Wake Up Laughing

Also, I meant to post yesterday that I had the chance to be featured on the Multiples and More site. CLICK HERE if you're interested in checking it out! And, I just wanted to say 'thank you' to the great ladies who run Multiples and More for thier awesome site - they were my #1 resource when our twinsie maddness first began. 

(oh, plus a picture of the twinsies and mom playing with the front cam on the new phone)

Hopefully, next time the babies will enjoy it more. I think they are cutting teeth this week and haven't been in the best mood anyway.

O and L turned 1 a few weeks ago. I've been thinking about writing a blog post about it but just haven't sat down to do it. We had a nice little birthday party for them with family and friends. They were a little overwhelmed by all the extra people in our house but seemed to enjoy themselves overall. :) 

They are both walking now. They are trying to say more words, and signing a lot. O has started walking around the house signing and singing the Baby Signing Time opening song. It's bucketfuls of cuteness to see her do that. L says "No, no, no, no" to every question you ask her. They both shake their heads 'no' quite vigorously and then chuckle about it - especially when I try to feed them something they don't want to eat. I guess they are amused by their increased ability to express themselves. They eat most everything - though I did find out a few nights ago that they don't care for cheese tortellini. 

We had our 1 year checkup and the height/weight between them is closing. There was a time when L seemed quite a bit bigger than O (over half a pound when you don't have a lot of pounds can appear to be a big difference). Now L is just a quarter of an inch taller and only a few ounces more. They both are a bit over 20 lbs. Bigger than C was at 1, she didn't even break 20 lbs. at that point. :) 

I guess that's it for now. Not much else has been going on for us. We're just hanging out everyday and learning new things (like climbing stairs and furniture). 

(PS: If you're so inclined, please go vote for O & L for Photo of the Month at the Multiples and More site. I entered the one year pic of them in their little Korean dresses.) 

I'm at the point that moms get to once more sleep and predicitability (to a small degree) are present in our lives. HAPPY. It's nearly O & L's first birthday and I keep thinking about last year this time. Two thoughts:

1. I AM SO HAPPY THAT I AM NOT PREGNANT WITH TWINS ANYMORE.

2. I STILL CAN'T BELIVE I HAD TWIN BABIES. 

Last year around this time I looked something like this: 35/36 weeks and still preggo

It's been busy recently. But, it's a good busy (especially since I get more sleep). The girls are all on the move. In different directions. :) L & O are walking (still mostly crawling, but getting up to walk across the room more and more) and climbing everything. C started gymnastics once a week and she loves the bouncing around. It's exactly what she needed. H started 6th grade and seems to be having a good time too. She's learning a lot. She likes her teacher and has some good friends in her class. 

I'm enjoying that the babies finally nap at the same time everyday and are on a predictable schedule. It only took like 9-10 months to get there, right? Ha! They are still napping twice a day and that is just fine with me. I'm also enjoying sleeping all night. OMG I LOVE MY FULL NIGHT OF SLEEP. We're getting ready for the girls' first birthday next month. It's our last first birthday. Honestly, I'm not too broken up about that. But, I do want to enjoy it and really celebrate how far we've come this year. That sentiment reminds me of the third recurring thought:

3. I AM SO GLAD THE BABIES ARE NOT NEWBORNS ANYMORE.

It was fun and all. Newborns are great. Really... But, damn. We were tired. :)

L finally started consistently sleeping through the night!!! I was afraid to mention it... I was sure it was a fluke and I didn't want to hope that after 18 months (I'm including pregnancy because I didn't sleep very well then either) I finally was going to get back to quality 7+ hours of sleep most nights! But, it seems to be sticking - we had a week of sleeping all night, then a few days of fever where she was getting up again. But, the fever broke and it seems that she's gone right back to sleeping through. FREAKIN YAY.

O has been like a mini-House mystery since her intestinal thing at the end of May. The intussusception led to the discovery of a UTI that she ended up needing two rounds of antibiotics to treat. To be thorough, the pediatrician ordered an ultrasound of her kidneys as well as a test called a VCUG. The kidney ultrasound was normal, but on Friday the VCUG revealed that O has urinary reflux. It's not a serious case, and she's expected to outgrow it (though, that may take a few years to happen). So, we're following up with her pediatrician and a urologist. In the meantime, she'll also start a low dose of an antibiotic to help prevent further UTIs. I'll post more as we know more, unless there's nothing more to know, I guess. The only other question this has led to is, do we test L for the same thing? My other kids have no had similar issues, though it does tend to run in siblings according to what I've been reading. We have a follow up appointment and the doc and I will discuss this question. Does any one else have experience to share related to urinary reflux in babies/kids (and twins)?

So, other than this reflux issue for O, these babies are healthy and happy and quickly approaching their one year birthday! They are feeding themselves and loving making a huge mealtime mess. They eat nearly everything I put in front of them and we are just waiting till after the one year mark for things like dairy, and whatever else is on the 1+ list of foods. Both girls are standing, and L has taken a few steps here and there but they aren't really walking around much yet. They do love cruising on the furniture. We've been working on signs with them since about 8 months, O connected the dots right away and she signs 'baby', 'more', 'dad', and 'eat'. L makes the sign for 'more' while she's eating, but seems to be more "vocal" in her communication - she's got a lot of sounds for things, and mimics a lot of the sounds we make. For example, if we're eating and O is signing 'more', L might start to say, "muh-muh-muh-muh". They are about the same size again, after L spending most of this year nearly a pound bigger than O. Now, O is closing the gap and is only a few ounces smaller than her sister. 

Here's what I spun for last week:

And, here's what I'm working on now. It's 4 oz of marino and silk, I'm about 10% through it.

My goal for this big finish (the tour ends Sunday) is to spin and ply this - it will be my first attempt at plying. I love how the yarn is turning out so far.

First, here are some pictures I never got around to posting from the twins' baptism:

And, below are pictures from our trip to Texas.

Me with my bestest friend:

Our other two best high school girlfriends came to visit at the same time and we had a mini HS reunion. It was soooo much fun to meet everyone's kids and watch them all play together. Here we are with (mostly) all our kids (H is missing cause she was visiting her dad):

The giraffe we met at the drive through zoo. I think he wanted to go home with us:

And we're back from Texas! We drove 16 hours (each way) to get to Ft. Worth and visit my bestest friend. It was a great trip and I'll post pictures but first, here's the after action report of driving portions:

1. Day travel still works better than night.
2. We planned specifically to stop overnight at as close to our halfway point as possible. It was hard to sleep in a hotel (FYI, we used priceline.com to get a decent deal on our room) but stopping to get a little sleep was better than not stopping at all.
3. We knew that our timeline had to be fluid and that we were not in a hurry to get anywhere.
4. Everytime we stopped for ANY reason we checked diapers, used the potty and got gas. This way if the kids were all sleeping when we were on the road we would avoid, as much as possible, having to stop for those things and risk waking them up. 
5. Stickers are a 3 year old's best friend.
6. The portable DVD player is worth every penny. We didn't use it the whole time but it worked great when the babies really started to get antsy.
7. On the way home we picked up one of those Crayola Color Wonder Lap Desks and C really loved it. I should have thought of that for the trip out but it was still a nice surprise for on the way home.
8. When I called to confirm our hotel reservation on the way home I asked them to set up two cribs in the room. This was nice to know that we'd have an addtional option for sleep depending on the mood the babies were in.
9. I packed snacks and a few bowls/spoons and cereal for the kids so I could feed them anywhere. 
10. Wipes are my friend. I had travel packs of Clorox wipes (for stuff like nasty gas station potties), wet ones, paci wipes for utensils/bottles and regular baby wipes... Something for every wipeable situation, and then some!
11. Starbucks is a great place to get coffee and hot water for bottles.
12. We got out of the car for meals so we could all get a change of scenery and the kids could move around.
13. Pillows are essential for car travel - this should be a given, I guess, but I forgot mine and had to relearn the lesson.
14. Of course, the car potty is also still one of my best friends.
15. As great as the Pea Pods seemed to be in theory, we have not used them that much so far. At least they don't take up much space for travel. We'll see if that changes as they get older.

It wasn't so bad, but Sean and I tend to like road trips. However, now that we're home we are both over vacationing and are ready to just be home for a bit. We are agreed that next year everyone should come to Arizona cause we're not sure that the traveling we did this year will work out as well with 18 month old twins. We'll get back back on the road again after they are closer to three. :)

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PS - What are your tips for road trippin with young kids? Either in the must 'do/have' or major 'do nots' - whatever suggestions you have, please post them as well!

2011 resolutions update

2011 is half over! I blinked and it's July already. Did y'all have any resolutions, to do's, intentions, or otherwise for this year? How are things now that we're half way to 2012?

If figured this would be a good time to review my own 'resolutions' for the year. I did two posts in January, a to do list and a to stop list.

As it turns out, I think I'm doing much better with my To Stop items than my To Do list. Those To Dos are an ongoing battle (except for the one with my sewing machine (#9) I haven't even tried anything in that area this year - although, I think my efforts there are off-set by the progress I've made in the knitting/spinning departments). My To Stops #s 3 through 5 are going pretty well. Probably still have to work on the potty mouth, but I think it's better than in the past (perhaps my husband has another opinion?). Though #s 1 and 2 are still major weaknesses. Maybe I can make them the focus of the rest of this year.

tour de fleece progress

I think I mentioned in my last post that I learned how to spin over the weekend and am participating in the Fiber Factory's team for the 2011 tour de fleece. :) Here's the latest in that department...

I koolaidified some fiber:

And, here's the subsequent yarn-in-progress: