Back to Normal

The kids had their first week at Nana and Papa's two weeks ago WITHOUT Mommy and Daddy! And we all survived:)  They had a great time swimming in the pool, going to indoor playgrounds, riding trains and hanging out with their cousin Meghan.  While we all had a good week, it was really good to get back to normal last week...

It is amazing how in just a week, they develop so much.  When they got home, they seemed so independent and Paige was probably saying 25 new words.  It seems like we're in such a rapid phase of development and its so much fun to watch.  They constantly make us laugh...even when they are being bad and we shouldn't! Paige has been our recent handful (although they switch roles on us frequently) and is quite outspoken.  Today, she was being especially difficult and I said "is someone being a brat."  She responded, "Yes. Andrew."  Poor Andrew gets blamed for everything right now.  Even when he's not even around! And Andrew's recent obsession is Kodi.  Kodi gets chased everywhere and gets lots of "hugs," which means he buries his head in her fur.  She has been a great sport so far.  I think she feels like the torture is worth it for all the extra food she receives...

We've had a great weekend so far and spent a couple hours at the Tot Park in Old Town this morning and then went for the first time to the Playseum downtown this afternoon.  The Playseum is an old house that has 18 rooms each themed with mock set-ups.  They had a grocery store, police station and jail, farm room, doll and dress up rooms, Dominos pizza shop, pet store, lots of craft rooms, kitchens, and more.  They had a blast!

Paige insisted on bringing her purse to the park. And then she posed for a pic before leaving. We are going to have our hands full!

Crashing cars at the Tot Lot

Grocery shopping at the Playseum

Working in the kitchen.

Taking orders at Dominos

Verifying with the kitchen

Playing house

Checking out the bunny in the Pet Store.  Paige cried leaving her.

Once we found the pink room, Paige refused to move for 30 minutes.

Dress up in the Pink Room. Paige was in heaven.

Cheeeese! In the farm room.

Working hard in the fields.

They wore us out today.  We're just hoping that all activity may get us an extra 30 minutes of sleep in the morning!

Finally some progress!

Paige and Andrew went in for their 18 month shots and well check last Friday.  Yes, the shots and visit were late.  But we did this on purpose because we had been there a ton around their 18 month birthday and wanted to give Andrew a little more time to grow.  Good news - we finally made a little progress!  He gained about 12 ounces and 3/4 of an inch over the last 5 weeks!  He is now on his chart!!!  Granted, he's at the way bottom. But he's plotting!  And we'll take any progress with his growth at this point:)

He is doing so well in every other area that it's so hard to believe that we are missing anything big with him. I just hope that this progress continues!

Our happy Nationals fan!

Helping his sister put her shoes on:)

Kissing his Nana over the phone!

Boycotting his nap to lick the beaters!

Paige also had a great visit and has grown close to 3 inches over the last 5 months!  She is about 3 inches taller than her brother but actually now weighs to 2 ounces less!  Our skinny minnie needs to bulk up a little bit:)  But overall, she's doing great!  Dr. Arnold couldn't have been happier with their progress and had great things to say.

Insisting on wearing dress up clothes at dinner:)

Sleeping beauty

Loving her ice cream!

And dancing with her new best friend and obsession - BARNEY!

We'll head back towards the end of September for growth measurements.  Keep those good growth thoughts and prayers coming! They seem to be working!

Role Reversal

Its funny how twins seem to have complete role reversal at different stages of development.  Our pediatrician swears that when they go to bed at night, they plot and agree to switch it up every now and switch roles on us.  We're starting to believe her. Andrew has turned into our sweet, compassionate little guy who loves to cuddle, sit on your lap and read, and give hugs and kisses. Don't get me wrong, he still has wild moments, but he has definitely been the easier one lately. Perfect Paige and has hardly been perfect!  She has hit the "terrible two's" a bit earlier it seems.  We have multiple meltdowns each day that usually occur when she doesn't get her way.  She loves timeout and will sometimes even purposely do something wrong and then tell us she's having a "seat" very excitedly.  Guess we need a new discipline plan!  She insists on picking out her clothes, has very specific preferences and is really starting to share them!

A couple weekends ago, we headed up to Pennsylvania for the day to see their great Aunt and Uncle and had a great day.

Dancing with her new cheerleader doll from Anne and Dave

Having fun in the pool!

Screaming with excitement as Daddy sprays him!

Drying off with Daddy

Ending out day with yummy ice cream sundaes!

Fourth of July was fairly uneventful since it was SO hot out but we did have fun outfits to celebrate:)

Festive clothes from Nana and Papa!

Wardrobe change before heading to a friend's cookout!

Paige's Natitude with her brother's hat (and pink cheeks from the heat!)

Daddy also had a BIG birthday which we celebrated last weekend:) The kids had a great time opening his presents.

Giving Daddy his presents

And modeling his new hats:)

SUPER excited about what's inside!

Checking out Daddy's "juice"

The next update deserves its own post - well check stats and update on Andrew's growth. Stay tuned!

Lift Up Your Hands!

One of our favorite activities these days is singing and dancing.  They both LOVE music and we are quickly expanding our list of favorites.  This is a song from the Sprout network that they love. We gave it two attempts...Kodi is a bit distracting though! And Paige wants to "see" the video! 

And this is a recent favorite of Andrew's that he likes to sing with his puppy pal, Scout...

We are thoroughly enjoying our dancing duo:)

First Summer Beach Trip!

Andrew went to the nutritionist last week which was only slightly helpful.  We have already been doing almost everything she suggested.  The only new thought was to put him on a soy version of Pediasure.  This is a bulked up drink that is 30 calories/ounce as opposed to regular soy milk which is about 18 calories/ounce.  The drink is hard to find though and has to be special ordered - wonderful!  We also went back to the pediatrician for our official measurements.  We continue to be frustrated with lack of progress... He has not grown. Period.  Weight or height (in fact he was down a couple ounces) since the early fall.  For the first time, I think our pediatrician is really starting to acknowledge that we may be missing something.  We talked about referrals to both endocrine and genetics.  We are going back July 6th for one more measurement before seeking opinions from those departments though.  The endocrinologists wouldn't see us before for "poor weight gain" but will see us for "short stature."  And he has completely fallen off his curve for height now...

On a brighter note, we went to Nana and Papa's house for our first summer beach trip!  The kids had a blast and we all thoroughly enjoyed getting away for a couple days!  They have had a huge amount of work done in their yard including putting in a huge pool, an outdoor kitchen and a ton of serious landscaping.  We hadn't been down since Thanksgiving so it was fun to see the progress and enjoy all these new awesome things!

The kids loved the pool and Andrew seemed to have the most fun with Papa spraying him with the hose:)  The beach was not so successful.  Andrew was pretty adventerous but Paige was not a huge fan.  She was fine as long as she wasn't close to the water or being held:)

Our fashionista poolside:)

Andrew ready to swim!



Cocktail hour in the pool:)



Getting sprayed by Papa!



Daddy taking up all the space in the baby pool!



Beach time with Mommy!



Getting their workout in!



Best friends...for the moment!



Far from the water and happy as a clam:)



Loving their new chairs!



At the park with Aunt Ashley and Aunt Rachel who came to see us!



Whoa! As Paige would say.



Singing with Elmo - love this picture:)

Watch our Paige, Andrew is driving! (Thanks, Dave and Meghan for our giftcard to Monkey Joe's!)


 Thanks, Nana and Papa, for a great long weekend!

There are loads more pictures in the Picasa album - check them out!

Way Behind...

Where do I begin?  Life has been so hectic, its been hard to keep up with this lately.  Andrew finally recovered from his illness after 6 days of fever and we finally got back into our normal routine.  His biopsy results also came back and showed nothing significant.  Good news for him.  But frustrating because we still haven't found a reason for his lack of growth.  He did show evidence of chronic gastritis though and was put back on an acid blocker (after many calls and fights with the insurance company to get it approved!).  Dr. Darbari wants him to have monthly weight checks for the next couple months and we'll actually go to see a nutritionist next week to make sure we're doing all that we can.  I guess we'll keep pushing the calories and reassess in a couple months to see if he's made progress or needs more workup.

After one week of good health and our normal routine, Paige developed a fever again last weekend.  By Monday evening, she had blisters all over her tongue and was crying and saying "Owwwwie" repeatedly.  As we had suspected, the pediatrician agreed and thinks she has hand, foot, and mouth disease.  We are crossing our fingers that Andrew doesn't get it and we are lucky so far.  Poor Paige has been running high fevers and hasn't eaten much of anything now for 6 days.  We sure hope the end of this is in sight because it is awful to see her so miserable.  Thank God, my parents were in town and Nana was able to stay to be with Paige since she's missed daycare this entire week.  Its starting to feel like we can't catch a break around here.  How many more things can they get? And how many more days of daycare must they miss?  I repeat, Thank God for Nana!  We've had colds, Roseola, stomach bugs, multiple ear infections, strep, and now hand, foot, and mouth disease all within a couple months span.  I just hope we are building up one heck of an immunity in this house!

Despite our seemingly never ending illness, we have managed to have a little fun!  We got both a new pool and water table in the last couple weeks which the kids are loving in the hot weather.

Water fun!

Andrew - Memorial Day 2012

Such a perfect picture capturing her personality:)

We've had trips to the park, outings for pizza and ice cream, BBQs and visits with friends.  They are now 19 months and are more and more fun each day.  They are trying to repeat lots of words, climbing, jumping, singing, and dancing all the time.  They definitely have likes and dislikes and will make them known:)  We have entered our temper tantrum phase but are trying to set limits and be consistent with our discipline.  Heck, much of the time its just Mommy OR Daddy with them and then you're out numbered!  But most of all, we are loving how they are turning into little people...

BBQ at friends

Our first corn on the cob of the season!

Already stealing Mommy's makeup brushes and dancing in the hallway

Loving ice cream on the deck:)

A nightly walk in the neighborhood

Thanks for checking in!  And please send good, healthy vibes to little Miss Paige!

Our dynamic duo:)

Paige has been recovering nicely from her strep throat on her antibiotics, although her attitude has been a challenge!  We aren't sure if she still isn't feeling well or we are truly entering the "terrible two" phase a little early.  She had several major meltdowns this weekend with 30-60 minutes of crying, throwing herself on the floor and being downright mad.  If this is a new phase, we are praying that it is short lived!

We had planned to celebrate Mother's Day by heading about an hour outside the city to a family friendly winery to picnic with friends on Saturday.  As we came home from buying our pincic snacks, I noticed that Andrew felt warm.  Yep, he spiked a fever 2 hours before we were supposed to leave!  So instead of our fun day, he returned to the pediatrician.  Repeat strep was again negative.  But they noticed that he had an ear infection.  He is now on day three of antibiotics but is still spiking fevers!  They are only at night.  But they are high - 103 to 104!  He then seems fine during the day, running and playing.  He still isn't eating very much at all since his procedure though...we are hoping this picks up again soon. He gets one more day to stop this fever nonsense or he buys himself another trip to the doctor...

We did get out a little Sunday though and took a fun walk.  Paige LOVES to hold hands and reaches out for us whereever we go.  Andrew, on the other hand, refuses.  We wants to walk alone and it is a constant battle to make him hold on in public.  Well, on Sunday he decided that Paige's hand was really the only fun one to hold.  And they walked hand in hand on our entire walk.  It was adorable:)



Our dynamic duo:)



Dragging his sister along:)



And finding themselves hilarious!