The boys had a busy week last week with their cousins visiting. They loved it! They were especially enamored with their cousin John who didn't have to do much to crack them up.

We toured Newport, Rhode Island last Monday. We walked through the Vanderbilt mansion (not necessarily a toddler friendly activity, but still an amazing thing to see or should I say ogle), ate a lovely seafood dinner on the water (the boys will eat seafood, but prefer fries, alas!) and walked the Cliff walk along the ocean. What a beautiful area. The weather was warm and sunny although windy off the ocean.

One of the most interesting things for us while in Newport was that by 3:30 in the afternoon, Thomas' diaper was still dry!!!! I didn't realize that he was holding it or I would have checked it much sooner. I've noticed this week even napping he keeps his diaper dry. We are still at the same point with Nathan but they are two totally different boys. We are getting brave and going on small jaunts now with the boys in underwear.

That's Nathan on the shelf in the pantry and also Nathan reclining in the packing box.

One of Nathan's favorite expressions is "fell down". As you can see his nose looks funny. It's skinned. He fell down a few stairs and left a little nose behind. He also likes to use the word "stuck" like his foot is "stuck"in the chair.

You have to really listen to what they say now because it's not all gibberish although sometimes we really have to use the surroundings to get any idea what they are trying to say.

Every morning at about 6:30, I have 2 little urchins who climb out of their bed and come snuggle with me in mine. It's really awful.

Both boys are also proficient at opening doors.....gone are the days we could corral them into a room for some peace of mind.

They really enjoy being read to now and they are good at finding a book and bringing it to you!

We’ve been noticing for a few weeks that Thomas s...

We’ve been noticing for a few weeks that Thomas sounds like he is singing the alphabet song. Just recently (last week or so), he has been actually getting the letter sounds in it as well as coming out with a letter here and there. Totally stunning that a child so young can pick up a song. I’m trying desperately to get it on video but no luck so far as we all know that kids do not perform on command! He usually gets about as far as H and he has the tune enough that we recognized that first.



In the pictures, the kids are sitting on the stairs with their cousin, Jackson. Thomas is in the arms of one our ministers, Mark. The kids love to crawl under our covers.



It is going super with the toilet training. I caught Nathan a few times, ran him to the toilet and now he takes care of it all the time in the toilet. We haven’t been able to teach him the complete works….without going into to much details! Nathan waits until his diaper is on, not sure how we are going to break that habit. They have been wearing underwear during the day without any accidents. I’m thrilled to say the least!



The boys had another ice skating lesson today. Nathan is doing remarkably better this week. Last week, he did very little skating on his own as he wanted to hold some one’s hand. This week, he skated almost the entire time on his own.

That’s Thomas feeding Nathan a bite of scrambled ...

That’s Thomas feeding Nathan a bite of scrambled eggs. It’s also Thomas in the drying rack with Ellie. It’s not a jungle gym but apparently they both think it is!



Thomas calls Nathan “Nay-Nay”. I have a bottle of bubbles in the basement which the kids always drag me to and point at. So the other day, I took the bubbles down on my own and Thomas saw me. First thing he did was holler “Nay-nay”. I thought that was so nice that Thomas’ first thought was to get Nathan in on the fun.



The rocking chair in the boys bedroom is in a eastern-facing window so often we see the moon come up or just notice the moon while we are rocking. The other day, we were in the driveway in the late afternoon and (I think it was) Thomas noticed it on his own and pointed at it and said moon. I thought it was cool that he recognized it as it looked far different from the bright moon you see in a night sky.



We hold hands now while we say grace to keep the boys from moving the silverware. Thomas is very good at remembering to say grace. We can just be sitting down to a snack, so I won’t even be thinking of saying it and he grabs my hand and Nathan’s.



I’m noticing that Nathan is now parroting 2 or 3 words together especially when I’m hollering at Thomas!



We’ve been potty training all this month (notice most of the pictures who don’t see their bottom half!). Thomas was extremely easy. Within a few weeks he had both functions down. We haven’t figured out how to introduce underwear yet but whenever we go out, I just put diapers back on. Nathan doesn’t seem to want to unless I catch him in the act and run him to the toilet. I’ve been using M and Ms and dum dum lollipops as rewards. It kills me to give a treat to Thomas and not Nathan but Nathan seems to be resigned to watching Thomas eat the lollipops. I think Nathan actually understands what we are trying to accomplish but just doesn’t know the right muscles to use. Maybe.

Oh's and Snuggles

I must say "ohhhhh" often because both boys do that now. Anything new or interesting, they both say ohhhh. I've been teaching the boys to say "stop" specifically when they are being tickled by their daddy. Only problem is now they tell me to stop when anything happens that they don't like. For example getting clean clothes on in the morning!

Yesterday morning at 6:15 AM I heard one of the boy's toys playing in their bedroom. I thought it was just a fluke, so hurried in to turn it off before it woke them up only to find Nathan standing there playing. I'm sure glad it took them as long as it did to learn how to climb out of bed! This morning, Nathan pulled his door open and came in to snuggle with me. So far, he just gets out in the morning but hopefully he won't decide to do it in the middle of the night.

Videos...

Here are a couple from the last week...

Great-Grandma in Denver

This past weekend, we flew to Colorado to see Matt’s grandmother. We left early Friday morning and returned late Monday night. Friday started at 3 AM for us and 4 AM for the boys. They were awake for the 1 hour from Boston to Pittsburgh but then slept much of the 3 and half hours to Denver! We had a bumpy start with minor issues like the Sienna needed a jump because a light was left on in it the day before, the neighbor that was taking us to the airport was off by an hour and we missed our turn for 90east. Our seating was also goofy which took extra time at check-in to resolve and security is tons more involved with 2 little kids, strollers, coats and all shoes must come off!. Lets just say the airline was paging us by the time we finally arrived at the gate.

We didn’t last very long for visiting on Friday, but we did have a nice lunch with Aunt Judy, cousin Brittany and Grandma. That’s Thomas riding on Aunt Judy’s foot in Grandma’s apartment.

Saturday, we went swimming in the morning. The pool at the hotel was beautiful and the kids really enjoyed the pool. The picture of the mountains is what we could see from the pool. We went to the Denver zoo in the afternoon. The kids are at an age to really be enthralled with the animals. They were totally into it. They saw the tigers and both were saying “Ellie!”(our housecat).

Sunday was a quiet day, just some really nice visiting and hanging out together. I had to get a picture of Thomas asleep in Grandma’s lap.

Monday morning, we saw Grandma while at breakfast and then headed for the airport. It was a real treat to have this time with Grandma.

Birthday Parties and Tough Guys

The group picture is taken at my Aunt Margie’s house this past Saturday. We were there to celebrate her 70th . The boys were excellent, so much that several people commented at how quiet and well-behaved they were. My cousin, Phillip, said that their personality at 1 is not much different from the 10 year old personality.

For several months, Thomas would wrestle with Nathan during which Nathan would holler the entire time because he was on the bottom. Just recently, Nathan has been jumping on Thomas and “wrestling” or at least doing his best to stay on top. It’s strange, now Thomas is hollering up a storm. Seems to have to do with being on the bottom. We do encourage the boys to do this by this I mean we don’t interfere and we do a little cheerleading/coaching from the sidelines. Just yesterday, Thomas finally popped up and went after Nathan tickling his feet.

The boys are doing well parroting. Last night, Thomas ate something that made him repeatedly burp to which we had a chance to work on “excuse me”. Nathan did something the other day to hurt Thomas to which we all heard a “sorry”. Their version of these words is very cute! Every time they find my camera, they grab it and say cheeeeeese. When we washed hands and the water was cold, they would still tell me it was hot. All they knew was that it was extreme. So I was teaching them the word for cold and I must of said brrr each time too because now they just say brrrr. Thomas also learned oww so now he comes charging out to the kitchen holding up his hand telling me oww. Anytime Nathan sees anything nasty, he says eww! He even has the intonation down. This one is funny until he does it at the dinner table.