I want a baby.....

Hannah was sitting on Nathan's lap as we were getting ready to pray and put the girls to bed. She said "I want a baby" his response "You have to be grown up before you can have a baby" "no, not my own" I said "you want us to have a baby" "yes, I want a baby when I'm still a kid, a brother or sister" This is from the child who, for the past couple years whenever we talked about adoption always said she did NOT want a baby, she wanted an older kid. Well, now that she got a couple not baby siblings and after seeing her 10 month old cousin, she has decided she does want a baby sibling. Nathan's response was "we just added two boys to the family, that's a lot right now. Mommy and I will talk about it. Maybe we'll get some, maybe we won't." The good news is she does love her brothers and wants to keep them, so she did get over her "I don't want brothers" stage as well! :-)

The park!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today we went to the park. It's a beautiful day! The girls have been asking for weeks to go to the park, so I decided why not? I have extra help :-) Now would be the perfect time. So I made up lunch for the kids and we headed out.

The girls love to climb on the web

When the sun was out it was great. 

Climbing up and over! The girls were scared to go over this last year.

Lunch was a little chilly, as the sun went behind some clouds and the wind kicked up, so we went home shortly after that, but everyone had a good time. The boys didn't want to go in the swings, but once we put them in them they got huge grins on their faces while swinging and I was also working on teaching them how to climb up the stairs and go down the slide on their own. Green Machine especially liked the slide!

Rollerblading....

Did I mention the girls started rollerblading in the house with Nathan and my skates? Well they thought this was a great idea and Hannah actually did super well, especially considering she was wearing skates that were way too large for her.

Crazy girl, maybe it's time to get her some that actually fit her!

Catching up....

I finally uploaded my pictures, can you tell? Here are some pictures from the birthday party we had three weeks ago with my parents, Becca and Lucas, where we celebrated the boys birthdays and Lucas' as well.

 Some how the girls ended up with presents, even though it wasn't there birthday! :-) 

My parents got them sketch books, so Hannah can do a story with her pictures all in one place. 

I ran out of candles....so we improvised! :-) 

And here's Nathan working on the rewiring to add the sub pannel...you know, just so there's some proof that he was actually working on it, while we didn't have power that morning.

Painting with Grandma

I mentioned my Grandmother came up for the shower this past weekend. Well, she also hung out with the girls a little and did some painting with them. Evie had bought a kit of magnetic butterflies that you paint from the AWANA store, so she opened those and they painted with Grandma.

I had a little canvas that my Grandmother used and she painted what she saw out the window, it was pretty cool. 

Evie, adding some glitter to her butterfly

Hannah hard at work!

Hats? Swim caps?

The other day Nathan was playing around with the girls and told them underwear was a hat with pink tail spots......so of course, while Debi, our birth to three therapist was here, the girls came down looking like this:

Yes, Hannah is wet, since they were in swim suits they figured they should get themselves wet in the bathroom. 

Evie even found her flip flops to complete her outfit.

Crazy Hair!

Yesterday was crazy hair day at AWANA. If there is one thing I can do it is crazy hair! So here are some pictures of the girls with their crazy hair. I think Evie had the most crazy hair there. Hannah, well we had to do something that would work for Easter and crazy hair, but we added some craziness to it!

Here's what we did for Hannah!

And here is Evie's craziness!

We took out the barrettes, but I think I might leave the rest in for Easter, we'll see how it holds up.

a hurt lip

One of the things about foster to adopt is that you are in fact fostering the kids....they're not yours...yet. Which means you're taking care of someone else's kids. So when one of these kids gets hurts you have to report to the actual department in charge.....so when a little boy falls and trips over a toy backwards and some how manages to bite through his lip (it either went through or he managed to cut in the inside and outside in the same spot) you can to call and explain what happened to someone. Which makes you feel like an awful parent when you call and say "I was just calling to let you know ....he fell backwards over a toy and cut his lip and he has a REALLY big fat lip now" and then you get the "okay, fell, big lip, got it" response you're like great....they're writing down what an awful parent I am! I know it really has nothing to do with my parenting. I know it's just that I have two two year old boys who are pretty typical two year old boys. But really, you don't want to know how many things I haven't called on that maybe I should have :-) I really don't think their social worker wants a daily injury report, so we'll just stick with the more major things for now. Oh, and if you're wondering, it was Green Machine who managed to cut through his lip.

sleepover

My in-laws are in town and have rented a house in the area. They came and spent the day with us at our house yesterday. They took the girls shopping while the boys had birth to three here. And then the girls got to go to Grandma and Grandad's house for a sleepover! They were super excited and had a great time. They got to have a "snack" at McDonalds (which really was dinner, because they didn't eat any of what I severed) and then had a good sleep (mostly, Evie did get lonely in the middle of the night, as if often the case, and had to find Grandma, and Hannah had a plugged nose....but other then that). Today they got to take a bath in the big tub at the rental house and from the sounds of it have way too much fun! And then they got to go out for lunch before returning home. Thanks for the sleepover Grandma and Grandad!

elevator fun....

Or not so much fun. I worked with the girls on taking the elevator at the library before the boys came. So when they came the girls were able to go up to their library programs on their own, by elevator or stairs. They liked the elevator, so that is what they'd take....until yesterday. They got on the elevator and it went down instead of up. Down to the basement. The girls don't have much experience with basements, they don't exist in TX where we were and we don't have one here. So the basement was a VERY scarey place. They made it back up to the first floor where I was and came out and said the elevator isn't working right because it took them down not up, well, we got Hannah up to her program and everything seemed fine. Until of course bed time when all the fear came out. We worked through it, it took a bit, but hopefully they'll make it. Hannah really was the only one scared, Evie is much better about these things. I took the girls down to the basement with me today. To show Hannah isn't that scarey, hopefully that will help, but I think she'll be taking the stairs for awhile still!

warming up

I think spring is finally coming. The girls were just playing outside for the past hour with no coats. It's 47 degrees. You think it's been cold a little long? I'm sure they'll be ready to go swimming once it reaches 60. They've been asking almost everyday when we can go to the beach.......we're not in Houston anymore..but the slightly warmer weather is nice and we're all looking forward to going to parks and playing outside more!

hair cuts!

Friday my Mom and Grandmother came into town and I decide one of the things I was going to attempt on Friday with my Mom's help was hair cuts for the boys. So Friday afternoon I cut the boys hair (and Evie's too) and Nathan came home and didn't notice. I think that's good right? It means it looked okay enough that it didn't bring attention to it. I don't think they look bad. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures from the hair cut.....for some reason my picture taking has dramatically decrease since having four kids....I'm trying to work on that...but every time I think, "oh, I should take a picture" I can never find my camera! AH!

showers....

As in baby showers....I've had my fair share of showers....four baby showers to be exact before we got Hannah.....way before we got Hannah. As in, we were supposed to be getting a boy before Hannah. I've had four baby showers for a child I never had and none for the ones I had....until Saturday. The people at church were very insistent on throwing a shower for the boys. I was very hesitant (I wonder why), but I finally agreed. I have to tell you, if my Mom didn't decide to come up and bring my Grandmother I think I would have called it off. I really don't like showers. The shower on Saturday wasn't bad.....I still don't really enjoy them, they're just not really my "thing" but that's okay. I did really enjoy having my Mom and Grandmother in town! It was a good time.

meeting birth-dad

Friday we went for our regularly scheduled visited and were told that the boys birth-dad was going to show up. This was a first, so instead of being there an hour and a half, we were there three hours. He did in deed show up and I got to meet and talk with him a bit. I have to stay the boys had a lot of fun with him. We sit in the DCF office and do school while the boys visit, so I can hear anything loud that goes on, like crying or laughing. Not much happened with their birth-mom, but with their birth-dad there was a lot of laughing. It was good, as it made the transition back home easier. The boys were both more relaxed, which was nice. I think to them it was just an hour and a half of focused attention by someone....it's hard to tell how much they really remember of him. He hadn't seen them since before Christmas. We'll see if he shows up again. There is no visit this week due to Good Friday, so he'd have to come back in two weeks.....

doctors and more doctors

Yesterday we got to experience the Children's Medical Center in Hartford. At least a VERY small part of it. And the boys previous foster Mom, Barb came to help us. I have to say Barb is not only the best foster mom in the world, she also knows WAY more about the boys than DCF. I learned yesterday (from Barb) yes, in fact the boys are identical (the social worker and DCF Nurse said they didn't know), we also learned other information about Little Boy Blue (who the appt was for) that DCF told us they didn't know. Anyway, it was a great appointment. The doctor walked in and said "Why are you here?" That was my question exactly! I had tried to get out of this appointment, but the boys social worker insisted it was needed. Fortunately we will not have to go back :-) Today both boys went to the eye doctors. It took us 40 minutes to be seen, and then we had to wait for 20 plus minutes for their eyes to dilate. They did not like the dilation at all, but they did pretty well over all and the girls did great! The girls did great yesterday too! The eye doctor said we don't have to go back for two years!!!!!!!!! I can deal with that! I'm currently pretending the  boys are napping now. Little Boy Blue managed to climb out of his crib. It didn't end well for him, so hopefully he won't try it again for a few more days at least. But I know once they do it once, even if it doesn't end well they will do it again soon. 

meeting you...and other random thoughts from the girls

This Friday Nathan and I are going to see the local musical the high school is putting on. The girls made some comment about us going to the movies and we explained it was a play. The following questions was "what's that?" we went to one that our church put on this summer so Nathan said "don't you remember we went to one at church, and I met you there" Evie "You met us there? You didn't know us before?"
When putting the girls to bed tonight Hannah asked the name of "Lexi's sister" in Texas. These were some people we'd met at the library, it took me going to my email to remember the names, but I came back with them and she got a huge grin and said "Yes, that's it! Do they still live in Texas?" I said yes, and explained that most people don't move that often. "why did we move?" "Because God wanted us to" Evie "then God liked when moved and it made Him happy"

monitored....

I was talking to Nathan the other day about how crazy busy I am. He asked what was making me busy, I said, well, we're going to the library three times a week, but that's only part of Tuesday and twice on Monday. The rest has to do with the boys. We have a visit with their birth-mom every Friday (or at least we have to plan for it, she does cancel sometimes) and then they have doctors appointments....we have three this week for them....then there's the birth-to-three therapy, which is great, but it's once to twice a week....then there are the visits from the social workers, because the boys social worker has to visit once a month to make sure they're doing okay. It was a quick visit last week, maybe half an hour if that, but you still have to plan it. Then there's the post placement services, which are there to help you, but really is just another thing to fit in. It gets crazy around here. And you sometimes feel as if everything you do is being watched....I wonder why? :-)

random thoughts from the past few days...

Nathan has been on a youth retreat for the past 24 hours. He should be home soon, but I figured while the girls are talking and laughing and not going to sleep I'd blog a little before he got home. Last night was not so fun, after Evie decided to attempt to do Hannah's hair in the afternoon by applying ample amounts of goo to it, the girls decided it was a good idea to experiment with lotion all over their room as well. When asked why they thought this was a good I did, I said "is it because you didn't get in trouble for Evie doing your hair?" Hannah replied "yes" they got in plenty of trouble for the lotion mess, thank you very much. After cleaning that up, bathing them and discussions about what to do if Mom and Dad both die (you know, because this is on every 4 and 6 year olds mind an hour after bed time) we finally got them in bed at 10:15 pm. The whole death discussion we've had many a time....I think the problem is I'm a realist. I refuse to tell my kids that nothing will happen to me...that would make things too easy :-) Before the chaos of last night I spent some of the day making baked good for Nathan to take on the trip. We didn't have a visit with the boys birth mom, so that gave us a little extra time yesterday which was nice. Today, the boys foster mom came to visit and help out. It was great to see her and have some adult company! This week I got out the little potty for the boys to start getting used to. Well, tonight before getting ready for bed I took off both their diapers and had them both sit on it. Green Machine actually used it!!! Little Boy Blue sat down, then he was down got up and went on the floor. That's okay, we're still in the VERY beginning stages of potty training. I'm not even sure Green Machine really knew what he did. Which brings to mind one of the twin questions I was asked this week. Well at WIC Little Boy Blue needed a diaper change. The women filing things into the computer then asked "they don't poop at the same time do they?" Really people, they're twins, two different people born at the same time, not the same person! I'm sure I'll be getting lots more fun comments as the years go by. Currently I constantly get asked if I can tell them apart.....again it's kind of a strange question to me, I mean I've known identical twins, and yes they can be hard for an "outsider" to tell apart, but their mom not be able to tell them apart? In other randomness it was snowing today and my girls wore bathing suits a majority of the day. I guess they miss Houston, where they could probably almost go swimming now! I guess that's it for now.....I need to go quiet the girls down!

Independent

Yesterday I was pretty tired, the boys had been waking up at 6 am since day light savings time started (they finally slept in today!) and I had been staying up way too late due to the time change. So when the girls said they wanted to put themselves to bed I was all for it! Nathan was at youth group, so there was no one to object. I supervised as they brushed their teeth, lotioned themselves (Evie used WAY too much) and then I read them their Bible stories and prayed with them. After that they gave me a hug and kiss and went and tucked themselves in and sang. They really did do a great job. Today, they continued working on doing everything themselves, although Nathan did lotion Evie :-) I also had them mopping today and yesterday they were vacuuming today....although Hannah handed over the vacuuming to Little Boy Blue....Evie also suddenly decided she knows how to fold laundry, like all of it, any kind. It's great!

Two Years Old

The boys turned two today! We took them in for their physical and found that Green Machine has an ear infections. After the doctors appointment we headed over to the library for our normal Monday afternoon library time. Upon returning home at just past five I had one child a sleep (Little Boy Blue), one with an ear infection (Green Machine), one who had been coughing and sneezing all day (Hannah) and one who was exhausted and ended up throwing up (Evie). I'm really hoping everyone will get healthy at the same time sometime soon! Anyway, on to the boys. Yesterday while walking down the stairs to head out for church Little Boy Blue said "ashes, ashes ...... down!" the .... was trying to say we all fall, but he doesn't quiet have that part yet. He also now says Evie and Amen and the end of praying :-) Green Machine is able to copy a whole lot of the random words I have him repeat back to me. which is good, he's not as into singing as Little Boy Blue. Oh, have I mentioned that Little Boy Blue is working on learning his alphabet in sign? He can do the letter D and is very proud of it and does Z as well and a few other random ones in the middle. He loves any song that has motions with it.
Their official weight was 28.5 lbs and their height was 35 inches.....I think the height was a little off on the tall side. Their heads were the only thing different, as Green Machine was 50 cm and Little Boy Blue was 51...but none of the measurements were very exact. They have big heads....my girls have very small heads. When we first got the boys it was hard to figure out how to get shirts on and off over their heads, I never had that problem with the girls :-) Anyway, that's a quick update on where we're at. Hopefully I'll have pictures up from the weekend soon.

Daddy Time

Last Saturday the girls got lots of Daddy time. First they spent some time with him at Home Depot doing their monthly kids workshop. Then in the afternoon they went to a birthday party with him. It was at the local self serve frozen yogurt place. The girls were very excited about it. They enjoyed picking their flavors and toppings!

Everyone enjoying frozen yogurt!

Why are you taking a picture of ME?

Hey Evie, what are you looking at?

Unfortunately Daddy was not so into the picture taking, so I only have these three pictures to share...but they all had a good time. They also did some really nice coloring. And if I knew where the pictures were now, I'd take a picture and post it, but I don't know where they went. :-)

More SNOW!!!

We have about six more inches of snow right now at our house. It was snowing most of the morning. Nathan had problems getting out of the neighborhood when heading to work today, so he and my Dad shoveled the driveway and Nathan also helped discipline the girls. They were outside playing and having a great time.

I then checked in with them to see how their fingers and toes were doing, because they don't think about theses things while playing, they realized they were cold and decided to come in. Something happened on their way into the house and they started hitting each other. So Nathan sat them down and talked with them and they gave them his version of the "get along" shirt. Unfortunately by the time the shirt went on they were functioning much better so they just thought it was hysterical. 

a break....

There was snow in DC yesterday...the government was closed. My parents came up a day early!!! YAY! We have been enjoying having my parents around for the last two days. Everything on our schedule so far has been cancelled, it's snowing and sticking now, so we'll see if things tomorrow are cancelled. But we're looking forward to a relaxing low key weekend with family. In good news, I bathed the boys today and they didn't cry at all. This is big improvement. I may have done things like dump water on their heads to rinse them the first time I bathed them and Nathan may have taken away my bathing license, but I did it while he was at work, and I did both of them together and they had a great time :-) The girls are soaking up the extra attention from my parents and my parents are adjusting to the fact that there are two year old boys who have lots of energy and change the dynamics of our household. :-)

library time

The boys started their first library session today. The program is called lap sitters and they have two groups that run every Monday. Both groups have three sets of twins in them. Crazy! Anyway, it was pretty crowded and the boys freaked out a little when we walked in, but they did pretty well over all. That was just the beginning to our crazy day. On Mondays we will be at the library twice, once first thing in the morning, and once an hour before closing until about closing time for Hannah's program. Evie does something Monday afternoons in general too, but didn't today because she's not feeling well. Like she's had a sinus infection FOREVER and been on four different antibiotics and it's still not going away and she's coughing all night not feeling well. We brought her to the doctor after lunch today. They put her on an antibiotic shot. We are praying that works because it's been bad. I think it's the same sinus infection she's had since Christmas. And Hannah....well Hannah's might not be gone either....she's still complaining of being dizzy. I'm going to see if I can just add her on to Evie's appointment for tomorrow. Fun times I'm telling you! Everyone asks how the boys are doing, and really truly they are doing great. They are wonderful.....it's just the girls haven't been so good so the parents haven't been getting much sleep. But it has nothing to do with the boys! Speaking of boys. Green Machine has decided he's a big boy and wants to go straight up and down the steps standing up in the middle of the steps. He does pretty well at it, he's been practicing a lot. Little Boy Blue did that at first, but I think he decided it's faster to hold onto something, so he does. Another example of Green Machine and how he thinks of himself. He points to a boy at the library who was probably four or five and says "baby, baby" I said "where's the baby?" and he repeated baby, I think said "No, that's a boy" and did the sign for boy and he copied that and said "boy" the boy thought it was cute and was excited when I used the sign for boy as well, so it was all good!

the words keep coming...

Like I've said, both boys are learning new words every day, but today Green Machine busted out a lot of new words, I'd say at least ten, which is a lot for one kid in one day. As he was drinking milk at dinner tonight he pauses and said "cold" not only had I not heard him say cold before, but he actually used it in context! I thought that was pretty impressive. Both boys have also picked up the word "bite" as in "do you want a bite?" and they'll respond with "bite, bite" and sometimes please too :-) There was also great progress made in ring around the rosies today! The boys now hold hands so there is a completed circle. This is the first day they've done that. Little Boy Blue now does everything, the thunder, lighting, falling down, standing up. Green Machine isn't too into the thunder or lighting, but that's okay.
Yesterday we had a visit with the boys birth mom, it takes about an hour to get to the visits and I had the privilege of listening to the girls recite an entire Psalty CD on the way there (thank you Rachel! they LOVE Psalty!). It was very amusing, and cute, and nice to hear them singing as well! Anyway, we walked in the door of DCF and before they buzzed us in Green Machine realized where we were and wanted nothing to do with it and wanted to leave. When their birth mom showed up Little Boy Blue ran over and had her pick him up, but I had to pry Green Machine off me. The boys have gotten very good at saying "hi" and "bye" and when I came back to get them they were both ready to go, they both started saying "bye" immediately, it was kind of cute, but it's sad too. Sad that they don't have a better relationship with their mom.