350ish Miles

I was going to tell you all about my sore butt and burning thighs, but my friend Jessica said it so much better that I'll just post what she wrote. 



This weekend I participated in the Salt2Saint relay with 7 great friends.

We experienced:
8:00 am start time at the State Capitol on Friday morning.
Taking turns riding each leg of the race, ranging from 13 - 22 miles each.
Temperatures ranging from 40- 90 degrees.
 Rain, rain, rain and more freezing cold rain.
Headwinds.
Flat tires and tire blowouts and tire replacements.
Healthy food and junk food.
Riding in middle of the night on semi-lit highways and pitch-black bike paths.
1-1/2 hours of sleep (from 6 am to 7:30 am)... sitting up or crammed between the seats of the Yukon.
Beautiful scenery.
Hills and valleys.
Crossing the Utah/Arizona border.
Skipping 4 legs at the end because we were running out of time.
Riding together across the finish line at 5:00 pm on Saturday evening.
Rewarding ourselves with 4 pizzas, breadsticks and soda.
Ridiculously sore buttocks.
Laughing and talking and cheering on friends who we know we will cherish forever.

Biker Chick -  That's Me!

That doesn't look good.

I'm smiling on the outside, but on the inside I was crying and asking myself, "Why am I doing this?"

Nate Anderson: Even if he has been up all night, he still likes to look nice.

Alan Bingham riding, Justin Adams running him in.

Cami Bingham, Me, Kristin Anderson, Jessica Adams. Nate Anderson, Justin Adams, Craig Petty, Alan Bingham.

Love these Ladies!

Crying Together

Owen got in trouble the other day and every time he would cry Caleb would start to cry too. I thought it was so cute and sweet that he felt sad for his brother and was crying along with him. They are such good little friends and play so well together, for the most part. I hope they continue to have such a strong bond as they grow up.

So Much Trouble

The boys finally destroyed something of significant value today. I knew it was only a matter of time. They are kind of destructive. I'm hoping that it is normal for the age and for the gender. They take their toys and throw them down the stairs. Whenever I build something with block or legos the first thing they do is knock it down or tear it apart. Well today it was the TV. This is the TV Mike bought when we first moved into the house and it was his birthday and Christmas present for like 5 years in a row, because it was so expensive. The only reason we bought it in the first place is because he said we wouldn't have to replace it for many, many years to come. Then we had kids. Dun, dun, dun. Anyway, not sure how it happened, in fact I'm not sure how they even go up so high, but you can see the initial hit was in the top right hand corner. Here is what the damage looks like.
 
 Mike wasn't too pleased when he got home and the boys got in a lot of trouble. They cried for a while and then Mike told them they weren't allowed by the TV anymore. He told them that the 3 ft radius around the TV was the Dead Zone and that is where little boys went to die. I thought that was hilarious. Those two better watch out. 

Big Boy Beds

Last weekend we went and bought twin beds for the boys and took down their cribs. It hasn't been too bad, a little crazy, but not much crying was involved, which is always a good thing. The first night the boys only came out of the room once and Caleb fell out of bed once. I heard him fall and when I went in to see if he was ok, he was just crawling back into bed. :-) Nap time is a little more chaotic. If they are together they don't want to go to sleep. They will talk and play and talk and play and then when they are done doing that, they open their door and see if I'm looking and if I am, they get big smiles on their faces and come running out of the room. I chase them around trying to coral them back in and for some reason it has turned into a big game for them. :-) I've had to start putting them in separate rooms for nap time. But anyway, back to my original reason for this post. We bought two twin beds, but we may have wasted our money on one of them. When I go in to check on them before I go to sleep, this is what I've found the past couple of days, the two of them sleeping together. It sure is sweet to see.

Owen & Caleb (in the striped onesie)

Early Intervention

I feel like the boys have not been improving in their language skills for quite some time now. I was going to wait until they turned 2 to do something about it, but after thinking about it for a few weeks, I wondered why I was waiting until then. If I was going to do something about it then, why not do something about it now, so I did. I called Early Intervention the end of August and set up some appointments. Early Intervention conducts two initial meetings. The first one they had in our home and they tested the boys in a bunch of different areas; Gross Motor, Fine Motor, Cognitive, Receptive Language, Expressive Language. Social Emotional and Adaptive. Both boys did well in the Gross and Fine Motor areas, but they really struggled in the Receptive and Expressive Language. In fact they were at less than 1%. Because of this, they qualified for a learning program through Early Intervention, so we will be meeting with some teachers and figuring out the best way to help these two with their language. The second meeting is at a school and they go over medical history and they test their eyes and hearing. Both boys did fine with the eye test, but not well on the hearing. Caleb is on the border of hearing loss and Owen has some hearing loss. The tester checked their ear drums and she said they have a lot of build up behind them, so the ear drums isn't able to vibrate properly when the sound travels through it. She was concerned about this and recommend I talk to my Pediatrician. I made an appointment with our Pediatrician and he confirmed what she said, so now I need to make and appointment with the Ear, Nose, Throat doctor and most likely the boys will be getting tubes in their ears. I'm glad I listened to my instincts and had them tested. I'm hoping that their speech delay is just a problem of they couldn't hear well. Once we get this all sorted out we will go back in for another hearing test. In the meantime, the teachers will be coming out to set up a speech program with the boys.
Their stats at their appointment today were:
Caleb: Weight 31 lbs, Height 35.25
Owen: Weight 33 lbs, Height 35.5