Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign (and Milestones)

The babies have really started to pick up on signing. They both can sign baby, more, shoes, and all done. On top of that Will can also sign cracker and Ellie can sign daddy and fish.

I love this stage when they are beginning to communicate. They are starting to say words as well. Will can say cracker. Ellie can say baby, dog, fish and bottle.

They are so much fun. They love to explore and get into ANYTHING they can. Ellie loves to climb on everything. Willl loves to open and close doors and cupboards.

They both are learning to throw tantrums - not my favorite milestone. Even their tantrums are unique though. Ellie bursts into tears and folds in half with her head on the floor. Will plops himself on the the floor and then (carefully) throws himself onto his back. With Will if you ignore him he will stop for a minute to check if you are watching him but after a little while he gets over it. Ellie can go on for quite a while. Her heart is broken and her world is ruined. She doesn't care if you are watching or not she is devastated that she did not get what she wanted( or someone got too close to her)

Will is more friendly. He's willing to go to most anyone. Ellie on the other hand would prefer that most people just leave her alone. She's ok with strangers if someone she knows (and feels really comfortable with) is holding her. But they better not get to close or she throws her tantrum. A poor cashier in Sam's Club learned this the hard way. Ellie screamed for a full 5 minutes just because the lady came up and said hi to her.

They both give kisses. Neither are very free with them. After Will gives a kiss he has to clap - everytime. (His wedding is gonna be interesting, "Now you may kiss your bride - Clap, Clap, Clap!") He gives big open mouthed kisses. Ellie's kisses are closed mouth and more like "Ok I will grace you with a kiss" She just leans in and puts her mouth on yours.

Ellie loves to run up and our legs. Its so cute. She just wraps her arms around your legs and put her head in between your knees. Will doesn't care much for hugs or cuddling. Even if he's hurt or tired.

They are so much fun! It's been so much fun to watch them grow and develop at different stages even though they are the exact same age.

Two new Benisms

I know I need to update the rest of our Utah Trip but for now I'll just have to leave you with two new Benisms.

B: "Mom I don't want to watch your movies. Your movies are Lame!"

At the store looking at stuffed animals.
B: "Mom, you need one of these."
M: "I'm ok. I don't need one."
B: "But you don't have anyone to cuddle with"
M: "I have Daddy to cuddle with."
B: "But Daddy's not squishy."
M: "yea he is" (LOL)
B: "But he isn't furry."














That boy constantly cracks me up!!

Vacation part 1 - Camping

I know I've been so horrible about blogging. Coming up, I've got 3 blogs about our vacation, and a couple more about the kids and their achievements. So here is part 1 of our vacation.

We went camping to Bear Creek, UT with my whole family. (Well almost my whole family. We were missing my sister Tarena who had to go and have a baby a couple days before the campout.  - I have a new nephew!! Her husband Dan came up with their 3 other kids) 
Ben "packed" for himself. He packed sunscreen

A change of underwear (so if he had an accident)

A change of pants for the same reason

 

and "60" cars. He kept telling me it was 60 cars but I never counted. LOL

It really was a lot of fun even though it POURED off and on the first day. The first night was HORRIBLE. Imagine being in a tent in the pouring rain, 37 degrees with three freezing kids all on a queen sized air mattress. The babies screamed off and on all night long. We got no sleep because even when they feel asleep we were freezing to the point of shivering. Each kid was wearing two pairs of footy pajamas and they were in bed with us. It SUCKED. At 3 am my dad came over and got both babies and drove them around for two hours so we could get some sleep. (have I mentioned I love my daddy?) It was such a hard night. 

Day two was so much better. We went for a walk down to the lake. This is Ben and his cousin Jane. They have so much fun together. They are like brother and sister.

 We took a family picture with everyone that was there. 

 

Then my parents took one with just the grandkids

 This is all the grandkids except for Nytis. My parents have 18 grandkids now. The oldest is 13 and the youngest is less than a month. 

The second night we stayed in a cabin. We were traumatized by the first night. This is Will trying to find out what's in the sink. He found out later that it was a freezing cold bath and WAS NOT HAPPY ABOUT IT. (The cabin didn't have hot water so we heated water on the stove but it didn't stay warm for long. The baths were so cold and all three kids screamed through them)

Ellie exploring the cabin.




More random camping pictures

 

  

  

  

 

Our family

 

Ben, Jane and Grace (They were bug hunting)

I have more camping pictures but they won't load. GRRR

Next up Part 2 The Utah Trip!

 

These feet were made for walking

and that's just what they'll do! 

One of these days these twins are going to walk all over you.

LOL 

My babies are walking!!! I got home last night and Will let go of the tv and walked to the middle of the living room. He's been doing it all day today. He keeps letting go of stuff and just walking.

Today Ellie (who has refused to walk TO people - or even take more than two steps) stood up and took 10 steps all by herself across the living room. She still will only walk when SHE wants to and doesn't walk to anyone but she can do it.


Other News:

We are putting an offer on a house tomorrow. I don't want to say much more about it right now because we've been disappointed so much lately in regards to home buying. But if you could put some prayers or good thoughts in for us we'd really appreciate it. We really want this house.

Name that Rash

On Sunday Ben went to bed with a little bit of a rash on his arm pits. I put some hydrocorizone cream on it and didn't think anything of it. The next morning we woke up to this:

 

  

So we added Benadryl (or as Ben calls it "Ben and a Drill") hoping that would cure it. (along with the Hydrocorizone cream)

Later Monday it looks like this:

 

  

  

  

He's acting fine but that rash isn't going away. We continued all day with the hydrocortzone cream and Benadryl. 

But Tuesday we woke up with this

 

  

So we were off to the Dr.  Here's an interesting piece of info. If you go to the pediatricians office with your child who has an OBVIOUS rash all over - you get right in. You don't have to wait in the waiting room or anything. The receptionist takes you right back to the "Pediatric Rash Room" The nurse came in and said she had no idea what it was. He didn't have a temperature and hadn't been exposed to anything new. 

Dr. B came in and said it was definitely an allergic reaction. (Just like my mom said) It was a bad case of hives. We have no idea what triggered it. The only two things that we could think of that may have caused it were - 1. he had a new brand of apple juice and 2. he got a new shirt. But here's the case against either of them. 1. he's had apple juice before. It was just a different brand. 2. The rash wasn't under where his shirt was. It was mainly on his legs, face and arms. Not on his chest or stomach. 

So Dr. B said we were doing the right thing giving him Benadryl and hydrocortizone cream. If he swelled up any more (his hands and feet were swollen a little) especially on his face or lips, to bring him right in and they will give him a steriod. He did ask if he could show the medical students Ben's rash. We said that was ok. He brought us out to the medical students and asked them to look at it, figure out what they thought it was, and research it. One of them thought it was a reaction to amoxicilin. But Ben hasn't had any medicine lately. It seemed to puzzle both the medical students and the nurse. Thankfully Dr. B wasn't worried about it. 

I brought Ben home and told my mom what the Dr said. She remembered one more thing that it could have been. Ben was stung by a bee on Friday. We got most of the stinger out but not all of it. I'm not sure it could be that because it had been a couple days before the rash started. I called today and left a message for the dr, just to tell him about it. I haven't heard back from him so I guess he isn't worried about it either. 

Thankfully today the rash is almost gone. (I didn't get pictures of it today but I will get some tomorrow) It's on his chest a little bit today but now barely on his legs. It's still on his arms but it doesn't look so bad.  Hopefully by tomorrow it will be gone completely.

 

Outakes

As you can tell from this post I've tried to take pictures of the kids sitting together once a month to see how much they have grown. I've gotten every month except April 2008. Some turn out good. Some turn out not so good. I usually take 4 or 5 pictures each time to hopefully get a good one. 

Here is the Month of May 2009

I would have liked it without the pacifiers but this is what I had to go through to get that one

 

  

 

I guess I just have to be happy with what I got :)

Cheap Labor

I was watching Clean House: Search for the Messiest house in the Country today. It helped to inspire/remind me to clean my bathroom. Ben decided he wanted to help. 

The twins were sleeping and I put my gloves on to get to work. Ben had to have his own pair. I knew the big yellow ones wouldn't fit him at all but I remembered I have medical ones (from when my c-section incision wasn't healing) so I let him wear a pair of those. 

He did a pretty good job. He cleaned the bathroom sink and counter. Then I cleaned the mirror and toilet. (I wouldn't let him help with that) He wanted to clean the bathtub too but I wouldn't let him - The babies were going to be awake soon. So He climbed into the bathtub and "cleaned" it with his paper towel. Then he turned the bath water on and started sliding all over the bathroom. 

At that point cleaning was done.

He's trying to do "thumbs up" here but can't because of the glove lol