Goodbye 2011…Hello 2012

2011 was a big year for our family…and a lot of firsts for our boys. So here is a look back at some of the highlights of what happened in 2011.

Lets start with our family picture from last New Years Day.

1) In January my brother, Brian, got married and we welcomed Stephanie to the family. I am so happy for Brian and that he found the love of his life! We love Stephanie and I am so glad to have her as a new sister-in-law.

2) We got like 10 feet of snow in January…ok, so it was more like a foot.  But when you aren’t used to all that snow, it seems like a lot. The boys got to see snow for the first time, too bad they won’t remember it! Then in February, because we didn’t get enough snow in January, we got more snow. I think we had a total of 5 “snow” days between Jan and Feb where we got to stay home from work. We loved getting to spend the time at home with the boys and just relax.

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3) I had my first ride in an ambulance (pretty fun), unfortunately it was to the ER (not so much fun). After this one and 2 other trips to the ER, I finally had the problem fixed – just a simple surgery to remove my gallbladder! Who needs it anyway?!

4) The boys were evaluated and fitted for DocBands (orthotic helmet to reshape their head) and only 6 weeks later graduated from them! What a world of difference the bands made. They had to wear them 23 hours a day/7 days a week for the full 6 weeks. The therapists were impressed with how fast their heads reshaped. We caught them right in the middle of a growth spurt and that was a blessing because that meant they didn’t have to wear them as long.

Doc Band graduation day!!

5) My other brother, Brad, opened up his new Gymnastics facility…Best Gymnastics – go check it out sometime! This has been a dream come true for him and I am so happy for him and proud of him for this accomplishment – he deserves it!

Brooklyn with the boys

4) We celebrated 4 years of marriage and our first real mother’s day and father’s day.

5) We introduced the boys to our pool for the first time, but it was still kind of chilly so they just got their feet week – literally, they just put their feet in the water. A month or so later we did get to go “swimming”, for real this time, and the boys loved it.

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6) The boys had their first haircut at about 8 months old – by Granna Vicki of course.

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7) They have both learned to sit up, crawl, walk and now run…and with each of those has brought new challenges for me and Jonathan. But I wouldn’t give up those challenges for anything!

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8) The boys got to watch their very first world series…and one that our home team was in. Unfortunately they lost, but it was still a fun experience.

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9) We have had a blast throughout the year watching the boys grow. We have just had fun with them, going for walks, swinging and just goofing off with them.

10) The boys celebrated their first birthday on October 21

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11) And lastly, we celebrated the holidays with all our family.

Checking out the Christmas tree...

From my family to yours, we hope you all have a wonderful, safe and happy 2012.

Christmas 2011

This year was so different than last Christmas. The boys did a whole lot more this year. Instead of just laying there and being passed around from person to person, we were taking turns watching them as they run around the house! They weren’t too into the whole unwrapping presents, but they did love what was inside all the wrapping.

Christmas Eve we went to church for the Christmas Eve service and then had my parents and Jonathan’s parents over for dinner. The boys got to “open” their gift from Jonathan’s parents and were to interested in playing with it to go to bed when the time came. They got a big truck full of blocks!

Christmas Day We opened present at our house and then went to my parents for lunch with my family.  My parents got the boys some riding firetrucks so we have been playing with them for the last week. After lunch we drove to s=Sulphur Springs to spend the evening with Jonathan’s family.  The boys did really well for not having more than an hour of sleep all day.  We expected them to sleep the whole way home from Sulphur Springs but they did no such thing! They were over stimulated, over tired and not in the mood to sleep.  Overall, it was a fun day.

Here are some photos of all our Christmas fun.

Christmas Eve at our house

Christmas Morning

Christmas Day

Merry Christmas from the Blundell Family

 

My How They’ve Grown…and duplicated

Every year at Christmas we have our annual Turner-Medlin Christmas extravaganza.  Since us “kids” are all grown up now, we try to take a picture of all our kids each year to see how much the have grown from the last year…and its fun to see the group multiply year after year. Here are some of the pictures we have taken over the years. We started doing this in 2006 and I have no clue what happened to the 2007 or 2008 picture, but I have 2006, 2009, 2010 and 2011 to show you. Its interesting to see the group and how as the kids get older, the picture is more organized and just a better photo overall…It will be fun to see if the group grows more next year! (NOT BY US ADDING TO THE GROUP)

Its a tradition now that the little kids get new pajamas from the grandmas so in every picture you will see them wearing their new PJ’s.

2006 - Jake (6), Brooklyn (2), Aubrie (2mo)

2009 - Jake (9), Brooklyn (5), Aubrie (3)

2010 – Jake (10), Brooklyn (6), Aubrie (4), Hayden (2mo), Ian (2mo)

2011 - Jake (11), Brooklyn (7), Aubrie (5), Hayden (14mo), Ian (14mo), Blake (2mo)

Holiday Traditions

Nativity Scene - minus a few wise men

Our twin boys are a year old and I know they don’t understand what Christmas is or traditions or even what presents are for that matter.  They just know that one day when they woke up they saw a big green thing in their living room covered with pretty lights and cool things to take off. Maybe next year they will start to get the idea that Christmas time is a good time of year and they will soon look forward to it coming around year after year.  But I want my kids to look forward to Christmas time because of the holiday traditions and the time spent with family.

Growing up I loved this time of year because we got to spend it with all our family, I only had 1 cousin around my age, the others were 10+ years older than me or 10+ years younger than me.  But I still looked forward to spending time with them – I still do!

Jonathan and I have been trying to think of some holiday traditions to do with our boys every year because those are the things you grow up and remember (hopefully).  I love pulling out the ornaments and trying to remember where we got all of them or who gave them to us.  I hope our boys will enjoy that too, especially the ones that are their very own.

While growing up, Christmas morning was the same year after year.  We would all go wait in my mom and dad’s room while my dad went in and made sure Santa had come and left everything where it was “supposed” to be.  I think he really just went in and went back to sleep on the couch, because it seemed to take FOREVER for him to come back.  Then we would all run to the living room and see what Santa left for us.  We all had our official Christmas morning spot in the room.  Every year we were in the same spot, and its funny because if you were to look in our living room window now on Christmas day, you would still find the 3 of us sitting in the same spot as we did when we were kids.  Some things never change!

I think one of the oddest traditions that I have heard about, and one that I will not be doing with my kids is the “elf on a shelf.”  Have you seen this little dude? He’s just plain creepy. For those of you who have no clue what I’m talking about… it’s a little elf that you put on a shelf or anywhere you want and its supposed to be a reminder for kids to be on their best behavior because the elf will tell Santa who has been naughty or nice.

Thanks, but no thanks.

I don’t need a little elf to “watch” my kids and make them think that he is going to go back and tell Santa all about their behavior.  I put the fear of God in them so they behave good all year round — just kidding ;).  Isn’t that just teaching our kids that if they behave, Santa will bring them presents.  They should behave well without the end result being presents. We don’t want to kill the “magic that is Santa” but we don’t want our boys growing up thinking they’ll always be rewarded handsomely just because they behave properly, and on the flip side, if they don’t get exactly what they want – it’s not because they’re being punished for bad behavior.

It’s difficult to fight the mentality that invades this time of year, that Christmas is all about getting the biggest and best gifts.  We always had a great Christmas growing up, we never got the biggest or hottest item that was being sold and we were fine with that (I think that’s because none of us were in to that).  My parents didn’t spend hundreds of dollars per child at Christmas (at least not that I’m aware of 😉 ), yet we still had awesome Christmas gifts and loved what we got. I read something the other day that said, on average, parents spend $500-$600 per child at Christmas time. That’s outrageous! Although when we were growing up there wasn’t the XBox, iPhone, iPad, flat screen TV’s, or any of the other 100 electronic devices that are out there now either.  Now days, the wants are greater and the price tags are higher!

I want to make sure my kids know what the meaning of Christmas is and that it’s not all about getting presents. My boys have a book about the Christmas story and one part of it says “We give gifts to each other to celebrate the birth of Christ.”  I don’t want them to grow up thinking that just because its Christmas they are entitled to getting things.  I want to see my boys faces fill with joy and anticipation as they open their presents on Christmas morning because they know we love them and celebrate them.  Not because some guy in a red suit gave them things on their wish list.

Here’s to making Christmas memories and traditions to follow for years to come!

Thanksgiving 2011

Our Family Thanksgiving Day

Thanksgiving Day was a little different this year than it was last year. Last year, we had two little babies in tow that pretty much just sat there and were passed around from person to person while we ate, visited and so forth.  This year, they were a little more mobile, to say the least! They were running everywhere and getting into everything.  We brought their high chairs so we wouldn’t have to sit them in our laps while we attempted to eat and feed them at the same time.  They both ate some yummy turkey that my aunt Gwen made, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole and their favorite, rolls.  Their feast was much better tasting than last years feast of formula!

We are blessed in that my niece (7) and nephew (10) were there and more than willing to play with the boys, AKA chase them around so we can have a little break. They had fun playing with the sit and spin, their toys, play dough and sliding down the slide.

We had a great time with my family and then it was time to head over to Jonathan’s parents house for round 2.  His cousins had already left before we got there but we did get to see some family before they headed out too.

The boys didn’t get much of a nap that day – maybe 20 minutes in the car -  so they were pretty sleepy and cranky by 5:00 or so.  We visited with Jonathan’s family for a little while and then headed home so we could get the boys in bed before total meltdowns occurred.  Here are some pictures of our fun from that day. Some of them are from my phone so they are a little blurry.

Brooklyn playing play dough with Hayden

The boys playing with play dough together

Hayden sliding while Ian waits his turn

Ian sitting in my moms rocking chair she had as a kid

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The cousins playing together

Lastly, here is a picture of the boys last year at Thanksgiving and this year….it’s crazy how much they have grown in a year!

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Thanksgiving 2010 and 2011

 

 

Friday Video Fun

This day in age, we all have cameras, and I absolutely love that my phone is my camera and video camera.  The problem is, I get video a lot but never do anything with it.  It just stays on my camera indefinitely until I figure something to do with it. So here are a few videos I shot in one day with our boys, just to give you an idea of what a typical day is kind of like with two 1 year olds.  It is about 6 minutes long because I just couldn’t cut anymore out of the videos, I liked them all!  But I am a little biased. There is a part of the video where Ian tries to push the chair back up after it fell and I love his persistence in trying…even though he eventually gives up and moves on.  I also love their faces when they realize they got caught trying to sit in one of their toys after they had been told not to.  Enjoy!

1 year check up

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I just realized I never posted anything about the boys’ 1 year doctor check up, oops.  They had to get more shots this visit and boy did they NOT like it.  I think this was the first time they got shots and really protested.

Neither of them have gained a whole lot of weight since their 9 month visit, which is pretty typical for this age.  Hayden weighed in at 24 pounds and was 30.5 inches long, and Ian was 20 pounds and 29.5 inches long.  They both grew almost 2 inches with Hayden being a whole inch taller than Ian.  I think Ian is just going to be smaller than Hayden.

They both checked out great and are developing just as they should.  We are slowly switching them to whole milk from formula, and our wallet can’t wait!  They are drinking great from their sippee cups and cups with straws.  We are going to try giving them milk in their sippee cup 2 meals a day and keep the bottle for morning and nighttime only.  We’ll see how that goes!

Ian is eating very well, he will eat anything we give him but Hayden on the other hand has been on a hunger strike.  I think the strike is over, but he is just completely picky in what he’ll eat!  At this point its mainly bread, crackers, milk and sometimes 4 or 5 bites of baby food. He has been getting better the last few days so hopefully he’ll start eating more and more soon.  We think his reflux was the reason he wasn’t eating much a while back.  We switched him off Prevacid to Zantac and that’s when we really noticed it.  So, we thought it was the zantac causing the problem and we put him back on Prevacid.  Since doing that he has been much better, and less fussy.  So we think it was his reflux all along.  Ian is still on the Prevacid and has failed every time we try to back him off it, even a little.  So he will stay on it indefinitely.  I think he just got his momma’s reflux, poor guy!

They will go back at 15 months for another check up, and hopefully we’ll stay away from there until then!

A first Birthday Party

Last weekend we had a birthday party for the boys with family and a few friends.  We had a great time and the boys experienced a birthday party for the first time.  I decided to make two big cupcakes for the boys for their cakes.  And since their are two boys, we had two separate birthday “cakes”…and we sang “Happy Birthday” to them each one at a time.

They both did really well with having as many people in the house as we did.  We only had two meltdowns by Ian, and they weren’t totally his fault, I must admit.  Meltdown #1 was when I was putting the hat on them.  I think I accidentally snapped the side of Ian’s face with the elastic.  Then they were eating their cakes and meltdown #2 happened.  They were doing so well, we sang to them and then let them dig into their cupcakes.  Ian kind of just touched it and then licked his fingers, while Hayden shoved his whole hand into the cake.  That’s when it happened…when Hayden did that, we all started to laugh and my sensitive Ian lost it, followed by Hayden after he saw Ian was upset.  We got them all cleaned off and dressed again then they were ok and all ready to open their present.  They got some great gifts and will be all set for a while. They have had a lot of fun lately playing with all their toys!

Here are a few pictures of the big day.

Birthday Boys' Highchairs

the boys' cakes

 

The Cupcakes

 

Hayden's photos

Ian's Photos

1 photo every month to see how much they grow

Hayden digging into his cake

 

 

1 year photos

Jonathan’s sister, Kara, and I took the boys to the Arboretum a few weeks ago to get some photos of the boys for their 1 year mark.  They did as good as any 1 year old would…and we had 2 to contend with.  Hayden and his curiosity made it hard to get many of him and Ian was in a funk all day.  I don’t think he felt that good because he just wasn’t himself.  He normally is all smiles, and that day he didn’t give me many smiles at all.  Getting a good picture of the two of them together is out of the question. Its pretty hard to get one baby to look at you on command, let alone 2…and get them smiling.  But, I think we got some pretty good ones of them.  Here are just a few of the many I got:

Hayden

Ian

Ian

Ian

Hayden

Hayden

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Momma and her boys

12 months old – Happy Birthday!

My boys are ONE year old today! 12 months, 52 weeks, 365 whole days old. I can not believe how fast the time has flown by and how much the boys have changed in just one short year. In the last year, they have more than doubled their size, both learned to sit, crawl and walk (and not just toddle around, they are all out walking).
I know a lot of people that cry when their tots turn 1 because they are sad their babies are no longer babies but are now a toddler. I can honestly say I’m not sad, they are a year old and their birthday is a day to celebrate their first year of life and all they have accomplished, not to mention all the joy they have brought to our lives!

Its also a time to celebrate us, as parents, making it through the first year of life with twins! This was a hard year, in more ways than one. The first 6 months were easier than the last 6 months, which I think is the opposite of what most people think. The last few months have been difficult. The boys are mobile now and in to everything, they are clingy in the evenings when we get home from work because they just want to be with us – they don’t care that we need to make dinner, they just want us to hold them. But, we have survived the first year and despite all the difficult times, we have had some of the most joyous and memorable times of our lives. I wouldn’t trade any of those middle of the night feedings or nights with screaming, hurting, teething babies for anything in the world…it is all worth it!
Both Hayden and Ian are walking all over the place now. Its such a crazy sight to look up and see them walking around. It seems like just yesterday they were so little they couldn’t even hold their heads up, and now their walking.
Their individual personalities have definitely come through and boy do they differ from one another.

Hayden is our thinker and loves to sit and play with toys. He loves to find out how things work and is very tactile. If it has a texture, he’ll touch it. He is cautious and very deliberate in what he does. He can find a single piece of dog hair in our carpet and pick it up to look at it. He loves to be where either me or Jonathan are. He could be completely content playing with his toys and if we leave his sight, he tries to come find us. He likes to have our undivided attention in the evenings, and that is sometimes hard to do when you have 2 little ones wanting your attention. He has the sweetest smile and will absolutely melt your heart when you see it!

Ian is our crazy man. Not really, but he is definitely more on the go than Hayden. Ian should be called Ian, go-go, Blundell because he is always on the go and moving. I have to admit that he is a lot like me in that area. My mom used to call me Laurie, go-go, Turner when I was little. I laugh because Ian just walks around the house aimlessly, the boy seriously loves to walk. He also can just sit and play with toys for a while completely content. In the evenings he likes to be held, there are many nights we will cook dinner holding Ian. Ian is a sweetheart, just like Hayden is. He is very concerned about how others feel and is pretty sensitive. If Hayden is upset, Ian will look very concerned and make sure he is ok before going back to whatever it was he was doing. If he hears someone laugh really loud or yell (in excitement) he gets very upset and bursts into tears. Ian has such a cute smile you can’t help but want to grab him and squeeze him.

This year has been so much fun, I can’t wait to see what the next year will bring!