Crawfish

After Wes and PawPaw came home, they decided to boil crawfish. Wes also helped water the garden. He pushed his brothers around in the stroller and car, and then helped clean up after we ate. He was in bed very early tonight!!!

Shopping Trip

While Wesley was spending the weekend at the camp with Parrain and PawPaw, the twins and I met Granny and Aunt Gerry at the outlet mall to shop for clothes. I have been lucky in that I can use Wesley's old clothes for the twins (same season). When Daniel went to go get the boys 6-9 month clothes from the attic yesterday, he could not find that box and thought maybe I already had it down here somewhere. I realized that that was some of the clothes that I gave away to a family that came to Vacherie after Katrina. That meant I had only the 3 outfits they had been wearing the past week that were summer clothes. Granny wanted to get some for Easter, but I also wanted to get a little to hold them over the next couple of weeks. We had a great time. They boys were great. And I think Aunt Gerry loved the attention the twins brought.

Here is a picture in one of their new outfits. Osh Kosh gives an extra 10% off for families of multiples. We made great deals there!!!

After shopping we came home and worked outside. Then we went to Lowes for our patio set and eat out. The twins were ehausted by the end of the night. Aiden fell asleep as we were eating.

Weekend Away

PawPaw and Parrain Kirby asked Wesley to go with them to the camp this weekend. It was a boys weekend. He had a blast and I am told he was well behaved.

Parrain gave Wesley his Easter present a little early. He bough a little flat boat for him to use at the camp and also at the fishing camp in Montegut. I think he got good use out of it this weekend. Every time I called they were out fishing.

They also worked on a dock which you can see in the following pictures. I think we will be spending a lot of time at the pond.

The men also started their garden. They made 80 something hills for watermelon (or something like that), and rows of okra. They seemed to do just as much work as relaxing this weekend. Kirby also decided not to take a picture at then end of the day because he said Wesley's feet were as black as can be. His clothes were proof of the fun he had.

The little bear is "Polar," Wesley's new pal. It was actually a gift for his brothers for Christmas, but Wes says he is sharing with them.

8 months

Wow! 8 months already! Here are some of the things the babies can do:

• sit without support
• feed self a cracker
• bear weight on legs
• object if you take a toy away
• work to get a toy out of reach
• pass an object from one hand to another
• look for a dropped object
• turn in the direction of a voice
• babble
• play peekaboo
• wave bye-bye (very little)
• dada
• mama (Aiden)

These are some of the things to look for in the next month or so:

• pull to a standing position from sitting
• get in to a sitting position from stomach
• clap hands/ wave bye-bye
• pick up an object with thumb and finger
• mama and dada

Dadadada

Alex and Aiden have both been saying dada quite a bit this week. Aiden also says "nananana" and "mamamama" while Alex tend just just laugh as we talk to him.

The boys have also been sleeping well at night. They go to bed around 8 or 8:30 depending who gets their breathing treatment first and we wake them up in the morning to get ready around 5:30. This morning they slept in until 6:45 (over 10 hour stretch). I can still remember the nights where we were doing shifts and someone was pretty much up at any point in time.

Here are the twins playing in my bed this morning as I was getting ready.

Back to the doctor

[Alex waking from his nap]

Dr. Peltier has been having me call and give updates on Alex by phone. He is doing much better with his wheezing, but he still wanted to see him today to be able to check his lungs and ear infections. His lungs are better, but definately still some bad wheezing. His ear infections are not clearing up. This is a little worrisome because he was given an antibiotic shot and is on a different antibiotic. One of the two should have made his ears a little better. We are not really sure the cause of everything going on right now so we are going to keep him on the same medicines, but change his milk. He may have a milk allergy or something along that line. Basically it is something that we can do easily. Dr. Peltier also brought up the idea of tubes in his ears , but because this is only his second ear infections (the first was not bad at all), it is not an option at this time. But he said if we do see ear problems continue, we will discuss tubes again, because they could help the wheezing issues also. Unfortunately, he was also given shots again. Poor baby, as soon as they started wiping his leg he started crying. He knew is was coming. After all he had a shot in each leg Wed., Fri., Sat., and again today. Hopefully this will be all for a long time. We go back Tuesday to check everything again.

Happy Birthday Nanny Kaci

Happy 21st Birthday

Nanny Kaci!

Hope you had fun in New Orleans.

See you soon

Wesley's Photo Shoot

Wes rarely likes to have taken pictures of him. He always wants to do is the picture taking. Here are some of his pictures from Friday night.

Sick Baby

Alex has been pretty sick the past few days. We brought him in to the doctor on Friday. The doctor did not like that he could hear his whezing from across the room. He was close to being put into the hospital, but after blod and oxygen level test came back, the doctor said we would try a steroid shot and breathing treatments every two hours and see how he was doing by the end of the day. He said Alex was too happy to put in a hospital. He was laughing the whole time he was there.

We called back in at 5pm. The other doctor took the call and said to give him his oral steroid early and try to see how thte night in.

We brought him back in on Saturday to get rechecked. His levels were all still good, but the wheezing was still bad. He is now on a strong antibiotic also (he also has an ear infection).

He is still wheezing pretty bad today. His appitite has picked up a bit (from about 2 ounces every 4 or more hours). He does seem a little better than Friday. He is coughing up lots of mucas which sounds horrible but is good for him. De will take the steroidsa couple more days and the antibioticabout a week. Hopefully we can get over this soon. I would really hate to havea baby in the hospital.

2 new babies

Brody

Keena and Shane had another beautiful baby boy Friday at 8:10 am. He weighed in at 9lbs 3 ounces! (He was hungry when I was taking the picture and not very happy with me -- sorry Brody)

Brayden

Brandee and Shannon had their handsome little man on Valentine's day.

Holding our bottles!

Alex and Aiden have been working hard to hold their own bottles. Alex started about two weeks ago really trying to hold it by himself. Aiden followed about a week later. Now they are both pretty good with it. If they are really tired or over hungry, then, they still need some assistance. They also do better in a reclined position; the bottle is still too heavy for them to sit up and hold it that much higher. It had definately made our lives just a little easier now that we can easily feed both at the same time instead of trying to entertain one while try to feed another.

Making Pizza

The back patio

We have been working on forming a slab for a back patio. Actually our major set back is getting a finisher who can come out. The one we had set up only did his slabs at 7AM but the concrete companies would only deliver a small size like we need (not a full house slab) after their big loads in the morning ( around 11am). So we waited a couple of weeks incase they would have a cancellation, but everyone is so busy right now, that was not happening, so now we are working on getting another finisher. My dad works with someone who can do it on weekends, so hopefully the weather is good next weekend and we can finally get this done.

Wesley enjoyed "helping" to till the land, rake the grass off, add sand, etc.

Then, we had to have a picnic outside for lunch!

Aiden enjoyed watching from the window as Alex was in the swing outside.

I can see!!!

We have been getting Wes screened for speech because he is having trouble making the /k/ and /g/ sounds. With doing so, he also had to have a vision and hearing test done this week.

It is not very easy to get a 3 year old to do these test. The hearing test, of course, is the one when you raise your hand when you hear the noise. You could tell with Welsey's expression that he could hear it, but he would not raise his hand or tell us. We tried so many things. Finally, we made him tell the nurse to ring a bell whenever he heard the noise. It worked, but that was a workout for us.

Then we had to do a vision test. Since he does not know all of his letters, he had to do pictures. He did fine with his right eye the first time, but was definately getting aggrivated and did not do so well with his left eye. When the nurse came closer he was again able to identify the pictures, so I definately thought he might have a little vision problem. after all, both Daniel and I have a lazy eye. Because he did not pass on his left eye, I had to bring him to an eye doctor. This time we did his left eye first. Again, it takes so long to test, his patience runs thin, but he did better this time. His left eye is a little weaker than his right, but nothing to worry about at this point. Now we just need to wait until they can do the full speech test on him to see if he qualifies for those services. (He did not pass the screener which is why we needed to start this whole process.)

7 months

The twins turned 7 months old this week. By this time they

should be able to . . .

• keep head steady with body (both)
• say vowel-consonant sounds (both)

will probably be able to . . .

• bear some weight on legs (both)
• sit without support (Alex better than Aiden, but we are getting there)

may be able to . . .

• stand holding on to something (neither)
• feed self a cracker (neither, but they love when Wesley feeds them)
• object if you take a toy away (Aiden more than Alex -- Alex just laughs because he thinks you are playing a game)
• work to get a toy out of reach (both -- especially the bunnies from the Easter pictures last night)
• pass a cube from one hand to another ( both)
• look for a dropped raisen (sometimes)
• rake a raisen (neither)
• turn in direction of a voice (both)
• babble -- gagaga, bababa (neither)

So, they are definately doing a great job of playing catch up these past couple of months.

They are both on antbiotics right now for sinus infections. We cannot seem to get this chest conjestion stuff over with. The moment it seems to get better, it comes back. That is when it looks like other infections start. Hopefully the warmer weather will help them to stay a little healthier. Their doctor did say that they have seen a lot of this this year, so not to worry.