Uh-Oh! Pink Monkey

The babies have said many, many words, but as often as they've said the words in the right context, they've also said them incorrectly. For instance, they'll say "Mama" or "Daddy" and look us in the eyes and make us melt. Then two seconds later they say "Mama" or "Daddy" and look at a frog, dirt or anything else but us. We didn't count any of these as real words until a few weeks ago (yeah, we're slow updating the blog, sorry). Dylan started using a word correctly. And what is this first word? "Mama"? No. "Daddy"? No. "Love"? No. Dylan says "uh-oh" when something drops. Sometimes he says it when he drops something and he'll say it if someone else drops something. Occassionally, he even says "uh-oh", then reaches for his sippy cup or something else to drop.


They're both saying "baby", "bye-bye", "thank you" and "Daddy" sometimes, but don't consistently use it correctly.

The four of us were in U.S. Toy in Plano and walked down the stuffed animal aisle. Kiera went crazy over a pink monkey in the store and I'm sure you can guess that we bought it for her. She didn't let go of it for the next 24 hours! She doesn't have to have it all times and she's never cried for not having it, but if she sees it, her eyes light up and she races to get it. When we go into the room and she's still asleep, she's usually clutching the monkey. In the morning when we get her out of the crib, she'll either stand up holding the monkey; or she'll stand up, realize she doesn't have it, look around to find the monkey, grab it and stand back up again. When she does grab her monkey (wherever she is), she clutches it tight to her and often kisses the monkey. Okay, she really gnawls on its face, but we call it kisses.

Here's a picture of Kiera happily clutching Pink Monkey. We'll get a better picture of the monkey posted soon so you can see what it looks like. But most of all, we love seeing Kiera's smile when she has it.

Kiera and Pink Monkey

We tried to see if Dylan would go for a stuffed toy, but he didn't want one. We he thought he did because he got excited over a stuffed dog. We gave it to him and he threw it on the floor. We didn't buy it.


Coming soon:
- Adventures at Owens Farm and Pumpkin Patch
- Family Vacation through Five States with 8 People

First Birthday!

Dylan and Kiera turned 1 on September 25th and we had a small celebration with Maddy's parents that night. Then on Saturday, the 27th, they had their real first birthday party. It was in Celebration Park in Allen and it was great. It's a huge park with numerous soccer and baseball fields. We reserved a pavilion near the slides, swings and spray park.

The Splash Park

Maddy and nephew Preston on the front see-saw. Andy, Todd and Kiera on the far see-saw.

Kiera's Smash Cake

Dylan's Smash Cake

Everyone has to cry on the first birthday!

We discovered that Dylan loves icing and Kiera loves cake, not a big fan of icing like her brother.

Drew, Kiera, Dylan & Carson

Drew was born six weeks before the twins and Carson was born six weeks after the twins. What fun and trouble are these kids going to get into? No one knows!

Fun Pictures

Fun times at a birthday party in Wylie Bounce House

First time swinging at Heritage Park

How cute are these little munchkins?!

First Year Portraits

Today we had pictures taken with Kiddie Kandids (inside Babies-R-Us in Plano). Unfortunately Dylan wasn't feeling well, but the little guy did a great job of sitting for the pictures and was able to provide some smiles for us. Kiera really enjoyed the photo session.

Swallow Study

Praise God!

Dylan did awesome on his swallow study today. As long as he drinks from a bottle with a slow flow nipple he does NOT have to have thickener. Unfortunately we have to go out and buy new bottles but we don't care! The only time he will have to have thickener in his bottle is if he drinks from the Avent bottles we already have but even then it is half the amount of thickener from before.

The speech therapist wants him to continue with therapy since he has made this much improvement. We are hoping to continue therapy here at our house rather than driving all the way to the hospital 3 days a week. We should find out later this week if insurance will allow a change in location.

Thank you everyone for your thoughts and prayers.

Tomorrow (Mon the 25th), the twins will be 11 months old. We can't believe how fast it has gone. We're already planning their first birthday party. It feels odd to be parents, especially of two kids that are almost a year old.

Tomorrow, Dylan goes in for his swallow study to see if there are any improvements since the beginning of therapy. This will be same test he failed which required the tube down his throat and all his food to be thickened. He shouldn't need a tube again, but we also don't expect him to pass it perfectly as he is still having difficulty with thin liquids (water) during therapy. Even if he doesn't pass on thin liquids, our main goal is that he does better than the last swallow study and hopefully decrease the amount of thickener we have to put in his bottle. One scenario that would be great is that he passes the test on formula consistency and then we wouldn't have to worry about him getting hold of Kiera's bottle or making sure that any caregivers give him ONLY his bottle. It is rather stressful leaving him in daycare, nursery or with anyone and praying that they don't forget and give him the wrong bottle. As an example, after he got tubes put in his ears last Friday, the nurses gave him a bottle and a half of pedialyte (a very thin liquid) without asking or telling us. To make matters worse, they had him lying on his back (he has to be at a 45 degree angle or higher to eat). So there's a great chance that he aspirated (the fluids went into his lungs) most of that feeding. We will try to update blog tomorrow with results.

On to happier and less stressful things. Dylan and Kiera are having a lot of fun playing together. Whether they're at the house, preschool or the church nursery, they stick together. They separate some of the time, but for the most part, they play follow the leader. If we're at the house, they'll make laps crawling from our living room through the kitchen, dining room, entry hallway and back in to the living room. They'll play some and then take another lap. Even with all the other kids around at preschool or church nursery, they would rather stick together. We want them to learn to play with others, but they have time for that later. Right now its too cute that they like each other that much.

Sorry, no pictures this blog. We will hopefully post pictures soon.

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Teething, Sitting and Walking

The babies had a big week! They're always making progress, but they worked overtime this week.

First, Kiera started teething. She has one bottom tooth coming up. It started in the middle of the week, and today it finally broke the skin.

Thursday, Dylan started sitting up on his own. He's never looked like he was trying before, so we weren't expecting it. And even when he does sit up, he doesn't look like he cares. He just sits up like its something he's always been able to do. The first time he sat up was right in front of his dad, but Todd was working with Kiera and didn't realize what was happening until it was too late. Dylan is apparently punishing his dad and won't sit up when Todd's in the room any more.

Saturday, Kiera took her first steps. She walked holding her dad's hands all day Saturday while mom was at work and then showed mom when she got home! She's also started pulling up now on the furniture and us.

Picture-Mania part 2

Here's part two of us trying to catch up on pictures.

Kiera fell asleep playing

Dylan is one mad baby!

Dylan enjoying his first day without the feeding tube. There's nothing he enjoys more than meal time.

Dylan's having a blast with three bottles at once!

...well, all was fine until his dad tried to pick up the empty bottles. Dylan got very protective and maintained the serious, suspicious attitude for a while. He's still hoarding bottles weeks later.

Kiera decided to pull of Dylan's diaper. He doesn't usually care what she does as long as she doesn't poke him in the eye, give him CPR chest compressions (she's tried) or of course, steal his bottle.

Dylan and Kiera enjoy swings even after a five hour car ride