Birthday Party

Taft loves his cousins: SHINYRIBS

Our cousins have a new spin off band from The GOURDS called SHINYRIBS. Our precious Aunt sent us a copy of their new cd...well seems like Taft definitelt enjoys the music! Tyler says he is more or less belly dancing to the new tunes, but either way he like to jam and already has some sweet grooves!

Our first haircut

Wow..just remembering that moment brings back BAD memories. Weekend before last we decided to have the boys get their first American haircut. We contacted several African American friends asking for a barber reference. The people were friendly, but we explained we like their hair kind of long, and he assured us that longer hair is not in style for African Americans. Tiny culture clashes....short vs long, the barber saying Taft is a white kid name, etc. We explained we wanted their hair evened out from their Ethiopian cuts, and from the balding crib spot. We were a little shocked that meant a BUZZ! They forced Tyler to hold them down and the cried and screamed the entire time. Poor Taft had snot all the way to his chin from constant sobbing. Both boys were just dripping wet, they had sweat through several layers! But the end result is very cute! But little Tbone is too crazy for the plain Jane Buzz so we put a little slice into side. Maybe in the future he could have some fun swirls or something. The boys are now all cleaned up...but we most likely will let it grow out some!!!!

Our "real" birthday

On the boys actual day of birth, the 21st of January, we had a little "mini" party at our multiples playgroup gym, then we went to have lunch with Daddy. The waitress at BJ's brought both of the boys a pizzookie with a lit candle and we all sung happy birthday. I was able to snap a few photos that are adorable.

First Birthday Videos

The boys first birthday was a blast to say the least, we are still gathering photos but wanted to post a few videos for now!

Zeke

Our little Zeke cries when you don't let him run around dragging you behind. After about 10 laps around the house my back can't handle him...but boy does he love to run. Also, I am sure most parents would be stunned, but the boys and I can't help but dance to hip hop music. The boys love that FLOrida song that has the choreography for American dance day from So you think you can dance. Tyler set the laptop up with the dance video on and little Zeke couldn't help but shake his little booty!

Progress

Howdy! All the men in my life are making great gains in every aspect and I am thrilled to share! Tyler: Last Monday was his birthday and at a "staff" meeting his work sang to him with balloons and candle lit muffin. Of course we celebrated BIG TIME at home, but it isn't normal for his rigid and stiff work to break loose and remember someones birthday! Next, at that same meeting they announced officer of the year...drum roll please...Tyler is 2010 officer of the year! Finally, and most importantly...months and months of studying, prep classes, etc..Tyler officially passed the PE and will be a professional engineer! This is huge!!! Only 1 in 9 civil engineers actually get the letters PE after their name! My man Rocks! Taft: He can crawl faster than any other baby..seriously I am willing to bet on him racing! Also, for the past few months he had 2 little bottom teeth and we anxiously awaited more...more we got! In a span of 10 days we went from 2 teeth to 8 teeth! We now have 4 on top and 4 on bottom. Funny things is though his 2 center top teeth are HUGE, bigger than his Father's for sure, and probably the same as mine! My buck tooth baby. Better start not only pitching into that college saving account, but we need to open and pitch into a braces account! We have mastered Yeah, Go, Mama, Dada(he prefers to call him A Dad?), but they still prefer to twin talk. Not sure why, but at some point I hope English is preferable, because I can't share in their little twin conversations that last all day. Taft is easily bored and hollers GoGo, when he is ready to Go onto the next thing. Zeke: Remains as sweet and loving as ever. He has learned to make kisses when you ask him to kiss you. His little face puckers and it seems so difficult for him, like he uses every facial muscle to make the face. We have also mastered clapping, and he knows to clap when something good happens. Plus, Zeke as well got a tooth. It is just poking out a hair on the bottom left, but it is a tooth, we were afraid he would be the first baby with veneers at the rate we were moving. Also, little Zeke crawls, after several months of watching Taft with jealousy he is holding his own in the crawling department. We also think he will walk first. When his hands are held he can walk across the house and back, plus stand holding nothing for a long period of time.

Christmas Movies

Our First Christmas

Our first Christmas together was fabulous! We look forward to celebrating our Savior's birth together for many years to come. We celebrated in Texas with the Parker family, then immediate fnily, then Boos family, then back to AZ to have the Johnson Christmas, then friends always stopping in to share joy and baby gifts! Wow! We have the 2 most amazing gifts from God and have too much to be thankful for!

Plus I had to throw in the picture of Zeke at Tyler's desk at work..too funny!

Excuses, excuses, excuses

I realize we haven't posted in the longest time, for one and only one reason: We are having the hardest time getting WELL!!!
It started off when all 4 of us went to the doctor and were told we had an upper respiratory infection caused by a virus, and this years strain is lasting 2 or 3 weeks...GREAT! For 10 days or so we take over the counter junk and pray. Then, the boys have a fever spike and we try and take them to the doc, but there is only one available appointment, so the other most go to urgent care. Both boys have double ear infections..so once again meds...my poor Taft is on his 4th at this point in 3 months! We also see an ENT for Taft, and he doesn't feel confident in deciding tubes or not, so refers him to a DIFFERENT ENT who specializes in pediatrics and pressure exams?? Too bad the next appointment available with this ENT isn't until Jan 31st..bummer, hold strong until then Mr. Taft! The next morning I wake up shaking and can't even hold my poor little men, it feels like they weigh 5000 pounds. Of course it is a Saturday so I have to go to urgent care as well. Well 103 degree fever and 2 chest x-rays reveal pneumonia and double ear infections..great! So breathing treatments, meds and inhalers later I am out the door. We have one day to recover and then pack the car for Texas, sick or not, we will not miss Christmas with our Family! Day 2 in Texas my ears have only gotten worse, and I can hear NOTHING, and I mean Nothing in my left ear...Texas urgent care here we come. Well the ear infection got too bad and ruptured my ear drum, hence the deaf side! The doc says my original antibiotics would never have killed the infection, so I am prescribed something 16x as strong. After coming back home we have a follow-up for Zeke on Tuesday to make sure his infection is gone, well it is! Hooray! At least one of my poor babies is healthy! The boys get their flu shot, by request of their pediatrician, even though I am questioning their age and weight! They cry and scream, and so do I because they are clawing me, like I did it too them! That evening, we go to cover the boys again with blankies before going to bed and Tyler calls me over to Zeke's crib...he feels like he came out of the oven! We snatch him up and his fever is just over 103. What? We left the doctor healthy just that afternoon! We try Tylenol, washcloths, baths, etc..nothing is working. We even go as far as to use the Jamaican trick of rubbing them with rum that our Jamaican family taught us. The second the doctors office opens we call and get an appointment. Too bad the only available is the same time as my follow-up for pneumonia and my ears! We split up, Ty takes Zeke and I take Taft the monster. As usual Taft is running on all cylinder...grabbing everything in sight, spitting, doing his Donald duck voice..none of it "bad", just so crazy and loud! He wants everyone to see and watch him. An x-ray reveals my pneumonia is still there, great, but the ear drum shows scarring where he believes it is starting to heal itself, perfect! I was starting to have nightmares about the procedure of using a piece of flesh from my nose as a new ear drum that he described during my first appointment, yikes! Meanwhile Tyler is with Zeke, and seems his fever could be a reaction to flu shot, as well, as overnight he developed an Ear infection. Seriously? Our ear infection follow-up was like 18 hours before this? Nuts! They keep us there for as long as possible to check and recheck his temp. They are afraid for Tyler to take him home with such a terrifying temp. So poor Ty spends most of the day doing everything in a doctors office to bring his temperature down. Success...2.5 hours later! We gather meds for Zeke and myself at the pharmacy and return home praying this is the end of our insane health drama. Plan now is Taft sees the second ENT at the end of the month, I have another x-ray and follow-up in 10 days, and God heals the whole little family! Wooo....that seemed like a long story, of yeah it was, it has been over 5 weeks at this point!

Litte Guy Update

Howdy!
Thought I would give a little update on how the boys are doing..
SICK...we all have some sinus/respiratory infection..went to the doc and she said that the strain this year is lasting 3-4 weeks..woohoo..not looking forward to the rest of this!
Zeke...
Wow my sweet little man. He is so sweet and loving I just can;t get over it. He will snuggle up with you, and reaches out to hold your hand always. He is so sensitive, if you raise your voice Even being silly, he starts to cry. He makes the sweetest little sounds. We are still working on crawling, he just kid of spins on his tummy, but really has the standing parts down quite well. Now if only we would work on the pooping in the tub thing...something about the warm water just makes him go...NASTY! I have tried everything and if anyone has suggestions let me know. The little floaties every morning are seriously grossing me out!
Taft....
Our little monster! The exact opposite of Zeke! No snuggling..he is just always on the go! He crawls at the speed of light..particularly to the gifts under the Christmas tree. He knows they are off limits, so he crawls a bit and looks back at us, then a few more feet, then looks back. He know he is up to no good, but can't resist. He is pulling up on everything, and basically figuring out how to escape from any toy/baby occupier we can put him in. He is all boy and pretty rough. We have to watch out that he doesn't injure Zeke, or us for that matter!He loves the camera and now will smile when you ask him too. He has 2 teeth all the way in, 1 more about half way out, and 2 on the top busting through any day. Little Zeke is still toothless!

The boys both have little tricks..they wave, high five, kiss Mama and are working on blowing kisses. The other day I was laying down with Zeke on my tummy and would make the kissy nose and e would lean down and kiss me on the lips. Every single time I made the noise! I couldn't stop laughing he is just too adorable. Taft on the other hand will not sit still long enough to balance on my tummy! One thing we have noticed is how Boys are just genetically rough and wild. I though maybe those behaviors were learned..NO, boys are just little balls on nasty and crazy from birth!

One last story guaranteed to make you laugh...the other day we were finishing our Christmas list and running to Dr. appointments. We stopped int eh bathroom at Kohls to change them and I glanced at myself in the mirror for the first time since before the sun was up. There was poop smeared on my cheek, like I toughed y face with a dirty hand. It might have been there 1 minute or 8 hours?????

Post Nene and Poppy visit

The boys were able to spend the past week with their Nene and Poppy,meeting and visiting them for the first time. I think both parties enjoyed themselves greatly. We were able to play, see their first "snow fall"(A Christmas band with fake snow blowing from the stories above...seemed to be almost dish bubble quality???), stroll the amazing lights at Winterhaven(none of the family has ever seen anything over the top like that), eat plenty of great meals, worship at church and open Christmas gifts! Just after they left we had out the video camera to capture our crazy little men!

Video overload

We have been all over the place lately and I haven't posted any videos in a wgile, so we must share! One is the boys in the bath tub: this couldn't show their personalities better, Taft the wild man, and Zeke the thinker! Then the boys have astered standing on the edge of their cribs and love it. Also, the little guys favorite toys are baby drumsticks????? Zeke gets so excited when he plays with daddy, and wakes up so sweet and happy always!

First Family Christmas Pictures

Our friend Sara Weber is incredibly talented and took wonderful photographs of our family. If you would like to take a peek click the site:

http://simplesmiles.zenfolio.com/2010-11jfamily/h3d64eaae#h3d64eaae
and obviously our last name is Johnson!

Enjoy

Christmas Preview

Mr. Taft

Our precious big guy can crawl!!! Plus, we couldn't help but share his BIG personality! Look at how messy he gets and how crazy loud he can be when excited and visiting!

Texas our Texas

Many milestones to report. The boys are growing like weeds. Our little men grow out of their clothes from week to week it is just crazy!They roll around like tumble weeds. Taft can crawl backward only??? They both stand..so we bought them walking wings yesterday to practice the balancing part. They chatter to each other and everyone around nonstop! Also, they are full blown celebrities! Everywhere we go people want to ask, touch, see them. I see other white girls with white twins and no one even looks their direction. I must admit in my former life I would love the attention...but in Target in my gym clothes with spit up running down my sport bra and Taft yelling..YELLING..dadada to everyone..the attention isn't always wonderful. Someone n Texas even asked to photograph them for free to use in the advertising. I know my kids are cute..but hello stranger...that is really out there! One preciosu thing..as you can tell from the photo they love to hold hands while eating, and babble to each other the whole time! Loving every minute with the blessed job I have!

Zeker

My name is Zeker, I am the squeker!!! Plus Meme taught Zeke to shake maracas, and he hasn't stopped since!

Post Conference

We apologize we haven't posted anything in quite a while. Tyler was scheduled to go to an engineering conference in San Antonio, TX and since that is our childhood home...we all went! Who could pass up meeting friends and family for the first time, hotel on the riverwalk and reuniting with loved ones? We had a blast...but our thankful to be home. The boys have been so sweet and smiley, and I can tell they are thankful to be back home, so our the parents! We missed having silly things like a changing table, high chairs, or even a place to set them down that was safe and baby friendly. They were fussy on the way back...Tyler claims they miss Texas already, but I think that was really HIS heart talking, not theirs just yet!

We have our first post adoption evaluation in our home this Thursday...excited..nervous..just glad to have it coming soon..means one less more in the future.

Then we found and connected with a therapist for little Zekey. The cutest little place called mealtime connections paired us with our new friend Mandy who is coming to our house this week and next to evaluate and consult how we can get him to eat solid foods. We have him currently no longer terrified of the spoon and here lately he has willing taken a few bites, but no where close to the garbage disposal we call Taft.

Will post pictures ASAP!