18 month updates and some other fun

Last Monday was the boys' 18 month appointments.  They had quite the growth spurt in the past 3 months (compared to the 1 inch and 1 lb they each gained from 12-15 months!)  Here are their current stats:

• Logan: 24 lbs 12 oz (up 2 lb 8 oz in 3 months) and 32.75 inches tall (up almost 2 inches in 3 months)
• Ellis: 24 lbs 7 oz (up 2 lb 5 oz in 3 months) and 33.25 inches tall (up almost 3 inches in 3 months)

Other 18 month news:

• The boys vocabulary is picking up just a little bit.  They surely understand things we say and ask them, but they aren't talking too much.  Some of their more frequent words are: dada, mama, done, more, milk, on (referring to the light, fan, tv - sometimes they use the tone of more of a demand to turn something on!), ball, sock, up, and down.  And of course other people might not fully understand these words, but we do!  Sometimes I feel like Logan has actually said phrases like "I did it!", but he hasn't really repeated them enough for me to know if he really did, or if it just sounded like it.  When I mentioned it to the doctor that I thought their vocabulary would have been a little more at this point, she said that girls talk sooner than boys and singletons talk sooner than multiples (who communicate in their own way with each other versus with adults), so since we have twin boys, it might be a little longer before their vocabulary explodes.  We just keep up the reading and naming of everything we see and they'll pick it up.
• They still LOVE to be outside and the weather hasn't stopped them yet.  They don't care that its cooling off, or that there aren't water toys outside to play with anymore.  They are content running around the backyard, even when there are no toys out!  
• They aren't fans of much "junk", which I can't really complain about.  I made chocolate chip pancakes the other day and handed them a chocolate chip while I was baking them and neither one even wanted anything to do with it.  In fact, although they love pancakes, they didn't really want the chocolate chip pancakes I made either.  I bought Lucky Charms for their snack cup in the morning, to change it up a little bit and they really aren't fans of it.  I thought maybe they were getting sick of the cereal thing, but I put some Kix in their cups the next day and they ate it up!  We've tried giving them a taste of a sucker to keep their mind off of getting their hair cut recently and they wanted nothing to do with that either.  Again, I'm not complaining, but I do know that their few trick-or-treating treats won't be consumed by them. 
• On the flip side, they can throw down some fruit and veggies.  They LOVE broccoli, sweet potato and beans - all types of beans.  On the fruit end of it, their recent favorites are grapes and strawberries.  On the way home from work, if they see me eating my grapes, they demand some too!

Over the weekend, we had a Perez family gathering that we attended.  Aunt Dora celebrated her 65th birthday so we headed to Adrian to join the family in celebrating with her.  After the ice-breaking high-fives the boys gave to warm up to everyone new, they quickly joined the other kids and played.  It was actually pretty funny to see them run into one of the bedrooms to play, and every so often, peek out just to make sure Troy and I were still there.  They really had a good time and it was nice seeing many of the family members we haven't seen in a while!

Even when we go out of town, Logan has to take his ball with him.  

Ellis and Ava playing with the ball in the kitchen.

Yes, I know the first picture is a better one of us, but I loved this one and how it looks like Ellis is looking at Logan and saying "Dude, don't poke your eyes out.  How do you expect to see?"

On Sunday, it was the Rochester Hills Fire Station Open House.  Unfortunately the weather wasn't very good, but the boys got to sit in the trucks, check out all the buttons and knobs, and go inside the station and look at all the things inside.  Here are a few pictures:

As for me, I'm staying busy with my math class.  I have my second test tomorrow.  Although it isn't too hard, the problems are quite long (one of them has taken an entire page of paper to complete), so studying is a bit time consuming.  Later this week we'll have a quick visit with Grandma and Grandpa Bush (Grandpa is flying in Thursday), before they make their rounds visiting other family and friends.  

And I think that concludes our last week!  Time to get back to studying...blah...