Monday, May 28, 2012

1.24 Memorial Day Weekend ...

May 28, 2012
By Cyndi

A long three day weekend is coming to a close.  It was filled with outings, lots of sun & some friends.  On the weekends when I am home alone with the guys, I have to leave the house between wake up (~730a) and nap (~1pm).  Typically it is a trip to the mall or the grocery store.    Maybe I'll branch out and go to a farmers market or a local farm one of these days.

The boys had their first and second pool adventures.  They seemed to enjoy it but we had to keep encouraging them to stand up because the grass was cutting up their legs.  They have been doing a lot better and Tyler will even bend over to pick something up without going to his knees!  We definitely see weekly progress with their new skills.

We have started speech therapy and are watching a video daily that is meant to encourage basic words.  Zach has more sounds and will say "down" and "uh oh" when prompted.  He doesn't say it with meaning, but mimics when the video says it.  Again, we are seeing weekly progress which is reassuring.

Here are some pictures from all the fun this weekend!

Dino Park with the Isaacs ...







Pool Party #1 with ATC friends ...









Pool Party #2 in the back yard with the Isaacs ...


Thursday, May 24, 2012

Two years ago on May 25th ....

..... we found out there were two! (Here's the blog post)


Time sure does fly .....

PS.  I wore those pants this week!  They are still a little tight in the belly, but I'll take it after two years & two kids.  Happy Friday!!

Monday, May 21, 2012

1.23 Boys will be Boys, Series 1

By Cyndi
May 21, 2012

In an effort to not bore you with our same week as always, I want to start a new series about raising two (wait, four including Matt & Meigs) boys.  I know as time passes, my viewpoint will change, but I wanted to look into the moment and capture it now. It also helps that I have been working on my photography ....

Boys Will Be Boys .....



Taking 15 minute naps ...

Crying but looking so cute while they do it

Come home from school with paint

Help a brother out

Look in tubes at the park
Be dirty and not care


Food in their hair and not notice

Love things that spin!



Climb .... and cry
Teamwork??!!
 
Happy boys who like to play!





Monday, May 14, 2012

1.22 Mother's Day and 17 months

By Cyndi
May 14, 2012

As I sit here reflecting on Mother's Day yesterday, I'd like to just forget the whole day.  I'm not a huge fan of the day in the first place (refer to blog post last year for reason).  I had errands that had to get done Sunday morning and the boys wanted nothing of it; Matt was working so I had no choice but to do them alone.  I was standing in the checkout line at the grocery store and they both lost it.  Crying, with tears, and nothing I was trying to do helped.  I'm sure everyone was staring but I kept looking at the guys because I was about to lose it too.  Finally made it home, where lunch was not so good either and finally nap time.

Matt was finally home from work and I just didn't feel great.  He brought me beautiful flowers, but I was in such a funk that he was the one to cut them and put them in a vase.  I thought I was just hungry before dinner, so we ate and then my stomach really hurt.  Did I eat too much or what?  Well, I'll just say that from 6pm until 330am Monday morning, nothing stayed down including water.

So I am home from work today, toast is staying down but I am still very achy.  I guess the positive is, that I'll be able to get some cleaning done that has been on my to-do list for weeks and, of course, take a nap or two!

I've been working on using my 50mm lens, so there won't be too many pictures this week as most are out of focus or the lighting is off.  If I don't try, I'll never learn to use it.  The guys have been doing a decent amount of walking and we are trying to encourage it all the time.  Plus, we lose about two pairs of pants per week out of the rotation because of holes in the knees!

So I will leave you with the professional pictures taken 3 hours before Zach decided to walk!  I wasn't sure how they would come out, but she again got a few great ones!!
P.S.  We tried 17 month pictures and it was a huge fail.  We'll try again another night this week.







Tuesday, May 8, 2012

1.21 Dadadaddddaaa finally blogs again!

May 8, 2012
By Matt

I was waiting and waiting and waiting, hoping that I could hold out on doing another blog post until T&Z were walking; that seemed to be a good point for me to add my paternal views on raising twins. But alas, the guys have their own agenda .....
So I suppose I will oblige my editor and write on the interesting tidbits I have observed and remembered to immediately write down (and amazingly remembered where they were written down).

Editor's Note:  Newsflash - between the time Matt started writing and finishing, we have a walking kid!!

Whenever I'm out with the guys by myself, it is not uncommon for people to remark on how similar they look and their cuteness - for which I promptly take credit. It also seems that folks like to judge my age relative to the boys and then make their opinions known. As these opinions favor my youthful appearance, I do not mind this. A good handful of people have said, "Wow, you look too young to have children" and "You can't be old enough to have one, let alone two" and "Shouldn't you be making a beer run for your frat?  Thirty stones for 13 bones can be found down that aisle" At least that last one is what I hear in my head.


Meigs and the guys seem to have come to an amicable cohabitation agreement in the last few weeks because one party does not seem to bother the other as of late. It used to be that Meigs would constantly want to chase them around and lick their faces, but that seems to have subsided. Maybe it's because there has been a dearth of snot from their noses for him to clean? (Ewwwwwww) Or maybe it's because they have not been grabbing for the few doggie toys he likes to play with and not destroy? At least Meigs is no longer getting his tongue pulled by Zachary -- yes, one day I turned around and Zach had a good hold on the dog's tongue. Being the perfect family dog he is, Meigs just stood there, patiently waiting for the child to grow tired of this new activity or for me to scold Zach. No harm, no foul I guess, as this incident has not repeated itself and hopefully all memories have faded.
In other dog news, he has grown weary of Cheerios and purposely ignores them while doing vacuum duty when the guys are in their highchairs. I can also say that he is eating a much wider variety of food than the boys as most, if not all, new items that are placed on their trays end up on the floor for Meigs to sample. Luckily he seems to still have his puppy metabolism as his weight has remained steady during these months of mealtimes, or the daily schmorgesborg as seen through canine eyes.

Like all babies, Tyler and Zachary seem to love random noises, especially when coming from me. Either spontaneous or fake, they don't seem to care, as long as it results in laughter. Animal noises, belching, trying to clear my throat (i.e., trying to hock a loogie), whatever, they giggle. This is where I am thankful they are both male. Not that I would cease from making these noises if one of them were female, but I suppose I'd feel bad that I was leading her askew. Instead, I can feel proud that I am teaching my boys things that never get old or stale. Ask any male, anywhere, if you need proof.

They love racing up the stairs.  So far Tyler wins, because Zach stops to talk & laugh.
Finally, I feel the need to share some funny anecdotes about the beautiful editor -- we'll call them Cyndi-isms.  The first one takes us back to March Madness time, a time where everyone fills out a bracket, no matter what their level of knowledge of college basketball. I'm the first to admit I have not followed too closely in the last few years, but I catch SportsCenter now and again and have somewhat of an idea of who is doing what. Cyndi on the other hand ....well, Cyndi seems to make it a contest to see how fast she can complete her bracket. It takes her much more time thinking of a name than actually filling the bracket. I'm not even sure she could tell me who she picked for Final Four one min after "enter" was clicked. I at least try to do a little research into what teams did the last half of season play, who is injured, who is too dense to pass English 101 and therefore ineligible, etc. And of course, guess which one of us beat the other? Next year I'm letting T&Z pick my teams.
The other Cyndi-isms are short and sweet. One involves a favorite book of the boys' titled, "What do you see?" which contains pages of animals, so naturally we do the appropriate animal sounds on each page. When I would read the book and get to the giraffe, I would just skip the sound because really, does anyone know what kind of noise these creatures make? Cyndi, however, felt the need to fill that unknown, so now my boys will grow up thinking a giraffe makes the sound of "Giraffe, giraffe!!" It is quite comical, though I do not know if Ms. Editor agrees.
Lastly, a few weeks back Cyndi and I were each helping the guys learn to walk by walking them around the main level while only holding one of their hands. They were both doing well when I hear from across the room, "Come on Zachary, let's walk over the the table so we can get Mommy's beer." Best. Mother. Ever. And I'm not being facetious. I'm just jealous that I did not think of that line first.

Yay!  We both know how to clap ... just start singing the ABC's and they smile & clap.

Editor's Note:  Before the long awaited videos, thank you to the 13 people who voted ... there were 100+ of you who viewed the blog and didn't vote.  Boo ...


The 70% of you who said Tyler was the first to walk were ............ WRONG!  Zach is our little walking guy!!!!!

Zach walking on Saturday evening (May 5th)

And again on Sunday, with Tyler trying to keep up while knee walking


And look what happened today ....

Tyler

Saturday, May 5, 2012

News Flash: That's one small step for mankind ...

Can you believe it?  16.5 months and ONE of the guys is walking ... vote on the clicky poll to the right and we'll reveal in a few days with pictures and a video!

Happy Cinco de Mayo!