Winter Blah's

 

It's been a long time since I blogged last. We hadn't been doing a whole lot because of the cold weather and then the boys got sick, so we dealt with that for a week. :( This is a picture dump of the pictures I got before the sickies took over.

 

Greg got in an organizing mood and went through a lot of the boys toys and put some in bins to play with later (to rotate the toys) the rest went to the Goodwill up the road. It's so nice to have some of the clutter gone, our house is still overtaken with toys, but it's much neater, thanks to Greg. :)

 

This is what Evan looks like when I go and wake him up from his nap. Not quite awake yet, kinda in a daze.

We've played a lot with play doh.

Carter woke up before Evan one afternoon and wanted to go get him up, we try not to let the boy nap too late so that it won't mess up their bedtime, so I let him go in there and get Evan up. He was so excited and happy to see Evan. I LOVE this picture. Look how happy Carter is and then look at Evan's face. bahahahaha. I love it.

We've done lots of coloring. The boys discovered my pretty colored pens, so that's what they like to use instead of crayons now. Look at Evan's intense face in this pic. Haha.

Carter asked to wake Evan up another day and I let him. He brought a book to make Evan less mad about getting woke up.

Carter asked me to take a picture of him!

If people ever think, I wonder how she gets things done with twin boys. The answer is, I don't.

We were starting to run short on ideas on indoor activities we could do with the boys since it's so cold out. We took them to Starbucks and got them a kid temperature hot cocoa and a vanilla scone. They LOVED the hot cocoa.

We made a couple of quick trips over the past couple weeks to a park. We'd go when it was sunny and not too cold and made sure to bundle up.

We went to the mall play area, which I'm thinking that the boys have outgrowned. They don't seem to love it anymore.

Eatng spaghetti. Carter would much rather be fed than have to dirty his hands and Greg LOVES that so he can keep at least one of the boys somewhat neat during dinner time.

Mommy's little helper.

We took the boys to get ice cream one afternoon, just for no other reason than to get out of the house. The boys love ice cream.

Cheese!

Evan's bites started getting bigger and bigger until he just decided to try and drink the ice cream.

 Monday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we took the boys to Bounce and Play. Normally, Evan is all over the place, climbing all the slides and going down even the highest ones, but Carter hasn't been brave enough to try a lot of what Evan is doing. Well, he is not scared anymore and spent the entire time climbing everything and having a blast. They were worn out when we left there.

I love so much that Carter is able to do the things that Evan is there. It's like something clicked for him, because now he's not scared to go on the Chick-Fil-A playground or the indoor playground at Taco Bell, he has no fear. It's easier to take them to places like that by myself when they will both do the same things.

After we went to Bounce and Play and came home was when Carter started acting like he didn't feel all that great. After dinner he started running a fever and him and Evan coughed a lot in their sleep Monday night and both woke up with coughs and runny noses on Tuesday. :(

Egg Challenge

 

Monday morning, at 8:00, Carter had an appointment at his allergist for an "egg challenge". When he went to get his annual blood work back in August, it came back with a low allergy for eggs, which the doctor said that since it was low it could mean that he's allergic to eggs, but it didn't necessarily mean that he was allergic to eggs. (I know, that doesn't make sense to me either) The doctor recommended coming back for a 4.5 hour egg challenge, where they give him tiny bites of egg, wait for 15-20 minutes and then give him a little more and see if he has any reactions.

 

The doctor wanted me to bring french toast in since it was something with egg on it that a toddler would likely eat. Apparently, like Carter, most toddlers don't like eggs. I got up early and cooked some french toast (I also made scrambled eggs, hard boiled eggs, deviled eggs, and muffins with eggs in them, just in case) and got Carter up about 5 minutes before we had to leave, changed him and off we went. Greg took the morning off to stay home with Evan because 4 and half hours in an exam room with one toddler was plenty.

 

Carter on our way to the doctor. He

 

I had been giving Carter things with egg in it and he even had deviled eggs once before this blood work showed he might be allergic. So, I asked them to do a skin test before we started to see what that showed and it came back as a mid-grade allergic reaction. So, we went on with the egg challenge.

 

I bought Carter a new truck at Walmart just for this appointment. He LOVES it.

 

They had a Lightening McQueen car in the toy bin there and Carter really liked it.

 

I did something I swore I'd never do, I let my toddler touch my ipad. Carter was getting antsy, so I let him play a kids drawing game on my ipad. He liked it and it killed some time. He wasn't allowed to eat anything before we got there and the bites of french toast were so tiny. They started with one bite and waited 20 minutes, then two small bites, another twenty minutes and it was his first time having french toast and he loved it. He would get so excited when the nurse came in with the plate and he would say "Yummy!!" and ask for more. It was so heartbreaking to tell him he'd have to wait a little bit before getting more.

 

Greg and I found this cheap castle with knights and dragons at Walmart on clearance and picked it up just for this appointment also. I tried to be prepared because I knew he'd need lots to distract him.

 

We went into the waiting room for awhile and watched cartoons. We ended up running into another mom in my MOPs group that was there with her son getting him tested for allergies.

 

He had hit his limit and was ready to go, so I let him roam the halls. He found this ramp that led up to the medical records and the break room. He ran up and down it several times. He just had energy that he needed to burn off.  

 

He did great with the french toast and they started giving him more each time. About 11:00ish they were able to give him an entire slice of french toast but we had to wait 45 minutes after he ate it to make sure there wasn't a reaction. That was when he really hit his limit. He cried and screamed. He wanted to go and kept pulling me towards the door and trying to push it open. Finally, the doctor came in and said it was safe to say that he wasn't allergic to eggs. He does have a topical reaction to them, so he can't touch raw eggs (no cookie dough) and all his eggs need to be well cooked (so no runny yolks). The doctor said that even people who don't have egg allergies will have a reaction to touch raw eggs. So, I don't know why that is, but not letting him have runny yolks or touch cookie dough is no big deal. I'm so thankful he is not allergic to eggs. I have been so worried about this and I'm glad it's over.

 

Carter was so happy to leave and get home to see Evan.

 

Greg and Evan had quite the morning also. They went to Bounce and Play and had a blast and then went to lunch at one of our favorite pizza places because Evan requested pizza for lunch. I'm glad they got to have some one on one time.

 

Since Greg went in late, he worked late. So after the boys nap, we went in the basement and played with flashlights. You could tell they missed each other this morning because they played so well together. It was so much fun watching them.

 

 

I wish these pictures weren't so dark, but I had to post them since you can kinda see them playing in the dark with their Cars flashlights.

Trip to Harrisonburg

Friday morning, we took the boys to the mall to play around in the play area. After their nap, we headed to the downtown Children's Museum. It was raining and cold and we were stuck doing things inside. The museum wasn't busy at all, but you could tell they had been all day because of all the things out. The art room looked like it had been well used.

 

Carter insisted on wearing his hood the whole time.

 

 

Evan loves this play well, I never see any other kids playing with it.

 

Saturday morning, we headed to Harrisonburg, which is about 45 minutes away. It was supposed to be warm and sunny, so we figured we'd take the boys to the park and check out the kids museum there (we get in free since we're members of our museum) It seemed like perfect weather to play outside in, but when we got to the park, it was completely soaked! We didn't realize how much rain they got the night before. We didn't know it was so wet until we got the boys out of the car and we felt it would have been mean not to let them play, so we let them play for a little while. We had a change of clothes in the car, so we just changed them into dry clothes when we left the park.

 

It's such a nice park. It's the biggest park I've ever seen, there's a place to ride bikes, a huge picnic area, tons of swings, a part just for smaller kids, a splash pad that's on during the summer.

 

There's so many slides, places to climb, etc. I hate that it was wet.

 

There was actually several other people there, I was surprised. But, I bet this park is always busy. I wish it was closer.

 

You can see how soaked Evan's pants are.

 

We used to carry a towel in the car for when we stopped by a park and the slides or swings were slightly wet, but it wouldn't have even helped.

 

After we changed the boys and left the park, we headed to the children's museum. It's a much bigger museum than the one we have and it has so much more to do. We've taken the boys there once before and they really liked it. There's an ambulance in there that the kids can sit in and go in the back. Both boys loved it.

 

There's two train tables for the kids to play with.

 

 

An art room with so many things to do.

 

There's a little house with all kinds of fun things that are kid sized--like a kid sized fridge, washer and dryer, etc. Evan played in there for a long time.

 

Greg showing Carter how to milk the cow. There's actual liquid that squirts out into the bucket.

 

So cute.

 

The boys actually stayed awake for the entire drive home and we were all able to lay down and take a nap. I love weekends where we all take a nap in the afternoon. After they woke up, we went to a park near our house and the boys played with some other kids for about an hour. It was cold, but they had so much fun. Then, we headed to Lowe's to get some paint samples.

 

It took forever, so the boys entertained themselves by "painting" the ground.

 

I hate picking out paint, I always have a specific idea in my head what I want it to look like, but it's hard to find the perfect color.

 

Today was supposed to be sunny with a high of 71, but instead it's in the 50's, cloudy, and calling for rain. I'm glad we took advantage of the decent weather yesterday and spent a lot of time outside.