All about the Twin Princes...

As Princess Abigail is preparing for her Hollywood debut, the twins wanted to get in on some of the excitement and have been showcasing their many talents as well. Below are their renditions of the 'Hungry, Hungry Dance' as well as a yet-to-be-named, in-sync exersaucer routine. :) The Agudelo Five enjoyed an afternoon at the park, and our 7-month old twins are already loving the swings. Abby has graduated to the slide and adult swing, although for real swinging fun, she wants to swing alongside her brothers in infant swings. Thank goodness for the warm, dry, and sunny weather. Bye-Bye cabin fever!

Spring has sprung!

Mother Nature has finally released New England from her winters grasp and has shed sunshine on our tiny town, encouraging the Forsythia bushes to bloom, and for all of us to escape our four walls and venture to the outdoors. The boys and Abby absolutely love being outside with the warm sun on their faces and a cool breeze in their hair. Abby continues to ask to have picnics out on our back porch--which makes for fun mealtimes. Here are brand new photos of the twin princes. Miss Abigail got in on the fun, but was tormented to no end by her baby brothers.... Happy Spring!

Off to Utah we go.....!!

Abby made it! Yes, our darling little red head will be traveling (with mom/dad/family) to Utah in a few weeks to take part in the filming of the next series of Baby Signing Time! King Tony and Queen Wendy are thrilled and so excited that Princess Abigail was selected from thousands of entrants. What's more, she gets paid!! :) (not much, but hey, it's money for her college fund). Here's the note we received from Two Little Hands Productions. We're off to Utah in a few weeks, so wish us luck!!

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Dear friend of Signing Time,

Congratulations! Your child has been chosen to participate in new volumes of the Baby Signing Time series. We are very excited to get started with the production process. Here are a few things that you can expect during this process.

Children will be filmed for 2-3 days from May 12th to May 29th in Salt Lake City, Utah. Each child will receive a stipend of $35.00 per day for filming. Children will be assigned approximately 15 signs that they will need to learn prior to filming. These signs will be made available to you via the Signing Time website. We encourage you to practice the signs and practice cueing your child to perform the signs.

Most contact will be conducted via email so please be sure to check your email daily. The next email you will receive will contain more detailed information and an exact schedule. We are working quickly so that our visitors from out of state can begin booking their travel.

Thank you for being a part of Signing Time!

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Developmental milestones...

Every parent looks forward to their child(ren) reaching life milestones, from holding their head up, to walking, potty training and talking. For Wendy and Tony, a restful evening would be the first sign of the princes ultimate development--and while we're not there yet--(oh, how we wish we could sleep two hours straight...), we hope we're not too far. In the past week, the boys have gotten more comfortable sleeping on their bellies. With SIDS concerns, etc., we keep a close eye on our little guys, but have found they sleep better when resting on their tummies. Case in point, the below photos. During naptimes, Wendy often finds the twins on their bellies resting comfortably. It's great that they can do this, but during the evening, if they awake on their tummies, forget about it. It's screaming for hours at a time and it takes forever to get them back to sleep. UGH! We hope this will remedy itself soon....

Prince Aramis has also found a new 'tool' in his tool chest--his new two front teeth! Yes, our youngest baby has broken through two front teeth(bottom) which he uses to chomp on pretzel rods several times a day. We can't wait until he'll smile for the camera and show off those pearly whites! Woohooo!!

And, despite the facial expression shown below, Abby has finally found a way to enjoy milk. Abby was born with a milk/diary allergy, however at 1 1/2 years, we tried yogurt and found her able to digest/manage it well. So, we tried ice cream, cottage cheese, American cheese, etc., and her taste really wasn't for any of those foods. Eventually over the last six months, her food preferences have changed dramatically and she now eats all of the above. We have struggled to get her to drink milk (or soy) and tried everything from chocolate, to strawberry to Ovaltine (malt), to milk shakes. Nothing seemed to work. Yet today, she asked for and received some chocolate milk, which she drank from her cup without fuss. This is a major breakthrough since now, maybe we can put some weight on our little princess who at 2 1/2 years, is only 25 pounds! Petite and perfect, but Mom and Dad really want her to have some chub so that as she begins running around during summer, she has some calories to burn. :) See that milk in the far right side of the photo? That's it--chocolate flavored cow juice!

Smiles, everyone, smiles!

The Princes of the kingdom have started to find their personalities and given the appropriate stimulation, can be found laughing hysterically for hours on end. Their infectious laughter fills the kingdom with joy and Princess Abigail loves it most.

Signing Time....

When Princess Abigail was nine months old, we introduced her to sign language. We had read that the use of sign language helped eliminate the frustration with communication (or the lack thereof) between parent and child, and also has a highly positive impact on a child's IQ. Fortunately for us, Abby loved sign language and took to it like a fish to water. Today, she can sign in sentences and knows more signs than even her parents know. She's also been teaching her speech therapist how to sign -- which is truly impressive.

Just a few weeks ago, the company through which we have purchased a library of 'learn to sign' videos called Signing Time (Two Little Hands Productions) put out an open casting call for children aged three and under for consideration in their upcoming video productions. We couldn't resist submitting a brief sampling of Abby's sign language vocabulary to see if maybe, just maybe, she'll be one of the children picked. With thousands of entries, we're thinking she probably won't, but in our minds, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Below is a sampling of signs Abby uses. We've also added the links to her two audition pieces located on You Tube. (click the links or copy and paste into your Internet browser).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H788URRSaNw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mNMFS53Q_E

The best part of all of this is that by the time she enters preschool, Abby will be multilingual, and able to 'speak' the fourth most used language in the US - sign language. (ASL is fourth to English, Spanish and Chinese).