Mason Alexander

Mason is here!

Born : January 6th, 2012 at 11:35am

He weighed 7 pounds, 3 ounces and was 19 inches long.

Almost a year gone by!

I can't believe that almost a year has gone by and I haven't posted anything. But then again, I have twin toddler boys and I am pregnant with another boy! I don't have much time on my hands these days!

We are scheduled for a c-section on January 17th and the day can't come soon enough! I am tired and very uncomfortable! The boys have no idea what is going on and I am scared about what life is going to be like with another little boy in the house! Excited...but scared!

I will try to post updates for both the boys and the baby here.

Where has the time gone?

I haven't been good about keeping the blog updated. That is most likely due to the fact that I don't have babies anymore....these toddlers are out of control. They get into everything and don't give anyone much time to do anything but chase after them!

We have alot going on. Jacob was evaluated and approved for Early Intervention Services. He is seeing an Occupational Therapist, a Special Instructor, and a Speech Therapist. He hasn't made too much progress up to this point. We took him to a Specialist at Bryn Mawr Hospital and they have recommended an Intensive Therapy Schedule...which means more therapy than he is currently receiving (right now it is every other week with each therapist). She also recommended that we see a developmental specialist to see if we can get a diagnosis. Unfortunately I am not having much luck in that department.

Carter is doing well. He was fitted for sure step braces for his ankles/feet in December and is finally getting used to wearing them. They are supposed to help build an arch in his feet since he is flat footed. He walks with his left ankle turned in and this will help correct that as well. Since he started walking we reduced his physical therapy to every other week and he is still receiving speech and occupational therapy every other week as well.

They looked good at their 18 month appointment last month. Jacob weighed 24 pound 3.5 ounces and was 32.25 inches tall. Carter was 23.3 pounds and 31.25 inches tall. Both are cutting teeth and have been in horrible pain. They have been not sleeping as well and trying to transition to one nap per day which has been difficult on all of us!

I don't get as many pictures as I used to because they just don't sit still long enough! I will try to post a few soon though.

December

Here are some new photos from Thanksgiving. We had a nice Thanksgiving Day at Grandma's house. Then the next day we went to Nana's for a dinner with family and friends!

Grandma, Nana and Bruce are headed to our house for Christmas and then we will be heading to Pittsburgh to visit family and friends on the 27th. We will post many pictures of the boys second Christmas!

It's November!

The boys are growing! At their 15 month appointment, Jacob weighed 22 lbs., 15 oz. and Carter was 21 lbs., 5 oz. Carter is about an inch and a half shorter than Jacob.

They did great with their shots and a big thanks to Kathy Funk who went with me to help keep them occupied. I couldn't do those appointments alone.

We had Jacob evaluated by Early Intervention last week and he qualified. They are saying his cognitive skills are coming in around 8 months. His behavior has been a bit odd for the last few months so I decided to have him evaluated. Glad that I did because now I will know what to do to help him learn!!!

Carter is being assessed next week with a speech therapist to see how if he should be working with speech or just a special instructor to help him with basic signs and other ways of communicating his needs to us.

It's a lot of therapy and I have been feeling overwhelmed by the amount of time I spend with the therapists already. I can't imagine what it will be like now!

We are working on trying to find a sitter to help out one or two days a week to lighten the daytime load a bit. I am feeling overwhelmed with the boys and with work. And I am coming up on a busy couple of months with singing on top of the teaching. It would be great to have a little extra help!

The boys had fun on Halloween and I will post a few pictures of them in their costumes. We took them to Marple Presbyterian Church in Broomall for an afternoon party and then we took them to a few neighbors in the evening...but by then they were tired and not really happy to be out.

Where did September go?

I can't believe I didn't post anything in September! We have some big things coming up this week. The boys will be 15 months old on Monday. We have Carters one year evaluation with Early Intervention on Monday. I am pretty sure that everything will continue the same for him. We have decided to also have Jacob assessed by them and his eval. is the following week. Mostly for speech.
Tuesday is their 15 month check-up so I will post weights/heights once we are back.

They are both doing great....here are some pics.....

Summer's Over

Tomorrow Daddy's goes back to work and that means that summer is over! We have enjoyed the month of August while he has been home every day! We took a vacation at the beginning of the month to Delaware/Maryland. We had a great time at the beach and visiting with family. The boys were great during the trip and are getting much better at traveling distances in the car and are doing better in restaurants and stores.

We have made several trips to the Philadelphia Zoo and are trying to get nightly walks in the wagon around the neighborhood. We will post some pictures soon.

Both of the boys are growing like crazy. They really don't look like babies anymore! Jacob is not walking but running everywhere. He loves to climb on anything!! He is starting to babble a bit more. We hear dadada, bababa, mamama, nanana. It is still babble and not specific to a person or object but it is more than a few weeks ago. He still only has two teeth but he is working hard on getting the two top ones.

Carter is doing great. The therapists are so impressed with his improvements. She thinks he could be walking on his own by the end of September. His annual assessment with EI is in October and she is thinking we may only need therapy twice a month instead of weekly!! He is walking with a walker just about everywhere. He is still wobbly but he is working on it. He will occasionally get up on his hands and knees and crawl. More with Jane than with us but he does do it occasionally. We are currently working on getting him to sit up himself from laying down and also trying to build his arm strength with exercises mainly in the pool.

We are continually updating the baby proofing in the house because they are into everything. We are anticipating the day the Jacob crawls out of his crib. Neither one of us thinks it is far off.

I will post pictures soon!