20 months (16 months adjusted)

The twins are now 20 months old.  I can't believe they are closer to 2 years old than 1!  They should be 16 months old which would mean they would be closer to 1 than 2.  I don't think I will ever get "adjusted" to the whole "adjusted" versus chronological age thing.

Our biggest news is that both Camdyn and Cade have been discharged from physical therapy!  They no longer need it.  We will follow up in 6 months to assess their development at that time. 

Cade has also been discharged from speech therapy.  He has been repeating so many words lately.  He surprises me all the time by saying a new word that I didn't know he knew.  I find myself saying, "did you just say ___?" several times a day.  His newest words are "barbie" and "bow" which I find very funny.  I guess that's what happens when you grow up with two sisters!  When Cade begins putting 3-4 words together, he will be assessed for speech therapy again.  At that point, it would be for voice quality.  Due to his vocal cord paralysis, he may have difficulty with certain sounds, etc., but the speech therapist was very pleased with his voice quality so far especially given his diagnosis.  He will continue with occupational therapy only at this time.

Camdyn has been making a lot of progress with speech as well.  She seems more confident in trying new sounds.  I can get her to say the beginning sounds of several words now such as "p" for "pig".  Before she wouldn't even try to make the sound.  It was as if she thought if she couldn't say it well, she didn't want to try at all.  I feel like once she becomes more confident, she will really start making good progress.  She has added several new words too and is beginning to sign more frequently.  This has helped a lot in her level of frustration.  She will continue with speech therapy and occupational therapy.

Both Camdyn and Cade have their cardiologist follow-up exams this Friday.  Please pray that everything checks out well.  At her appointment last year, Camdyn had an open valve that we were told several people have.  It does not affect the heart's functioning.  The cardiologist told us it only meant she would not be able to climb high mountains, scuba dive, or be in the military.  I am not too concerned about any of those things for her. 

We are enjoying this stage with the twins so much!  They are so fun now.  Their personalities are really developing.  Cade is busy destroying things on a daily basis.  His latest hobbies include digging in the trash can or recycle bin, pulling ornaments off the tree and breaking them, carrying our shoes around the house and hiding them, and splashing in the toilet.  He also loves to figure out how things work.  On a much sweeter note, he now occasionally will give hugs and open mouth kisses!  Camdyn is very particular and wants things a certain way (wonder where she gets that?).  She shakes her hand at us vehemently to inform us she does not like something.  Lately, she loves playing with dolls and enjoys dressing up.  It's so cute to see an 18 pound little girl pretending to be big!  Here she is with my robe tie as a scarf and my purse.  It would appear that I have a giant purse, but in fact this is a small purse.  She fell over a couple of times from the weight of the purse too, but she did not want me to take it off of her.

We started the Elf on the Shelf this year.  Brenna has had so much fun finding "Elfie" every morning.

We had fun making Play Dough Christmas shapes from cookie cutters.  Our attempts at Christmas shaped cookies failed miserably.  We ended up with blobs instead of shapes; however, our Play Dough creations were much more successful.

Cade was more interested in stacking the Play Dough jars.  I didn't even prompt him to do this.  I was so proud of his creation! 

Christmas Round 1:  We have so many Christmases that we had to start with our first one last weekend.  Here's a picture of the only other twins in our family.   We found them all sitting like this - a big sister and one of each set of the twins on each side.

Camdyn and Cade enjoying their new wheels.  

That's all that is new at our house.