Double the Sweeneys, Double the Fun!: December 2013

So much has happened since we posted last!

Since I can't see having the time to fully catching up, here are the highlights:

The boys went trick-or-treating for Halloween and LOVED it! It wasn't even the candy (although we did give them each a Kit Kat, which they thoroughly enjoyed). They liked knocking on doors and looking in windows and mostly how big a deal everyone made out of them in their costumes. We had intended on visiting only a few houses, like we did last year, but they loved it so much, we did almost the whole "little loop" by our house. Afterwards, they did not want us to put away their pumpkins or costumes and continued to put them on and show our guests for weeks.

This is awesome!

Candy!!

We made good use out of those costumes this year: trick-or-treating, Dorney Park, Boo at the Zoo, and the parade at daycare.

Pepa (or Poppop), Mema, and Uncle Anthony joined us at the zoo.

Zebra! Zebra! Logan was extremely excited to visit the zebras and needed to go back and visit them before we left. The zebras and rhinos were clearly his favorite zoo animal.

After the zebra excitement, Riley decided to nap for the rest of the trip, so he missed visiting his goat friends.

Logan was all about petting every goat in the KidZooU

Steve and I feel as though we are forever saying "this is my favorite age" but we truly mean it every time! The explosion of words around 18 months is nothing short of incredible. Both boys still love to read and now they love to learn! They want to know what everything is in every picture and repeat what we tell them. They are so proud of themselves when they can point things out and generalize them to other books and pictures. I feel so proud when they point out their eyes, ears, nose, head, hair, belly, butt, feet, hands, fingers, shirt, pants, socks, shoes, etc to our friends and family. I am amazed at how many animals they know and how they are starting to learn their colors. Steve said the biggest shocker for him was how they can generalize pictures of windows, doors, dogs, etc from book to book as well as in real life. We are loving that they are starting to call more people by name. I love how they call Alex "Alla" and Chris "Chri", but more than anything, I'm amused by how they have both given my father a special name. Logan calls him Pepa (pronounced pee-pah) to go with Mema, and Riley calls him Poppop. Too cute!

So much else has happened to.... Logan started singing along to music (Rockin' Robin) on 11/18 and Riley learned to jump (both feet off the ground) on 11/29. They can both eat their meals with utensils (although they don't always). They have gotten better about sharing (most of the time) and have even taken turns! Riley consistently tells us when he poops, sometimes before he does it. I plan on getting him a potty this week, just to start getting him used to the idea. We hadn't planned to start trying before 2 1/2, but it seems like he will be ready long before that.
Logan is far more vocal than Riley and loves learning new words. Riley has better fine motor skills and is better at stacking blocks and puzzles/shape sorters. They both love to help mommy and daddy and are such well behaved little boys.

In addition to all the other firsts, they got our first haircuts and made our first trip to the dentist

Riley enjoyed the attention and looking at the little lady sitting across from him

Logan did not enjoy any part of it.

As you can imagine, neither kid enjoyed the dentist. The other big thing that happened at the Sweeney house was that Riley got hernia surgery! He was nothing short of perfect. He didn't cry when they took him from us, or when he woke up. He didn't even cry when they took his IV out! He was pretty upset to be away from brother, though...