The week before Christmas, I decided to take Rhys to get her hair cut. Originally, I was just going to trim it myself, but then got nervous that I would mess it up. Her bangs were in her eyes and the back was starting to look like a mullet. So we headed to Cool Cuts!
Rhett has gotten his hair cut twice, and he wasn't a fan either time. Rhys was just the opposite! She loved sitting in the car, and loved having someone comb her hair. She never moved and just kept smiling at me and the hairdresser.
enjoying a movie and a snack
I love how her hair turned out! Here is the front...
At 21 months old, Rhett and Rhys are changing so fast and learning something new everyday. It is exciting, but also makes me a bit emotional. Even though the days are sometimes long and challenging, I am so very thankful for these days. So many things I don't want to forget...
*Rhett adores Rhys and she is the first thing he asks for in the morning when I get him out of bed. I love hearing that boy say "Weee?"
*Rhys is obsessed with cell phones. She knows how to work my iPhone, and can quickly find the Veggie Tales app and scroll through pictures and videos. She knows how to work the volume, get back to the "home" screen, and turn it off. She usually only gets to hold my phone or play with it on special occasions, when we are out of town or out of the house on errands, etc. While we are playing at home, however, she has become quite creative and can make a phone out of anything! She will even use her hand as a phone if she doesn't have a toy. Rhys usually jabbers while on her phone and if you ask her who she is talking to she will more than likely say it is "Guger" (Sugar - my mom). She will jabber and then say "bye."
Her favorite "phone", a rectangular block (she also texts on it!)
Rhys busy on her phone while playing
using the Wii remote as a phone
Rhys' making a call during breakfast
*Both R&R love their stuff animals and love carrying them around all day long. So fun to see them claim some as their own (Rhys-giraffe, frog, pig, sheep and Rhett-puppy, monkey). They share them, fight over them, push them around in the shopping cart and laundry baskets....these animals get lots of love!
Rhysie lovin on her lamb
hiding out with all the animals
going shopping
Rhett bringing Rhys her animals
*When Rhys is tired and I am holding her, she will gently rub my back with that sweet little hand.
*Rhett will run up to me throughout the day and just give me a hug....I hope this never stops!
This fall the weather was so nice, so we decided to make a trip to Boerne to feed the ducks and visit with Uncle Mike.
This was the twins' first encounter with ducks, other than the numerous books we have with pictures of them. Rhys was a little scared at first, but warmed up quickly. Rhett was not scared at all, and would walk right up to the ducks to hand them some bread. Rhett didn't understand the concept of tearing off a small piece of bread and tossing it towards the ducks. He would just throw down the whole piece of bread right by his feet and then watch the ducks come to him. After a lot of practice, he started to get the hang of it.
Rhys didn't want to throw her bread down. Instead, she wanted to just hold it and walk around with it. She didn't understand why those ducks were all following her and watching her every move! She just didn't want to let go of the bread! I actually found a small piece of bread in her fist when we got home that afternoon! She had held onto it the whole way home!
We had a lot of fun and were so glad that Uncle Mike (or "Mi" as the twins say) could join us. The kids just love him and he is so sweet with them. Looking forward to many more trips to Boerne to see the ducks!
Physical therapy. Occupational therapy. Speech therapy. These have been a weekly part of our lives for the past year and a half. I should actually say that therapy has become a daily part of our lives. Our very special therapists, who we have become quite attached to, work with the twins during their weekly sessions, but they also teach us things to practice between their visits. So we are doing therapy daily. Therapy has been frustrating, time-consuming, stressful, overwhelming, and at times so, so challenging. But it has also been very rewarding. I wanted to update how things are going with therapy and document the twins' progress.
PHYSICAL THERAPY:
Rhett started physical therapy when he was diagnosed with torticollis/plagiocephaly at 4 months. He started out with therapy twice a week, changed to three times a week, and now works with his favorite therapist, Lauri, once a week. He has made great progress. When he first started, he was working on turning his head side to side and stretching his neck muscles. Then he started working on reaching, rolling, and grabbing things. After that, scooting, then crawling, pulling up, and walking. Now he is almost caught up with motor skills, but we are still working on core strength, coordination, and balance.
OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY:
We added occupational therapy when Rhett turned 10 months old. Since Rhett was showing signs of being developmentally delayed, we hoped that the therapy could help with his motor skills, cognitive planning, sensory processing, and life skills. Rhett did not like occupational therapy at first. I think because it was really hard for him and he had to do things that were not natural to him. He became very attached to his therapist, Kelly, and I think that made all the difference in the world. Throughout the year, Kelly worked with Rhett on pointing, poking, holding things, transferring from hand to hand, self feeding, throwing, and more. We were so thrilled when she told us this past month that Rhett was caught up and did not need her services any more. Here is a picture of our sweet boy during his last session of occupational therapy.
SPEECH THERAPY:
At the twins' 15 month checkup, their pediatrician was concerned since R&R were not talking at all. We had a speech evaluation done in early August and both of the kids qualified, so we started speech therapy at 17 months. We love our sweet therapist, Kathleen, who comes once a week to work with us. Around 20 months or so, we noticed a huge language explosion! Rhett actually started signing and saying new words at the same time. New signs right now are airplane and help. It is so interesting to me that the twins use the same pronunciation of a word, even if it is wrong. For example, Rhett said the word monkey first, pronounced "mun-uh," and a few days later Rhys started saying it the same way. I wanted to note the words that we hear frequently now at 21 months:
momma
dada
baby
bye-bye
bird
bath
eye
ball
car
puppy
up (they say this for up and down)
snack (pronounced "nak")
water ("wah-wah")
sticker
cheese
cracker
apple (this is a FAVORITE word around here!)
more
uh-oh
pumpkin ("punka")
walk
rock
swing
berry ("baby")
bubble
book
moon
all done
ice
ham
bear
bee
raisin ("why-o")
bite ("bye")
night night ("nigh nigh")
chicken
noodle ("noonle")
car
ball
banana ("nana")
milk
monkey ("mun-uh")
bowl
shoes ("zooz")
Rhys ("weeee")
Mike ("Mi")
Sugar ("Guger")
Bubba
Here is Rhett practicing a few words:
And a few more words in the bath tub one evening:
They are starting to really communicate with us! It seems like we are adding a word or two every day. We do notice, however, that they seem to have their own language with each other. We like to call it "twin-ese."
The twins are still currently receiving speech therapy. Our therapist wants to stay with us through their 2nd birthday to make sure that they continue to stay on track and start using two-word phrases around that time. Many of you have had to listen to me complain about therapy or our therapy schedule at one time or maybe many times! Even though it has been challenging, we are so thankful for the services and thankful that we have this opportunity to receive help. More updates coming soon!
The children's ministry at our church puts on an annual "Breakfast with Santa" and I have been looking forward to taking the twins for a while now. We were excited that Bdad and Gram were also here visiting for the weekend, so they were able to join us.
We started our morning visiting with our children's minister, Ms. Tina. She gave each child a mug with hot cocoa mix inside. R&R adore Ms. Tina and we are so thankful for her love and service to the children at Northside.
Then we made our way to see Santa! The auditorium was dark and there was a nice fire glowing in the fireplace (or on the screen) and it was a nice touch to the ambiance.
When we got closer to Santa, Rhys started digging her nails into my shoulder. She was freaking out a little bit. It was at this point that I lowered my expectations on the quality of Santa pic that we were going to get this year. Bdad took Rhett right up to Santa to see what he would do.
Rhett was cautious, but he seemed to be okay with it all at first. I think he would have done okay if he hadn't seen Rhys getting upset.
Then we just decided to hand the babies to Santa and snap a picture as quick as we could. This was what happened:
Well, that went better than expected.
After Santa pics were complete, we rescued the twins and took them to have a nice pancake breakfast. Once they saw the red and green pancakes, all the tears disappeared and we were having fun again!
Rhett making sure we get plenty of marshmallows to eat with our pancakes
enjoying a yummy breakfast (Rhett wanted strawberries/Rhys wanted bananas/I got the pancakes!)
We were so thrilled that our friends Nathan and Ryland were also there for the fun.
Ryland showing Rhys a video...he is so sweet with her!
Rhett hanging out with Gram
SO fun to see a very dear friend Allison and her daughter Bethany who were in town visiting
Rhett exploring with Bdad
After a yummy breakfast, we made ornaments. Rhys made a candy cane and Rhett made a gingerbread man. They smell so good and are hanging proudly on our tree!
