"Twins"

You know your kiddos were destined to be "twins" when on the exact same day they fall, at 2 different time, and get the EXACT SAME SCAB!!!! They both popped the area between your nose and lip and it formed a little scab. how bizarre is that?

If I had a dollar for the amount of times people comment on the fact that it looks like Taft has eyeliner on, I could buy everyone in my family a Starbucks. I assume all these strangers do not really believe he has eyeliner on, but it sure does look like it. Gorgeous eyes my babe has!

Last week we had the EMG/NCV done on Taft. The results were a blessing and a curse....He does not have Muscular Dystrophy or Multiple Sclerosis Praise God! The commented that his muscle bulk and strength for very defined and strong for his age! That's right, my little linebacker already! However, they believe maybe there is a part in his brain not cooperating with his muscles. His cognitive evaluations are always right on track, just his gross motor is still a bit behind. Therefore, we are now scheduled for an MRI/brain scan, blood work, and liver function test, along with a follow-up with his regular Neurologist. Hoping this will be our last major hospital visit, before we have a Daddy back in town. I have gotten way too familiar with each hospital in the Tucson area and used and abused friends who are willing to care for Zeke while I focus on Taft.

One of Taft's therapist really brought it back home the other day when we were discussing medical conditions, test, diagnosis, etc. She said "What if this is how God made him", "Look at the faith growth in your family because of these struggles"! Yes, yes you are right! Our God is great, powerful and the Almighty Healer. I witness my little man praying daily, getting excited over bible stories, and dancing and singing at kid's church warms my heart. If my kiddo never runs up and down flights of stairs, but commits his life to Christ and service I will be the most BLESSED Mommy on Earth!

Christmas and New Years

...and no Zeke did not really ahve a sip of that margarita!

Christmas Gifts

I couldn't help but share with our friends and family a few videos of the boys opening gifts and singing Happy Birthday to Jesus on Christmas! They didn't get the concept of gifts this year unfortunately. Therefore, they periodically opened a gift here and there instead of sitting down and going crazy all at once. At one point when the entire family was opening gifts we found Taft in the hallway with an old dump truck of Memaw's! He just wanted to play, regardless of how old the toys are!

****Take note of Zeke gasping as he opens each gift. He noticed the adults doing that and picked up on it too!

Avery

While in Texas the boys adored Avery, my parent's lab. After playing with her, and then hearing stories of therapy dogs helping kiddos with issues similar to Taft's I think we might be slightly conidering a dog come summer. After you see this video you will be voting "yes" to a dog for these two. They LOVE Avery!

Jump House

While in TX we went to the Emerald Rainbow inflatable jump house on 3 different occasions. My parents are fabulous hosts providing 2 cribs, 2 high chairs, 2 car seats, and about one million toys, BUT the rest of their home isn't exactly child proofed. So early every morning the boys would go nuts "playing" with breakable Christmas decor or running out of the bathroom with a spray bottle of 409, so we decided to escape on early mornings and let the kids burn mass quantities of energy bouncing. One trip it was the 4 kiddos and me, the next the boys with Ashley and I, and lastly Ryan, Ashley, and the boys(to help while I was booted due to the fractured foot). Each time was a true adventure, but we all had a blast. Te boys even crashed one time before we made it out of the parking lot, they were so exhausted!

Advent Calendar

Taft was obsessed, and I mean obsessed with this chocolate calendar I got at Trader Joe's. We had a couple of daily activities for the month of December each day leading up until Christmas, so I thought it would be fun to end our traditions each evening with a shared candy from the calendar. Boy was I wrong! I found Taft hiding under the Christmas tree on several occasions desperate to get into the calendar, found him stuffing his mouth, and then found his hysterical because he wanted candy! I had no idea he would get so worked up over the candy. That was just supposed to be the little reward after our daily time learning about Jesus! Maybe next year there will be more Jesus and less candy when you see his bizarro behavior!

23 & me

BEST GIFT EVER! Tyler gave our family 23&me gene testing for Christmas. Mine has been sent off to a lab for analysis. Now I must wait the 6-8 time period for results to be returned. I am dying to find out more about my history, health, family, body, make-up, etc! What a real gift of life!

2nd best gift ever.....Half spa day at the new JW Marriot Gold Resort in Texas. He arranged for Memaw to watch the kids while I was pampered beyond belief in spas, aromatherapy rooms, stone massage, facial, mud wrap, etc! I read how that hotel is one of the 50 best in the World as well as their Spa is in the top 50 too! I definitely felt like #1 in the world! Never been pampered in luxury of that quality and what a neat surprise, totally out of the blue from adoring Tyler! 1.5 years ago..Kelly and I were paying $4 for a couple's massage in a little hut in Ethiopia! Totally different atmosphere, but I wouldn't call the hut "Luxury"!

Kiddie Park

Memaw and I took the boys to the Kiddie Park of San Antonio. Yes, the same old nasty park that even my grandparents went to as children, its over 80 years old! The boys had a blast! All the rides are for tots, literally no parents can ride with the kids, except the spinning orbits. Little awkward to toss my kid on a ride and say "Bye", but they loved the independence. We all had a blast, minus the orbits that made mom and I sick, the spinning was way too quick! The boys realized they could sit on the same side of the boats and tip it, dragging their hand in disgusting water, surprise surprise! The Ferris wheel goes super high, with no adult in the cage! But, Zeke screamed the entire 10 revolutions or so...why? The ride director made him share a seat with Taft! Poor thing, who could ever expect you to share a set with your "twin brother"! Next time we are in SA, we are heading there again! What a blast from the past, and a real barrel of monkeys!

Starbucks

Zeke starts chanting "Starbucks" at every drive thru, specifically today it was CVS. This kid is starting young...well for Starbucks yes...but he only gets organic milk, so he has no idea what he is really missing!

Holiday crafts

Had a blast recently making great crafts with my boys and my girls (our nieces)!

Shh...Don't tell Daddy!

The boys love to play "Mee-Mup", aka Make-Up Time with brushes and pretending to dip them in colors for their face. One time Taft even got it went accidentally and then smeared it on his face. Powder + Water= Paste. He had to wear a hat to church that morning to cover up the white stripe I couldn't get off his forehead!

Every boy's dream!

Thank you Daddy and Pepaw for our indoor swing. There isn't many things in lie more creative an enjoyable!

A tast of our food life

Howdy Gang! You all know we have major feeding issues and I couldn't help but to film some of our chaos. The other day I offered 17different fresh and prepared foods and neither kid would take a single bite...seriously??? But then Zeke impressed me with his creative balancing act skills, and Taft went broccoli nuts the following day! A few days after this video Zeke successfully ate a large quantity...of what you ask: 2 dishes of his request that he actually FINISHED!
1. Homemade Greek yogurt with chunks of peaches in it, cover in, and I mean full blown SMOTHERING of Parmesan cheese, funky tasting goat milk cheese at that!
2. A bowl of peas drowned in Agave nectar syrup.
Seriously Zeke...I wish they still had that show Double Dare, he would totally win!

Our recent life in photos!

A few noteworthy photos:
The boys in their matching shirts with Daddy.
The new "library" in the boys room.
Great Zoo trip included feeding the giraffes.
Mom riding in the trunk of the car.
WE FINALLY had our silhouettes cut and framed! Tyler and I have wanted that done since high school and were able to have them done recently. The artist took less than 30 seconds for each silhouette to be hand cut, that is true ART!
Zeke has a little girlfriend.
Mommy rocked the Thanksgiving day cross country, and post race can still press a 28 pound kiddo over and over...woohoo. First real race with water jumps, mud, etc!
Taft is rocking his styling little leg braces...could they be any cuter?

The Johnsons have gone crafty!

Recently we have done a couple of things I am LOVING!!!!

Jesse Advent Tree:
A group of women at church all selected one symbol from creation to the birth of Christ to make as ornaments. There is a book that goes along with the series, and I selected to make 25 scrolls and 25 sets of the 10 commandments to trade with 25 other women so I now have 2 complete sets of 25 ornaments. Today was the first day and we read and talked about the story of how God created the world, and the boys each hung the globe ornament someone at church designed. I am thrilled to be able to share Bible stories leading up to celebrating our Christ with the boys! I will post a photo of the scroll and commandments I made. After 25 of each, I am pretty proud of those little guys.

Toddler Games:
A MOPS group decided to each make a little game type activity that fits into a gallon sized Ziploc and can be taken on the road. We each made 10 and then traded so we ended up with 10 different games. Once again I have 2 boys, so I chose to make 2 activities so I can then have double to trade and bring home. I made the past sorting by color, size and texture as well as the identifying shades of one color activity. We can home with 8 other fabulous activities, for moments like sitting in a doctor's office for an hour with nothing to do. Now I will be the prepared Mommy with educational down time activities!

Cake Pops:
We have tried to make these little boogers too many times. Alli and Randa will vouch for the fact that one set of our looked and tasted like melted Reindeer poop, not the adorable pops in the photo.Therefore, one of my crafty friends invited a couple ladies over for a little "how to" while the kiddos played. I was still the worst decorator of the group, but I think my little turkey was pretty cute. I need to stick to flavor and not appearance. My baked goodies are always killer in taste, but don't ever win prizes for being picture worthy!

We are still alive!

My goodness gracious what long time since I have been able to post. Life just hit fast forward for 2 weeks and then I was so far behind I didn't want to post anything because there was just way too much to say. So I am going to hit on the highlights of what has been going on, of course all the typical therapies, dates, groups, lessons, etc, but in addition the following craziness:
1. Daddy came home for 17 days and we were in HEAVEN, literally. The boys recognized and only a day or so in were back to their typical daddy-loving selves!
2. We went to Disney and had a blast!(well all but Zeke who was afraid of it all)
3. We have been to several fabulous birthday parties.
4. The bathroom is COMPLETED!!! Custom cabinet in, water running, paint, dry...loving not sharing with the boys!
5. Taft had a Neurology appt...they found nothing wrong, and think he is just dev behind from orphanage life. Considering testing for trisomies if there isn't a giant jump in next 4-6 months.
6. Taft has been super sick, and several docs believe it to be allergies, so we are giving allergy meds a try.
7. Zeke got an ear infection that was so bad his fever almost hit 105 and the doc made us stay at the clinic until we could get it down, over 6 hours.
8. Both boys had blood work and chest x-rays because they just were not getting better.
9. Taft got his little orthotics in and is a miracle. They told us he would have to learn how to walk all over again, we strapped them on and he took off running..can we say determination?
10. We attended a picnic in PHX for adoptive families.
11. On the way to Phoenix we got a nail in the tire and had to purchase 2 new tires, but had to drive cautiously to 3 different stores looking for the Right tires in the middle of Tour de Tucson(aka thousands of cyclist all over town).
12. We went to a Thanksgiving for Ethiopian adoptive families in Phoenix.
13. I left my tithing check in my Operation Christmas Child box and had to go sort through boxes to find the blank check before it was wisked away to a 3rd world country!
14. Taft is now receiving speech therapy, Zeke placed out!
15. We ran as a family, My dad, My sister and me! in the Thanksgiving Cross country race here in Tucson.
16. My immediate family came to stay and play for the week of Thanksgiving.
17. We had a family date to the zoo.
18. Pepaw babysat all day, while my mother, sister and I went nuts on black Friday, as usual!
19. In place of getting a rental car, my mom volunteered to ride in the trunk of my car around town. Yes my little SUV had 4 adults and 2 baby seats!

Disney in Pictures