Fall Fun Fest

We dressed the twins up in their costumes for the Fall Fun Fest at church. The church rented a bouncy house which was a big hit, but the twins were too small this year for it. Maybe next year. There were hot dogs, popcorn, and drinks.

Alyna was a butterfly and Ryan was a monkey. (They were out of butterfly costumes, so a fairy costume had to do.)



Ryan liked to play with the balls from the basketball hoop booth.




Alyna helped Miss Karen and me give out candy for memory verses. Some of the older kids racked up 20+ points for candy and prizes by saying longer sections like the Lord's prayer and the 23rd Psalm. The younger kids were able to say "Jesus wept" or "God is Love" for candy.

another shift goes by

Tonight is the last night of another shift. Another 4 1/2 days of essentially single parenting is gone, and we'll have another 4 1/2 days of full time Daddy. I feel blessed during those days when he is home though they are often busier than our days when he is working. When he is on shift the twins see him less than an hour a day.

We are starting to look forward to using his off time for more trips with the twins. There are a lot of places we can visit with the twins in a 4 day period. As they get older it gets easier to take them on outings. They can eat food from almost any restaurant we go to. Alyna especially loves to go new places, and see all the people and things out in the world.

Alyna has started practicing walking backwards. She understands more words now and follows simple directions quite well.



Ryan is climbing on everything now. He can climb onto our patio chairs, and the coffee table. He also figured out that if the bean bag chair is in front of the living room chair he can climb onto it. He can pull himself up onto the couch by stepping on our feet and using our legs as footholds. His newest word is "stick". He even played tug with our dog Henrey yesterday with a stick. I was watching very closely, but Henrey even let Ryan win some.







They are learning animal names and sounds. The make a high pitched "ah ah" sound when you talk about dogs. Alyna can find dogs, birds, balls, and elephants on pages of books. They both love pictures of babies.

roller coaster day

Today was a very moody day. I don't mean I was moody, the day was moody. One minute would be filled with joy and 20 minutes later everything had moved past frustrating.

The twins didn't sleep well... for whatever reason. We were up several times with them. Then Ryan woke up at 6:45, I changed his diaper, but he didn't go back to sleep. He soon woke Alyna up too, and I got them out of bed at 7:30. This wouldn't be that bad except that we are suppossed to have moved our time schedules 1/2 hour in preparation for the time change. Bedtime is 8 pm so wake up time should be closer to 7:30. So I had two happy, playful kids who didn't get enough sleep the night before.

They played, ate pancakes for breakfast, played some more, and watched a short video while I did dishes.

The highlight of the morning was inspired by my watching Alyna playing. She opened a cloth book and placed it on top of her head. It gave me the thought to go get out my hat collection from the hall closet. We spent a giggly 15 minutes putting on all different hats on each others heads. Ryan especially liked to try on all the different hats and walk around the room. Yes, they were women's hats... but I didn't take pictures, and he doesn't know the difference.

I gave them a snack and we continued to play inside because it is a windy day today and I wasn't sure what the temperature was.

We ate lunch right at noon, but Alyna actually fell asleep in her high chair about half-way through eating just as I finished preparing my own lunch. I tried to keep her awake to eat more, but she was in a deep sleep. Ryan was fussy too and had stopped eating, so I took both of them to their cribs. (not having eaten even a bite of the hot food on my plate)



It took 20 minutes of crying to get him to go to sleep. He had a cold 2 weeks ago and couldn't sleep lying down very easily so we held him a lot to get him to sleep. Now he thinks that should be standard procedure, and we've been fighting for a week to get him to soothe himself to sleep again. Too bad Grandma isn't here...

I reheated and ate my lunch, and then went to bed to try to take a short nap.

He woke up after an hour (I slept about 20 minutes), and thankfully Alyna slept for the 15 minutes it took to get Ryan back to sleep. Then I took my shower, and Alyna woke up just as I finished dressing and brushing my wet hair. I estimate she slept about 1 hour 45 minutes, which is good. Ryan slept a little longer for a nap of about an hour and 20 minutes. This means he'll be cranky this evening for sure.

I put them back in their high chairs after nap because neither one had eaten much. Then we played outside for about 45 minutes, and are now playing inside and eating an afternoon snack.

When they are happy it is a fun age... when they are not happy it is a frustrating age. And they aren't even 2 yet!

What's in a name?

The other night we figured out why my husband insists that our dog have full name.

We brought our dog home from a shelter when he was a year old, so he already knew his name was Henrey. Barry started calling him Henrey Dog, and then said that he should have a middle initial... like "J". Thus we have Henrey J. Dog who is now almost 3 years old.

The other night Barry was watching "Rocky and Bullwinkle" (the old cartoon show) on the Netflix website. In the introduction was the name Rocky J. Squirrel.

So there you have it. The influence of a children's cartoon can last well into their adulthood.

how's the weather?

It's that time of year in southern New Mexico when you have to check the weather forecast often, and change clothes several times a day. We have to have the heater on at night because the temperature outside drops into the 40's. The mornings are cool and require long sleeves and jackets for playing outside, but the afternoon sun warms the air up into the 70s. Storms often roll through in the evenings so we have to be sure to watch the sky. We usually walk our dog after dinner, but when a storm is rolling in we have to change the schedule. The bad thing about it is that when he is walked in the afternoon he still wants a walk in the evening.

Our beagle Henrey has started playing a lot more lately. I think he has been kind of depressed the last year that we haven't had the time or energy to play tug and fetch with him. He loves when we take the twins outside to play. They giggle as he runs past them. He's too fast for them to really chase right now, but it won't be long before that is their favorite game.

We finally cleaned out the storage room on the back porch so that we can store the outside toys away when they are not used. Our sun is very hot and can damage the plastic, and our storms are accompanied by heavy winds that blow everything far around.

In other news, Alyna has peed on the potty 3 mornings in a row when we've first gotten up from bed. Ryan hasn't done it in a while, but it's just a timing issue. We've been trying to keep them in their cribs until after 7:30 am to adjust for the time change. He often wakes up before that and fusses. If I got him to the potty right away he would probably go.

It's been a whole week of moving bedtime from 7:30 pm to 7:50 or after. They've finally started sleeping past 7:15 in the morning. When the time changes in November we'll have to do it again 1 or 2 more times to get bedtime back to 7:30 pm. I don't like this time change stuff.

more potty news

Alyna peed in the potty chair after nap today. It was her first time, but I could tell she actually knew what she was doing because she leaned forward and grunted a little.

I'm getting practice putting diapers on while their standing up, but I think we may try some pull-ups in the next few weeks. Ryan knows how to undo the straps on the diapers so I can't just let him walk around that way, and with 2 on potty chairs it gets kinda crazy dressing them again when they decide they're done.

We've used the generic diapers for a long time now, but the more generic White Cloud pull-ups aren't really that much cheaper than the Pampers or Huggies. So I'll be collecting coupons if anyone wants to send them my way.

Ryan's had a rough couple days and nights. He had a runny nose that is now draining into his throat and chest. I was in with him from 10 to midnight last night because every time he would start to go to sleep, he would cough. Drinking actually made the cough worse because it broke up some of the congestion. I've tried giving him a little honey on a spoon, and he likes it, but it doesn't cut all the phlegm in his chest.

This has also happened at nap times the past two days, so I'm worn out. Barry actually let Ryan sleep on his chest in the recliner in the nursery for an hour because Ryan couldn't sleep lying down flat. (It's one of Barry's days to sleep because he has night shift.)

I don't think it warrants a doctor's visit yet, but if it continues into next week we may go. He doesn't have a fever, and he's playing okay when he's awake except that he is more tired/whiney than normal from his sleep troubles. We'll be watching him carefully because there have been several young children in town who have come down with serious cases of pneumonia. It's enough to make us want to keep them home all winter.

Adventures in being 1

Being 1 is tough stuff. There's lots of falling down, learning how everything works, finding out what Mommy won't let you touch or eat, and not always knowing what is going on.

A few months ago the babies started to cry every time the phone rang. I think this stems from the day Barry went to the hospital in Lubbock for his kidney infection, and I was on the phone all day long. They've pretty much gotten over that now because we've been working on "Ring ring... Say Hi Grandma/Daddy/Nana."

Now it's the doorbell. A couple times when the doorbell rang, Mommy soon left the building. Now they cry at the chime even if it's just the UPS guy. Guess we're gonna have to practice that one with Daddy next week.

The adventures outside are growing every day. Ryan has found several bushes along our fence that he can walk behind. They are like his secret passage ways. He's starting to show them to Alyna too. She's more timid about it, but finally walked behind them yesterday. She went through a phase the last couple weeks where she wouldn't stand up by herself when she fell on the grass. It was prickly, and she'd rather sit there for 10 minutes until Mommy gave in and came to stand her up. She got over that today... finally. And I got to sit on the porch while they walked around, and only had to go out a couple times to stop them from eating the pecan shells and leaves.

Ryan peed in his potty chair again this morning when he woke up. Then after lunch, he pooped in the potty. Funny how these are acceptable things to talk about with toddlers. Alyna just hasn't been on the potty at the right time yet.

Ryan seems to be having trouble napping this week. I know they are both in another growth spurt because they've been eating like crazy the past couple days.

Guess I need to start shopping for the next size of clothing.

Like a big boy

At about 8 am this morning, 30 minutes after breakfast, Ryan followed me down the hallway into the kitchen fussing and pulling on his shirt. Lately he's been pulling on his shirt a little before he wants a diaper change.

As I picked him up I said, "do you need to potty?" He continued to fuss, and I felt his diaper and he wasn't wet yet. So I took him into our 1/2 bath by the living room, took off his jeans and his diaper and set him on the potty chair.

3 minutes later he leaned forward to grab a new book, and then he leaned forward to stand up. I reached to grab him as he stood up afraid he would pee on the floor, but he had already peed in the seat.

Hooray!

For only about 3 days now we've been sitting them on the potty chairs for about 5 minutes when they wake up in the morning. This morning when I got them out of the cribs at 6:45 this morning I didn't do it right away, and he got really fussy to get out the door. We didn't know why he was fussing. By the time I changed their diapers, clothes, and we made it to the potty chairs they both had peed in their clean diapers. That'll teach me.

This is all from what I read in the "Baby Whisperer" book that I've gone to for advice since they were born. She actually recommends starting this kind of low pressure potty training at 9 months old, but we were taking long vacations at 10 months, and 12 months old... plus there are two of them. So I waited until they were walking, and we were back from vacation.

It's low pressure. We will still wear diapers and not worry about wetting diapers. We won't worry about it when we go out... but when they give the signs at home, we will use the potty chairs. I also bought the smallest potty chairs I could find because of their size, and they work great. It's the baby bjorn "little potty". They both have been sitting on them to read books since we got them before their birthday. Now they love to play in the bathroom with them.

What a milestone this is! I'm so proud of Ryan.

fall is in the air

For some reason, when I step outside and smell the fall air I remember my travels in Europe when Barry and I were there for his work. That was 2 years ago, so I had to wonder why the smell would so vividly skip a year of memories.

Well, duh, I was a little bit out of it last fall. Staying mostly inside, sleeping whenever I could, and taking care of newborn twins.

In my mind, I think I skipped the whole autumnal season last year.

This year I am chasing 2 toddlers around a huge back yard making sure they don't eat the fallen leaves or get into the thorny rose bushes. The smell will trigger even more memories next year.