Sorry about the video link in yesterday’s post – I made a small mistake in the address, but since with internet address it either works or it doesn’t, it didn’t.  Anyway, it’s fixed now.  It’s a kind of big file (I think around 12mb) and a minute and a half long, but honestly it’s well worth it.  Some day I’ll figure out how to get videos onto the site more easily.  In the meantime, one at a time, with just a few too many typos.

Yes, yes, this is shameless begging.  Almost two years have gone by since the boys’ surprising arrival 3 months early.  It used to be that I could not see the light at the end of a very scary tunnel.  These days are lives are filled with the following bliss:

General Mayhem

Nicholas and Dexter are amazing little boys.  They are finally repeating words, much to my delight (and maybe our horror as we now need to clean up our language), and they seem to grow by leaps and bounds every day.  Joel and I are constantly rearranging the house, trying to stay in front of it all.

That brings me to my shameless begging.  Please support us in the March of Dimes walk this year.  As you know, the March of Dimes’ mission is to improve the health of babies by preventing birth defects, premature birth, and infant mortality.  Seeing that we benefited from their research and Nicholas and Dexter are healthy, happy toddlers (when not throwing tantrums), I would say it’s a very good cause to support.

We walk on April 24th in Everett.  You are welcome to join Team Yates in the walk and/or you can donate to our team via this link (Click HERE).  Our goal this year is $1000!!!!!  We are off to a very slow start, seeing that the walk is just 50 days away.  Nicholas and Dexter will both be walking this year.  Hopefully in the right direction too!  So, if you can give even $5 (and foreign currency donations are accepted too), we’d really appreciate it.  Team Yates would like to do everything possible to prevent others from having to walk through the scary tunnel of an early birth.

Thank you so very much for all of your continued support and well wishes.  We greatly appreciate it!  Love – Katie, Joel, Nicholas and Dexter

Is the title to obvious?  Yes, today (March 7th) was my birthday and it was a day of flexibility.

First off, the boys gave me the best present ever.  They slept through the night AND they slept until 7am.  That means I got a total of around 8.5 hours of sleep last night.  WOWOWOWOWOWOW  That hasn’t happened in like, forever.

Anyway, here’s what our initial plans were and then I’ll tell you how they changed.  I had planned on being up around 6am but as you heard, I got to sleep in.  The goal was to then walk with the boys to the French bakery down the street for a mid-morning incredible croissant around 9:30am.  Instead, I was on the road to my brother’s house.  I’m going to say Ryan got food poisoning last night and like any bachelor out there, he didn’t have the necessary “get well” food items like Sprite, Saltine crackers, bananas, chicken noodle soup, and Pepto Bismal so I bought him food and dropped it off.

The second part of that story was that Ryan was suppose to pick up my uncle Dick at the airport around the same time Joel and I were to have a glorious birthday dinner at the Outback Steakhouse (~1pm).  Well, you guessed it – Joel and I headed to the airport instead.

We thought that the  Outback would have the same hours at South Center mall that it does up here in Everett.  We were wrong and thus ended up at the Mongolian Grill, a good faster food restaurant.  Seeing that there was no wait for food, we had time to kill on our hands before Dick’s fight got in.  A quick tour of the renovated mall, followed by three laps around the airport and Uncle Dick was picked up and delivered home.  We had just enough time to stop by the French bakery before it closed at 4pm to pick up a dessert for Joel, myself and Malin.  There were a few remaining delectable items left so it was ok.  The babysitter was relieved of duty and we played with the boys.

The next surprise of the day occurred at 4pm.  My friend Dawnn and her fantastic daughters Katie and Ashlyn dropped by with cupcakes made just for my birthday.  We had a great time playing and Dexter spontaneously kissed Katie on the cheek without prompting.  I think this was his first kiss.  At least it was a Katie.  What a little ladies man.  Dexter also gave Ashlyn hugs.

Nicholas just loved the cup cake and DEVOURED his in a nano second.  That boys loves cake.

After they left, I opened my presents and THANK YOU Mom and Dad for the great gifts.  I think the Carry Underwood concert will be tons of fun.

Chris and Don, I love the chocolate and Joel has said I don’t even have to share.

Joel and the boys came through too.  They also got me concert tickets but to Tim McGraw.  Joel, being the forever thoughtful husband, gave me a electric pad for my feet in bed because during the winter, I’m always complaining that I can’t warm up my feet.  Nicholas (who loves eggs, and really loved camping) got me a portable plastic egg carrier for camping and Dexter decided he wanted to watch the Star Trek movie with me.

All in all, it was a fantastic day.  Thank you everyone who made it special!!!!

This was an oldie but a goodie that Joel wanted to share with you.  Here you can see the boys are already learning how to really sit in a recliner.  I wonder what we did that day because they really looked wiped out, don’t they?  Current status is that the boys are trying to drop their one remaining nap (much to our horror).  This one remaining nap has been cleverly whittled down to around an hour which leaves us just enough time to do absolutely nothing at all except prepare and eat our lunch.  Now we actually have to do our chores after they go to bed.  So much for down time……..

So today Malin told me that when she takes the boys for a walk, if a dog barks at them, Nicholas will bark back.  So here’s the question: which parent should take credit for this personality trait?  And do we have to admit it?

Sometimes, it’s hard not to read your horoscope and say, oh yeah, that is so me.  Then there are other days when all your “traits” as dictated by some magazine do not fit at all.  Well, having children is a lot like that. 

Joel and I will watch Nicholas and Dexter and inevitably, start saying “yep – he gets that from me.  Oh, that is so you.”  I’d really like to give you a match the baby trait with the parent trait but I think the logistics of writing that would be a bit hard.  So, I’ll let you off easy this time.  Here are some of the boys’ traits that we claim to be our own.

Nicholas is all about being in control.  Hmmm, sound maybe a bit like me?  He will only play rough and tumble when he wants to.  He does not like being interrupted when he’s focused on a specific task and will let you know to leave him alone.  When he is overly hungry or tired, he melts down quickly and much to Joel’s disgust, Nicholas is a true carnivore.  We both love the water and don’t mind getting dirty.  These are all traits that my beautiful boy and I share.  However, he gets his red-headed feistyness from his dad and like his father, Nicholas will quickly figure out how something works.   

Then there is Dexter, who is quite like his father.   Dexter does not know when he is hungry and will forget all about food if something else is going on.  He can’t sit still.  Dexter jumps from task to task but when he finds something he likes, he becomes laser focused.  Needing to be in control is not something Dexter craves.  In fact, he loves it when Joel plays rough with him.  Dexter is not a fan of meat and absolutely loves black beans.  In marrying Joel, I’ve had to introduce beans into my diet but I can say I love for non green beans is on par with Joel’s love of meat.   Dexter is wicked smart when it comes to electronics and almost ordered us another On-Demand movie the other day.  He also gets overwhelmed when there’s too much going on around him, and doesn’t like to get dirty or wet.  One of the few traits I share with my amazing Dexter is our ability to be totally silly, to have a much more even-keeled temper, and to zone out in front of the TV. 

As for the traits Joel and I won’t claim as our own, sticking sippy cups up the nose is on the top of the list followed by putting bins/tubs over their heads and walking into things, or eating vegemite.  Where they get this stuff, I don’t know.