Sans Diaper

Today was the first day that Davis went the whole day without a diaper and only had one small accident when coming in from the car.  We agree with his daycare provider, Ms. Laura, that he is ready to go without a diaper.  He has been going accident free at daycare so we'll take away the choice between diaper and underwear.

Super Smiles

Alex can be quite the smiler.  He loves doing head-shoulders-knees and toes and having his arms moved around and interacted with (when he is in the right mood of course).  Last night was one of those nights:

Evan and Lynn

This week, our full time nanny, Lynn started.  She is great!  As my mom pointed out, she has more years of experience as a nanny than I do being a human.  She is a real blessing to have with our boys.  Davis is still going to daycare at Ms. Laura's two days a week which is good for everybody.  Today, Lynn reported that Evan flipped over from his front to has back and almost flipped back over.  He is a strong little 3 month old.

Union Pacific 844

Tonight, Davis and I took grammie to the airport after a wonderful three week stay.  Afterwards, we ended up in Kirkwood Center getting pizza at about the same time that the Union Pacific 844 (one of two running steam trains in Union Pacific's rolling stock) was coming through town.   We spent 30 minutes or so playing in the dirt by the tracks before the 844 came through with civil war enthusiasts headed to The Battle of Shiloh re-enactment.

The steam train was awesome.  Far more engaging than the diesels that usually come through.  I got a not so great quality video of the train coming through:

More about the 844:

• Union Pacific Site
• Google Images for the 844
• YouTube videos for the 844

Taking away animals

For a while, we have struggled with getting Davis to stay in bed at bedtime.  I think he believes he is missing something and he ends up coming out of his bedroom a few times a night.  After coming out a few times, I'll often threaten to take away one of his stuff animals if he comes out again.  Tonight was one of those nights.  After a while, Davis walked out of his bedroom and brought me Eeyore in the kitchen, then went into Alex and Evan's room to see what mom was doing.  I was floored.

New Videos

Today, I uploaded 44 videos to YouTube.  Here are a few selections.  There are many more on my YouTube channel.

New Pictures

Life has been very busy around the house for the last month.  We spend most of our time taking care of kids or the house in one form or another.  The babies are doing great and growing up fast and Davis has been a lot of fun to watch growing up: lots of language, stories and imagination.   While we haven't been able to blog very much recently, I have been taking pictures and videos and finally had a chance to go through them today.

Here are some recent pictures of our boys:

Evan

Alex

Evan

Alex (left) and Evan

Evan

Davis

Davis mowing the lawn

Playing in the yard, I think he was throwing the ball over his head.

We get a few rabbits in our back yard

Lilacs in the back yard - they smell great

Alex

Evan

General updates about babies

It's perhaps an understatement to say that John and I have been overwhelmed lately.  I "returned" to work recently, but of course it's an entirely new job, so not much of a return, but a start.  That's had both benefits and complications.  John working from home has certainly decreased the chaos and stress of having two working parents and three kids under three years old at least.  Enough about us though.  I imagine you've been wondering how those cute little babies are!  Here's some tidbits about both of them.

Evan
Our youngest one is quite the mover and shaker.  He's surprised us all along with his strength and I knew from the womb he was going to be strong and movey.  He is always moving and has already rolled over (although that might have been a pure accident, so we aren't counting that yet).  However, tonight he was very close to purposefully rolling from his front to back.  Evan has a very distinctive cry.  I think of it as a cry that would make the toes of a banshee curl.  He also has the cutest cackle and coo'ing noises ever that make up for the blood-curdling screams.  In fact, I am now fairly convinced that the cackle is a laugh and he's been laughing for several weeks now.  Evan loves to follow you with his eyes and you feel like he can look into your soul with the intensity of his focus.

Alex
Alex has also turned out a bit like I expected from my experience with him in the womb.  Alex rarely initiated movement while I was pregnant with him.  I typically would feel Evan moving and kicking for a good few minutes before Alex would roll over and kick once or twice.  We thought he might be our "cuddler" and he's definitely one laid back baby.  He's also active, but tummy time is not his favorite thing and for the most part he doesn't attempt to lift his head, but chooses to get his hand under his mouth and then suck on that until you finally give up and roll him back over.  He loves the mobile in the crib and has an extremely long attention span for it.  Alex has the biggest, face-altering grin I've seen from a baby and he is very quick to smile.  I don't believe we've heard him laugh yet, but his smile can make my day.  A favorite past-time in the Naegle household is to rub Alex's fuzzy head. Alex's eyes have lightened considerably, making me think he'll have blue eyes.

Both babies are strong and healthy and at 3 months old have doubled their birth weight.  They are very easy babies and at worst they wake up twice at night and many times they are only waking up once.  They like to watch each other a lot as well as us.  Several times when I've been on my own with them, they'll take turns screaming and one will watch in fascination as the other one screams.  Then once the first has calmed down it's the second one's turn.  That cycle can last for quite a while.

A friendly ghost named Six

Davis has apparently reached the imaginary friend stage of life.  He recently befriended a ghost named Six.  Unlike scary ghosts, which have teeth, Six is small, blue and very friendly.  He is apparently smaller than a basketball, but bigger than a tennis ball (so perhaps right around the size of a candlepin bowling ball).  John and I have asked a lot of questions to get to know Six better and you may not be surprised by the fact that Six likes a lot of the same things that Davis likes.  Things we know about Six:

• He has arms and hands; they got caught once in the door to the laundry room.
• He moves very quickly, which is good, because then no matter what Davis says, you know there's no way you stepped on him.  
• He likes to throw stuffed animals off the bed and play with cars and trains.
• His favorite foods are applesauce and yogurt.  Although he moves quickly, he apparently eats rather slowly.
• He likes to be carried around, or at least Davis pretends to scoop him up occasionally, it's hard to say whether Six really likes that or not (same goes for Domino the cat). 

We are currently trying to convince Davis that Six can help protect him from scarier ghosts that apparently inhabit our house as well. 

Dinner time conversation with Davis

On Wednesdays, we go to the Y at 6:00 for Davis' swim lessons and Kristen's yoga class.  Almost always we are 5 minutes late and rushing to get through dinner.  Last night, we saw some of Davis' great imagination and dinner and Kristen use it to our advantage.


Davis: "There is a snake on my plate eating my dinner."
Kristen: "You better hurry up and eat it before he does"


It worked; Davis ate his dinner before the snake got it.