Love at First Bite

This video is from a couple of months ago, but I thought it was hilarious, so I didn't want to leave it out. While we were eating at Uncle Julio's on this particular night, Jake grabbed a whole tortilla & started chowing down. I think we have a future Mexican food junkie on our hands. He must take after his mommy!

Quarter of a Century

I have no pictures to go with this post, & it's not about the kids, so you baby addicts out there may want to skip it.

Today is my 25th birthday! I know, I'm really young. What's weird, though, is that I've felt old for a while now. Not because of the number; we all know that 25 is NOT old. I think it's because of my stage in life. I'm married with two kids, we're on house number two, I drive a big SUV & most evenings around here are very predictable. All that makes me sound sort of old & unexciting. But for the record, I love my life & wouldn't have it any other way! So here's to getting older. I would certainly rather go forward than backward. Those teenage years were not worth repeating!

Oh Teeth, Where Art Thou?

I have decided that teething is one of the most ridiculous concepts of parenting young children. When Jake started drooling profusely at about 4 months, I was told by all, "Oh, he must be teething."
Whenever a baby is extra fussy for no apparent reason, people say, "I'll bet she's teething."
When they begin to gnaw on everything in sight, again, teething is to blame.
Only one problem here: at almost a year old, we only have five teeth between our two kids!
Having late bloomers in this department is certainly not something I'm complaining about for many reasons, but shouldn't the pearly white little culprits of all this commotion be showing up sometime soon?
Today, both kids have slightly runny noses, seem to be in some sort of oral pain, aren't sleeping well & are all around difficult. Ah, the joys of teething!
Maybe they'll all just come in at once & we'll get through the terrible part in one fell swoop. Probably not, but a girl can dream!

Car Seat Evolution

Jake & Mal finally moved up to their big kid car seats about a month ago. Since they're so small for their age, we got to put off the buying of more car seats a little longer than some people. It does stink sometimes that you have to unstrap them every time you get out of the car, rather than just taking the carrier out, but my arms were about to break trying to lift them in the carriers anyway.

You know I always love a little trip down memory lane, so here we go. This was right before their first car trip when we brought them home from the hospital. They were four days old & so tiny!Here we are maxing out the capacity of the carriers. This was taken at the end of May.
And here are my big kids! We strapped them in the seats inside before installing them just to test them out, & they both thought it was hilarious.
I've heard from a lot of people that their kids liked the big car seats much better than the carriers, but this doesn't seem to be true for us. The twins loved their carriers because they loved to nap in the car, so I think these seats being more upright is throwing them off a bit. Hopefully, they'll adjust!

Summer Fun

First of all, I never did post a picture of J & the babies on Father's Day. They actually weren't very kind to their daddy on that day & were rather whiny. The pictures display it well.
The remote control was pacifying Mal briefly here. Sorry they were stinkers, J! The kids & I gave him a new lens for his camera, but I ordered the wrong one, so he only recently got to start using it. Look for fabulous portraits of the kids soon!
Anyway, on to the point of this post, which was our trip to Paris a few weeks ago. We spent most of the week at Nana & Papa's house while J had some travel scheduled for work. Both kids were big fans of Nana's coffee table. Surprisingly, no one was severely injured on the ironwork on the bottom of the table.

Mal's crazy morning hair
And here they are in baby prison! Mom suggested that I bring this play yard, & it ended up working very well. At least it kept them off the hearth!
Focused on the all-important Baby Einstein
Mal snuggled up with Nana after her bath
My nephew Brody came to play several days while we were there. Since he's six, his energy is endless, so he was great entertainment for Jake & Mal.
Quick - take a picture while they're happy!
And, we're done!
Prowling for hidden treasures under the furniture
My little Davey Crockett! Brody thought Jake needed to wear the coonskin cap. Don't worry, it's fake!
He also liked to wear it himself. These windows were just the right height for the twins.
Mallory did suffer a head wound while we were there. In Mal vs. door hinge, the hinge definitely won. See the bruise?
In past visits, Brody has been a little cautious around the twins just because they were so little. He has certainly warmed up now, & they love their cousin! He did not, however, care for Mal attacking his cowlick.


Papa, Nana & the hoodlums
This video proves that we shouldn't waste money on toys. They're much more entertained with their diaper bag & the tag on it.

There's not a whole lot going on here, but I thought this showed their different personalities pretty well. Jake will focus on one toy for a long time & study it, but Mal is easily distracted, as demonstrated by her continuous twirling here.

Thanks for a great visit, Nana & Papa! We enjoyed it!

Eleven Months Old!

I'm a week late in posting these since we were on vacation when the kids turned eleven months old. The pictures are fitting for the crazy, busy week we've had. Jake was being a complete hoodlum, & Mal was crying. Such is life!

Despite being uncooperative for pictures these days, I have two very sweet kids, & I am loving this age of discovery & new skills.
This was literally the best one we got of Jake. He is such a wild man lately & is always on the move. He still isn't walking but cruises very adeptly & lets go to stand for a few seconds at a time. He has the sweetest grin & smiles so easily. It melts my heart every time! Jake now has three teeth, with several more looking like they may come soon.
Mallory continues to be my drama queen. She certainly knows how to turn it on & off quickly to achieve whatever it is she's working toward. We see this pitiful face a lot as she gears up to explain to you why life for her just isn't fair. Most of the time, however, she is happy & full of giggles. Mal is more of a jabber mouth every day & "talks" constantly. She now has two teeth on the bottom in the center. All of her top teeth look like they're about ready to come in all at once. That should be fun! She actually seems a little closer to walking than Jake because she'll let go & stand for longer periods than he will.
Family pic on July 4th, which we spent eating steaks & playing Monopoly with friends. Not very patriotic, but we didn't want to brave a fireworks show. Maybe next year!More to come soon!

Paint Perk-Up

I have lots of blogging to do, but for now, here's the end result of my mother's day present.

Before
After!I love the new color, which is called aged mint. Joe Moore, who goes to church with us, painted it for me & did a wonderful job. This color just makes me happy!

Ew!

Well, we had a good run, I suppose. We made it almost eleven months without baby puke. Sadly, that streak ended Tuesday night.

Between 10:00 & 11:00 Tuesday night, Jake threw up in his crib three different times. Sheets & mattress covers were changed, an extra bath was given & a tired little boy finally zonked out on Mommy's chest about 12:30. He never actually acted like he felt bad, just annoyed to have yuck all over him. There was no fever or any other symptoms, so I stayed cautiously optimistic on Wednesday that it was just the pork chops from the night before, which he'd never had previously, that had upset his tummy.
So, yesterday afternoon I loaded up both kids to go to my dermatologist appointment at Presby. When I opened the car door to get them out, guess what I found? A puke-soaked Jake pouting at me from his car seat. After calling my doctor to explain why we would not be showing up, I stripped him down & headed across the street to the pediatrician's office. We looked like quite the hillbillies walking in with one kid fully dressed with a bow on her head & the other kid naked, save his diaper. Both kids giggled & grinned as we waited to see the doctor, who said Jake didn't really seem to have anything contagious since he had no fever, etc. Jake even giggled when the nurse took his temperature rectally. Nice, buddy. Like they didn't have enough to snicker about yet, what with the naked, puke-scented kid.
Small group was held downstairs last night while the kids & I stayed upstairs since it was a little last minute to cancel. (Don't worry, there were no other kids here.) I cancelled my moms' breakfast that I was supposed to host this morning so we didn't spread any possible germs to the other sweet little babies who were planning to come. So far, no one has gotten sick again. I would definitely be okay if I never have to scrub said nastiness from my car, car seat, clothing & toys again, but I have a feeling this won't be the last time for that. Far from it, I'm sure. To ice the cake on this story a little further, J was here for Tuesday night but is now in New Hampshire. And did I mention it was pouring rain & hailing on my car on our way home from the doctor? No damage, but seriously? Ah, the joys of motherhood!

(The pictures in this post were not taken when he was sick, but I thought they were appropriate!)

Weekend Getaway

Several weeks ago, Justin & I enjoyed our first weekend away from the babies! J travels a lot for work, so he is used to being away from us for several days at a time, but this was the first time for me to be gone overnight without them. My parents came to stay with Jake & Mal, & we spent three days in the beautiful Texas hill country. We didn't actually do a very good job of taking pictures of our trip, but here are a few.

The view from a rest stop on our way down south. As we talked on our drive down, we realized that this was our first true road trip to take together. All of our other vacations have either included air travel, or we just drove straight to a destination. We planned this trip as more of a scenic drive & took a long route to get to San Antonio. Our first stop was in Blanco, Texas for some great barbecue at Riley's. We browsed a street fair in Blanco & then headed toward Luckenbach & Fredericksburg.
Being the country music fan that I am, I have always wanted to go to Luckenbach. It was very different than I'd expected, but I'm still glad we went. The town literally only has a population of 3, but there are hundreds of tourists there every day.

The only "restaurant" in town, where you just walked up to this window to order.
Luckenbach is a popular stop for bikers, as we quickly saw when we got there. It's really amazing that so many people find this town, considering how easy it would be to miss. You can't even see it from the main highway.
Visitors leave their mark on the porch of the post office.
There were definitely some interesting folks there. See the lady in the skimpy shorts & high boots, pictured here. And yes, those are port-a-potties in the background. I am SO not a fan of public restrooms anyway, so I was less than thrilled with these accommodations, but sometimes a girl's got to go!

I couldn't resist getting these Luckenbach t-shirts for the kids. Aren't they cute? On a side note, you might notice that Mal is actually wearing a bow without the headband in this picture. She still doesn't have much hair, but we're getting there!
We spent a couple of hours walking around downtown Fredericksburg, checking out neat little shops. I would like to go back there for a weekend & see more of the town. This particular stop was very important. Anyone who knows J & I very well knows we need our ice cream, and it was HOT that day.

After leaving Fredericksburg, we wound south toward San Antonio. On the way, we passed through Medina. I had never realized that Medina Children's Home, which our church supports, was named after a town. It was neat to see the place we hear so much about.
Our Saturday was spent in San Antonio relaxing by the pool, touring the riverwalk & seeing the Alamo. It had some funky shadows on it due to the time of day we were there, but oh well. My only other visit to the Alamo was when I was a little girl, & I had remembered it as being so much bigger. :)

All in all, it was a wonderful trip to spend some time as just the two of us & see some parts of Texas we hadn't visited before. We ate lots of great food & even got to sleep in!

While we were gone, the twins had lots of fun with Nana & Papa. We checked in with them throughout the weekend, but I was very proud of them that the only time they actually called us was when they had a question about the TV, not the kids.




Mom & Daddy, thank you so much for allowing us a weekend away. It is such a blessing to have you so close to us, & we know the babies enjoyed your stay!