Naomi Show & Tell--10 month Check-up

I was a little late at scheduling Naomi's 9-month visit, so it ended up being a 10-month visit instead. You can see here if you click on this photo to make it larger that she still only has 2 toofers (as we call them) on the bottom. The doctor said we will likely see the upper two come here soon, but she didn't feel any poking through there at this time.

I took some pictures of her in the little dress that I put her in for her appointment this morning and here she is with her typical happy face playing with her little kitchen that Grandma Walker bought for her.

She makes the funniest expressions and here she is with a nice "ooo" shape to her mouth. She weighed in this time at 17 pounds 9 ounces, which is only a little above the 10th percentile this time (she was nearing the 50th last time). The doctor wasn't super concerned, but gave me some ideas to get some more calories in her, so I will go ahead and do that. She eats a LOT though, so I am thinking she inherited Daddy's fast metabolism OR I have been told by my mom that I was a tiny little thing too at her age (only 17 pounds at a year old). She does LOVE to move and crawls everywhere, so it could be she is just burning the calories!

She dropped off a bit in her length growth too, from the 75th down to a little above the 10th there too. The doctor said it is common to see grow spurts and then lulls in the growing from visit to visit and this didn't bother her at all. You can see her with her serious face on here. I thought this one also accented her beautiful blues too. Her expression here also resembles Josiah years ago when we put a bow on his head for Christmas.

As per the Carpenter clan kiddo usual, she still has a big ol' head! It is 18 1/4 inches around and she is now nearing the 95th percentile in that area. Overall, the doctor was pleased with her progress and just advised to plump this baby up a bit! She loves to eat, so this shouldn't be an issue. We love our sweet little mellow, happy baby girl. She is such a joy! She is definitely living up to her middle name!

Christmas Fun-4

The boys had a blast playing with their toys and of course there were some squabbels about who would play with what and when, but that is just par for the course! Daniel is playing his first computer game here (this is an AWESOME toy that hooks up to your TV and is WIRELESS and he works the games sitting there with the keyboard in his lab and the little mouse). Caleb is still wearing his policeman costume and Josiah is observing the new computer game.

Josiah and Daddy are building the Lego airport here together. Josiah is getting to the point where he can pretty much follow the instructions and build himself. We let him do that on the small items as the only thing that is hard for him now is to sit for long periods of time and finish the project.

Caleb is playing with his boat that he got here. All the boys will enjoy this toy I am sure. They have lots of Imaginext figurines now and so they will be able to use them all with this and the other things they already have.

Daniel is gleefully enjoying his first computer game. I REALLY like this toy as it has them working with the keyboard and all the letters as well as asking them to spell words by prompting them to type certain letters. This is a really great buy for kids in this age range! It was SO easy to set up too...just a few batteries, hook it to the TV and you are good to go and NO extra outlet needed.

Right away when we took the blankets off the mini-tramp, the twins took to jumping. It has a musicbox on it that is supposed to have 5 different games, but as of yet I can't get the setting right to make the games work properly. There is music that plays, but the actual games are not seeming to work yet. I may be able to adjust the settings to where it will work, but it says that depending on the weight of the child that it may have to be adjusted. Since all the kiddos are of a different weight, this may be a challenge. I do like the fact that it has handlebars though as they are safer when they have something to hold onto and haven't gotten any bright ideas yet to jump off of it I think because of the handlebars in the way. They DO love jumping on it though!

The easel will be something we will use for many years to come I am sure. It has a chalkbaord on one side and a whiteboard on the other. You can see the many bins for art supplies beneath it as well as the places for cups of water for painting. On the top, it has a roll of paper that comes down for painting/coloring/drawing as well. This is a very sturdy easel and I would highly recommend it!

And lastly, we have Daniel pushing Caleb out of the way to play his computer game. I thought this picture was really funny and very characteristic of the day. Learning to share is an ONGOING lesson here at our house and days like this give us opportunities to teach that concept. Merry Christmas to everyone of our friends and family who reads the blog! Hope you had a great one!

Christmas Fun-3

Grandma and Grandpa Walker got the boys three costumes for dress-up play. Josiah was an unwilling subject for photography, so I had to be sneaky to get this shot of him in the fireman costume. Later he tried to be a policeman/firefighter by mixing different accesories of the costumes.

Caleb as anticipated was the one who enjoyed the costumes the most. He is giving a mighty, "Yee-Haw," here in the cowboy costume.

This one was so cute on him! He absolutely LOVED the whistle and went around directing traffic around the house and whistling at people. He wore this one the longest by far!

And of course he HAD to be a firefighter at one point too!

It took some coaxing to get Daniel to dress up as it is not his favorite thing to do. Soon after this shot, he said, "I want it off," and proceedd to try and escape the costume by taking his arms out of the sleeves. I had to unbuckle his coat, however, before he could officially escape costume play.

Christmas Fun-2

Here we see Josiah RUNNING down the hall for Christmas morning! There was a false start earlier when we heard me up, but I had to feed baby first before all the festivities, so Daddy went in and reassured Josiah that we would be starting soon and entertained him until I was finished feeding Naomi girl.

The twins weren't quite as exhuberant, but they were still happy for Christmas morning as well. I actually had to wake them up for Christmas morning though.

Here is Miss Naomi on her first Christmas, smiling in Daddy's arms. He didn't want to be photographed in the early morning hours.

Josiah is opening his first gift, an airport Lego set from Mommy & Daddy. This was soon built later after we cleaned up the living room and prepared a place at the table.

Caleb is looking at his doctor kit from Grandma and Grandpa Carpenter here. Right away, we taught him how to examine some patients (AKA stuffed animals with owies) and he was excited to play doctor!

Daniel is opening his gift (a puzzle) from Grandparents Carpenter here and as usual is giving his winning smile to boot!

Naomi is opening her gift from Grandma and Grandpa Walker, a mini-kitchen. Her eyes just lit up when she saw it. Though of course she had no concept of how to unwrap her gift.

Here she is again with Grandpa Walker opening her gift from Uncle Brent and Aunt Katie. She was very interested in this one too as you can see (shape blocks that go in a little box).

Christmas Fun--1

Since there were of course a LOT of photos for Christmas, I decided to break the posts up a bit for an easier read! These are some pictures from both Christmas Eve and one from Christmas day (the above picture). Naomi just LOVED playing with Great Grandma Walker's boa scarf. She was sporting the "diva" look here with her fabulous smile.

In order to get some last minute presents built (cough cough...easel...cough), I asked Grandma and Grandpa to come over and take the boys out of the house. Great Grandma Walker is in town for the holidays and so she came along too and played with the great grandkids.

On Christmas Eve (after they came back from lunch), we got out some of our old puzzles and were playing with the boys. Daniel noticed here that Great Grandma had an "owie" and was asking her about it. I thought it was a precious shot of them together interacting.

Meanwhile, Grandpa was playing with Caleb and Naomi on the other side of the table with the Toy Story 3 toy that the boys got for their birthday. Naomi is smiling at Momma here.

Naomi's attempting to make a call here apparently. I am sure she has a lot to say and who can go wrong with a pink phone! :)

Twin Potty Training

Doesn't that post title just make you tired already? It does me! As per our usual way of doing potty training, we do a "crash course" day where we give the kiddos in question some undivided attention to work on this MOST essential life skill. We pump them full of fluids all morning, and keep the potty chairs in the area where messes can be easily cleaned up; in our case, the dining room. We plan lots of fun activities to keep them occupied and then proceed to set a timer and make them at least "try" every time it goes off. For each attempt, they get one M & M and for success they get two M & M's. We also had a chart with some stickers and they could pick a sticker and put it on the chart for success also. This first picture is of them watching a movie on my computer and Daniel is multi-tasking playing his Leapster 2 as well.


When they have an accident, we have them take the underwear to the laundry room and help clean up the mess with a rag to understand that they made the mess. They also have to do all the work (ie: pulling on and off pants, dumping the potty pot into the toilet, washing their hands, etc.) During the morning we had MANY accidents and one of the twins who shall remain nameless blew threw around 10 pairs of underwear in under an hour. I was pretty exhausted in the morning, but thankfully I only had to care for them and Naomi as Josiah was staying with my parents for the weekend. David was available also and he stepped in during some of the more hectic moments of the day.

The twins really enjoyed the undivided attention for sure and after their nap (Mommy took one too!) they were getting it much better than in the morning (THANKFULLY!) We had fun playing with their new toys that G-ma and G-pa got them for their birthday, and I could tell they were really thriving with all the fun we were having together. The week following we have had our ups and downs, but my new method to tackle it has been working well. I make them go in the morning when they wake up and then set the timer for 15 minutes after a meal, then 30 minutes after that, then another 30 minutes and then every 40 minutes until the next meal and then I start over with the 15 minute timer again. They were resistant at first to having me make them go, but now I just motivate them by either taking the toy they were playing with away and promising its return afterward or giving M & M's and that works. With this method, they have had only one or two accidents, and so I think it is going well. I am hoping at some point they will feel the need to go on their own, but until then we will keep on the schedule!

Not to be left out, we have little Viking Naomi here who was determined to check out the potty room as well. She frequently had to be picked up and moved to the other room as Mommy was working with twins in the bathroom.

This is one her faces that is my favorite. So cute!

Play To Learn

We went to check out this program called "Play To Learn" that so many of my friends had been talking about. It is sponsored by the Tacoma Children's Museum and it is free to attend. They have weekly playdates for the kids for a 1 1/2 hour block of time. We met at a community center and they brought all kinds of toys and activities to set up throughout the room, and all the kids come and do free play most of the time, but then they have two circle times which include singing a song or two and reading a story together.

This was my favorite picture from the bunch as you can see three of my children in it (Naomi is on the floor in the back and Caleb and Josiah in the foreground. Josiah was building a bridge and Caleb was poised to knock it down. Par for the course around here for those two roles being played out!

Josiah was probably the oldest child there, as it really is geared to the three and under crowd, but he found things to do to occupy himself. He linked all the train cars together and drove them around the room a few times.

Caleb looks very serious here as usual and he was busy working with the Playdough making something very important I am sure! He did pretty well and went around to many of the stations playing with all the toys. His favorite though were the plastic people. He took them around with him wherever he went and pretended they were walking places and doing things.

Daniel spent most of his time either doing crafts (gluing fabric to paper & a stamp art craft), playing with Playdough (as seen above) or doing puzzles. They all did pretty well for the first organized circle time, but for the second one, Daniel was walking around in the middle of the circle and then tried to get the teacher's attention by walking right out in front and getting in the way of the book. I think he was a little tired at the end as he was also laying on the ground and was somewhat fussy. He enjoyed the time there though for sure!

Naomi just crawled everywhere looking at things. At one point, they were blowing bubbles and three of them stuck to her hair that was sticking up. She really liked the bubbles and here she is happily chomping on some plastic castanets. At the end, it was really "interesting" trying to get everyone to leave with me. The boys tried to cut in line to get their treat bag (they had them special for Christmas) and so I had to wrangle them in and then when we got outside Caleb thought it would be a great idea to run down the sidewalk toward the busy street. I finally managed to corrale them all into the car and then we headed over to my friend Melissa's for a quick visit. All in all, it was a fun time, but I think I might bring a helper with me next time or plan to go with a friend!

One big bonus was that they give you a free pass to the Children's Museum as well, so that was really neat!

Three Year Old Twins!!

Here are the little guys blowing out their three candles. To celebrate we jus had Grandma and Grandpa come over and had the cake/cupcakes you see pictured here and they opened one gift each. Even Naomi and Josiah got a gift as well courtesy of Grandma and Grandpa.

Caleb & Daniel both picked out a Santa Claus cupcake with red frosting. They are a little more skilled at eating them this year than the first year they had similiar cupcakes. You can also compare to the 2nd year they had cupcakes as well, though those were white.

Caleb's cupcake-y grin.

Daniel's cupcake-y grin.

Caleb reading a card from Grandma & Grandpa.

Caleb & Daniel opening their gifts.

Caleb's face when he discovered his gift.

Daniel's face when he saw his gift.

Daniel playing with Naomi girl.

Daddy playing with Caleb. I tried to load a picture of Josiah opening a gift too, but because of blogspot's wonky formatting with pictures I would have to start over now to add it. Needless to say, he was a little jealous at the twins having a birthday. Grandma and Grandpa gave him a gift, but of course he wanted what the boys had instead. It took him the better part of the afternoon to understand how to be gracious to his brothers and share the new toys nicely. Part of life I guess, a part that many of us still have a hard time with in a more "adult" kind of way I suppose. Or maybe NOT such an adult way in some cases. Anyway, it was a fun birthday for them I think, even if it was very simple.

Setting Up the Christmas Tree

How many boys does it take to set up the Christmas tree? It appers to be four. The boys had lots of "ooos" "ahhs" and a few "WOWs" thrown in when we got the tree out and started setting it up. It was great fun to sit on the Christmas tree box and use it as a bridge to the couch and other furniture.

Later, David put on some Christmas music and the boys were dancing around. Here is a good picture of Josiah and Daniel doing their thing!

Caleb's winning smile!!

Daniel making a funny face at me!

Naomi had fun exploring the area too as you can see! We still have a very top heavy tree as the twins think it is great fun to pull the ornaments off and see how many they can destroy. We had bulb lights on the bottom rung this year and Daniel figured out how to pull the lamps off and so we had to get a different string of lights that they couldn't destroy to replace them. :) After a few days though of heading to their rooms every time they touched the tree, I think we finally have it all under control. Baby Naomi has no real interest in pulling up on the tree, so that is great news for me! We shall see about what might happen next year though! Here is a link from last year's Christmas tree fun.