At the park with Mummy, Mumma and Aunty Linda!

Last week we made the one hour drive to Aunty Linda’s house. We had a great day playing with her cat, in her yard and we went for a short walk to the local primary school. As it was school holidays (spring vacation) there was no kids around, and my little men got the playground all to them self!

 

Ethan and Mummy with his new favourite game….. playing shop. Ethan sells Mummy all sorts of things from icecream and lollies to  cars, trains and planes. I pay him in bark chips at the price he sets (usually $2) and he gives me other bark chips pretending to be all sorts of things. He thinks this is a wonderful game, and this shows us they start of their blooming imagination and the beginning of “pretend play” A wonderful developmental milestone…. yay for Ethan.

Both boys are dressed in the same clothes today (sorry about that!)

Ben is in the blue hat, Ethan in the red hat. Thanks again to our wonderful friends in Texas who sent us these baseball hats. They are well used, and well loved. Playing hide and seek. – Finding Aunty Linda behind the tree.

A very warm spring day, and a lot of fun had by all!!

iPhones and Australian Water Dragons

 

Ethan (and Ben’s) favourite position. Sitting on the bench, playing with the iPhone! Gorgeous Ethan Taking pictures of Mummy with iPhones.  I find it quite amazing that my 2ys olds can turn on, unlock and play my iPhone. Load their games and take pictures and videos. They also love “helping” me play scrabble!
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And then randomally, as they weather warms up, our lizard life is returning. We have a whole bunch of regular skinks and 2-3 Australian Water Dragons living in our yard. We have been living in this house for a year now, and when we first moved in, these 2-3 water dragons were tiny little babies. They could have fit in the palm of your hand. It was interesting watching them grow last summer, and now as they weather warms, they are back, and they are bigger!

From nose to tip of the tail, they are about 30cm long now! The picture below doesn’t show the full length of it’s tail…. it’s very long.

Feeding Sam

Sam is the name the boys have given the bush turkey’s that come to visit us. There are at least 4 different birds that come, but to make things easy, they are all called Sam!

The boys enjoy putting bird seed out on the grass for Sam(s) to eat. The Sam’s are getting a little bold, and have been known to scratch at our back door, peck on our back door, and even fly at the door and bash into it in order to get our attention to feed them! They are not timid at all, and get a little too close for my liking. I am quite sure they would eat seed out of our hands if we let them, but that beak looks a little pointy for my liking.

Far too many pictures of the boys sprinkling bird seed on the grass. They were having so much fun I just kept snapping, and ended up with so many cuties……. especially HEAPS of Ethan right at the end. Too cute!

Ben in the dark blue shirt and blue hat. Ethan in the red.

I love my little cuties!

Nap time antics..

Oh my little boys, why wont you nap like angels like you did when you were younger???

Nap time happens every day after lunch. About 1-2pm the boys go into their room for a nap. Some days Ben even asks “Bed time now?”. They are usually tired at this time of the day, often cranky, so they need a nap. They go into their room, we put them to bed and close the door and walk away without a problem.

Anywhere from 2-20 mins later the antics start. Over the monitor we hear talking, laughing, jumping, banging, throwing things and a whole lot of noise that is not sleeping!!!!!

When we go into the room to check up on them, we have been greeted by many interesting sights…

 

Ben, pretending to be sleeping

Ethan pretending to be sleeping

Ethan had taken off his shirt

Ben had taken off his pants. Luckily this day he left his nappy (diaper) on. Other days we are not so lucky, and come in to find him in a wet bed, or a wet floor!

Clothes, toys, pillows, all thrown on the floor

Cheeky boys in their now messy room 

Now these nap time antics are often annoying, but sometimes quite funny to listen to the conversations!

One day however…. was not so funny.

I (Sal) was home….. lucky Tracie was at work. I knew they were not napping, but I was ignoring them, till I heard the discussion turn to “poopy yukky”

I ran upstairs, but it was too late. Ben had taken off his poopy nappy and given it to Ethan (cots had been rearranged from above pics, and they can now reach each other). Ethan had decided to paint it all over himself and his cot!!! EWWWWWWW – sorry about the poor quality iPhone photos.

Both boys were put in the shower while I cleaned the room. Now as most of you know, I am a nurse, so poo doesn’t bother me…… but I really wished I had some gloves!!!

I am pleased to report that we have now outsmarted our 2yr olds. We have a large selection of pants and shorts with drawstring waists and belts. Tight pants can not be removed by little boys!!! YAY!!!

Now they still don’t nap, but at least they are clean when we go back in!

So very very slack….. sorry

Hello my lovely readers (if I have any left after my recent slackness). I am sorry I have not updated this blog in so long. Life seems to get busier all the time, with little time left for things like updating my blog.

We are all well. The boys seem to come down with a runny nose every few weeks, but that’s all in the life of a toddler.

They are growing beautifully, and talking so well now. It is so funny to hear some of the things they say. They are talking in about 4-5 word sentences, and I would not even have a hope of telling you how many words they know….. hundreds??? thousands?? HEAPS! Right now, try as I might, I can’t think of a single funny story of something they have said…. and they have me laughing daily. It’s currently a little after midnight and I have been up since 6am, had a garage sale (yard sale for my American friends) all morning, then went to work for 8 hours this evening….. my brain is gone!!

Here’s a brief summary of our days (keep in mind we just switched to daylight savings (summer time) last week, so all the times are a little out as the boys body clocks adjust

7:30-8:30am – Wake up - we are woken by the boys talking and singing in their cots. Yes we are still in cots, and I am NOT giving up on cots unless they start climbing out. I like them stuck in there (for their own safety as much as my sanity), and they don't complain…..yet! They often sing twinkle twinkle little star in bed. They also discuss who is going to be home today, and who will be at work. It goes “mummy home, mumma work” “no, mumma home, mummy work” and they argue back at forth. Too funny! They have also been heard to says “I want to get uuuuupppppp. I want to go downstairs!!!!”

Breakfast – They like to choose their own breakfast help make it. 90%of the time it’s some type of cereal. They get it out of the cupboard, get the milk, get a bowl, take it to the table, pour the milk and then eat. Every step requires help from us mums. Ethan’s favourite is porridge. Ben likes sultana puffs at the moment.

9-9:30 – get dressed and play for a while while mummy showers and cleans up breakfast

10:30 – snack

more play or go out to a park or shops etc…

12:30 – lunch – Honey sandwiches are popular at the moment. Lunch menu varies daily from a simple sandwich to a proper meal… depends what we have in the house and what we are doing.

1-2pm – boys are put down for a nap. – About once or twice a week they actually nap. The other 5-6 times they spend an hour or more in their cots, talking, laughing, playing and mucking up. They have been known to take off their pants and wee in their cots or on the floor, on purpose. We also had once incident when Ben took off his poopy nappy, gave it to Ethan, who painted the poo all over himself and the cot…. EWWWWWWWWWW -

2-4pm boys get up from their non-nap (closer to 4pm when they actually nap) and play for a while

4pm – first dinner – a dinner like snack (often a hot meal) for the boys with protein and vegetables (sometimes leftovers from the night before, or a new meal). We found they were getting too full from their afternoon snack and not eating dinner, so now their snack is a dinner like meal.

more play…

6pm – 2nd dinner. – The family dinner where we all eat dinner. Sometimes the same thing as the boys had for their first dinner, and sometimes something new.

7pm – bath/shower. – They get to choose. Showers are more popular lately. Sometimes they get in together and wash them selves, sometimes one mum gets in too.

7:30pm bed time. An involved ritual of getting on PJ’s brushing teeth, getting on sleep suits (fleecy suits over PJ’s for cold nights) opening the door-twice! playing the music, collecting items to sleep with (cars, books, dummies and a night light), having cuddles with mum, and going to bed. Most nights, they will go to sleep without any fuss. Sometimes we have a argument and someone cries. We go through phases….. at the moment, they are good for both of us together, good for Sal, but Ethan cries when Tracie puts him to bed….. not sure why, but thankfully it’s not all the time.

Most of the time they sleep through the night.

 

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I (Sal) have also been very busy with the multiple birth club. We have been going for about 6 months now, and things are slowly starting to happen. We have done a LOT of fundraising and have made some important purchases for the club in that time. I feel like I have been selling fundraising chocolates for about 6 months!

We have also been spending a lot of time planning and buying things for our upcoming camping road trip. We are leaving in 2 weeks to spend almost 3 weeks on holidays (vacation)!!!!!! We plan to spend a little over 2 weeks camping in QLD. Noosa, then up to Harvey Bay and Yeppoon (warmer beachy areas about 1000miles north of where we live). We have not been camping since we were kids, and have never taken the boys camping before, but we are really really looking forward to the adventure. We hope camping will become a great family holiday as the boys get older….. and something we can afford to do on a more regular basis than a more expensive trip.

I will try and do another update before we go away, if not, see you in 6 weeks