Busy, busy, busy

Mat and I are constantly amazed at how far the boys have come over the past 11 months. They seem to understand so much, and can do simple commands. For example, we will say 'Where is the puppy', and they'll walk over to Bridger (our dog) and pet her, or climb on her. They are starting to imitate everything, except of course sign language, which we have been trying to teach them for 5 months now. However, we can tell that they understand the signs we show them. They both love to clap their hands, pat everything, and make raspberry sounds. It is truly amazing how observant and clever they are. They quickly learn how to operate just about every button, knob, drawer, or cap they encounter. But, it seems to be their ultimate goal to sit in Bridger's water dish. They will appear to be completely focused on a task, but the minute they hear the door open to her eating area, they make a beeline for her water dish (or her food if it's also in her dish). I don't know how many times we've pulled them sopping wet out of her water dish, or pulled handfuls of dog food out of their mouths. Kessler's new talent is shaking his head 'no'. It's pretty funny now, but I'm sure will be a pain when he actually figures out what it means.

The boys are just are extremely busy. They love to climb up on everything, open everything, tip things over, throw and spit food on the ground, and drag things across the ground. Just when you think you have bullet baby proofed the house, they get into something new. Caulder can now run, and loves to be chased. Kessler is getting close to running, and as we feared, never heads in the same direction as Caulder. They are truly a handful (as everyone loves to point out when they see us in public), but we love every minute of it. They are absolutely so much fun right now.

We officially ditched the baby car seats and installed the 'big boy' front facing seats last weekend. The boys love them, and we can finally interact with them when we travel. We are heading to Portland for Thanksgiving, and think the seats will make the drive more comfortable for all of us (except maybe Bridger).