A second childhood?

My grandma is 87 years young and apparently experiencing a second childhood…

Okay, she really was not vying for the toys with the kids… she was just having fun and being silly. She’s just that young at heart. Seriously, she emails, has a cell phone and is still very active with her peeps. She made us lunch and dessert and brought it down with them on Saturday morning. She even made homemade applesauce, which as some of you know is my favorite… my grandma’s pink applesauce rules. She makes it in an antique colander (which I think she said belonged to her grandmother) with unpeeled red apples (which gives it its pink color of course) and as you can imagine it labor intensive… and is made with lots of love. I reluctantly shared this applesauce with everyone. It was the boys first time trying it and of course they all wanted seconds... and thirds but that's where I drew the line.

"Step away from the applesauce and no one will get hurt."

On top of that, grandma cleaned the kitchen after each meal the entire weekend and cleaned up the toys in the family room (which is no small feat) both days… and played all kinds of fun things with the kids.

My grandma rocks!

Family from the north

My grandma, aunt and cousin’s children (Katie and Autumn) came down to visit us this last weekend. It was the first time they had seen the twins in person. The boys, all of them, loved the extra attention. And Lauren and the girls had fun too, since they were so close in age. Twilight was a big part of their conversations… I am beginning to think that is all teenage girls talk about!

Here are some photos…

Great Grandma with ALL her great grandchildren

Great Aunt Becky with all her great nieces and nephews

The great grandchildren

Building a giant lego house with Katie

Sliding with Autumn

We had a great time and can’t wait to see them again!

Collin's bracket

Apparently even Collin is getting in on the action. I walked in and found him checking out his bracket on Ethan's computer. Seriously?!

Easter eggs!

We had a neighborhood Easter egg hunt for the kids on Sunday, at my neighbor's house (it was in two yards actually). Hundreds of eggs... gone in the blink of an eye.

We staged this for Collin and Oliver, who didn't have a chance in... well you know... to get any unless we did.

Oliver found a really big egg...

Castle... spaceship... um...

Last night Ethan and Aunt Krissy made a castle, or was it a spaceship... no it was a castle spaceship I think. Regardless, it was pretty cool.

Dreaming big

We encourage Lauren to dream big. You can do, have or be anything you want with enough hard work and perseverance. And this dream will require all of that:

A Mercedes Benz convertible (Uncle Keith's). Though you can't see it well in this photo, the smile on her face is quite large.

Sorry sweetie, this will not be your first car... maybe not even your tenth. Hey, and didn't you promise to get one for dad and me first? Hmmm... maybe that was MY dream...

Family from the east...

Uncle Keith and (cousin) Lauren came to visit this weekend from Maryland. We haven't seen them since the summer, so it was really nice to have a visit from them. This was actually the first time (Great) Uncle Keith has met the twins. And the twins really enjoyed their visit.

Puppet kisses: Storage tote rides:

Up in the air (my favorite photo):

Thank you both for coming this weekend. We had a great time and can't wait to see you again!

Four birthdays and...

A lot of chaos! We had a family birthday party for Lauren this weekend, which also included the three other birthdays from this month - Amy, Steve and Krissy. Since the little ones have arrived (both Amy and Mike's three and ours), family get togethers have been a lot more crazy, but also a lot more laughs!

I am a little disappointed by the photos in that I really didn't get many good ones of Lauren or the other birthday people. Here are the shots that I did get of the birthday girl (that I was allowed to post):

Blowing out the candles:
With Pappy Steve: Credit cards are a girl's best friend:

Sadly, I have no good photos of the other birthday people. Both Steve and Krissy are included in shots, but are either behind someone or with their back to the camera. And Amy apparently ducked out of the photos. I have part of her body - and the rest of her looks to be puposely hidden behind someone else. What's up with that? It's not like I post photos of people on the internet or anything. Oh wait... well, regardless...

The joy of Scholastic

Okay, so who remembers Scholastic book order forms from school? I used to love them. I would curl up on the sofa and look at them over again and again, carefully picking out the books I HAD to have.
Ethan's preschool sends home Scholastic orders. Turns out he loves them as much as I did. Of course Ethan LOVES books period, so it's no big surprise. Tonight, he sat on the sofa with crayon in hand and perused the forms.

I told him to pick out a couple books that he really wanted from the forms they sent home. The entire time he was looking he had comments on why he needed to have each book. And by each book... well... look for yourself...

And that was just the front cover of one of the six forms they sent home. Let's just say, he needed a new crayon half way through the forms.

And yes, my four year old son circled the Hannah Montana book - The Inside Scoop. If you are wondering his reasoning... well you know... "I love Hannah Montana mom, I'm a rock star just like her." You can't tell he has a teenage sister, can you?

Fifteen!

Lauren turned the big 15 yesterday. Since she was at her mom's until late last night, we celebrated her birthday tonight... with a big cookie... which she had been eying since last night when she got home.

We are also planning a little family party this weekend and a sleepover next weekend... so stay tuned for more birthday news.

And, seriously, where does the time go? Fifteen?!

Kid's Space

We took the boys to COSI today. They had a blast in the Kid's Space area which, for those of you who haven't been there, is a giant kid fun house! All of it centered around science in some way of course. It's hard to say the favorites, they loved it all.

The twins really enjoyed this ball area, which had holes with air rushing up on which you could suspend a ball. Collin loved pushing this cart of balls around and also playing with the bead curtain that made noise when you touched it.

Oliver ran from one thing to another like a kid in a candy store not knowing what to do next. He really enjoyed the water area... he was soaked afterwards but didn't care one bit (mental note: bring change of clothes next time - raincoats provided were useless).

Ethan was a lot like Oliver, running all over to try and touch everything. He did really enjoy building with the big legos a lot and built this big house.

Though all three were very quiet and relaxed in the car on the way home, not one fell asleep. Oliver, in fact, refused to nap at all today. We're hoping though that this fun active day translates to a solid night sleep for all with no waking!

By the way, someone mentioned to me that you can add links to Shutterfly albums. Though I knew about adding web links, I didn't realize that you could randomly share albums (thanks Amy V. for being my guinea pig!). So, you will now notice below the "blog archive" on the right there is now a title for Shutterfly albums. I added the one of COSI just for fun. This has all the photos from the day.

Oliver's not so new thing

Oliver figured out how to stand up in his highchair probably six or eight weeks ago... maybe more. As you can imagine, this has made dinner time quite the challenge. The restraints don't even hold him in. He is so tiny that he is like Houdini!

The issue isn't so much that he stands in it (which is bad enough) as it is that he likes to sway back and forth and dance while standing, as well as some other not so safe things. A couple weeks ago he added a new spin to this standing in his highchair. He now thinks it's funny to sit on his tray... his tray of FOOD that is. Nice. This is especially interesting when we have pasta... but in all honesty smashed banana (to name just one other thing among many) is just as unenjoyable to clean off the butt of his pants.

In case you are wondering, he took his shirt off (refer back to the "A new 'sport'" blog post a month ago). Aside from his obvious joy in doing this, these photos crack us up just for the look - no shirt, sauce on his stomach and all over his face, jeans sagging down, diaper hanging out - um... classy.

Who's smarter?

The twins are both very fascinated with Ethan's computer. They watch him play games and many times try to help.
We have had to learn to push the keyboard and mouse to the back of the desk when it isn't in use, due to our curious little ones.

But like with everything else, we learn very quickly that we cannot outsmart them. Sigh...

I think we all know the answer to the title of this blog post...

You've come a long way baby...

Today the twins had their 18 month well baby appointment. It went well and no issues were found. Oliver was his normal social person, giving the nurse and doctor hugs and hand pats, as well as talking up a storm. Collin was not so sure about it. He stayed attached to me the majority of the time. As you can see... binky was needed.

Collin was playing with his belly in the above shot. : )

Oliver is now:

23 lbs 5 oz = 20th percentile

32 1/2 inches = 50th percentile

Woo hoo! Oliver was born at 4 lbs 12 ozs and 17 inches long. He was two months old before he made it onto the percentile charts! And then it was only the 5 percentile. I remember the nurse saying at that appointment - "he's now the size of a newborn." He was 8 lbs 3 oz and 19 inches at two months of age.

Collin is now:

26 lbs 11oz = 60th percentile

34 1/2 inches = 90th percentile

Collin was born at 6 lbs 12 ozs and 19 inches long. He actually made it on the charts faster than Oliver, but to be fair they didn't start writing where until he was also two months old. At that point he was in the 25 percentile for all areas. Collin is definitely our most solid child... and by far the tallest at this age.

There was some excitement - for the first time EVER they are on the SAME dose of Tylenol and Motrin!! (hey, it's the little things people...)

All bundled up and ready to leave after shots... poor little guys...you can see the displeasure of the shots in their eyes.

On a side note... there are many things I have learned never to say "never" to 'before you are a mom'... and then some more that qualify as 'before you are a mom of twins'... and even more that qualify as 'before you are a mom of three children who are two years old and under' (or even four years old and under). One of those things is playing with the crate of mega bloks in the examining room and the other is just letting them lay on the floor there as well. It's all about survival people... there's always soap... and everything gets stripped and washed when we get home. Um... no offense to the two Dr. Amys reading this!

Tunnel of fun

We have a nylon tunnel that we bring out when boredom seems to have set in with everything else. It's our ace in the hole of fun for the boys.

Here comes Oliver!

Rumble in the tunnel...

Collin apparently was very thirsty and played in the tunnel only with his cup in hand.