4 Month Blue Chair Pictures, the Coston Women Visit, Potty Training E and Mother's Day

So the twins are now 4 months old! Yay!! At their doctor appointment today we found out that M is now 24 1/2 inches long (in the 50th percentile) and 13 lbs 12 oz (in the 50th percentile); F is 24 3/4 inches long (in the 25th percentile) and 13 lbs 8 oz (in the 25th percentile). Isn't it interesting how that all works out! The average height of an American woman is 5'2" and for an American man it is 5'8". So even though he is 'taller', she is farther 'up the chart' than he is! WEIRD.

At any rate, they are GINORMOUS to me!!!! M is getting to be so ROUND....her little cheeks and her little thighs!!! F is getting to be so LONG....he is like a bean pole to me. They are virtually the same weight, but they do not look like they are...it is just spread out differently on each baby....and we love every inch and every pound of them!!! :)

Today we were told we get to start them on Cereal too! So hopefully, this will use a little less formula....right now, they are drinking 6 oz each, 5 times a day....that's 10 bottles.....which means the BIG can of formula lasts about Three Days!!!! Yikes!! Can't wait for the 'you may now begin to feed them food' portion of this event starts! :)

We started Potty Training E about 2 weeks ago. It is going pretty good. The first day we went through 13 pairs of panties but by day 2 that was almost cut in half! She only occasionally wets her pants now, and it is usually during nap time at school, night time if we let her drink too much after 7pm or if she does not want to stop playing to go. We are optimistic she will be 'completely' trained within another week or so. And what a relief that will be! One less Butt To Change!!! HA! Two is enough!

Last week we had an excellent visit with Grandma, MommaJo, Aunt Gail and Aunt Kaye...all the Coston Women came to visit us and hold babies! We had a great time with them, and E really enjoyed her visit. This was her first time to meet Aunt Kaye, and it had been too long since we had seen Grandma or Aunt Gail. Aunt Kaye had lots to share with us on E, M and F's cousins (her daughter's twins) Ike and Sophie....they are 2-3 months older than M & F, but M & F are bigger! We had a good time comparing stories about the sets of twins and like and dislikes....kids are just so different and charming! Or at least, they CAN be! HA!

We also took advantage of them being in town to stage a 'delayed birthday celebration' for E at school. Since the twins were born basically right before her birthday, we only did a low key party at our house....well, all the other kids in her class were celebrating their birthdays at school, and it became a glaring absence in her mind....evidently, they do a 'little presentation' for the birthday recipient....yeah, that was working against us :)

So we brought muffins and strawberries to school for the morning snack in honor of E turning 3, and bought a cake for our celebration at home that night. She has two friends that she really loves: Uriah (which she calls "My-riah", as opposed to "Your-riah") and Sarah. Ms. Loren told us that she and Uriah are inseparable during playtime and if left unattended will begin to wrestle! HA! But we are not surprised....her best buddy outside of school friends has always be Elliott!!!

For Mother's Day, E's school put on a little program for all the Mother's. Her class did a group song in sign language; it was "Wind beneath my wings." It was too much for her too early in the morning....she was so excited and was waving to us and very happy, but about 2 minutes into the song I noticed she was no longer doing the signing, and was rather glassy eyed....and yup, you guessed it, she zoned out and fell over / fell asleep while standing up....PLOP! Fell right over! And she was in the middle on the front row, baby!!! YEAH! THAT'S my Kid!!! The sad thing is that the hubby had -just- stopped filming and then she fell over.....classic! Oh well, it was still funny to everyone there....and chances are *somebody* got it on film! ;o) I'll start combing thru youtube.com starting tomorrow....

That was Saturday....on Sunday we went over to Aunt Lisa and Uncle Alan's place for lunch....he always puts on such a spread! It was -way- more than we could eat, and it was all so yummy! E had huge fun playing with her cousins! We are going to try to have them over -this- Saturday for a shrimp-crab-and-crawfish boil, barring any bad weather....Alan is from Bay St. Louis, and he eats crawfish, but no one else in the family does....so the hubby and I are trying to decide how much to get for just the three of us.....do you think 30 pounds will be enough??? :oP

We are excited about the Deaton Memorial Weekend Camping Trip to Lake Ouachita Arkansas. We will be 'camping lite'.....staying at Grandma's in Hot Springs Village in the evenings, and then driving into the campground during the day. Still, it should be fun! Just a little too soon to go full fledged camping with the twins....but next year should be good!

The twins are staying awake more and more during the day, and are consistently sleeping thru the night. F is our 'smiley boy.' He has been smiling and cooing for a few weeks now. M has finally caught on this past week and is equally cute and smiley. I have tried to capture some of their smiles and 'conversations' on the videos attached.

E just loves them to death! She is very concerned whenever they cry or are upset. And she loves to have her picture taken with them! Right now, they still do not intentionally grab things, so we are still in the 'honeymoon phase' of this sibling relationship.....and we are lovin' it......but this too shall pass {sigh}

But for now, just enjoy the pictures!

The hubby took the kiddo's to a British Car Show down by White Rock Lake a few weekends back....I had to work at the Antique Mall that Sunday, so he just loaded everyone up and headed out. E had such a good time....she declared that she liked all the RED ones....she still talks about 'all the cars in the park'....I think the addiction to British Sports Cars has begun :) Like Father, Like Daughter!

We also have the 4 month 'Blue Chair' pictures of the twins.....and I don't know if I sent out the 3 month ones or not....someone should let me know if I need to post those or send them out....

Also, my dad, "Pa" is headed to Africa for about a month to do some Missionary Work....please keep him in your prayers!

We are baptizing the Twins on June 6th.....so if you want to come, let us know! Pa will just be returning from Africa this weekend, so we are really excited that he will be able to make it! Our wonderful friends the Korson's and the Selligman's have agreed to be their God Parents. We are so Blessed!!

Love to 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