Please accept my deepest apologies for visiting without your great grandsons :). Here are a couple of pictures to hold you over until I bring them by soon. It was great to see you as always.

So I guess I'm weaning the boys from nursing. Since I began this journey with them my biggest fear has been that I would be ready to wean long before they were. I promised myself that as long as they expressed a need to nurse either physically or emotionally, I would do whatever it took to meet that need. My wish was that one day we'd all three wake up and realize that this is no longer something we needed from one another. Tonight I got my wish. Within the past month and a half, we've gone from 4 sessions to 3 (only for the past week or so) and now tonight we dropped what I was sure to be the most difficult to drop - bed time. I don't know what moved me to try this today, it just sort of happened. For the past couple of months that feeding had been such a struggle for me. I've been so wiped out after chasing them around, cooking them meals, cleaning after the meals, hauling them in and out of the car, baths, and so on that by the time I got them propped up on that pillow to nurse, it felt more like another chore than a bonding experience. And they're so big and so uninterested at times that half of that time was spent refereeing eye-poking, hair-pulling fights, and protecting my own hair and earrings from their grasps - hardly a cherishable moment for anyone involved.

So we went about our normal post-nursing routine - bath, roll around on the bed, book, prayers, cuddle, bed - only we prolonged the cuddles, left out the nursing part and replaced it with a sippie cup of warmed whole milk. They were stunned to say the least. They sipped, swallowed, stared in suspense, then a huge smile spread across their faces. As we lied in the bed, they both took turns cuddling close to me and never once tried to nurse which served as a much needed confirmation that I was doing the right thing (when I really thought about it I realized that it's been quite a while since they actually initiated nursing - it's been more of a mommy led routine than anything). We layed them down as usual, they did their 3 minutes of babbling and whining, and drifted right to sleep. I couldn't have asked for a smoother experience. No sadness, no tears, nothing like I expected. I plan to continue the morning feeding and one day-time feeding for as long as it's pleasant for all of us.

*By the way, thank you so much to all you twinstuff ladies that offered your undying support, encouragement and advice over this past year (especially in those early months of clogged ducts and round-the-clock pumping;)). We wouldn't have made it without you!

Since we were graced with an afternoon cooler than 130 degrees, I took the boys out to our courtyard to play in the grass. As you can see by the pictures that follow, they had other plans. Apparently grass is like kryptonite to these guys so they remained on the concrete, occasionally teetering on the edge to pluck a blade or two and offer it to me with a "toe-dah?!" or a "buh-DAH?!". For those that don't know, todah and badah are Caleb's and Braxton's favorite words and they represent anything from light switch to water to can-you-pick-up. I didn't press the issue of crawling around in the grass because after all, it is the spot that all the dogs in our complex go to relieve themselves. Either way, we had a great time. Oh, and they were very confused by the whole jean situation. They just sat there, legs straight out like arrows, for about 5 minutes. But once they discovered their amazing knee protecting abilities, they were sold and crawling all over the place. Enjoy the pictures!

Mr. August


Opposite directions....ALL DAY!


Just too cute for words

Which is why my updates have grown farther and farther apart. I managed to pin them down early this morning and snap a few pictures before they attacked me and my camera.