Summer Vacation - Week #2

The concert - NKOTBSB

Jordin Sparks - blurry picture, but she was great!

Eating chicken spaghetti - their favorite

Brooklyn wanted to wear the tiger bib as an accessory

She wanted to put her ravioli on her head, and thought it was totally normal

Brother thought she was crazy

Tayden was running around in his diaper swinging bibs

Our second week of summer vacation was pretty eventful!  Tayden is back to 100%!  On Monday we went to Grapevine Mills Mall.  This was the twins' first time to go to a mall and they did great.  They were content to stay in their stroller and take in all of the sights for many hours.  They quickly figured out how to grab shoe boxes and clothes that were on low racks and shelves.  We attempted to eat at the Rainforest Cafe, but Brooklyn was frightened by the dark and the growling, so we opted for Chili's.  Tuesday, SueSue and I took the babies to Wal-mart for the first time to look for beach gear for our upcoming vacation.  On Friday my Aunt Sara, Uncle Dean, Cousin Kevin and his wife Megan came to visit from Houston.  They hadn't seen the babies since they started walking - so they were in for quite a surprise.  The whole family went to dinner on Friday night and then we went back to SueSue's for dessert.  The three cousins (Payton, Brooklyn, and Tayden) danced and danced as our entertainment.  My niece Mallory was the baby wrangler - keeping everyone out of cabinets and the fireplace.  I am hoping that my Aunt Sara got some good pictures, because I didn't have my camera!

Last Sunday, I took my sister Jamie to the New Kids on the Block and the Backstreet Boys concert for her 30th birthday.  These groups represented our two generations, as they were popular in 1989 and 1999.  We saw very few men and numerous women wearing puff painted t-shirts declaring their love for their favorite heart throb.  NKOTB are all in their 40's now but they still make the ladies swoon with their fancy footwork.  We loved singing along to all of our favorite songs and having a girls' night out.

We have big plans tonight for the 4th of July - so I will post pictures later.  We hope everyone has a great, safe evening! 

Summer Vacation - Week #1

 Sleeping Sick little boy

Channeling Madonna

Pretty girl

Brooklyn and Cousin Payton

Playing so peacefully back-to-back

I have pledged to blog each week that I am off to detail all of the exciting things we are doing. I was so excited about my first week off, but it turned out to be pretty slow and scary. Early in the week Tayden started running a low grade fever. He showed no signs of illness so we started treating him with Tylenol and Ibuprofen. On Wednesday evening he was not sleeping well at all, and during the night his fever spiked to 104. He was really fussy, shaky, and wouldn't let us put him down. This was heartbreaking for us!!!! It is so hard to see your child in such pain and not be able to give them instant relief. Tim and I were extremely worried and were trying all different things to comfort him and bring his fever down. We gave him a bath and continued alternating the medicines. He threw up and we were preparing ourselves for an ER visit, but his fever dropped to 102 and he was able to sleep for a few hours. Tim took him to the doctor early the next morning. His fever had dropped to 99 and he was acting much more like himself. After drawing blood and inserting a catheter to get a urine sample (this required them to scoot the table out to the middle of the floor and three nurses to hold him down), they determined that he had a non-contagious viral infection. She said that it would take 3-5 days to run its course and that we should continue the medicines we were already giving him. For the rest of the day he played as usual, but then that night his fever spiked to 103. It was a very rough night with very little sleep and a lot of crying. The next day (Friday) he slept almost all day long! This seemed to be just what he needed and from then on we have been on the up and up. His appetite has returned and there has been no more fever! Brooklyn didn't miss a beat during brother's illness and kept us on our toes - as usual.


On Friday evening my sister Jamie came over for a playdate. The cousins had a great time playing together. Tayden was still pretty tired, but Payton and Brooklyn had a great time chasing each other around the living room. Brooklyn would laugh hysterically when Payton would come after her. We turned on music and laughed so hard at their dance moves. Payton would jump up and down for minutes at a time, and at one point he was feeling the music so much that he started knocking on the floor. It was greatness!!!

Brooklyn continues to be independent and is always exploring her surroundings. She loves putting things on her head and on her arm like a purse. She then prisses around the living room to model for us. She still loves to get in the toy box and play with the plastic Elmo Easter eggs - go figure! She has also discovered a passion for doors and likes to close them. She is definitely our dramatic child. If she falls down she will cry super loud until we look at her and acknowledge that she fell down, then she is magically better and continues to play. She loves to play like she is talking on the phone and will put any item to her ear and say, "Yeah, Yeah, bye." HILARIOUS!!! We got her some new shoes this week and as we watched her walk around the house, it hit us how grown up she is. Our precious little baby is becoming a precious little girl.

Tayden is still my little cuddler. He is almost always smiling and/or laughing. He has a way of finding any open door or safety gate in the house and tries to escape the first chance he gets. He also loves the plastic Easter eggs as well as climbing up the back of the slide. He doesn't ever want to slide, just climb up and stay at the top, while shaking the whole thing back and forth. His favorite toy is the shape sorter and he will patiently put each shape in the right hole (we point out the right one for him). He is for sure our charmer and still loves to flirt with the ladies. We finally had his annual ECI evaluation today. We had to cancel last week due to his fever. The coordinator told us that he has made great gains and is definitely closing the developmental gaps of a preemie. He is still behind 1-2 months in a few areas, but she gave us great suggestions on how to help him. His lowest area was verbal expression, which baffled us because he is always jibber jabbering and knows around 8-10 words. He did qualify to continue receiving occupational therapy once a month and will also be seeing a speech therapist. We are going to see if this therapist could work with Brooklyn while she is here. The coordinator told us that in the next year he will make huge strides and that any gaps will almost certainly be closed. It is hard to hear that your child is behind the "norm," but we have to continuously remind ourselves of where we started. We are committed to working with him to help him get caught up. We are so blessed to have a precious, healthy son and we are so proud of every milestone he has reached.

My grand to do list has remained on the kitchen table, completely untouched. Rather than organize closets I decided to read Water for Elephants. It was a really great book and I am now looking forward to seeing the movie. I must now get in the "to do" mode. Tune in next week for more of our summer fun!

16 Months Old - Schools Out for Summer

The trap

Nice hat (shape sorter) - the window has some paint on it, not dirt - I promise.

I have really fallen behind on my posting, but the end of the school year has been very busy.  I moved from an indoor classroom to an outdoor portable and then had an eight day institute that ended today!!!  I have 49 days off to be a full time wife and mom.  No alarm going off at 5:15 - fantastic!!!!  I plan to catch up on so many of the projects I have neglected the past few months like updating the baby books and photo albums, as well as reading many great books.

My girls night at the lake went great.  I forgot my camera, so I took a few pictures on my phone, but haven't uploaded them to the computer yet.  I need to do the same with some pictures from the trip to the park.

The twins are doing wonderful.  Both have been teething, so they are fussy every now and then, but otherwise they are super happy.  They are walking and talking more and more each day.  They have started really interacting with each other and it is hilarious to watch.  They love to climb in the toy tote together and make each other laugh quite often.  We did solve the problem with the tote that was blocking the entrance to the kitchen.  We tied one of our gates to the other gate!  It definitely keeps the twins confined to the living room.  My dear friend and co-worker gave us a Little Tyke slide that her children outgrew.  The babies have had more fun crawling up, sliding down, and sending random objects down the slide.  Tayden loves it so much that he screams with excitement.

We have transitioned down from 4 bottles a day to 2  bottles and 2 sippy cups.  My goal this month is to make the full switch to sippies.  We finally found some that they really like, so that will definitely help.  They are eating more and more and are up to about three meals and a snack.  They love toast, ravioli, pancakes, oatmeal, green beans, oranges, yogurt, pudding, and meat sticks. 

Tayden has his yearly evaluation with ECI this week.  We are praying that it goes well and that he will have made great progress.  I will post later this week about how the appointment goes.

I want to wish Tim a very Happy Father's Day!!!  He is such a wonderful father and husband.  I never had any doubts that he would be a good dad, but he has surpased every expectation and is a GREAT dad every day!  I felt so much comfort this past year knowing that he was home with the twins.  Our situation was a great blessing!!!  Tim, thank you for all that you do for our family!  We love you so much!

I hope that everyone has a great weekend!