Fun with Uncle Luke

Sami is in Paris for fashion week (luckee) so we got to spend some time with Godfather Luke last weekend. The boys had a blast with their sports-watching guy time, and when they saw Luke in the morning, ran over to him at the couch. They also got to face-time with Sami!

In the pics below, the boys are shirtless because they had just eaten dinner and I finally started taking shirts off before giving them pasta to avoid stains. No more bibs!

1.5 year olds

Ben & Jack are a year and a half years old - that seems so big! Can't believe my babies are growing up so fast. They went in for their 18 month well visit yesterday and did great! Their Apgar scores were off the charts again, which makes us feel good about their development. Smart little dudes. More importantly, Dr. D. was pleased with their developmental progress. :)

Poor babies have had allergies and a little cough, so their eyes are red-rimmed. I hate that they have allergies like their mom - yuck. On the plus side, only one shot plus flu shot today.

Ben: 24 lb.s (30%), 32.5" head (50%), 18.5" length (25%)
Jack: 23 lb.s (18%), 32.5" head (50%), 18.75" length (40%)

Family visit

We were lucky enough to get a visit from Auntin Erin last week! However, I don't know what's wrong with me and I didn't take any pictures. Poor Erin - her visit happened to be timed with the boys' first week of school, so they were suffering some major separation anxiety. I am baffled by this, as they have always done SO well with Nanny Mercedes, but I know it's a normal toddler stage, so we are being patient. Anyway, here is the only one we got with Erin over the weekend.

Seriously? Not a single one of her holding the babies? They did warm up (of course!) and loved showing off for her and playing with her. Auntin Erin's animal noises puts mine to shame, and she is hereby banned from reading anymore "noise" books when she comes over, lest when the boys start talking, they demand the crazy horse neigh that she does.

We enjoyed our visit with Erin, and then Gigi & Poppy came to visit with cousin Connor! The boys had so much fun running around the house following Connor. He is very sweet with them and I love watching them play together. And of course they always love time with their grandparents :) We went to the Science Museum together and loved it - such fun.

At one point, Poppy "helped" Gigi into the ball pit and the boys attacked!

And here are a couple of the boys. Love them!! Missed little Cooper (and heard he really missed his brother)!

Sillies

I snapped a couple of photos of the boys last week playing in boxes. When I get my "Toddler Busy Boxes" out, Jack's favorite part is the box - he loves to get inside, carry it around, fit the lid on, and take things in & out. When Ben decided that looked like fun, too, I got out a second box for him. What a couple of silly boys I have.

 

Labor Day Weekend

We had a great Labor Day weekend! I love when we get extra family time with J home, so it was a really nice 3 days.

Saturday was of course the first UT football game, and I am happy to report that Uverse now carries the Longhorn Network, which makes my husband very happy. We had J's family over to watch the game and it was really fun. Of course, Jonathan wasn't entirely pleased that Ben & Jack have learned to "Sic 'em" before they've learned "horns up" (or whatever), but we have a whole lot of "bear" pictures in our animal books and not too many longhorns, so, sorry babe. I have a cute video that I'll upload later.

Sunday we had dinner with J's family and had a lot of fun at the Shops @ Legacy - any time the boys can walk, they have a blast :)

Monday we decided to take the boys to the Children's Museum and it was so much fun! We got a family membership so we can go back, which of course we will because J&B loved it!

And that was about it! When is the next 3-day weekend? :)

First Day of School!

Today was Ben & Jack's first day at Mother's Day Out. They looked so cute in their little first day outfits and tennis shoes we finally got them last week.

It was really hard leaving them, but I fought back the tears. Poor Ben & Jack didn't understand why we were leaving them - I hate that it seemed so traumatic, but I know that in the end this will be a great experience for them. I did get a call later in the morning letting me know that they were doing fine and had really enjoyed the "abc" song. :)

On their way inside:

 

 

Meanwhile, I have gone grocery shopping, cleaned the house, got dinner prepped and ready to pop in the oven later, and now I've blogged. And I'm about to leave to go pick up my sweet boys, which makes me one happy momma. :)

Weekend in Houston

Last weekend we finally made it down to Houston to visit with Jonathan's grandparents, who've recently moved there from Branson. The last time we got to visit with Granddad Ralph & Grandma Millie, the boys were just a few months old, so I'm sure seeing them now running around and wrestling was quite different! The boys loved seeing them and the first night, Jack gave kisses to first Grandma Millie, then Granddad Ralph. We weren't quick enough with the camera to get him kissing Millie, but did catch the second sweet kiss!

Playing on the couch with Grandma Millie & Christopher

Kisses for Granddad Ralph

Fortunately for us, we got to stay at "Hotel Hickey" - Jonathan's Aunt Ali & Uncle David, who are incredibly gracious hosts. They made us so comfortable and put up with our two crazy boys - crazier than usual, even, and it was nice to spend time with family. Also, cousin Christopher has now pretty much become Ben & Jack's favorite person in the world, so an entire weekend with him was total bonus for our boys. Seriously, when they would wake up in the morning or from naps, they would run down the hall and stop at the door to look for everyone (read: mostly Christopher). In fact, Sunday morning they got up earlier than him and paused at the door, then turned around and looked at us like, "where is he?" They looooved running around and playing with Christopher's way-cool toys and wrestling with him. He is an amazing kid, and was very sweet with them all weekend.

They had so much fun playing in the backyard on the zipline - who knew a 1.5 year old would love a zipline so much? And who knew what a good workout it would make for Daddy, right J? And we got to go swimming with Christopher at their racquet club, which the boys really enjoyed too.

On Saturday morning we got to tour Grandma Millie & Granddad Ralph's new place, which was really nice, and although Ben was veeeery interested in her china cabinet, they had fun and refrained from breaking anything. Whew! Then they got to go outside to the koi pond to feed the fish - it was awesome! Jack sampled some of the stale bread, but mostly he threw it to the fish. That was really fun and memorable. We enjoyed the whole weekend and were glad to spend time with family! 

Aunt Ali swinging Ben on Christopher's swing like a big boy!

Jack was very interested in the pine tree bark