Yum, the boys have decided that they like watermelon. Well, for this week, that is. We'll see if they still like it as much next week :) This was Nate's first time having it on the rind; the chunks (apparently) are not as much fun since he refused to eat those.
My dad and his sister, my Aunt Catherine who is visiting from Florida, came for a daytrip today before she heads back south tomorrow morning. She had never been to our house to visit so we thought it would be a nice car ride for them to take before she leaves. It is a beautiful day today - warm but not too hot - and we were able to spend the entire visit outside on our shady patio, which was really nice. The boys love to play outside so they happily obliged!
Here are the boys getting dirty (as usual!) in the sandbox. Nate is obsessed with diggers and luckily Ben shares his CAT excavator with his brother without too much of a fuss. Note that Nate now wears sneakers regularly since he is a walker...such a little boy now!
OK, costume change (for Nate, that is). There was no salvaging those clothes after his romp in the sandbox so he's onto the second outfit of the day. No wonder I have so much laundry all the time with these two dirty guys!
Here they are together in the little adirondack chair that I painted for them. Nate loves the chair, but gets nervous when he's on Ben's lap so he doesn't appear too excited to pose for this shot! Hopefully soon we will have two chairs; I have another one on order since it's a seasonal item and was out of stock at our local craft store. They are sending one to my local store from another location and once it's in we will put it together and pick out another bright color for it. Then there will be chairs for all!
Nate is much relieved that Ben is off to bigger and better things and has left him alone in the chair!
Nate in the pickup truck. Mr. Smiley!
This past weekend my brother Mike and his fiancee Chang got married at the Grand Summit Hotel in Summit, NJ. It was a beautiful wedding and the weather was absolutely perfect, after much prayer since it has literally been raining almost every other day here. It was breezy and sunny, almost spring-like weather all weekend so we are so glad that it held up for them!
Andrew was the Best Man in the wedding, I was the Matron of Honor and Benjamin was the Ring Bearer. Nate also came to the wedding and because the rest of our family was involved, and because he is glued to my side when there are unfamiliar faces present, he became an honoray member of the wedding party as well. He got to wear a tuxedo, ride in the limo, and hang out in the bridal lounge for cocktails and appetizers. Not bad for a 16 month old's social life, huh? :)
Fortunately, both kids did fairly well all weekend. They napped for us at my parents' house, gave us no problems staying up incredibly late for two nights in a row and Ben didn't even balk for a minute about walking down the aisle as ring beaer. Nate has a lot of stranger anxiety but once he warmed up to the crowd he was fine. He also got upset during the ceremony when we all were up front but fortunately my 10-year-old cousin Margaret came to the rescue and took him out for us so his disruption was short-lived. Phew, thank you Margaret! Overall, we were really grateful that two little kids held up so well for all of the festivities and we were glad that Mike and Chang opted to have them be a part of their big day since it was such a special family event for all of us!
Here are Mike and Chang at the rehearsal dinner on Thursday night.
Chang and her mom Anna at the dinner...
And here are all of the kids at the rehearsal dinner. My dad's entire family was out-of-state so most of them were with us Thursday night for the dinner. These three children are my two cousins' children so they are my second cousins (I believe...). Margaret and William are brother and sister and little Kate is their cousin.
Wedding day! Here is Mike's childhood friend Andy with junior bridesmaid Veronica in the limo. Note that Nate also got to ride in the limo. Good thing he was dressed for the occasion - ha ha!
Mike and Chang on our way to get pictures taken. We did photos before the ceremony so they were not officially married yet in this photo...what a lovely couple they make! Chang looked stunning in her beautiful wedding gown...and she certainly put me to work getting it on her. The entire dress laced up corset-style in the back! I have a new appreciation for women in former eras who used to wear those daily!
Our family of four (and a half!) in the limo...
Me and Nate... 
The boys sharing a chair during the cocktail gathering in the bridal lounge before we were all introduced at the reception.
Mike and Chang dance together for the first time as man and wife at the reception. Per Chinese custom, Chang changed into a red dress for the reception. It was beautiful!
Ben getting down on the dance floor. I was actually shocked to see how excited he was to dance at the reception, he loved it! He kept telling us all weekend "I'm so excited for the party!" and when the time actually came, he lived up to his words.
Here he is dancing with 4-year-old cousin Kate who was visiting from California. What a smooth little ladies man in his tuxedo!
Meet Emily Robertson, my cousin Lauren's beautiful 8-week old. She's the first girl on my side of the family and the newest member. How adorable does she look in her little party dress for her first big night out?!?!
Here's Nate high on his second wind, cruising around the dance floor by himself in his fancy duds. He walked around for about 2 hours, and the entire time we were eating dinner, so he had the floor to himself for a long time. He kept going to visit my parents and other people he knew and would occasionally make his way to a table of people he did not know and "introduce" himself. So funny!
Mike and Chang at their sweetheart table during dinner.
And here is the beautiful cake!
Chang and Mike. Chang, here, is in her third change of clothes of the night - her going away outfit that we helped her put on just before the cutting of the cake. Lovely!
Nate's night is now coming to an end...at 11:30pm! We couldn't believe that he lasted so long without becoming cranky or anything. Here, he is getting that blank stare in Andrew's arms and will soon be fast asleep. We took him upstairs and put him down alone for a little while as we said goodbye to everyone. Hopefully child services won't come after us for leaving him alone in the hotel room for a half hour or so! :) Ben, on the other hand, was busy dancing until the end of the reception at 12:30am!!
What a beautiful wedding and I cannot wait to see the professional photos when they come back since (obviously) I missed photos of so many people on my camera since I was busy with my wedding duties and the kids. I know the photographers are great and will capture lots of great candid shots of everyone I missed.This weekend while at my parents' house for Mike and Chang's wedding, Nate developed a liking for the little antique rocking chair my parents had bought when Ben was little. He kept asking about his "chair" and just loved sitting in it and rocking.
Here he has spotted it and is on his way over. All of a sudden since he has started to walk, Nate has taken off and practically runs! It's so funny to see him on his two feet after so many months of him crawling every place :)
My little chair!
Peek-a-boo! 
On Tuesday night we took the boys to the National Night Out at Franconia Park, a night sponsored by the township that featured all of our town's fire and safety vehicles in a fair-like atmosphere. The boys were able to see lots of police cars and fire trucks, go inside some of the fire trucks, pet the police horses and see one of the rescue helicopters land right in front of their eyes. Of course they thoroughly enjoyed eating the kettle corn we got as a snack as well :)
Here they are checking out all of the vehicles from their stroller. Nate wore his Mickey Mouse fire truck shirt in honor of the occasion - he loves fire trucks! Of course Ben wears a truck shirt of some kind or another everyday :)
Petting one of the police horses. Nate kept barking at it - lol! 
Here are all three men inside of a fire truck and below that is Nate by himself in the truck. Ben didn't want his picture taken alone!
And here they are watching the helicopter land. Nate LOVED this! Since taking part in Andrew's regular model rocket launches, Nate has developed a love of anything that flies. He is our future pilot, we've determined. He always spots the planes, helicopters, or anything else that flies in the sky, points and says "whoosh!" So he loved seeing this helicopter land!
Totally enthralled...
We received the results of Ben's speech evaluation a few days ago in the mail and it concludes that Ben would qualify for some form of speech therapy to help him to better articulate several sounds that he has trouble using. We are actually very glad that he does qualify for services since we both feel that a little extra "push" could help his speech drastically; we have heard only good things about the speech services that Montgomery County offers. So, next week I have a conference call with the speech pathologist to discuss the next steps in this process. It sounds like we will determine a good plan for when and where the lessons will take place and they will educate us on what to expect.
Thanks to everyone for all of your prayers and concerns as we have continued down this journey with Ben. It's been a long road and we're confident that this next step will only help to keep us on track as we work to get past this. He's a smart kid and we see improvements in his verbal skills everyday so hopefully this extra help will only work to further advance that. I know it will probably give him more confidence in his own words so that he doesn't get frustrated when someone cannot understand him. We'll be in touch after the conference call next week after we formulate a plan.
Recently Andrew got Ben his very first set of "real" Legos. Not Quattros, not Duplos, but good old-fashioned "big boy" Legos. Ben is still working on understanding that they can't really be played with roughly once put together, but he does do very well helping to construct things. So, as a special treat, Andrew and Ben are having bonding time tonight over the big box of Legos, Construx and other building toys that Andrew has saved from his childhood. They dug the box out of the attic together and have been upstairs playing for close to an hour and a half now!
Andrew said that as he was digging through the attic boxes to find this one, Ben could hardly contain his anticipation and kept saying "I'm so excited, Daddy!" And as I am writing this, he keeps running downstairs to show me all of the neat parts that he has discovered, only to announce that "he and Daddy are playing with Daddy's toys." Ha ha! I just thought I'd share this photo since I through it was so dear and that Ben's excitement is so evident in it.
This week I took Ben for a speech evaluation with the Montgomery County Intermediate Learning Center. We have always battled speech issues with him and at his three year exam, the doctor noticed a few sounds that he is still mispronouncing so she suggested I get an evaluation done to see if he would qualify for speech therapy. The services are all free so it's no loss to us and if he does qualify for services, I have heard great things about the outcome of the special help.
So, he met with the speech therapist and she gave him an evaulation to see if she feels he would qualify. We have to wait another few weeks to find out to results, but the evaluation went very well. She evaluated him on usage of language/vocabulary and also on diction/pronunciation. We went into the exam with only a concern in the diction area, but they still evaluate at both levels. As expected, she said that she has absolutely no concerns about his vocabulary or usage of language. He actually scored on a 6 year old level for that part of the exam!
She did notice some inconsistencies with his speech when evaluating him on pronunciation. Several of these sounds (consonant blends and a few consonants) are not expected to be mastered until a later age so they will not be a concern (for now). A few of the others could possibly use some speech therapy to help perfect, but she honestly was not able to gauge whether he will qualify for services until she sits down and scores his results. So, we should know in a few weeks. If he does qualify, he will be set up with a speech therapist at one of the local schools right near our house. So, we will see what happens!
Well, I already know I will get in trouble for this, but I have no photo of myself to go along with this post but wanted to get it down. I always forget to take pictures of myself until late at night when I'm looking *lovely* but my parents are here this weekend so I will have them take a photo of me during the day when I am at the peak of pregnancy glow (or not!).
Anyway, I did go for my OB check-up this week and everything looks good - my diabetes numbers have been slightly higher than in the past but it is still being controlled and is within normal range. So, I just have to continue with that. I have been having fairly strong Braxton Hicks contractions, or false labor contractions, all day long and most severely at night, for the past week or so. So, I discussed this with the doctor and he told me to drink at least 16 oz. more water than I think I need each day since it's the summer and one of the main causes of these are dehydration. I also have to try to rest more, which I have been good about some days and not too good about other days. But, as long as they do not get too severe (or don't subside with water and rest), if they start to come regularly and as long as I do not have more than 6 an hour, I should consider them normal.
Other than that, everything else is looking good. I can't believe so much time has passed already! I promise to take a photo of myself over the next few days to post so inquiring minds can see my "baby bump"...
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Update:
As promised, here is a picture of me at 25 weeks:
Finally, after just 16 months, Nate is walking on his own. Hooray! He is SO proud of himself and will usually fall because he is giggling too hard to concentrate on his walking anymore :). He claps for himself and looks to see if we are also clapping for him.
We are so glad that he is walking. He seems so happy to be able to start keeping up with Ben and my anxiety level at the thought of having two babies who do not walk in a few months has gone down several notches :).
Here he is on our vacation this past weekend, walking on his own. He gets better each day and, we have no doubt, will soon be running after his big brother!
So proud of himself!
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