Twins: They're ONE!! (+a month or so!)

Miles and Calvin are ONE!!!!!

Ok, I lied....they are actually 13+ months old already!! Where does the time go?? I didn't even write a blog post for their first birthday!!! Oops! I left their birthday party decorations up for a whole month because if/when I took them down it would make it "official" that their birthday was over. Sad! I guess you could say I am in denial!

My babies aren't babies anymore :(

but I will say....we ARE excited to not have to take monthly tie pictures anymore!

They just don't SIT STILL!

Wild boys!

Miles:

One year stats:
Height: 31.5 inches (95%)--1/2 inch taller than Calvin
Weight: 23lbs. 5 oz. (78%)--4 oz. bigger than Calvin
Head cir.: 19 1/8 (97%)

Favorite songs-- Likes all music but knows some actions to "Open, Shut them", "Itsy Bitsy Spider", "Clap your hands", "If your Happy and You Know It", "Pig on your Head", "Bingo" and "I Know a Chicken" (we sing lots of songs around here, can you tell?)

Favorite Books--I don't think he has a favorite. He just likes to shut them and throw them on the floor.

Lover of--His Daddy, when people make funny noises (burps, farts,  silly noises, etc.), his favorite DVD (Praise Baby), his brother, shoes, eating food/stuff off the floor (so gross...and we vacuum several times a day!!), Skyping with Grandma and Grandpa and his pacifier.

Words--"Mama", "dada", "hi", "done", "more". He also signs "more" and "all done".

Favorite toys--Loves his hammer and ball toy from Uncle Jason, new coupe trucks, basketball hoop, stacking cups, cell phones, the remote and basically any truck he can push around. 

Favorite foods--Basically everything, but really loves bread. 

Dislikes--Dogs (he met his first one in January and was really scared of it), fruit (but he is getting better), getting dirty, getting out of the bathtub, and when daddy doesn't pick him up right away after getting home from work.

Other important stuff about Miles--He is still our little snuggle bug and loves to cuddle
-He loves to fake laugh when other people are laughing
-He pretends to blow his nose by making a blowing sound on his hand whenever he sees a Kleenex.
-Is really good at blowing kisses and waving good bye
-Wears size 3 diapers; some 12 month clothes and some 18 month; size 5 shoes
-Used to sleep through the night pretty well until recently when he was sick and got in to some bad habits.
-Has 8 teeth
-Is extremely emotionally fragile--can go from happy to sad within a minute.

Calvin:

One year stats:

Height: 31 inches (87%)

Weight: 23lbs. 1 oz. (75%)

Head cir.: 19 3/4 (99%)

Favorite songs-- "Open, Shut them", "Clap your hands", "If your Happy and You Know It", "Pig on your Head" and "Bingo".

Favorite Books--All books, but really likes the Elmo puppet book, or anything with flaps or animals he can touch

Lover of--Climbing, his favorite DVD (Praise Baby), changing the channel on the remote, looking at books, walking aimlessly around the house, making funny noises, putting on scarfs/hats/helmets, and food.

Words--"Hi", "yes", "uh oh", "peek-a-boo", "up", Also nods "yes" or "no".

Favorite toys--Loves books, stacking cups, basketball hoop, daddy's hat, and his new coupe truck. 

Favorite foods--EVERYTHING! He eats so much food!

Dislikes--Getting his face washed, sitting still for diaper changes or to get dressed, when Miles wants something he is playing with, mornings, getting woken up, and being disciplined.

Other important stuff about Calvin--
-Loves to give wet, sloppy kisses
-Is a WILD child, has no fear and is super clumsy! (not a good combination!)
-He is pretty shy around other people, but he is loud, hilarious, and crazy at home!
-Used to be the BEST sleeper, but has been standing up crying in his bed lately (attachment issues?, teething?, too much sleep? Who knows?)
-Wears size 3 diapers; some 12 month clothes and some 18 month; size 5 shoes
-Has 8 teeth
-Loves wearing shoes. Whenever I ask if him if he wants to go "byebye" he runs over to the basket, pulls out his shoes and tries to put his hat on. So cute!

Here is what we've been up to the past two months (January 20th-March 20th):  

We celebrated Andrew's birthday on January 23rd. We took daddy out to dinner and bought him a new bike trailer so he can haul us around this summer. I don't know if it is a present for Andrew or for the boys :)

Grandma Tammy and Grandpa Brad have come to town a couple of times the past two months. We Skype with Grandma almost every day so this time when they visited us we knew exactly who they were! Here we are snugglin' up with Grandpa Brad!

The weather is still REALLY cold and snowy for these two little bears. We can't wait for Spring!

We still haven't taken the pacifier away from Miles yet. Apparently he knows where to stash an extra one "just in case". Sneaky little monkey! He usually only gets it at nap time and bedtime and if he "really" needs it during the day. If we say "can I have your paci?" or "leave your paci in your bed"....he usually hands it right over. What a good listener!

 

They have both been climbing the stairs for quite a while now (probably shortly after 10 months). Miles learned first and Calvin quickly followed. We usually have baby races to see who can make it up first (usually Miles wins....Calvin is easily distracted). Miles knows how to go down the stairs really well, but Calvin would rather just fall and roll down :) 

We LOVE when Daddy comes home from work. Miles gets very emotional if he isn't picked up within a minute of Andrew walking through the door. He is a daddy's boy! 

Miles is our neat, clean eater. He normally only eats with one hand and uses only two fingers to pick up his food. 

Calvin is exactly opposite--extremely messy! Mom and Dad usually play 'Rock, Paper, Scissors' to decide who has to clean up Calvin after every meal!

Speaking of food...we had our last bottle on Friday, March 1st. Dad just kinda decided not to give us any bottles the next Saturday....and it worked! We are getting to be so big, but now we eat SO MUCH more FOOD!

Miles had to go to the doctor on Valentine's Day and was diagnosed with Croup. Poor baby :(

Calvin was excited to open his Valentine gifts from mommy and daddy--he received a few ice packs! He is the clumsiest kid I've ever met (and I've met/worked with A LOT of kids!)

Miles was excited to open his new toothbrush and dump truck. Miles LOVES brushing his teeth!

And this is how Calvin got sick with croup a few days after Miles......he stole his brother's nasty, snotty, germed-up pacifier! Gross kid! You don't even LIKE pacifiers!

On February 16th we celebrated the boys' first birthday. They were sick the weekend of their birthday party, but the party must go on, right??  They still had fun!

And they got some really awesome toys!

Miles loves pushing around his baby (my dad calls it an "action figure") in the shopping cart. Miles took his first steps without holding on to something on February 15th, but just really started walking well towards the middle on March. 

This is their favorite place to sit and "read". They are getting a little more interested in books, but they really just love to dump them all out. This is a great picture to show how close they always sit to each other. Well.....really, Miles sits close to Calvin. Calvin is definitely the leader and Miles is the follower. 

Here is a picture of them saying goodbye to daddy in the morning. They give lots of hugs, kisses and waves "byebye" in the mornings.

And this is what happens when daddy leaves :(  This doesn't happen every morning....but they DO really love their daddy!

Here is their favorite place to "hang out". This is the BEST craigslist find ever! Every kid loves this little house. I love when they both play in there together....melts my heart!

Peek-a-boo!

Miles is our little drummer boy. He has really good hand-eye coordination and can really hit the drum well! He still loves to dance, clap and stomp his feet to music. He is really good at actions to songs. 

Oh brothers.....Calvin climbs in the back of his truck and Miles takes him for a ride. They are already getting into trouble together at 12 months old!!! What are we going to do?? 

Pajama day....and our last day of daycare :(  With a heavy heart, I have decided to stop doing daycare for a few years while the boys are still little. The boys are at an age where they need to be out exploring the world and we just weren't getting out of the house enough for me or for them. I am sad because I love my daycare kiddos so much and I will miss them, but at the same time...the boys are only little once and I need to focus more on them right now. 

We love playing in our tent!  Mom has to come up with all sorts of ways to entertain us now that we've given up our morning nap. We gave it up a little before 13 months old (way too early for Mom), but we take really good afternoon naps now so she can't complain too much! We nap from 1-3pm (sometimes later) and then go to bed around 7:45pm until 7:00am.

Oh Calvin...what are we going to do with you? Anyone want to predict when we will go to the hospital for the first time for stitches or a broken bone? If he makes it through the summer it will be a miracle!! He has already fallen a few times outside and hit his head on the cement, but luckily he had a stocking hat on so he bounced right back up. Would it be weird if he wore a stocking hat all summer? 

The little monkeys have figured out how to push the car around to reach the things they want. They can climb through the car to get onto the furniture. Sneaky (but smart and creative) little boys!

Our friend Jocelyn (and Adrian and Celeste) came over for pizza on St. Patricks Day (ok...she didn't have pizza....but we LOVE pizza). We are going to have so much fun playing together this summer! 

<3 Miles and Calvin

Twins: 11 months old

Miles and Calvin are 11 months old!!!

I thought this picture of them was too sweet

Here is what we've been up to (December 20th-January 20th):

Calvin took his first real steps the weekend after Christmas. He is a very determined little stinker boy! He wasn't even crawling at Thanksgiving, but he was almost walking by Christmas....amazing! And just think....doctors and physical therapists were worried about his delayed development....but just look at him now!

The boys were baptized on December 23rd. They did surprisingly well :)  You never know how church will be with two 10 month olds!

We were honored to have Uncle Jason and Aunt Angie be our sponsors. 

We were glad that Aunt Jamie, Uncle Steve, cousins Carter, Austin and Addie could join us from Ohio to celebrate our special day. Calvin especially loved all the walking practice from cousin Carter. Carter gets all the credit because Calvin started walking a week later. 

We were very blessed that our family could help us celebrate our baptism, but our baptism day also marked 5 years since Grandma Cynthia (Andrew's mom) passed away. We wish we could have met her...she would've been a great grandma!!

Grandpa Lyle gave us these awesome new pedal tractors for Christmas! We can't quite reach the pedals, but we loved sitting on them. Miles especially loved when we dumped toys out of the front bucket. 

We headed up to Minnesota on Christmas Eve to spend time with the Van Horn side of the family. Miles loved opening presents with Grandpa Brad. 

Calvin was a little too squirmy to open presents so he hung out with his daddy most of the night.

Miles opening presents on Christmas morning

Calvin LOVED hanging out with cousin Carter! 

All the Van Horn grandkids on Christmas morning. Tough getting that many little ones to look at the camera! Carter (8), Austin (5), Lauren (3), Addie (2),
Calvin (10 months), Zachary (9 1/2 months), Miles (10 months)

Andrew, Calvin and Miles stayed at Grandma and Grandpa's while the rest of the family went skiing at Afton Alps. Can you tell Calvin is a little squirmy?  Good thing he thought it was funny when he tipped over in his high chair :) Wild boy!

Andrew and the boys spent the afternoon with Andrew's aunt, uncle, cousins and their kids. The boys had fun meeting their extended family for the first time. 

Our second morning in Minnesota was spent at the Mall of America watching all of our older cousins ride rides. Maybe next year we will get to go on some rides!

Can you tell our previous night in the hotel didn't go well? The boys have NEVER napped in the stroller. Apparently he was a little exhausted!

Let's just say it is a little difficult to get two babies to sleep in a hotel room when they know you are 5 feet away from them. And FORGET about letting them cry it out....we didn't want to be THOSE people! The boys were spoiled and got to sleep on mommy and daddy for the first time (Calvin needed to be held to get to sleep and Miles woke up early in the morning so he got to sleep on daddy for a few hours). Rough two nights! 

We stayed at the Waterpark of America Hotel so obviously it had an awesome pool. The boys LOVED the pool. They were in the water for three hours!!

Mommy and Calvin snuggling during one of the pool checks. 

Daddy and his boys! Can you tell they had fun? They slept a little better the second night in the hotel, but poor Miles had a stuffy nose so that made it difficult for him to breathe.

We had a great time in Minnesota even though the boys were a little bit of a handful this year. Next year will be easier.....right?  HA!

The boys' four favorite things to do right now:
1. Chasing after the vacuum whenever it is on. Most kids are scared of it....not ours! Maybe because I use it every day to clean up messes in the kitchen.

2.  Racing to the bathroom whenever they hear the door open. Why are they so obsessed with the bathroom? That's gross!

3. Dashing to the stairs whenever they notice that we left the baby gate open or hear the gate opening.

4. Bee lining to the dishwasher whenever it is opened so they can "help out". Remember this post about Calvin getting a knife out of the dishwasher when he was in his walker...well, this week he came walking into the playroom with a cutting board in his hands. Not as dangerous as the knife...but seriously....this kid gets into everything! Why was the dishwasher left open again you ask? The doorbell rang so I was answering the door. I didn't think he knew the dishwasher was open! My bad...that kid notices EVERYTHING!

Little stinkers!

Remember when I told you they love climbing the stairs? Well, they even conspired one day to knock down the baby gate in the hallway and crawled under it. I came out of the bathroom and found them both climbing the stairs. (Let's just say it has happened a few more times since this picture so we now have a new, sturdier baby gate!)

Can you tell who the ring leader is?  Calvin is the trouble maker and Miles just reaps the benefits :) We are in so much trouble!

Here is how this conversation went:

Calvin: "Hey Brother....mom and dad left the pantry open! Hurry, quick....go steal the chocolate chips!

Mom: "Miles and Calvin.....no thank you! Get out of the pantry!"

Calvin: "OH NO we've been caught! "

Miles: "I will just charm her with my super cute smile. It works every time!"

Oh Calvin, you are such a stinker but you are SO funny! It makes it really difficult to discipline you. Every time I raise my voice at you you make a ridiculous face that makes me laugh. You know how to push my buttons (like walking by the curtains and just slightly reaching your hand out to brush them...you know you aren't supposed to touch them, but you are just waiting for me to react). You are still the clumsiest little kid I've ever met. People are nervous around you because you always hit your head...your dad and I don't even react anymore when you fall. Most of the time you bounce right back up without crying. You are one tough little boy!

Mr Miles, you are so sensitive and sweet!  You still really love to cuddle, but you are becoming more of a bruiser like your brother. You really hate getting hurt and you think it is the end of the world when you fall over. I don't think walking will be in your near future because you just don't like to fall down. You have been testing our limits lately too, but you really don't like making mommy and daddy mad and you don't have much of a poker face so you don't get into trouble too often. For example, a few weeks ago you had your plate lifted three inches off your high chair tray acting like you were going to flip your plate over. Instead of actually flipping it you just stared at me and smiled until I noticed what you were doing. Your feelings get VERY hurt whenever we do raise our voice at you. You stare at us for about a minute with your lip hanging out and then start crying uncontrollably. It is very sad and breaks my heart to witness that :(

This is a picture of Miles' new "cheese" face and Calvin was laughing at him. Their outfits were made by Andrew's aunt Carolyn. Super cute...house divided! Speaking of....Calvin had so much fun opening this gift from Aunt Carolyn because he LOVES clothes. Whenever he finds blankets/bibs/clothes on the ground he rolls around in them and rearranges them over and over again. He literally played with these new outfits for over 15 minutes! Weird....but funny! 

January 9th: Calvin says his first word "uhh oh" He has been saying it for a few weeks repeating us, but this was the first time he dropped a Cheerio on the ground and said "uhh oh" unprompted. "Uh oh" is his first word??? We are in so much trouble in the future :)

Apparently we were being too loud for Calvin! HA! Actually....he hasn't quite figured out how to cover his eyes when we play peek-a-boo....instead, he covers his ears!  Calvin also loves to clap his hands, climb the stairs, walk everywhere, get into trouble and say "uh oh".

Miles loves when we make funny noises. His favorite noise is when someone burps really loud (we'll have to stop doing that sometime soon, won't we?) How does an 11 month old know burps are funny?? He laughs so hard and then tries to do it himself. If we fake burp he laughs harder and harder. Such a boy :)

Miles also loves skyping with grandma and grandpa, dancing, walking around the furniture, snuggling and his paci (although we are going to take that away sometime soon. I'll save that for another blog post).

Calvin LOVES food! He cries and whines and begs for food whenever he sees us eating anything. He will literally cry for 20 minutes while dinner is being prepared....obviously he hasn't figured out that it takes time to cook. If we are eating something different than him he will whine until he gets to have what we are eating.  Here is a picture of him stealing my taco. I mean....seriously kid....you have 4 teeth! 

And when I've had enough of his whining at the table I make him get down.......but then he steals food off his brother's tray. Sneaky little booger!

You'd think Calvin would weigh WAY more than Miles with how much food he eats, but Miles is still the bigger twin and he eats 1/2 as much as Calvin at every meal. 

Thanks for checking in on us! Next time you hear from us we will be ONE!!!  

<3 Miles and Calvin