Happy Halloween!!

Much to our dismay, we dressed Bennett & Kendyll up for their first Halloween. We really weren't going to (correction: we couldn't really find costumes we liked well enough), but we found a wicked sale last weekend and broke down to get them each a costume. Some of our other ideas (Sonny & Cher, Donny & Marie Osmond) will have to wait for another year.

Bennett went as a super cute dog:

And Kendyll went as a bee (or as we like to also say, the Bee Girl from the Blind Melon "No Rain" video):

B & K together:

The weather was beautiful today, so we handed out candy outside (and Tim & I had our "treats" as well):

Kendyll enjoyed some of the candy as well:

And Tim carved up our pumpkins -- Go Irish!!

Happy Birthday, Papa!!

A big Happy Birthday to Tim's dad, Papa Sam Williams!!! We hope you have a great day! We love you!!

Weekend Updates

Hmmm, let's see. I feel like I haven't blogged in forever. We had a busy week and a busier weekend and it is only going to get worse through the end of the year.

On Friday we took B & K back to Riverside for their follow-up developmental assessment. We won't have the scores for a few weeks, but for the most part they rocked it out. We have been advised that we may want to look for therapy options for Bennett (Mr. Skinny dude with a large head), but we've also been given a few exercises that we can try first to strengthen his lower body. It is all to be expected since his head is 50% of his body weight (or it seems that way) and he is just now really starting to grow into his body. He just needs to build up some muscles and bulk up. He did an awesome job in the fine motor skills area (what a smart boy!). And Miss Kendy was all over the place. The therapist made us feel better by telling us that many babies learn to crawl before they can sit independently and we've all agreed that Kendyll will probably fall into this class. :-) I'll be sure to update everyone on their scores if / when we get them (I swore it took at least 2 months to get them the last time . . . which by the way, they scored inbetween their actual & corrected age -- perfect!).

Saturday we hosted a "twinfant" playdate. Will, Sam, Keegan & Louden all came over to play with B & K. Sadly, they weren't in a social mood . . . both are cutting at least one more tooth each and that has not been fun. We watched some football and met up with some old friends on Saturday night. On Sunday we celebrated Papa Williams birthday (more to come on that later this week). We also did a little shopping and finally picked up some costumes for B & K (more to come on that, too -- I promise!). It was a really nice weekend, but it always seems to go so fast! Oh, other exciting news is that my cell phone went through the wash on Sunday. Lovely. I was due to get a new phone anyway and my "mini" crackberry should arrive tomorrow. So if you've called me in the past two days that is why I haven't called you back (I'm keeping the same Chicago number, thankyouverymuch). And I may be e-mailing all of you friends for your numbers again (my old phone will turn on, but it spazzes out, so I'm not sure if I can get to my phone book. And NO, I did not have it backed up and NO, I don't think my old phone has a card in it. Ugh!).

It snowed here in Ohio this morning (okay, it was more like flurries, but still white stuff fell from the sky). Work is going to be very hectic again and then we have another busy weekend full of Halloween festivities, a 1st birthday party and maybe a bonfire & hayride. Joy!


Bennett (aka "Scarface") looking cute





Kendyll getting ready for the playdate on Saturday.

A very special Happy Birthday

I want to wish my friend, Jennifer, a VERY HAPPY 40th BIRTHDAY!!! Jen and I lived together a long, long time ago in Nashville. She is an amazing writer, a HUGE football fan and a truly inspiring, strong person. She is a fighter and has an amazing spirit. Sista, I hope you had an extraordinary birthday.

Score!!! Twins Sale Loot!

Oh man -- the twins sale was everything I dreamed of & more!! After what seemed like months of waiting & weeks of tagging B & K's baby stuff, the twins sale finally arrived Friday night. My friend and fellow MoM, Alicia, and I rode over to the sale together. We took an hour or so to put out all of our stuff and then got in line for the "MoM"s only member sale Friday night. We shopped for 2 hrs straight and scored some really good stuff -- my final total came to $150. My big purchases included two high chairs (edit correct total: $50 -- they were $25 each), a "baby jail" super yard XL ($10) and a Leap Frog musical table ($3!!!!). These four items alone would have been over $250 retail. But I also scored two FULL bags of Baby Gap, Old Navy, Gymboree and Children's Place clothing. Total SCORE!! There was a lot of other things I wanted to look for, but it was so overwhelming! There were three - 3!!!! -- full gymnasium sized rooms of baby crap. Amazing. It was also very nice to meet fellow moms, many of which I had met online but not in real life.

Saturday I worked from 7:45 until after 1:00 at the sale. I was exhausted! Tim did an amazing job on the home front -- the kiddos had a blast with him and Kendyll enjoyed playing with the new toy.

Happy Happy Birthday!!!

Happy Birthday today to my Mom, Angie (aka Grandma Z). Also a very Happy Birthday to her twin sister, our Aunt Anna Marie!!

The Zelasko family, Grandma Angie, Grandpa Mike & Uncle Mark, made a trip to C-bus to visit us and celebrate the big day! Tim cooked up a FABULOUS meal (did I mention I'm married to an excellent Finance Manager-by-day and Chef-by-night?). We are all stuffed and had a fabulous visit!!

Happy Birthday, Aunt Rachel!!

We'd like to wish my cousin, B & K's "Aunt" Rachel, a very happy birthday!!! Hope it is (was) a good one!!

Please help!

A fellow multiple mommy, Megan, at The Wilson's, is doing a wonderful thing! She is an Assistant Coach for the women's basketball team at the University of Wisconsin - Stephens Point. Her team is collecting money for Breast Cancer Awareness. If they make their goal, Megan has agreed to let her team shave her head. You read that right, she is seriously going to let her team totally shave her head if they meet their goal!! So awesome -- and so brave!

So please check out this site if you are interested in donating (or seeing what Megan would look like bald -- she has a great picture out there now!). Thanks for your support!

I other news . . . the twins sale is coming! The twins sale is coming!! Woo-hoo! This weekend is the CMOTC twins sale and I have been counting down the days all summer (as has everyone who knows me -- I'm sure they are beyond sick of hearing about it). Tomorrow night is the time set aside for club members to shop and then I'll be working all morning on Saturday. So if you are in the C-bus area please stop by on Saturday . . . I'll be a "tag ripper" -- the "social job". Tim will also be alone with B & K all night Friday and all morning on Saturday -- so you may want to check on him, too. :-)

Meme

A huge thank you to my friend, Marie, for this award!! I am so so grateful that Marie & I found each other. We were both in the same multiples class at OSU last November, however we actually "met" online while we were both on bedrest last winter. She was a huge support and inspiration to me during those very difficult weeks. And now that her three beautiful girls are here (as well as B & K) it as been so great to lean on each other for advice & stories as we try to figure out this mothering multiples thing. We have even managed to meet up "in real life", most recently at a well deserved MoMs night out (which we will be doing again sometime soon!!). She has done an amazing job with her beautiful girls, Anna, Ava & Alexis (one of which I'm sure is bound to be a future girlfriend for Bennett!). :-) Marie thanks for this award, and more importantly thank you for your support & friendship!!

My duty now is to answer the following questions with a one word response and then pass the award along to 7 other blog friends. This is harder than it looks, but here is goes....
1. Where is your cell phone? counter

2. Where is your significant other? couch

3. Your hair color? blondish
4. Your mother? sweet
5. Your father? funny
6. Your favorite thing? chocolate

7. Your dream last night? weird
8. Your dream/goal? retirement
9. The room your in? family
10. Your hobby? knitting
11. Your fear? death
12. Where do you want to be in six years? beach
13. Where were you last night? home
14. What you're not? skinny
15. One of your wish list items? peace
16. Where you grew up? Ohio
17. The last thing you did? yawned
18. What are you wearing? jeans
19. Your T.V.? huge
20. Your pet? tabasco
21. Your computer? sleek
22. Your mood? tired
23. Missing someone? no
24. Your car? momish
25. Something you're not wearing? shoes
26. Favorite store? Loft
27. Your Summer? quick
28. Love someone? deeply
29. Your favorite color? red
30. When is the last time you laughed? today
31. Last time you cried? days

Now I need to pass along the award to 7 others...Tag You're IT! I love your blog:

1. Megan at The Wilsons

2. AmberJane at Team Gillis

3. Meghan at TaderBaby - (I know she's been tagged by Marie, too, but I just wanted to let her know I heart her blog also!).

4. Monica at Jonas Family

5. Sara at Twice as Nice

6. Liz at Martelle-isms

7. Sarah at Fields Triplets

8 Months Old!!!

Tim set up a "pumpkin patch" at our house over the weekend and we snapped a few pictures in honor of B & K's 8 month birthday today!

And now the outtakes . . .

Kendyll, trying eat the leaves (no, we did not let her eat them):

"No, seriously B-man, these taste really good" . . .

"Mmmm, way better that the puree's mommy makes us eat"

"What??"

"Hmmm, let me check this out, too. . . "

"I'm not gonna let Kendyll get me in trouble!"

edit note: I TOTALLY forgot to give major credit & props for the white pumpkin (thanks for the reminder - and comment! - hopeful #1). :-) I am not crafty - at all . . . actually, I'll rephrase that to be that I like to be crafty, but I'm not creative. I totally owe the white pumpkin idea to Erin, an amazing mother of four beautiful children, a creative photographer and one crafty lady! She posted on her blog her cute pumpkin (and how she did it) and I followed it step-by-step. Thanks Erin!

Go Bucks!!

A couple of OSU pictures from yesterday -- thanks to Grandma & Grandpa Z for the outfits. Condolences, again, to our Purdue fan friends. :)

They otta be in pictures . . .

As promised, a couple of super cute videos of B & K from yesterday. First, note that they are NOT in coordinating outfits (I'm super proud of myself for this one!). Second, be sure to note the super annoyed dog in the background . . . poor Tabasco. We caught Bennett cracking up at Kendyll -- she is so amusing. The first one is him cracking up. The 2nd is just some close ups of them playing. Enjoy!

Big Head Dude

We had a nice weekend. Very low key . . . lots of nice weather. ND won -- yay. OSU won -- that means no riots, yay! :-)

I took Bennett into the pedi's office on Friday to have his head remeasured. At his 6mo appointment the dr asked us to bring him back in about a month later to have it measured again just to make sure it wasn't growing too fast. I thought about bringing Kendyll in, too, and using it as an excuse to get them both weighed, but I decided that morning to go with just B. Ok, I have to digress here for a second . . . parents of "singletons" have it SO DANG EASY!!! Oh my gosh . . . I didn't have to carry in two carseats (which, btw, I think we are going to be ditching very soon . . . B is almost too long for it!) and I didn't have to lug in a huge awkward stroller. Oh no -- I just took B out of his carseat and carried him into the office. Bennett seemed to enjoy his 1:1 time and I hear Kendyll had a blast on her own, too. So nice! Anyhoo, his weight is 16lbs 5oz, he is 27in long and his head is 18 3/4 in. It was 17 1/2 in last time and the nurse didn't seem too concerned . . . I haven't heard anything from the doctor yet so I guess no news is good news. I will be sure to keep everyone posted.

On another note, Kendyll has learned to say "no". Okay, actually she shakes her head "no" and she thinks it is the funniest thing. Bennett will sort of do it, but usually he is too busy laughing at Kendyll doing it (and me doing it back to her). Very cute. They have both also mastered crawling backwards & in circles . . . they scoot everywhere while on their backs. They've become very mobile this way and it makes me fearful of the future.

No new pictures tonight, but I PROMISE to get some video up this week. I shot a really cute one of B & K tonight.

7 Random Facts

I have been "tagged" by my new friend, Liz, over at Martelle-isms to share 7 random facts with all of you. Hmm, this is going to be hard, a) because I have a lot of "random" things in common with her and b) I'm really boring! But this is my first blog "tag" and I'm super excited, so here goes:

1. I've lived in six different states in my life -- and I've moved 5 times in the past 10 years. Yep, I've pretty much stayed on schedule to move every two years for the past decade (hmmm, which means we should probably be getting ready to move again since we've been back in C-bus for 2+ years . . .). There have been multiple moves back & forth: born in Ohio, high school in TN, college in OH, lived in KY for a summer my freshman year, moved to Nashville, TN after college, then Dallas, TX, then back to OH again, then Huntington Beach, CA, then Chicago, IL then back once again to Ohio (sense a theme here????).

2. My belly button is closed. Normally this is something that is too private or gross to share in those "tell us something no one else knows" sort of stupid ice breaker games. But I had an umbilical hernia as a baby and had surgery to "close" my belly button when I was 2ish. It really isn't as gross as you think, but it is my one "distinguishing" feature, I guess. :-)

3. I was totally planning to use my children as an excuse to finally "meet" Kirk Herbstreit. You see, Herbie is a neighbor of mine . . . he lives about 4 blocks away (and no, we do not live in a mansion like him!). If you don't know who Kirk is, then you've never lived in Ohio, you've never been a Buckeye fan and/or you've never seen ESPN's College Gameday Live. We've run into Kirk a few times . . . we've seen him & his family (skinny wife and four kids) walking the 'hood while we walked the 'hood. He was stalking me at Huffman's market one day (I swear it was NOT the other way around!). Tim was in line behind him at Giant Eagle when I was on bedrest (damn him!!). But this year the twins were going to be my golden ticket. I'm not looking forward to dressing them up for Halloween (I don't even know what I'm going to be yet, people!), but I was totally planning to get them all dolled up & trick or treat at his house!!! I mean how cute is that?!? And we totally have something in common -- he has twins, too!! Gosh, his wife could even be in CMOTC (I didn't even think of that one before!!). But alas, rumor has it that ESPN has asked him to move to CT (but this may not have actually happened . . . I need to do a little more investigating). :-)

4. I hate odd numbers. Not sure why or when or how this happened, but I have a definite preference for even numbers. The fact that my wedding was on 10.02.04 is not a coincidence. :-)

5. I won the championship in a Fantasy Football league my friend Becky invited me to join a couple of years ago. My team was called "Taste of Chicago" and Ben Roethlisberger was my QB. This was also the year the Steelers won the Super Bowl. Coincidence???

6. I can name the starting lineup of the 2000 Subway Series New York Mets (although I do a much better job of this sober vs. after a few drinks, just ask Dave). I used to be madly in love with Mike Piazza (my former "secret" boyfriend). He got married, we broke up and I settled for Tim (LOL!).

7. My cousin Leslie and I used to always pretend that we were twins (our moms are fraternal twins). Leslie is almost exactly a year younger than me and we would have our family birthday parties on the same day together, our grandma would buy us matching outfits and we used to go on & on about how we would have twins some day. Watch out for that fate!!

Ok, I think I'm supposed to tag someone, but I'm not sure who has already done this one. So if you have a blog and you haven't played this game -- TAG it is your turn!!

The best is yet to come . . .

Today is our 4th anniversary. If you've been reading this blog a while you'll know not to expect a sentimental, sappy post. :-) My favorite wedding picture can be found here. My 2nd favorite picture can be found below. It was a fun day . . . it rained and we had one kick ass party (except for the fact that the effing DJ didn't bring "Big Poppa" . . . a fact that Tony C. will NEVER let me live down!). Good times. We left for an almost 2 week trip to Tahiti a few days later and it was so.much.fun. Even more good times. Ahhh. . . what I'd give to be that tan again.

And here we are dancing our first dance to Mr. Sinatra (see title of the post).

And a few of my favorite things from that day (besides Tim & our friends & family, of course):

Check your boobs!

Seriously . . . October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. There are some very, very special people in our lives who are or have been affected by this disease. We love them very dearly and care about them and all of YOU! So ladies (and guys!) please be sure to take care of yourselves!! THINK PINK and please check out this website and this website for more info.