Weekend Relaxing

After a long week, we really just had a nice relaxing weekend. Besides all of our normal errands, we got to just hang out around the house and get things done. We were able to pull out all the 12 and 12-18 month clothes from the basement and get them ready for E, and sadly put away all our 3-6 and 6 month clothes, as our little baby is now becoming a big toddler!

Everyone is back being generally healthy (or at least as good as you can get this time of year!) So that's a really good thing. Ethan has a re-check on Thursday so let's hope that the ear infection is gone (the pnuemonia wasn't really pneumonia, he really wasn't that bad).

Aidan is doing great. We called a parent-teacher conferences on Friday, just to see how he was doing. We talked with his teachers for 45 minutes! And it was all good. They were really happy with him. They thought his vocabulary was fabulous and encouraged us to continue doing all the great things that we do to expand it. They helped calm us a bit on the potty training. Since they see (and partially potty train) new kiddos every year, and they've been teachers in that room for over 10 years, THEY know potty training. So we talked a bit about Aid and they definitely think that he'll be OK. Other than that, he's very compassionate, loves telling all of them about his garbage truck, participates in all the games and really likes being the "Fish Feeder" and "Computer Helper" job.

As for me and Mommy, we're cool. Just loving our boys and working hard to be the best providers we can be.

Here's some pics and a short movie of the guys. Enjoy!

Bro's havin' fun!

Mr. Happy in his Basketball outfit!

Have a great night!
Ty, Emmy, Aidan and Ethan

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

The Good: The blog is back after 10 whole days off! (longest ever span BTW)

The Bad: Daddy's customer crashed an airplane on Thursday, it was one that they had just spent 100,000 manhours rebuilding after a previous crash in 2001.

The Ugly: Ethan has pnuemonia and an ear infection.

Ugh....it's been a week (and it's only Tuesday!). Lots of stuff going on with the fam. After Ethan's rough weekend (we slept 3 hours Sunday night), Mommy did take him into the doctor and after taking a day's worth of anti-biotics, he's seeming better. Much less cough today, and he's starting to be himself again. (UPDATE: I just got pulled away from this post to be thrown up on and Mommy got it twice after I took the first load, great. BTW the Augmenten that he is on can cause this, looks like we'll be getting a new anti-biotic tomorrow.)

The pilots in the Finnish Air Force plane were able to survive, but the jet is a black mark in the ground. Never a good thing, but human life is worth way more than any jet.

And finally, Daddy was able to successfully get out of Federal District Court jury duty. By some weird twist of fate, the case was an insurance claim case due to a big storm that we got here in 2006. Because Emmy and I are weather spotters (and I'm a weather nut), I had WAY too much knowledge of the case and flat out told the lawyers that the destruction of this building in downtown St. Louis could not have been caused by this storm (it was a big brick building), it was caused by the owners leaving it in disrepair. Case closed. So I walked. Nice! Freebird!

Ok, so now as I complete this post, here's Ethan tonight pre-sick. Poor guy.

Wish us luck tonight, hopefully sleep will bring healing.

Have a great night,
Ty, Emmy, Aidan and Ethan

Brotherly Love

Sorry for the week of no posts....Daddy was quasi-sick all week (fever, chills, aches) so we were just trying to keep the house afloat with one great parent (Mommy) taking over!

But I'm better today and have lots of fun pictures of the guys playing together last night !

That's all really....Ethan's crusing fairly well through baby food. We introduced chicken on Friday. He kinda liked it, but really he's still getting the hang of this food thing. Aidan dropped a bomb on us on Friday night. He said, "Mommy, Who lives on Reddington Timbers Drive?....I do!!!!" and "Mommy, my birthday is December 28th". Hilarious...they must be working on that at school! That's our hard-earned money giving us some ROI (return on investment)!

Have a great night!

Ty, Emmy, Aidan and Ethan

P.S. Here's Aidan having fun in his new Thomas jammies!

1...2...3...Imagine!

So today was the day we went to go see Sesame Street Live! Daddy, Mommy, Aidan, Ethan and Auntie Elizabeth all piled in the car and headed into Downtown St. Louis to enjoy a very fun show!

The title of this year's show was 1...2...3..Imagine! and it was set on a theme that each character from Sesame Street received a postcard from somebody about a place that they would like the character to see. Elmo's was a Jungle, Bert's was under the sea, Ernie's was a high seas sailboat and so on.... The characters came out in song and dance and encouraged everyone to sing and clap along. Aidan was beside himself...he loved it. And even Ethan (before he took a little nap) couldn't keep his eyes off the stage. It was about a 90 minute show with a 15 minute intercession and it was the perfect length, as Aid lost a little bit of interest near the end.

Afterwards, we all headed to Red Robin (Aid's favorite) for lunch...it was truly a fun time! Here's some pictures and a quick movie or two.

Auntie E got Aid a T-shirt and pennant for his first concert/musical!

Auntie E, Aidan and Mommy and then the whole fam posing with Elmo!

Aid had a great time...he danced and clapped and basically had an ear-to-ear smile the whole time!

Here's the show....we had pretty decent seats, not too close, not too far.

Even E had a great time, chillin' with Daddy in the Baby Bjorn!

A couple "illegal" movies....

Have a great night!
Ty, Emmy, Aidan and Eithan

Check-up Time!

Aidan and Ethan did wonderful in their check-ups today with Dr. Mayer!

Here's the particulars:

Aidan: 36.25" long, 30.4 pounds, which puts him at the 25% and 35% percentiles, respectively. Aidan developmentally tested at a 4 year old.

Ethan: 28.24" long, 18 pounds, 10.5 ounces, which puts him at the 90% and 50% percentile, respectively. Ethan developmentally tested at a 7 month old.

So, all in all, the boys are doing fantastic. Dr. Mayer was very impressed by both of them and I can't tell you how happy she was to see Aid doing so well, after all the things that she went through during his birth.

Both guys got shots and Aidan was a really big guy with no tears! He just said, "that hurts". And that was it. Ethan too did great with tears only for a couple of minutes!

Our big snow never panned out. We got 2" and now the temps are dropping crazy with lots of wind. We stayed home today with the guys and had some fun tonight in the basement while Mommy made up some shrimp scampi! Here's some pics and a movie. Enjoy!

Jumperoo Guy!

Driving through the "bike wash"

Have a great night,
Ty, Emmy, Aidan and Ethan

And We're Back....

Our big guys, January 4th 2010!

Sorry for the long (er) delay....we've just been trying to get back into the swing of things here in the 'Lou. The holidays took some wind out of our sails (for good reasons) so it took a little while before we could get back on the open water!

With that, let's talk boys!

So Mr. Aidan is doing quite fine. We are slowly working through the transition to the Strawberry Room, which unlike the move to Lime, hasn't been as bad as a transition. He likes his teachers, Kathy and Vicki, and has made several good friends that we hear about everyday. That would be Buddy Conrad and Buddy "I don't like your attitude" Simon. Aidan tells us that Simon says that phrase everyday, so I'm sure it's just another wonderful parent teaching their kids, through their actions, which then gets perpetuated by their kids. I can't lie though, I shooshed Emmy one time and now Aidan "shooshes" me when he's upset. Touché.

But other than that, we're really close to setting up his first dentist's appointment. I did some research and found a really cool dentist office, see here, that hopefully will encourage not only an "enjoyment" of the dentist or dental assistant working on his teeth, but also a sense that going to the dentist is fun. I remember growing up with my childhood dentist Dr. Kibbey and honestly was a fun experience, until I wasn't allowed to have my picture on the "Cavity Free Club" board...that stunk. I know that Emmy did braces for awhile, so I'm sure she's got some good/bad stories of her dentistry days...maybe in another post. :)

So Aid is doing well. He had quite the Christmas/Birthday. I think 70% of the toys he has have been dorment for a few days. The "Cars" movie toys, his R/C train and the wooden train board have been big hits. Here's a few pictures of our big three year old guy!

1

Loves Mack the Truck and Mater

Always with the great smiles....

Now onto the little big guy, Mr. Ethan. Wow, so much to say about this little jewel. He's doing really great with his foods. We've crossed into the fruit domain and (of course) he loves fruit. Apples and Apricots so far have been his favs. We also tried a couple of puffs the other night (see pic). He did OK with them, but I think we may still be a few weeks out. It will be especially better for him once he starts getting some more teeth. Which, he now has 2! Number 2 (lower, middle left) broke through about a week ago. So that's good news!

E is also starting to rock, as I said in an earlier post, and is sitting up very, very well. He can sit unassisted for an extended period of time. I had him sitting for about 30 minutes tonight with only one fall. And, the "da-da's" are in full effect and the other night we heard him sing out a couple of "ba-ba's" so that is very cool. I love hearing him talk, it's so pure....just awesome.

Here's a couple shots of E eatin' and sittin':

Sitting SOOOO good!

Drinking from a cup, what!? and trying out some puffs!

I love this camera with the new flash...I just get everything now so clear and vivid...look at those blue eyes....gorgeous! Didn't get them from me!

Tomorrow the guys head to Dr. Mayer's for their 3 year and 7 month, respectively, checkups. Very excited to see how Aid scores on the Denver Developmental Screening and equally excited to see where E lands on the length spectrum...that is one LONG baby! We'll update the blog with the particulars tomorrow.

And finally, we're expecting a blizzard tonight. Yes, winds sustained at 25 mph and blowing and drifting snow up to 6 inches are expected. But....we know snow and we've done snow and wind...

Colorado Blizzard 2003 - 33" of snow in 18 hours...fun!

Have a great night everyone!
Ty, Emmy, Aidan and Ethan