2 yrs and 1 mo!

CET, C has always been my different looking triplet and I like to joke around that he is our fraternal child. But lately I feel like C and T are looking more alike while Eli being almost a pound lighter is looking more like the different one (not quite since I can still spot Caleb the easiest).  

Eli calling my attention to something he hears

T, making good use to our rain gear, you can't go without it here! 

C

since I brought out their rain boots the boys have been rather obsessed with them and wear them all day long, even in the house : ) 

unsuccessful group photo

pumpkin patch outing #2 was super muddy

poor Eli kept tripping not only because it was muddy but also because his boots are about two sizes too big : (  

The boys haven't called my bluff that they can't go outside without wearing their hats! They look so cute in them : )  

T

T, C

E, ugh! Gag me with a pitch fork!

Whenever I got asked how old the boys were I always had to pause for an awkward second to think how many months old they were. It was hard to ever get used to it since each month it changed! It's so nice now that they are two because for some reason don't feel obligated to tell people how many months old they are and I can just say two now! Well actually I say 'they just turned two' and once they are closer to 2.5 yr I'll probably say almost two and a half, hehehe!

Smart Boys!

Our pre-preschool activities the last two weeks have included an introduction to scissors, painting with water colors, learning shapes, and letter recognition. I keep it pretty casual since they are two year olds with very short attention spans, although I think they do pretty good for only being two. I engage them as long as they will let me and use what ever it is they are playing with to bring up the topics we are working on. Like pointing out shapes that are in their toys or pointing out letters from a book they've brought me to look at with them. We don't have a schedule or anything like that, I just go with the flow and they have been learning a lot. I am surprised at how quickly they pick things up.

The boys thought scissors were pretty cool but I think it will be a while before they fully get the concept. They get the fact that they cut but using them properly is more the challenge.

I didn't realize how much problem solving is required in water colors. It's not so intuitive to take your brush from water to color to paper. The tendency was to go from the water to the paper or the color to the paper. After two painting sessions Thomas started getting the hang of it but the other two not so much. It's challenging and that's the point! We'll keep trying : )

We've also been working on some shapes and I'm certain we've nailed circles, squares and triangles (and maybe stars). Next week we'll move onto some other new shapes to learn.

I thought letter recognition might be a bit too challenging and wasn't really expecting them to be ready for this but to my pleasant surprise the boys have learned the letters C, E and T. I can get them to point to any of these letters from among words. Eli even knows both upper case and lower case 'E.' We still need a little polishing here but I think that's pretty cool! This will be very helpful if we ever want to label things to cut down on fighting since we can't use a picture of them selves since they all look the same, ha!

During these early formative years kids that get a lot of mental stimulation will do so much better in school later on. I'm so glad we signed up for this program since I probably would have never thought scissors at this age would be appropriate. I would have thought finger painting would be a more age appropriate activity when in reality aside from it being a new experience what's the challenge in that? I don't know if this is too high of a goal but I'm secretly hoping I can teach them to read before they even start kindergarten, how cool would that be : )

I feel like the boys have been talking a lot more lately, not so much new words but repeating the words they know a lot more and using them appropriately without any prompting from me. A couple new words this week are zip and yuck.

The boys are also becoming more social and interactive with strangers (meaning not me or Phil). They do really well shaking hands if I ask them to greet someone and saying bye (without me telling them to say it).

Here is a video of the boys just being cute and funny, Eli dancing and then the boys playing with some cabinets (try and see if you can hear them saying 'bye' and 'all done')