What Fish?

Before the plague hit our house (see entry below), we had taken the girls to the aquarium again. They had the doors for the Oceans Ballroom open and people were kind of milling in and out because there are two viewing opportunities in there that I guess people don't always get to see. One is the Buluga Whales just from the other side and another is the Whale Shark exhibit. Same fish, just a different perspective. Anyway...they had this machine out to clean the carpet and it was just sitting in the middle of the ballroom. Don't you just know my kids ran over to it and wanted to try to push it. (They LOVE to push things: shopping carts, their doll toys, their real stroller, anything...) Did we mention there were fish at the aquarium?

Nicole trying to push the machine.

Running around in the ballroom....did we mention there were fish?

Oh, finally some fish!!!! But not for long....

We spotted Deepo!!!!

And more Deepo....

We actually got back in line (not long thankfully) to see Deepo again because once was apparently not enough. Did we mention there are fish at the aquarium?

And I wasn't kidding when I said Kaitlyn REALLY likes Deepo. Good thing we have the annual passes!!!

What a Week!!!

Well, the girls got some nasty virus or something and it invaded our whole house. Late Saturday night sometime (I say that because she's such an angel and just slept right through the night) Kaitlyn threw up. We found her with a small amount of puke in her crib Sunday morning. And then we were off....

Kaitlyn was the only one with sick signs for Sunday and most of Monday. Of course we weren't foolish enough to think that Nicole wasn't going to get it. It was only a matter of time. Monday evening, Nicole threw up everywhere, and then we were off with two kids....

And then, Mike called Monday and said he was on his way home from work because he had gotten sick. So, I was the lone hold out....well, until about midnight when I too started getting sick. Then, Tuesday night our nanny called and said she needed Wed (and it turns out Thursday too) off because she got it. As I said before, WHAT A WEEK!!!

My poor, poor girls. And poor Kaitlyn, my tiny, tiny Kaitlyn, she got it first and threw up for the longest...SIX days! Nicole only threw up for about three days. Most of the throwing up was at night time too. How strange? We had very few instances of day time throw up. Maybe it was something about being horizontal. However, it wasn't during nap time. Whatever. The most random virus ever. They told us they thought it was rota. Of course I'm wondering why they vaccinate against rota if you get it anyway. It turned out not to be rota though. And the bacteria cultures for eccoli and salmanilla came back negative too. So, what a mystery.

I think I did about 20-30 loads of laundry last week. Can't wait for that water bill. :-) Anyway, that's the update!

Words, Words, Words

Nicole continues to be our little sponge, soaking up every word and often repeating anything you say. Not to imply that she "knows" all of these words that she repeats, but I think she does know several of them. Let's see...what does she know...here goes:

-She continues to count to 10!!!!
-She's starting to show signs of knowing the alphabet. We have one toy, Leap, (that Kaitlyn really likes better, so she pushes his tummy to sing the ABCs often) and when Leap starts singing, Nicole will get several letters here and there as well as getting the overall tune of the song. It's awesome!
-Shoe
-Night Night
-Light
-Water
-Minnie
-Daisy
-MaMa (love hearing that one...it wasn't like this was her first word or anything...I waited a long time for this to become a regularly used word)
-DaDa
-Bubble
-Baby
-Melmo (for Elmo)
-Outside
-Hello
-Bye Bye
-Uh Oh
-Oh My
-Oh Toodles
-Oh no
-No No No
-She says choo choo when she sees a train
-She says meow when she sees a picture of a cat
-And more....

Now, for Kaitlyn...drum roll please...we're SO excited that her vocabulary is picking up!!! When Nicole counts to 10, she absolutely joins in. I don't know that she could go from 1 to 10 all the way, but she definitely has 3, 8, 9 and 10. Then, she also does the same thing with Leap when she pushes his belly to sing the alphabet. She has several letters in there as well as the overall tune to the song too!!!! How fantastic. I think we just needed to be patient (which we were told plenty and never ignored, but when it's your kid, seems like we just wanted to do everything we could). She also has words. Here goes...

-Light
-Dog
-Daisy
-MaMa (same thing here...very exciting for me)
-DaDa
-Duckie (this is a new one - and a neat one becuase she's asking for her favorite toy which is cool) -She still does the same 6 animal noises
-She signs "more" quite often
-Yeah (always accompanied with applause)
-Baby
-Up
-Hi
-Bye Bye
-Cir Kin (or something like that - it comes out a bit like the word certain, but she's saying circle)
-And there are times that it seems like she's trying to say something if we say, "Kaitlyn, can you say ____."

And that's that! They're both doing great!!! I've waited for so long for them to talk. It's going to be that old saying, "Be careful what you wish for," right? :-) Oh well.

Aquarium Visit, Playing Dress Up and Other Photos

Just hanging around the house with mommy after her appendix was removed. (Woke up New Years Day around 6am not feeling well. Back in the days of alcohol and parties, I would probably have dismissed it, so thank goodness I'm a boring old parent now who didn't do anything crazy New Years Eve. Anyway, I tried to go back to sleep and couldn't and thought a trip to the ER would be a good idea. Turns out I was right.)

Sitting in our new chairs that are just our size. I think they like having their own place to sit and play.

Playing dress up with our tu-tus. I came home from work last week, and they ran to the door wearing these. This was the first time I saw them wearing them and it was to die for. They just looked so cute.

Nicole finally wearing her head band. She wasn't a big fan. It didn't last long.

Kaitlyn with the full ensemble...magic wand and all, although it's upside down. :-)

Photos from our first trip to the aquarium:

Nicole pointing at some fish.

The girls LOVED running through this tube that goes beneath a smaller exhibit. They would run to one end, see me or Mike, scream, turn and run to the other end, and then do it all over again. Did we mention there were fish? It's all about the little things at this age.

The girls were fascinated by Deepo. He's obviously a rip off of Nemo, but this character was walking around the aquarium the whole time and we stopped not once but twice for hugs. They really liked him, Kaitlyn especially.

Looking at the fish with DaDa.

More fish with DaDa. This is the underwater tunnel leading back toward the whale sharks. For those who have been to the aquarium before, I'm sure you remember the VERY SLOW moving sidewalk in this tunnel. Kailtyn thought that was the greatest thing. She would get on and then get off. I don't suppose they've ever seen a moving floor before. As previously stated, did we mention there are fish at the aquarium? :-) We bought annual passes though, so we'll be back. I bet each time we go that they'll get more interested in the fish.

A Long Hiatus - Sorry

It's been a while and a lot has happened. Let's start with Christmas first. We had a wonderful holiday, and the girls got lots of nice toys and a few cute outfits as well. They completely don't "get it" yet, so next year will probably be the first Christmas around our house with the huge excitement. Nonetheless, they enjoyed this holiday. And they're enjoying all their new toys.

Nicole playing with an ornament. This one survived. (See below.)

Kaitlyn with her pom poms. Santa left those in their stockings.

Wow. We each got Cabbage Patch twins this year!!! Here's Kaitlyn looking at hers.

Grandma with her three grandkids. What a photo!

Nicole playing with ornaments on the tree. Kaitlyn wasn't too into the tree, but Nicole sure was. We ended up putting our play yard fence around the tree but finally had to take it down Christmas morning. I think she broke 4-6 ornaments this year in the short time that she had access to the tree. This particular one she's grabbing right now was a Christmas gift to me from my mom this year and it lasted all of about 4 hours on our tree before she broke it. Oh well.

Seond thing to update is their 18th month checkup. Both kids lost in percentiles for weight.

Nicole still gained weight but just not on a proportionate basis which is why her percentiles declined. She in the 78th percent which is great. And she's 97th in height!!! She may be one tall cookie. A good balance between height and weight. The strange thing with Kaitlyn is that she not only declined on the percentile scale, but she actuall LOST weight from her 15 month checkup. Needless to say, the doctor wasn't crazy about that. Kaitlyn is now in the 3rd percentile for weight and 50th for height. The doctor has insisted on a very high calorie diet for her (but obviously not for Nicole which presents an interesting cooking challenge). Specifically, our doctors said Kaitlyn should have a pasta with butter and cheese every day!!!

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Also, the pediatrician still agrees with me about the few oddities that I've noticed with Kaitlyn, so we will proceed down the path of going to visit a developmental pediatrician who will evaluate her. She still has her bouncing stim and she's still not talking at the rate she should be. I think Mike and I are talking ourselves out of the fact that she might be autistic and instead think she might be on the autism spectrum but somewhere very mild where it's called something else. And I don't even know if Mike agrees with me on that. We'll see what the doctor says in March (it takes a long time to get these appts).

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On a postive note, we do have more words than we did for our last post. Kaitlyn continues to say many animal noises: duck, horse, bee, owl, snake, and lion. She also says baby, bath and ball. And recently she's begun to say circle and I swear I heard the word cookie yesterday. There are a few other words too, but I can't remember right now.

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Nicole on the other hand is really starting to babble. She says: uh oh, oh boy, oh my, oh no (lots of phrases with "oh"), and my favorite...Oh Toodles (anyone who has watched Mickey Mouse Clubhouse will get that one). You can say to her, Nicole do we need a Mousekatool, and she'll respond, Oh Toodles, which is exactly correct. That's what Mickey will say on the show. She also says shoe, night night, bubble, and touchdown. Now, here's what's really impressive!!!! I don't think this is normal...I could be wrong, so pardon my excitement if this isn't impressive...my 1 1/2 year old child can count to TEN already!!!! WOW!!!

Little Gym

Today was the last class for this semester of Little Gym. The girls really enjoy LG. Clearly they mostly just run around and such, but that's part of what they love. Face it...at home, they can't just run around and eeeekkkk, etc. (If we had that bigger house I'm after with a basement for a playroom, well, that would be another story....aaaaahhhh....for now I'll just dream.) Anyway, they have actually learned a few things though. They know how to forward roll. They can walk on a balance beam (assisted of course). And this is their big chance for interaction with other kids which I love. And to continue along those lines, we've started having Joanna take them to story time twice per week at our local libraries. Anyway, since today was the final class, they call it "show" day. I use the term "show" VERY loosely. It basically just meant that you could bring your cameras and that they got a medal at the end.

Here are some shots from today's class:

Nicole with the bells at the beginning of class.

Kaitlyn with the bells. They really love these bells too. When it's time to put them away, they just keep shakin'.

Nicole with some LG friends.

Kaitlyn climbing on something. Finally a place where I'm allowed to climb and it's encouaraged mom. :-)


Holy cow. Can you imagine how excited I was to actually snap a photo of them both doing what I wanted them to do at the same time!!!! (That goodness for that quick shutter speed camera that I got last Christmas.) Look at them hang on the bars. Woo Hoo.

Kaitlyn getting her medal.

Nicole getting her medal.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving photos first and a few others from November. Enjoy!!

Kaitlyn outside on Thanksgiving day. Cute coat!!! They have matching hats too. What a good find Mommy.

Nicole in her cute coat as well. And notice that Nature Nicole is back...picking up all the fallen leaves. Maybe we won't need to rake in our yard. HA! :-)

Daddy and the girls with Great Grandma and Great Grandpa.

Gamma showing the girls and cousin Mackenzie how to work the horn on Great Grandpa's wheelchair. What fun!

PaPa and all his Grandkids. Definitely something to be thankful for.

Thanksgiving evening - Kaitlyn chillin' with her cousin Brett.

Other random November photos below:

Nicole clapping in the tub.

Kaitlyn smiling as usual for the camera.

Daddy was trying to teach Nicole to "cover her ears." I think she got that message. :-)

Jeana the human jungle gym. The only one missing is Minnie. Can you blame her? I think she runs the other direction almost every time our kids enter a room. Poor pups....

In the process of gearing up for Christmas (which will involve moving a few pieces of furniture), we freed up the space in front of this chair which was previously blocked by toys, etc. You'd think we just got them a new toy. They can't stop climbing on this chair now.

See what I mean. So cute. And see Nicole with our car keys...another favorite "toy" around our house. Truly, Mike and I don't know why we even purchase toys. Remote controls, the phone and car keys are by far the favorites around our house. :-)

Going to see Santa tonight, so maybe a new picture posting in the next day or so.