Its been a long time....

It has been soooo long since I have posted. I wish I could be better at this. It has been a very interesting year in our household and the boys have grown so much. Still having some difficulties, but chugging along.

After months of waiting the boys started walking. It only took until they were 21 months old, but we finally got there. Their receptive speech as increased, but expressively they are only saying a few words. Now they are climbing on everything, being really brave, and Ayden learned how to open door knobs. That is the thing I think I hate the most. We can't keep him out of places any more and after a couple of weeks of locking the door to the bedrooms and bathroom I finally put on the safety knobs so he couldn't turn them anymore.

We just got back from visiting family in Indiana. We had a great time seeing everyone!! We got to celebrate by in-laws 50th wedding anniversary(what a great thing). While on vacation we went to the fair, saw monsters inc. went swimming, played in the lake, went on a canoe ride. On the last day we spent some time in Chicago at Millennium park, Lincoln Park Zoo and Navy Pier. We ended with swimming and a trip to IKEA. It was a busy, fun, and relaxing trip.

           

          

Summer!!!

      So it is summer break finally, I have been looking forward to this since January. Time to spend with the boys and and have some fun. I haven't been able to do what was planned yet, because I have been babysitting a 2 month old, watching my boys and occasionally watching a 20 month old. Needless to say, my house has been a rather busy place. Today my boys went to daycare and I watched the 2 month old and the 20 month old. Hopefully soon it will just be my boys, so we can go have some fun!

     The boys are so much fun to watch. They play with each other and gabber at each other. I have caught them playing hide and seek in the hallway and with their bedroom door. Ayden is the rough one, he likes to tackle his brother (who is laughing the whole time). Landyn is the thief, he will take anything from his brother, even if they have the same item. At times, Landyn will look over and point at his brother and talk (wish I knew what he was saying). They are pulling up like crazy and are getting braver and braver everyday. According to daycare, Landyn stood without support to day several times and was ok with it until he realized that he wasn't holding on to anything. I am sooo ready for them to walk!!!!

So, the craft project I am going to tackle this summer is a Quiet Book. I think they are so cool. I know it will be a lot of work, but so worth it in the end. After talking to my mom we decided to make one for my niece and nephew also. I guess I am making 4 quiet books this summer. Time to take all the ideas and get them planned out.

Sickness

So, life has been so interesting since the twins turned one and not in such a good way. They have been sick off and on since April 13th. Started out with just goopy eyes and Nick took them to the doctor. Landyn ended up having a double ear infection and it looked like Ayden was heading down the same road also. Both boys were given meds and looked like everyone was on the mend. All of a sudden 2 days later,  Ayden had a fever for 24 hours. That went away. The next week Landyn had a fever and Nick took him back to the dr. and after 10 days of meds he still had an ear infection. Over the weekend Ayden started running a temp and it got up to 104 and he has a bad cough. So now I am using my last sick day to take both boys to the doctor for the 4th time in a month (1 time was for their 12 month appointment). I decided I would take both because Landyn has a rash and I don't want to have to go back again. The babysitter said it was the curse of turning one. Hoping everyone is well to go to the zoo next weekend for the free teacher day!

On the up side, I only have 18 more days left to work this school year, plus two or three days for the conference I signed up for.  I can't wait to be home to spend more time with my babies, who aren't really babies so much anymore.

Despite all the sickness we have still managed to have some fun. The last two Saturdays were spent and Crown Center in the Animals Tales and Trails exhibit and this Saturday Nick and I went on a date to celebrate our 4 year anniversary a month early. We went to Em Chamas Brazilian Steakhouse. We can't wait to go back it was really good and unique!

My cute little Ayden

Kelvin (My Nephew) helping Landyn go down the slide at Crown Center

My goofy little Landyn

Ayden and Daddy crawling through the tunnels at Crown Center

Birthday

So we had the boy's first birthday last weekend and boy was I crazy. I think that Etsy and I do not mix well. I get way to many ideas and then I think I need to do them all. The boys enjoyed their cake and after opening presents fell asleep. We are so blessed to have sooo many people who love our boys and will join us in celebrating the big day.

 This is the birthday boys table. We put a blue table cloth on the table, the used the highchair decorating kit to dress up the table. I tied balloons to the back of the highchairs. We hung a decoration above the highchairs. 

This is the Elmo cake that my mom made. It was very cute! We used the Wilton Elmo cake pan.

This is the other cake we made. My mom was concerned about people having red and blue mouths, so we decided to make this one. She ordered an edible picture off of ebay.

To make the Cookie Monster we used the Wilton Elmo pan and just filled in the nose with blue.

My crazy banner I made for the boys. I got this idea from Etsy and decided to make it. It turned out really well.

Our thank you for coming to the party. We had the caterer make cookies.

The photo banner I made for the party. It shows each boy from newborn to 11 months. We didn't have the 12 month pictures yet. I will add them later. After the party I am going to laminate it and make it into a book for each boy.

Some of our party guest and decorations. 

This is the kids table that the caterer had for the kids (I think the adults ate a lot too) It was peanut butter and jelly stuffed sandwiches, carrots and dip, fruit, cheese balls and lollipops.

 On Ebay I found these mini cake pans. We made an Elmo and a Cookie monster. We had a kid that has an egg allergy, so we made the cakes with sierra mist.

Ayden enjoying his cake!

Landyn enjoying his cake!

Opening presents

decorations and guests

Great Grandma

Then next to the boys I put a Elmo or Cookie Monster puff. I used my cricut machine to cut the eyes and mouths of the puffs. I was going to make my own puffs, but was running out of time. When shopping for paper products at Party City I found ones that were already cut. Then just glued items on them.

more food

food

Table decorations- I found buckets at Target and Party City. I used paint pens to draw faces on the buckets. With my Cricut machine I cut out different Sesame Street characters, and the letters A and L for the boys initials and the number 1. I used a plastic liner from Walmart and quick growing grass to grow grass.