Did a tornado just go through my house...

Nope! Just my kids playing!

Keeping a tidy house is a losing battle. If I'm not catching up on getting dishes done, I'm trying to catch up on laundry or trying to keep the floors clean. The boys seem to love throwing food on the floor, trying to spill any type of liquid on the floor so they can play in the puddle, or they are spitting food and drink all over the place. If they aren't feeding the ants, they like to "help" me. When they think it's time for everyone to get clean diapers, they go to the box of diapers, bring me three and go back to the box and pull out three more and continue this pattern until the box is empty. They also like to play with wipes. They wipe the floor, table, chairs, and each other. It's cute, but then I'm left picking up a trail of wipes. But at least the intention is good.

Now that they can climb just about anything, its getting so much harder to keep things out of reach. The things that interest them the most are the things we try to keep out of their reach.. they like phones, iPods, coffee cups, my purse, soda cans, etc. However, the one thing that can keep their attention for hours is if I let them play with crayons and coloring books. Not that they color in the coloring books, but it keeps them out of everything else. They do like to chew on crayons, and they like to color, they like to color speakers, the coffee table, blankets, the couch, and basically anything that isn't paper. Which is why I'm glad we don't have any "nice" furniture. Our things are nice enough, but not so nice that it's a big deal when the boys try to destroy them. Not to say I let my kids "get away" with coloring the house, however, I know they are just starting to explore crayons and I'm working with them on keeping colors on the paper.

We're also working with letters. I write out their names for them and tell them the names of their letters and explain that the letters in a certain order make their names. Although I'm pretty sure they don't get the concept of spelling or reading, they are beginning to recognize their written names.

Ethan is my dare-devil. Lately his most favorite thing ever is to stand at one end of the couch and let himself fall back on the couch. I wish there was a way to discourage him from doing that, but nothing seems to discourage him from wanting to make his tummy tickle. I have a feeling that when he's older he'll be the one to try to fly after watching something like Peter Pan.

Owen is such a little climber, he climbs on tables, chairs, tries to climb the gate to the kitchen, he stacks boxes and toys so he can climb them, and he even tries to climb the walls.

Marcus is a little cuddle bug, he loves to just snuggle up with mommy and daddy on the couch. And when he's not cuddling, he's seeking out small objects to put in his mouth. Whether that be things that are tracked in on shoes, crumbs that got missed in cleaning up after meals. Actually, big or small, he almost always is chewing or sucking on something. My favorite fact about Marcus is that he is terrified of house flies. It's just so silly. A fly found it's way into our house, flew by Marcus and he jumped, his sippy went flying through the air and he was off, trying to get as far away from the fly as he could. He would not calm down until I finally got the little bug with the fly swatter. Now he's fascinated with the fly swatter.