Sticker fiend

Ryan has a certain fondness for stickers. He loves to peel back the slick paper and put the sticky back against something. This day, he moved stickers around his legs for hours.


Once he knew he wasn't in trouble, the 'cheesing' began.

Mark's 3 day weekend was spent...

Painting the garage.

The walls.

And the floor.

Good job, Sweetie.

Braver Soul than I....

Two nights ago, we went for our usual family walk to the three parks along the half-mile trail by our house.

Ryan pooped at park #2. He had no replacement diaper as we ALL walked. I took off the offensive diap and walked it to the garbage can. Ryan remained diaperless.

On the way home, he got very tired. Mark decided to carry him. Mark carried him on his shoulders, in typical Daddy and son bonding. Had I carried RyGuy, he'd have his back against my chest with mini-wiener pointed out and away from me.

I reminded Mark that the boy had no diap. Mark replied, "I trust my son."

And guess what RyGuy didn't pee on his Daddy's neck. Good boy...

My wedding band

I have a wedding set -- engagement ring and wedding band -- very beautiful. The most beautiful ring in the world.

I also have a plain wedding band to wear when being housewife/mom of tots. My plain band went missing when I found Seany sitting on my dresser.

I searched high and low. I grilled him. I emptied out the garbage, I refused to vacuum. I did not find my missing band.

Seany ate a very messy peanut butter & jelly sandwich. I stripped him. As he's shorts came off, out of his pocket came my ring. He laughed hysterically.

In the days of the twix...

Everyday sort of blends into the next, especially when its 100 degrees outside.

Last night the twix went 'swimming' in their blow up pool.

Today they had playgroup. At playgroup, they decided to impress -- Seany said words like 'shicker (sticker),' 'tacker (cracker),' etc. Ryan colored his 'ish (fish)' bowl like a true professional and even asked for 'more shickers.'

I realize it doesn't sound much but for these two chicklets it was quite a successful day!

Happy 4th!

My favorite of the twix pictures thus far this year -- Seany on the left, RyGuy on the right.

Two happy campers looking at me.

Seany at the computer desk.

Ryan at our bed. I know they are ugly sheets but their so cool in the hottest bits of the summer.

Dirt comes in

Load #1.

Yeah, the bobcat did that.

Load #2.

Pictures of regraded backyard coming soon!

After rock removal

My hat's cooler than your hat...

Seany.

RyGuy who spent lots of time putting all the "dars" on his hat and then showed Mark where each and every "dar" was.

I like my youngest youngest...

Sir Ry.

GIFTS for the TWIX

They're very own picnic table! We're looking at Seany.

And now, we're looking at RyGuy.

And the twix got their own car. Seany is filling it up.

And neatly puts away the gas hose thingy.

Toy Car

Saturday, we had a neighborhood yard sale -- I made $65! I spent $5 on a red and yellow coupe for the twix to play with.

Nona and Papa related the information to Alex and Andrew.

Papa: "Mommy & Daddy got a little pedal car for Sean & Ryan at a yard sale."

Andrew: "Just 1 car?"

Papa: "Yes."

Andrew: "Well, they're gonna fight about that!"

And they're off...

Alex and Andrew headed out with Papa Dave for their 2 weeks of California sunshine today.

Papa arrived bearing gifts on Wednesday night. The following occurred 15 minutes later. One gift, a shovel and pail needed to go back out to Cali. So I told Andrew, "Don't lose them, we need to pack them with your clothes and stuff for your vacation."

Andrew disappeared.

Andrew reappeared, with 2 pairs of shorts and a tee shirt piled into his bucket and said, "Ok guys I'm ready to go on my bay-k-tion."

Oh how his face fell when told he'd have to wait another whole day before leaving...

Water Day #1

We've since gotten Alex (or "Ah-way" as Ryan says) their own larger pool.

Andrew posing for me.

Alex smiling for me.

Ryan shooting me.

And Seany refusin to look at the camera.

Train board

Andrew, Ryan and Seany behind the train board. Mark has plans of covering it with green felt and nailing the pieces into place so that they can play trains.

Per Carolena's Request

Plants in front of porch: Hibiscus, 2 junipers, and a lilac.

Father's Day

Alex helping Mark with his gift.

145 pieces!!!! Mess! Mess! Mess!

Father Day Gifts

Le twix were very eager to show Daddy the cards they made.

More showing of cards and admiring them, themselves.

Showing Daddy the clothes they got him.

Andrew helped Daddy with the new pillow he picked out for him.

My attempts at getting picture of Mark with the twix

After this 4th one, I just gave up.

Church picnic & blessing of the bikes

Or in our case Seany's worm...

RyGuy's worm.

Andy and his scooter.

And the peace kid and his scooter.

Karate Kids

Andrew and Alex loved their 2 lessons. Its too demanding an activity for us to keep up with though.

Father's Day Shopping

I try to not go to department store (aka stores without proper shopping carts to corral twix) without Mark. With Father's Day fast approaching that would not work. How would a wifey take said children to pick out a gift for their daddy if we did not actually go to the store where they sell the items requested by the daddy? Don't say internet shopping that would only work at night when Mark might get noisy to see what I was doing online or at naptime when I really need to clean the messes of the day.

So we went to JCPenneys. One escalator was undergoing service. I was happy about this as it would mean that Ryan wouldn't again scrap his leg tripping as we got on. Sean has a habit of stopping and crying and then catching up. I used to go get him and he'd slump to the ground and have to be dragged across the floor. So what works (until yesterday) is to continue on our way and he runs back into position when he gets I'm not coming for him.

Some busybody decided the squawking Seany was not lost and just going super slowly for attention. So she grabbed him by the hand and took him to jewelry. I hear over the loud speaker "Will the mother of a small child please go to any customer service desk and call the operator?"

As the only mother with truly small children (almost 3 and still wearing 18 to 24 month stuff) I knew who it was and what had happened. I called the operator. I asked, "Is it a boy with short possibly scalped blonde hair, greenish eyes, white tank top, orange short, blue & red crocs who answers to Seany?"

"Yes. We've brought him to the office."

"Ok, I'll be there in a minute. I have the twin with me to it will take a bit of time." Really, I was going to finish downstairs before I herded everyone back upstairs to grab Seany and then head back downstairs to finish looking at the items we wanted to get for Daddy.

We made our way up to the office. Ryan stopped to admire some toys and gadgets and jogged ahead to keep up. Seany was very grateful to see me. We paid and as we were headed out, busybody said, "Oh there's another one. You have twins. He was lost."

"He was NOT lost. He was just moving very slowly."

"Well, if he was my child, I would never..."

I cut her off, "Well, he's not your child, he's mine and we're fine."

At any rate, Seany agreed to hold my hand and stayed right with me for the duration.

Proof again, that I have to plan out shopping. I don't have the luxury of just stopping in as we drive by to tick that errand of the list. I have to make sure we have the stroller first if no hubby is around.

Clarification

Although the twix are very behind in speech and language, they are not retarded, autistic, or in any other way mentally affected.

Sean and Ryan excel at other things. At age 2 they can jump two footed in the air -- a feat not to be reached until 3 to 3 and a half. At age 2 they can climb straight up, sideways and probably upside down (if it occurred to them to try). In their gross motor skills they are at the top of their class or age group. They can do things Alex struggled with until 5 years old and Andrew is just learning to attempt now at 4 and a half.

They're not stupid, they are average twix dealing with typical twix delays and behavioral issues. Most twix are difficult to discipline because they are delayed in speech and language and more easily frustrated. I'm not dealing with anything unusual unless you consider Ryan needing anger management at age 2 unusual.

3 & 4 out of 100

When you have kids with developmental/physical/mental delays, the agencies that help them have to throw them into a statical formula to see if they qualify for services and how much help the tike needs.

Having just moved, we went through all this again. So the twix are very delayed in speech. We all know this. No surprise. Get ready to be surprised.

After an hour evaluation, Ryan scored in the 3rd percentile and Sean in the 4th. That mean out of 100 kids -- 96 kids talk, understand, etc better than them. That means that of the 3 kids below Seany 1 is his own twin. That means that there are only 2 kids saying and getting less than my twix. The poor mom of that pair of twix has my sympathies. ;-)

No clothes

We went for a family walk last night along a secluded service road near our home. Walking toward us was a 13/14 year old girl in her bikini. When she finally passed us, we said, "Hello." She responded in kind.

Andrew said, "Guys look at that girl, she doesn't have any clothes."

Screaming Seany

So, Friday night around midnight, Mark's cousin and cousin's friend showed up to crash at our house. They were attending the Super Bike races in Tooele.

About 1 am, just as they fall asleep, Seany comes out of his room and sees them lying on the floor of the front room. "AHHHHHH! AHH! AHH! AHH! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

On and on it went until Mark processed it all and settled him back down.