Pre-St. Patty's Day

As you may recall from last year, we LOOOOOVVVVEEEEE St. Patrick's Day in our household. So much so that Tim almost ditched his flight home last night to stay in Chicago (he was in St. Louis this week and had a connection through our former hometown . . . yeah, I probably would have NEVER spoken to him again if he had done that, but I digress). B & K are in the spirit already this morning with some green cheer. We're still trying to figure out where we're going to go for our green beer Tuesday night, but I'm sure we'll find somewhere cool to hang out as a family (much better than being trapped in our house on St. Patty's Day -- and major sleep deprived -- last year!).

Oh and I want to give a HUGE and sincere thank you to all of my friends for your support on my post about the NICU follow-up. I know B-man will catch up (and Kendy will get to where she should be, too) . . . honestly, I'm really not that worried about it. I could give 2 craps about what those stupid "developmental milestone" BS websites say. It just sucks to feel the pressure from others to get them caught up. Sometimes I get really sick of the "competition" amongst other mommies -- "Bobby was walking a tight wire yesterday" and "Susie balanced a plate on her nose" -- blech! You know, my children came home from the hospital breathing on their own and not needing any assistance to eat and they've maintained that for the first year of their lives and for that I'm pretty flippen happy. :) And I know they'll catch up to where they should be soon enough . . . you just won't see me bragging about it or making a big AW, because that's not my style. OK, I'm off my soapbox . . . I just wanted to say thanks for the comments and e-mails!

Happy 13 Month Birthday!!

B & K celebrated their 13 month birthday on Friday the 13th. How friggen awesome is that? Um yeah, these "monthly b-day" pictures are becoming a royal pain in the ass now, so not sure how much longer they will continue. But without further adieu:

And of course, the outtakes:

B-Diddy says "uh oh, Kendy's getting away"

Kendylicious makes a break for it

And B-man is left all alone (again)

What's so great about crawling anyway?

Half way through a busy week – whew!

B & K had their 12 mo NICU assessment yesterday (even though they aren’t quite 12 mo corrected). As expected Kendyll continued to score within the range for her corrected & actual age. Bennett has continued to drop lower, but we were prepared for that (and of course he is scheduled to start some fun therapy later this month). I’m a little torn on his progress . . . even Kathy – the therapist who has worked with us since they were in the NICU – made note of B-man’s laid back attitude. How can you teach / motivate a kid who doesn’t have any desire to use his legs and start to crawl? He is perfectly content to just sit and play away with whatever toys are around him. I have to hope that the light bulb will just click with him sooner than later (as it did when we thought he would never learn to eat from a bottle and would spend the rest of his life as a resident of the NICU). Plus I’m a little skeptical of the assessment overall – it is really hard to judge a child’s behavior and what they are up to when you only spend an hour observing them and they are in a foreign environment (oh and during naptime because it is impossible to get into this place at a decent time). But I digress . . .

In other news Kendy is getting closer & closer to walking. Miss Thing is super fast at crawling, super strong at pulling up on anything, is trying to get to a standing position by holding on to nothing (it is really funny to see her stick her butt up in the air, get her legs straight below her and then not be able to figure out how to get her hands up) and she is barely holding on to things when she is standing (i.e. only holding on with one hand or a few fingers). She is also cruising all over the place. She has also become the champion sippy cup drinker. Any kind – handles / no handles, etc. She is totally fine with the milk or juice and at any temp. Woo-hoo!

Bennett has been an eating champ lately. For the past three nights he’s finished his bedtime milk (usually 6oz) and then proceeded to drink up his sister’s left-overs. He also downed 1 ½ apple cinnamon waffles for dinner last night (his FAVORITE meal) and had pudding and puffs on top of that. Over the weekend we ate Korean BBQ (as Tim put it his parents used to think that they were exposing him to “exotic” meals by taking him to Taco Bell – quite a difference, huh?). Both B&K enjoyed some rice, bulgogi and a variety of other items that come on the side. On Sunday at the Triple A b-day party they had penne mac & cheese and some chicken marsala. “mmmmmm” as Bennett would say.

I took a few pics of the living room / play room conversion and I’ll try get those up tomorrow.

Sunny & Warm

The weather was glorious this weekend. The temperature reached a record 77 here yesterday. Wonderful! Quite a departure from this time last year (evident here). We did a little running around and shopping on Saturday and then we took the kiddos out for a stroll in their new choo-choo wagon.

And in this one Bennett is giving a shout out to all the lovely ladies - "how you doin'?".

Today we went to the birthday party for Anna, Ava & Alexis. Of course I didn't bring my camera, but I'm sure Marie will put out a ton of pics on her blog soon. :) The girls looked adorable, the food was awesome and the cakes were amazing!!! She made the smash cakes herself and I just can't get over how awesome they turned out. B&K were so excited about that party that they didn't really nap in the morning, but thankfully we managed to get through the whole fun event without any major meltdowns. Here is one (not so great) pic I snapped of them before we headed out:

We have a super busy week coming up. I have a crazy-ton of stuff going on at work this week and Tim is leaving for St. Louis early tomorrow morning and won't be back until late Friday night. B & K go for their 12 mo NICU follow-up on Tuesday, so I'll be sure to post an update on that.

They're baaaack!

I drove up to meet my mom & brother half way last night to do the B&K exchange. They had a wonderful time with the Z family as well as Nana & Papa W. Now I'm still trying to catch up and get all of their crap put away.

A few new pictures of B&K playing -

A HUGE thank you to Will & Sam for lending us their borrowed jumperoo. I've read that these contraptions will help strengthen the little man's legs and so far he LOVES playing in this thing (K does too!).

One of the toys I picked up at the twins sale last weekend.

B & K's new favorite past time . . . banging on the glass doors to the playroom (former family room . . . I promise pictures of the new playland soon).

Other random playing

Lastly, we'd like to send a huge hug out to Aunt Sandy in California. She has bravely been battling breast cancer for a long time and hasn't been feeling so great lately. You are in our thoughts and prayers Aunt Sandy (and Farmer Lou!!). We love you guys!

Happy Birthday, Triple A Girls!!!

We'd like to wish a very Happy Happy Happy Birthday to our favorite triplets, Anna, Ava & Alexis! Today is their big first birthday!! We are so thankful to have met the Thornhill girls (I am especially as I've mentioned here SEVERAL times that I don't think I would have survived the many many long weeks of bedrest had it not been for me "meeting" their mommy, Marie, during that time. She was also stuck on bedrest and we tried very hard to keep each other sane).

We are looking forward to celebrating their big birthday with them this weekend!! You can wish them a happy birthday, too, by visiting here.

WHEW!!!!

Wow, it has been a crazy nuts past few days!!

First of all, we'd like to send a HUGE congratulations to Lauren & Mark! They were married in a lovely evening ceremony yesterday. Lauren looked beautiful, Mark was a stud and we had a fabulous time. My favorite moments were the dances . . . their first dance was to "Somewhere over the rainbow", the father daughter dance was to "Edelweiss" and the mother son dance was to "The Rainbow Connection". Totally classic!!

As a result of Lauren's impending honeymoon (we're so jealous . . . she is sunning it up on vacation right now), B & K are spending a few days with Nana & Papa and then a few days with Grandma & Grandpa. Which means that gives mommy & daddy 5 (yes FIVE!!) nights to live like they did pre-diaper baby days.

Friday night Tim rode up to meet his parents to do the kid swap. I, meanwhile was setting up and then shopping at my twins club semi-annual sale. Yep, that's right peeps -- it was TWIN SALE time again! Woo-hoo!! And man oh man -- it was HUGE! It was held at the same location again (three huge gymnasiums full of everything baby & kid related). Unlike last time I don't feel like I got any major scores, but I did purchase a lot of clothes for B&K for the spring & summer (all baby gap, old navy, gymboree & children's place -- I guess that is a score!). I only spent $95 and I had over $500 to sell, so I guess that is the exciting part this year. :)

Saturday I worked the twins sale. And let me tell you -- it was NUTS! We had over 900 people through the door in the first hour (which was the "power hour" in which people had to pay $2 to get in an hour early & the money is donated to charity). The lines didn't stop . . . it was a constant flow of people for almost 4 hours. Some people waited in line outside in the freezing cold (read: 20 degree) weather for almost an hour in a line that snaked around the building. Then once inside they waited for almost 40 minutes to get through the checkout line. The sale brought in over $70,000 for our club members and charity (the club keeps 10 - 30 % of the profits which goes back into the sale/club/charity).

While I was in sale land Tim & our friend Nick were working on my "living room conversion/family room to play room" project. They were able to get our TV hung over the fireplace (without any major injuries, disasters or f-bombs -- score!). So now we're in the process of getting everything in place so the conversion is all together before B&K come back home. I will try to post pictures of the finished project later this week.

So yeah -- WHEW was the best way to sum up this weekend.