Lucy and Ellory recently.

Hard to believe the month updates are over- two years worth! What a wild and wonderful ride having twins has been. We have many adventures and they keep me always on my toes, yet also fill up our days with lots of laughs and a huge amount of love. They are getting so big, and are even starting to call me mom instead of mommy sometimes! They are both currently wearing a size 6 shoe and just switched to 3T clothes.

It's so fun to watch their personalities deepen and to learn more new things about each as they age. This doesn't happen as much now that it's getting warmer outside (hallelujah!), but Ellory loved to wear her hood on her coat and would wear it almost 100% of the time. She loves Frozen and often requests the songs or is carrying around her Anna/Elsa dolls. She loves cheese pizza and macaroni and says it in the cutest way. When we read books, she gets upset if I skip the title page, thinking I missed a page, so she'll make me go back and read it. Books are still a favorite and she reads a lot! We try to keep limited screen time, but she loves to watch the PBS app when she has her allotted time. She likes to suck her thumb when tired and puts her pointer finger up into the corner of her eye. She can be the sweetest, but can also get mad when she's upset.

Lucy is always on the go. She likes to walk by herself often now instead of ride in the stroller, and will pull Ellory all by herself in the wagon. She is a big daddy's girl and loves to be by Kley. She loves to try to do everything by herself. She loves adventure and has no fear of the biggest slides and playground equipment. Lucy also likes to suck her thumb when tired and also strokes her eyebrow when she does it. She'll watch a show for a few minutes, but overall doesn't have much interest in screens. Lucy is a great helper and is pretty good at emptying the dishwasher, cleaning up, putting things away, etc. She is very particular at times in following the schedule, doing things the same, or putting things back in their exact spot. She is usually laid back and doesn't easily upset.

Big girl beds are still interesting, some days are better than others. It's definitely better than it used to be, but we still have to go in several times usually. We have a baby gate up, which has helped a lot in keeping them in their room, and helps too because Lucy likes the door open. Lucy is pretty quick to fall asleep and Ellory takes longer, so sometimes we have to stop Ellory from going into Lucy's bed and waking her up. Once Ellory falls asleep, she is amazingly consistent at sleeping through the night. Lucy wakes sometimes in the night and cries for us, but usually goes back down quickly with a drink and hug. Lucy wakes up earlier too, since she falls asleep faster, and likes to cuddle in our bed for a few minutes in the morning (sometimes she'll fall back asleep for a bit, and sometimes she'll be up). If Lucy had her perfect way, she'd like to co-sleep with Daddy every night we think! Overall though, while it's still tiring sometimes, we are thankful it's better than it used to be, and even when Ellory takes awhile to fall asleep, she usually plays quietly by herself.

A huge event that happened recently was potty training! We started on April 22, so we are almost a month in. They were one day shy of being 2 years 2 months when we started. That's the same age Norah was too, but they were both showing readiness signs and it worked nicely in our schedule to do it. They are doing well! We still have an occasional accident here and there, but are having way more successes! Lucy unfortunately has been struggling with diarrhea this week (and later we discovered that she had e coli and got antibiotics, so strange!), which has derailed her a bit, but she tries to get to the toilet and tells us every time. They don't like the feeling when they have an accident. They both will tell us sometimes when they have to go, but we still guide them to go about every 1.5 hours (if they go longer they still have accidents) and still need a lot of help in the bathroom, but we've had a good start and it's nice to have no more diapers! (They still sleep in a diaper, but are in underwear when awake.) We started nude and slowly added underwear/pants, which is a great method we think. We've taken our little potty to many places (basically everywhere) in the last couple weeks to have it close by!

We weren't overly concerned, but we did end up having Lucy evaluated for speech just because she was progressing a bit slower than Ellory, and than Norah did at that age, but she is doing better and better and thankfully checked out in the normal range. It was nice to have her evaluated just to know, even though we thought she wouldn't actually need services, but we wanted to be sure that there wasn't anything extra we could do to help her. Both are saying more and more! Ellory is speaking in 5-6 word sentences regularly, and Lucy is starting to do longer sentences too, about 3-4 words. It's so fun to be able to have conversations and hear them use new words! Ellory is starting to use more describing words- “sometimes” and “actually” are her two new ones and it's adorable. Both girls are doing more imaginary play like cooking in the kitchen, talking on the phone, taking care of their babies, etc. They can stack blocks, do basic puzzles, color (scribble), identify many objects/animals/sounds, etc. They are absorbing so much and it's neat to watch it come out. They know several color and shape names, but can't correctly identify yet.

Lucy and Ellory, you are two of the biggest blessings we've ever had. You are deeply loved by us, and more importantly by Jesus. We pray everyday that you will grow up to love Him!