What a Trip!

Well, the grandies finally made it back to Oz, and we have had a couple of days to get back into our old routine.  The boys were so tired yesterday, they slept over three hours at naptime and went right back to bed and slept until 8 am today!  Wow!  They miss Nannie and Poppy and are talking about them in conversation daily – which is pretty cool. Oh and Auntie Peta, too, because we promised that she will be coming to visit them soon.   

Today when we were playing with friends, Augustus was counting the seats on a plane (his new favorite thing to do is to hold up two fingers, say two, then hold up three fingers, say three, again, he almost never starts with one), and then went into a story about Nannie and Poppy being on the plane.  I think the Grandies may be perpetually on all planes we see!

Tonight, in the car and Raleigh started talking about his friends C&E, and how they went on “a-cation” – otherwise, known as a vacation, and I asked him if he wanted to take a vacation, and he said he did, with Mommy & Daddy. I asked him where he wanted to go, fully expecting him to say Australia, but, no, he wanted to “a-cation” to Nonnie’s house.  Safe to say, he missed Nonnie and Papa Pickles, too!  This weekend is a long weekend, and although we have an awesome play date scheduled for tomorrow that I am sure you will come back to read about real soon, we hope that the boys have a ton of time with Nonnie and Grandpa Pickles too. 

Over the course of the vacation, Augustus has had a complete language explosion!  Seriously, I know I have written that before, and really, with one of our boys being a bit more verbal than the other, I think we, or maybe it is just me, stresses about Gus’ verbal abilities more than if he was a “singleton.”  Lately, Gus has talked non-stop.  I mean NON-STOP! At bedtime tonight, they were dead-silent for about 20 minutes, and then I hear Gus saying, “no, mines birthday, happy birthday.”  Raleigh says “Mines birthday.” Back and forth they went until Augustus started listing all his family’s birthdates, Nannie, Papa, Mommy, Daddy, Connor, etc.  Loved it!  Thankfully, they can burst out like that and then be sound asleep two minutes later. 

Speaking of sleeping situations, on the first night of our stay at a hotel, Matthew went in to the boys room in the morning, where they were sleeping in twin beds for the first time, and Matthew thought Nannie must have gotten Raleigh up already because he could not see him in his bed.  So, he started talking to Augustus and asked him if he wanted to go up to see Nannie and Poppy, and he said yes, and then seemingly out of nowhere, comes a squeaky “me too.” Here Raleigh had gotten out of bed, climbed under it and gotten stuck. Well, to say he was less than thrilled about sleeping in the bed the rest of the trip, but se la vie.  We now know that we are not going to be transitioning to the real big-boy beds soon.  Maybe at three years old!  And I have such great fire truck sheets that I am dying to use! But I digress.

Overall, the boys had an amazing time with the grandies.  They were spoiled rotten, and just in heaven with all the attention.  I was also in heaven with getting spoiled sleeping in and having extra hands all the time to make it so much easier to do the day-to-day things.  We lived it up and through all our trips and tribulations the boys were amazing troopers, particularly when they were tired.  It is hard to remember they are only two years old because they are so awesome.  Even after going full forced on day three away from their home with an hour nap average for the two previous days, they were still all smiles and giggles on the way home from Mickey’s house where we made it all day without a nap or much rest.  They did fall asleep about 6pm that night, but we were blown away with how great they did with heat, little sleep and lots and lots of adventures.

 

It was funny to see how they were with other people in their space, and see how they had a great time learning all sorts of new things from their lovely Aussie family.  Augustus continued his fierce independent streak, most epitomized with his serious “direction” to let him do it, or get away, so he could do it himself.  Seriously, one of my favorite pictures from our travels is of him directing Nannie away from him so he could jump in the pool by himself. 

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In all his glory of anal retentiveness, just like his father, this stubborn, streak of independence and self-reliance is awesome to watch blossom.  Seriously frustrating to deal with when you want to just get moving some days, but I love that the boys have no problem doing their own thing.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want a bunch of boys that don’t listen, but I love that they have free will and are not afraid to let you know what they want…hmm, wonder why?

I could go on and on about our time with the Grandies, and will continue to write about it in the future, but since the blog is so much for the family that is on the other side of the world, I will keep from going on and on.  I am sure there will be other stories added, to make sure I remember them for the boys, but overall, just wanted to say the boys had a great trip and time with their Grandies.  We hope to see you all again really soon!

 

Enjoy a few links back to the last few visits we’ve had.  The boys growth is amazing – yup, used that word again, but it is the best I can come up with!

•  Goodbye in November
• Goodbye in May
• First Trip to Australia

The Grandies Arrive!

Well, the boys have been thoroughly loving their time with the Grandies from Oz.  They flew in on Thursday and the boys were super excited to welcome them.  Here are a few shots of the big night!

 

First, the boys practiced with their signs for the Grandies.

A twin mom who was welcoming her boys home was gracious enough to take our picture after we greeted them with the sign.

Check out these smiles looking at Nannie and Poppy!  

The boys have been very helpful, as usual, with putting together a new outdoor table, and today they helped put together a new toy storage unit for the garage.  They were dying to help Poppy and Daddy with the laundry revamp, but there was just too much to get into.  We’ll post an update of the finished product soon.  We are looking forward to exploring Orlando with the grandies, as well.  For today, we are taking it easy, before we hit the beach tomorrow!!!  Fun times for all.

 

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GB C

how cute are these boys?

Cardiologist Update and Happy Birthday to Nannie!!!

The boys want to wish a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY to their Nannie. It is still the 7th here, but it is officially the 8th in Oz. We look forward to talking to you later via Skype. Here are some of our favorite pictures of Nannie and the boys. We are so looking forward to seeing you here again soon!!!

Yesterday was the big day for Raleigh. He had his sedated ECHO. For those of you who still visit us through the Care Pages, this is a repeat, but the process was probably more traumatic for Matthew and me than Raleigh. It was a seriously long day for all of us. Raleigh was an absolute trooper and charmed the entire staff of the hospital!!! Me, probably not so much since I did not drink any coffee until about 3:30 pm. Now I know to plan on bringing coffee or stopping before we get there when we go next week. The Starbucks on the hospital campus was closed:(

The good news is that they visited a new hospital so the boys had no frame of reference. They were quite content playing in the waiting room with the magnet table with lizards and frogs inside - how cool for them! Raleigh even had no problem getting weighed, a huge cry sparker at most doctors visits. The only problem was when Raleigh had to drink the medicine through the syringe. Once he had to force that nasty hallucinogen down he had a full on breakdown until he fell asleep. Poor thing! However, the results of the ECHO and EKG were excellent. His stenosis is down to a mild case and he does not have to go back for 9 months. The nurses kept warning us that Raleigh would wake up like he was hung over, and they said he would likely be very cranky. Luckily, he was not cranky at all. Hung over, probably a little. He could not really walk, and was a bit loopy and cracked up at a lot of stuff. Rals was very, very hungry and ate and drank like a champ yesterday!

Next week we head back for Augustus’ cardiologist appointment doing the same test with the sedation. Of course, it is still scary, but hopefully not as scary for us now that we know what to expect. We are so lucky to have these boys be healthy and not really think about their heart issues much at all. Visiting the hospital we spent a few weeks going back and forth with Raleigh is always an emotional time. However, I know how blessed we are each and every time we get to go and come home and feel so awful for those families who are there right now and are not as lucky to leave with healthy babies! Blessed is a complete understatement.