Growing up TOO quickly!!

Sorry I have been kinda MIA lately! We have been SOOOO busy! This is such a contrast from the last two summers! Of course, we are busy with the home search, more about that later! BUT, we have been busy going and doing, shopping and playing, and just plain enjoying summer and being TWO! We are lucky if we stay home one day a week. We have been going to parks, story times, playdates, various shopping trips for groceries, freebies, crafting supplies, etc.

The boys are changing so much! They are SO smart! They remember EVERYTHING! This can be both a blessing and a curse! They are talking so much now! Ayden regularly combines two words and Ashton is right behind him. Both boys are trying to potty train! I wasn't going to push the issue until we were moved, but they had other ideas I guess. Ashton was going 2-3 times a day for about 2 weeks until last week when it started to taper off. Last week Ayden started going about twice a day and is now up to 4-6 times a day. Last week we bought some "big boy unders" and I think that is what helped him. SO, I let him wear them all day yesterday, except nap time and he did great! We still only have one potty and I am not pushing the issue, just getting them comfortable with the potty, etc. I think they are ready though so we will work a little harder once we get settled.
They have so many new interests lately! Jada (our dog) is high on the list! They also love their train set and the new airplanes Daddy brought home last weekend. The are getting more curious about numbers, letters and colors. They love to cuddle! They do LOTS of pretend play! This usually involves cooking. The other day they even pretended to give an imaginary Papa a drink! They also love to be in the kitchen with me and watch me cook. I always have to turn the oven light on so they can see what is in there.
They love to play in the water hose (aka: "hoa") and the splash pads! Last year they were terrified of these! It is so much fun to see them have so much fun in the water. I have a lot of childhood memories of my sister and I playing in the hose/sprinklers.


OK, now, about our never ending moving process...
On a positive note, our house in Oklahoma has finally closed!!!

Now we are faced with the daunting task of finding something in our budget, within certain school districts, with the square footage and features on our long list of must haves! Let me tell you, it has been a full time job! We have been to see about 40 homes and have looked at several hundred online. It started out as fun and exciting and has turned into a job I dread! I even have dreams/nightmares about homes!
I think we have our search narrowed down to 5 homes. We are going to go look at these homes on Saturday. Hopefully we will be ready to make an offer on something soon!

Potty training and paintingSand/Water table

Ashton painting

Ayden painting

watering our garden

Ayden painting

Ashton painting

Such a big boy

Ashton playing with slime

Ayden playing with slime

Ashton at the splash pad

musical instruments at the park

Ayden at the splash pad

My cool Cards fans!

Playing in the hose!

Going grocery shopping (notice the baby in the front of the cart!)

Happy Father's Day!

To a wonderful, loving, and fun daddy and husband! We had a great afternoon with you!


It was so cute to be able to have the boys actually say "Happy Father's Day" to their Daddy and Papa's this year! Can't wait to celebrate many more Father's day's with all the great men in our family!

Happy Father's Day!

Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?!

Errr...Ashton and Ayden, how does your garden grow? WELL, it grows much better when you don't have 4 baby bunnies living in your back yard!

A couple weeks ago we went back to Oklahoma to empty out our house (phase 5 of our move if you are counting!). Afterward, the boys and I stayed in Grove to visit with Nana, Papa and Gigi while Jeff drove the moving truck back to MO and unloaded it at yet another storage unit. After a few days in OK we made our way back to MO. I was so excited to get home to see baby bunnies hopping around in our backyard! I WAS excited, until I saw that our first red strawberry was nibbled on and half gone!! After closer inspection I saw that even all the white strawberries where nibbled on! I was so disappointed! BUT, the bunnies are SOOO cute that I can't even get too mad! I am not sure what happened to our tomatoes, but the plants had disappeared all the way down to the soil. I don't know if this is a result of the rabbits or some other "hunter" but, no homegrown tomatoes for us this year.

Ashton and Ayden love watering their flowers, herbs, fruits and veggies each day! I got them some small watering cans so they can do it with less assistance now. Now we anxiously await the day we can start eating from our garden. OH, better yet! We anxiously await the day we can plant our "garden" in our very own home garden instead of our make shift/temporary garden! Hopefully I can update more on that later, but I will wait until I have more solid information to share! ;)

Ashton watering the growing garden

Tomatoes - GONE!

This couldn't have tasted good - guess that is why they didn't finish it!

Can you see the bunny? On the left corner of the grass, by the patio and flower bed. (click to see the larger view)

So sad! :(

What is in a name?

Ayden

Ashton

When we got pregnant we never even looked at boy names because if we had a boy it would be Jeffrey Charles III. We found two girl names we liked, but decided if we went to the 20 week ultrasound and found out we were having a girl we would decide then. So, obviously, we didn't just find out we were having one boy, but two boys at the 20 week ultrasound! Now we were in a real pickle! Jeffrey III and Jeffrey VI?!? Uummm...NO! So, we started from scratch finding two boys names that we could agree on. Within a week we had settled on Ashton and Ayden - fairly quick and painless!

A few weeks ago Jeff was taking the boys out of the bath and said something about "Mommy". Ayden immediately repeated "Mommy". Up until this point both Ashton and Ayden referred to me as "Mama" and Jeff as "Dada". After this both boys would randomly call me "Mommy". Random has now turned into about 90% of the time. I loved when they first started calling me "Mama" so often, but I just may love "Mommy" even more!

Ashton and Ayden have an ever growing vocabulary but, their favorite words have always been, and continue to be...names. Ayden does something we affectionately refer to as "role-call". He just calls out everyone's name in the room. Sometimes he adds names to the list as well. Both boys also participate daily in a game where they call out someones name in a way that suggests they have something to tell you or a question for you. We usually respond by repeating their name or by saying "Yes?". To which they always respond with the name of the person again. This will go on and ON and ON. We always participate and think it is really cute! Lately Ayden has been changing it up a bit and will sometimes say "HI!" after my response.

The boys love their "Nana" and anxiously await her arrival home from work each evening! Lately she has also received a new name - "Nanny". They first started this the same time they started calling me "Mommy". I just figured they were playing with a new sound. But, it stuck to "Mama", but not to "Nana". All of a sudden this weekend they started calling her "Nanny" again and doing it probably 75% of the time.

We have referred to my mom as "Grandma". My niece called her "Amaw" (pronounced as if the gr were left off of grandma) when she was little and it kinda stuck, but we were just going to go with "Grandma". As usual, the boys had other ideas! They picked up on "Amaw" really quickly and after visiting them two weeks ago, they are talking about "Amaw" all the time now!

And then their is the issue of "Papa"! We have a "Pawpaw" and a "Popa". The boys don't seem to distinguish much between the two pronunciations though. (It should be interesting to see what happens when they are both in the same room for the first time since the boys have been talking!) Nevertheless, "Papa" is a commonly heard word around this house!

And now the new fav - "Amy"! I wish I could somehow portray over the internet how cute this is when the boys say it! Ayden insists on calling "Amy" almost daily lately - he will actually get daddy's phone out of his pocket while saying "Amy, Amy!!" in a very insistent tone!

I could go on and on with the stories of the boys and their use of names! Everything is about the people in their lives. If they see something that belongs to Nana they say "Nana". If they see a gift from Aunt Amy they point and say "Amy, Amy". When they want to be picked up they say "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, up!"

This is such a fun stage and I am loving every minute of it!

Coming to a close

Well, the birthday celebration week is now over and the 2 year check up is complete. That means this will be the final entry into this blog book. I was going to put the boys' first year of life into a blog book. I later decided to do the first two years since I didn't start the first year until they were more than 6 months old. So, here goes the final chapter in Double the Love the First Two Years!

So, here is the scoop on all our birthday celebrations!
After our great Lego party on Saturday we kept the rest of the celebrations more low key! Thursday, April 22nd (also Earth Day) was the boys' actual birthday. I wanted to fix all their favorites for meals so I started the day with banana pancakes for my birthday boys - they LOVED them! To celebrate both their bday and Earth day, we went to Powder Valley Nature Reserve. This is a part of the MO dept. of conservation. I didn't really know what to expect, but it was really neat. Because I wasn't sure what to expect inside I opted not to take the stroller in. This, of course, made the trip more enjoyable for Ashton and Ayden, and more difficult for mama! We got to see lots of animals, both real and stuffed, as well as puppet animals and pictures of animals. We saw lots of animal habitats as well. The reserve also offers classes and many hiking trails. We didn't do any of that today, but it was still a great morning! When we got home we watered our ever growing fruit and vegetable garden. The boys love to do this daily chore and check on the progress of our sprouts. For lunch we had another favorite - leftovers from a pasta dish the night before, cottage cheese, toast, strawberries and mixed veggies (not so much a favorite, but mama insisted!) Then, off then bed for a much needed nap! While they napped I made them a special birthday treat! After nap we played with some of their new toys before I had to start dinner. Of course, another favorite, sloppy joes in a biscuit bowl! After dinner we sang "Happy Birthday" (for at least the 100th time that day!) and presented the boys with their first ever brownies! Since we don't give them sweets and junk food this was another rare treat. In fact, we realized that this was only the second time they had ever had any chocolate. The first was their 1st bday cake. They both ate it, but they didn't seem to just be crazy about them and took their time eating the 1/2 a brownie given to them. After cleaning up the chocolate mess we gave them the remainder of their bday gifts. They are so fun to watch now as they tear open each of the gifts without any help! We got them two different sets of Melissa and Doug wood play food sets to go with their kitchen. They also got a starter wood train set and 8 Dr. Seuss books. Nana also had a book set for each of the boys.

During the day we talked a lot about it being their birthday and we sang happy birthday SO many times and I also told them about their birth and what was going on during that exact same time two years beforehand. By the afternoon they were both repeating "happy birthday", by the end of the day Ayden was freely saying "Happy Day!!". It was adorable! When I was telling the boys how the dr pulled them out of my belly by their feet first, Ashton, who was sitting on my lap, put his foot up to my belly as if to reenact the scene! They just get smarter and more fun each day!

The celebration continued as my parents, Papa and Grandma, arrived in St. Louis on Friday! Saturday morning we went to the Museum of Transportation where we saw lots of old cars and trains. They had so much more, but that was all we had time for today! Papa even bought them a train to go with their new train set! After lunch and a nap the boys were excited to open even more gifts! Gigi sent a two sided chalk and magnetic board with the alphabet as well as a cube toy with a play cube. Papa and Grandma brought the boys a shape sorting wood Noah's Ark with all the animals (times two of course!) and a Band in a Box set. These were both Melissa and Doug toys, causing us to refer to this as the Melissa and Doug birthday since that is the brand of most of the gifts they received! My parents had to return home on Sunday, so we spent the day relaxing at home. We have been so busy that this was the first day we have just stayed in and relaxed in more than two weeks.

This week marks the end of the second year with the two year wellness visit. We saw our new pediatrician is St. Louis and were very comfortable with him.

Here are the stats:

Ashton: In general under the 50th percentile
Weight- 26. 4 lbs
Heights - 33.5in

Ayden: Overall between the 50th to 75th percentile
Weight - 30.4 lbs
Heights - 34in.

So, now all the birthday celebrations are complete and I have come to terms (I think) with the fact that my babies are really no longer babies! I feel like they knew that they were crossing a milestone. They have changed a lot over the past week or so and are doing so many new things. They are talking so much more and are going up and down stairs so much better than just a few weeks ago! Ashton and Ayden both have a new independent streak as well. Ayden wants no help going up and down the steps and Ashton climbs up into his highchair/booster seat all by himself and wants no assistance.

Now, it is time to say good bye to the first and second years of life for my precious babies Ashton and Ayden. But, we are welcoming in the third year with optimism and excitement!

THE END

Keeping Busy

We have been so busy during the past month or so that I have not had time to share pictures of all of our adventures! So this is a random post about all the fun stuff we have been up to!

We planted daises, sunflowers, and an herb garden. We had so much fun the next week we decided to start growing a fruit and vegetable garden.

Painting with watercolors

Matching and sorting Easter eggs

Rice and Beans

Yummy...Spaghetti!

Silly Putty

Water Play

Building with daddy

Tunnel and tent play

Just being cute

We have also been enjoying the nice weather by playing in the yard and watching everything grow! We have been to several parks and have still gone to a few story times. There is so much to do in St. Louis, and we are just starting to be able to get out and enjoy it all. I can't wait to take the boys on more of the great adventures this town has waiting for us!