Twenty Four Months!

Our little guys are now two years old and this will be my last monthly update.  I will feel free to brag about them at different intervals however since this is my blog.

We had a fun afternoon at the local school yard several weeks ago when Mimi and Opa came for a visit.

In one sense it feels like A&W were just born but in another it feels like a lifetime ago.  Our lives have changed so much with the arrival of these little men that our former lives as DINKs (double income, no kids) seems like a long time ago.  I am grateful for all those changes however and that we have been able to experience the joy of parenthood.

Winston (left) and Abraham.

The boys are definitely all boy all the time.  They love to identify motorcycles, fire trucks, school buses and garbage trucks. They love hearing the sound of a fire truck and telling you what it is.  We have a lot of open land behind our back yard and it is heavily frequented by dirt bikes.  The boys love hearing them and seeing them.  On trash pick-up day the boys watch as the truck stops at every house at the end of our street and Winston cries when it is time for it to go bye-bye.  When I am out and about driving with the boys they can get fixated on a bus or big semi and are so disappointed that we are not going the same way as the other vehicle.  I think that they think that I can control where the bus goes and are so sad.  It is sweet but I feel so bad when they cry.

The boys are learning new stuff all the time and I am always so amazed at what they can remember.  They know their shapes such as circle, square, triangle, star, heart, etc.  They know colors but when I ask Abraham he will still frequently tell me that any object is green.  They know lots of letters and numbers.  They have begun counting small numbers of items they are playing with on their own, generally 1-4 but will go to about thirteen if I am counting for them.  They have an alphabet puzzle they got for their birthday and I was blown away by how many they could readily identify. I would say they know about 70% of their letters.  They can get mixed up sometimes like with an "H" and "M" but overall I am amazed at what they have soaked up. They remember little details from books, pictures and TV shows and it is absolutely true that kids are like little sponges.

We had the boys' two year well child exam last week and I was excited that the boys had gained back their weight from being sick.  The boys are doing great with Abraham in the 56th percentile for weight and 74th percentile for height and Winston in the 83rd percentile for weight and 76th percentile for height.  These are strong little Guddat men!

 Abraham
Birth-5 lbs. 15 ozs.; 18.75 inches

One Month- 7 lbs. 1 oz.; 21 inches

Two Months-10 lbs. 8 ozs.; 21.75 inches
Four Months- 13 lbs. 13.5 ozs.; 25 inches
Six Months- 15 lbs. 14 ozs.; 26.75 inches

Nine Months- 18 lbs. 12 ozs; 28 inches

Twelve Months- 20 lbs. 9 ozs; 29.75 inches
Fifteen Months- 23 lbs. 3 ozs.; 31.75 inches

Eighteen Months- 25 lbs. 2 ozs.; 32.75 inches

Twenty Four Months- 30 lbs.; 34.25 inches

Winston

Birth- 7 lbs. 9 ozs.; 20 inches

One Month- 7 lbs. 10 ozs.; 21 inches
Two Months-11 lbs. 13 ozs.; 23 inches
Four Months- 13 lbs. 13 ozs.; 25.5 inches
Six Months- 15 lbs. 13 ozs.; 26.25 inches

Nine Months- 18 lbs. 12 ozs.; 28 inches

Twelve Months- 21 lbs.; 30.25 inches

Fifteen Months- 23 lbs. 12 ozs.; 31.25 inches 

Eighteen Months- 25 lbs. 12 ozs.; 32.5 inches 

Twenty Four Months- 31 lbs.; 35 inches

Now that I am well into my second trimester and have more energy, it is definitely time to tackle potty training again. Abraham asks to have his diaper changed.  I swore up and down that I would never let my kid go that long being in diapers where they would ask to be changed.  Oh well, it just means he is ready.  Winston was going through a phase where he was telling me right after he pooped but now he is just shy and embarassed about it.  Again probably another sign that Winston is also ready.  They are good eaters and have a new found fondness for sour cream. I have explained that sour cream is to dip quesadillas in and not eat by itself but they like to swipe forkfuls of it.  They love olives and any fruit.  In general they love all condiments such as ketchup and barbecue sauce. They are doing really well with utensils but Abraham can be quite practical at times and just starts picking up handfuls and shoving them in his mouth.  Winston wants no help eating.  Even if he is struggling with something he wants to do it all by himself.

Abraham is speaking in more and more sentences.  His favorite as of late is "I don't know" even when I am quite certain that he does know exactly what I am asking him about.  He is a little parrot and he picks up language by just repeating what I say. I have noticed that he is learning to properly say "I" more and more instead of "you" when referring to himself.  He is stubborn as all get out which is both a blessing and a curse.  He loves to sit and color. While he gets distracted quickly, once he fixates on something there is nothing that can derail him.  Besides coloring, two of those fixations right now are having both of his Leo's (the stuffed animals) and playing with the plastic eggs from Easter.  Right now he is not a fan of having pictures taken of him because it takes away from whatever he is trying to do at the time.  Who has time to be in a picture when there are toys to play with?

Abraham's first lollipop given to him by a friend from church.  He has not had one since...too sticky.

Winston is a talker but it is not all intelligible.  He starts a speech with an identifiable word, goes on a string of gibberish and then says another word I can understand.  Amazingly I can often understand what he is trying to say by the two words I recognize.  No new development here but I think his obsession with vacuums is only getting stronger.  Anything that has batteries or  a power supply fascinates him.  The boys got play kitchen mixers for their birthday. Winston ran out the batteries in about two days and brought it up to me saying "Mama, mikser!"  I melt at how he pronounces that.  Anyways I knew the batteries were dead but I had to find a tiny little screwdriver to replace them and quite honestly the sound had been driving me crazy so I fibbed.  I said the mixer was broken and had to be fixed. Then there was a "More batteries, mama" with this sweet little look on his face.  I was busted.  He is a very independent kid and likes to do things all by himself. It can be a power struggle at times but I am glad to see he is definitely his own person.

Classic Winston face.

Right now we are at that age where the boys are either giggling, wrestling and clearly enjoying one another or they are bickering, crying and frustrated with one another.  It can be exhausting.  With two the same age that are trying to learn self-control and proper expression of their emotions, I feel like I am going to go crazy some days listening to the whining and fighting.  They have so much energy the minute their feet hit the floor in the morning and it is hard to keep up with them.  I cannot imagine it any other way however and we cannot imagine not having both our boys here with us.  They truly are a double blessing.  Thank you boys for giving us the two richest years of our lives!

A&W's Second Birthday Party

So it was not my intent to scare anyone with my last post. Just to be clear since I am behind on posts, we are all doing well and Seymour seems to be doing just fine.  We are thankful.  I am looking forward to sharing more about our little one on the way.

The week of the boys' birthday I was on bed rest and then majorly upgraded to modified bed rest a.k.a. "taking it easy" and making sure I rested a lot.  I was not allowed to pick up the boys which obviously was really hard.  I have two mama's boys that quite frequently say, "Mama, hold you" and of course there is nothing more I want to do than hold them and snuggle them.  We got through the week just fine however and I am grateful for my helpful husband who planned the menu out for the boys' birthday and put it all together.   This year's birthday party was intended to be way more low key than the boys' first birthday party.  With the scare with Seymour, it was nice that it was a lot less work and not stressful at all.  We did crockpots of turkey chili, fixings, macaroni and cheese, corn bread and green salad.  We had a birthday cake, cupcakes and vanilla ice cream for dessert. 

What made this year's birthday a lot of fun was that the boys understood much more what a birthday was.  Granted they do not understand what being born means but they understood that it was a special day, involved cake and candles and of course, presents. I would love to say that it was all because I spent weeks explaining about birthdays to the boys but I have to give credit to Yo Gabba Gabba.  Yeah, that is kind of embarrassing to say but it is true.  There is an episode where Brobee celebrates his birthday and apparently the boys locked in on that.  On the morning of their party, we told the boys that family and friends were going to come over later that day for their birthday party.  Abraham was so sweet and right away exclaimed, "Cake...candle...blow it out."  I am amazed that he understood that all on his own.  The boys got a birthday bear last year that sings "Happy Birthday," holds a cupcake and then blows out the lit candle.  The boys love that bear and that also totally made them get into the idea of birthdays.  Later that afternoon when the boys woke up from their nap and they saw the decorations and set up for their party, Abraham gushed, "Wow!  Birthday party!"  Yeah, it was heart melting.

It was a nice afternoon and evening with our family, neighbors and good friends.  It was cute because when the time came for the boys to blow out their candles, Abraham tried but could not figure it out.  Winston was less excited about the whole process but managed to blow them both out right away.

Lord willing, we look forward to celebrating many more birthdays with these little guys.

It is chili time!

The Funk children...great little friends.

Grateful for our friends and family that celebrated with us.

Uh-oh Abraham, your fork is upside down.

Winston is showing off his fork skills.

The people in the background are playing the game we came up with.  Different photos were numbered and the guests had to identify which boy was which.  It proved to be pretty hard.

Abraham was amazed by the presents.

Little friends playing together.

It was all about Disney's Cars.

Mama baked and decorated these...with a couple breaks.

Grampa and Winston.

Do you think Abraham likes his cupcake?

My sweet niece being held by some little friends.

Our little twin friends came to the birthday party.  We should have taken a photo before they were all worn out but this was as good as we could get.  These girlies are less then a month older than the boys and their mama and I met in our birthing class.

Twenty Two and Twenty Three Months!

So now that everyone is up to speed with why the blog has not been updated in a while (see previous post), I am going to cram in the boys' twenty two and twenty three month updates in before their birthday in two days. I have had no motivation lately for blogging but I wanted to keep these things up until their second birthday.  I love looking back on their monthly updates and all the changes that happen in such a short amount of time.  So even if it is late, I know I will cherish this post down the road.  I did write milestones down for these months so now it is just putting it together with some pictures.  As we are on the cusp of their birthday, we are in awe of having these little boys in our lives and what a joy they are.

Twenty Two Months

The boys are growing and look like little boys.  There is no baby there anymore.  They wear 24 month clothing and size 5 diapers for night time.  Those two year molars caused us some grief with sleep disturbances but they are back to sleeping through the night.  Hallelujah! They were even back on two naps a day for a little while because they were so tired in the morning that they could not make it to the afternoon for their rest.

The boys have two favorite movies, Disney's Cars 2 and Aristocats.  They can watch those two movies over and over again...and they do quite frequently.  They are at the stage where they tell me what is about to happen in the plot and will start singing along to the songs.  They love Bible songs and try to sing along with "This Little Light of Mine" and do the motions with it. The boys do not have a lot of sentences but I do notice that they are gradually building on that with more words and phrases.  Abraham will say short sentences like, "I did it!" and "I found it!"  They are both very affectionate and love to snuggle.  They will spontaneously say, "I love you" which is absolutely heart melting.  Eric and I love listening to their sweet little voices.

Abraham loves to draw.  He can draw a circle really well and beyond that he just describes what he is trying to make and I continue to encourage him in it. He is our little clown and goofball.  He loves to do things to make us laugh and then he will say "Silly...stinker!"  He LOVES to wrestle and is constantly trying to take down his brother.  He loves when his papa comes home from work and asks to wrestle right away.

Winston loves anything mechanical and that he can take apart and put back together. He loves building his blocks and anything that makes noise like the vacuum, coffee maker, blender, etc. He loves music and dancing.  If he has not met a certain quota of kisses for the day, he will ask me for a kiss.  I love that about him.  He has a sensitive spirit and is the type that will get emotional if he is tired, hungry, hurting, etc.

As the boys individual personalities come out more and more, Eric and I discuss how we have to approach certain things like discipline differently with each of them.  It is a definitely a humbling experience to be a first time parent to twin boys and working to do the best for each of them.  I know we have moments where we fail but we pray that the Lord's grace will just guide us in the day to day moments with these boys.

Twenty Three Months

This month has been rough with sickness.  We had taken the boys to the pediatrician when they first developed croup and they weighed in at more than twenty-nine pounds and were nearing thirty.  Exactly two weeks later after having viruses continue to work them over, they were each more than two pounds lighter.  That broke this mama's heart.  Thankfully Winston seems to be 100% again and Abraham just has a nagging cough that he is trying to get over entirely.  I am hoping they gain most of their weight back by their 24 month appointment.  Their appetites are back so now it is just a matter of fattening them back up.

The boys graduated to size 6 shoes and are pretty much back in diapers full time.  When I was on bed rest it became too hard to expect different care takers to potty train my kids.  The boys will still use the potty if I ask them to and I feel pretty confident they will pick it right back up.  I wanted to wait until the morning sickness had dissipated and I just had the energy and ability to tackle the project again. I am just taking a big step back and realizing there is no prize for having my kids potty trained early.

The boys have moved beyond those favorite movies and now are back into a Yo Gabba Gabba phase.  Sigh.  It drives me crazy but they love it and I know they do learn stuff.  They both love to dance lately and I am sure some of that is inspired by Yo Gabba Gabba.  They love music but are picky.  If I put on classical or instrumental music they are clearly unimpressed and continue to request music.  I try to explain that it is just a different type of music to no avail.  They still love bubbles, haul trucks, building blocks and anything mechanical.  They are also enjoying learning how to bounce a ball and learning to play by rolling a ball back and forth.  They are really into their naps lately and often tell me "Sleep...take a rest."  A lot of this has to do with them being sick and needing to sleep more during the day but it has continued now that they feel better. I do not know too many kids that ask for naps. 

Their language development has really improved and they are speaking in more and more sentences.  They understand how to ask questions now when they want to understand something.  Common phrases and sentences they say:

• Good morning/Good night.  
• Good to see you.
• See you later.
• What are you doing?
• I did/fixed it.
• I've got it.
• I don't know.
• Hey, look a cat, dog, cow, etc.
• Take a bath/rest.

They have a lot of concepts that they string together with multiple words so even if they do not speak in complete sentences we are understanding them a lot more. 

Abraham is a real character.  He lives to get a laugh and is a total ham.  If he knows something makes you laugh then he will keep trying to do it to get the same reaction.  His latest thing is finding the vacuum, swiping some dust with his finger and then running up to me with his finger pointing upward saying, "Try it!"  I then tell him that I do not want to try dirt and he giggles like crazy.  He is so pleased when he can make someone smile or laugh and tells me that he is silly.  He is impulsive and does not have an attention span for too many things.  He will ask for a cup of juice and by the time I get it for him, he has run off and gotten involved in something else. Then he will remember that he wanted his cup and starts crying.  He really enjoys coloring and that is something he can be absorbed with for quite a while.  He still loves to wrestle and is always asking mama and papa to wrestle.  I have not been able to oblige too much lately but thankfully his papa always does. Winston seems to enjoy playing more in that way with Abraham now and it is sweet to see.

Winston is both my sweet and strong willed child.  He loves to snuggle and has even become more affectionate with his brother.  He always has an "I love you" ready. He can be so determined and gets so frustrated when he does not get his way.  After some frustrating weeks and months, he has begun to realize when he is in the wrong with his attitude and will voluntarily say "I sorry."  It is a dear thing for a parent to see that heart change.  He still loves all things mechanical and loves to spin in circles.  He has a very dry sense of humor.  He will tease you with an absolutely straight face and then breaks into a wide smile when he knows you get his joke.  For example, we were all in the car and he was whining.  Eric told him to stop whining, gave a clear explanation of why the whining was wrong and then told him, "Say yes, papa."  This is a common practice that we do and it has really helped in our parenting to have the kids affirm what we are telling them.  Winston instead said, "Yes, mama."  Eric corrected him and again he said "Yes, mama." Eric looked back and saw that Winston was smirking.  Eric asked him, "Are you being a stinker?"  Winston smiled and started laughing.  Both of our kids use humor to diffuse a tense situation but they both do it in their own unique way.

To our almost two-year olds, you are a joy and absolute bright spot in our day.  We are loving this age you are at and wish we could freeze time.  It is hard to imagine you were our little newborns and we could easily hold you both in our forearms.  We love you Abraham.  We love you Winston.

In the Midst

I do not want to say that we are in the midst of a trial. Rather we are going through some growth as a family, both physically and metaphorically.  In less than two months we have been through quite a bit.  It was not traumatic or awful stuff but when it continually stacks up on you, it can begin to feel overwhelming.  We found out right after the New Year that we were expecting another baby.  We had about a week for that truth to settle in before I developed a subchorionic hemorrhage and was diagnosed with a threatened miscarriage.  My OB told me we had a 50/50 chance of holding onto the pregnancy.  I was put on strict bed and had to take progesterone to support the pregnancy.  Bed rest with two 22-month old boys is really hard to do. I had to completely rely on my husband, family members and friends to do the simplest tasks.  The boys did not understand why mama was not playing with them and taking care of them.  I really did not have too much hope of maintaining the pregnancy because I was told my cervix was partially dilated and the pain was immense.  We got through it one day at a time until finally it was  time to do an ultrasound.  We got to see our precious baby's heart beat at 8.5 weeks.  God is good.

The morning sickness with this pregnancy has been more intense than with the boys.  Besides the nausea, I have had stronger food aversions, dizziness and have felt so lethargic.  I do not want to be melodramatic but I have seen the outer limits of "I just want to die" morning sickness.  The boys were sick on Eric's birthday and they were diagnosed with ear infections.  Thankfully I felt pretty good on my birthday a couple weeks later which was a blessing because Eric had to be out of town.  The boys stayed healthy for a little while after the antibiotics and then came down with croup.  They were on the mend when Eric came down with a horrible stomach virus and became violently ill.  We assumed it was a food borne illness isolated to him because we were all fine and he had no respiratory symptoms like the flu.  We are pretty sure now it was norovirus because Winston came down with it three days later and then I came down with it two days after that.  Thankfully our Abraham was spared from the actual vomiting.  Winston was left so weak and dehydrated that he has been totally miserable with continuing fevers from the original virus from which he developed croup. Now the boys are just coughing and it seems that the fevers are completely gone.  We were at our pediatrician's three times in the course of a month.  Since there were no indicators of secondary infection we just had to let it runs its course.  There was not a lot of sleep for anybody at the time.  Sigh.

But this is not about complaining.  It is about surviving and even thriving as a family when things were difficult.  Some of the things I have been thankful for in the midst of all these situations:

1. The gospel-it put everything into perspective.  The things that felt like a big deal were viewed through the lens of eternity.  When we were weary we knew that the Lord was going to continue giving us strength.
2. My husband-for serving me selflessly and doing his very best to be a full time parent and a full time employee.  Rather than put a strain on our marriage we have been growing closer together.  That is all God's grace.  And God continues to bless Eric with growth in his job and we do not take that for granted.
3. Excellent medical care- from our time in the ER, to visiting with our OB and spending way too much time with our pediatrician, I have been thankful for caring practitioners, good insurance and God's provision to pay our portion of the bills.
4. People that care- for those that vacuumed my house, washed my dishes, did my laundry and took care of my boys.  People praying for us and with us.  We have been ministered to in a very specific way and I am grateful. 
5. Morning sickness is not forever-when it was at its worst I was convinced it would never end but I am days away from my second trimester and it has improved so much.  It feels good to be a little more human again.

There are so many things I am probably not remembering at the moment in terms of thankfulness but I know without a doubt that the Lord has been sustaining us the last couple of months.  We are grateful for our baby and our two boys and grateful that the Lord is watching over our health.  We are praying that March and the continuing months can be a little more relaxed and not quite so stressful.  No matter what the situation though we are blessed.

Christmas Evening

I know we are three weeks past Christmas and this is all old news but I wanted to share some more of our Christmas.

After we had our little family Christmas at home, we went to Eric's parents' house and celebrated with the rest of the family.  We had our traditional Italian dinner for Christmas and then we opened presents. Now that the boys are older, it made Christmas so much fun.  It is really special seeing your children get so excited about opening presents and spending time with their extended family.  We look forward to continually developing family traditions and the boys growing in their understanding of why we celebrate Christmas. 

My little Abraham as an elf.  This is a classic face he makes.

Winston with his Auntie Alicia.

Uncle Adam, Auntie Ally and little Geneva.

They quickly got into the idea of unwrapping presents.  They were trying to help by even opening up other people's presents...whoops.

Eric really loves his little niece.

These hats!  Just too cute!

Auntie Alicia with her custom made pillows courtesy of Auntie Ally.

Boxes are for climbing, right?

Mastering their paper ripping technique.

Individual ramekins of tiramisu.

I am so blessed by my family.

Modeling my new footie pajamas.  Perfect for a cold winter night!

Christmas Morning

I am FINALLY getting some updates in for Christmas.  I just have not been in a blogging mood lately.  Have you ever had that?  I think part of it is the emotional let down after the holidays are over.  It was such a special time for our family these last several weeks and now the decorations are taken down and it is back to the normal routine.

We had a nice low key Christmas.  Eric was off work for Christmas Eve which was really nice because we got to have an extra family day.  We just hung around the house and started working on making ladyfingers for our Christmas tiramisu.  Later in the afternoon, we headed out to pick up some last minute items at the store and then went to the Christmas Eve service at our church.  Christmas morning we slept in as late as the boys would let us and prepared french toast and bacon for breakfast.  As you can imagine, the boys love when they get breakfasts like that.  Afterwards we opened presents and continued to hang out at home until we headed over to Eric's parents' house to celebrate with the whole family. 

They totally love the fake fireplace thing for the TV.  They tell us "Fire...hot" and even stand back from it like it is dangerous.

Disney movie in the stocking!

They were more interested in playing with the rocking horse than opening presents.

They quickly became more interested in ripping off the paper.

They love that they can draw as much as they want and I love that there is no mess!

I love this thing and have used it everyday since Christmas.

Playing with their new cash register.  Winston is wearing papa's new hat.

We were not planning on doing too much by way of presents this year but we had a generous family member give us cash so we could buy the boys some things.   It made the whole shopping process a lot of fun because we could buy things we would not have otherwise. It was a special Christmas and we loved getting to experience it through our little ones' eyes.  In all of it, our Christmas was not about the presents but the celebration of Emmanuel coming into this world.  We are so thankful for our Savior, Jesus Christ.