I did 0 proofreading. Literally 0. I typed this while toddlers jumped on me and tried to watch rocket videos on the laptop I was using. Sorry. I'll upload videos on here later or make a new post. They take a lot longer to deal with.
They are getting too big to sit on this together. There is a lot of screaming when one boy tries to fit on while the other is riding it. Alex grey Ben green
They have started watching youtube videos. It started with random people that do character shows, like Blippi. Then it moved on to crazy probably foreign animated stuff from ChuChu Tv. Chuchu tv is totally worth watching if you are bored by the way. Fun for the whole family. Now they really like to watch kids riding tractors/gators/whatever. Ususally the 12v toys, but you can find videos of people putting their 3 year old in a real tractor to drive. They are braver than I am. I don't like to give my 2.5 year olds markers. Whatever.
Between videos, sometimes the boys get impatient and start rubbing my keyboard with both (all 4) hands quickly. This has done some interesting things to my computer. Here is the results of a particularly frustrating one. This is looking at the computer straight on. They rotated my screen, zoomed way in, turned on the narrator accessibility option that reads the screen and selections to you, searched through the files, and turned off my laptop's built in mouse pad. I was basically helpless. I couldn't choose any options with the mouse. Since the screen was sideways, the arrows and enter key made seemingly random movements. It took 15 minutes and googling on my phone to figure out how to fix it.
I took the boys to the park alone. It was really fun for 5 minutes, and then they were ready to go home. Yes, it took 45 minutes to be ready to go to the park and 15 minutes to get to the park. Totally worth it.
Ben
Sliding. Alex in blue
We really didn't do anything except this. Fun.
I stopped by a fast food place to grab dinner on the way home (Cody was out of town. Don't judge). They fell asleep literally 1 mile from my house, so I didn't want to wake them up immediately. They almost never nap now, so if they fall asleep it means they need it. This resulted in my sitting in the van eating fast food tacos while they slept. For over an hour. Fun. I did watch some Yo Gabba Gabba on the dvd player, so it wasn't all bad.
Alex started climbing up the back side of the recliner and grabbing at your head while you sit.
Sneaky monkey
Sitting on Shep. Poor Shep. Ben orange. Alex white/grey
His face tells the whole story. The house was an absolute disaster. don't mind that. Cody was out of town. Don't judge. Please.
Another installment of weird sleepers. One of them fell asleep like this. He had been sleeping 3 hours or so when I checked on him and found him like this. Probably Alex, but maybe Ben. They used to always sleep in the bed that was in the position their crib had been in. Now they mix it up a lot.
We got our fence! Finally! Here is how they did fence posts. They had a few of these shallow boxes with an auger sized hole in the center. One guy placed the boxes ahead of the auger guy where they needed to be. Auger guy made each hole in the box. Then a guy would pick up the box filled with dirt and throw it in a wheelbarrow and move the now empty box to a new spot down the line. It was extremely efficient. The holes were very clean and it went quickly. The boys enjoyed watching it. It only took about 2 hours to put all the posts in. We have A LOT of posts. Then we had to wait 2 weeks for the people to come hang the chain.
Posts. We argued over how far forward to put the fence. We ended up doing it farther in the front than Cody wanted so there would be a level spot for a 10 foot drive through gate. The back of the house is very, very sloped.
One poor guy had to push a wheelbarrow full of cement from the front southwest corner of our lot to the back northeast corner up a huge slope. You can see the diagonal line in the grass.
Another baby sleeping in the car. Alex maybe. They don't usually sleep in the car. Things have just been crazy lately I guess.
Cody has been building our playground in the back yard. We decided to put in a giant gravel box. Like a sand box, only sand is evil, so pea gravel instead. Cody picked one spot with bad grass. I picked a different spot with nice grass, but was much more level. He didn't want to destroy the nice grass, so he started work on his spot. Cody spent HOURS digging out a giant square on his spot. He put the boards in and it was way, way too sloped. One side the board was under the ground, the opposite corner the board didn't even touch the ground. That is not a recipe for holding in gravel. He hunkered down for brainstorming how to fix the problem. There was a lot of cussing. I came up with the solution: go to my spot. We checked it and it would take very little digging to prep. He finally decided making his spot work was not worth it and moved to prep the other spot. I volunteered to fix the first hole. This required taking all the shovel scoop shaped pieces of sod and putting them back in the hole like a poor fitting puzzle. Here is a picture when I was done. Now we are watering it like crazy hoping it fills in and stays alive. It is bumpy, but workable.
Here are the lines drawn out so you can see what I mean. My work is so good that you can't even see where the old hole was.
Cody painting the box that is the gravel pit
Pit in the ground. We put it on top of an old built in horeshoe pit, so it had a square of sand already there. The rest was grass. The boys had fun. Cody spent the week bringing home 4 pea gravel bags at a time. They are 50 lbs each, so he didn't want to overload our car. We have 10ish bags in right now, and will probably add a few more over time.
Cody in a tree. Boy watching. I think he was checking the healthines of the branches. This is our park shade tree, we can't lose it!
One baby in the pit, the other watering the first hole.
The boys randomly started potty training themselves. One day Ben asked me to take off his diaper so he could use the chair. They both started doing it. They were immediately nearly 100% effective while in the house and naked. Outside the house with pants is pretty much 100% pee in the pants. This means they are pretty much always naked on the bottom half. This made picking pictures for this post more difficult.
In the pit. Alex in underwear and green stripes. Ben in solid green.
Digging in the sand
Not Alex's best picture.
The sod pieces I used to put the "puzzle" back together. Alex
Covering up the goods. Potty training. It really ruins pictures. Ben
Here is all the sand from the horseshoe pit spread out. Cody said it looks like a cat pooping in a litter box. Sorry, Alex.
This is how we got the pea gravel bags to the back of the house. Before they started moving, we gave them quite the lecture about not standing up or goofing off. Then Cody went really slowly, and I walked beside them yelling at them if they tried to move. Another big thanks to the neighbor that kindly gave us the wagon.
First day of gravel!
Alex loving on Ben. Again, you can see how no diapers gets in the way of picture time.
Ben trying to get away
But he failed. More hugs
Lots of love
Ben
There was a special event at the local Air and Space museum. We took the boys. The morning was unusually cold. Like 50ish. We had the boys in pants and a long sleeve shirt. Ben got his shirt wet on the way there, so I had to put him in the spare short sleeve shirt. A lot of parents gave us disapproving stares because they seemed to think we would let him freeze to death on the Nebraska tundra. He is fine. After his shirt had a chance to dry off I put it back on him, but it was fine. And mostly indoors.
Anyway, they have a kid area. This is where we spent most of the time. Alex long sleeves. Ben short sleeves.
There was an older boy, maybe young teenish, that had autisim or something. (I didn't ask, and it wasn't important. Just illustrating that he was not a young teenish functioning, but was friendly) He was playing in the area with the little kids. Alex befriended him quickly. They sat together playing with trains. The older boy was a bit better than Alex at sharing, but Alex did really well with him.
Saw this in the parking lot for Dad. She's a beauty.
The boys have been LOVING rockets. We also watch a lot of rocket launches on youtube.
Fishing. Ugh. We finally got fishing licenses, so Cody has been trying to get his $20 worth. This is a lake in our house subdivision. He has caught a lot, but they have all been too small to catch. The first couple of days we took the boys, but it is just not easy. There are a lot of ticks in this tall grass. Cody casts thinking about where the fish are, not where the boys are behind him. The boys take off their shoes and cry. I don't get to fish because I have to wrangle babies. Not fun for anyone except Cody. And we have no fish still. Anyway, here is fishing.
Ben grey Alex orange
They won't stop pulling on this poor branch and tearing out its leaves. Eventually it will be bare and I'll just cut it off. Little monsters.
Alex in sharks making a weird face
Alex
Ben carrying around a little branch from the tree
We've made quite the playground. Here they are enjoying it. Ben yellow Alex grey
Alex and his dump truck. They talk about dump trucks a lot. A LOT
These are out of order and I don't have time/energy to fix. Cody holding his fish. The boys just wanted to touch it
Alex grey Ben yellow
A couple videos of the boys playing while Cody was fishing.
It was actually kind of fun.
Another project from Cody. I found plans for these chairs. I told Cody I was going to build them, so he quickly built a couple before I got the chance. He knows I'm clumsy walking, so I guess he didn't want me around his tools unattended. One with paint one without. It's a beautiful color called, "riveting" or something.
My baby deterrent system on the water spout. They would not stop turning the hose off/on or harder/softer. It was getting so frustrating. Cody had this diverter on and was using the yellow and black things as misters/sprinklers to play in. I put one right here so if they played with the water it sprayed them in the face. Very effective against the boys. And Cody. And me. We learned that for the boys it sprays them in the face. Unfortunately, that is crotch height for us. We've had a lot of, "Hey it looks like someone wet their pants" moments since this. Totally worth it.
I tried to illustrate this and my first effort made me laugh very hard. It looks really horrible, but it does get the point across. Water hits baby face and adult crotch.
So I tried again. This time I didn't put the toddler head over the adult crotch. You get the idea.
We finally got our chain link! Shep is free! Go, Shep, be free! This is what he did. Stayed on the deck and stared at us through the window.
More babies sleeping. Ben left Alex right
Their 2 favorite shapes are heart and spiral. They ask me to make spirals all the time. Sometimes they hold a pen and scribble and tell me they made a spiral. Here is Alex's first actual spiral. Very proud.
Ben holding hose. Alex holding cup. Working together. They LOVE playing with water and the hose. It is horrible. They make giant mud puddles along the foundation of the house. But it is very cute. I would also like to note that we are that house with naked kids in the front yard. It's horrible. Even when I dress them, they just pull everything off. Sorry, neighbors.
Playing with the teeter totter. Ben is closest to the camera. The beginning is a close up of the table, but you can hear them laughing in the background.
Talking about rockets Alex in green not with pacifier.
Ok, now I included this because it is kind of funny and also embarrassing for me. So you're welcome, family. It starts off with Alex making a very good noise for a rocket. The Ruby men are good noise makers. I'm a god awful noise maker. None of my noises sound remotely like what I'm trying to do. I get teased a lot.... anyway. So here is Alex making a good noise. It isn't the most accurate, but it is a solid noise. Then about 15 seconds in you hear a similar rocket noise coming from Ben, except his is all gurgly and weird. Sorry, Ben. You might've gotten mommy's noise making ability. At the end, I make a really, truly horrible rocket noise and Alex turns his head and looks at me with a "What the f***?" Face. Then he laughs at me. Typical Ruby man. Even he knows I'm awful.
I'm trying to teach the boys family member names. I have some pictures framed and we work on it. Here is Ben saying "Papa Russ." They both say it. I thought it was very cute. Then they started calling me "Mama Russ". I think we still have some work to do. He also says "I love you"
Here is Cassie and Colt. They love saying Colt. Sometimes they say it randomly for no reason. They are not very good at the "SS" in Cassie. We're also working on Aunt. They do not like Grandma. I think it's because my mom is trying to go by Meme. So whenever I ask the boys to say grandma, they say meme and grab their junk. (They also happen to call their junk a meme. Sorry mom. We'll work on it.) I'll try to get more names on video, but they tend to stop talking when I pull out the camera.
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