Big Kids!

I feel like the kids changed so much this weekend! We were so busy and they handled it way better than I expected! Chloe has been sick for a week, so I was really worried about how she was going to act when we decided to have a few people over to watch football on Saturday.

These pictures can sum up how our morning was going before everyone arrived...

That's Chloe pretending to cry.

Neither one of them wanted to give up their binks and they were fighting over everything! Here, they had just been fighting over the iPad (that I gave them because they were fighting over something else and I was trying to distract them for a few minutes so I could get some stuff done!). Connor wanted it all to himself, so I gave Chloe my phone and they will both STILL in tears!

Even after they woke up from their nap, still before any guests, they were VERY fussy! We fought to get them dressed and they were screaming even as the door bell was ringing.

  But within about 2 minutes, it all changed. Both kids were down and running around and playing like nothing ever happened. I barely even saw them the rest of the day except when they were walking through the room I was in or when they would come find me for more snacks (yes, they lived on snacks all day!) and of course when I would peak my head outside or upstairs to check on them.

They were so busy all day that these are the only pictures I could get of them! I'm just thrilled with how they acted and how they played so well with each other and with all of the other kids. No fighting and no tantrums. I couldn't believe it! I think having snacks in their hands all day might have helped a little!

These are Connor and Chloe's cousins Walker and Jagger. I found them all on the stairs together.

 

  Connor and Chloe were so wound up from all of the excitement, they didn't want to go to bed that night! But as soon as we put them down, they were out within minutes. Luckily they slept in a little on Sunday and then we all got up and got ready to go to Disney on Ice at the fair!

I was a little worried about how they were going to act during the show, since it was going to be so close to their nap time and they were already acting sleepy on the way there.

They loved seeing Mickey and Minnie and they would just point to them over and over. Chloe's favorite part was at the end of each little thing where everyone would clap. She would drop whatever she was holding to clap along.

Chloe would have sat perfectly still through the whole thing but Connor lost interest pretty quickly.

After the show, we loaded them up in the stroller and it wasn't long before we found them like this...

I knew they were going to be tired since they usually stick to their nap schedule every day.  So I was prepared with binks and blankies and they just went right to sleep!

They slept for over an hour while we walked around.

 

Toddler Talk

Connor and Chloe are talking so much these days! And they are talking on their own, not just repeating words we ask them to repeat. It's so weird to hear them communicate their own thoughts! So I thought it was time to start documenting the funny things they say.

 

Disclaimer: Remember my last post where Connor was the cooperative one and would have sat still for me all night long while I snapped away and Chloe was the crazy one running all over the place and she kept telling me "I going"? Well, just like every day in our house, they switched and Chloe was hanging around for all of the pictures and Connor was acting like this:

And this:

So this post will be a bunch of pictures of just Chloe.

I bought this stroller from our next door neighbor's garage sale this weekend and it's her new favorite toy.

 

Chloe:

She said her first sentence 2 weeks ago (at least it was the first sentence I heard her say). We were playing on the back porch and they were riding in their cars and she was following Connor around in his car and she said "I want to ride it!". It was plain as day and even David heard the same thing I did (so I didn't make it up in my mind!).

(This is what I got when I asked her to smile for me.)

 

When we are outside playing, she says "Ready...Go!" and runs around.

We show the kids pictures of themselves on the iPad and they like to point out who is who and the other day she saw a picture of herself and said "Chloe!" and then she pointed to herself and said "I Chloe!".

When we try to get her out of the bathtub, she lays on her stomach and moves her arms like she is swimming and says "I swimming!".

And her favorite word is..."NO!"

 

 

Connor:

*The kids stayed at my mom's house the night before we had our garage sale so we could get stuff ready and she said that Connor walked right by Chloe and said "Hi Chloe!" just as plain as can be. Well they all laughed at him so he figured out everyone thinks that's funny so I hear him say it all the time. Only now he also says "Hi Daddy!" "Hi Momma!" and "Hi Chloe!" and he says it all in a high pitched sweet little voice.

 

*The other day, they kids were off playing in a room they weren't supposed to be in and I yelled down the hallway "Hey guys..." to try to get their attention to come out of the room. When Connor finally came out of the room he was saying "Hey guys" and not like the way I was saying it. He was saying it like he was actually greeting people he hadn't seen in a while. It's so funny so of course I have him say it over and over.

 

*The kids were playing in the living room and watching tv (of course) and I was in the kitchen washing dishes and I hear Connor yelling something over and over again (it's something he does with everything he says!) but he was yelling it really loudly, like he was really excited. So I turned off the water so I could hear him as he runs in to the kitchen to tell me all about it and I couldn't figure out what he was saying until I looked at the tv and there was a turtle on it. He was yelling "TURTLE! TURTLE!" like he had just seen a celebrity or something. He couldn't believe there was a turtle on tv!

20 months!

Connor and Chloe are 20 months old today!

And can you believe I got a picture with them sitting together and looking at me?! It was definitely a challenge but luckily I found a place in the yard we haven't been before and they were all about sitting on this rock.

And these two are so unpredictable...Chloe used to be the child that sat and posed for the camera and Connor was running around, ignoring my commands playful voice asking for a cute picture.

 But last night, it was the opposite. Chloe was too busy to let me take her picture and Connor was my little ham.

 

Connor:

28 pounds

Wears 24 month - 2T clothes

He loves trucks, tractors, airplanes, boats, helicopters, and motorcycles and yells out when he sees any of these. He has names one of his trucks "Daddy's Truck!" and we're not sure why.

He loves running and jumping and playing Ring Around the Rosie.

He loves "Cows!" and "Puppies!" and "Turtles!" and yes, he yells when he sees any of these.

He loves Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Jake, Octonauts, Little Einsteins, and Henry Hugglemonster. Movies he loves are Cars, Toy Story, and Nemo.

If you ask him what color something is, he will reply with "Yellow!" about 97% of the time. But when you tell him the correct color, he will repeat what you say and smile, like he is saying "oh, ok got it".

He calls Chloe by her name now and can say it pretty well.

David will ask him "Are you a Momma's boy or a Daddy's boy?" and he will look at me and say "Momma's boy" and smile.

My most favorite thing about Connor right now: He says "wuv you" when we tell him we love him.

 

 

Chloe:

22 pounds

Wears 12-18 month clothes

She loves Fisher Price Little People toys. I love seeing her imagination starting to form. She will set all of her Little People out in a row and then pick them up and move them somewhere else. The other day I was watching her play and she was saying "1, 2, 3!" and then making a little person jump up and down. We even had to take her purse to the store with us the other day so she could carry her little people in it.

She loves her blankie and binkies right now. I think maybe because she has been sick or getting more teeth.

Her most favorite thing to do is watch tv. She is obsessed and her favorites are Mickey, Doc, Sofia, Little Einsteins, Henry, and Octonauts.

Her favorite movie is Nemo and when she wants to watch it she says "watch Dory". I think we've watched it 5 times in the last week.

She is talking so much now, and even in sentences! She also repeats everything and we have started spelling things out that we don't want her to understand!

I guess she was done taking pictures because here she kept saying "I going. I going." and was walking away from me.

My favorite thing about Chloe right now: She gives the best hugs. She wraps both of her arms around me and squeezes as tight as she can.

 

 

They are starting to play together a little bit better. They still have their moments of stealing toys or fighting for my attention (ok, we still have a lot of those moments).

 

Playing Ring Around the Rosie:

 

They are both really picky eaters (they won't even eat PB&J!), and dinnertime stresses me out!

 

We've taken the baby gates down and they are up and down the stairs all the time now. The newness of it is slowly wearing off and they are going up there less and less, but they've got the hang of it and I feel ok with letting them do up and down on their own without me watching their every move. This means we were able to move most of the toys out of the living room and up to the playroom!

 

We are fully in the toddler stage now and it's a learning process every day.  I struggle with trying to juggle every day life with 2 very different toddlers.  We have our hard moments where they both want me to hold them or comfort them or where I'm trying to wrangle both of them into the bathtub or out to the car.  But the sweet moments of cuddling on the couch with one on each side of me, double the hugs and kisses every night before bed, and hearing both of them tell me they love me definitely out weigh all of those hard moments. 

Even though I may cry in frustration and feel like I'm failing (when I can't figure out what they want to eat for dinner!), I'm so very thankful for these sweet faces and I wouldn't change a thing.

 

Hand, Foot, and Mouth

Tuesday morning I got a call from the kids' school saying that they believed both kids had Hand Foot and Mouth. I noticed that morning that Connor was getting a bad diaper rash, or what I thought was a diaper rash. I also noticed that he had some bumps around his mouth, on his chin mainly and I just assumed he was breaking out because he is getting 4 new teeth in and is slobbering a lot. I didn't notice anything on Chloe, but when I picked them up and they pointed it out to me, it was obvious.

 

Well, it's awful!!! It's kind of like the chicken pox but there is nothing you can do for it. It doesn't itch, thank goodness (that I know of, they don't try to itch it), but you can tell it's painful.

 Connor has it worse on his bottom, the bumps are like blisters and I have an antibiotic ointment for it so they won't get infected. He also has bumps on his face, in his mouth, on his hands, arms, legs, and feet.

Chloe's is mainly on her feet and hands. She was crying last night because it hurt to walk on her feet.

 

I tried to get a few pictures of Connor's face, but now it looks worse than this.

 

It's highly contagious, so we are out of school for the rest of the week and will go back on Monday.

 

I've let them have their binks in their mouths a lot lately because it helps keep their hands out of their mouths.

 

Yesterday, we colored pictures for Daddy.

Chloe wasn't really in to it.

They have handled the sickness a little differently from one another. Connor acts like he feels fine, until it's time for a diaper change or bath. He was bouncing off the walls and climbing all over everything yesterday.

Chloe is a little more sensitive. She would rather me hold her the whole time and she just wants to lay around. We put pillows all over the floor and laid down to watch movies yesterday. She was very clingy and whiny.

Neither one of them really has an appetite. I've tried fixing things I know they will eat and I'm not having any luck.

This is supposed to last up to 7 days! I'm so ready for it to be over with!

Playing

Friday night, Connor and Chloe stayed the night with GiGi so we could get some stuff done around the house. I picked them up around noon on Saturday and they were asleep before we got home, so they went straight to bed for a nap.

 

When they woke up, we headed outside to play for a bit before dinner.

I love how Chloe is looking at him like "what are you doing?"

When I was showing her how this diving board worked, I would count to three and then hit it and make the toy jump in the water. When it was her turn to try, I heard her say "One, two, three, four, five, six...weeeee!" She counted to six!!

I love watching their imaginations starting to form. Chloe loves playing with little people toys now. She lines them all up or puts them in a tractor and then takes them back out again and then lines them up and over and over again.

Connor was trying to catch a fish.

 

Sunday morning we just played around the house. It was too hot to get outside.

 

Chloe decided to have a tea party (ok, I set it up for her, but she enjoyed playing with it all!).

She even tried to feed her babies some of her snacks.

 

Then when Chloe walked away, I caught this little guy having some tea party fun!

I'm sure he will appreciate these pictures one day!