Vacuuming

We spent more time with Uncle Nelson and Aunt Sopa on Sunday and had lunch at Nana and Granddad's. Brady and Ian made a huge mess with their lunch so we had to get out the vacuum. They both wanted to help Granddad vacuum the floor.

More forts

Uncle Nelson and Aunt Sopa came for another visit this weekend. Since it was so rainy on Saturday, we had to stay indoors. The boys had a blast playing in the fort Sopa made for them.



Here is an example of the forts they make at home. This was Sunday morning.

Forts and more

Here are some pictures from the last few days. Lately the boys have been building lots of forts out of pillows. This is usually the first thing they do when they wake up and come downstairs each morning. One day Ian built a small fort around himself while he was reading.

Of course Brady had to get his picture taken too.
This was a stuffed-animal fort until Brady took a couple and Ian sat on a couple more!
One morning the boys were thrilled to watch a landscaping crew working on the yard across the street. Ian kept patting Brady on the back and rubbing his shoulder. Of course he stopped doing it as soon as I grabbed the camera. I got one picture and it's out of focus but still sweet.Ian watched the men work for quite a while. Look at the way he is crossing his legs! :)That evening, we had pasta for dinner. Both boys love pasta but we always have a big mess to clean up when they're finished. Ian rubbed his hands through his hair and came up with this new hairstyle... It reminds me of the morning he woke up with his hair like this when he was about 4 months old:

He should probably leave the task of fixing his hair to me for now.

Here, the boys are helping Granddad dry his car. They really enjoy being helpful, whether it's unloading the groceries, picking up their toys, or putting their books away. I hope this lasts for a while!

Bouncing on cars

Brady and Ian were goofing around on their cars after dinner a few nights ago. They kept cracking up each time they would bounce.

They love to look at pictures and lately I've been showing them pictures and videos on the digital camera playback screen. When they finished bouncing on their cars I played back the video for them and they giggled like crazy. As soon as Brady finished watching the video, he went back and bounced for a few seconds just so he could see himself on video again! You can see in the video below that he only stayed on the car long enough to get a little video clip then he came directly for the camera!

The last days of summer

We took advantage of the warm weather on Saturday and got the pool out again. The boys had a blast! They stayed in the pool for over an hour (usually they want to get out after about 15 minutes).

Here's Ian posing for the camera. He started doing this when he was about 8 months old and he hasn't forgotten!

After they got out of the pool they played on the patio for a while.
They blew some bubbles...
... and had fun watching them float away!

Here's a video of them playing in the pool. If you watch closely you can see Ian meow when he sees a cat go by and make a car noise when he hears a truck go by.

This week

Here's a little taste of what's going on this week. The boys have learned some new words, like "quack" and "dunno". They're starting to make simple sentences like "Bye-bye Mama" and "More, Nana" (when they want more food or drink). They've almost mastered their first three-syllable word, "banana".

You all know by now that Ian and Brady are rarely without stuffed animals. What some of you don't know is that each animal is very specific to either Ian or Brady, and they're not interchangeable between boys. Even though we must have about 30 stuffed animals, both boys are well aware of which animal belongs to which boy. When one of the boys is crying, the other boy will bring him one of the (correct) animals to comfort him. They can be very sweet with each other when they want to! :)

Lately, Ian has become shy when he's asked to do tricks like saying new words for people. He gets embarrassed when he's put on the spot. He's started to pull the "You can't see me if I can't see you" move.

Unfortunately, he's also started doing this at the dinner table when we ask him to eat a few more bites of something he doesn't want to eat! It's funny that he thinks he can outsmart us. The other night we were eating pork tenderloin from the grill. For some strange reason, both boys don't eat much meat right now (Jeremy says these can't be his offspring!), and Ian had barely touched his pork. We told him that he had to eat another bite of pork before he could have his fruit. Finally he put a piece in his mouth and he chewed and chewed and chewed but wouldn't swallow the bite. Then all of a sudden he went "Dat!!!" and pointed out the window. I realized that he did this in an attempt to divert our attention so that he could pull the pork out of his mouth while we weren't looking! He finally swallowed the pork when we put a strawberry in his mouth at the same time.

Here are a couple pictures of Ian and Brady riding the Daddy train Wednesday night.

Today has been one of those days! We've decided to move the boys to one big afternoon nap instead of the two naps they're used to (about an hour each in the morning and the late afternoon) since they're having a lot of trouble getting to sleep for their second nap lately. It's going to take a while for all of us to adjust. They got so sleepy this morning that they really started to act up. I had a lot of laundry to do, and every time I switched the loads they decided to take their diapers off while I was out of the room. Both boys took off their diapers and pants 3 times! Unfortunately, since there are two of them, I had to rediaper and reclothe them a total of 6 times! Hopefully they'll be used to the new schedule soon!

Zrbtt

I hope most of you remember the episode of the Cosby Show where the word "zrbtt" (or "zerbet", or "zerbert", depending on where you look it up) was coined. If you're not familiar with it, this is the word Bill Cosby used for blowing raspberries on someone's skin. We've done this on the boys' bellies since they were very young, and a couple night ago Ian finally figured it out. Brady still has some work to do! Actually, Ian does too - he still bites every now and then! Sorry that the video is so dark and grainy. We shot this using our digital camera in the evening and the lighting was bad. I tried to brighten it up and this is the best I could do. We hope you enjoy!

Visit with Pop and Joanna

We went to Roanoke this week to see Pop and Joanna. The boys were pretty generous with their hugs.
They remember Jack now (and he remembers them too!), so when we tell them we're going to go see Jack they start barking like a dog. Jack is a little scared of them after being chased around the house so much, but he warms up after a while. If the boys lay really still he'll come up and sniff them.

Pop fed the boys some yummy home-grown green beans and they had their first taste of Jell-O. Ian loved it so much that he ate all of his and half of Brady's!
The boys love to look at pictures. They like it when we tell them who is in the pictures and what is going on in each one. Here, Brady is looking at an album of all the great-grandchildren with Pop.

Trip to Portsmouth, Part IV (Sunday)

Brady and Ian love animals. Our cats are still very skittish around them so they are glad to get to pet dogs and cats whenevr they get a chance. This is Grandma and Grandpa Rasor's dog, Mattie.

Brace yourselves. The next picture is disgusting, weird, and funny at the same time. Mattie had been licking both boys on their noses and they were giggling and having a great time. I guess I snapped the camera at the exact time Mattie missed Brady's nose...
Grammie collects roosters, so there were plenty of opportunities for Brady to make his famous rooster noise.

Ian loving on Grammie
On the way home, we stopped in Richmond to have dinner with friends. This little pond was next to the restaurant and the boys were so excited to see the ducks.
We got home on Sunday evening and the boys were glad to see their toys, cats, and especially their cribs. They slept about an hour and a half later than usual on Monday morning!

Trip to Portsmouth, Part III (Saturday)

Here's something that never gets old for Brady and Ian - pulling everything out of the kitchen cabinets! I hope that Grammie can find all of her containers by now!

The boys really liked this chair because it was just their size.


Four generations: the boys with their Daddy, Grandma Rasor, and Great-Grammie Bray.

Grammie has 6 great-grandchildren between the ages of 15 months and 3 years... and they are all boys! We got all of the boys together for some pictures with Grammie. It was not easy to get 6 little boys to sit still and to look in the general direction of the camera. These are the best I could do:

After the pictures, it was time to swim! Brady helped Grammie fill up the baby pool.
Brady had a blast in the pool, and Ian wasn't really interested. This was the complete opposite of what happened at the beach in April. Jeremy made the paddleboat noise for Brady while he swam.
Ian played with toys by the baby pool.
The boys had lunch together at the kiddie table.
That evening we had a cookout and the boys got to spend time with more aunts, uncles, and cousins.