I'm in the process of getting organized. What does this mean, you might ask? Well, after the picture debacle of 2009 (where I *thought* I moved all of our pictures -- vacations, honeymoon, fun times, pregnancy & baby pictures -- over to an external hard drive when our old laptop crashed only to discover it just saved the "shortcut" and not all of the actual pictures in the files. Yeah, fun, fun times), I'm trying to be better about moving over pictures onto the hard drive - the right way - so this doesn't happen again. I also recently read a blog post shared by a fellow MoM in my online group about backing-up your blog into MS Word. So I'm in the process of doing that too and I'm considering making it into a book or two about B&K (you know, since I haven't been that great about keeping up with their real baby books. Oops!). It has actually been fun to look back through my old blog posts and pictures. Boy, these kids were pretty tiny not so long ago. :)So in the meantime I thought I'd share a couple of pics from the last week. Honestly, after staring at the awesome pics Britt took about a million times, anything that I snap with our nice (but now I feel sub par) camera is a joke! :) But nonetheless. . . Kendyll with a pony tail!! You may have noticed that she was wearing a brown bow in her hair for most of the pics from last weekend. Normally K will rip out anything on her head in .10 seconds. But I think because she was distracted by all of the beauty at FPC she kept that in for a long time. This week Ashley has put a pony tail in her hair and K has actually kept it in!! I couldn't get a great picture of her last night, but this will have to do:
And here are a couple of our future executives . . . playing with both of my blackberry phones (yes, I carry two . . . one for work & home). 
I mentioned last weekend we were getting B&K's 2 yr pics taken. We went to the Franklin Park Conservatory (and amazing location neither of us had ever been to!) and had our photos taken by a very talented photographer, Britt Lakin. You can check out some of the amazing pics of B&K on her blog here: http://barefootbritt.blogspot.com/2010/01/bennett-kendyll.htmlI know, I know . . . I still owe a real B&K update. I'm counting Britt's photos as a picture update, so I'll work on the other part this week. I swear!
I hate it when people refer to their children in months. I think after you get to a certain point (i.e. 18 months) it just gets a little old. I was 416 months old yesterday. Blech! I've been saying "almost 2" for about 4 months now when asked B&K's age. It will be a nice milestone.In any event, today is B&K's 23 mo birthday! I promise to try to snap a pic later today. But I gotta warn you -- they have been a bit like evil monsters lately. That probably seems a bit harsh, but true. Kendyll is in FULL ON DIVA MODE lately. Prime example . . . last night I put my purse on the counter. She wanted it so she could destroy the entire contents of it and prance around the house with it (and it is a tiny wristet purse, mind you). I said no. Immediately she throws herself on the floor and begins to get red faced and screams bloody murder. A perfectly content Bennett stops what he is doing and starts to scream and cry too. I can't only assume it is out of sympathy and solidarity for/with K (and not for attention himself. Of course not, no). Then Tabasco starts to howl, too. I walk away and she throws herself on my leg screaming "datttt, dattttt, datttt" (translation: that! that! that!) and pointing at my purse on the counter. I remove her from my leg and she again falls on the floor, working her next oscar nomination. This scenario plays out over & over & over & over & over & over & over & over again in our house these days. I think part of the problem is wretched 2 year molars. Bennett currently has his bottom 2 in already and I think he's working on his top 2 now. Kendyll is just starting the process and appears to not be handling it as well. Ugh. Other than that, everyone is doing well. We're getting our pictures taken this weekend, so we're hoping B&K behave and cooperate and all the jazz. I'll attempt to do an update on what everyone is saying / doing / pictures and stuff soon. Really. I promise. :)
That's a really good movie, eh? Mmmm, Gerard Butler as King Leonidas. Yeah, I think I'm going to need to see that movie again soon.What does that have to do with B&K and my blog? Well, nothing really. Except this is my 300th post! WOW! Never thought I would keep this up that long. Makes me think I should do one of these fun give-aways that I see other blogs doing all the time. Except I don't have anything cool to give away at the moment (yes, I'm a loser who didn't realize I was coming up on 300 until I logged on to post a funny picture). Sorry! But here is the funny picture I mentioned. I guess Bennett isn't a morning person . . . I snapped this late last week as he & Kendyll were eating breakfast. 
Yes, I know it is the sixth day of the new year. Sorry!! I hope you all had a fabulous New Year celebration. We had a super fun time with our friends and so far, so good on 2010. A belated happy birthday to my dad, Grandpa Mike, too! :)Let's see . . . big news around here is that Bennett graduated from PT this week!! Honestly he really was supposed to graduate last week, but I needed to get a script for his shoe inserts so we went one more time this week. I think he's really going to miss playing with Miss Jen every week, but we'll get to see her again at a follow-up visit in April. B & K continue to surprise us with new words every day. Bennett has taken after Kendyll and now uses the word "up" for everything . . .it means down, open and help. Kendyll's favorite word is "thank you" . . . especially when she takes something from someone. At least she is polite and says "thank you" afterward.They continue on their big kid trend. Kendyll will now throw a full-on diva tantrum if we try to put her in her booster seat with the tray on. She'd much rather sit at the bar or in their little table to eat. So tonight we attempted family dinner at the bar counter (you know, instead of in front of the TV watching "Family Guy", as had been our tradition in the past). Tomorrow night we may try eating at the dining room table. We find there is lots less drama and the kids are open to eating just about anything if we sit down together (instead of them in their chairs and us on the couch with TV trays. . . oh the good old days!). Tonight they ended up eating half of my taco after taking in their own food. Here are some cute videos from dinner tonight -- they were both into sharing their food {and they aren't normally in their PJs for dinner . . . they took a VERY short nap for A today, so in anticipation of a melt-down sort of evening tonight she armed them in their PJs for us before we got home in case we needed to put them right to bed. I'm happy to report they were actually pretty good. Figures}.
OK blogger sucks & I can't get the 2nd video to load. But I'll try again some other time.
I am exhausted. I'm actually secretly looking forward (just a bit) to going back to work tomorrow. I'm only in the office half days this week (I'm working from home in the afternoons), so that may have something to do with it.We had a very lovely Christmas holiday. My parents and brother came into town and we celebrated Christmas Eve at Tim's parents house. We went to Xmas eve mass (and I had the pleasure of wrangling Kendyll, who entertained herself by belching, blowing raspberries and screaming "MORE!!!!" every time a song ended during mass. Fun times). We then enjoyed several rounds of egg nog and crunch berry martinis (YUM!) and a delicious Italian meal prepared by my parents (at Tim's parent's house). Christmas morning we opened presents at our house and were all spoiled so much. Then yesterday I took a road trip with B&K up to my parents house to see some of my mom's family and spend the night with them. B&K received a cool kitchen from Santa, a PBK table & chairs from Nana & Papa, a wicked cool tunnel set from Uncle Mark and a really, really cool slinky dog, doodle board and snow gear from Grandma & Grandpa. Plus a shit-ton of other stuff from everyone. They are now set. Seriously. I shutter to think what their birthday might bring in about 6 weeks. :) In a lot of ways B&K seem like such big kids all of a sudden. They love to sit at their new table and eat their snack (or breakfast, lunch & dinner) from a plate and with real forks. They were perfect angels on the trip up to my parents house and today on the way back home (although I must say I'm a little sick of hearing the Elmo DVD over & over & over again). We did a little shopping today and went to dinner with Nana out and B&K sat in real booster seats and drank their milk out of real cups with straws. Who are these kids?Here is a montage of pics from the holiday. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday, too.
