so now that it has been almost a year since I last blogged.... i feel bad about missing a few things. I want to put some more posts up. I have a half written post about the twins first birthday . Thats important and I will finish that soon.
But right now in an effort to start fresh, I want to just give everyone an update on life.
Ryker. - I sure love this boy. He is just like Justin and that makes my heart happy. He is rocking 1st grade. He loves his teacher Mrs Geissel. He has gotten so good at reading. We practice fluency every night and he is averaging 50-70 words per min. (depending on the story) sometimes even more! he is learning to figure out words on his own and it has been a HUGE change since the beginning of the year. so proud of him. He has found an attitude with eye rolling and sighing. but lucky for us most of his attitude comes in a great sense of humor. He still loves to play cars/trucks. with our spelling practice he has taken over a favorite past time of justins of playing with his cars in some flour when we are all done. Justin used to love it, and now Ryker can too. so great. We have been working on getting rid of his Molluscum bumps this year. I believe he has gone 3 times. he had a big spot on his arm, and they were starting to spread. we have been treating them with beetle poison. not the most pleasant experience, but he is surviving. first day is the hardest. We are hoping that they will be gone soon. He keeps telling everyone that he went to the dr for beetlejuice, and honestly im laughing too hard to correct him. bahaha. He is doing great in school, he has a good friend Daniel that he plays with down the street. He still loves legos and i cant for the life of me keep them in his room. I am always finding little pieces everywhere. He is still learning on riding his bike. He loves to be in the garage with Dad. We started working more on his night time training. he now wears underwear all the time, but still has accidents often. we started in august and the longest stretch he has gone being dry is 22 days!!! we are pretty consistent at getting about a week. but we are still trying to find the magic answer to help him be dry at night. im a little bitter about it, mostly because he has been wet the last 3 nights ugh! but he is getting there! he used to never ever be dry, so i will take what i can get.
Rylie - She is such a sweetheart and i love her to death. I am so glad she is in our family. She has been in preschool this year at bluebird. unfortunately they are moving so preschool ends a little early, (like in a week) but she will still have fun. She is learning how to write her name and is getting the basics for what she will need for kindergarten next year. She loves my little pony and everything that it includes. she still loves all ponies and puppies. she is a huge elsa fan! we have not seen frozen 2 yet, but i have a feeling that we will soon. She has a good friend gracie that she plays with almost everyday. between school, playdates, and church we see her often. those girls are so cute together, i am so happy they are best friends. We play with Easton too, and he is a great addition to make them a fun trio. plus i get a little mom hang out time too. haha. Rylie is so big for her age. she just turned 5, but i am changing all her clothes into 5-6T. she has such long legs and a beautiful tan. she is so great, and has a sweet personality to match.
Rex is a rockstar. We started potty training him when he turned 3 this last aug. He has been doing great. he has never had a crazy amount of accidents, but it still took about 2 weeks before we were doing really well. and then another week where we made it to the big potty. but he seemed to do great at night so we quit diapers then too. between ryker starting his night training, and rex being potty trained. I completed my new years resolution to get everyone (other than the twins) out of diapers!!! such a great feeling. Rex has also started some speech therapy. Being our independent boy, words have been a struggle. since he started learning to talk there are some sounds he has never been super good at. and its hard to teach him when he is frustrated we are not giving him what he wants. in our defense! half the time we have no idea what he wants. even now i still dont know all the time. but being tested they said that he has the language that is right for his age, he is just not quite there with the sounds. so he goes to rykers school twice a week for half an hour to work with the speech pathologist. some of the things he is working on are his combining sounds. "s-p oon. sh - oes. p-l op." things like that. and something i told the speech therapist early on in the testing is that he clicks his "k"s. he says it fine in the beginning of a word, but at the end it clicks like when you are clicking your tongue. she had never heard of it before so we will see how that goes. unfortunately it is going away a little bit. and as much as it is a good thing to speak correctly! it was adorable and i loved that he clicked his "k"s. i will miss it. of course i have tried forever to get it on video, and he will never do it on command. but he loves to play chase with rylie and ryker. it is getting a little easier to be one of the big kids. he has offically stopped calling both twins rayce and now they have their own names. I just love the stage he is in. I am excited for him to start preschool next year, but i love my little buddy.
Rayce - this boy is all giggles and mischievous smiles. We love him so much. He is looking more and more like rex everyday. he started walking right at a year old. faster than any of my other kids. He is also my best and craziest climber. nothing is safe. he moves the stools around so he can climb all the way up to the counter. you can never leave food or drink unattended anywhere because he will find a way to get it. Like other kids he is also a pro at finding his way into the prime spot on your lap. whether it was taken or not. when he is about to get up on something he shouldnt or get into the trash we try to firmly tell him no and his smile just gets bigger as he inches to what we tell him not to do. the stinker. he is too cute to stay mad at for long. He loves to grab toys and run away maniacally. he knows he will get into trouble... thats why he runs away so fast! but we all love him and he is a joy to have around. he has all of his teeth now! just waiting on the 2 year old molars, but we still got some time before that.
radlee has always been the calmer of the twins but she is getting her own personality. she will now shove right back if rayce pushes her away. she climbs but not nearly as much as rayce. her favorite is to climb on the table to play. she started walking shortly after rayce. maybe within a week, but still by their first birthday. she is a champion cuddler. she still loves to suck on her index finger for comfort. thankfully both are past a screaming phase for now... she is a great eater. she loves to sit and cuddle. but mostly she loves to dance. any song comes on and she loves it. the older kids like to dance to the Just Dance songs on youtube, and she is dancing right along with them. she is a joy and has the brightest cheesiest grin. dont let that fool you, she gets into plenty of trouble. she is more stealth mode. she loves to go though the trash and find anything that we have gotten rid of. she is still going in a crazy order with her teeth. she has all 4 molars, her top 4 teeth, and only 3 of her bottom teeth. it took her till 11 months to grow her first tooth so she has always been an oddball in this area. so we need one of her front bottom teeth and all 4 canines. but its not stopping her from eating anything. she still enjoys life.
both the twins love to be sung to, they love to clap their hands. And one of my favorite things is that everytime they go to bed (nap or bedtime) they cuddle. we spend a minute or 2 rocking back and forth with their head on my shoulder. sometimes i sing their song to them. I haven gotten into singing mary's lullaby to them. sometimes we are just quiet and calm. but i love thos peaceful moments where its just me and my baby. when justin helps me at night we are both cuddling with a baby and they will reach for each other. once they touch hands they will pull away and giggle. not really settling down, but it is adorable. having twins is an adventure, but we definitely get to experience things we wouldnt have with just one baby.
Justin is doing well. He just had his year end review and they are happy with what he has been doing. he has been able to help out at KSI a lot and they are glad to have him. he had a dream come true a few weeks ago and bought a 75 camero. it is old, but it runs and drives which was a huge win for us. means we have to get rid of the bike and i am sad to see it go, but for the next dream its worth it. he is excited, it is in his favorite color red. it takes up all his freetime researching and making future modifications in his head. 10 year goals!
I am doing good. with the twins a little older it becomes more manageable to have everyone out in public. the twins dont just eat dirt if i take them to the park. they dont try to eat the chalk if i let them play outside in the backyard. since they started walking and have better balance they can do better outside which is nice. they still nap twice a day which has been a saving grace for me. still in cribs but we are moving them out soon. our next big project will be bunkbeads for the older boys and then rex's toddler bed will go to radlee. I have gottn more into decorating cakes. I started following baking with blondie on instagram and she has completely changed how i do things. her cook book is amazing and i am always learning new things. luckily justin said i can practice and bring cakes into work, so they have been enjoying all my spoils lately.
we are all doing good and are looking forward to spring here in Bakersfield. no major trips till summer time. I just wanted to get some of my favorite things down before i forget. of course i always hope to be better, but mostly i just want someway to remember. hope this helps make up for the whole last year!
