His future is so bright...

Yep - he's got to wear shades! Linc had his eyes dilated yesterday at his eye appointment and he is 100% perfect per the doc!! The shades only lasted for a few seconds with this one year old!

Silence...

There really is silence in my house right now, except for my fingers there is no noise - it is amazing! It has been a long while since both boys were asleep at the same time - yippee. Although, I think the finger noise has increased with the most recent keyboard - the I'm not going to have my keys ripped off keyboard after 2 damaged ones!

In other Hogan household news, it is official that I am my mother, in fact Sean called me "Karen" this morning when I called him. Let me explain - I don't ever remember my mom being a weather freak but the last few years she frets whenever the weather isn't ideal - mostly thunderstorms which I don't remember being all that violent in Iowa but I also slept in the most quiet and peaceful basement ever created (thanks to Graf Construction and all). Anyway, we had storms last night that had been predicted for a few days now, in fact I almost couldn't sleep on Sunday night because I was already worried about them and then last night it was just too loud to sleep well. So I went to Carter's room to sleep so I'd be closer to the boys should a tornado happen, well about 2 or 3 this morning, I found myself jumping out of bed and taking Carter to the bathroom to wait out the storm & on my way back for Linc, Sean stopped me to inform me that it wasn't a tornado it was only a thunderstorm. Ah, spring in the Midwest and my crazy over-night behaviors sometimes don't mix! This will probably not be the last post about tornadic activity if I were to guess. Carter asked me yesterday morning "are we going to have to hide in the bathroom today" and when my mom called he gave her the full weather report (maybe more than once) so a family of weather freaks we are!

I've decided that Lincoln is going to be a product tester. He loves to get his little hands on any product in our bathroom - we have door locks of all varieties but he still manages to get them in his hands. Last week he took a little bite out of my deodorant - I don't think Secret is probably looking to see if it tastes appealing but his face said that it did not. He has also been having some time outs which is me taking him to his rocking chair and leaving him there, sometimes he stays, sometimes he follows me out but usually Carter gives him a verbal thrashing if he doesn't stay. I think he actually kind of gets it, though because he's seen Carter in time out many, many, many times.

Linc is also a little shower loving baby right now, every time I go to get in the shower he follows me and tries to take off his clothes, luckily he doesn't know how to get them off unlike his nudist-wanna-be brother. There are no more stories of him derobing in public but he likes to strip whenever he can at home and as I type is napping in his undies because he can't sleep with clothes on.

I worked on weeding in the yard this weekend with my black thumb. Maybe this year it can be a different shade, I'm going to try to be like Lindsey and beautify my house but I don't know if I'll be so successful the fear of snakes just does me in, I think the combo of the flower bed hiding snake at our house in TX & "Chuck" the snake in the garage from 2 summers ago might have scared me beyond repair.

And before I can even hit post - the silence is over!

A successful day at the zoo!

This is at noon - no fight naps - we may go to the zoo everyday!

It's gonna be a Starbucks kind of day...

The boys were both up before 6:30 which is just not so good for me. Lincoln has a very hard time not waking Carter up when he is up in the morning so they are both up and ready to go - lucky me!!

Carter and I had a funny conversation already this morning, I was laying in his bed trying to get him to go back to sleep (he hasn't napped in a few days and really could use some more sleep) and Linc was playing and talking to himself and said something like "sh*t" and Carter giggled and said "mom, did you hear Lincoln say sh*t" I'm so in trouble with my little potty mouths.

I think I can hear the Espresso Truffle calling my name from 15th & Boulevard!

On of my favorite parts of Oklahoma the Bradford Pear trees

Having a front yard - snack picnic

Cute little sharing cousins

Linc needs a bit of help to ride the scooter

Little boys playing

We had a great weekend with the other branch of the Hogan family, the boys enjoyed their time with Cael and Michael and Lindsey. Unfortunately they missed the great weather that came as they left town. We've been busy this week with a couple of trips to the park and a tour of the animal hospital today - it is spring break here and it is busy - we stay at home moms are spoiled to be able to avoid chaos and crowds usually but this week there are kids everywhere!

Linc is working on his vocabulary each day - so far we say "hot", "hat", "head" (yes he likes the H's) "shoes" and "ba" for many things including blanket and ball. He's getting more interested in reading each day which is good and his mommy needs to be a better reader!

We took a walk last night around the neighborhood and Carter rode his bike the whole way - it was a decent walk too - he is improving all the time on the bike and looks like such a big boy on it (even though it does have training wheels). Lincoln refused to ride in the stroller (big surprise) and instead jogged behind Carter - I wish I'd had my camera, it was pretty cute, he got his little arm swinging trying to keep up. We are going to have ourselves a really fun spring with these boys!

Cousin Cael is here! The boys are so excited, they stayed up past their bed time running and playing. Carter has been talking of his arrival for days - yesterday he announced that he and Lincoln were going to be best friends with Cael, it was pretty cute. Especially since the best friend honor so far has only been given to his brother, or his "little buddy" as he calls him from time to time. Carter also takes away best friend status when he is mad at Lincoln or mad at me sometimes too - "you guys aren't going to be my best friend(s) anymore" but I don't think he'll be giving this attitude to Cael, yet.

Lincoln used the word Hat yesterday - yep we've gone from "hot" to "hat" - he was pretty proud of himself as he requested his hat that matches Carter's.

We are back into winter weather much to my displeasure but maybe it will be our last cold snap as I think it is to warm up next week.

Bouncin' Boys

Hallelujah Carter learned to bounce! We went to Bouncin' Craze this week and the boys loved it. This is a huge, ginormous deal since Carter has yet to bounce, we've gone from time to time and he stood and watched but today he got into it, now we can go on bounce dates! I'll have to say I had a pretty good time on the slides as well. Here are some pictures, not the best but the best I could do to catch the moving targets.

Tagged Again....

So I'll do this but only for you Kaylyn! Kaylyn likes to change the rules so hers are 7th picture, 7th folder & 7 friends -
Let's see what that brings us to -

The 7th folder in my picture file is "My Favorites" which are many of the pictures that are still on my memory card because I can't deal with deleting them (there are about 150 of these - eek) and these are pictures that were on our old computer -

This is #7 - it is of Carter when he was just a few days old and I was snapping pictures like crazy trying to get the perfect shot for his baby announcement. I don't think he and Linc look anything a like but they sure did as newborns

This is a picture in the same file from the day that our moms left us after we had Carter - a scary day for me to be alone with him

This one might be from the night that Sean went out with Dustin and Kaylyn when they started dating - Sean slept next to the swing much of the night as I remember

Some of Carter's first big smiles - this is his first trip to Iowa at about 6 weeks

So for tagging - I think I have 7 friends listed on my side bar - consider yourself tagged ladies and Jeff!

A little conversation with Carter

My friend, Stephanie, did this little questionnaire with her little guy on face book and I thought it was cute and funny so I asked C some of the questions today - you might think his answers are funny too.

I asked - what do I do most of the time? WORK was Carter's answer
What is my job? To take care of me and Lincoln (he's heard this over and over, I guess b/c daddy's job it to work & bring home the bacon)
What am I good at? Practicing the ABC song. Guess that is a talent of mine, I got distracted after this questions and didn't get any more out!

Both boy are napping at the same time which hasn't happened in weeks - it feels so good to have them sleep, although Linc has been down a long time and I'm sure C has slept too long to go to sleep easily tonight but I'm pretty sure that I slept for over 2 hours too!

Carter's complexes and other stories of the Hogan boys

Carter's newest climb to conquer

Linc must be thinking - why is she taking a picture of herself?

Play dough in our "Lizard" shirts



Yes, my dear 1st born has many complexes but he conquered one this week, we went to Academy and he willingly bought new shoes (not just 1 pair but 2) & was so excited to try them on and wear them at home, in the past Sean has had to sell him on his shoes - like - these are just like Diego's and on and on until he'd wear them. Yippee, maybe shoe shopping will be a bit more fun now. He's also been very interested in wearing his lizard shirt that Mimi and Papa brought him from Cabo and he has to wear his AND Lincoln has to wear his as well, this also is bringing back some childhood memories of me being super picky about clothing...ugh what am I in for?

Carter has decided that he will be a meteorologist - he and Lincoln too. He likes to repeat the weather for me and informed us last night that there was going to be a fire today since it was showing fire danger - Sean had to explain that it was possible for fire but hopefully there wouldn't actually be a fire. We do have a meteorologist coming tomorrow to our MOMS club meeting and I might have him meet ole' Rick Mitchell - not that I want him to be a tornado chaser.

Linc on the other hand is working on his words, everything is HOT these days and lots of Ut-oh's, and then a hell of a lot of screaming because he doesn't have the right word! I forgot how frustrated toddlers can get when they can't tell you what they want. He's still working on his mischievous status and when I tell him not to do something (like throw sand in the house from the sand table) Carter likes to remind me "he's just a baby, mom and he doesn't know better"

We are also working through a little nap transition - Linc to 1 and Carter to none, this is so absolutely upsetting to me but he isn't able to sleep at night if he naps and is fighting it really bad - so sad for Shannon - so sad it made me cut my hair. Well not really but I did - I didn't even realize how short it was until Sean looked a bit shocked and then I tried to pull it up and it didn't exactly pull - eek, oh well, it grows and I think I like it!

Monkey see, Monkey do!

We've had a great week with some awesome weather for February, until Saturday when it got nasty cold again and put everyone in a bad mood! The boys have kept us busy this week, Carter learned how to climb the rock wall deal at the park and must have done it 100 times the two days we were there this week, up and then down the slide. Linc of course thought he should also go down the slide, he is such a little follower to his brother! He had an interesting week and might take the cake for the most times in trouble this week. I found him the other day with a wet washcloth (for some unknown reason he loves to chew on them) and thought crap where did he get the water - yep directly from the toilet, I wanted to throw up but didn't - the thought is just nasty. Guess I really should put a lock on the toilet. He also found a crayon this week and did some damage - I like blue and everything but not scribbled on the wall - luckily it is just 1 spot in the hallway & the rest are in his room which needs repainting anyway - ughh. He did have his first word other than "mama" "dada" and Ba for blanket - he said HOT the other night while eating dinner - he loves to blow on his food to cool it down and then said HOT it was pretty cute. Carter has kept busy being a "fix-it guy" a little too much Handy Manny around here, I guess. He found a belt to wear and stick his tools in, I may have to ask the Easter Bunny to find a real one for him as he looks silly wearing this little belt like hip slung to put his tools in - but it makes him happy. Being inventive he used the Lincoln Logs cylinder as a drum and said "a one, and a two, and a three and a four, HIT it" the other day - sometimes I wonder where they hear all this stuff! He also has decided he likes to sleep in the nude - I'm not sure where this is coming from exactly but it is a bit interesting? He is high on the dramatics in going to bed this evening so I'm going to see if me leaving the computer will do the trick, I swear he listens to my fingers sometimes!