Buying a van, eating, breaking things

This post will be a little unorganized.  I haven't updated in a while because the babies finally finished breaking my phone.  My new phone takes really blurry pictures in poor lighting.  My living room is basically the definition of poor lighting.  A majority of my pics are super blurry now.  I've been working on the issue and/or avoiding it by not trying to do a post.

It's late and I'm tired, so I'm not going to fuss over details much.  Sorry.  The boys will not accept me doing updates during the day.

Alex being cute

Ben being cute

Things the boys have broken:

The comb for hair cuts

My phone

This screen in the window

The bottom drawer of the cabinet.  It doesn't slide in or out properly.  We eventually just took the drawer out so they couldn't stand in it anymore.

They figured out how to break these.  They also broke the toilet lock.

There have been many other things, but this was my recent list of pictures.

Ben broke Alex.  He pushed him down the bottom 2 stairs.  Alex hit his head on a toy.  There was a lot of blood.  If you know me, you know that I do not handle blood well.  I managed to fight fainting long enough to take care of him. (This kind of implies I fainted eventually, but I didn't.  I was just a bit woozy for the rest of the day.)  I had a second wave of nausea hit me when he calmed down later, sat on my lap, and pointed out the very large baby blood stain on my shirt.  

Ben yellow Alex topless.  This looks like a nice moment, but they were both screaming and trying to push the other one off.

Alex showing off his band aid.

He eventually perked up and bashed his head in to something else making it bleed again.  At least he was happy.

Guess which one is Alex.

Yes, the one on the left.

Here are a few baby bath pictures because I couldn't pick which one was the best of both boys.

Alex.  This may be his Halloween costume.  He wasn't super happy with it, so I'm trying to do a sort of desensitization therapy.  He stayed in it long enough for the pic and then started tearing it off.

We finally bought a minivan.  Finally.  All the time the boys have been around, I've been without a vehicle when Cody was at work. We always worried about what would happen if there was an accident here, but I guess our inability to decide what to do was greater than our worry about potential disaster. (We had a plan for emergencies, just not an ideal plan)

After Alex's head wound while Cody was in Kansas on business, I think we both finally decided it was time to break down and compromise.  (I wanted the smallest vehicle with the best fuel economy possible.  Cody wanted a pickup.)  If you have seen the Allstate commercial currently running about trading in the 2 door sedan for the minivan because of babies- that is me (watch the commercial here:  http://www.ispot.tv/ad/7MJV/allstate-the-car-seat ).  My spirit is a bit crushed... but whatever.  It is nice to drive and we have plenty of space for our family... and another family, because it seats 7 relatively comfortably.  I feel awful for the planet while I'm getting 18 mpg... but whatever, there is room for the dog.

Before we went shopping, I got us pre-qualified for a car loan at a few credit unions.  One of them asked for a dollar amount we were requesting.  Apparently when Cody spoke with the loan guy the next day, he told Cody that he could get Cody a lot more money if he needed it because his debt to income ratio was really good.  Cody told him he kept it that way by buying cheaper cars (and putting money down, and saving/budgeting in general, and what not unspoken of course).  The loan guy was a little surprised by that answer because he didn't hear it a lot.  That story brings a little tear to my eye.  Those are the moments when I know Cody and I are a good match.  (Cody probably doesn't want this paragraph in, but it is more for my memory book than blog entertainment.  OH THE MEMORIES!)

Anyway, I used the internet to find vans that met my parameters (age, miles, price, history, etc.).  We found a good one, so Cody took the day off.  That one ended up being sold sometime between 6pm when we spoke with the guy at closing on the phone and 10am when the doors opened and Cody was standing there.  It is probably good though because it had been rear ended and had questionable repair work.  We thought the day was a bust, but this minivan popped up.  Cody looked at it and bought it without me even seeing it.  Toddlers aren't made for car shopping.  Apparently the dealerships have a hard time keeping vans like this in stock.  Cody chatted with them about it while doing paperwork.  A few we were looking at were sold out from under us, and while Cody was finalizing the sale a few people came in to get our van.  Who knew so many people are van shopping on any given day!?!

The 2 salesmen followed Cody home driving the van and another car to take the 1st guy home.  We're like 45 minutes from the dealership.  That was great service.  The guy left his iphone in the van when he dropped it off, so he had to drive back the next day to get it.  He actually googled Cody and called Cody's parents because that was the number he found  (at like 9/10 pm!).  Lots of fun.

Anyway, here she is. (We were stuck at the loading area at Menards, so I took some pics.)  She is the nearly fully loaded version.  2 dvd players in the back and one in the dash.  You can hook up a gaming system in the back and play video games, we think.  I appreciate the backup camera way more than I thought I would.  I can get satellite tv for the dvd players if I want to pay extra.

A super cool mirror to watch the boys (not the rearview mirror)

See?  They love their DVD player!  Ben orange, Alex green.

All 4 captain's chairs have heated seats.  That's fun.

The stow and go seats fold flat in to the floor, so it is good to transport large and dirty items.  

A roof rack!  Now we need the roof rack storage compartment.  It seems like the soft sided ones would get disgusting.

Moving on..

Ben upset, Alex saying cheese

I do not let them do this.  I thought it was funny, so I let them do it long enough to take some pics.  I recently moved their room around, so their dresser is no longer in front of the window.  Now they like to stand in the window and look out, of course.  I'm not used to that though, so they caught the cord to the blinds and were chewing on the cords together.  Ben left, Alex right.

Ben's face

Alex's face

A special treat:  Fresh Apples.  Our wonderful neighbors dropped over some apples from their apple tree.  The boys have fallen in love.  Today Cody took a bite out of two apples and let each baby suck/bite/claw at the apple.  They had a lot of fun.  (They get plenty of fruit.  It wasn't the first time with an apple, just the first time with an apple like that.)  Ben blue, Alex yellow

Alex saying cheese again.  Lots of my pictures of Alex look like this because they say cheese whenever they see the camera flash.

Ben.  They've started sucking water out of anything they can find.  This time it was the toy storage box on the deck.  He's wet.  

They've started letting the bath water drain, and then getting on their belly and sucking water out of the drain.  This horrifies me more than words can even express.  They'll even sneak in and try to do it during the day when there is no water draining out of the tub.

Alex

Ben.  He's been throwing a fit every time his shirt gets wet and making me take it off.  This is not going to work.  He gets wet A LOT.  So today, I made him sit in a wet shirt until he cooled down and started playing again.  It wasn't like hours or anything, just a few minutes, but he wasn't happy about it for a while.  Again, hopefully a desensitization thing.

Alex.  They will not leave the grill alone.  They REALLY love turning the gas on and off.  It is a mess.  I'm ready for that stage to be over.  (Here the grill was not turned on.  I worry less when it is off.)

Not happy because I keep telling him to stop it.

They are up to like 30ish words.  I'm totally guessing at the number.  I'm too busy keeping them away from the grill to write down all their words. Here are some of their favorites:

Mama, Dada, Gigi (binky), Oggy (doggy), bubble, cracker, more, milk, poop, pee, burp, (the classy trio), mimi (penis), Nose, eye, teeth, apple, walk, truck, car, up, out, please, cheese, grape, book, crunchies, you, ow (they like to scratch me to make me say ow), hot, yeah, no, this/that, baby, guys, tough, hi, bye 

Okay, I know there are a few more, but I'm tired.  My favorite is when they want to get on my bed, they say "Up please."    One other thing you will notice about their word list is that it is very heavy on food words and bodily function words.  

Apparently when the boys go one step too far and drive me crazy, I say, "UGGHHHH Guuuyysssss."  ("Ugh, Guys")  I realized this because the boys started preemptively saying "UGH, Guys" to me when I caught them doing something they weren't supposed to do.  When they spill all the crackers on the floor, when they open the dog food container and throw all the food around, when they climb something, we say "Ugh, Guys" to each other.  It is cute enough to break the tension and I get way less annoyed.

We went to a playdate with some friends with a 2ish month old.  My guys kept trying to feed him grapes.  We thought they were just being cute and admiring the baby, but then I noticed the grape get popped in the baby's mouth.  Oops.  My guys are very friendly and pretty good at sharing things on their own terms.  Other than that, it went well and they had some good play time with their almost 2 year old.

I think that is the more exciting things from the last few weeks.  I'm happy to have the van, and I'm  enjoying the extra cuddliness of the boys.