This is J Frog

A picture I took of J Frog the other day. He was re-evaluated recently by the Early Intervention people and he's all caught up with the exception of expressive language. Luckily, he can say a lot with the sly grin he always has on his face.

Okay Already

I know, it's April, I should finish posting about Xmas already. I haven't even said anything about Missy and J Frog's birthday yet. (They turned 2 in Jan, huzzah!) And then we had a huge trip to Florida in Feb where we saw Yianni and Cookie, then Mickey and Minnie, then Gigi and Bagheera. It was a whirlwind tour. I have so many videos to share. (Not sure how to show them all.) Most recently we've had tumbling classes, Easter, Marian's engagement, and Missy's first trip to the ER with 5 stitches through her right eyebrow. I have tons of pictures too.


Missy loves decorating the tree.






Marian helps Missy with the ornaments.











J Frog also enjoyed helping with the decorations.






Xmas morning. Winnie the Pooh Pez!







LR's first guitar from Marian. All 3 of them still love this toy.

Missy Is Ready For School

She wants to dress herself, feed herself, and now she wants to read to herself too. One of the books I bought for J Frog for Xmas is one of her new favorites and after we read is a dozen times, she had it down pat.

Xmas #3 Video

Here is my favorite video from Xmas #3. After multiple speedy laps around the house on his new scooter from Grandma and Grandad H, LR decided to try slowing things down a little. I think he was practicing balancing, but who knows. Thank goodness for the pads from Gigi and the helmet we already had from ice skating.

Thanksgiving to Xmas

We had so many nice visits with family around the holidays. Sorry it's taken me so long to get any pics up. Hoping to get video up soon too.

First Yianni and Cookie came to see us in early Dec. and brought the kids the most amazing bouncy castle for Xmas #1. The old one was leaking air quickly and more often than not they were crashing into each other when they tried to bounce. The new one is bigger and stronger so they are crashing with far less frequency unless that's the game they're playing. They also have a game called, "Ow." All 3 of them can play it. From what I understand it's pretty hysterical.

At the end of their trip we had a storm and went to take some holiday card photos, but I wasn't thrilled with the shadows on our faces, so I ended up taking different ones of the kids. (The cards should be going out any day now, seriously.)



The babies got a chance to try the double sled, but whoever was in front ended up toppling backward into the one in back. It's not a great sled, just something I picked up for cheap last year.





Then we had Xmas #2 with Papa, Grandma Nese, Aunt K, and Uncle T.





They brought Aunt K's old cradle that one of Grandma Nese's relatives made by hand more than 20 years ago. Both J Frog and Missy love it and often rock dolls to sleep in it now.








The also gave them a huge inflatable 3 person sled! It's awesome and LR tested it out with a bunch of kids last weekend on a big hill. Apparently he only slid into the road and hit his head on a parked car bumper once. Daddy makes every outing an adventure!


J Frog wanted to make sure he was being helpful when it came to pumping up the sled.











They all left in the middle of a snow storm, but drove out of it quickly on their way back to Ohio. We will miss Aunt K and Uncle T's matching smiles, wit, and clothing. ;)





Xmas #3 coming soon.

Thanksgiving Day

We spent our first Thanksgiving day alone ever today. It was a little sad, but very relaxing. We started peeling and cutting before LR even woke up this morning, so we managed to get a lot accomplished by 8:30am. The twins played together very well while we planned the menu and tried a new method of cooking the turkey. (I completely overcooked the turkey thanks to Missy locking the oven at some point which turned it off. By the time I noticed, it was 155 degrees inside the oven. Then I let it cook way too long after that before checking it with a meat thermometer. *sigh*) Very dry turkey, but it'll make fine soup tomorrow. The legs I broke off before the breasts went into the oven and cooked them by boiling them for a few hours in olive oil. Sounds strange, I know, but they came out very nicely, especially when you consider what I did to the larger portion of the turkey. So today I'm thankful that Blade is a foodie and convinced me to try something new - he saved Thanksgiving.

After we ate we took the kids out for a walk. They managed to find our neighbor's cat. Coincidentally, it was Superman's cat. (If you read the Halloween post, you know who that is.) The cat is very affectionate - Missy even managed to fit in a hug. J Frog did not want to give up the chase, but the cat eventually tired of their attention.

J Frog's Progress

Family often ask me how J Frog is doing now. He's started to pick up words like "up" and "wash." He's still delayed and in Early Intervention, but is improving. Most often people ask me if he's walking since I spent so many months worrying about it, but here he is, walking in his favorite place. Thought I'd share.

Halloween 09

One of our community groups put on a huge trick-or-treat event in our town center. It seemed like everyone with children under 10 showed up. We started in the town common and because it was an unusually warm fall day, we didn't insist that Missy wear her Minnie ears or that J Frog keep his elephant head on. LR had a mask for the spiderman costume, but he was worried that people wouldn't know who he was, so he went without it. Missy's costume was actually a hand-me-down made by Grandma Nese for Aunt K about 20 years ago. It's held up really well and the dress fit her nicely. Thanks, Grandma Nese and Aunt K!

The sidewalks were packed and the kids loved going in and out of all the stores marked with orange balloons. LR collected more candy than he knew what to do with since there were only a few steps in between each store doorway. Much easier than going between houses at night! What a great haul! The first doorway offered lollipops, so the babies were set in the stroller for a little while, but eventually Missy wanted to get out and try her hand at trick-or-treating. She even learned how to say "thank you." J Frog eventually got into the action a bit and walked into a few stores with Marian to raid their candy supplies.









At CVS, LR learned about taking just 1 thing from each bucket.






Then we ran into his friend, Superman.







and our other friend, The Hulk.







What is that?







Seriously, guys... what is this?










Ah, I've got it now. Next!












J Frog grabs a handful.












In the evening, we switched Missy into her warmer costume, a butterfly jacket. It was adorable. We only spent 30 minutes out, but it was a great evening and they seemed to really enjoy it.

LR Learns to Ice Skate

I may not have grown up in ice skating country, but I thought it might be a good idea if LR started a little on the early side here. So, I signed him up for lessons after he expressed interest in wearing my Rollerblades in the basement during the summer. He had his first lesson last week and really enjoyed it. I got a quick video of him with my iPhone trying out the skates as he walked to the ice. The kids are playing red light/green light with the teacher. I didn't get any video of him on the ice because he was too far away. I'll bring our video camera next time because it's too cute to miss and the kids are getting better every time. The first day they started out using 2 stacked milk crates to balance themselves and at the last lesson he skated without the crates. He also fell a lot, but he didn't seem to mind and I'm just glad I invested in some knee pads.

Missy's First Sentence

Yesterday Missy put together her first sentence. Well, I guess her first real sentence was a week ago when asked who wanted a snack and she said, "I do! I do!" But yesterday when I asked her if she wanted another grape tomato from the container she said, "I want two." It was adorable.

In other Missy news, she's potty training already. She has shown a real dislike for her diaper and promptly removes it if you leave her alone without pants or shorts on for more than a few seconds and recently even that hasn't stopped her. I took her out of her crib the other day after her nap to find her half naked. So, she hates her diaper and I can think of no better reason to potty train her. This week she's peed in her potty a number of times and although I don't think she understands the difference between underwear and a diaper, I bought her some Dora underwear for her to try. She loves peeing in the potty and the only trouble was that J Frog wanted to put his hand into the potty while she was using it. I immediately ordered a second potty even though he probably won't be training for a while. Now LR wants to use it and have "pee races." I'm trying to dissuade LR from using the training potty, but he thinks they're pretty special. *sigh*

LR Turns 4!

Another milestone. LR turned 4 in mid September and couldn't wait for the day. Much like the first day of school, I spent the week leading up to it counting down the number of days to his party. Unfortunately, a rugby game kept his party from being on the day of his birthday (Sat) and instead we had it on Sunday. We celebrated with the family on Saturday and he opened gifts from Missy and J Frog - Mr. Men books, colored pencils, and cars. I also let him open the gifts from the grandparents, aunts, and uncles that had been sitting on the dining room table for a couple of days. He had been dying to open them, so we let him tear into them first thing in the morning. He received an RC car, a Leapster2, games, and books. He was a very happy kid.

The next day was party day. There was a lot of anticipation and I'm thinking next year his birthday should be in the morning so that I don't have to spent the first 5 hours of the day explaining why it's not party time yet. The good news is that it was a beautiful day. It was warm and sunny and we were able to spend the entire party outside.










Never again will I underestimate the power of stickers. The first thing the kids did after arriving was to decorate their hats with stickers. It was 10-15 minutes of quiet kids, sharing stickers and decorating hats. It was AWESOME.




Looks at the focus!








Next was the pinata. J Frog wanted to help.












LR loved it.












But the real hit was the car boxes I made the night before. I was sure the kids wouldn't be interested, but I was totally wrong.






They raced and raced and raced.







They took turns, challenged each other, and raced again.







Then it was time for cake. Maybe not as good as my mom would have made, but not bad for a first effort race track cake.






LR blew out the candles, ate half a large piece of cake, then barfed in the bushes. Ah, birthdays...






J Frog enjoyed his cake too and managed to keep it down.

Visit from Grandma

Grandma came to visit for the long Labor Day weekend and we took advantage by taking a couple of short day trips. The first was into the city to see the Rose Kennedy Greenway which is the pretty strip of parkland that used to be 93 before they buried it. It now has a spray park and a carousel. The kids loved riding the horses and were dying to try the spray park, but it was a little on the chilly side and the pressure of the spray was more fire hydrant than the little ones would have been able to handle, so we avoided it despite LR's objections. We also walked along the water of the bay and found giant metal sculptures for the kids to play on. It was a really pleasant afternoon in the city.

The next day we spent at home for the most part, but on her last day, we decided to trek up to Salem, Ma. I showed Grandma one of my old office buildings near the water and we walked out along the pier trying to keep the kids from launching themselves into the water every chance they got. We also walked through a bit of the town, but didn't duck into the Witch Museum or The House of the Seven Gables. When the kids are a little older, I think...



Missy loved running around on top of the hot metal structures.











Bedtime reading with grandma was a blast!












LR chilled in the stroller for a little while at the pier since he had fallen asleep on the ride up to Salem.






Daddy playing "keep Missy on dry land"







Grandma taking a turn walking J Frog.












The boys checking out the water. J Frog finds LR endlessly fascinating.











Missy throwing rocks at Daddy.








Grandma takes the unenviable task of keeping Missy from diving off the rock wall into the water.