Thursday, April 29, 2010

Central Coast Multiple Birth Association

Sal, has recently been invited to become a member of the newly re-established Central Coast Multiple Birth Association (CCMBA). Two other mothers of twins that she recently met have been wanting to start the club for a while. They needed a third person to become a committee member, and that person was me.

I am now the treasurer (and web mistress) of the CCMBA. I have been busy creating a simple website for the last few days. It is almost up and running. I did a Google search for my new site and could not find it. Upon further investigation, it is suggested that I use my blog (which Google knows about) to link to the page. Apparently this will help Google find my new page….. so here goes!

If you’d like to visit my site please click here

Thursday, April 22, 2010

It’s almost party time

 

Ben and Ethan will be 2yrs old soon!!!  - 11 days to be exact.

We’re busy making party preparations and getting our house ready for all the activity! We are celebrating their birthday the day before, on Sunday 2nd May at our house.

Benjamin is getting very excited about his party, especially about the “cake”. If you ask him about cake he will tell you “two cake” – I’m yet to work out if he thinks he’s getting two cakes, or a cake in the shape on a number 2. The actual design of the cake hasn’t been finalised yet….. there’s just too many choices!

If you ask Ethan about the party, he will start pointing to everyone in the room, indicating that he’s like them at his party.

The count down is on…..

 

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Talking – 23.5 months

Speech development is an amazing thing. We are really enjoying watching the boys learn to talk. Ben is still our chatterbox and Ethan is quieter, but catching up.

Ethan is trying to catch up, and is starting to imitate Ben. Some of Ethan’s latest words are: mummy, mumma, go, boat, hole, car, dark, more, me me, no no, si (yes in spanish), up, water, cold, zazy (our cat), taxi, knee, beep beep, bubble, ta, again, and several more i can’t think of right now. He also make the following animal noises: moo, ssssss, quack, woof, meow, neigh, raaa. As I write it all down, I am amazed how many words he has! His vocabulary is growing every few days, and he gets so happy when he succeeds in communicating his needs/wants.

Ethan still loves to use his sign language. He communicates well with signing, and now uses the following signs: eat, drink, more, please, milk, dummy, cat, bird, duck, fish, car, helicopter, wheel, train, bed/tired, book, hot and ‘I’d like one too’….. I have a feeling there are more, but I can’t think of any right now.  

Ben has more words than I can count…. hundreds! He comes out with new words every day. He is now starting to use descriptive words as well as objects, and he is putting words together.He’s saying things like "green car, hot water, far away, man fix roof, mummy’s car, eat please, music please, drink please and similar short phrases like this Today I gave Ben a mandarin. He put it in his mouth, pulled a funny face (like it was sour) and said “sour”. I was very impressed. It’s amazing that he can interpret what he is tasting and then use the appropriate word to describe it….. wow! .

Both boys have been able to point to body parts when asked for a while now. It’s usually “Where’s your nose?” etc, and they can point to the right part. Today I tried to reverse the game with Ben where I pointed to his (or my) body parts and asked him “what’s this called?” We had never played this game in this way before and I was surprised that he did so well. He was able to tell me the following body parts: hair, eyes, nose, mouth, teeth, arm, hand, fingers, belly, bottom, leg and foot. Ethan got knee. The only one that I asked that they didn’t get was toes.  I have never heard Ben say most of those words before. It’s just amazing to me that he can just know them, and get them all right the first time!

Life is defiantly becoming easier as both our boys are now able to communicate to us when they want something. In the last few weeks our boys (especially Ben) have gone from whinging when they are hungry to actually calmly asking us for food or drink. It’s just brilliant!!

Teeth – 23.5 months

Ben and Ethan are almost 2, and both have had 16 teeth for the last few months. (see pic below, they have all teeth except the four upper and lower “second molars”)

Today we noticed that Ben has started to cut through a 17th tooth. A small amount of his lower right second molar has started to erupt. Lately he’s been dribbling more than usual and has had his whole hand in his mouth. We’re not surprised he’s getting more molars already. He’s always been an early teether, he got his first tooth before 5 months old (average age 6-10months) and he had all his 1yr molars by 14months (average age 13-19months). We’re hoping this next phase of teething doesn’t cause too much trouble

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

No more bottles

Our boys have finally given up their bottles…..

We (Tracie and Sal) have been giving them a bottle every night before bed since birth. We have been talking about stopping this bottle for a while now, but it has been a good way to get a few extra calories into our skinny little boys, so we kept giving it to them.

For a about 2 weeks before giving up the bottle we have introduced a daily “milkshake” that we give the boys after their nap. This “milkshake” is essentially a milk drink fortified with formula, and flavoured with a banana or some vanilla essence or chocolate powder. They love their afternoon milkshake and especially love helping to make it.

With this added calories, we felt it’s now ok for them to give up their bottle. One night, without even really talking about it, we put them to bed without a bottle. They didn’t complain….. they didn’t say anything. We wondered if they even noticed!

They had their last bottle on Thursday April 1st, 2010. Aged almost 23months.

Random Pictures of Home Life

Below are some random pictures from daily life.

Benjamin is eating a block of cheese that he pinched off the bench one day after lunch. Interestingly he didn’t eat the cheese when it was chopped and put on his plate for lunch. Apparently it tastes better right off the block!

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Ben is now offering Ethan a bite of the cheese….. cheeky boys!tn_P3171344

Benjamin sitting on his couch to read a book. Reading time is still a very popular activity. Both boys love books and we read every day.tn_P3181348

Book case after reading timetn_P3241360 

And the floor…. we read about this many books in one sitting if they are in a good mood.tn_P3241359

Getting up on chairs has become a new habit. Both boys love to push the kitchen chairs up to the door, window or bench and climb up, just to get up to mischief. Below Ben is trying to open the door so he can go outside. Ethan is “helping”tn_P3181354

Up on the chairs again. Ben and Ethan are playing with the iPod dock in this clip. They are turning the volume up and down, and they think it’s very funny!

Random picture of Ethan. He wanted me to take it, because we were playing with the camera.tn_P4061376

BUBBLES

Ben and Ethan LOVE playing with bubbles. They chase them and pop them. It’s all great fun. Below are some pics of them playing with bubbles.

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In general they also love being outside. They really enjoy exploring the garden. We have lots of creatures in our garden. Most popular are the lizards. Below Mummy (Sal) and the boys are searching for lizards.tn_P4061425

Here we found a lizard, but it ran into the wall too fast for us to get a proper look.tn_P4061428

Here we are examining the rocks and plants.tn_P4061432

Mummy and Ethan playing a game in the gardentn_P4061410

Lastly, a video of the game we were playing. Mummy (Sal) would ‘roar’ at Ethan, and Ethan would run to Mummy laughing and laughing. He thought it was great fun!

Monday, April 5, 2010

Easter Egg Hunt

Happy Easter.

Ethan and Ben are almost 23 months old this Easter. This is their first Easter that that can really enjoy an egg hunt. The Easter Bunny left lots of eggs in the garden, and the boys had a great time finding them. I didn’t get many great shots, as it was an action packed egg hunt, and it’s hard to get their faces when they are so busy!

Ethan and Ben begin the hunt.tn_P4021362

Bentn_P4021363

Ethantn_P4021364

Finding another eggtn_P4021365

Mumma, Ben and Ethantn_P4021366 

Ethan – sorry it’s blurry, but it’s an action shot, he’s running to the egg he’s spotted!tn_P4021369

Ben and Aunty Shelltn_P4021370

Bentn_P4021371

Ethan showing Mumma his eggs.tn_P4021372 

Ben and Ethan, showing us their egg collectiontn_P4021374

Ben searching for eggs.

Ethan searching for eggs.