I know we haven't posted a lot as of late, and for that, I'm sorry, world. Life has just gotten in the way. Kind of like how I feel when realizing that my two boys, Eli and Jude, have just turned 3. Where did the time go? It feels like only yesterday that the boys were waking every 4 hours for milk, or starting to crawl, or getting up to walking during a football game, or climbing out of their cribs and flopping to the ground. These 3 year olds sure have grown a lot... but the best part about it is that they're not going to stop. What I am going to do this year when they want to go everywhere "by them selves" as they already have begun asking? What sort of trouble will they get into with their newest car, a red fire engine (which the boys will loooove getting into trouble with this year, I guarantee that, thanks Granddad!)? Will they swing so high on their new swing set that they turn inside out? Will anyone else get that reference? What I'm saying really is that life has been pretty good for them, and for us, for the past 3 years. Sometimes we forget that what really sticks in our memories are the good times, the special moments. Sure, I vaguely remember the times when Eli had a bit of "explosive diarrhea" at me, but so many of the little things I got upset about just don't matter that much. I have two miraculously well behaved and well mannered three year olds and I am thankful every day that they are who they are.
Today we'll be going out in the backyard to drive the little car around, play ball, and watch Daddy try to build a swing set. We'll go to a birthday dinner at Red Robin (probably their favorite restaurant we've been to) for the little ones and we'll come home to snuggle up to several bed-time stories (they love reading, so one is never enough). They'll go to sleep and I think I'll cry just a bit thinking about how lucky I am to have these loving, special pair of boys.
But for now, I'm going to go out there with the boys eating a snack and snuggle them while I can. They're 3 after all, so that means I get less and less opportunities to snuggle them. They are always so busy, and often politely decline my snuggle request with a "No, thanks" because they have something to do. Soon enough, they'll be too big for me to scoop up and spin around the room with, but for now, I'll settle with what I can get.
Oh, and by the way, I had a bit of a iPhone catastrophe earlier in the week when my iPhone took a tumble from the van into a drainage ditch, cracking on the corners and getting wet, so I dryed it out and reset the phone, so no more videos, but I will get some up as soon as we can. Maybe today, or maybe tomorrow. My New Year's Resolution is to pay closer attention to the little things that make life worth living, and to let go of the little things that nag at us all. Our brains are smart organs; they expel the little nagging things and with rose colored glasses, view the past through the lens of the great things that happened to us.
Me: I'm going to eat Judah all up! He smells so yummy!
Eli: NOOOOO! Don't eat him!
Me: Why not? He is delicious!
Eli: No Mommy! He's not delicious! He's my best friend!
Sorry for the long absence, we've had a great summer! Lots of visiting family, playing at school, getting jobs/working, etc. We even potty trained! To make up for our long time away, here's a super cute video that shows just how much our little people have grown over the summer.
We've been having a tough couple weeks on the job hunt and working our butts off, so sorry about the late releases, but we've got two videos today! Sorry about the lighting; the sun was setting so it was hard to get a good lock on the contrasts/brightness and I was a bit too lazy to edit in iMovie. I hope you enjoy!
Eli and Jude are really getting into reading. Here they are after they were reading right before naptime today; I figured that i'd take a quick shot with my iPad (which allowed me to read in their room before they finally fell asleep)!
The boys are getting rowdy going to sleep these days, and certainly don't like to sleep much despite their need for it... this is an accounting of our nightly struggle to get into bed. I hope you enjoy (and they're characteristically cute at bedtime too!)
A spinning video just to start us out since I haven't updated in forever (Sorry!)
Alright, a lot's happened in the last week and a half (more like 2? Sorry guys!) so I'll get right into it!
First, for my family's Easter, we visited Nanny and Poppa and the rest of the family up in Burnet! The boys of course were big stars, but this time they were joined by a lot of their little cousins, both old and new. In age order, first, we had Julie's daughter, Autumn, who looks a WHOLE lot older than I remember her looking! Dylan and Julie definitely have their hands full! Then, Eli and Jude, the cutest of all twins (not biased at all, can't you tell). Then we had Kai, our littlest boy cousin from Mexico, and Marieke and Scott certainly are doing a great job with him; he's the size of Eli and Jude and certainly has a White appetite! Last but certainly not least, we have Ava, Jason and Amanda's beautiful daughter. Her hair is SO LONG! She's only 9 months old but has more hair than each of the boys individually have grown in 2 years. Crazy!
By far, the most favorite aspect of the visit for the boys would be the music. Our Horne family is definitely very musically inclined, starting with Nanny at the top instilling all of us with the love of music that we have. It doesn't hurt that the boys LOVE the guitar, and especially when their Uncle Mike was playing
The boys had a great time, nonetheless. Eli and Jude both love going to see their family and we love seeing them all too! We had a fun trip; it's a shame that it'll probably be our last family get-together in Burnet; with Nanny and Poppa's advanced age, the decision has been made to probably reconvene at Uncle Steve's house. Hopefully, Alex and I will have a house soon to help contribute to housing the out of towners.
Ah, got to put up a picture of the Horne Clan!
So with the end of the Easter weekend, we planned to go see Grandma Horne for the weekend. This trip started out with a bit more excitement than we hoped. While packing the van for the trip, I saw some smoke coming from one of the maintenance golf carts. Thinking little more than a maint. member left a lit cigarette in an ashtray, I continued to pack the van by going inside to get more supplies. When I walked out, the cart has gone from smoking to full on flames. I quickly dashed back inside to grab our handheld kitchen fire extinguisher and unloaded it on the fire, to no avail. I bolted for the main office, which is close by our apartment, to report the fire and call the fire department. Luckily, the fire department is quite swift on getting out to the fire; I think it took about 8 minutes for a fire truck to arrrive and douse the flames with their industrial fire extinguishing skills. During all of this drama, the boys saw the big fire truck and were happily screaming inside to see it and fortunately, the firemen obligued our favorite duo to a little trip up into the truck, and additional stickers afterwards!
After we ensured that our apartment was in fact, not going to go up in flames (the cart was right in front of our apartment!), we drove down to Houston to see Grandma! The entire trip was a ton of fun; the boys really enjoyed playing with their Grandma and of course, everyone's favorite boxer dog Dixie! Being the dog lovers that they are, they couldn't get enough of her and were constantly playing with her, once they warmed up to how big she was. Alex got to catch up on a lot of sleep as well, and Grandma and I took the opportunity to take the babies off to the zoo!
Eli and Jude LOVED the zoo. Their favorite animals? Probably the Giraffes, Elephants and of course, "Baby Jaguar", who I think was actually a leopard. Either way, a large cat and the babies were very enamored with it. Eli and Jude also had a great time running through the HUGE zoo! I didn't remember how large that place was until we walked around the zoo; truly, the whole zoo while skipping lots of places, in about 4 hours. Fortunately, Grandma remembered to pack a delicious lunch for us all while we were at the zoo, and both Eli and Jude really enjoyed eating ham and cheese sandwiches in the middle of the aviary! It truly was a great visit to the zoo.
So after the zoo, one would think our day would be done, right? NOPE! We were just beginning. The boys slept on the drive back to Grandma's house, and when we got there, they slept a bit more; so tired probably because we walked SO much. After our naps, Eli and Jude had their first ever trip to Chuck "E." Cheese's, something I was very surprised at being appropriate for kids. I remembered a whole lot more games for older kids at Chuck, but it seems like this Chuck E Cheese had a TON of young-focused activities, and the boys really caught on it. They had a great time thanks to Grandma and Grandpa, who really were excited to be there for their first Chuck's trip. I'm sure that if we ever mention the name again to the boys, they'll jump at the chance to go again! The pizza was delicious (to them), the games were fun, the rides were silly but enjoyable for the duo anyway.
Finally at Grandma's house, we had to leave early in the afternoon to get back to Mommy could get back to work, but we had one more opportunity to swim in the kiddie pool on Sunday morning. The boys, being the boys that they are, ALWAYS love that opportunity and jumped at the chance to get their bathing suits on! This one also has a few videos, so I'll let them speak for me.
That brings us back to where I am today... suffering from a sad moment of baby interference. So, Eli and Jude have forced our hand with several electronic upgrades recently; our broken HDTV, broken toys, lights, etc. Lots of stuff. Well, the boys are at it again. This time, they borked Alex's computer (with a little help from yours truly). Somehow, the boys shoved an SD card into the computer's CD drive, destroying the drive and I think also destroying the disc inside... not as bad as destroying the drive. So, this computer's monitor is now damaged by the boys, the CD drive is damaged (and whining when turned on... ) and during my attempt to fix the problem, I broke a plastic insert within the computer, which ensured that I can't connect the touchpad to the motherboard. I despise Dell for their poor, shoddy construction, something that I haven't ever dealt with on my MacBook. Anyway... we were going to get Alex a new computer in the next year or so anyway, since her current computer is about 4 years old this fall... but now that the computer barely works, it's time to get an upgrade. The cheapest plan right now for us is for me to give her my MacBook Pro, which is still a powerhouse, with its dedicated graphics for Alex's video editing and (ahem) Sims 3 gaming pleasure, while I downgrade to a new MacBook Air (or more specifically, a refurbished one) once the next model comes out and drops the price below 1k. If you'd like to donate to the cause, travis.horne (at) gmail.com is open for your paypal pleasure (seriously, I doubt anyone will actually do it, but one can hope, especially since you won't need that money after tomorrow anyway because the rapture is coming! /sarcasm). On a more serious note, I'm still hoping to land a permanent teaching position, so if you've got one of those open, e-mail me! I know I said to my lovely wife that I'm okay with her bringing home the bacon a bit more than me, I'd really like to bring more bacon home so she doesn't have to work such horrid hours.
Well, that's it for me today... I plan on taking the boys to the Austin Children's Museum for the next post, but since I'm working all this next week, I probably won't be able to. Maybe the next week? The summer is long in Texas, so don't worry, Alex and I will have plenty of time to blast away at plenty of the local things to do!
Eli, Jude and I went to the park the other day to play around! Sorry this video is so long coming, we just haven't had a whole lot to put up video wise and with the holidays, we've both been pretty pooped.
Look forward to this summer's videos at the playgrounds, zoos, museums, and trips across the country as we get ready for a fun summer!
Hi everyone, sorry that we haven't updated that frequently this week; I've been sick with a stupid bronchitus infection, the boys have been not feeling the best, and Alex has been exhausted and stresssed with her night shift Panera bread job. Whew... so exhausting. Also in other notes, I find it completely ironic that I have a better chance right now finding a position with a school district in administration doing similar work that I used to do than as a teacher. So. Crazy. Ugh.
Anyway, back to the babies. They've been feeling under the weather this last week, and really only have started to feel better in the last couple of days. Sickness seems to come with the terretory of school though, so I suppose this will not end for 16 or so years.
Eli and Jude are also developing so well these days. They're big talkers, giving full sentences regularly, and they're calling everyone by their names these days and can even remember things that have happened in the not so distant past with them. It's really exciting to see them growing into little young children.
Oh, one thing I'm really tired of is Toy Story. The boys have only wanted to watch "Buzz and Woody!" for the last couple of days, I think I'm going to gouge out my eyes over the Toy Story overload. Definitely used to be one of my favorite animated movies, but not any longer.
Other advancements with the boys: they've discovered how to open doors, extremely successfully. We tried to get door knob locks for their room so they'd go to sleep at bedtime of 7:30 instead of playing with the door until 9pm, but they dismantled the best we could find in about 30 seconds. I finally had enough on Sunday and reversed the door knobs during their naptime. This means that the door inside their room cannot be opened without the key when it's locked, a key which we store in the top of the room door (somewhere they have no idea where it is). It's worked wonderfully so far; the boys hate being locked in there, but that's the only way they will actually sleep. The past few nights they've gone to sleep at a normal time, and my sanity has been restored to fullness again. Oh, one concern we had about it would be little ones taking off their diapers and spreading a poopy mess all over their room, but that fear has been minimized by the fact the boys seem to be smarter than to do that these days.
Okay, well now what you've probably been waiting for, the new little video of the boys. I took it on my ipad, which isn't the best camera, but really haven't had a whole lot of time or places to take videos being sick! This one is of the boys playing with their aunties in the pool, which was surprisingly warm enough to dive into this week. I got in shortly after this video was taken, and I'd rate its temperature around 74~75F, which is equivalent to some of the lakes I used to swim in at Pennsylvania, but it was passable none the less and the boys really, really loved the opportunity to swim! Eli bonked his face on a bar getting out of the pool, so he has a bit of a fat lip from the cut, but otherwise, everyone did fine!
Some of you may remember that we participated in fund raising for the March of Dimes March For Babies last year. We fully intended to participate in the walk too, but my back problems were making walking long distances extremely hard and we ended up skipping the actual event. This year, depending on how tired I am, we will most likely attend and show off what handsome, healthy NICU graduates we have! Thinking about how much they've grown and changed since those first weeks of life never fails to bring me to tears. At the time, it was so hard to imagine the future when we'd have active, healthy little boys. Today, it's hard to believe they were ever so small.
I'd like to share with you (a slightly edited version of) the post I wrote about this time last year about why I support the March of Dimes. I hope that you'll also take a moment and give whatever spare change you have around your house - and I know that might not be much, given the current economy - to this very worthy cause.
I thought I'd take a moment and talk about the March of Dimes. I'm participating in the March for Babies in [35] days for so many reasons. The March of Dimes itself is a fantastic charitable organization with the goal of funding research for healthy pregnancies and providing support to families of premature infants and infants born with serious illnesses and birth defects. Their mission is to have every baby born healthy and give doctors and nurses the resources they need to care for the ones that are not! I think this is a lofty goal, but one that I can stand behind with my whole heart.
Many of you know that Eli and Jude are preemies. We were incredibly lucky to make it to 34 weeks gestation - just six weeks shy of their due date - when so many twins are born at 32, 28, and even a stunning 24 weeks. My perinatologist even awarded me a "bronze medal" when I made it to 32! March of Dimes has funded and pioneered research that helped me reach those milestones and also the research that helped Eli and Jude come home from the NICU four weeks earlier than the neonatologist originally predicted. I honestly believe that the work March of Dimes has done to educate doctors of the importance of kangaroo care had a huge impact on their NICU stay.
I also walk for my friends and family who have lost their babies before getting the chance to meet them. Recently I've met a shocking number of women who have lost babies late in their pregnancy or shortly after birth and it breaks my heart. These women - and their significant others - are everywhere and wear silent scars. I cannot imagine the pain they feel and can only hope that continued research will prevent other women from suffering such a loss.
The March for Babies is coming up fast and I'm working hard to raise money for this amazing cause. Seriously, who wouldn't support a group that strives for healthy babies? I'm not one who likes to ask for money but... DONATE PLEASE! I still have a long way to reach my goal but every dollar makes a difference. If you want to donate but don't want to give directly to me, please donate to my team - The Austin Moms of Multiples. You can click on the sidebar here on our blog, or visit my personal fund raising page here.
I too hope that one day, all babies will be born healthy. Please help me help the March of Dimes in their work to make that goal a reality.
So I don't really have a whole lot to say for this last week; we've been busy, tired, and generally just fatigued as a whole. I've taken a bunch of videos in the past week and a half though, so I hope you enjoy.
PS: My wife has already let me know that I did the wrong thing by having them slide down on their tummies.. I never really thought it was that big a deal, so I'm sorry in advance, Honey.
Having a great day with the toys
Sleeping little boys
A day at the park
A sliding good time (even though I let them do something that wasn't supposed to happen... whoops)
Hello out there! I know it has been an absurdly long time since I last wrote a post and I don't really have a very good excuse. Mostly, I've just been completely exhausted at all times and every spare moment I've had has been spent with the boys or with Travis. So I thought I'd post a quick update.
I started a new job - as many of you have gathered if you didn't know already - baking overnight for Panera Bread. Getting used to my new sleep schedule has been a challenge. I've always been a night person, but I was certainly not used to staying up and WORKING from 10 pm to 6 am. And in a job where you're in and out of ovens, you need to be alert not just awake. Making time for my family has been especially challenging. In all honesty, I thought that the new hours would be a fantastic situation for us but they've been such a struggle for me. I feel like a lot of the time I spend with Eli and Jude (which isn't a lot, at the moment) I am too tired to move or play. Sometimes they'll sit and cuddle with me on the couch but I can tell they're getting frustrated. I guess I'm just having a hard time with the transition to being a real working mom. I was spoiled before, working at the preschool, and it has been harder than I originally anticipated to work away from my kids. Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying my new job and I LOVE Eli and Jude's new preschool, but I have a new respect for other working moms.
The new preschool is amazing. I don't want to get too bogged down here about all of the reasons why it's better than the last one but it has renewed my faith in early childhood education. Besides, it's just drama that makes me upset and it's not really worth thinking about anymore. I now realize that not everyone is just in it for the money. I no longer feel like Eli and Jude have dollar signs stamped on their foreheads. Their class is nice and small, I love their teachers, and I feel so good knowing that they're actually LEARNING! They do Spanish and Sign Language also, which I'm very happy about. Basically, I almost didn't want to put the boys in daycare because of our experience with the last preschool but it's clear now that the last place was just terrible.
Well, that's all I have to say for now. And it's time for me to go to sleep! Have a good day!
So spring break this year was pretty tame; I've been applying for a host of job opportunities since I am starting to have less and less faith in the Texas Legislature to fully fund schools, thereby not giving me a job in Education in the next year, so I've been rather busy. Eli and Jude have had a whole lot of fun though at school; their new school is awesome and they're loving every day they go! Just like pre-school before, they don't ever want to leave, and I love that fact since I know they're learning and loving every minute. In our free time though, we've been having a lot of fun at the park.
First time swinging!
And at home; we've been trying to be a bit more active. I'm thinking about trying out the pool tomorrow if the weather cooperates, if so, you'll see a much better video than this one. If not, we'll see what I'll do instead!
They love spinning in this chair.
Looking at these videos reminds me that we really need to get our spring cleaning on. Our apartment is kind of a disaster as of late, owing to the fact that Alex is transitioning her sleep to a daytime sleep and the fact that we just want to spend some time together when she's not sleeping or working, and not clean, but I think we really need to get down to it this next week. Maybe on one of her days off? I doubt we'll take a video of it though!
Alex and I went to CostCo the other day for groceries and we noticed they've updated their clothing offerings. While we saw a lot of clothing that we'll want to get for the boys, we decided that the AMOM buy-sell will still be our best option for cheap clothing, however we know that the boys love to wear pajamas, so we decided to go in on a set of glow-in-the-dark space themed pajamas. They're great and the boys love them. Here's another bedtime video of the little munchkins!
So while I wait for YouTube to finish uploading my movie (seriously, it's taken hours, I'm going to try and see what's wrong with my upload speed), I have another video I apparently never linked to. It's a short one watching the boys playing with a little train they got from their Grandma Laura where I caught them giggling and acting like the monkeys they wish they were. Enjoy!
PS: I know about my shaky hands; that's not my fault (well it is, but it's really hard for me to control) its the lack of image stabilization on the iPhone. If you know of a good App that takes better video, let me know!
So I know that I didn't get in my post quota for last week of one per week... BUT, I have two videos to post today! One is of the boys going to the park, which we did when Mommy was out getting rid of her old, horrible job.
The other is of the boys playing with the newly energized Tickle-me Cookie Monster. It is HILARIOUS in person; the sound from cookie is a bit faded in the video but I'm sure that you'll enjoy the babies squealing in delight none the less!
I'll also be posting a text post in a second, but the boys need to get up now!
So the boys and I had a good time the other night at bedtime (hence why they're in diapers only). They're playing a really funny game here, dancing around like chickens and "speaking" like them too!
Eli and Jude have grown tremendously since they entered pre-school. If there's one good thing that has come out of Alex's current job, it's certainly that our boys have become polite, sociable little boys. Both Eli and Jude are working on saying "please" and "thank you" when they want something and when they receive something, and generally will use polite language for other things.
They're also showing more and more empathy for each other after a lull in their general attitudes towards each other. Eli and Jude definitely love to do crazy things, such as jumping off couches, running around bonking into things, climbing their dresser and jumping off, and oftentimes, they hurt themselves. They've become really good at asking "What happened?" to each other, obviously very concerned about why their brother was sad. Unfortunately, they also do this when they know exactly what's wrong, too. Eli has gotten into the habit of waking his brother up as they're going to sleep, and while Jude cries out, Eli says "What happened?" over and over. It's definitely a work in progress!
More on language, the boys are becoming masters already. They know all their numbers through 10, all their capital letters (we haven't done lowercase ones much yet.... something that's really strange honestly is that most of the toddler toys don't have lowercase letters on them...) and I'm slowly starting to teach them words to recognize in the books they read. They can "read" some of the books already, but I really think it's that they just remember what Alex and I say when we read it to them, so it's not true letter recognition, rather a memory exercise. They are catching on well though, and we've been complimented on how smart they are at school already. I'm really proud!
Oh, speaking of bedtime behavior, Eli and Jude have been developing a fear of the dark. I had hoped that keeping their room dark through their early years would stave off this fear, but I suppose it's just natural. For their birthdays, Granddad got them a night light- a "jellyfish" tank that has a motorized light that turns on and changes colors every so often while pushing the rubber jellies through the water. Eli and Jude absolutely love it, and because they love it so much, they've wanted to touch and play with the jellyfish. This recently came to a head one morning when the boys woke up, climbed up on the table and tipped over the tank, which contained about a 3 liters of water. The boys were sitting up on the dresser, stunned by the mass amount of water they were sitting in and screamed out for help, to which I came running only to find that the jellies were all over the place, with water streaming down the sides of the dresser. Each boy was sitting soaked, and very upset about their friends' plight. Alex remembered that the tank was supposed to be ages 7+, and I guess the boys were just too tempted to leave it alone, so we've had to remove it now for the time being. I'm going to try to see if it still works at all once the motor is all dried out, but in the meantime, we've purchased two little baby-resistant night-lights: a green turtle and a blue car. The night lights are rubberized, rechargeable and seem to have little to no exposed parts that the boys can get into trouble with. I'm hoping that this will solve the problem of the lightless room for the boys, but they do ask us each night still about the jellies. They love fish and water, so I think that we'll just have to get a shelf far out of their reach to hold up the jellyfish tank. Although, since the jellyfish tank is AA battery-sucking, I'm not really so upset to see it not in regular use. I wish it could have been AC powered!
Finally, potty training is going. Yup, it's going, not much to really report about it yet. The boys are letting us know that they have to pee and poop, but it's still generally too late to use the potty exclusively. Their accuracy is definitely improving though, and I hope that the praise we give them for great potty use will sink in as a good habit soon. I really, really am tired of diapers.
As a follow-up to the last post regarding our T.V., I am immensely happy that we got a new one. It was definitely on the list of "would-likes" this year, and despite the fact that we were forced into buying it now, the TV we purchased is a huge upgrade that we got for a good deal. 46" TV absolutely dominates a 32" one, and the fact that its black levels are more than 10 times better doesn't hurt either!
Anyway, back to the actual blog. The boys certainly are growing fast these days. They know all their numbers from 1 to 10, even venturing into the teens occasionally, they know their letters, they know their colors... I can't believe how fast they're growing. They're making complete sentences these days, although they're generally 3 to 4 words max. So smart....
Right now as I'm typing this up, they're fighting over a guitar strap that each of them wants to play with. Sharing has definitely become more of a problem as they're growing, and I hope we can afford to double everything from now until they turn 19 (if you're reading this from the future kids, yes, you're only getting 1 car as of now).
At least bedtime is still fun, even though it's chaotic. Now that Alex is back at work again, the boys are back at school so that tires them out more during the day and they get to sleep earlier. We like that, but they've still got tons of energy to keep going. One day, they'll go to sleep well by themselves, but its still a struggle today!
Here's a good look at their new game, combining "The Ground is Lava" with "Race to the mats!". I think it's really cute! P.S.: Sorry about the aspect ratio; I was filming in portrait mode, generally the worst for showing movies on computers. I'll make sure to get back to landscape next time.
Friday was a snow day. It was awesome. We had about a half inch of snow here at our apartment (sorry, only one picture!) and the entire city shut down. My physical therapy was rescheduled and all of the schools Travis can substitute at were closed. The boys and I stayed in our pajamas and snuggled on the couch to watch movies under a blanket. All that was missing was a mug of hot cocoa. Frankly, it was turning out to be an awesome, quiet snow day. Of course, this is when the day decided to stop being so awesome.
I wasn't present for what I'm about to describe so I'm not sure exactly what happened. I think I was in the bathroom or something. Apparently, Travis and the boys were playing with the multitude of balls littering our living room (thanks, Mom for that ball pit by the way... : ) ) and somehow a racquetball found its way into the mix. You know, one of those sort of heavy, blue bouncy balls. Anyway, one of the boys threw it directly into the television. The tv seemed okay at first so the offender got a time-out and they moved on. We turned off the tv and put Eli and Jude down for their nap after lunch. Once the boys were settled, Travis and I plopped ourselves back on the couch to play our respective video games - him Fallout 3, me The Sims 3 - and it became clear the tv was broken. Travis turned it on and there were green lines all the way across the entire screen. Thinking it was the PS3, he changed the input and the lines remained. I had no idea why it would act like that but Travis knew exactly what happened.
So, the poor old tv is being sold for scrap parts on Craig's List and we bought a new one from Costco. Not exactly how I envisioned spending our coming tax return, but the new tv is really nice and we plan to keep it for the next 10+ years. Needless to say, there is no more throwing of balls anywhere near the television.
Dad bought the boys two Leapfrog Leaptops for the holidays this year, and the boys love them. Unfortunately for them, they already have spilled milk onto one of the Leaptops, so only one is left that can be used by the little ones. This does provide some very cute moments of sharing, like the one below, but for the most part is troublesome as either Jude or Eli decides that the laptop is "mine!" and they get into a fight, ending in some tears for at least one baby. We can always redirect with another toy, although this is becoming increasingly less effective as their cognitive abilities have increased :-)
So bedtime has become increasingly difficult for us over the past few months. Before, the boys were pretty good about getting into bed when they needed to. Lately, they want to fight the urge to sleep like they're Stephen Colbert in hand to hand combat with a bear. To combat this effort, lately we've been trying to tire them out in their bedrooms, with Alex and myself sitting on the couch ready to read books to them once they're ready to sit and read. This sometimes works, and this video from last night is definitely one of the better night times that we've had recently. They tired themselves well out and plopped down in their nap mats, which they seem to enjoy sleeping in over their actual beds these days.
PS: Note that you can open the YouTube videos into a new window and make them HD quality. This might be better than the experience you're getting by opening the video in this page! I encourage you to try it!
Well, I thought Alex would have liked to write this one, but I promised Dad (Hi Dad!) that I'd do one of these blog posts each week, in light of not updating as regularly in the past.
I honestly think that the 100th post of a blog about babies is a bit silly. After all, don't we have enough milestones to celebrate with our kids? Speaking of which, next weekend we're going to be trying a different approach at potty training: full-on. The boys are definitely showing all the signs, especially not wanting to keep their diapers on. The only reason we're not doing it this weekend is that I think Alex needs to recover some more from her back mishap so she'll be at her best for potty training, which is sure to be a long and arduous process. I do hope the boys make it easy on us though!
Also, we had an unexpected but delightful visit from Nanny and Poppa (my grandparents) this last weekend while Alex was hurt. We've been meaning to get up to visit them for nearly 2 months now, but every weekend, we have some catastrophe or illness that we don't want to give to them, but this last weekend, Nanny and Poppa came to visit us with Emily and Jeremy, my cousin and her husband. It was such a nice visit, with the babies playing with their great grandparents and having fun with their new presents that Nanny and Poppa brought with them! The pictures above come from their visit, with the boys thouroughly enjoying the visit with their great grandparents. We also had a little fun putting them into the gift bags that were brought to hold the presents, although one of them broke, so we had to put both babies inside one. Notice the longhorn pajamas? Got 'em on clearance from Target. I love good deals!
Well, that's that for now. The boys are bugging me to read books to them, my favorite type of pestering. See ya next time blog world!
So about a week ago, I took the boys to the park while Mom was at the opthamologist's. They were being so goofy in the playground that I wanted to take some videos, but the only time I could pin them down for a good one was when they were swinging in the baby swings. Luckily, they were being pretty cute and creative there, too. Here's the proof!
