Tomato Plants - 5/30

The plants are getting bigger - the boys watered them today with Mommy. Dillon wasn't a big fan of the picture being taken...

A picture for grandpa and grandma

This afternoon before quiet time, the boys made a picture that they determined was for G&G. As you can see, it's quite lovely. Dillon informed me that he wrote a note on the bottom (see series of "M"'s in bottom right) that said "thank you for giving us 'Piper' and 'What shall we do, blue kangaroo.'" (both books).

Jackson in front of the masterpiece


Dillon sulking b/c he didn't want his picture taken in front of the drawing.


The masterpiece itself. The photo doesn't do it justice as it doesn't pick up the glitter glue elements...

Staying limber

This weekend the boys decided to take a break from some yardwork to do a little stretching.
After all, this is what Daddy does after he gets home from a run...
(apologies for the blurry J-train shot - not sure what happened)

Jackson and middle-of-night wakeups

Jackson woke up again in last night. There's this weird experience where he's up but doesn't seem awake. He'll call out (sometimes a cry, sometimes more of a yell) for Mommy and/or Daddy, but as soon as I come into his room, he gets mad ("I want MOMMY!"), and he won't explain what the problem is.  Sometimes he'll start yelling or crying.  Eventually he "wakes up" and almost instantly calms down, and goes right back to bed. But it takes a couple of minutes. 

 

Last night was particularly bad; he wouldn't "wake up" and when i tried to take him into the bathroom (sometimes the act of walking into the bathroom helps wake him up) he got more upset and started crying loudly. Finally, he made clear that his pillow had fallen on the floor! At this point he woke up, we got him his pillow, and he was back asleep...  not fun, though.

 

 

Watering the Tomato Plants

Every Wednesday is "water the tomato plants" day ... the boys don't think that the plants will ever grow to be as tall as the boys ... we'll have to wait and see...

The left plant is a "cherokee chocolate" while the right one is an "early girl" - the boys love to talk about which one they get to water. They are fired up for the first tomotoes to appear...

Look for the series of Wed evening pictures (this is the second one on 5/23)...

And here's the first one - 5/16...

The boys make a (super super big!) train track

 

Playing at the park

Took the twins to the park this afternoon at 5 to get them to run some energy off and allow Annabel to make dinner in peace for a change. We stopped at Draegers on the way to get some bread, which Dillon insisted on carrying. At the park there was a lot of sliding and climbing. We had a good time... until the end, when it was time to go. Dillon threw a total meltdown fit, complete with high-pitched screaming right by the gate, where some poor folks happened to be standing, trying to have a conversation. Oops!

J & D go to their swim lesson

Jackson and Dillon are taking their first swim lessons - a 4 week (30 minutes/wk) course at SCRA. These are pictures from their second session today. Their friend Anya from school is also in the class. Dillon LOVES it, and gets so excited while he's in the pool (shouting with glee). Jackson is warming up to it - at the first session last week, he kept wanting to get out of the pool and looked pretty unhappy (of course, the rest of the week he kept talking about how fun it was). This week, after a little reluctance to get in at first, he seemed to have a great time. They also got a lot more adventurous in terms of putting their face in the water. It's been a good experience for them, and I hope that we can have some additional time in the pool this summer so that they keep getting more comfortable with it...


J&D before the class - note the
VT hats on...


warmups - a little splashing, etc.


practicing their kicking...


J-train in the "noodle"

Dillon in the "noodle"

Fun with the camera

The boys are big fans of taking their own pictures now - any time the camera is out, they want their turn behind the wheel. Here's one Dillon took of Daddy and Jackson...

Tyler in the exersaucer

Here's Tyler in one of his first exersaucer sessions - sooooo coooool....

Email posting test

I'm sending this post via email, to confirm that it works...

 

Tyler had a good dinner - 7 oz. over the course of 3 sessions (2 1/4, 2 1/4, 2 1/2).  Annabel took him in to see Dr. McAdoo today for a weigh-in. He was 15lbs, which is 71% percentile (up from 69th percentile a couple weeks ago).

 

Jade came back today, and the boys were excited to see her. Jade fed Ty-man at 8 and at noon, and Annabel fed him at 4.

 

 

 

 

 

Back from the dead...

OK, after a veeeerrrrryyy long hiatus, I am re-starting this blog with the goal of making frequent posts and using it as a way to maintain a diary of the family. No more having to ensure that each post is complete with tons of pictures, etc. (although that will be nice) ... instead I want to habituate more frequent usage. I'm sure that when we look back on this in 10+ years, there will be a lot more value in having consistent updates than in having the perfect, fully rounded post. So here goes - let's see if I can keep it up!

Update - You'll notice that there are a few posts that come before this one (but after the last real post, the Zoo visit in Sept. 2006) ... I just discovered the ability to backdate posts, so in the interest of keeping things chronological, I'm going to submit a couple of recent posts on the right date for ease of future reading...

Also note that i've figured out how to back-date entries, so i'm adding some highlights since I quit posting, and will do so in chronological order. So anything that is listed between this entry and Sept. 3 '06 (the zoo visit with nick and elise) has been back-dated (hence the brief descriptions - more of a pictorial recap)...

Farewell to Nana AND a surprise visit from Grandpa and Grandma

Today was the last day of a weeklong Nana visit - her second in three weeks. It was great that she was able to come back out on such short notice to help out with little Ty-man. The boys had a great visit with Nana, including lots of fun activities:

• Building two build-a-bears (Mr. Bear-Bear and Mr.
  Bear-Bear) at the b-a-b workshop up at tthe Hillsdale mall
• Lots of craft activities creating special Mother's Day gifts for their mom, including a great visor, several clay bowls, and two handprint stepping stones for the garden
• Cleaning out the kitchen and the playhouse
• Lots of book readings and walks to go see Riley, the mellow golden retriever up the street

Picture: Nana and the boys on a "bear walk" to see Riley


The boys had a lot of fun helping mommy open her presents on "Happy Mothers Day" (the official name of the day). It was also awesome for me to pull into Sterling Ave and see the boys, walking their bears in their strollers, wearing their new visors (see picture above). Great look...

The extra-special surprise of the day was after J&D and I got
back from taking Nana to the airport, we went upstairs to change into shorts, and Grandpa and Grandma snuck into the house and sat down outside at the table. The boys then went outside, and Dillon noticed them. He knew it was them, even though they were facing the other direction - pretty impressive! They had an awesome time, running around with Grandpa and reading books with Grandma. G&G stayed for a couple of hours before they had to catch their flight back to PDX. It was a great day for the (older) boys.

Picture: G&G reading the boys one of their books (a gift from G&G)

Tyler was doing a little bit better on the eating front - Maria had hoped for us to get 6 oz. in him at each feeding. by the middle of the week Nana and I were usually able to do that. It isn't too much fun, though, when he maxes out at 5 oz and doesn't want to eat any more. He's becoming more and more fun now - definitely more interactive. He loves to roll over on his back, and he loves his mobile. He also coos more and more after he's done eating. Such a cutie - but with a very serious/concerned look on his face most of the time.

Maria's visit

Maria came to stay with Annabel and the boys this week while I had to go to Europe for a business trip - it was great to have her here. She was super-helpful, as usual. The bummer was that she helped figure out that Tyler has a mild case of reflux and he doesn't want to eat as much as he should ... we think he's actually lost a little bit of weight over the past couple of weeks. Maria has worked her usual magic, although its not fun trying to force the little man to eat more of the bottle than he wants to -- he usually is fine up until ~5 oz., but we're trying to get him to eat at least 6 and ideally 8.

Here's Maria with the little man...



And here's the little man in his new sleep setup - the crib tilted up at an angle, and Tyler wedged into a side, propped up on a big pillow, with rolled-up towels keeping him in place!