Brandich, Party of Five!: August 2016

Summer Lovin!

Our family portrait by my colleague and friend Valerie

I want to start out this post by saying, I am sorry for leaving you all hanging for nearly 5 months with NO updates on our lives. We have been quite absorbed with tending to wild, carefree toddlers and a pre-schooler who has finally found his voice. In the past six months they have all really upped the ante on annoying the crap out of us and wreaking havoc in all possible ways, hahaha! They are full force, whining, rambunctious, non-stop eating machines who only calm down when restrained in a stroller or crib and when subdued by their favorite cartoons! Logan is currently climbing all over me at my desk while I type. *Picture* Don't mind the giant hole in our ceiling, our guest toilet was leaking, another story for another day!

Living proof!

The twins turned 2 at the beginning of this month and we celebrated with a very small family dinner and dessert at our house. I honestly, can't handle much more than that these days. These kids are so time consuming, I can't offer much in hosting large parties anymore, I just don't have the means to pull it all off! We also celebrated with a water playdate with many of my "More Than Moms" group friends in our backyard with a cupcake treat. Developmentally, they are mostly on track. Kelsey is a mockingbird and repeats just about any word you throw at her. Logan is lacking slightly in the speech department. He is not as behind as Austin was but he is not keeping up with Kelsey so we have been referred to Help Me Grow so that he can have a speech evaluation and we can nip this in the butt!

Twins Birthday water playdate

Two year old photo

They both are eating at the table with us for meals, sitting in their booster seats, using utensils and open cups. Kelsey has mastered her open cup and only spills occasionally. Logan on the other hand, prefers to swim in his meal beverage, so he only gets to have one sometimes for practice. Their favorite foods are: Salmon/Trout, steak, avocado, cheese, lunch meat, black beans, rice and any fruit. They currently aren't super big fans of vegetables but they do love broccoli. The two foods they pretty much won't touch are pasta and potatoes, apparently not starch fans. On the growth chart, Logan has really started to pull away from Kelsey. He is now 26 pounds and 33 inches, Kelsey is on the small side at 21 pounds and 31 inches. Yep, you read that correctly, Logan is 5 pounds heavier and 2 inches taller, such a boy! Both kids have lots of curly hair and have had numerous haircuts.

Eating dinner together, we try to every night!

Back in June, I gave potty training a go-round. After 4 full days, the concept just didn't sink in, so to end my frustration over a million piles and puddles on our floor, I decided to hold off a couple months until the fall when it's still warm-ish and try it again. It really should be a fairly easy concept. Austin mastered it in 3 days and was completely trained in a matter of weeks. The twins, I don't think have control yet so hopefully a couple months of maturing mentally and physically will do the trick, fingers crossed! So since we didn't progress with the potty training, I opted to do away with their pacifiers. Really, Kelsey was the one who decided it for the two of them, she took a nice bite of her nuk and left a nice hole in it. That prompted me to just cut the ends off so they could still hold them but not actually suck them. It has been a fairly effective way to handle the transition, they still ask for their nuks but realize they can't actually use them. It has taken them longer to fall asleep but that will change as time passes.

When Drake and Ellee came to visit and stayed the night in June

Logan continues to be our little "speedy." He is a pro at running to and fro. Luckily at this age, he has no chance of out running his ex-sprinter momma but there is no doubt that in time, this boy will be a star runner and I will have to sick his uncle Dylan on him instead! He is a handsome little dude and makes funny faces especially when he knows you are looking at him. He tends to fight his naps and often goes down well after Kelsey has fallen asleep. The twins seem to be getting more and more different from each other every day. For as much as Logan moves, Kelsey seems to stay put. She doesn't usually venture too far from us but shes is our daredevil. This child dives off of things, climbs, slides and always has bloody scraped knees! She is very dramatic, in true female fashion, she constantly whines and lets you know when she is not pleased! They both love to cuddle and would prefer to sleep with us if they could. Kelsey continues to wake up every night. We are weaning her off the Hemangioma medication and she's down to one dose a day for the month of August and then she will be done. Hopefully that will bring a better night's sleep. In the meantime we bought a folding cot for our room. The last handful of months when she wakes up, we bring her in and lay her on the cot for the remainder of the night, which has worked out really well! Kelsey continues to be our hoarder. She is quite obsessed with all of her blankies and must have an arm full of them when heading up to bed or lounging on the couch.

Our little SPEEDY

Swimming at Grammy's

Noodles, hours of endless fun!

Logan's favorite toys, cars!

Kelsey hoarding her new clothes from Uncle Jason and Aunt Mira

Austin is a changed child. He continues to surprise us each day. He mimics the majority of words we ask him to say and he has added ending sounds to his repertoire. The most exciting advancements have been the words, water and yes, which until very recently were wawa and uh huh. We have opted out of getting him tested for Autism. His special education teacher has indicated that she has no reason to believe that he is on the spectrum and that his deficiency is only speech and language delay. We are going to see if his new teacher agrees with her opinion now that he will be attending an integrated classroom. One of the co-teachers in his class this year is an intervention specialist. This school year, Austin will be attending the afternoon session while the twins nap, that way I can have a true child break. We are excited to see if he can catch up to his peers this year in time for kindergarten next fall. His tantrums have lessened and usually only occur now when he is overly tired which are more in line with the average response for his age group. He prefers to wear his pajamas all day so he has spent most of the summer doing so as you can see from the photos! I am not looking forward to getting him dressed for school this year but at least we wont be rushing out the door! His flavor of the month are his new collection of beanie baby animals that was received from a friend. He loves telling us what every animal is and his favorites are Panda and Otter.

Austin making cookies with mom!

Austin the photographer, he grabbed his play camera while I was setting up a session

The boy can fall asleep anywhere

On top of the daunting task of tending to our children, I have been professionally working my butt off. I started advertising for my photography business and it has been paying off. I joined a Cleveland women's marketing group and have learned many valuable tips on how to get more exposure. Some of those being the proper use of keywords in my SEO settings, blogging my business on my website and using instagram and hashtags to reach a wider audience. My biggest customer draw continues to be word of mouth and facebook photo shares but hey, whatever it takes!!! I LOVE LOVE LOVE working. My biggest news is that a certain news anchor (without naming any names) from Fox 8 has asked ME to take her newborn photographs! I am so very excited about this opportunity which will be occuring next week. This being my very first high profile client, I am unsure right now if I will be able to share those photos BUT I wonder, just wonder if my photos will make the morning newscast?!?! Wouldn't that be something if I get a shout out?? So keep your eyes peeled the next couple weeks and we will see! With the business is full bloom, I have cut back with childcare. I had been working 5 days a week with children and photographs on the weekend. That is just TOO MUCH. I am now down to 3 days a week with kiddos and the weekends doing photographs. That gives me at least 2 days off a week to be lazy, HA! And when I say lazy, I mean catching up on the 8 or so loads of laundry a week, actually sitting down once and awhile and stuffing my face with as much food as possible! Today is my "lazy" day, typing away at the computer and watching the Olympics while the kids run amok, dumping out every possible bin we have!

Off to work I go!

In family news, my cousin Kate and husband Chris welcomed their baby girl Penelope Ellen nicknamed Penny into the world in July. We are beyond excited for them. Penny is about the cutest little peanut I have ever seen. We have not officially met yet but we will get the opportunity in a few short weeks when most of the Keller family will be together to celebrate my Grandma's 85th birthday. Her actual birthday was in April but we will be celebrating when the majority of us can make it home to Ohio to be together.

Some other fun random facts, I learned how to make sourdough bread from scratch this summer. Paul's cousin Kathy taught me earlier this spring how the process all works and I have kept it up each week, baking 3 loaves which is the recipe. I have added different flavors(garlic,rosemary and dill) and changed the shapes(free-form and loaf pan). I have taught 6 friends how to make the bread as well and I give away one loaf a week to a rotating list of friends who also enjoy sourdough. Let me tell you, there is no better way to take out your frustrations than by kneading a ball of dough for 15 minutes. It sets my mind right for the week to come, true natural stress relief, hahahah! I recently sold my weekly loaves in a fundraiser to end child hunger and would willingly do it again! The fundraiser was held by More Than Moms, which I have joined the board of directors again. I stepped back into the role I had before the twins as Director of Member Recruitment and I handle all aspects or attracting new members to our organization. I am excited to be back helping run such a great support group and "village" as we call it!

My donations loaves

Learning how to make sourdough while Aunt Cindy and Uncle Rick visited in June

Paul got crafty this summer and created some neat water sprinklers for the kids out of PVC pipes. Since it's very tricky for us to venture out with all the kids we have opted to spend lots of weekends playing in the backyard with the hose. The kids have a ball splashing in their pool and making a wet mess! Paul also had the most amazing Father's Day he could have asked for. The Cleveland Cavaliers won the National Championship. He was home for the game and most of you saw the video of his jumping for joy when they won. He then went downtown to celebrate with friends and didn't arrive home until nearly 5a.m.