The twins turned 2!

This is Joel laughing at us trying to get him to sit still

And Jeremy crying because we tried to get him to sit still

I feel terrible about the fact that it took me so long to write up a post about the twins turning 2.  And because it took me so long, I can't really remember what milestones they had reached.  I think I'll just write about their birthday, and then another post about them as two and a half year olds.

They loved the birthday balloons

Joel eating homemade healthified banana chocolate chip doughnuts

Jeremy eating doughnuts and bacon

Their birthday was on a Saturday this year and it was a super busy day.  I made the birthday cake and decorated it on Friday.  On Saturday I made a lemon meringue pie for an auction at church, a big huge pot of chili and two batches of cornbread for the chili/cornbread cook-off also at the church that evening (by the way - I've won the cornbread cookoff for something like 3 years in a row).  I missed Jacob's 1pm soccer game (that we were in charge of snacks for) so I could stay home and cook while the twins napped.

"Choo-Choo!  Joel and Jeremy are 2" Pay no attention to my bad handwriting with frosting

I have to admit I was pretty proud of this cake. :)

I like to invite family over for my kids' first birthdays, but for birthdays after that I don't really have a party.  Once I actually have a child who understands birthdays and wants to have parties then I'll have to decide how often I'm willing to throw birthday parties.  But for now I just make them some kind of cake and if family decides they want to come over and join us then they are more than welcome, but I'm not planning out food or anything for a party.  Makes sense, right?

It's my party and I'll cry if I want to

"I don't know why Jeremy is crying like that - I'm just playing with a balloon"

That said, my parents like to visit and celebrate all their grandkids' birthdays and it isn't unusual for Justin's dad to drop by if he is in town for the weekend.  So for the twins' birthday we had my parents, Justin's dad and Justin's grandma come by.

Since I only made one cake for the twins to share, I made a handful of cupcakes with my leftover batter so they could each have a candle on their own cupcake.  Jeremy was not happy when he saw his cupcake.  Like Jacob, Jeremy doesn't like frosting.  But overall Jeremy just isn't a big fan of sweets (is he really my child?).  We weren't sure if he wasn't feeling well, or that he was unhappy to see we were giving him a sweet treat he didn't want, but he just cried and cried when we gave him his cupcake.

We're two!!!

First Jeremy just covered his eyes when we gave him his cupcake

Then the screaming started.  Joel wants to know what Jeremy is so upset about when he has a yummy cupcake sitting in front of him.

We saved an unfrosted cupcake for Jacob and he loved blowing out the candles.

I think we did this at least 3 times

He loves blowing out the candles

After cake, the twins opened presents!  They got lots of great stuff from family and they may have been a little overwhelmed by all the new stuff.  Justin and I decided to get them these cool easels from Ikea - they are super affordable.  Sadly they were all sold out of the easels at the Houston Ikea, but luckily they had some up in the Dallas area so Justin's dad was able to pick a couple up before he headed down our way.

Joel handing a present to Jeremy

Jeremy needs a little help getting his present opened

Joel loved the easel

Joel enjoyed opening presents a little more than Jeremy did

We survived the first 2 years with twins.  Let's just hope we can survive the terrible twos times two!

Soccer

I'm so far behind on this blog...

After Jacob "played" basketball during the winter season, we decided to sign him up for soccer in the spring.  In all honesty - we didn't really want to sign him up, but all the people on his special education committee at school felt like it is really good for him to spend more time in activities that put him with "on track" kids.  Jacob's soccer season started in February and went until the beginning of April.

Since Jacob was on a team of 4 year olds he had practice once a week and a weekly game (when he played basketball and was on a team of 3 year olds they only had games and no practice).  Sometimes I thought going to practice helped him, most of the time it was just another place to chase him around and try to keep him with his team.

Jacob's favorite parts of playing soccer were probably sitting on the field and finding twigs and pieces of grass to play with so lots of times the coaches would take turns putting him on their shoulders and running around with him.

Jacob "playing soccer"

Both the coach and the assistant coach as well as all the other parents were very patient and understanding with Jacob even though he rarely participated with the other team members when they did little drills, etc.  And although other kids didn't always do what they were supposed to do, Jacob was definitely the only one on the team to never do what he was supposed to do.  Nothing is more eye opening that your kid is different than seeing him next to lots of other kids his age.

Here's Jacob at his first game - hanging out behind the other team's goal

Now just standing next to their goal

Then he just decided he was done and just wanted to sit in the stroller

It only took us 2 games to decide that we were not taking the twins to any more games - it was hard enough to keep an eye on Jacob, but add in the twins and it was definitely no fun.  We ended up either having someone stay home with them each week or checking them into the child watch at the YMCA (where the games were and we are members) for future games.

For the end of the season I volunteered to make cupcakes for Jacob's team party.  Sadly Jacob ended up being sick and didn't get to go to his own party, so Justin and I just dropped the cupcakes off for everyone else.

I made the edible soccer balls and left one cupcake frosting free for Jacob because he hates frosting, but he never felt well enough to eat it

Valentine's Day 2013

I decided that we (we meaning me) were going to make super cute Valentine's for Jacob's class.  Then Jacob's teachers suggested that we send Valentine's for the morning class in addition to just the afternoon class that Jacob was in.  All the students, plus all the teachers, plus the bus helpers, plus Jacob's speech therapist and we (I) had a lot of Valentine's to make.

It takes lots of time to make lots of bees

Jacob attached most of the eyes and even wrote his name on the back of some of them

Besides the Valentine's for Jacob to give to people, I decided that the rest of the day would be very low key - Justin wouldn't be getting home from work until it was time to take Jacob to soccer practice so it wasn't like we would have time to make it a special day.  Plus we had bought a new entertainment console to replace our old, cheap armoire that held our old TV so we had decided that piece of furniture was our Valentine's gifts.

But then Justin had an appointment in the afternoon and he left work early.  So I decided (last minute) that we would do a little something special.  I made Justin's favorite kind of bouquet for him to eat and some sugar cookie dough so we could do sugar cookies with the kids.

Bacon bouquet

It ended up being a crazy evening anyway because Justin's appointment took longer than we thought so I ended up trying to get the kids to work on the sugar cookies by myself which didn't work out all that well, but at least the boys look super cute.

Look at these cuties

Joel loved eating the dough more than any other part of this activity

The rest of the night was a rush of dinner, soccer practice for Jacob and once the kids were in bed, watching a little TV.  We did make time before taking Jacob to soccer practice to give the kids these cute little frog chairs as their Valentine's gifts.

  

White Christmas

The Sunday before Christmas while the twins napped we put together my mom's gingerbread house kit, in preparation of putting together the gingerbread train kit that I had brought up from home.  Jacob helped a little bit, but he wasn't all that interested.  Then we never got to the gingerbread train.

Our gingerbread house

On Christmas Eve, we decorated edible Christmas trees.  I don't remember if Jacob was into it or not.  Joel definitely enjoyed eating his tree and Jeremy wasn't a big fan of the activity at all.

Jeremy wants to know if this activity is over yet

I think Jacob enjoyed eating the M&M's more than anything else

Joel says "Mmm - yummy"

Jeremy looking all cute while Joel eats yummy sugar

My finished tree

That evening the boys got to open up new pajamas and then we drove around my parents' neighborhood to look at Christmas lights.  We didn't drive around for long, but I think all the boys really liked it.

Jacob (Joel in the back)

Joel

Jeremy

 That night, Santa came!  (Santa decided to bring the boys almost all their gifts because they were a little difficult for us to wrap - thank you Santa!)

The kids loot from Santa and us

Jeremy checking out his stocking

The world's least expensive Dyson ever - and the kids loved it

Joel and Jeremy opening presents

We were all super spoiled and got lots of goodies.

That afternoon the cold weather paid off and we got a white Christmas in Texas!!!  The boys loved running around in the snow - especially Jacob.

I wish this picture weren't blurry - Jacob is smiling soooo big!

Jeremy's first snow

All 4 little boys (cousin Grant in the red coat)

Joel's first snow

Even though I felt pretty miserable thanks to the flu, overall it was a good Christmas.