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!

Some other photos

Here are some other photos we took during the birthday weekend. They are just too cute not to share. The boys were being goofy!

Misbehaving...they wouldn't sit still for the pictures!!!

I just couldn't get the ring out of Jacob's mouth...but at least they were still for a moment.

And the ring is still there....and they are both headed for the camera....

Surprisingly they are playing nicely. Usually they ar fighting over the same toy. It was nice to see them playing together without someone crying or getting stepped on!

We are One!

The boys had an excellent birthday party on Saturday. They really did a great job at entertaining everyone and not being too fussy throughout the day.

It was great to have our friends and family here to celebrate their birthday. The boys received many wonderful gifts. Cake time was messy but so much fun to watch. Both of the boys dove into their cakes and were a complete mess!

Thank you to all who came to share with us. Here are some pictures to enjoy of their special day!

Here is a pile of the gifts they received from everyone at the party. I think we have spoiled boys!!

Here is a picture of their Handy Manny cake. This, I think is their favorite cartoon!!

Here is Jacob with his cake. He dove right into it....he needed to get a bath afterward..He was soo messy!

And here is Carter...he took the cake and put it in his ear! But he had a good time!!

Almost.....

The boys are almost a year old!!! And what an incredible day they had yesterday. We had our 12 month checkup with Dr. Devon, the pediatrician. Jacob weighed 21 pounds, 1 ounce and was 29 3/4 inches and Carter is 19 pounds, 11 ounces and 29 inches. They both squirmed all over the office and I was really happy that I had someone to go along with me! They each got three shots in their legs (2 in one, 1 in the other) They really handled them pretty well. Jacob was getting tired so he was a bit fussy.

We brought them home and put them down for a nap. Carter( the early riser) still slept for about an hour and 15 minutes. He got up and ate a little food and started playing. Then Jacob got up and they each had some milk and were playing downstairs. It was close to Daddy coming home and I was going to have to teach the rest of the evening so I was playing downstairs. And wouldn't you know...Jacob started walking to me and to the couch!!! Anywhere from three to seven steps at a time...I was so excited that I think I kept making him fall because he was laughing at me! Carter was not thrilled with all the attention I was giving Jacob but we managed about 15 minutes of practice!!!

Then while I was teaching later that night, Johnny was feeding the boys grilled cheese. Carter started taking the food and feeding himself!!! We are just so proud of them! Later while I was teaching my last student, Johnny tried putting the boys to bed. We usually wait until everyone is gone because they are too distracted to sleep with me teaching...but they had had a long day. Jacob went right to sleep...but Carter was screaming. So eventually Johnny went up to get him....and wouldn't you know, he was standing in his crib!!! First time he was able to pull himself up in the crib!

It was a huge day for them!! Let's see what else they can manage to squeeze in just before their first birthday!!!!