he goes in the kid swing a couple times a night, but the last couple nights, he has figured out how to swing like this.  Works for me! 

This is my favorite game by the big swing set!  Dylan does this about every night, I love it because it means I am not having to stand behind them making sure they don't fall off a ladder. 

And of course, climbing up the slide is a favorite!! Even I don't mind this one.  Again, MUCH safer than the ladder. 

Busy Boys!

Almost every night, the boys play outside with our neighbors, Hunter and Mason.

These three look like they are coming up with a pretty serious plan, I'm sure the three will be planning many more attacks in the future!

It's bad enough half the sound is already out of the sandbox, now we are moving it by the buckets!

Notice the handful of sand in Carter's hair!  We are working on not throwing the sand or putting it in our hair.

I think we have more toys than sand!

Carter, show me your foot!

Too bad you can't see the grin behind the foot!

Morning Helpers!

Not sure how a girl would ever get ready with out a morning crew!  Good thing I got new makeup brushes for Christmas!

Weekend Stretches

This is where we spend A LOT of time!

I'm enjoying not having the high chairs, but now the kitchen chairs are a big, fun game for the boys.  I swear about every two minutes I hear a chair moving in the kitchen.  They will take the chairs, move them clear across the kitchen and then climb into them.  Keith caught one on the table last weekend.  So the rule is, if they must be in the chair, they have to be buckled in.  Today, between 7:00 - 9:00, they were both buckled in three times!  Which isn't always so bad either:)  They really enjoy playing with Play Doh, more the container than the doh.  Regardless, them climbing in and out of the chairs isn't the safest thing to be doing, so hopefully they will get bored of it soon. 

SOUP!

I rarely give the boys anything that requires a spoon, as a matter of fact, I just bought their first set of bowls today!  I made some soup today and thought they might eat it if they had their own bowl and I was so happy, they loved it!  And little did they know, that soup base is V8!  They probably had more vegetable servings today than they have had in the past month.  And I am happy to say, those bowls DID NOT end up on my floor. 

Lazy, Rainy Weekend

Wow, what a rainy weekend and I must say, the gloomy weather made me extra tired and I was in bed by 10:30 on Friday and Saturday!  I'm usually tired on Friday nights, but I had no excuses on Saturday, I was just tired. 

We did spend a lot of time shopping this weekend!  Saturday morning we went to the EP mall because they have a big play area for kids.  We hit up a couple deals at Baby Gap while we were there, 40% off all clearance items!  Later that afternoon, Keith let me sneak out for a couple hours to do some shopping and I ended up getting a little something for everyone.  I picked up the boys some jean shorts and bought Keith and myself a couple things at American Eagle.  I am pretty sure I am to old to shop there, but I found a couple deals, so I guess we can fit in with the high schoolers! It seemed like every store I walked into had a big discount! 

Saturday night we went over to our neighbors for Hunter's birthday party.  And before the evening was over, five little boys were running around without their shirts off.  Lots of screaming and yelling, good thing we are all adjusted to wild boys!

Today was my day to get up with the boys and they woke up at 7:00!!!!  AWESOME!!!  I think that has only happened maybe one other time.  And we basically spent today shopping as well!  We got groceries at Target, went to Kohls and a few other stores and then later after the boys' nap we went to the Burnsville mall.  We've only been there once, but I heard there was a play area there so we checked it out.  It didn't have any slides so the boys were more interested in running out of the play area.  So I don't think we will do that one again!

Snuggle Bugs...

How many more blankets could we fit into here? We had a pretty good crib party last week, we don't have them too often anymore.

Boys, boys, boys...

The boys are always trying to drink out of Keith's Camelbak water bottle, so when he saw these ones, he bought them for them for the boys. They LOVE them!

Note to self.... Always put the folded laundry away instead of just putting it back into the basket for two little boys to find.

They still love this tent!!! Great toy!