I have been meaning to post an update about our little guys and I am finally getting around to it.

Colin had his 9 month check up (probably two weeks ago now) and he is doing well. He weighed in at 18 lbs 15 oz and was 27 3/4 inches long. He is in the 25th percentile for both weight and height for boys his age. I spoke with his doctor about our concerns from his 6 month appointment with the extra fat rolls on one leg and she expressed a little bit of concern because that is common with children who have some kind of hip displacement. So she suggested that we go and get his hips x-rayed. We did that and he was a champ laying there under the x-ray machine. It turned out that his x-rays came back normal, all of his bones are in the right place. It may just be that the fat is diposited unevenly and he will probably grow out of it. But it is something we are going to be keeping an eye on.

Colin is eating really well, he will pretty much eat any pureed foods that I give him and he gets upset when it's "all gone"...he has moved on to eating a few finger foods as well. mostly the baby puffs, but he has tried a few cheerios as well. it took him awhile to get used to texture, but he's getting the hang of it now. He's still nursing as well and is in that stage where he gets easliy distracted so he's making nursing time sort of a play time. It's kind of frustrating, but it's also kind of hilarious. He's still not sleeping all night. We did the "cry it out" method for about 3-4 days and it actually worked. He was sleeping thru the night for about 2 weeks. Then he got a little cold and was having a hard time breathing thru his nose, so he was waking up more at night and now he is back to waking around 4am, eating and then going back to sleep. It's not too bad, but it's still not ALL night like his mommy and daddy would appreciate. He takes two really good naps during the day, but unfortunately it's at opposite times of Brandon's nap so usually one or the other is awake or asleep which makes it hard to go out and do stuff or for me to relax during the day at all.

He's doing really well with sitting up for long periods of time and he's getting much better on his feet. He can't stand alone, but we've been working on that. He also isn't crawling, but he has no problem getting what he wants by speed rolling. I'm ok with him not crawling yet. We still have a few cabinets/drawers in the house that aren't 100% baby proofed yet. We need to do that soon. Colin loves bath time with Brandon. I couldn't stand using the baby chair in the tub, so we just put him in there with brandon and he sits up in the tub just fine on his own. They are hilarious in the tub together as they love to splash each other and fight over toys. Brandon still doesn't understand the concept of sharing the toys, but he's getting a little better. Colin also loves going to the park and swinging forever. I'm dying for the pool to open up so we can go swimming every day. I know he'll love that.

On to Brandon. Just the other day I was saying how I didn't think the "terrible twos" were that bad yet. I think I spoke a little early. He has been a little terror the past few days (but we still love him!!!) He thinks it's funny to throw stuff at Colin, or to give toys to Colin and then take them away. He has had to go in the corner a few times, and that works really well as a distraction so he stops doing whatever it is that we have asked him not to do. He has learned to climb up on to everything now. He can get on the couch himself and thinks it's fun to jump on it (daddy taught him that dispite mommy saying NO). He gets up on to the dining room chairs and the kitchen chairs, the footstool of our rocker, etc. He pulls stuff off the tables so we have to make sure nothing important is up there. He did find Colin's container of puffs and decided to dump the entire thing out on to the floor. He has hidden most of his favorite toys to a secret location that I have yet to find. (I can't find ANY of his Thomas the Trains or a bunch of his puzzle pieces...) Just yesterday he figured out how to get his pants off and when I got him up from his nap, he had nothing but a shirt on! Yikes! Luckily there were no wet spots anywhere! He also has become more picky with his eating. He mainly only wants to eat cheerios, bananas, chicken nuggets and goldfish. He will eat other foods, it just takes more work.

Even though Brandon has his "terrible two moments", he is also such a sweet kid. He loves to snuggle with us and gives us kisses. He even kisses Colin now. He likes to help out around the house by putting his laundry in the hamper, throwing away the dirty diapers and helping me pick up. He likes to pretend to sweep and he pretends to be wiping the floor with a napkin. He loves his legos and cars and trains (even though the trains are missing.) He is doing much better being social and has a few friends now that he's getting used to getting out and going to play dates. We go to the library every week for art time and he is quite the little artist. I'm starting to run out of space to hang all of his artwork. He loves to color, paint and his favorite thing is glue. He is really good at gluing things on to paper or whatever. He is very meticulous with his fingers.

Brandon finally started speech therapy last week. Bridgit, his therapist, is going to be coming once a week and today will be our second appointment. She comes to our house and works with him as well as with me on ways to help him communicate better. His way of communicating is usually whining until he gets what he wants, which is really frustrating and somewhat annoying. But he is getting better, and with the therapy, I know it will only be a matter of time before he stops whining and starts talking more. She taught me a few signs to use with him, so he now knows "eat" and "help". I need to learn more so I can teach him more. She also showed me that when I'm trying to teach him a word, to hold the object up near my mouth so he can see my lips moving. That helps him to know he can make the same sounds with his mouth. I have found this very helpful. He has learned a bunch of new words from me doing that. She also showed me a few tricks on how to get him to imitate me and he will say stuff doing that. I'm really excited about our appointment today to see what else we can learn. Brandon's vocabulary is growing and these are the words you will hear come out of his mouth these days: dad, ball, i don't know, flower, stars, cars, balloon, T (for TV), eat, nose, eyes, mouth, cheeks, ears, socks, shoes, X, M, T, D, O, slide (his favorite thing at the park), wow, ut oh, oh no, and up. I'm sure there's more, but I can't think of them right now.

I guess that's it right now with the updates. I'll try to get some more pictures/videos up soon!
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