Jamie's First Haircut Day

On May 21st, we had plans to get Jamie's very first haircut. Considering that the twins are still very anxious about strangers, we figured it would be challenging to say the least. I picked a day when I knew that Jon would be there to lend a helping hand.

We got out the strollers and walked up to Cookie Cutters, where we had both Corbin and Cam's first haircuts. I was very pleased to see that Jennifer was working that day. She had also given the other two their first haircuts. As it turns out, they had 3 stylists and were able to simultaneously cut the hair of all 3 boys. This would have been even more challenging, had Corbin not been such a good model for them that day. He sat in the chair perfectly and ate his sucker while the stylist clipped away.



Poor Cam and Jamie. Cam did well about 25% of the duration of the cut, but the other third, he was scared. Jon did his best to comfort him.



Poor Jamie- I forgot to take a "before" photo at home, so I took one while Jennifer assisted.




Not too happy with me, is he? :(

Here are the best "after" shots I could get.





Recovering in the strollers. I think I am going to buy some clipper and start doing these haircuts at home. After all, it's pretty expensive!



Afterward, we walked around the corner to UDF to help smooth over the traumatic experience for the twins. They all enjoyed their ice cream very much & it was a nice treat. This was one of our first hot days of the year.



Then we walked across the street to the park to let the kids burn off a little energy.



Hang in there, Cam!



Still a bit miffed post-haircut



Then we headed home, but stopped to play at the neighbor's house before we got there.

Cam playing basketball.





Jamie, marching to his own drummer





It ended up being a very fun and special day.

June Updates

Corbin continues to do well with his speech. He loves going to see Johnita, his speech therapist, every week. His scripted speech is even less, and he is working hard on using proper pronouns. He just finished his swim lessons at the YMCA with Miss Stephanie and in the end, he ended up being pretty comfortable in the water. Now when he goes into the pool, he wears a little swim vest with floaties on it and we stay within arms reach; but otherwise, he does very well. I've been taking him into the pool by himself about once a week, too. The outdoor pool just opened up and I can't wait to go use it soon.

Next week, we start Skill Builders at the Y and his teacher will be a friend of mine. It's like a preschool setting & he will be going for the summer session. I am hoping that it will get him transitioned into preschool mode.

Speaking of preschools, we still are uncertain where to send him. We found a great treatment center that we applied to, but we still are in the application process & don't know how much will be required out of pocket (and it could be a LOT). Plus, we aren't certain if he really needs such intensive treatment. There are peer models there, too, but it is really geared towards children on the spectrum and a lot of it is ABA therapy. On the other hand, we toured his public preschool that he has been placed in and we met his teacher and observed her class. She is really, really good at what she does and she seemed to already know all about Corbin, even though she hasn't met him. We were pretty pleased with the IEP meeting results, too. The plan seems great, should he go there.

Jameson is still trouble in motion. I hate that I say that every single time that I update, but it's a very obvious part of his personality & it really stands out. He is constantly baiting the other two and trying to annoy them. Or me. LOL. He's so darn cute about it though. He loves to entertain and be the center of attention- that's for sure. He's wearing 24 month to 2T clothing this summer and just recently got his first haircut. Those cute little curls are gone, but his haircut is absolutely adorable on him. He is so fair-skinned that his cheeks get flush right away when we're outdoors. He's picking up words really well and has really good receptive language. If we say "Go apologize to your brother, he will pat him on the shoulder and give him a kiss. So cute.

Cameron had an exciting day yesterday. We've known for a long time that he needed to see the opthamologist for his eyes crossing, but our dates for the appointment kept getting switched around because I couldn't coordinate it to line up with childcare for the other two. But finally, we had the appointment yesterday. The doctor observed the crossing, which is in both eyes, and then dilated the pupils. Then he determined that he was quite far-sighted and held up various lenses to Cameron's eyes to determine his prescription. He is a +3.50 in each eye. It's no wonder that the kid is falling down all of the time- poor thing.

I picked out some super-cute glasses and got them ordered. They will be here in 1-2 weeks. Cam hates anything touching his face, so of course it was a concern for me abot him keeping them on. He prescribed an eyedrop that will make his vision very blurry so that it is like a reward to keep the glasses on. We will do that for several days until he is finally used to them. And of course, we got the warranty on them!

Here are a couple of recent pics of our cuties.

Here they are playing in the sandbox with cousing Ethan. Looks like Corbin is retaliating to me!



Here are all of the boys and their computers.

Easter

Easter was here in town this year. We had just returned from our trip to Kentucky and needed to rest up here in town.

A couple of days before Easter, I took some pics of them in their Easter duds. I wish, wish, wish that I had some sort of photography or editing skills, but I just haven't been able to find the time for it, even though it interests me. Still, even though my skills aren't the best, they are darn cute kids! Corbin is only in one of them because he was having a very crabby morning, unfortunately.













The Easter Bunny came early Sunday morning and left Corbin a new camera! Here he is taking a picture of the baskets.



We started Easter morning out with a traditional (plastic, hypoallergenic) egg hunt. However, it had been raining for a week straight at that point, so the ground outdoors was too soggy for an outdoor hunt.

The kids really had an exciting time finding all of the semi-hidden eggs. Even the twins seemed to catch the general idea of it, once they found out that there was candy inside of them.

M & M's!!
















Then we got cleaned up and I took the twins for a cruise around 270, hoping that they could be convinced to take early naps prior to Easter brunch. Jon took Corbin over to my brother and sister-in-law's home separately.

Thankfully, the twins fell asleep according to the grand plan & woke up as I was on my way to BIL/SIL's.


The kids all had a great time playing with grandma, grandpa & their cousins. They all ate pretty decently, too, which is surprising. It pretty much couldn't have been planned out any better.

Jamie and Grandma





And I leave you with this super cute pic of Corbin and Ethan in Ethan's new room.

May Update

Corbin has been doing just wonderfully in his first 3 weeks of speech therapy. He has been having a lot more spontaneous speech & less rote speech (although there are definitely still some scripts). It is remarkable how far those few tips from the speech therapist will take him! Last week, he told himself, "Good job!" 20+ times in his session, and today, he only said it twice.

Corbin is also day and night potty trained! He had two accidents with #2 last week early on, but then has been accident free since. He initiates it himself, too. It was very hard work to potty train him because conventional potty training rules say, "Don't push him. He'll do it when he's ready." Well, he was physically/neurologically ready 6 months ago, when we noticed he never peed overnight any longer. For him, it took us just taking him fighting and screaming to sit on the potty, even when he would strongly protest. After a while, he just stopped protesting and did it! We did a coin reward system with him and it worked so well. He can buy cereal as a snack for 3 coins, computer time for 5 coins or TV for 3 coins. He understands the concept of buying these items very well.

I took Cam and Jamie to their 18 month appointments around the 19th of April. Jamie was @ 26 lbs and Cam was nearly 21 lbs. So there is a full 5# difference between them now. We finally got the referral for Cam's eyes & his opthamology appointment is scheduled mid-May. I'm fairly certain that he will require glasses. Of course, he is the child who can't stand to wear sunglasses or hats on his head, so I know that the adjustment period will be rough. But won't he look so cute in glasses?!

Speaking of glasses, that is a nice segue into showing you these adorable pics:








Jamie is still a pill. Smart as a whip, too. He sure does keep us on our toes, though.

I have no segue here, but look at the twins enjoying their first ever corn on the cobs!





We took a trip to Kentucky in mid April to see our friends, the Parrishes. We had a very nice time, but the first night in the hotel was tricky. We all shared a room, so we had to figure out how to get everyone to sleep with us being in the room. It didn't go so well, to say the least. But the second night was much better. Traveling with three little children is really rough on one's nerves, though- I'm not gonna lie.

Here are some fun pics of our time in Kentucky:

We started out going to Lost River Cave in Bowling Green. At least, we had this grand plan all worked out in our heads that we were going to take the boat tour and such, but the river was flooded, so there were no tours going through. Jessica talked with the college-aged kids running the park & they told her that we were able to walk down toward the cave & see it for ourselves. Well, we got to the area where they directed us, and there was a big "keep out" sign posted.



We forged ahead anyway, with fearless leaders Jessica & Jon leading the pack. Jessica claimed that "rules are for the stupid." LOL. Well, we all made it to the cave safe and sound & nobody arrested us, so I guess it was all good.

Here they are in the cave (the twins are behind me, the photographer):




We went to an old railway, where they had a gift shop with a couple of trains for the kiddos to play in.



They also had some model trains running behind glass & that really fascinated all of the little ones.



We were actually able to go tour one of the trains. Corbin threw a fit because he got stuck on wanting to play with an umbrella that he found on the train & Jamie wouldn't stay with the group because he wanted to open and close every single door that we passed. So, we spent a lot of the train tour trying to calm and corral our children. But the Parrish girls were calm! Here is Beth in the dining car:




We went to Dinosaur World in Cave City on Sunday





It's such a cool place for preschoolers and grade school kids!



sitting on top of a woolly mammoth



we tried in vain to have the 3 year olds pose for a pic with us.



Playing on the swingset at Dinosaur World:



They each got a turn in the dinosaur heads!







Here's a little cutie just swinging away...



They worked for a long time on this jumbo dino puzzle



I wish only that we had a longer time to see them! But we've seen each other 3 times in the past year already, so hopefully soon!

In other randomness, Cam has taken up finding the biggest pair (or NON-pair) of shoes that he can get his hands on & then tries to walk in them. So cute!