Happy 2nd Birthday, Avery & Alexis

First month
1 year

Seriously, another year has passed? Even though tons has changed, it has absolutely flown by. Our sweet little twins are two years old now. It is hard to tell that they were ever preemies. They say two years is the milestone when they catch up to other kids, and it seems to be true in their case. Here is some of what they are doing, and they are both pretty much the same:

• point to & name eyes, nose, ear, mouth, head, hair, & knee


• Use many words - love to name family members & the first friend they learned was Noah. They will repeat almost anything now but it usually comes out quite different from how we say it; can say about a three word sentence.


• Recently started undressing; like to try & dress themselves, sometimes well, sometimes not; love to put on shoes
  
• are starting to learn songs like twinkle twinkle and Elmo's song
  
• have recently started feeding themselves with a fork - we just tried & they were pretty good at it; can somewhat eat with a spoon but usually make a huge mess.
  
• can jump (& really like to)

One thing we really need to work on is drinking from a regular cup. Every time we've tried it's ended in disaster! I also don't have much time to work with them on things like I did Kaleigh, such as colors, shapes, etc. but I figure the'll learn it sooner or later - ha!

I also want to remember their likes & dislikes and personality traits at 2.

• The number 1 thing both twins like to do is eat & drink their milk. Until 3 or 4 months ago they would eat anything, but more recently they've started to get a little pickier. They still eat large portions for their size, though. You cannot eat around them and not share. They'll stand in front of you and yell "BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTE!" First thing in the morning we greet them with a sippy cup of milk.
  
• they both love to dance & listen to music
  
• they love to play with each other. They fight a lot now, especially over the doll stroller, but they have so much fun together too. One day they just giggled & giggled while carrying a baby blanket around the house together.
  
• They love their big sister. They will all go in Kaleigh's room and play with the Little People toys and whatever else. They light up when they see "K-K"
  
• And of course they adore little "Emmy". Avery especially loves to "talk" to her in a little sing song voice and lay on the floor next to her (& sometimes on her) For the most part they are so sweet. They will get on the floor and crawl with her and bring her things.
  
• They both like to play with dolls & stuffed animals and push them in the stroller pretend to feed them, that kind of thing
  
• They both seem to be very compassionate. Recently I got a cold and every time that I coughed one of them would ask me "okay mommy?" Without fail, every time. And they would keep asking until I answered! If Kaleigh hurts herself or Emory fusses they get very concerned.

Personalities:

Avery is usually the more laid back one. If she's fussy, I know something's probably wrong with her. She's independent and definitely likes to do things herself. She's funny and loves to make people laugh. She's always doing it with us, making funny faces and will repeat things after she gets a laugh. She's social and likes to smile at people she doesn't know. When I tell her to "come here", Avery runs away giggling. She drives me crazy but we love her. When Kaleigh is playing with her and gets a little too physical she will usually just laugh. She does like to mess with people, especially her twins sister and she's a little bit mischevious. She adds so much fun to our family.

Alexis is the more emotional of the twins. She comes running to me many times during the day with her world crashing down b/c of a stolen toy or a stubbed toe. After a good cuddle things are usually okay until I have to put her down. She's very sweet and seems to like to take care of people. When we're walking and Avery starts to run off Alexis turns and says "come on sister". Too cute. She has this sweet little shy smile that she does when she's being bashful around people, and when she's happy about something she gives us this beautiful beaming smile that just brightens our day.

We love these two precious girls. Yes, it is hard and yes they are going through the terrible twos and can throw amazingly good kicking screaming down on the floor tantrums, but the good times more than make up for any amount of bad. To think that we almost lost them and now God has given us two wonderful years with them leaves me speechless.

Beach Day

This was a couple of weeks ago, but we got sick right after so I'm just getting around to posting these pictures. We went to the "beach" in Arkadelphia on a whim one Friday afternoon. Kaleigh is at the age where she is loving the water, sand, etc and we figured the twins would enjoy playing in the sand, which they did. Alexis liked the water but Avery wanted nothing to do with it. We got some fun pictures - it was a little bright out. It ended up being hotter than we thought but it was a fun memory!

Note: I tried to load more pictures but it just isn't working so here you go!

A New Week, A New Start (hopefully)

This past week was one of the worst in our house, aside from anyone dying. It started over a week ago with Alexis getting sick with a stomach bug. It didn't last too long and after a couple of day went by and nobody else got it, we thought we were out of the woods. Then Tuesday morning Avery started. Nathan went to work and his mom came over to help me. Since the kids are always getting sick and we don't usually catch anything I wasn't too concerned. Poor Avery had a terrible day but was a little better by that night. Then about 9:00 that night, Kaleigh started. An hour later it was me. I won't go into details, but poor Kaleigh had it about right when she said "this is the worstest ever". The next day we were exhausted but okay, not great. That night my sister who lives with us got sick, and the next morning Nathan was sick. We called his mom who was also sick. So in our whole house the only one who had not gotten sick was Emory.

We had a rafting trip planned with the Powells and Tices and contemplated calling it off seeing how contagious this thing was, and we went ahead and called my parents to come and pick up Emory and Kaleigh. At this point, I was recovering but had only gotten 2 hours of sleep the night before and besides taking care of the kids was also waiting on my sister and Nathan. And believe me when I say kids make better patients! HA! Other than the fact that the kids were extremely messy. I was also cleaning and disinfecting like crazy and doing laundry in between taking care of sick people. By that night Nathan started to feel better so we decided to go ahead with the trip.

The next day, Friday, we were packing & excited to go when Ben (one of the friends going on the trip) called. He was sick. Nathan had had lunch with him on Tuesday. We decided that we had to cancel the trip, mainly for the good of those who hadn't gotten sick. I was so depressed that night that I literally got sick all over again. No joke.

But we decided to go to Branson with the Powells and make the best of it. A holiday weekend is just about the worst time to go to Branson. We didn't want to go to Silver Dollar City and not get to ride anything so we just picked some other things to do. We shopped and played put-put, ate out at some fun places and jumped off a tower.

Yes, you heard me right. We saw the brochure for this Extreme ZipRider and thought it looked fun so we did it. There was a moment of fear just as we were let loose off the tower, but once we got going it was just fun. And beautiful. I would recommend it.