Where does all the time go...

Sorry it has been so long since I have posted anything. These kids sure do keep me busy! :)

So we packed up the kids and headed to Arkansas for the July 4th holiday with Memaw and Paw. Also Aunt Marcy and Uncle Taim were there so we were able to finally meet our newest cousin Madeline, Lucas' little sister. And we got to show off M & F to Aunt Marcy's crew :)

We tried to watch some fireworks that weekend, but E does not like loud noises. She likes the lights, but she has to have her ears covered to enjoy it. :)

Later in the evening I started showing my age...the house behind Memaw's sits in a cul de sac and around 10:00 pm, they were shooting off fireworks that were SO LOUD...I lost my temper....we had 3 infants and 2 toddlers trying to sleep. When the firecrackers started hitting the house, I went into Memaw's room and told her she should probably call the cops before I started walking around the block to perform some violence (I know what you are thinking: "{gasp!} No! Not you Cherise!")

Yup. That was me. Well she did in fact call...they told her they had had more than one complaint in that area. But God still loved me despite my temper tantrum....so He rained on them, and then it was all quiet. However, the storm did eventually wake up E with nightmares...she and the hubby spent some quality time in the recliner in the front room while trying to reassure her it was all okay.

{sigh}
Anyway...

E is really starting to swim more and more on her own. The hubby has worked miracles with her this summer! She will actually jump in from the side of the pool without any type of flotation device and swim to you; and then turn around and swim back so she can do it all over again!! We are very happy at her progress! There is a short little (very grainy) movie clip of E swimming back and forth to Papa.

She is also practicing writing. They are teaching her to write the letters of the alphabet at school, and she will come home and ask us to write out words, like "Mama" and "Papa" and then go off and write them herself. One day she surprised me with writing these out ON HER OWN without me having written them first for her to use as an example!!!! She wrote Papa as Popo and Mama she wrote as Momo, but backwards....still!! We are just so excited for her! She just seems so eager to learn! She does write stuff backwards a lot, but we are told that is normal for her age. Still! Pretty Cool!

The twins, M & F, are both rolling over now. F is -way- better at rolling from his front to his back than M is, but every now and then, they both end up stuck on their tummies, WAILING for someone to come and save them from the blanket or carpet or what ever toy is under them. But they are getting better and better.

M just loves her toes, and with all this Texas heat, we have taken to letting them go sock-less...they both find this to be rather enjoyable. :)

They are both eating cereal 2-3 times a day. M is very vocal with her eating...she likes to make yummy noises and hums and coos while eating. F is still trying to figure the whole spoon thing out, but is starting to get the hang of it with each passing meal. They will be starting green veggies very soon! Green Beans! Yay! Come on people....show some support here.....YAY!!! Thank you.

Also they are really starting to recognize each other. It is like they see each other and after a few seconds, they get very excited, like they are thinking "Holy Cow! Short People!" HA! I laugh my butt off when this occurs. There is a lot of very excited leg and arm gestures and wide eyes and smiles and laughing and cooing between them. We keep trying to get it on video, but have not succeeded yet. They get distracted by the camera and turn their attention to it instead of each other.

As for me, No More Coumadin! I am officially eating spinach and drinkin' beer people!!! Very happy to be doing so! My very last test will be in Aug and will be a blood draw to make sure that everything is still ok, sans coumadin. So happy that is all over! Whew!

The twins had their 6 Month Blue Chair pictures taken this month. Those are below for all to see!

And on a strange note, a Cicada Killer Wasp decided she wanted to inspect what I was doing one afternoon. And Yes, upon hearing the sound of what I can only describe as a helicopter buzzing around my head, I ran screaming like the little girl I am.

I was cleaning out our game room to prep it for the complete overhaul we are having done, and the door was open to make all the trips to the trash cans easier. She came in, snooping around. I ran out screaming, and slammed the door. Got the hubby. He saw nothing. The next morning, he found her in his office (next door to the game room) on the ceiling. A quick smack with a fly swatter knocked her 'loopy' long enough for us to put her in a mason jar. He then went and looked her up on the internet and found out she was a Cicada Killer.

We had friends coming over for swimming and lunch, so we saved her to show them. Their son is collecting bugs, so he suggested we put the jar in the freezer to kill her with out having to open the jar again. Done! But check out that stinger!!! Dude! I'm so glad I got the hell outta there :) The picture is of her in a mason jar lid.

I do feel bad for the cicada's ... but that is the circle of life, I suppose.
Everything in Moderation. Bugs, Beer and Spinach :)

Love to you all,
Cherise

Easter, the Godmother, Smiling Babies and Getting Punched...

First of all, the hubby has told me that my posts have become way to 'wordy'...me??? Wordy???? NO!!! hehehehe....

So I'm going to try to work on making more frequent posts that are smaller in nature....but not this one!

Let's start with Easter! Easter was fun here in Texas. Since I have the largest yard of all my friends, we decided to have the Easter Egg Hunt here. We planned this a couple of weeks in advance. There would be 4 families including ours, all with small kids in similar age groups. The 4 moms all met at a local restaurant (Spring Creek BBQ - yum!) one evening to 'stuff' eggs with various candies and small toys. I think there was around 10-12 dozen eggs total....yeah, I got a little carried away with the egg count :) There were 10 kids total.

But we all know how the best laid plans sometimes work out, right? Yup! You guessed it! RAIN!!! Oh well. I was bummed out initially, but the other moms all were like "No big deal. Just hide them inside. That's what we always did." Inside??? I've never had an egg hunt inside. But my mom friends are from Wisconsin, South Florida, and Alaska.....they almost ALWAYS had to hide their eggs indoors due to Rain or Snow on Easter. HA!

So the family got up EARLY to hit the 8:45am Easter Mass, which we managed to do successfully. Yay Us!!! Then we came home to straighten up the front few rooms for the egg hunt. We also invested in a Bounce House for the family. It is big enough for several kids, and small enough to still fit in the Family Room in the house! (We have friends that bought one for their family, and it comes in -really- handy for wearing kids out at night or when the weather is yucky or during winter when it is too cold or wet to go outside.) So we decided to put up the bounce house after the Egg Hunt, and had to make sure we had enough stuff cleared out of the family room so it would fit.

All in all it was a great afternoon! The Easter Bunny brought E two new swimsuits and some books and some miscellaneous toys. No candy, but she found her share during the hunt. The twins also each received a stuffed bunny. Fun for all!

The kids made quick work of finding all the eggs and then proceeded to sit down and devour as much of the candy as they could in the shortest amount of time! HA! So the bounce house went up quickly....so they could wear off some of that sugar before they all went home! Hysterical!

Also, E's Godmother Kim and her son Logan came in for a visit for Logan's spring break. I got to play tour director while they were in town. While E was at school, Kim, Logan, the twins and I went to the J.F.K Museum, the Dallas Zoo, the Dallas Arboretum, the Dallas Aquarium and the exotic animal rescue park, In Sync Exotics. Basically, we wore everyone out! But we had pretty big fun! We did take a day in there to just be lazy and sit around and watch movies. They were supposed to fly back home on Saturday, but their plane had mechanical difficulties (yikes) and they ended up delayed until Monday....so Logan got to miss school that day (aw, poor baby - HA!). They went home tired but with good memories....glad to be back home. I told them to come back when we reach 'swimming weather'.....Logan -really- wanted to go swimming, but with the pool registering 68-71 degrees, that is a bit chilly for us....he did get in a few times, but quickly got back out! Maybe the airlines will be having a 'fare war' around August and everyone can come back down?? That would be awesome!

The twins are getting bigger....I'm thinking they are around 12 pounds each by now. They are starting to stay awake a little more after each feeding. F will smile at you and start to talk and coo....he is definitely my 'smiley boy', as I call him....he has been doing this for about a week now. M has just now started to sort of smirk and smile....so she is not far behind. I keep trying to get a picture of them doing it, but alas, I have not succeeded so far....stay tuned.

So most of you are aware that the hubby is an ACTIVE SLEEPWALKER/TALKER/RUNNER, right? Well if not, now you are. He is very active. He has extremely vivid dreams and they 'break on thru' and he acts on them. Usually, it is funny.....like the time he dreamed the dog was a bomb....he jumped out of bed, picked up the sleeping 60 pound dog and threw her out the window - through the screen - dog didn't wake up until she hit the ground! Thank God it was a one-story house! Ah, poor Lucy....she was like "Dude! What did I do to deserve THAT???"

He has woken me up having arguments with people at work, saying things like "Well, NO, we can't make the application do that process in the short amount of time you are giving me!"

My favorites are when he jumps out of bed and starts running to 'do' something. If I'm quick enough, I can catch him -before- he gets completely out of the bed....but sometimes, all I catch are the covers as he is flinging them off....his old roommates can just go on and on with stories of him sleepwalking around the house.

So one night last week, he had gone to bed early, as is our routine - he has the first feeding at 5:30am, so I take the last feeding at 9:30pm, and he goes to bed between 8-9pm.

I fed the twins, watched a little TV, read some emails and then brought the kiddos into our room to go to bed myself. I had brushed my teeth and was climbing into bed when, Pow! He rolled over and punched me in the chest! At first I was startled. We both just froze for half a second .... and then I said "OW!!! Hey! Why did you punch me???!!!" He said "OH MY GOD!!! I'm SO Sorry!!! Are you okay??" I was totally okay, but man I was mad! It was not exactly what I was expecting upon climbing into bed. But we had joked about something like this happening....his dreams are so vivid, he always feared he would do something to me, thinking I was part of his dream. I always joked that if he did anything to me, I would do something back.....that totally sounds like me, right? The conversation would go like this:

ME: "Hey man, if you hit me, don't be shocked when I hit you back!"
Hubby: "But me hitting you won't be on purpose."
ME: "Okay, but when I hit you back, it WILL be on purpose."

He never liked that idea....so for a split second, I considered picking up my Louisville Slugger which is close to the bed.....but I didn't :)

The next night when I was going to bed, I went in and turned on my bedside lamp. Then when I was actually crawling into bed and he rolled over. I stopped and when he looked at me, I made a funny menacing face and pointed at him and then made a fist, like 'go ahead.....make my day......or rather, night' :) We both busted out laughing. He apologized for two days. He told me he was dreaming that I was falling and he was reaching out to grab me....his reach made it to me sooner than he thought, thus the punch. I sure would hate to have to beat down my hubby! HA!

Like that is possible! Look, I'm a mean, scrappy coonass and all, but still! My man's nothing to sneeze at! :)

Love him to death...wouldn't trade him for anything! :)

Love to all,
Cherise

How was your day sweetie?

So Craig checks the mail every day. He likes to do this. I find it utterly depressing, as bills are in there. If he checks after E is home from school, she goes with him.

Yesterday while walking to the mailbox, the conversation went as follows:

Hubby: "How was your day, sweetie?"
E: "It was okay. How are your babies?"
Hubby: "They are fine. Thanks."
E: "Your welcome."

Spring Break 2009 and other stuff...

Well it has been a while since our last post, so I finally carved out a little time to put up another. And let me tell, carving out ANY time with a set of 2 month newborns is not exactly easy! :o)

So E was on Spring Break for a week...and the same week the Hubby went back to working full time. Needless to say, with the twins not sleeping thru the night yet, we needed backup for that week. MommaJo to the Rescue!!!

She showed up and entertained E during the first part of the day while I slept from being up during the night. We even managed to sponsor a Spring Break Craft Day at our house for some of our friends who were also on Spring Break. We painted and applied foam stickers to pots and glasses and door hangers. When the paint dried, we planted seeds in our pots of either flowers or spices. E's pots are just now starting to show buds, so it seems to have been a successful "planting"...at least in our pots!!!

We did not do a big Birthday for E this year, just low-key-family-only-celebration. Cupcakes and a few small things, mostly Movies that she did not have - yes, all princess based {sigh}.

MommaJo came loaded for bear with Princess Dresses and accessories to match, including Crowns, Heels, Earrings and Rings. She also brought a new book that E insisted she read to her almost everyday! True sign of a successful gift :o) The hubby said that after a week of reading it, she had it memorized! Smart kiddo! Chuck sent her a tricycle with two wheels in the FRONT and one wheel in the back...pretty cool. And the hubby found a few of his scooters in the Shop, and they have been riding those around the driveway too!

E is starting to speak more and more clearly. Full sentences and broad topics. Even her whining is mostly audible, unfortunately. We have had to start employing new methods of deterring her from things and actions that will get her into trouble. One of the best things we have started is "If you need to cry, you need to go to your room. When you are done, you can come out." This works 90% of the time, and it is used when she is 'fake crying' for either attention or resisting something we have told her to do/not do. If she is truly hurt, we of course, do not do this (duh). At any rate, seems to dry her up pretty quickly. Credit to the Hubby for thinking of this one.

We also still employ the Time Out. She has to take her time outs in the hallway behind the fireplace on the tile floor, where there is NOTHING to entertain her or really, even give her anything else to look at....thus forcing her to 'think' about what landed her on the cold tile. One day after taking a turn in time out, a few hours later she put her "MommaJo Kitty" in time out. It was funny! See the picture below!


M & F are growing. At their 2 month check up, M weighed 10 pounds and is 22" long; F weighed 9 pounds 11 oz and is 21 3/4" long. So M has almost doubled her birth weight, and F -has- doubled his! Today was E's 3 year wellness check up, and she is 29 1/2 pounds and 37 1/2" tall!! It will not be long before we are eye to eye.....which is NOT saying much! HA! But hey, I'll still out weigh her! :oP

{sigh}

As for M & F, they are not sleeping thru the night consistently yet. But I am hopeful that is around the corner....somewhere....close....I hope. Also, I'm posting their 2 month Blue Chair Pictures.

They are still eating every 4 hours during the day, mostly eating 5 oz each....sometimes a little more, like 6-7 oz.....I'm contributing that to growth spurts. They are starting to track objects a little bit. They are also starting to make longer and longer eye contact. Which is kinda cool. They both smile when they sleep but not when they are awake yet. And of course, they make funny faces in their sleep and occasionally when they are awake. Their hair and eyelashes are really starting to come in now, and we are noticing the same "reddish tint" to their hair that E showed at the same age...that and the Really Long Lashes - thank you Papa!

E still thinks they are pretty cool. She comes to get us when either of them cry, declaring "Mama! Papa! My baby! She's crying!!" Yes, she has not quite got the pronoun thing down yet, so it is always "she" is crying. :o) She also likes to share her favorite toys with them. I attribute this to her total love and devotion to her brother and sister....or it could be that they don't GRAB the toys and keep them...so when she comes up to me and whispers "I want them back now" it is not a big deal to retrieve them :o)

Th hubby got to spend some time in his shop while on vacation, and got his 1967 Datsun running again....long story short, it turned out to be a spark plug issue. In the process though, he got new seats for it, and E claimed the box with all the packing peanuts to be her new favorite place to climb into and play!

As for me, I've been given the all clear by my OB, with my next follow up in 3 months. I'm still taking the Lovenox Shots twice a day, due to my Coumadin levels still being too low. It is taking a little bit longer this time to get it up to the necessary therapeutic levels, which sucks. I hate the shots. I think the hubby does too, as he is the one giving them to me. We are scheduled for another doplar of both legs in two months. My Hematologist believes at that time the clots will be completely gone. He also told me that given the reasons for my clotting (pregnancy, involving not moving), that he does not think I will have any clotting problems going forward.... YAY!!!!

So we are just trying to get back to some kind of a normal routine mostly. We are starting to take the twins out when we make little trips or errands. They like being in the car, so that makes it easier.

They have been on straight formula for about 12 days now, and have had some pretty substantial gas issues. I'm gonna give it another couple of days to see if it subsides any. If not, I will have to look into different formula. Luckily for me, I have Isabel doing all that I'm doing, but sooner! So she has given me some tips on that topic. Thanks Isabel!

That's all for now.
Love to everyone,
Cherise