4 months!

 

 

 

ALREADY????

This girl is still a complete sweetheart!  She wasn't feeling very well last week, so I finally took these pics today- doing MUCH BETTER!!!  She is still at a very fun age, here's what's happening….

• Doing lots of laughing, talking and squealing
• I swear she has a 3 hour timer for when she is hungry - ding and cry!  
• Generally she doesn't cry much unless she wants her bottle or is sleepy
• Loves to look at herself in the mirror and just cracks herself up when her "friend" shows up
• She is really grabbing an feeling and playing with toys now and puts about everything she touches straight into her mouth
• I really think we will be seeing a tooth any day now, she drools like crazy and constantly chews on things on her gums
• She rolled over two times one night (back to tummy), not too much since.  I don't think she really likes being on her tummy all that much, so probably not too interested in doing that
• Solids has been going OK, she doesn't get too mad about it, but not too interested.  I probably get about three bites into her.  We'll keep working on it and she will get it eventually.
• She's starting to play with a lot of her toys where she can sit, exersaucer is officially out and a hit so far.  She was liking the bumbo chair at first, now she tries to squirm herself out of it so I can't leave her in that long or she might hurt herself.  
• She likes to give these big wet kisses.  I wasn't sure if she was trying to eat my face or give me kisses, then we were playing in the mirror and I kissed her cheek and she watched, then gave me a big wet kiss!  
• Loves watching football with dad
• Still pretty chill overall, she will wake up in the mumaroo or a car seat and not really say much, just look around.  Last night I had her at the mall and she just sat quiet and looked all around watching all the people.    
• She loves to stand up, almost every time you try to sit her up, she tries to stand up.  
• We are size 2 diapers, but thinking we may be moving into 3 soon!  she is still really long, I've been using the onsie extender on most her 3-6 month onsies.  

 

Here are her stats from her check up.  Poor girl was awfully sad after her shots.  She cried pretty hard - reminded me that Keith took the boys to their 4 month by himself, poor guy:(

Weight:  16 lbs 15 oz, 91%
Height:  25", 82%

(In case you were wondering, 17 pounds plus baby car seat IS heavy)

 

 

Reality

Obviously ...

Docks for their ships.

I guess the handles weren't doing the job

Wordless Wednesday

Sorry, I don't believe I've introduced you

Have you had the pleasure of meeting Sweet Little Penguin? For some time now, Sweet Little Penguin has been at the top of Carter’s favorite things list, possibly at the same level as…BLUE BLANKY! This is one of those super cheap stuffed animals, possibly came from a video game, one hard hit or tiny snag would BUST open and be done for type of stuffed animal. But, for right now, Sweet Little Penguin is Carter’s favorite. Obviously he came up with the name and is so funny because he always calls it his Sweet Little Penguin. Makes me laugh every time he talks about it. Mom, ”where’s my Sweet Little Penguin.” Even Dylan says it, “I have Carter’s Sweet Little Penguin.”

Love having something little with a bit of pink around

 

I hear a lot from these two these days...

Tonight on the way home, all I heard about is how they wanted toast when they got home, which led to who would get to toast their bread first?  AHHHH…. being the wise mother I am, I quickly provided a solution, "guys, I can cook two pieces at once!"  Genius, right.  Dylan says, "cool".  Carter quickly followed with a, "it's not cool Dylan, it's regular."

The hottest word at our house is "NEVER".  I hear this ALL THE TIME!!! I'm never going to eat that mom, I'm never going to blah, blah, blah!  Hear this 10x a day, each boy.

Save this for me mom!  That is big right now, they will hand me about anything and tell me to "save" it for them.  Must be a school thing.

Guess, what I heard tonight for the first time in a long time… Dammit!  Carter dropped his play dough can on the floor, bends down to get it and I quietly hear, I dropped my playdough…..dammit.  This is the kid that didn't swear!  Dylan was all (mr. perfect) ….that's a bad word, we are supposed to use that word.  Carter responds, well, I dropped my play dough dammit.  Hopefully just a slip:)

One day Dylan told me he lost his love.  But Carter gave him a hug and gave it back to him.  Carter did confirm.

This is an odd one, before going to bed last week, Dylan said, "mom, you're a good person in this world, if bad guys are mean to you, I'll throw the police at them."  Random, but a bit sweet.

We are on a big "dead" kick.

They still like the weather, I dropped them off at daycare one morning and it was a bit dark, so Dylan kept saying how it was going to be dark all day because it was Halloween.  He told the teacher that when we got to school, then she said- I guess, we'll be talking about the weather today.

One day the boys were playing in the pantry and I hear one of them say, we're having a sweet little time in here.

One day Dylan stubbed his toe- it probably was pretty sore because it kept bleeding on and off for a couple days, so he would tell about every person he knew that they had to be careful with him because his toe was fragile.

I hear a lot of, "a VERY, VERY long time ago - when I was a little boy." - this can end with many things, but is often along the lines that I used to eat carrots or vegetables, etc.

 

 

Election Day

Election day is upon us! Do you remember the first time you voted in a presidential election? I will probably always remember mine. It was 2000, I was 18 years old and a freshman at Central College. So excited to go cast my vote and then I patiently waited for the results. Hours passed, then days passed by and it was the big recount in Florida and Bush was finally awarded the job. My niece was born just a couple months prior to that election and seeing her reminds me of just how long ago it was that I casted that first vote for a very eventful election. I’ll probably always associate my boys with the 2008 Obama election because they were actually due on Election Day. Born a few weeks prior, but between being on bedrest and home with the boys, I was lucky to enjoy all sorts of political ads!

This is the most politics talk you will hear from me on this blog. To be honest, I can’t wait for the day to be here and behind us. In Iowa we get HAMMERED with the ads. Last week I heard the same ad, two spots in a row on the radio. Each candidate brings concern to our uncontrolled spending and our countries’ deficit, yet they have no problem pouring millions into advertising. I believe each is over the 700 million mark in spending. That doesn’t even count the spending to elect a candidate for the republican race and all other political roles. I understand they need to drive awareness to win votes, but I would love to see each candidate have a capped dollar amount- then challenge them to get creative and win votes on an even playing fields without useless, astronomical spending. Honestly, there are starving children in the world, people barely scraping by. They should be embarrassed to spend so many dollars on advertising. I work in the advertising / marketing world, so I respect that the ads help keep the industry rolling but I believe the dollars could go so much further supporting people in other ways.

Looking forward to everyone being friends again on facebook next week!



Who are those crazy teens? Can I hear some country grammar?? Maybe after we find out who let the dogs out. Lets go back to 2000 for a day.

And we started this...

I think the pictures give you an idea how it went.  Not a fan! The good news, I went into with these expectations.  When we started the boys, I remember I was so excited and all pumped to get started.  They were horrible with starting solids, took us about two months and an oatmeal cereal / formula / applesauce with cinnimon concoction to make it happen.  Happy to say, today they are fabulous eaters….oh wait, that is absolutely not true!

Anyhow, I've just been giving her a bit every couple days, honestly she is doing much better than them.  But no success stories yet.  

Our poor little Olivia is just not feeling quite right tonight. Last few days has had some super fussy spells.  She might be getting teeth.  I hope that is it.  She has an icky cough too.  Tonight we were debatable if she has an ear infection.  If only I had an octoscope and knew that to look for.  I hate those, no true way to know without going to the doctor. (Hmmm…..I just looked, $25 on amazon.  Now for the other part???)
A grumpy Olivia is a good reminder of just how lucky we are with her!  Normally she barely makes a peep.    

 

 

Skippy Jon Jones

 

At school the boys are doing this Skippy Jon Jones thing where each week a different student takes home the book, Skippy, his bag and they need to draw a picture of what they did with skippy.  This was one of  those tough things being a twin because Dylan had it the first week and Carter really, really wanted to draw a picture.  I felt so bad for the kid!  Luckily, his turn was the next week.

Dylan's was the weekend of his birthday so he drew balloons (or KAbloons if you ask him).  I think Carter's is a lego.  

 

Dylan was so funny with this guy, he took him out to go potty all weekend:)

 

Frog Hunting

Last weekend Keith and Olivia went to Des Moines and the boys were really wanting to find some frogs, so I figured as long as I didn't have to touch one, we could go!  I actually had a really fun time!  They are finally at an age where you can get out and explore and not fear they will run away from you at any given moment.  Still happens, just not as often.
We gathered a few supplies, frog cage (my dwindling Tubberwear), one butterfly net and two zip lock bags.  There is a little pond a few blocks away so we went there to walk around.  On our way I told them I knew the "secret path"to the pond. Carter later had a response to that, that we were going to find "mysterious frogs."  On the walk they both collected a few leaves to put into their bags.  Carter was cracking me up all day - he had been about 5 feet behind Dylan and me and I turn around to a, hey guys, I got a dead worm" - coming from a very proud face.  After a little convincing, I am happy to report the worm didn't make it past the sidewalk and now, "we don't really like dead worms."  So back to the pond….   great spot for frogs!  We saw a ton in the super icky thick green water.  I didn't want our net in the water so we weren't able to catch any.  There was a boy and a girl fishing with their dad, the boys went up to them and said hi, then Carter says, "that's my brother Dylan and I'm Carter."  I was happy to hear that because I've told them several times they need to tell new people who they are and I was even more excited how he introduced Dylan too.
Though we did not come home with any frogs, we did come home with TWO grasshoppers!  Possibly just as gross as frogs:)  Carter is so funny with any critter, no fear in picking them up and grabbing them.  He was so excited about his, he made a point to go back to the kids we had seen to tell them about it.
We had a nice walk back home, Carter was very impressed by these little pine trees we saw.  He said, this is a baby one mom.  Yep, then he saw a couple bigger ones and then said, "yeah, that makes sense mom, that's the baby one, that's the papa one and the grandma one."
Overall, I really enjoyed a couple hours out of the house with the boys!

 

Happy bday grandpa karl (or grandpa curl according to carter)

 

 

Remember that hair?

They were a couple of crazy dudes getting into trouble back then too:)

 

 

 

 

Those quiet moments

If you have been reading along over the years, you know that I always say quiet generally equals mischief. Here is Dylan taking down the streamers from the party.  Later that weekend I was sitting on the couch feeding Olivia.  Carter was outside and Dylan had been quiet.  I thought I saw him pass by with the big black stool. (nothing unusual).  Then I thought, it's been way too quiet.  And just as I got up to check on him, he had placed the big black stool on the kitchen chair and had just retrieved his scissors so he could climb up and cut down the balloon!  I tell you, BOYS!!!  No fear and NOT happening.  I've caught him putting that stool up onto things before and told him we can't do that.  Throw in the scissors too???  I guess we may have one of our balancing acts down for the 3 ring circus.  

My 4 year olds

Almost two weeks in and we have been busy being 4!
Last Friday we took all 3 kiddos in for well appointments- where's the 3 for 1 special???  Dylan loves going to the doctor, the night before he was bouncing in bed on his knees - "we get to go to the doctor tomorrow".  I have a feeling opinions have forever changed. The big news at this appointment was SHOTS….duh…duh….duuuuhhhhh.  Generally these two do pretty darn well with shots, but they are getting to age where kids talk, share stories….make that horror stories:)  Usually with them if I tell them ahead of time they are pretty good about it, so early last week I start prepping and right away I started hearing shots hurt.  Turns out, at 4 you only need the flu shot, but you can do the pre-k shots at 4 so our pediatrician asked if we wanted too.  They were expecting shots and I figured it would only get worse as they got older.  So there we were - 11 shots, for 3 kids!
This is the first year we debated if we should bring one out of the room while the other gets the shot.  I decided that would probably psych out the other one waiting even worse and hoped Dylan wouldn't say a word while getting them.  Overall, both were really good. No tears, but I did get a bit of yelling, it was funny both almost laughed during but it was more of a pain laugh.  I wish I had a video of Carter after, he was basically walking on his tip toes, as if he were walking on glass.  Now they tell me shots hurt, I'm never getting shots again.  Not even when I'm older:)  

Here are the stats:

DYLAN
Weight:  37 lbs, 58%
Height 39.25", 25%

CARTER:
Weight:  38.8 lbs, 72%
Height:  40", 41%

A bit of an oxymoron, huh

Spice Art

Good thing I have a lot of extra spices to substitute as toys.  I don't think it was intended, but Keith thought it looked like a heart.  Or perhaps he arranged this in an attempt to woo me:)