birthday fun and other such things

We had the boys first birthday party which was really a "due date" party on April 5th. We had a great turn out and they received a ridiculous amount of gifts. They have been greatly enjoying them over the past couple of weeks. They especially love their bouncy balls, a race car that drives itself, a fake remote control and a mirror book. They are happily fighting over the right to play with them as we speak. Their other current obsession is a hand me down dragon from Ava and Spencer that has holes in his side and plays music if you put the ball in the holes. Zach is extremely good at putting the balls in the hole so that the dragon plays music. They have a giraffe that eats them too, but none of the boys can get it in his mouth, they just put the balls on the ramp and watch them swirl down to the base. They have become rather possessive of their favorite toys lately. Konrad loves the light up ducks and a few certain balls, Mikey loves remotes and the drum, Zachary is very possessive of the small balls and the dragon. They have started fighting over toys something fierce and there is almost always some sort of rucus going on in the living room over some insult or another. They are all equally the toy theif lately, Zachary and Konrad easily learned from Mikey's thieving ways and none of them blink twice at the idea of swooping in and stealing his brother's toy. We have a lot of the "no" word in this household right now. They crawl so very fast and all three will stand independantly but not quite walk. They can all clap and Zach and Mike will sing and dance to music. Konrad will wag his finger at us and say "no no no" and Mikey will say it as well although not so articulately. Konrad is really starting to say a lot of words. He says Mommy, Daddy, ball, banana, no, bottle, yummy and a few others. The also nods his head yes or no in accurate response to questions and he chatters in his baby talk in response to conversations, its really very funny. Zachary has come out of his shell in an incredible way lately. He is making great eye contact, talking baby talk, and really interacting with his brothers and adults much better...maybe he was just in a funk for a while. Zachary is also the only one of my sons who is a climber. He can pull himself up onto furniture and before I know it he is dangerously standing 3 feet above the ground...oops. He is so incredibly strong in his upper body strength in a way that his brothers cannot even remotely match...luckily he is a gentle little man. All of the boys are teething. Mikey is getting one or two, Konrad is getting four and Zachary just finished getting four more teeth in two weeks. Despite all this, they are relatively pleasant and over all healthy. We are still on the bottles because they absolutely do not get how to use a sippy cup...I keep trying them every two weeks or so but no luck...hopefully they will figure it out eventually or we could just go right to regular cups when they are 3, lol.

In the "pen" at the birthday party with the Grandmas, Aunt Georgia and cousin Cecilia

Waiting patiently to be picked up for lunch!