The dish ran away with the spoon!

Shannon is awesome! She came and got Duncan to take him to the story time at the library with Charlotte! Afterwards they went to Cafe Rio for a special treat and apparently Duncan went up to some random person's table and had a treat, actually took food from their plate! Oh my word... she said it was pretty funny and the guy was funny about it. She brought him home tired, fed and ready for B E D. I tucked him in and he went right to sleep. I could tell he had so much fun!

When they were getting into the car I asked Duncan if he wanted to go with Shannon and Charlotte and he said a very clear "Yes!" (Only it's more like yeth at this point) Charlotte was so stinking proud of Duncan for talking. I guess she always says "When Duncan can talk..." So cute. He's not exactly 'verbal', but he does just fine at getting what he needs. We are trying to each him to say sorry and it sounds more like "Ahh Ma Ma" (sorry mama) but I love it. I get the point.

Matthew has been in New York for the last couple of days for a short notice business trip. He left early yesterday and gets home late tonight. Since he usually works late on Tues and has cello on Wed, it's not really that much of a change. As long as Duncan and Dylan don't need an extra tuck-in in the middle of the night I have it covered. Course... I do like it a bit better when he's here. He stayed right across the street from Ground Zero. Apparently he could look into the gaping holes where the towers stood and see the tractors in the sight.

At one point today Duncan brought me the phone and said "Daddy?" He loves talking on the phone even if all he does point to me and say "Mama". Or wave to the phone when I say "Say hi/bye to ___."

We have been working on learning to clean up, it's hard... really hard. No wonder why so many moms just do it themselves! I hand him something and tell him to put it where it goes and he does, but then inevitably finds something in that location that he then wants to play with. And then I am the worst mom in the world because I won't let him drag 'said new item' out to play until we are done cleaning. Advice? Although, tonight one of the 'said items' tonight was the harmonica which he picked up and played! Yay! He got it with a music set from Aunt Jane for his birthday who I KNOW just got the set for the drum! (I am on to you!) He blows toward it, but doesn't make the seal or do it with enough pressure to make a noise. He's seen his dad play, so he gets the jist, but hadn't been able to do it until tonight. I made him put it in his jammie pocket until post clean up time.

Dylie and I have been working on the stairs and by golly... she's not so bad! Assisted of course, and only with the right motivation a couple stairs away, but she actually tries to pull herself up! Stairs are great for working on all sorts of things and up to just recently she was too tiny and not really motivated to work. I am trying to do it once a day and we have also gone back to feeding once or twice a day. Some feedings are fantastic (this morning!) and some, er... not so much (this evening).

The last few days I have been putting messy buns in Dylan's hair. It's just getting so long! (Which is pretty impressive for a girl who's head was clean shaven little over a year ago!) If I do one pony tail on the top it kind of fountains over and is just shy of getting in her eyes again! Trying something new, and the messy buns are so cute! Except, Duncan's obsessed with them, he won't leave them alone. You wouldn't believe how many times a day I have to tell him to leave her hair alone, that added to the 'don't lay one her', Don't push her', 'give that back to Dylan's and the boy's had it hard lately. The Library was even more of a treat because of it!

HUGE thanks again to Shannon! See you next time!

Big boy! (And his dish and a spoon.)


Duncan trying to get in the shot, I was taking it of the bows and messy buns! Today he sat on the floor, scooted behind her with open legs and tried to pull her onto his lap having realized that I would then take a picture of them both!


So serious!


The new brown bows! Seriously, Aunt Jill has out done herself!


My big girl! Proud of herself!

Kisses and Hugs

Duncan is a snuggly kissy boy lately. I love it because sometimes he will just give me a big old smackeroo for no good reason. When we are with people and we say tell him to say good bye and wave he might lean over for a kiss (if you're lucky). It's very smart and cute on his part... learning early how to be very smooth!

He's into wearing my day sweat jackets. Matthew asked if I had gotten a picture of it, he had walked in from work to Duncan covered in a blue jacket from head to toe. I didn't... but he found my purple one the next day and wanted to wear it. They can't be comfortable, I imagine they get in the way, but he will wear it all day, warm rosey cheeks and all.

Before this week Duncan had never held Ian, I guess it never really occured to me that he might want to. I was too busy trying to get him not to poke him in the eye. We have been working really hard to stick to just rubbing his head gently. He does pretty well... but he REALLY likes baby Ian. Anyway, he kind of tried to grab/hug him and I asked if he wanted to hold him. He very excitedly said YEA and we got them situated together. My cute little boys. He did it again this morning.

Ian's already in the 3-6 month clothes! So sad... he's a chubby little guy. Big cute cheekies. I am trying to type with his cute little cheekies on my lap... not so easy.

Yesterday there was a NICU Volunteer board meeting that Ian and I went to. Man... I miss going to the NICU. I haven't been in months. It will be better when Ian gets on a schedule and I can go in regularly, I miss seeing the tiny babies and talking to the new moms. Shelly and I did offer to do the NICU tour for the new parents on the 1st and 3rd Friday of each month though, so that will get me in there, even if it's brief. I just know I can count on Matthew being home on Fridays so it works well with his schedule too.

Last night Michael, Megan, Bed, Ed and Kendree came over for games but we didn't really play the usual games. Instead, for some reason, we brought out the Wii Fit that my mom got me for Christmas. Oh. My. Hilarious. Really... there is nothing like watching Megan Wii. I was laughing so hard I was crying. How brave was she to get on there in front of the group and be so silly? What a good sport! I stayed up way later than I had intended and am pretty tired, but it was worth it!

My boys! =)


Happy faces





Gently rubbing the head. Good boy.


Wearing mom's jacket


BIG smile... I was trying to show the size of the bear... it's an 'up the nose' shot. But SO cute!


My time taker! Jess hasn't been able to do knitting night so I finished it up on my own. She's so cute! Shes about 6.5 inches tall. The origional pattern didn't have the flower or trim on the dress, I am rather proud of the additions!

Apparently we have some catching up to do?!

Yesterday I ran up to the hospital to visit Erin and Noah. I had been avoiding it all week because the visitors policy right now is no kids except for the patient. Ian thinks he needs to eat if his eyes are open so I wasn't comfortable leaving him for what would have been a minimum of 2 hours. Well, on Saturday Erin asked a nurse and they told her people were coming up all of the time! Game on! Well, on what was planned to be her final day Ian and I went up for a visit. Turns out they were releasing Noah, like... NOW and with Erin's husband having to drive from Wyoming to pick her up, I held her captive at my house for a couple of hours.

Her husband pulls up in their van (and by van... I mean, VAN) and Matthew goes out and sees all of their ducks lined up, row after row of adorable kids. Needless to say I was doing a lot of "I know..." "Yes, it would be fun" "Yes, we will someday" "I know, not yet" "No, probably not 12 honey" "No, that van would not fit in the garage, yes we would have to get something else"... and more, you get the idea. So thanks for the big ideas Josh and Erin! Matthew had stars in his eyes all day! He's so jealous of your big family! Apparently we have some catching up to do?!

Duncan is getting so cute with his playing with other kids! At LouAnn's he's always grabbed a car and kind of went off to play on his own. Just like he does here..., he's really good at entertaining and playing by himself. Well, Charlotte came over (with her parents!) and Duncan and Charlotte were playing so cute we let him stay up WAY past his bed time! They were running around and chasing each other, playing with toys and interacting all night. It was the cutest thing EVER. I hadn't really ever seen him do this with the cousins before. But Sunday night when we went to grandmas it was a different story. He was playing with Jonah quite a bit. At one point (over an hour past bedtime) Those crazy two were climbing up on a chair and flinging their little bodies over the arm of the padded chair, rinse and repeat, it was so cute. I was cracking up because quite frequently Jonah didn't land properly and he would fall off the chair but then he would hop up and brush it off and go back to it. They were giggling. Duncan's cheeks were so rosey from all that work!

He is really loving to go over there. There's always someone to play with, or, at the very least watch. He always goes bounding into the kitchen to announce his arrival to anyone present. We actually went over there after dinner on Friday too (we all went out, again!) and stayed fairly late. I got a little carried away doing a puzzle. I like them so much and it will be a while before I have the all clear to pull one out over here again. Grandpa always has one going though and Melissa, LouAnn and I were making quick work of it. Matthew had picked up LouAnn's violin at one point and we got a pretty decent concert. Occasionally our necks would twinge, but for the most part, pretty decent for a non-violin player. He's very musically talented... so jealous!

Ian's growing so big! He's a little 'chubby nugget' a term Terri used last night and it absolutely describes him! He's so fun though, when he lays on you he just melts into you! He's been sleeping pretty well, he goes down for good at about 12:00 or so, then it's about every four hours. That would be great if he went down fast but he's like his older brother and he swallows a fair bit of air and it's rather time consuming to get all of the bubbles out! It usually takes an hour or so to get him back down, with new math that gives me about 3 hours to sleep which is pretty good! I did have to sleep sitting up with him a couple of the last few nights but last night was good so no complaints from me today. He's cheeks are super dry as they are recovering from that bad bout of baby acne but he's still adorable, if I do say so myself!

Here's a few pictures of Ian talking to Charlotte's mom Shannon.




One eyebrow... color me jealous.


Cheese!


Have I mentioned this bug? I can't remember. Jess and Steve brought a couple of toys over for Duncan and Dylan when they brought over all of Ian's gifts and this bug was Dylan's present. They thought it would be great for her because not only does it have a face, but you can see it's wings and stuff have a different texture. Dylan LOVES this BUG! They have frequent make-out sessions, it's so cute.


When she's on her knees she can even lift the whole thing up to give it kisses. I have to think that it would be awkward for her to do that. I mean, it's not exactly heavy, but neither is she, and it's darn near as big as her! Whatever she has to do to give it loves though!

Special Visitor

We had a special visitor the other night. My blogging buddy Erin from Wyoming came to town because her little guy Noah had to have surgery on Wednesday. I couldn't figure out how to work it so Duncan and Dylan weren't tearing up the hotel room so in the end I decided the best thing to do would be to go pick her up at the hotel and have her come here for the afternoon and dinner. The other times she has come down Matthew was home, and there were only two kids, so we split them up and it worked quite nicely but this time he was working late.

It was a fun visit, it always is when she's in town, and she really got to see Duncan in action. He totally faked a nap and was so..., well..., TWO. I put him down for the night early and within 5 minutes I needed to go in and get something from his room and he was completely passed out. That's not typical, he usually talks in there for a while. He was so tired!

Noah was so cute but we did have to run defense for him from both Duncan, who is into throwing balls at people's heads, and Dylan, who just wanted to give him a big wet kiss on the forehead and crawl OVER him to the next toy! When he wasn't being mauled he did seem to enjoy himself though! Such a cute little guy!

Oh, and Erin even got a smile from Ian! Daddy hasn't even gotten a smile but you know us girls, we work for it a little bit harder than the guys do. She ended up staying late, until Matthew got home, and he got to meet her for the first time too. So... at least now he knows she isn't just my imaginary friend.

Joe and Eileen came over the other night too. They are great, I am glad they came over even though Duncan gave Joe quite the work out. Duncan thought he was some sort of punching bag, bean bag combo I think! Joe was the Ward Missionary when I was baptized so they kind of became my church family for a while. I rarely see them even though they live so close! Eileen made Ian a snuggly blanket, it's so cute! See, blanket snobs I tell you, can you blame us? Keep 'em coming, the whole family is benefiting from Ian's arrival! Spoiled!

The whole family ventured out twice in the last week, once to Costco and once to dinner. Yes... DINNER! Some guy there remarked 'that's a lot of kids!' We do get a lot of attention, especially at Costco with a cart loaded with diapers! You know the kids are all in different sizes even though mom said she grabbed one of Ian's and it actually fit Dylan! At Costco Dylan fell asleep so Matt was carrying her pushing a cart, I was wearing Ian and Duncan was in the cart I was pushing, one big happy family! (With lots of diapers!) It's nice to get out occasionally, Duncan needs it too! I don't think it would be as shocking if Dylan was a little bit bigger but she's so tiny, people think we have these kids all 40 weeks apart!

Pat came over for PT this morning and put some crazy spandex shorts on Dylan that are supposed to keep her legs together and start to work some different muscles. Dylan was flopping around all over the place trying to get used to them! She usually kicks a leg up to sit up, and she had to work it out another way with these on.

I tried to pick up Dylan's solid foods again and yesterday she actually did pretty good, I tried twice. I have to catch her at the right time and I chose poorly this morning so she didn't cooperate, at all, but I will see if I can try again this afternoon. I read another mother's comment in a forum that said her child's feeding therapist told her that these kids tend to not eat because the only thing they actually have control over is what goes in their mouth. That makes so much sense with Dylan because she doesn't have an oral aversion, she's always shoving something in there! Oh well, we shall just keep on trying!

This is Noah, I think he's being coy. He's like Dylie with the one finger in the mouth!

Look at this big old cheeser though!

I think Ian looks a lot like Duncan in this picture! He's got some wicked baby acne right now!

Duncan was reading a recipe book to Ian, I guess it's the thought that counts. It was cuter before he heard the camera turn on though, they were both looking at eachother. And do you love the hat? Every once and a while Duncan will find one and put it on, he wears it around for a little while. This particular one my mom's friend GayLynn made for the twins back when the hats were too big, now the bottom curls up when Duncan shoves it on his noggin'. Kid's got a melon I tell you... Looks like I need get another one made that actually fits!

Blame Mario

Yup, blame Mario for the lack of posting. Silly Wii. I also started the blog book for 2008 and that's rather time consuming too. It's really fun though... a throw back to my working days making brochures and pamphlets. Can't wait until it's done and I get it (a long time from now I am sure!). Bloggers... I would recommend Blurb.com if you are interested in making our own books. The program will import your blog entries and pictures and you use the pre-set formats to make the pages. I haven't seen the finished product but it came highly recommended!

Little Ian is smiling already! While I do love the smiles it's amazing how fast it's happening when my last babies were preemies! The first milestones took months from when they were born, not MONTH. It's crazy! They are just tiny little things for such a short time. It's amazing. His smiles are big and gorgeous!

Saturday Matthew let Ian and I go back to bed until a ridiculous 11:30! I had no idea of the time and was shocked when I woke up and saw what time it was. It was great! I was caught up again... as long as I get a good sleep in or a nap every other day this whole newborn thing works out great! Skip a day... mom's cranky!

All of the Andersons (including Jared and Aarika) went out to eat for the annual meeting to celebrate Dr. Bob on Saturday. We went to Ruby River and I had a big, fat, yummy steak! I was next to Kristen who's meal came with a roasted garlic (it was to spread on bruchetta) and I was showing her what to do with it and she said she didn't really like garlic. What?! Seriously? So I spread it all over my yummy steak. I ate the whole garlic all by myself. I did offer some to other people, Matthew said he wouldn't deprive me of the enjoyment I would get from eating it! I love garlic... it's a problem. Mom watched the D's for a couple hours for me, so glad she lives so close, it's nice. Anyway, another year come and gone. Miss you Bob!

Our little Dylan's back! She's over all of that gunk! She's still wearing a bib though because she refuses to swallow most of the time. Boo! Hopefully she will gradually realize that she can still breath if she swallows and then we can get rid of the bibs! She swallows at night, and with the binky, so I know she has it in her! I am going to try and work with her a little on eating again this week and see if we can start to get that back as well. That will be nice, she was doing so well! Hopefully we won't have to go through this every winter but I imagine we will. Poor baby girl.

We are in the final week of weaning Dylan from B6, it's the last hold over medication left from trying to get rid of the Infantile Spasms. They have the kids go on drug after drug to get rid of them until one finally works and then wean them from whatever ones didn't work. It's a slow process because they only make one drug change at a time, and then wean them slowly but we are almost done. We decreased by 50mg a week and she was on 150 a day, so... this is it! It's just one less medication we have to give her, we don't have too much any more and it's nice!

We had Dylan's first OT appointment in probably 5 weeks last week. We had to keep cancelling because of her ooey gooey-ness. Sarah was VERY impressed! She said she was doing great! And that there was a noticeable difference in her crawling in just the few weeks since she had seen her last. She noticed and loved that when kneeling Dylan sometimes pulls one leg up like she's going to stand! The desire to stand is definitely there and that's what she worked on. There's a bit of a balance issue with her but she said she's probably going to stand in about 4 weeks!!! I think that's very optimistic (which I LOVE) I know it's soon, but that soon? Not sure... this is where I want Dylan to prove me wrong! I am going to work with her on it though, it's kind of a fun exercise, better than stretching that's for sure!

Jessica brought over Ian's Christmas present last week... she continued the black and green theme that she had for our new baby present. We got all kinds of crafty things when he was born, a hooded towel, a blanket, a carseat blanket, burp clothes... all in that color scheme and and all made with love. Well... his Christmas present was a black knitted blanket with a green ribbon around the edge. We are getting to be total blanket snobs around here with all the generous crafty people in our lives!

I still haven't done the paperwork to get a second opinion on her MRI, I need to get that done. Abby's mom got hers back and posted the information about it on hr blog here. I was telling Matthew about it and he doesn't really care about all of the information because it's not going to change anything, Dylan's still going to be her own person and all... but I LOVE reading about it. There is something about being told that only a small percentage does ____ (fill in any random thing), I love that my little girl might be in that small percentage and I consider it a win every time we can check something off the list! Two very different points of view on the information, I would be surprised if he even read it when we got it back!

This cute face came right before the 'my mom's never going to feed me again!' face.


Grandma and Ian chillin'


This is one of the favorite outfits right now... and she's almost out of it! It was Abbi's. The piggies and Jill's bows make it though! Look how big she is! She can actually hop forward on her knees now, she does it when she gets excited. It's very silly!

Interesting quesiton... (I expect comments!)

So Jess asked me the other night who Matthew's favorite 'Princess' is, as in Disney Princess. Oddly enough Steve apparently old her that Jasmine is H.O.T. She's his favorite, what with that nice silky outfit and the cleavage. What?? It was probably the funniest conversation I had ever heard about in my life... until I asked Matthew which princess was his favorite. Without skipping a beat he said "Sleeping Beauty, no question. Princess Aurora." It was as if he had actually thought about this before! He added "Followed closely by Belle... Ariel is hot, but she's too young and that's kind of creepy." Apparently Jasmine and her cleavage didn't rank at all to Aurora's "style and class." So, I think you all should ask your significant other who their favorite princess is, then leave a comment, I am curious!

I have survived my first few days, alone... and outnumbered. And really it isn't that bad! Not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I am busy, that's for sure, but it's totally doable. I have such great kids! Sure, the house isn't clean... I probably look terrible, but the kids are clean, fed and happy. That's really what matters! I am so glad Matthew had all that time off to work me into it, I can't imagine having started with everything on day one!

That said, Eden picked up Duncan yesterday to play with Bridger and it was... well... AWESOME! I took a nap, and not the kind of nap where every time I stir I think of the kids in the living room with their father, a serious nap! I was exhausted. She brought him home at 2:30 where I plopped him right in bed for a nap and went right back to sleep! So big thanks to Eden, and Dylan and Ian for sleeping at the same time and for a long time! Woot woot! I feel like I actually kind of caught up and it wasn't so bad when all the kids decided 7:00 was a decent time to get up this morning!

While she was here, Duncan did some of the cutest things I have ever seen him do. He is such a ham! She commented on his eye lashes and said "Let me see your eyes" With her hand under his chin he looked up at her for a couple of seconds and then started batting his eyelashes at her! I have never seen him do anything like that before!

So Duncan is having the hardest time not tackling Dylan! Really, I hear that guilty laugh and have to come running to save her. It's simple, if you're on the floor, you're there to wrestle. Further complicated by Dylan smiling and laughing while her leg's bent back in a funny position. He thinks she's having a great time (and I think she might think that too). She just loves to watch Duncan play when they are both in the living room, she will be 5 inches from his face just staring and smiling. But other than the tackling, he doesn't much want to play with her!

Ian's doing great, he's getting so big! He's awake a lot (unfortunately... some of that is at night still!) and his eyes are so cute. I love it when he stares at you and raises one brow. I hope he can keep doing that later because no one else in the family has mastered that skill. The verdict is still out on whether his eyes will be blue or brown. Matthew seems to think they will be blue... but I thought that of Duncan and he got a green/brown color so who knows! At least one of my babies will have blue eyes like their dad, I might just have to keep having kids until that happens!

We switch Dylan's crib yesterday, she started biting the side of her crib! We have Duncan's crib, the cheaper of the two... we figured if she's going to do any biting of cribs, it shouldn't be the pricey convertible one right? I think she likes her new bed.

I love making my own Christmas cards and for the last couple of years I have done ours and Eden's along with our baby announcements but this year just wasn't seeing a Christmas greeting so I combined a New Year's greeting with Ian's announcement. I really like how they turned out, of course with what I had to work with, of course they were cute!



Daddy was fixing something, so Duncan had to too!


Big eyes! (Ignore the diapers in the background, we were getting ready for bed and he had obviously been busy. You wouldn't believe how many diapers I change in a day!)




Chilaxin'


I took this picture for Alice because she brought over outfits for all three of them (!! We have gotten so many great gifts from everyone, so spoiled!) and Matthew and I were SHOCKED at how big Duncan looks! He's such a little boy!


He wanted his picture taken so I told him to get by Ian, it actually turned out kind of cute!