Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

We've been so busy and also very sick with the whole family coming down with a wicked stomach virus. With so much going on these last couple of weeks I haven't been taking many pictures or videos but I will try to post a few. But for now I have to tell you my favorite Christmas present from Cameron and Evan.

Beginning Thanksgiving weekend Cameron started sleeping through the night. And just a few days later on December 1st all of the sudden Evan started sleeping through the night. I don't know what happened or why, but it seems that at 20 months actual and 17mos adjusted we got our Christmas miracle. They now sleep from about 7pm to 5am. We can not get them to sleep past 5am, or very rarely, but this is okay because Drew is a good morning person and he gets them started so I can sneak in a shower before he has to go to work.

Cameron's new words are:
Hammer
Soda
Ice Cream - Eye skee
Banana - Nana
Up
Down - Dow
Green - Geeeen!
Scary - Scawee
Elmo - Emo or Melmo
Ernie
Oscar - Os Cah
Cookie Monster - Coo Kee Mah-stah
Truck - Tuck
Car - Cah
Off
On
Hello - puts hand to ear
Hi

Evan's new words are:
Bye Bye - Bah Bah complete with hand wave, often saying he wants the toy turned off
Elmo - Eh-mo
Ball -this is a reemergence since he said this months ago but stopped to learn to walk
Hello - Heh-oh with hand to ear
Evan also knows what Up and Down mean but doesn't say them yet, though he's trying.

And in news for the upcoming New Year, the boys are going to Feeding Clinic boot camp earlier than expected. We have been on the waiting list for a very looooong time and slated to start June 1st. Originally the director of the clinic said he wanted the boys to be at least two and a little older if possible so they would be mature enough developmentally to understand personal consequences from a positive reinforcement perspective. Also, they book the spaces in this program so far in advance that there were not two open spots at the same time. This week we got the call and the therapists and the director have decided that based on the minimal improvement, and in most cases decline in willingness to eat, as well as the developing behavioral resistance they would like to get the boys in earlier. So now they will be starting Feeding Clinic on April 27th. They would go earlier but we have decided to wait until the end of RSV season which also ends in March, as well as their 2nd birthday.

I think that they will be ready, they are just growing with personality by leaps and bounds. And now that they are on a better sleep schedule and the reflux seems to be getting better (that is outside of this wicked virus we've got going on this week) they will be catching up on all things developmentally much faster because they are finally starting to feel better.

So I'm anxious and nervous and excited and eager to get the ball rolling. And since we have our first family vacation planned for this summer right after the feeding clinic we have extra reason to celebrate. The year 2010 is going to be better than 2009. And 2009 was certainly way better than 2008, with the exception of my beautiful boys being born.

So here are some pictures, a year in review.

New Years Eve 2009

January - 4 days after New Years Eve

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December





Happy holidays to you and your families, and may your New Year be bright and shiny and beautiful.

With love,
Laura, Drew, Evan and Cameron

God Bless Elmo

Dear Elmo,
You are my hero. Thank you so much for my second early Christmas gift. (I will post another update later about my first early Christmas gift.) Today the boys were watching your Food, Water & Exercise video (yes, my form of subliminal messaging to get the boys to eat and sit still while on their feeding pumps). When the DVD ended it was Evan who called out to me "Mommy. Moooommmyyy! Melmo. Buh-buh Melmo." and waved bye-bye at the television. Then he signed the word for more, pointed at the television and said "Melmo" again.

Just so you know, this is momentous for a couple of reasons. Evan has not said an actual intelligible word in three and a half months since he started crawling and walking. Most dear to my heart is the fact that he called me Mommy, because he hasn't really said more than muh-muh and it wasn't really directed at me. Evan actually called me Mommy for the first time! And lastly, his speech therapist is going to pee her pants with glee when she learns that he said an actual two word sentence with a physical action in order to communicate information to me followed by a request for something important to him.

Naturally Evan gets another watch at your video, which I usually limit to one or two a day. How can I resist giving my little boy what he wants?? So thank you Elmo, thank you, thank you, thank you. You have me covered in Happy Christmas Tears.

With much love and affection,
Laura

Return on Our Investment

This is a good article from the NY Times that I thought I'd share. Reading this made me feel good about my boys chances, especially for Evan. My favorite part is the last paragraph.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/health/22brod.html?_r=3&ref=health

Christmas Blizzard 2009!

We had an actual record breaking blizzard this weekend and got to snuggle in our pajamas all day long while 21 inches of snow accumulated outside. To give you an idea of how much that is to the boys... Evan is only 29" tall without shoes and Cameron is 33" tall. It was nice, but the boys did not do well with the snow suits I got them. Too many layers weighed them down and prevented them from being able to bend at the shoulders, elbows and knees. The mittens (that are incredibly difficult to get on two unwilling toddlers) also prevented the boys from being able to catch themselves on their hands when they fell and so a few painful face plants were had. Also, it's quite frustrating that I could not find snow boots in boys infant/toddler size 4 or 5 anywhere. Luckily we had some size 6 handmedown boots from our friend Squeaker (thank you Ray & Jenny!!!) and the boys were able to wear those to keep feet warm and dry, but it made the face plants more frequent and treacherous.

All in all the guys seemed to actually like the snow, they just didn't know what to do with it because there was so much and they couldn't really move around in it. The dogs on the other hand had a blast, especially our Akita/Shepperd mix Chewie. He really didn't understand why we weren't outside romping and rolling around in the beautiful cold snow. Here are some pictures from this weekend...















Poor Evan had 4 face plants, this being the last one and...


...resulting in this pretty big ouchie of a shiner. He had a good nap after that.



But don't think that just because Evan is smaller and quieter and has a few owies on his face that he doesn't get what he wants when he wants it! Cameron may be more of a bully at times, but Evan's always been my little dragon. The kid's a scrappy fighter.






What Dad? Did I take your seat?







The new and improved Super-Mini Play Yard for the times when you don't want help decorating the tree.














Evan is upset that Cameron got a turn to climb on the kitchen chair.


I'm not sure what it is about this picture I love so much. Maybe it's just how life will be from now on, a typical representation of our sweet happy little family.
I just love it.


It really does feel like a Merry Christmas!