The Twins are 18 months!

 

These little guys turned 18 months yesterday!  It's hard to believe it was 18 months ago that we went from a family of 3 to a family of 5, but it's also hard to imagine what life was like before that.  They bring so much joy and excitement to our family.  So instead of Fun Food Friday this week I'm going to do an update what's going on with these little guys, things I don't want to for get.  So enjoy!

Jonathan

- Weight-27.8 pounds
- He has 14 teeth- 8 on top, 6 on bottom (the next 2 on the bottom are trying to pop through)
- He loves to read books, it's about the only thing that can keep him sitting
- He's a really good eater, there's not much he won't eat
- He's starting to be able to use a fork and a spoon but often times gets frustrated and goes back to eating with his hands.  His plate also usually ends up on his head.
- He's my hugger.  He'll just come up to you and hug your legs and if you pick him up he'll give you a great big hug, it always make my day. 
- He's more verbal than David.  He doesn't say a lot of words, but the ones he says you can understand.  Here are the animal sounds he can make:

And here are the body parts he knows :):

- He's a pretty good sleeper, both for naps and at night.  With it getting light earlier he doesn't sleep in as much as mommy would maybe like, but he usually sleeps 11+ hours at night, so she really can't complain.

- Most days Jonathan can be found with one sock on and one sock off

- Jonathan is our more serious child.  But when he smiles it lights up his whole face. 

- When he plays outside he loves to ride in the wagon or bike and he likes to pull the wagon too

- He can go down the stairs now. He does it by sliding down on his butt

- He's a big fan of both of his brothers.  He calls David "D" and gets so excited when David comes down (if Jonathan wakes up before David)

David

- Weight- 26.2 pounds
- He also has 14 teeth- 8 on top, 6 on the bottom
- He is our little dare devil, he seriously has no fear.  Just sees something he wants or wants to do and goes for it with no thought of the consequences.  This causes him to get hurt a lot :)
- He is also our little stinker, he usually has a gleam in his eye :)
- He is able to relax more than Jonathan.  He will actually sit and watch a video with Micah
- He likes to read books too. 
- He loves playing with Micah, especially chasing him. 
- He loves to hit a ball with a bat and he's actually not bad at it
- He too is a very good eater.  He's a little better with the fork but for some reason halfway through just about every meal he decided he wants his food on his tray instead of his plate.  Then the plate goes on the head, which Jonathan see and decides looks like a good idea.
- I would say David is more the instigator of things
- I think David is going to be very stubborn.  When he gets an idea in his head and it doesn't happen, he gets very upset.  This comes out a lot when he wants a toy, particularly one his brothers are already playing with.
- He doesn't say as many things as Jonathan, but he still can usually get his point across.  Here are the animal sounds he can make:

as you can see he thinks he's very funny when he won't say my name.  He really can say mama, he just thinks it's funny not to, stinker.  Here are the body parts he knows:

- He is also a good sleeper. 

- He absolutely loves to go outside.  If we even say the word outside he immediately goes to either the coat closet or gets his shoes.  He gets very disappointed if we weren't talking about him going outside. 

- He isn't a hugger, but he gives me kisses which is just as sweet.  He is also more of a cuddler than Jonathan. 

- David also can go down the stairs, he usually chooses to do so by going backwards

 

We are so thankful the Lord decided to bless us with not one little boy but 2 little guys 18 months ago.  They make life busy but bring so much joy to us.  And they really love each other.  It's been fun watching them become such good buds:



 

We love you Jonathan & David!!!



Week 52- We made it!!!

A year ago today I looked like this:

 

And now 52 weeks later here we are:

 

And with that we are done with these signs!!!

 Jonathan        

                                                                                                         David

 

I will do their weights tomorrow on their birthday

 

Well, we made it 52 weeks!!!  It's hard to imagine a year ago today I went to my doctor's appointment expecting to hear that they would schedule an induction for 6 days later (at 38 weeks) only to discover that the ultrasound I'd had the day before showed that Baby A was not growing as much as they liked and they wanted to induce me the next day!  And so began this journey of Jonathan and David. :)  It has been a hard, exhausting, wonderful, joyous 52 weeks!  Well, I think it has. :)  Honestly, I don't remember much of the past year.  I am so thankful that I decided to do a blog so I can look back and remember the past year. :)  I'll do a post tomorrow for their birthday

So this past week, pretty much the same, two little stinkers getting into absolutely everything they are not supposed to. :)  This house if filled with toys that are Jonathan and David approved but do they play with those, no, they want to get into the lazy Suzan and play with the vinegar and salt and cooking spray. :) 

Here David found Micah's goldfish snacks and decided he wanted a snack. :)  I guess he also decided his shirt needed some goldfish on it.

 



 They both love playing with Micah.  He actually sometimes gets a little beat up by them, particularly from Jonathan :)  But he's a great sport.  We just tell him, if he lays on the floor, they will attack him. :) 

Micah continues to love to help out with the twins.  Here he is giving them their snack.

He also helps me clean around the house :)

 Getting into things he shouldn't

Looks like we have another Diet Coke drinker in the family :)

Jonathan didn't want to wait to get his pajamas on, he was ready for his bottle then :)

On the bottle front, we are down to 1 a day!!!  They get one before they go to bed.  Almost there!!!

And here they are again getting into the lazy Susan.  I should note that we have had child safety straps on this to prevent them from getting in...they have broken 3 of them.  They are very strong and very persistent.  :)  I have 2 more on the way.  Hopefully they will soon learn to just not go in there. :)

Micah doesn't want to be left out of taking pictures. :)

 

Here are some videos I meant to put up last week:

Jonathan doing "so big!"

 

Micah feeding the goats at Post Family Farm

 

I find this one hilarious.  Micah was going to hit the golf ball and all of the sudden moves to the side to stretch :)  Do you think he has watched his daddy golf a few time? :)

 

These are from this week:

Jonathan is kind of a bully :)

 

Micah loves to sing.  In church you can hear him singing over everyone else (he must have learned how to sing from his mommy- only one volume, loud :))

 

 

Week 51

Note to self, now that you only have 1 more week of these, do not take the boys pictures right before naptime :) 

 

 

(David has such a stinker look :))

After I asked them how big they were

He stands... And then he goes down, on top of his brother

Which results in David getting a nice red spot on his head :)  Oh brothers



Jonathan (right)- 23.4 pounds

David (left)- 22.0 pounds

 

And that shows you what goes on around here, lots of crawling, standing, walking next to things, falling, falling on their brothers, tackling their brothers, getting red marks on their face, etc. :)  But I have to say, they are champs at eating!  They eat whatever we do (sometimes even better than Micah does) and they have yet to spit something out.  We are now down to just 2 bottles a day!!  They get one in the morning around 10:30 and then one before they go to bed at night.  My plan is to take the morning one away this Sunday and then take the bedtime one away the next Sunday and then be done with it!  We'll see if how it goes. :)  No walking yet.  I watched Jonathan take one step and he seemed to think it was fun, but then sat down.  They love to walk next to things.  Sunday morning after church in the fellowship hall they started walking around with the metal folding chairs, it was quite loud, but fun to watch. 

It's hard to imagine that one year ago I was incredibly miserable as we waited to meet these two :) and now they're about to turn 1!  Fun times.  They really are fun to watch, exhausting to run after, but all 3 boys love playing together and for the most part play very well together.  And Micah is such a good helper.  Why just this morning I had changed Jonathan's stinky diaper and about 10 minutes later I said "Jonathan, do you smell again."  Micah was standing there and said "I'll check Mommy" and he got down on his knees, stuck his nose right by Jonathan's butt, took a good wiff and said "Yep Mommy, he stinks."  And sure enough, he did. :)  Such a good helper.  Micah has started sitting in church now too and he has done a great job.  And I've yet to sit by him for the whole service because I've had to either sing on praise team or play the piano, but he's done great sitting by someone else too.  I have a strong feeling that the twins are not going to be so great at sitting in church. :)  Not looking forward to that day. :)

Saturday morning Micah and I went with Steve's mom, sister and our nephew to Post Family Farm.  They got to ride in a barrel train, feed the goats, take a hayride, pick out a pumpkin, go down a big slide, oh, it was so much fun!  It was nice to get to go somewhere with just Micah.  He seemed to enjoy getting mommy all to himself.

 

Riding the barrel train.  I seriously think they would have been fine if they just rode that all day

On the hayride to the pumpkin patch

Grandma helping them through the pumpkin patch (lots of vines makes for not so easy walking)

No, this was not the on we got :)  But it made for a cute picture :)

Oh another fun thing at the farm, homemade pumpkin donuts 

 

Micah was a fan

Micah wasn't sure about feeding the goats at first, but one he got the hang of it, he thought it was great

Bentley never feared the goats.  My favorite thing about Bentley feeding the goats was he wouldn't let go of the goat food :)  It was hilarious

Then at night we all went bowling.

Daddy helping Micah line up his ball

He pushes it...

And he celebrates :)

Bentley found the twins pretty funny

Micah coloring his pumpkin.  He told me when he was done that it was cute :)

 

The twins spend a lot of time wishing they could climb up those stairs :)

One more week of their first year of life!

Week 50

Jonathan (left)- 22.9 pounds

David (right)- 21.6 pounds

 

We have hit the 50's!!  Just two more weeks until these little guys turn 1!  In some ways I feel like their birthday party should be a Steve and Julie survived the first year party. :)  There were times this past year that I really did feel like it was all about survival.  Thankfully those days seem to be past us and we truly are enjoying being a family of 5.  We have started the transition from baby to one year old.  I cut out one of their bottles so they are down to 3-6ounce bottles a day.  I really want them off the bottle not long after a year.  My pediatrician really pushes that (I remember at Micah's one year appointment they asked if he was already off the bottle) and I am so ready to be done with bottles (and to get my counter and sink space back :)).  Thankfully they are not very attached to them, so that makes the transition a little easier.  I have started giving them a little milk during their meals to get them used to it and they seem to like it.

Jonathan's first taste of milk- he went right for it

David needed a little encouragement :)

They also are completely on table food.  I still give them Gerber Oatmeal for breakfast.  I did that with Micah until he was 18 months.  It's just a great source of iron and nutrition and then I don't have to think about what to make them for breakfast. :)  They are much better at eating table food than Micah ever was (I think he'd still eat baby food if we let him).  They eat whatever I give them.  Vegetables are a little hard, even if I cook them till they're nice and soft, it takes them forever to chew. 

They also both have another tooth.  Jonathan has been working on his for a couple of weeks.  We could see the tooth but that gum just would not break.  It finally did yesterday!  So he now has four on top and three on the bottom and it now looks like that fourth bottom one is going to try to pop through, we'll see how long the gum takes to break for that one.  And then Sunday night I was in the nursery at church and I had David on my lap and I looked down at him and realized he had another tooth on the bottom. :)  So he now has 8- 4 on top, 4 on the bottom.  There's a reason they've been drooling like crazy. :)

We have lots of cruising going on over here, but no steps on their own yet.  Jonathan is so close to being able to stand up on his own and he's getting pretty good at staying standing up as long as he doesn't realize he's doing it.

I also think I have a couple of climbers on my hands.  I took the boys to the mall on Monday so they could crawl around and Micah could play on the playground (going to an outdoor playground by myself is hard because the twins just want to crawl around which doesn't work so well on an outdoor playground).  The twins loved crawling around everywhere and tried to climb up the slides.  I'm pretty sure if they weren't wearing socks they would have easily made it to the top.  Micah on the other hand just got the hang of climbing up it this winter. :)  I'm in trouble with these two:

They are very fast too.  We went to a Chicken BBQ fundraiser for a local Christian school and they just had a blast crawling around the gym. 

 

Another new thing for them this week: Taking a bath in the big bathtub together.  Our bathtub is upstairs and it just has been easier to give them baths separate in the baby bath in the kitchen sink.  But they really are too big for the baby bath and my kitchen gets absolutely soaked rvery time.  So now that they can climb stairs I just have them climb up to the bathroom and they get a bath together. 

They seem to enjoy it.  Jonathan loves being able to kick:

 

And I love being able to stay dry:)  Notice Jonathan's legs do not stop moving :)

We have had absolutely beautiful weather this past week.  So Steve has insisted that we spend as much time outside as possible: 

David and Jonathan love getting to crawl around outside and Micah puts up with them playing with his outside toys :)

We had to get in one more stop at the ice cream shop before it closed for the season.  We love our ice cream!

 Saturday we drove to a bike trail and rode our bikes to Rockford.  We've done this a couple of times and normally we eat lunch at Arnie's but Steve said it was a shame to waste an hour of a beautiful day eating indoors :).  So we packed a lunch instead and ate out by the water.

We brought a sheet for the twins to sit on, yeah, that didn't last more than a minute :) Too many things to explore

 

And once again David and Jonathan loved being able to crawl around.  Do you see a theme here, they love moving around, they never stop, and they are fast :)

 Micah loves checking out the water

He wanted to go to the other side of the bridge so he just started walking across.  I guess he figured we'd follow him :)

Micah thinks he's pretty big stuff :)

After a fun lunch break it was back in the bike trailers for the 4 miles back to our van.  

Even with the nice weather we do have to spend some time indoors :).  Here Micah asked me to put Jonathan on his lap so he could read to him.  As you can see, Jonathan did not last on Micah's lap long, but he did last long enough next to him for Micah to read the book.  So precious!

 

And then they like to attack Micah :)

Micah and I also did some baking this week while the twins napped, always a fun thing (but also always a lesson in patience for mommy :))  But seriously, isn't that just the cutest baking assistant you could ask for?!? :)

 

And finally, the twins are starting to mimic sounds they hear.  Here David mimics the horse sounds.  Plus he does a little head dance for you :)