Yiggie and Pa Visit

Blake's parents (affectionately known as Yiggie and Pa) came for a visit the first week in September and we had a great time.  Caroline and Ellie were at 10-1/2 months old and doing new things every day.

With the girls taking two naps a day and then going to bed at 7pm, there's not a whole lot of time in the day to be on the go, and so most of our days were filled with hanging out around where we live and just playing.  

Caroline and Ellie absolutely loved all the attention.  There were so many arms to hold them, which is almost always their preferred way to spend the day.  They don't get it near as much when it's just me...my arms get tired holding the both of them.  Sharlene and Kenny have it down though.  I just tell them to do that for a half hour multiple times a day...it's built in strength training.  

There's something about watching Sharlene and Kenny love on these baby girls that fills my heart with an explicable joy and thankfulness to the Lord for giving me the gift of marrying into such a wonderful and godly family.  

I look at this picture above and I'm overcome.  I always knew my parents would by goo-goo over my kids, but when you see your inlaws freely giving that same affection, it's a different feeling.  

These girls have two sets of Grandparents that love them deeply and will be able to teach them and speak into their lives in ways that Blake and I won't be able to.  Once again, my heart is full.

We don't get to see each other as often as we would all like, but our visits are sweet and there will always be something special about Caroline and Ellie anticipate the times with their Yiggie and Pa come to visit and when they get to go to their house.

I can see it now....Caroline and Ellie doing endless amount of Christmas baking with Yiggie...

....and getting Pa to play endless amount of chase and camp outs in the backyard....

This is only the beginning of a lifetime of memories.

Thank you, Sharlene and Kenny, for a wonderful visit.  We love you.

Always Together

No matter what these girls are doing, they are always together.  As in, RIGHT next to each other.

They are still in their own little world playing, waving their arms and toys in the air while looking at the ceiling, but somehow, they manage to be in their own world....together.

Even when I go pick them up in the nursery, there are all these kids playing on the floor and the two of them are right next to each other.

They are best friends and they don't even know it.

They crawl all over each other and they don't mind....or even notice.

One of my favorite things to do right now is sit in the room with them (they don't like to be out of my sight) and just watch the play together.  When they can see me, they are comfortable to just wander around, banging toys on the floor, the air conditioning grate, each other, you name it.

But no matter what....they're doing it together.

A Tough Crowd

Caroline and Ellie can often be a tough crowd.  Blake and I have pulled out some of our best material to make these girls laugh, and most of the time, we get nothin.

Sometimes, we'll catch them in the perfect mood, and they will give up that belly laugh.  I had catch it on video, since it doesn't happen all the time...yet.  I'm still convinced that when they realize how hilarious we actually are, belly laughs will soon become a common occurrence.

Note:  Blake did his same "hilarious" sneeze the next day, and the girls didn't even give him a snicker.

Sweet Caroline

Caroline is the firstborn...by one minute.  Does that count?  Not sure.  

She is determined, curious, observant, busy, on the move, and gives you the biggest smile that stretches from ear to ear.  

When she's not feeling like taking a nap....she is NOT going to take a nap.  Lately, she's been standing up in her crib, facing the door waiting for me to come rescue her and while she's waiting, she bites the top of her crib.  When I come get her, she has flecks of white paint from the crib on her cheeks.  

I think there's a negative connotation about eating paint chips as a kid.  

The other day, she woke up early from her morning nap and greeted me with her huge smile and bouncing legs as I scooped her up.  Ellie was still passed out, so I had some one on one time with Caroline, which is a rare thing that I always treasure.  After awhile, I put her in the swing hoping she might fall back to sleep.  

About 20 minutes later, this is what I saw.... her sweet little self, sitting contentedly, listening to the music and sucking on her pacifier.  

There's just something about this that melts my heart.  I was just watching her wondering what she's going to be like in a year from now and even when she grows up.  I sat there praying for her....praying that she would come to know the Lord at a young age, that she would find a life-long best friend in her sister and that she would be confident in who she is in the Lord.  

I love these girls.  I love being their Mommy.  

...and hey....I love these swings!  Just sayin.  

Love these Video Monitors

My family gave me video monitors for us to keep an eye on the girls.  I never thought a monitor (audio or visual) was necessary in our house because of how open and compact our house is, but Blake and I cannot get enough of the video monitor.  We keep it in our living room, and these days, we get so much entertainment out of it.

Ellie can now pull herself up, and she and Caroline have started to babble and laugh at each other when they are in their cribs.

We loved witnessing this last night through the monitor.  Although, the monitor might not necessarily produce any safety value for us, the entertainment value is priceless.  We keep thinking of how funny it's going to be when they get a little older.

Ellie is at the bottom of the screen and Caroline at the top.

Our Daily Swim

There is nothing like cute thighs hanging out of a skin-tight swimsuit....especially when that swimsuit has ruffles on the bottom and polka dots....and comes in the size "12 months".

Ellie grabbing Caroline's hat

We have been going to the pool on most days after Blake gets home from work.  The infamous hours between 5-7pm, leave me looking forward to getting out of the house and trying to distract the girls from their otherwise end-of-the-day-fussiness.  Besides doing errands with mostly staying in the airconditioning, going to the pool is about the only hanging outdoors we have been doing lately.  And for that, I love going to the pool.

When they're not so tired, they usually love the pool.  The love to splash and watch the other kids swim.

Daddy Means Business

Caroline and Ellie have razorblades for fingernails, and the tedious chore of cutting them is my least favorite thing I do for them.  The girls do not like for me to cut their nails and they fight me every step of the way.  Both of them.  They thrash around, pull their hands away, and after an hour of wrestling these little 16 pounders to free their fingers, I give up with maybe only a couple nails clipped between the two of them.

On the other hand, when Blake cuts their fingernails, they sit there like angels.

With Ellie

They let him just cut away without making a noise...

With Caroline

....or trying to pull their hands away....

....or crawl out of his lap.

Ellie

Blake says that it's because the girls know when Daddy means business.

Caroline

Hmmm.  Maybe it's the way that they sink in this lap and they can't easily move, or maybe because he is strong....or maybe because they really do know when Daddy means business.

Either way, it's sweet, and I'm happy for Blake to be on fingernail duty.

Crawlers x 2

Caroline and Ellie are both crawling all over the house.  Usually they are each in their own little world playing, talking to themselves and motoring around.  However, we do see glimpses of these two interacting and "playing" together!

Here's a video of them in action.

2 Babies and a Cockroach: A Story I will NEVER Forget

It happened 2 days ago, and I'm still so disgusted that it makes my skin crawl every time I think about it.

Here's what happened (to quote our favorite OCD detective, Adrian Monk):

Scene of the crime:  Between the couch and the wall.  An innocent place to play that happens to be the girls favorite place to bang toys on the tile, wall, baseboards and air conditioning vent.

I was in our study paying some bills and going through our mail while watching the girls play where I could see them.  They crawled over behind the couch where they always go and I could hear them banging their toys and laughing.  Knowing that there's nothing over there for them to get into trouble, I let them hang out for a minute or two while I finished up.  They were content and seemed happy to just stay where they were and play.

A couple minutes later, I walk over there to check on them.  They are sitting next to 3 unattached cockroach legs on the floor with huge smiles on their faces.  I immediately start to get nervous because I'm not seeing a body of this cockroach, and at second glance, I see a large brown spot of drool on the floor.

I pick up Caroline and see something brown in her mouth, and then I notice half of the 4th roach leg on her chin.  A second look at Ellie and I see the other half of the leg on Ellie's arm, and at this point, I'm almost hyperventilating.  I take Caroline to the kitchen sink and do a half-hearted swipe of her mouth trying to get out whatever is in there, afraid of what was going to come out.  My skin was crawling.  I took a deep breath, mustered up the courage to do a second mouth swipe, stuck my index finger way in her mouth and flung a HUGE Texas cockroach fully in tact minus it's legs and one wing out of her mouth and into the sink.

Thankfully, it was dead.  But still.  G-ROSS!  How she got that whole thing in her mouth, I still don't know.  Ellie probably helped her.  HA!

These two.  I should probably just brace myself for all the things these girls will discover together.  

Standing Up

Caroline has started pulling herself up, and she tries to pull up on everything.  The first couple of times she did it in her crib, she got stuck and couldn't get herself back down.

This is what I'd find when I'd go in and rescue her from screaming her head off with the "I'm scared" kind of cry.

Of course, naive me, thought that if I just put her back down again, she'd realize that she shouldn't do that again and she'd just go to sleep.

Obviously not.

I wish I had a picture of what Ellie was doing in her crib during all this.  She was sitting up looking at her sister and "half-crying" just to chime in.

Ellie is taking cues from her sister and starting to try herself.  I don't think she's far behind.