Two More From The Party

I was looking back at the photos from the boys birthday party and found these two from different cameras that made me laugh. The first is a picture of the boys and us just before we let them dive into their smash cakes. Its a pretty normal picture that you would find at an event of this type...and this was the view from the other side of the camera. No wonder the boys
were a little overwhelmed!

Birthday Party III

This is the last installment of birthday photos. There are way too many to go through, and it already seems like a long time since the party actually happened. All the balloons are deflated, all the leftovers are eaten, and all the toys have been played with. We are looking forward to the second year of the boys life and the fun that will come. This was the adult cake for their birthday from Bruster's. A chocolate chip ice cream cake that was a lot larger than we thought it would be.

Big Papa holding Wyatt while everyone played outside. Wyatt still hasn't gotten used to the feel of grass on his toes.

Randi's parents holding Wyatt just before he dove into his smash cake.

The boys' grandmothers holding them before the festivities got kicked off. There seems to be a lot of holding going on in these pictures.

Parks examining a leaf. He was probably also getting held at the time. I think that he is going to be our baby that wants to be outside all the time.

Birthday Party II

Here are some more photos from the party. There are still more to come over the next couple days. Wyatt in his party wear after opening his new Radio Flyer coupe. He loves to play with all the knobs and buttons.

Parks and mommy taking a break after opening gifts.

Parks and me after the meltdown that was the smash-cake.

Parks taking his turn in the car. Parks cares more about getting pushed around than all the gadgets on the dash.

Birthday Party I

Parks and Wyatt had their birthday party this weekend. We are still going through the hundreds of pictures that were taken by us and family. Here are a few of them getting into their cakes. There will be many more to come soon.Wyatt digging in

Parks did not like getting dirtyUp close and personal

HAPPY 1ST BIRTHDAY PARKS & WYATT

We are all recovering well from rotovirus in time for the boys' birthday celebration. It has been a pretty rough scene around here the last week. Somehow Wyatt has the immune system of steel and he never got it.

Wyatt decided to surprise us for his birthday. He has finally learned to crawl! He also learned to go from crawling to sitting and back, and he is very close to go from sitting to standing and lying to sitting. In a matter of a day or two, he has decided to show off all these new skills that we have been practicing for what seems like eternity. Parks is still very close to walking, but has not decided to take the plunge yet. That is fine with us. It's hard enough to chase him around now while he is crawling.

The boys are also off formula...forever. Nothing but Horizon whole milk from here on out. The boys are ready for their big party on Saturday with family. They've got big, fun new toys coming their way. We've got more photos and video to post, now that we are coming out of our shells from the last week.

Mother's Day At The Park

We took the boys out in the late afternoon yesterday. The weather was perfect. It was the boys first time out to the park to swing and slide. There was a little apprehension at first, but they warmed up quickly. They were having so much fun. We could not push Parks high enough, and Wyatt would laugh every time we touched his feet on the upswing. Parks liked sliding down on his belly and tried to "kamikaze" a couple times, head first. Wyatt just enjoyed inspecting the pine bark left over on the bottom of the slide.

Parks and Aubie

Air Jordan?

They look like the pushmi-pullyu from the Dr. Dolittle story

Wyatt and his round head.

New Blog Look...Same Great Blog Taste

I just wanted to send out a recognition for the new blog design. It took a little effort, but we think it turned out well for doing it ourselves. We used Cute Blogs for the background wallpaper and used Scrapblog to create the header with the boys' picture on it. We will keep evolving the blog as the family grows and matures. Thanks again for everyone peeking in on our corner of the world.

Milestones

It seems the boys are hitting big developmental milestones the last couples of days. For posterity's sake, I thought I should blog about it. We still don't have a walker, but I feel like Parks will be taking steps within the next few weeks. He's getting braver everyday and even letting go for a second or two while cruising between pieces of furniture.

We have been practicing for months on both boys' pincher grasp. After every meal we give them Cheerios and Goldfish for them to try and feed themselves. I thought they would never get it, but last night at dinner Parks figured out how to feed himself Cheerios. Yeah!! No more of me and Daddy having to put them in his mouth. He's been feeding me and Todd Cheerios for two weeks, but he has now learned to feed himself.

Wyatt is wanting to pull up on everything, his crib, toys, furniture, and us. He's also really close to crawling. He gets on all-four and rocks back and forth. He has even started to belly crawl in the last couple days. It's only a matter of time before both of them are on the go. Lord, help us.

Foam Dome

NO MORE HELMET!!! That thing was starting to smell like a middle school boy's locker room. You can imagine how bad it would have been if he'd of been wearing it this summer. Wyatt and I made the trip this morning to the orthotist for a head scan and evaluation. All major issues have been resolved. My son now has a symmetrically-shaped head. He no longer has a bulge on the right side of his forehead, has only a slight degree of flatness on the right rear quadrant, and his ears are aligned well.

Below is a copy of the scan we got today. The line in red is from January, when we first started the process, and the blue line is the one from today. They lowered him in a small U-shaped tube and in 2 seconds, had a 3-D scan of his head. He has made such great improvements and was so patient with the entire ordeal of the last three months. We often joke about how it would have been if Parks had been the one to need the helmet. WOW!!

Riding In Cars With Boys

We have been taking the boys out in the afternoons to run errands and just to get out of the house for a while. Our hot spots are Target, Wal-Mart, Kroger, etc., and we get recognized all the time. It works well to wear the boys out before we put them to bed and break up the monotony of the day. Some times they get a little more tired than others. This emotion range can swing the pendulum in two very different directions. At times, it turns to tantrums and crying; other times it turns into laughing bouts of delirium. We captured one of those moments tonight on the way back from Mellow Mushroom.

Parks

Parks was crawling up Randi's leg, and she snapped off this shot of him. You can tell be the look on his face that he is up to no good. He really wanted the camera, and it was only a few inches from his face. It was so washed out in color but turned into one of my favorite shots in black and white.

Antics

Lori brought up the boys antics in her comment a couple posts ago. Well, here is some gravy for you on their recent happenings.


This is Parks after we went to Chili's one night. He had just finished a large helping of mashed potatoes and decided he wanted some of my quesadilla. He bit off a little more than he could chew and threw up everything on himself, the high chair, the table, and the floor. He has one of the easiest gag reflexes I've ever seen. We had no change of clothes (which we now carry with us everywhere) and went through a small forest of napkins to clean it up. So, he had to sit like this the rest of dinner and ride home in nothing but a diaper.

This is a picture of Wyatt with a large bruise under his left eye (see arrow). He is just learning to crawl and trying to do so from a seated position. We have had a hard time finding things that would motivate him to take the first step of lunging out towards the item. For Easter, the boys got soccer ball easter eggs that open in half to fill them with candy, and they loved them. The egg was open in half and was sitting edge-ways up. The next thing we know, he flops down face first onto the egg without putting his hands up. He ended up with a nice crescent imprint on his cheek for several days. That's life with boys, huh.

Mobile Phone Pictures

I was clearing the SD card from my phone and found some candid moments when there just wasn't a real camera around.

This is a picture of Wyatt chewing on the table at our favorite pizza place in Pensacola. This same night we learned that he was deathly afraid of ceiling fans on high speed.





Randi captured these pictures of some of Parks' first smiles.








These are pictures of the family at A-Day, Auburn football spring game recently. The boys paid more attention to the people in the stands than they did to the action on the field. That is why we are not going to spend an extra $35-$50 per head to get them into football games this fall. We will save that until they are old enough to enjoy it...or we get free tickets.







These are pictures of Parks on an outing to Lowe's. As you might can see, we are in the outdoor power equipment area doing a little wishful thinking. He was still a little man, and this was his first trip in the front of the buggie.

Why We Blog

Recently, I have had my reservations about continuing this blog and moving on with something else. In the beginning, we set it up as a way for family and friends look in on Randi's pregnancy from several states away, since they could not be there for the day-to-day. As problems progressed in the pregnancy, and we began to doubt the sustainability of Wyatt, the blog took on a life of its own. We were so encouraged and touched by others' stories and how the blog reciprocated those feelings back to them. The boys are now approaching their one year birthday in less than 20 days, and we have had some medical bumps in the road beyond the daily stresses associated with having multiples. At times, we have been complacent and stepped away, for weeks at a time, from our blog.

As I started looking back through all those old pictures from the NICU at how far the boys have come; the images still etched so solidly on our memories. Sometimes we can hardly recognize that these are the same two little boys who live with us now. We can only express a snippet of the unabashed joy that comes to us as parents at the quirkiness of our children as children. Although I could post several times a day, I would never capture the chuckle of a Buddha I get as I watch them collapse into sleep during their mid-day nap after struggling so hard to stay wake to play a few more minutes. Those moments are lost to our fleeting memories.

Some have said that blogging is merely egotistical self-massaging...well I guess it depends on your intentions. I see it as the new historical record. No longer do the victor go the spoils. Each is able to leave their own imprint. We are telling the story of our family as no one else can. One of the most rewarding times over the last couple years has been the culmination of this blog into a printed, published book through the help of Blurb.com. For Christmas, we gave copies of a modest 7X7 book to our parents and grandparents of our children's struggle to be born and mature. And even more rewarding, was secretly creating and giving Randi a copy of the entire blog from the last year. We hope to continue this through year two and three, and so on, of this blog.

I am a private person, guarded and reserved in my emotions. I am far too analytical and facts-based. There is a quote that is very near and dear to my heart by Leo Tolstoy in Family Happiness. Through the years I have found no text in literature of equal measure.

"He was right in saying that the only certain happiness in life is to live for others . . . I have lived through much, and now I think I have found what is needed for happiness. A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's neighbor --such is my idea of happiness. And then on top of all that, you (look) for a mate, and children perhaps -- what more can the heart of a man desire?"

Peanuts And Cracker Jacks

We took the boys to their first baseball game last night. The game started at 6 p.m., and their bedtime starts around 7 p.m., so we arrived early and left early as well. We had really good seats, so the boys were able to really watch the action. They perked up every time they heard the "ting" of the aluminum bats. Although, at times, they seemed to be just as interested in the crowd as in the game itself, especially the hecklers. Randi's brother, who's 19, came with us and got to warm up to the boys some more. We joked that he needs to borrow them one day and take them out on campus because all the girls were swooning over the "precious little twins." Here are some pictures from the game:

The boys discussing ERA's and slugging percentages during warm-ups.Randi's brother, Blake, holding Wyatt for the first time. Look at that grip.That face right there says SOO much about Parks. All those competing emotions just waiting to get out.He's like an orange on a toothpick. Housing his big brain.Mommy and Wyatt

Blue Christmas

Our boys are starting to communicate with us more and more. Parks has started consistently and purposefully formulating his first sign to us. And what is it you may ask? Is it eat or more or drink? No, it is DOG? How appropriate. I guess the constant tail-swatting and face licking left quite a lasting impression. He will even sign for dog when we ask him about a specific dog by name.

Wyatt loves it when you copy the Campbell's Soup tag line, "mmm, mmm, good," while you are feeding him his fruits and vegetables. He really loves the "good" part, but he is usually in full, gummy grin with the "mmm, mmm's" in anticipation. Also, he is repeating back the "mmm's" consistently. I guess the word good is still a little complex.

Parks and Wyatt both have loved listening to daddy sing "Blue Christmas" in the bathtub for nearly six months. I try to sing it real deep and slow. I also ham-it-up a lot, worse than any cheesy, Vegas-lounge singing version of Elvis. Well, the other night I was full on into the second verse when Parks repeated back to me the full chorus--"Dial han ug boo boo boo keema." And, of course, he would not repeat it when I was able to get Randi in the bathroom.

They are really starting to pick up on a lot of what we are doing. Parks has taken special interest at Randi and I when we kiss in front of him. He looks at us with a sideways grin, not quite sure what we are doing. He knows somethings up.

Funny Faces

11 Months And Counting

The boys are 11 months old today. Here are some recent photos of the them in their new environment. Plans are in the works for the big day next month. They are getting so big and aware. It should be a lot of fun.

Wyatt's big grin, now with the first signs of 2 teeth, and blue eyes.

Parks in mommy's arms. He's such a ham.

Wyatt in his normal position while eating.

Parks is much more of a slouch.

I love Wyatt's big grin in the background of this picture.

Caught'cha