17 months

Things are getting a little hectic around here.  Daddy started a temporary assignment in Lufkin, TX so we are trying the single Mom during the week thing.  Luckily the first 2 weeks almost grandma came and stayed with us.  I don't know who is more happy to see Daddy when he comes home Thursday night the kids or Mommy.  After the first 2 weeks with him gone we decdied to join him and that is craziness as well. 2 little ones trapped in a hotel room all day.  Life is a bit challenging.  We went to Hobby Lobby everyday the first week we were in Lufkin.  The first day I was strolling down every isle looking at everything nice and slow...the kids got tired of being in their stroller and then Logan thrwe up.  I was able to find 3 things I wanted to buy before we were definately ready to leave and they will only let you use 1 coupon a day so we put the other 2 items on hold.  Went back a second day used a second coupon and put the third item back on hold.  Then came back the third day and bought the third item.  I had to put them on hold this store seemed to only have one of each item that I wanted.

Anyways, we did make it to a park once or twice, but it is already SOOOO hot outside and we were sweating like crazy.  We also made a trip to target and I found a swimsuit I felt was acceptable...on clearance...but since it was clearance I bought 3 pieces that are 3 different sizes, but they work.  I must say I wish I was back to my pre pregnancy size, but I sure am not doing anything about it yet.

Anyways, Anyways...here are the hightlights of our progresson for month 17...

We seem to be throwing more fits...luckily they are not full on temper tantrums.  We liek to say beep, beep, beep ( we learned this one night when Daddy came home with his suitcase and we were in the way) and we also say ut oh when something bad happens. 

While grandma was visitng we learned how to drink from water bottles...most of the time we stop tilting it before we pull it away from our moths...but we still seem to get wet most every time we try.  We are very good at opening doors now and we eat almost a whole piece of pizza each...which we have been ordering once a week at the hotel.

When we get upset in the car usually singing itzy bitsy spider seems to calm us down and we have the actions down and try and sing it with mommy now...we are also learning some more animal sounds with Old MacDonald.  Did you know he had a spider on his farm with an itzy bitzy here and an itzy bitzy there here an itzy there a bitzy everywhere an itzy bitzy...Mommy gets desperate sometimes.

Alyssa has also started turning her head when she does not want to listen to Mommy.  What a joy these two little ones are.  We can tell they are about to start talking up a storm...sometimes they echo what you say and it catches you off guard...like did they just say that? 

Since her hair is long enough for piggy tails Mommy made Alyssa a bunch of matching bows so she could have 2 in at a time.

Biting?

Logan bit Alyssa today :(  luckily he did not bite her hard...she is not a fan.

Long Posts

Lately our posts have been REALLY LONG.  We posted yesterday and I already have a list of 6 things I wanted to make sure and record so I figure now is as good a time as any to do it.

We love to sing and we have mentioned it many times...we are singing more and more now.  At home, in the car, and at church.  Alyssa also likes to lead the music when she sees someone else leading it.

While we were driving back from Lufkin a couple weeks ago and were upset for being in the car for too long Mommy would start singing the "Itzy Bitzy Spider" to us and we really liked it.  We have done a few motions before about washing the spider out, but this time I noticed that Logan was doing the spider...too cute moving his little fingers together...I need to record that.

We unfortunately for Mommy have decided that instead of bringing diapers to Mommy when it is time to change that we are now running away from her at any and every opportunity before, during, or after the diaper change.

This morning Mommy removed the chair from the desk in the living room...we figured out how to push it out from under it last night and were getting into everything on the desk.

Yesterday Logan decided that he is going to start taking the cushions and pillows off of the couch and loves doing it...Mommy does not care for putting the couch back together multiple times a day...I think she is already tired of doing it.

We love to laugh and play while Mommy uses our little bums as drums.  Thankfully she does not actually have to spank them too often yet.

We have also learned that if we like something we will clap...not just because someone else is clapping...we do it all on our own now when we feel it is appropriate.

Sweet 16 months

We are 16 months already and in less than 2 months we will be in nursery at church. I think Mommy and Daddy are more excited than we are about it. Mommy has lots of pictures she needs to upload on the blog. We are busy, busy, busy. We are now climbing on the dining table quite often and getting in trouble for it. We tend to stay off it a little more when it is clear, but Mommy seems to be putting stuff on it a lot lately so we feel the need to explore. Logan is down to binkies only during nap and bed time now and is starting to try and talk more now too. We can both tell you what a lion, monkey, doggy, and car say. We can say Hi and Ya. We are doing great at nap time. We will walk ourselves to our cribs and Logan will even try and climb into the crib. Even if we are not quite ready for a nap we will stay in our cribs and play for a little while then take our morning nap...our afternoon naps are another story we are either going to nap or we are not.

Over conference weekend we made a quick trip to Katy. Work wanted Daddy in Lufkin on Monday morning so since they were already paying for most of the gas we make a weekend trip of it. Conference was as wonderful as getting to see the family.

Tent set up in the living room

Our 2 house campers

This past weekend we went on our first camp out. Thursday night we had a camp in to practice to see how the kids would do. Not too good. The kids were so excited about having a tent in the living room. Alyssa just could not settle down...finally at 11 I took her into our room and still had to sing to her to calm her down and then she went to bed so we were really taking a gamble at the camp out. We camped at Camp Wisdom...a scout camp not 5 miles from our house, one that I did not even know existed until about 2 months ago. We went with a bunch of people from church and the gamble was the gate closes at 10. We did GREAT. We had a fabulous time and look forward to doing it again...it just won't be over the summer when it is 90+ degrees at night.

The kids just keep growing and growing Logan now has 14 teeth and Alyssa has 8. We are being more reverent during scripture time and we kneel down, bow our heads, and fold our arms for prayers at night and morning now. Over the summer we are going to spend a little time in Lufkin while Daddy works there for the next 3 months starting in 1 week. Mommy has lots of packing and planning to do.

We have started throwing things...so far only a few toys, mostly balls so that is appropriate...and never in anger yet. We have however started throwing fits. We both do the fall on the floor and fuss. Mommy is not a big fan and hopes that this is a very short phase and that it does not escalate from there...ya right...good luck Mommy.

We are very tech savvy and skype with Grandma at least once a day...we even got to skype Uncle Stephen in Afghanistan once. Logan can now close doors and loves to do it. He will actually go and push Alyssa out of the room so he can close the door...we keep most of our doors closed since they really are not opening them yet, but they did at the Dr office last time...both of them...luckily we do not have the lever knobs we have the nice round ones that require twisting not just a bit of leverage.

These kids are goof balls. At first we thought it was only Logan, but Alyssa's colors are beginning to shine through as well...probably because when Mommy plays with them she acts a bit silly herself. We get lots of funny faces...and you can tell they are making them on purpose and waiting to see your reaction. Alyssa also recently decided that she likes to plop down on the couch and will do it over and over and over again and have the biggest smile on her face the whole time.

Recently Mommy has been helping us work on our balance by giving us rides on her back. We are getting a lot better at sharing...we even share without being asked most of the time, but when it comes to our rides we are not that great at sharing.

15.5 months

So we are a little behind this month...we did learn a lot of stuff over the past month and a half. Unfortunately Mommy did not keep track of everything as well this time so we will see what all gets recorded. Daddy made us a new table at the beginning of March.

Here we are supervising the project

Daddy didn't follow her directions

 

Enjoying our table

We stil need to stain the table so we can actually start using it.  We also cleaned out the garden and planted our seeds for this year.

Logan helping during clean out

Alyssa helping plant

We don't like to stay in our high chairs for very long now while we are eating. Maybe 5-10 minutes then we are ready to get out so we start throwing our food on the floor, but after we get out of our chairs we are still hungry and try to eat our food off the floor.  One of the many reasons Mommy felt it was time to make us a table...Mommy and Daddy have a counter height table and they worry we might fall from that one.

Mommy finally took us to the Dr at the beginning of March to check on our coughs that I swear we have had all year along with our periodic runny noses. Turns out the Dr said we have allergies...Mommy said she was sorry and that we get it from her side of the family. We were prescribed 5 medications and Mommy had to go to 3 different pharmacies to get everything.

Uncle Billy &Aunt  Kris came with the kids at the beginning of Spring Break. Their trips never seem to be long enough, but we really enjoyed the time we got to spend with them. Mostly we just hung out at the house, but we did make one trip to the park with them and had a blast.

Jumping with cousin Brody

Big boy Brody

We all want to play in the car

Time for food

Playing at the park

Swinging is so much fun

Logan LOVES to swing



Our family at the park

Mowers at the park



We have actually thought about buying a swing and attaching to the ceiling inside the living room...I really think he would sit in it all day. 

Grandma and Aunt Cyndi came just after the others left. Mommy enjoyed the help and company for an entire week. We had big plans for projects to get done, but most of the projects went undone...just enjoyed time with the family. We did some yard work and that was plenty of work.

Aunt Cyndi helped me with my hair while she was here

We have a lot of new toys lately. We have a slide with a basketball hoop, we got some mega and Duplo blocks. For Valentine's Day Grandma bought us some golf clubs and bubbles. We really like bubbles and try to pop them with our fingers. Mommy finally broke out the wooden alpha blocks for us that we mostly just dump out. Mommy is trying to start doing simple crafts with us, but there is only so much we can do right now. We took some construction paper and finger painted with some water and enjoyed that, but until our table is finished we probably will not do too many more crafts. We have also started coloring some. While Grandma was here Mommy printed a picture of us to color and we sent it to Uncle Stephen in Afghanistan.

We LOVE our slide

This drawing inspired the need for crafty activities...thanks for the drawing Logan

Our 15 month appointment got pushed back to the 22nd so we finally made it in and there were only 2 shots this time. We tied on the scale at 25 lbs 4 oz each. Logan measured 33 inches and Alyssa at 31.5 inches. I can't believe how close they are getting to 3 ft already.

We are both cutting teeth right now. Logan is working on 13 and 14 and Alyssa is working on 7. While Grandma was here we learned how to fold our arms. We also have caught on since then that we are supposed to bow our heads while we say prayers too. We are getting better every night during prayer time. Logan is even sitting down to pray and he starts to fold his arms when we bring out our scriptures to read. Alyssa knows how to fold her arms, but is not a willing as Logan right now. We do blink, nod, and clap all the time now. Mommy is always trying to get us to answer whether or not we want something instead of just giving it to us. We have become much more affectionate this past month and a half. We give hugs and kisses all the time. We give them to Mommy and Daddy and each other and even our friends from time to time. We have some new baby friends and Alyssa is just mesmerized by them. Everyone always asks is she is around babies a lot since she does so well and tries to play carefully with them.

We are MONKEYS....no I take that back we are SILLY MONKEYS.

We climb on EVERYTHING. Mom has had to do some rearranging again. No more barstools at the island and all of the kitchen chairs must be pushed under the table at all times. We now have 2 barstools locked away in the office. We also have to tuck the chair under the desk or we get into a lot of things we should not. We still get stuff off the dining table, but we really on not climbing on that one yet. We also like to try and climb into the desk cabinet and close it behind ourselves. We keep really busy.

14 months

We are 14 months today!!!

I am still amazed how much they are learning, understanding and doing. One day Logan just started spinning. I guess he picked it up from when I spin them around. Alyssa has mastered nodding yes and knows how to use it. I ask her if she wants some juice and and her eyes will widen and she will nod very purposefully. It is nice to be able to ask if she wants something...I am sure sooner than later she will be requesting things by name and hopefully the trying to figure out what they want will be a matter of asking and them answering...but I already miss my little babies.

Alyssa is still trying to mimic words...the other day I think she tried to say "stinky poo poos". What a proud Mom...really that is what you decide to try and say. She is really good at "Hi" now and the other day she even put "Hi" and "Dad" together and is being coached everyday since to try and get her to keep doing it.

Logan has learned to blink...now the whole family can blink. Logan does his own talking at times, but I can't make anything out most of the time...especially when he is talking with his binki in.

The couch is fair game now...they both can pull themselves up now and we are starting to be careless on it and try and walk around on it and roll off it while we are sleeping sometimes. We have had lots of little falls this past month.

We still climb on everything...and unfortunately even things that have wheels and a few weeks ago Alyssa had a great fall from probably a foot and a half up and hit her head on the entertainment center...what a goose egg she got from that. Mom & Dad about died...but she survived and hopefully that is the worst for a long while.

They play so well together and alone.

Mom was getting tired of feeding them the same things over and over again so we are trying to branch out some and we have recently added pretzels and half grapes to our usual mix. We LOVE them both. We no longer have any formula in the house...YEA!!! Although our food budget is still high now that we have added crackers and juice to it. Logan still likes to drink milk from a bottle at night so we are down to only 1 bottle a day.

Alyssa has learned to cover her eyes so I think peek-a-boo will no longer require hiding behind something or a blanket pretty soon. Yesterday she was also learning how to blow a kiss. They both give kisses and hugs to Mommy & Daddy...but I would say Alyssa does it more. They also like to shake their heads no...I don't think they know that it means no yet...like Alyssa knows how to shake yes and that it means yes. Logan's head shaking is more like head banging...he really gets into it.

We enjoyed having Daddy home for 6 days straight last week due to the icy roads and cold weather. Of course my days are easier with him here so he probably thinks my days with him at work are just as easy. On Friday we finally had snow instead of just ice so the kids had their first outing in the snow and we walked up to Doug and Cassie's house. Then when the kids went down for their naps Daddy decided to snowboard down our street. All of the neighborhood kids thought it was great...I may have joined in, but all of my gear is lent out at the moment. Alex still has not given up hope to go boarding in March, but I really don't want to go this time.

Unfortunately we did not have any gloves/mittens for them to use.

Being stuck in the house even more than usual they have gotten in troube more too. They are learning to stay out of the fireplace...and Alyssa keeps turning off the surge protector that the computer is plugged into.

After the cold was over Saturday was a beautiful day so we (and everyone else in the metroplex) made it out to Wal-mart and Sam's to grab a few things...it was funny to see what we could not get. We had to get whole milk...they were out of 2%. We were not able to get miracle whip...they only had light. They did not have toilet paper...luckily we have a small stockpile...I just wanted to pile a bit more. And I went down the baking isle and flour looked a little sparse as well as the produce section.

We did splurge a little at Wal-mart and bought them a fun toy. Probably because I feel bad that we still have not gotten them a climbing toy yet and this was on the shelf.

Oh NOOOO!!!

When Alyssa woke up this morning I picked her up and she just kind of looked around for a moment...so I just stood there...and then she pointed back at her crib...she wanted her blankie :(

I need to give her another blankie tonight so she does not get hooked on a single one.

One of my fears as a Mother is having a child hooked to an item and then not being able to find it...searching everywhere franticly for it to calm down an upset child.

Kind of like the other night when Daddy got home and Mommy had let the kids wonder off with the TV remote...we had to look EVERYWHERE for it.