Milestones and Words to report!

As we draw near to their 2nd birthday, I actually have very exciting news to report on the "milestones" front!


ALI POOPED ON THE POTTY!!! She actually was saying "poop" while in the bathroom so I whipped her clothes and diaper off and she pottied in the toilet!! (March 3, 2007) I tried to make a really big deal out of it and make her feel really special. She even got a book read before nap as a treat!

They like to share a kiss!

Martin and Alison both can jump with both feet leaving the ground a bit.

They can eat with a spoon relatively well. Martin's a little more coordinated in that effort.

They have started trying to walk backwards

They try to do front rolls

They walk up the stairs using steps vs. crawling (while holding onto the railing).
They attempt to sing twinkle twinkle little star.

Martin is a little on the car crazy side. He showed us last summer that he had an affinity for wheels. But now he's taken it to a new level. He takes his little Hot Wheels and rolls them on all different surfaces for very long stretches of time. He studies what happens when the car goes from one surface to the next. He studies the wheels as they turn. He doesn't want stuff in his way in his crib (which he loves being in) so that he can freely roll his chosen cars on his sheet and watch what's happening. (We are really curious to see where this obsession takes him in life!)

Alison loves to get his goat by taking his car (ripping it right out of his hands) and running. She wants him to chase her. I guess this is her way of getting his attention away from the car. He runs after her and never just grabs it back. (He will push or hit her on occasion, but not all the time.) She goes from happy to wanting something with a screech and a cry on a dime. If her wishes aren't met with immediate urgency, she's ready to let you know! Martin just repeats over and over and over and over and over till he's satisfied.

We have implemented a time out system, but we haven't used it too terribly much yet. Potty training will start more after their well-baby visit on March 14th. I'm letting them get on the potty before or after baths for a min. to see what happens. I am going to stash some treats upstairs so that if they do go potty I can give them a little reward quickly after they perform. We'll see what the pedi thinks of those ideas.

Words:
Eat
milk
water
ham
cookie
feet
hands
wash
wet
poop
potty
gross
garage
truck
choo choo
baby
mommy
daddy
grammy
grampy
grandma
auntie
*pants - attempts are made with this one*
*dress - attempts*
crackers
NO
please
*thank you - sounds like, but not exact
*Bless (used appropriately when a sneeze happens)
HEY!
Hi!
(Making kissy noises)
Love you
Giraffe
Puppy
Peacock
Cock-a-doodle-do
ball
blocks
up
happy
I
eye
ear
mouth
nose
wans (swan)
(s)now (can't really say S at the beginning of a word
Bonk
oopie
Ali
Martin
Moon
Balloon (boonies)
Bluey's (blueberries)
Breakie (Breakfast)
Lovie
Monkey
Night Night
wheel & wheels
cheese
apple (pretty much all fruit is named apple)
fan
pool


I am sure that I am forgetting stuff. I hope I get back to edit this list when I remember!!

February, Must be Dallas....

A traveling we will go, a travelin' we will go! Jim had some training to attend in Dallas and I took advantage of the opportunity to go with him and take the kids. I hadn't really spent much time in the area, so we tagged along and I met a couple of Twinstuff friends!

The trip started with a bang. We were upgraded to First Class for the flight, then the rental car agency upgraded our compact car to a mini-van (once he saw the mountain of stuff we had he took pity on us). We arrived at the Embassy Suites at about 12:15 a.m. with two babies asleep in the back. This is where things took a turn for the worse.

Rewind a week. I had reserved 2 cribs for our room but the hotel RAN OUT!!! So much for a reservation! Jim, always the problem solver, finds a resolution. At 1:00 a.m. he heads to another Hilton property to pick up a couple of pack-n-plays. 2:00 a.m. everyone is safely in bed and the neighbors in the hotel can now go back to sleep as well. (Major meltdown ensued after arrival!) The hotel took very good care of us and comped our entire stay (good for the company I guess!) and we received very good service in general for the whole stay.

The kids loved seeing the swans ("duck!") and REALLY loved the glass elevators that we rode in to get up and down.

We met up with a fellow Twinstuff Mom of Twins at her beautiful home with her twin boys, who are nearly 3. That was really fun to meet an online friend in person. But that's not all! I met up with one of the triplet mom's as well. We went to the Ft. Worth Zoo - which is amazing!! They have wonderful habitats for the animals and lots of water integrated into the landscape! It was really cool and the weather was WONDERFUL! About 80 degrees that day!!

Jim and I visited the Dallas Cowboys home, TX Stadium. We took a tour of the facilities and got to go down to the field as well. The Arena team was practicing. That looked like a fun football game to see!! The whole field (all parts of it) are made from recycled tires. The "grass" is threaded piece by piece into the field. The blades are colored BEFORE they go into the field. It is a cushy surface which is really nice. The little debris that you see flying then they are playing is bits of tire as well. There....now you learned something ;) .....

One of the highlights for the kids was the play area at the Galleria. They were able to run around and climb and play. They started saying "play" quite a bit!!

Martin and Alison began learning to stay with me a bit when we went outside to get in the car. They aren't reliable yet, but it was a great place to work on it.

Now we get their 2nd birthday taken care of. All I know so far is it will be an ELMO theme!!

If it's January, it must be Hawaii

Make an on-line slide show at onetruemedia.com

Our trip to Hawaii was fantastic! 19 days in paradise. I'm pretty sure my parents needed a week to recover - at least! We managed to see and do quite a lot with the generous help of my parents watching the kids! :-)

Jim's job changed while we were gone. He's now back in post sales delivery (sounds simple, right?) and will begin traveling quite a lot again. :-( . The kids and I will join him week after next in Dallas, so we'll get to see him a little!!

Hawaii - aaaahhhhh! Green! We hadn't seen the color green in Colorado for a month before we left! It was unbelievably great to wear shorts and sleep with windows open in January! We managed to get to Pearl Harbor where I got a very much needed lesson in history! It was interesting, fascinating and sad!

We went whale watching and swam with dolphins (no touching). They jumped and spun for us, but the whales didn't breech for us, so that's too bad. But all in all a really great few hours on the water!!
We took the kids to the beach for the first time. Alison didn't want the sand touching her feet at first, but as you will see in the pictures - she got over it! The day we took the kids to the beach they got sick on the way home. It was awful! We were on a 2 lane hwy with a max speed of 35 and heavy traffic! We pulled over 5 times to clean up the poor strapped in kids!! An hour or so drive took more than 2 hrs....ICK! Our first experience with that!

We watched the sunset a few times and Jim and I managed to sneak away for a night in Waikiki! It was a great time! We went swimming at the beach and played in the waves. (No surfing this time, we didn't want to make anyone look bad ;) We found a good restaurant and had a nice dinner.

The kids are pretty darn good travelers.

We managed to have an extra seat between us for all but one flight! That helped quite a bit with space on the plane and let the kids climb up and down on the seat and nap etc. We did many laps around the cabin as well, but overall - very good travel!! I guess the more we do it with them, the better they'll be at it! We have seen some pretty impressive melt off around here in the past few days and we actually have grass (dead, but it's there) in our front yard! WHO KNEW?!