Merry Christmas One and All!

We had a nice relaxing Christmas morning as a family, and it was really nice. David and I woke up at 5:30am and were planning on me feeding the babies and David making the breakfast, however, when we went out to the living room, Josiah was sitting on the couch and said, "Good morning, Momma!" I got a nice little question and answer session with him about the story of the baby Jesus too on video, which was fun. I tried to put it on the end of this post, but it wasn't working, so perhaps I will try again another time. Here is a picture though of sweet Josiah with his Handy Manny tool bench/truck toy. I asked him at the end of the day what was his favorite new toy and he said, "The Handy Manny one. I've never seen that toy before." He had a blast "fixing" the things on the tool bench portion of the toy. There are 4 items that can be fixed there and a few more in the engine of the car as well, and he was thoroughly enjoying figuring out which tools to use to fix the various things. At one point he said, "I'm whitey tighty Momma!" too which I looked at him rather confused, until I realized he was repeating back to me what I was telling him about using the screwdriver "Righty Tighty....Leftly Loose-y." Hee hee! He kept saying all day, "Let's fix things, Momma." There is also a little phone that "calls" and tells the "Fix-It Man" what to fix. He and I had a funny coversation that went something like this:

Josiah: This is my Handy Manny phone.

Me: Who are you gonna call?

Josiah: Grandpa

Me: OK...you do that!

Josiah: (putting the phone to his ear and talking in a nice phone voice) Hello Grandpa....(pause)...Ohhh (he heaved a sad sigh and put down the phone). Grandpa's dishwasher is broken.

Me: Should we go fix it?

Josiah: Yeah, let's go. I will drive the truck to Grandpa's house.

This is my favorite picture of the twins this Christmas playing with the balls that were from Grandpa and Grandma Carpenter. They really liked them. They are made of this strong plastic and they can chew on them or squash them and they remain in tact. This is good for teething babies who like to put all things in their mouth! They had a good tug of war over the balls for a while too, which was fun. There are many more pictures of the twins individually and of Josiah as well. I will post many of them on Facebook and have a link to all of them via Snapfish if any of you want a link to that, just let me know. Later on, Grandpa and Grandma Walker came by to have lunch with us and watch the boys play with all their new toys. One highlight of the day for me was finding a stocking stuffer that got my hubby to smile bigger than I have ever seen. I can't really share what the gift was, as it is an inside joke that is personal, but let's just say that the "I always know what I am getting" guy was stumped on this one and laughed really hard! For me it is FUN to find something that he can't guess he is getting. Wahoo...score!

Christmas at the Grandparent's House

Here is my Mom with Josiah and Daniel before we opened the gifts. Josiah found this paper airplane ornament that he claimed as his own to play with, as seen pictured here.

We had a real treat in that my Grandma Walker from Eastern WA came over to my parents house to visit and join in the Christmas fun. We don't get to see her very often and she really enjoyed watching the boys play, crawl, and interact. Caleb and Daniel were doing their usual antics of fighting over an ornament. Daniel found it first and was looking at it and Caleb grabbed in and they had a bit of a tug of war. Then as usual, Daniel got tired of the fight and went for another toy, which was promptly swiped again by his very determined twin. Ahhh...and so the fun begins! Here Great Grandma Walker is holding said determined twin, Caleb.

We always have an early Christmas gift exchange with my parents and this year we went to their place to do that. We planned it just right so that we would miss the big storm coming in on the way back, which is supposed to be a real dozey! It is predicted to be even worse than the most recent one that we had here. David has been following it closely due to the nature of his job, so I am thankful for that. Anyway, Josiah got two special gifts that he loved. The Dinoco helicopter from the movie "Cars" and the Screamin' Banshee, which is a character from an animated short on the same "Cars" DVD called "Mater and the Ghost Light." Josiah hasn't been feeling the greatest the last couple of days, but this morning he was in better sprits. He has some sort of cold like his younger brothers do as well.

And of course the twins, were most interested in the wrapping paper as is appropriate for their age, and Daniel found his gift to be a great place to pull up as well! They both like to pull up on anything that is nearish to their height and do so quite frequently. Even as a little sick boy (Daniel has his now 2nd cold of the season), he gives a nice big smile for the camera. He got this "Little People" farm that of course will be shared with Caleb and Josiah as well.

Here is our very serious Caleb boy with his gift, the "Little People" Noah's Ark. It is hard to get a shot of him smiling these days as he doesn't smile quite as often. In this shot though, I will give him some slack because he didn't have any sort of nap really to speak of before he came to Grandpa and Grandma's house, so he was pretty beat! You might notice the little scrape on his nose and head? Yeah...he fell off Josiah's bed the other day...long story, but needless to say, he is OK and has some battle wounds to show for it. He too is sick right now with a runny nose and he is losing his voice, so hopefully they will all get better soon. We could certainly use yours prayers this winter as we seem to get a lot of illnesses during this season.

More Snow Fun!!!!

We have quite the amount of snow here for this area now (around 2 1/2-3 inches) and it is actually sticking around for a bit! The schools have been closed for 3 days now due to the icy, snowy roads and it took David 2 1/2 hours to get to Seattle yesterday (usually only a 40 minute trip). Thankfully today, he was able to work from home, which is a wonderful thing in weather like this! Josiah has been loving the snow, however, as pictured above he still isn't fond of posing for pictures. He is there with Sharel & Laura (the gals who babysit for us). They stayed over last night due to the fact that it was probably not safe for me to take them home or for their mom to come get them and it was too cold to walk. They were loving the snow too and since they liked to be out in it so much, they took Josiah all bundled up out there too!

He wanted to ride his tricycle for some odd reason, so here he is trying to ride it in the snow. He doesn't do the pedals yet, we have tried to teach him, but he prefers to use his feet to make it go instead. The tricycle riding was short lived in this snow, but at least I got a cute picture to show for it!

Here they are with the little snowman that they made. It would have been bigger, but the snow was the powdery type and wouldn't stick together very well.

Snow, Snow, Just look at the Snow!

The last two days we have been getting some snow here, which is fun because we don't get too much snow in Western Washington usually. I dressed Josiah up in the warmest and most snow-worthy clothes he had, since we don't have a snow suit for him and he tromped around in the backyard a bit. As he went down the hill in our yard, he said, "I'm climbing down the mountain, Momma!" And he was very excited to see the tracks that he was leaving in the snow as well! I tried to throw a snowball at him, but the snow is too powdery and was hard to compact into a ball, so he just got snowed on a bit more by me throwing my half-made ball at him.

Here he is again wearing my hat. I thought he looked so funny wearing it! Another funny story was that today he took his spoon and put it on the side of his head and said, "Momma, I'm 'tending (pretending) to be a mailbox!" And apparently, there was mail in the box as demonstrated by the spoon being UP! Here is yet another little conversation I had with him the other day.

Josiah: Let's play "Crunch," Momma.

Me: How do you play that?

Josiah: You get a cookie, then you get a ticket, then a flower pencil, then run around the table, make a car from Legos...a BIG car...LOTS of Legos.

Me: Do you eat the cookie?

Josiah: No...you just put it down on the table so Echo (our dog) won't eat it!!

Me: Can we play "Crunch" right now?

Josiah: We don't have "Crunch" right now.

Making a Gingerbread House

David and I thought it would be a good year to start a gingerbread house making tradition, and so we got one of those kits at Costco. You would think it would be super easy then to make it since all the pieces are there and ready to go. Then....da, da, DUH....enter the frosting. UGH! This picture pretty much sums up our experience. Josiah holding onto the candy (wanting to eat it all and lick the frosting) and me working feverishly with this stupid frosting. It came with a bag and early on into this, somehow I applied too much pressure and it popped. Yeah...did I mention I made quite a huge frosting mess throughout this project? So instead of nice "piping" around the house, I had big gloppy gobs of white frosting making impromtu icicles off the sides of the roof. Ahem...I meant to do that I mean...yeah, they're icicles, look how creative I am!

Oh another fun note was that I didn't wait for the frosting to dry enough after the initial "put-together" stage and then brilliantly put in some of the trees right in the way of where I would decorate the house. I tried to get to the windows to frost them and upon tipping the tray a bit too much apparently the roof started slipping off. Hence all the cracked, dried frosting on top of the mints that took a dive INTO the house at one point. I got kind of frustrated about then and said, "Honey...help...this is not working," to which he replied, "It's OK, it is just your first time making it and it doesn't have to be perfect." Later, I told him to remind me someday that I should never decide to be a cake decorator at a future date. Me and frosting decor don't seem to jive. Now eating frosting, well that is another story! :) Anyway, I ran out of frosting towards the end of my creative attempt at gingerbread construction and David got me some more white frosting the next day to finish off the monstrousity of candy goodness. Josiah had fun helping from time to time and more fun begging for frosting and gumdrops. I tried to get him to pose with a smile here, but as you can see...no luck on that count. Our kitchen now has the alluring smell of frosting as you walk through. Echo the dog takes a few extra sniffs as she passes by. :) Oh and another funny moment for this one. Do you notice that lovely green window on the left? Yeah, at one point Josiah said, "Mommy, why did you make a pretzel?" At first, I didn't know what he meant, but sure enough if you look at my green window there it resembles a pretzel! Umm...yeah, did I mention I am not so good at the piping? Oh and I would like to point out though that they didn't provide a "drawing" tip for the windows, but rather had the star like shaped one instead. Yet, the picture had the single line outline. So, there was quite a learning curve on the gingerbread house creation this year, but next year....LOOK OUT!!

Birthday Fun!!

Here is one of the only pictures we have of all of us as a family. As you can see, it is rather hard to get Josiah to "pose" for us. He was enticed with a cupcake on this occasion, but we still didn't get much of a smile. It was my birthday today and we had my Mom and Dad over to do a "photo op" cupcake/opening presents moment with the twins for their 1st birthday. We had cake for me later after we went to dinner.


Here is a fun shot of the boys eating their birthday cupcakes. They had a lot of fun eating the frosting! We thought they looked like clowns afterward! So funny!


Caleb boy looked like "The Hulk" after he was done eating and it took lots of washing up with scrubbing and soap to get the green off!



Here is Daniel boy with a nice red hand. After he was finished he looked like he had been bleeding! And again we did lots of scrubbing and cleaning of his face, head, and arms afterward!

Here is Josiah at the restaurant giving me his "I hate pictures" look. We ended up going to the "Thai Bistro" which is a place I really love. We tried going to a more kid-friendly place, but it was packed, so we went to my favorite instead. Josiah didn't care for the fare (as I suspected he wouldn't) and so Mom took him to McDonalds (which was nearby) to get him his dinner afterward.




This one is earlier in the day of our Josiah boy, when he was proud of his "Tall Horsie" he made with the Duplo Legos. And ummm....not sure it resembles a horse, but hey, he is being creative, so it's all good! I think it looks more like a tall tower with a tree on the top! He asked me after he made it if we could "take it to the fair." He is so excited about entering a Lego creation at the Puyallup fair. I told him we would practice a bit more and maybe take one to the fair next year. :)

Meal Times

David got me a new camera for my birthday/Christmas present and so I have been fooling around with the settings and I think I have finally hit the jackpot with these two shots. I tried to get a good one of Josiah too, but he refuses to be photographed at the moment, so I will put some up of him another time. Speaking of which, he is sitting behind me in my chair bothering me, wanting me to come play with him, so this will be cut short. Here above is sweet Caleb boy after a yummy meal.
And here is sweet Daniel boy after his meal.

Thanksgiving & Momentous Moments

This was the first Thanksgiving that Josiah was old enough to hear the story of the first Thanksgiving. I got some books from the library and told him the gist of it. We celebrated it this year with my brother Brent and his wife Katie. My parents were in Eastern Washington with other relatives this year. Josiah tried the turkey and even ate some of the sweet potatoe dish that David made, though suspiciously all of the marshmallows were eaten first and much of the orange goop was left behind. He also ate the mashed potatoes, which happen to be a favorite fare of his from way back anyway. Later on, we all played games, which was a lot of fun. My brother is convinced that if you "talk to the dice" that they roll what you want. I think the bouncers down in Vegas would like to check his dice, eh? Needless to say though, we had a great time! Josiah even played "Candyland" with Uncle Brent and Aunt Katie too!

A quick update on Josiah: He has been getting SO much better with his behaviors of late. We have been diligently plugging away with the tried and true methods, and he is understanding more as well and we are finding he is FINALLY adjusting to the change of having two brothers a bit better. It only took a whole year....sheesh! Of course, I will say that and then have a difficult time of it tomorrow, right? Well, difficult or not, I am proud of how far he has come and am thankful that he has been making better choices here at home and out in public. It has been quite a ride thorugh it all though as the parents and David and I have learned a lot. One thing is for sure, your kids can sure bring you to your knees awfully fast when things are going rough! We have also learned not to judge other families with harder to manage children as we know how hard it has been to manage ours. Thank you God for insight!

Daniel literally went from not crawling at all to now a few days later, crawling everywhere and even sitting up from a laying on his stomach position! I am so proud of him and so glad that he caught up so quickly. It goes to show that each child has his/her own time table for things and you just have to be patient. He loves to pull up on things too, but still he is much less risky than his brother Caleb. This little dude has 4 upper teeth and 3 lower and he is showing them off for you here. And as usual, Daniel is hamming it up for the camera! Our little guys have graduated to toddler seats now in the car and Grandma bought them some nice ones for their upcoming birthday. They JUST BARELY all fit in the back of our SUV. Yikes! It was a tight, tight fit, but I managed it. Three toddler seats one after the other back there; quite a bunch!

Yes, our Caleb boy is fearless, which means Mommy never sleeps when he is out and about! David said he left the living room area for a minute to get something in his room today (I was at church with Josiah) and he came back out and Caleb had crawled all the way down the hall to Josiah's room and was batting things about in there. This is a shot of his, "I didn't do it" face. He is pretty good at that already, don't you think? You can see his two front teeth on the bottom if you look close and he has 4 teeth on top (one left to break through) as well. It is so fun to see how mobile these little guys are becoming! It is also funny to watch the twins interact. When I am nursing Daniel, I have Caleb in his carseat on the couch next to me while he drinks his bottle. Daniel usually finishes early and I burp him and put him on the floor to play. No sooner do I do that and Caleb is trying to roll out of his seat (with his bottle only half finished) to go play too. They holler for each other too if one is taken away to be changed or whatnot. I always thought it would be neat to watch twins grow up together and in having my wish, I am very thankful as it is so fun and such a blessing to enjoy!

Outing to Melissa's House

We have been going over to my friend Melissa's house quite a bit these days, as she just moved and I was helping her get organized a bit and unpack. This day however, she wanted us to come over and see how she had finished unpacking the front room. At one point, we did some crafts and then she sat down to read the kids a story about Thanksgiving.

This is a cute shot of Josiah holding Daniel boy. And a little side note on Daniel, yesterday I saw him crawl for the first time! We have determined that our little Daniel boy doesn't like to "work" at things. He would prefer to be carried or given the toys rather than crawl to them. He was moaning and groaning the whole time while he was army crawling to the toys I placed out of his reach, and then when he got there and I said, "Good job," he got this nervous little happy laugh. I am thankful he finally got motivate enough to crawl! Yeah! He has always had really great fine motor skills though, he loves to turn pages in books, press buttons, move things back and forth, clap, tap toys together, etc. However, his large motor skills have been lacking a little, but this catches him up some!

Daniel was attempting to pull up on Isaac and little Katie in the background also has a fun expression as well.

Here miraculously, I got all three babies looking at once! :)

Sweet Awana Moment

David was able to finally come back to help at Awana after a long few weeks working hard on a special project at work! The boys of the group especially enjoyed having a male figure back as you see here! Josiah has his grumpy story face and Grant is hamming it up and David has his "don't take a picture of me" face (so the usual for him). :) I once again used my camera phone, so the quality isn't the greatest. The moment was priceless though!

Fun New Pictures

Daniel standing up biting on the crib rail.

Caleb standing up biting on the crib rail.

Sweet little Caleb boy peeking over the rail.

Sweet little Daniel boy standing at the rail.

The brothers looking out over their crib rails together. I find that with the cribs situated this way that sometime they position their heads to be nearby each other, it is really cute!

Oh Sweet Josiah

This picture about sums it up for Josiah these days! In other words, he sticks his tongue out a most anything that isn't "his" idea. I am thinking that this is his way of controlling his world and being so routine-minded, he feels more in control when he chooses what to do and how to do it. However, as we all well know, life doesn't let us all have our own way at every turn. Soooo, that being said, I have been TRYING and I emphasize trying to create situations that force him to do things differently from time to time. This usually brings on a power struggle and or some crying tantrum, but I am hoping that it will pay off. He really struggles with change, so much so that at church whenever there is a new thing (such as the little ones going up to sing for church like last Sunday) to do, he really loses it. This last Sunday, I spent pretty much all my time working with him because he just couldn't handle the changes himself apparently. Incidentally, the main problem on Sunday we found out was that he was really tired. I know this because 5 minutes after we got in the car, he was asleep AND we were able to transfer him to his bed (which never really works much anymore) and he slept for 2 1/2 hours!! He woke up at 4:45am that morning, so I should have guessed he would have issues at church.

So I am not complaining about him mind you, but this is the struggle we are facing with him right now and I would love to have some prayers sent our way about how to manage this the right way. We have been given lots of "advice" of well-meaning folk that really just don't understand his bent and think we can just train it away in a week or something. However, the methods suggested don't seem to last. He really is very unique and I am still learning how to best manage him without breaking his spirit.

Here is a little story to illuminate a bit about what he is like. So we went to my friend Melissa's house today. She has three kids (Hailey, Isaac, & baby Katie). Josiah and Isaac are buds and play together really well now even though Isaac is 6 and Josiah is 3. Melissa just moved to a new house and in the bathroom upstairs, there is an old laundry chute that goes all the way down to the basement, where another man is living (the basement has a separate entrance). So naturally, the laundry chute is not something they can use being that another person occupies the basement. Isaac had been told not to throw things down there and apparently that has already been an issue for Melissa, but that is beside the point. Isaac again threw something down "the hole" as it is called and Hailey (7 years old) came down to tell us. Josiah came down promptly afterward and kept repeating, "Isaac threw something down the hole," and kept asking questions about "the hole." Isaac tried to explain to Josiah that a man lived down there and we think that Josiah was scared thinking that a man would come up or be stuck in "the hole." He was SO obsessed with this "hole" that it was all he could talk about this evening and here is one of the many conversations I had with himabout this lovely "hole":

Me: What was your favorite part about today?
Josiah: The hole.
Me: (laughing hysterically for a while) The hole? That was your favorite part?
Josiah: Yeah, there was a hole in Missa's bathroom. We don't have a hole in our bathroom.

Then later we were talking about people who work.

Josiah: Where is work?
Me: There are lots of places where people work. People work at McDonalds, the mall, Safeway, Walmart, the toy store...
Josiah: And the gym?
Me: Yes, and people work at the gym too.
Josiah: Do they have a hole in their bathroom?
Me: (laughing hysterically once again) No, they don't.

Again later when it was time to pray before bed.

Me: OK Josiah it is time to pray.
Josiah: Dear Jesus, thank you for day and for the hole...A---men.

And so...as you can see, my son is rather obsessed when he latches on to some concept. I forgot to add that in order for him to stop bothering me about "the man" who lives in "the hole," I had to draw a picture of Melissa's house to show him that "the man" had a place to live and wasn't stuck in "the hole" and drew a picture of the clothes going down the chute. He seemed to relax and be less concerned after I did that.

Awwww...sweet oldest pumpkinhead! My prayer is that God will help me understand you and help you become a strong leader and use that determined mindset for the things of the Lord!!

Learning to Stand

Our little boys just LOVE to stand now! They can't stand for long, but Daniel especially just tries and tries and tries to pull up whenever he gets near this table or something else that would support his efforts. A funny tidbit about Caleb was that the other day there was a bottle that he already drank that was in the side pocket of his bag and he crawled over to it and pulled it out and started to try and drink it. It was of course empty, but that was apparently my not so subtle hint that I needed to make him a bottle! I took Daniel to the doctor recently since he has had a cold for over a month now. The doctor FINALLY gave him some antibiotics for what I am sure was a sinus infection. Hopefully soon, he will get over the runny nose and congestion problems! I am not sure if Caleb has the same thing or not, but his appetite seems to be a bit low and some other things that make me think he may have one also, but for now we will assume he is OK and will get over it on his own. He doesn't have the runny nose issues like Daniel, so perhaps he doesn't have the same thing.

Our Josiah Boy

Here is another lovely picture of Josiah playing in the leaves. We have this huge tree in the backyard that deposits many a leaf this time of year all over the grass.

A short post about this sweet boy in that we are still working with him on various things, one of which is to learn how to interact with other kiddos a little better. What I see at Awana is that he gets so obsessed about some toy or whatever and then has a complete meltdown when another kid wants to play with the toys he has chosen or has "claimed" as his. I am trying to recreate situations like this at home, so that he can understand that he doesn't always get everything he wants. For instance, today he wanted me to play with the cars with him and said, "You pick a car Momma." So I picked Ferrari from the "Cars" movie (as this seems to be the car I am usually given when we play). Right as I chose Ferrari, he said, "That is the car that I picked," and tried to take it away from me. I told him that I had chosen that one and if he wanted me to play with him then he needed to let me choose the car I wanted. He had a bit of a meltdown and then decided he didn't want to play cars afterall and started kicking me while he was laying on the floor. I told him them to go back to his room and sit in his rocking chair. He was then crying out for me over and over and I went back and we had a heart to heart about why sharing was important and how we need to treat other people. He can verbalize to me that he has options as to what to do instead of hit, kick, or push, but many times he still does these things when he gets mad anyway. It is a challenging thing we are dealing with and it takes much patience as he doesn't seem to grasp this concept very well yet. I know he is just 3 1/2, but it is still important to work with him anyway on this.

As I type this, for now the 3rd time today he has had another "accident" with peeing his pants again. I am convinced this has more to do with getting my attention then him actually not being able to control himself because whenever we are out in public he has always been able to "hold it" and has never had an accident away from home. It always seems to occur when he is rebelling against something I have told him to do such as: stay in his room until it is time to wake up, go to his room when it is nap/quiet play time, or something similar to these situations. I am getting rather tired of dealing with this behavior and my solution for now has been to make him take his wet clothes off and deal with the mess himself and I hope that this will be uncomfortable enough for him to actually stop doing this. If anyone has any suggestions, I would welcome them.

Josiah's First "REAL" Lego Set

We decided that though the packaging says this Lego set is for "4+" that our little builder boy was ready for his first Lego set now. Daddy got out his Lego Star Wars collectors edition "Tie Interceptor" set and was getting ready to rebuild it and Josiah was fascinated with all the pieces and kept asking him, "Can we build it NOW?" and David said, "No, not right now. We will build it tomorrow." Josiah then replied, "Oh" rather dejectedly and then right away, "Can we build it NOW?" Rinse and repeat this conversation a few more times. This gave us the not so subtle clue that a Lego set of his own was in order.

The starter set we bought makes quite a few different building machines such as a dump truck, front loader, and roller. Josiah puts in requests for the other machines in the pictures that don't have directions, so Mommy has to use some ingenuity of her own to try and build these puppies from scratch with just a side shot to go on. Mr. Impatience doesn't like to wait for Mommy to actually build the more difficult machines and she often gets interrupted and has to start over when the Lego creation falls apart over and over.

The Legos have kept Josiah very occupied though I must say, even though he hasn't really built much of his own per se. He plays with the creations that David and I make though and insisted on bringing them to bed with him as well. Today he took a long flat Lego and then filled it up with colorful blocks and brought it over to me and said, "Can we bring this to the fair Momma?" When we went to the Puyallup Fair this last year, he saw all the Lego entries at the fair. It was so cute that he wanted to enter his first little creation!

A few more lovelies from him this week are as follows:

I wasn't feeling well one day and told him, "Oh Josiah please pray for Mommy, she feels really bad." He said, "OK...Dear Jesus, thank you for the world...and pray Mommy feels better."

His Thomas the Train bed was falling apart and we decided to take up my mom's offer to take their extra twin bed for Josiah's room. We had to rearrange his room to make it fit properly. We could tell that he wasn't too keen on seeing his room rearranged. A couple days later, he started pointing around the room and told me where everything used to be. IE: Table goes there, dresser goes there, etc. I asked him, "Do you like your new room?" And he promptly responded, "NO!" Hey at least he is honest, right? Such a sweet little loving-routine pumpkinhead!

Happy & Sad Leaves

Here is Josiah enjoying being buried in the leaves. He kept screaming, "Bury me, bury me!!" He was jumping in the leaves and having a blast.

We brought the babies out to check out the leaves and apparently this was right out for them! Caleb first sat in them and then slowly fell backward and then looked at the sky and started to cry. Daniel pretty much immediately looked like this when he was placed on the leaves. He is our sensitive little dude!

Neonatal Clinic Visit

Yesterday, we went back to the neonatal clinic at the hospital to have the boys checked for their development and general health. They both had slight colds, but despite that they performed well for the specialists there. They looked at the boys based on the 8 month old scale since they were born early and compared them to other 8 month olds when they talked with us about things. As you can see here, they didn't waste any time to fight over the toys they had there. Captain Determined (AKA Caleb) has the tongue action going there and Daniel is leaning over attempting to steal Caleb's toy. And so it begins!

Here is sweet little Caleb boy giving a nice smile for the camera. He weighed in at 19 pounds, 6.8 (50th percentile) ounces and was 28.03 inches long (just above 50th percentile) and head size of 18.5 inches (95th percentile). As you can see he has lots of brains like his Daddy!

Daniel weighed in at 19 pounds 12.4 ounces (50th percentile), was 28.39 inches long (75th percentile) and his head size was 18.23 inches (almost 90th percentile). He also has a big head filled with brains like his Daddy.

I thought I would add these cute shots of the boys in the bathtub too on this post. Now that they can both sit up really well it is MUCH easier to bathe them! Daniel really hates all the transitions getting into the bath and cries a lot, but once he got in the bath and started to splash the water around, he was as happy as a clam (where did that expression come from anyway--rather odd). I have a lot of fun shots of him splashing water all over himself. Of course, when it was time to get out of the bath, he started crying again. He is our sensitive little Daniel!

Here is Caleb boy at home in the water. When I first put him in, he tried to grab the water and hold onto it and we could tell he was puzzling why that wasn't working. Then David threw in two little bath time fishies and he was reaching for those very vigorously! He absolutely LOVED the water and I think of all our boys, he will be the swimmer. We always joke that when we are changing him or he is irritated that he gets "swimmer's feet" where he just started kicking and kicking like he is in the water. It is really cute! Even from a young age, this boy is showing his risk-taking personality! While I am writing this, I have had to move him back to his spot (he army crawls everywhere now) in the living room at least 5 times, make that 6 now because he keeps trying to come out into the kitchen to chew on the computer cords or climb over the pillow that blocks the lamp cord. What is it with young kiddos and cords? They aren't that appealing looking, are they? Anyway, it is a mystery to me, but I do know that little ones have to "taste" everything to explore it.

Pumpkin Patch Fun

We have started a tradition now (a whole whopping 2 years in a row) where we to to the "Pairs at the Patch" event for the Tacoma Parents of Multiples group to which I belong. We went to the Peninsula Gardens in Gig Harbor this year and it was nice because they have the activities in a greenhouse area that isn't freezing cold, and so it is nicer for little babies and for the poor adults who hate the cold (me). This year many of the folks were out with their little cuties. It was funny because most all the infants happened to be dressed as some type of animal. Perhaps that is all that is available out there? Anyway, it was cute that we all were in theme and didn't intend to be. My mom found these Dalmatian costumes and said they were too cute to pass up. I have to agree on that one as I see them in them now! David had a Dalmatian named Sabrina before we were married and so it is appropriate that the little boys resemble his beloved doggie. Caleb's face in this one reminds me of a picture of Josiah at his first Christmas when we dressed him up as a little Santa and put a bow on his head. He appears to be saying here, "WHY are you subjecting me to the humility of being dressed in this silly costume?" And as usual our Daniel boy is smiling away!

I had to put this one in too because Caleb with his tongue out makes him look like a little doggie panting and it was just too cute! I have more pictures on facebook if you want to see them and I also have a link to snapfish if you are interested. David discovered when Daniel was smiling away again here that he has two teeth coming in the top now. It is no wonder he has been so cantankerous lately! Poor little guy!

Here is Josiah giving a nice, fake smile! This was the only posed shot that I got his face, so I guess I will have to go with it! Josiah enjoyed running around the hay maze, playing in the mini-pirate ship, and riding on the trailer for the hayride. At the end, we let him pick any pumpkin he could carry to take home with him. He picked a small one (similar to the one on his left pictured here) and when we got home he made the pumpkin his "buddy" and played cars with it, rolled it around, drew on it, and then had a nap with it. Yes, his pumpkin sat on his bed with him for his nap. He wanted to sleep with it at night too, but I decided against that one. I have been watching him roll it off the chair in the living room and am afraid that one of these times he will get a little too forceful and we will end up with pumpkin guts everywhere. Well, I guess this is my lot in life with three boys...messes, messes, messes!

Recent Josiah-isms

I have no picture for the moment as I already posted the most recent one of Josiah in his fireman hat holding "Red" the firetruck a few posts ago. However, I thought I would jot these lovely exchanges down for posterity before I forgot and/or lost the little piece of paper I wrote them on!

Tonight, we were praying together and I prayed for him and then asked him to pray. I kindly "suggested" that he should ask Jesus to help him be a good boy. He actually did it! Then he went into the following story: "Jesus came into my eye and told me I couldn't play with the tractor and that I should play with 'nother toy." Translation = Mommy has been trying to help Josiah with "other options" to cope with a situation when he gets angry or frustrated and he was including Jesus in on helping him too. I am hoping He will have better luck...and since He knows Josiah better than I do, I know He will! :)

A new fun activity is heading into "Daddy's room" AKA "Mommy & Daddy's room" and jumping on the bed (which as a side note always seems to change my number on the sleep number bed, so I have to do a number check every night before bed after a jumping session). Daddy can also get Josiah to dance around, but only if the circumstances are just right. Here is an example:

Daddy: Josiah, what kind of music do you want?
Josiah: I want fast, fast music (or sometimes it's "woud, woud" --that's loud for those of you unfamiliar with 3-year old terminology).
Daddy puts on some "slow" music instead.
Josiah: That's sleeping music Daddy, I want WOUD music!
Daddy: Don't you want to dance to some sleeping music?
Josiah: No, that makes me bored. (Here there is a difference of opinion as to what he said. I seem to recall him saying, "That makes me boring." But either way, I still think it is funny.)

Another fun one was Josiah hollered at me the other day, "Wook (look) Momma, I'm doing exercises! (He was bending over and touching his toes.) I am bending my part!" He also used to say and sometimes still says when he hurts himself somewhere, "I hurt my body, Momma!"

Lastly, this is one I truly cherish. When he is feeling particularly lovey, dovey with me he says, "I love you Momma, you're my best friend." That is a sure fire winner for a smile from grumpy, tired Momma!

Runny Nose X Two

So we are back in the sicky mode again around here. Daniel has had a cold since two Fridays ago and if he still has it by the end of this week, I will likely take him in to the doctor. I am hoping he is on the tail end of his now though as I only hear him coughing mostly in the morning and not much at all during the day. As you can see though he is running at the nose quite a bit still though! Caleb has manifested the cold in a little different way. He wakes up with nose junk encrusted all in his nose (he sleeps on his tummy) and his eyes are glued shut from the gunk as well. Other than that though and the fact that he sleeps a little more, he seems to be perfectly fine. He is still as active as ever, but periodically you will see this very tired look in his eyes and so I have been putting him down for naps more often this last week than usual. Thankfully, I seem to have already had this "version" of the cold, so I am healthy for the time being and David had a quick day of feeling sick and then was fine again. Josiah is healthy too and so hopefully he won't get it!