kaylee can crawl!

kaylee likes to be sneaky. She learned how to roll months ago, and then she decided rolling was uncool. lately however, she will roll, but she doesn't like to be seen rolling. I am semi-serious about this. every night for the last 2+ weeks, she has rolled over to sleep on her tummy. she'll roll over occasionally during the day too, but I have never seen it. never. she's on her back, I walk out of the room to fill a bottle, and I walk back and she's on her tummy.

it's been somewhat similar with crawling. we were encouraging her and trying to help her learn to crawl, but no success. then, maybe 3 weeks ago, when ethan was sick, I was sitting in the glider holding a sad, upset, crying Ethan and blake was helping by suctioning his nose or something, and suddenly Kaylee, who had been in the middle of the room, was crawling over to us! Blake was like, "hurray Kaylee! did you just see that, she was crawling!" But after that it was back to very short spurts - often we would see both arms move and then one leg move, but not the other before she flattened to her tummy. or both legs move, but no arms. she was trying, but she did not care to try too long before complaining. BUT, if we were out of the room, and there was nobody to complain to (or if I was spying on her and she couldn't see me) then it was slow progress, but she was moving!

last week my boss Renee made me some delicious banana cupcakes for my bday. one morning kaylee woke up before ethan and I gave her a bit. she was a big fan. so the next morning, I gave her another taste and then put a piece on the floor and she begrudgingly crawled to it! (let it be known that I just spell checked begrudgingly and I spelled it correctly pre-spellcheck. yes, I'm proud of that.) I'm also proud of kaylee! that was the first time I was able to get her to crawl for something - otherwise it was "yes mom, I want that, and I will lean toward it, rock back and forth in crawling position, but then I will just scream at you until you bring it to me." (and no, we don't always bring it to her).

this week, however, I think it's finally fair to say that Kaylee can crawl, and she's no longer embarrassed to do so :). this morning she even crawled from their room where they were hanging with blake, toward our room where I was pumping. she got distracted by a cord on the way and stopped to consider eating it before blake whisked her away, but I like to think she was originally headed for me. :) way to go little girl!

1st birthday party in 2 months!!!

I am going to try to write shorter posts more frequently - we'll see how it goes. :)

Today's excitement is that the kiddos' first birthday party is scheduled for 2 months from today! I ordered invitations this past weekend, and they should arrive in about 2 weeks and then I'll send them out! I know 2 months is a ways away, but I'm having fun and it makes for a relaxed planning pace. :)

The fact that the kiddos' bday party is 2 months away also means that Evan and Alyssa will be married in less than 2 months. how crazy is that?

Fun stuff coming up!

triathlon / uni-althlon?

Blake and I are doing a triathlon this morning. I'm really just posting this so you can all laugh. In two hours I will be swimming in a very cold lake. but then, here's the best part, when I get out of the lake, blake will do the rest - we're doing a relay!

pretty much the story behind this is that our friend Dave (aka Jackie's husband) signed up for the triathlon, and told Blake he should do it. So we hmmed and haa-ed and I told Blake I would watch the kiddos, he could do it. But then when I went to sign him up earlier this week (a little last minute, I know), they had a just do the 5k option. and I was like, oh, I could do that... but then we would need a babysitter and yada yada. but I felt like I shouldn't be a lazy bum... but we would have to be there at 6:00 am... but the babies have been waking up at 5 am anyways, so it's not that much earlier... so on thursday, I was at my parents' house, and I asked them. they said okay, so Thursday night I went to sign us up, discovered that signing us both up for the relay was cheaper than blake triathlon + me 5k, so I did that instead. and yesterday I thought, oh, well I could swim... so that's the plan! blake actually likes running so he'll do the 5k and I'll swim.

pretty funny huh? blake is dropping the kiddos off at my parents' now, and I'm pumping. and now I'm done, so gotta go put my tri-suit on now. I can't believe we're really doing this - I have no idea how a relay works, but I guess we'll find out!

my bday

yesterday was my bday. i don't even know where to start with how awesome it was. darren came home on saturday (in the wee hours of the morning). on sunday we went to the zoo with the kiddos and brianne and danielle - the babies really enjoyed the petting zoo goats.

on monday blake made me blueberry and banana waffles and bacon for breakfast. kaylee got me some see's chocolate, ethan got me flowers. we had monte cristoes at home for lunch and monday afternoon blake's parents came over and then we went out with my parents, darren, blake's parents, brianne and danielle, and the kiddos to claim jumper. dessert was not for the faint of heart - between the 11 of us (or 9, since the kiddos didn't have any), we got... one piece of mud pie, one piece of creamcheese cake, a brownie finale, and... yes that's right, a slice of the motherload cake. with a side of ice cream of course. wait, you're not familiar with claim jumper and their portion sizes? alright, here are two images (from the internet... not sure where my camera is at the moment).

that's the mud pie... too tall to fit in the picture...

(pic is from the internet, I don't actually know those people) and that's the motherload cake. it's 6 layers of chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate. yum. (but fear not, there is more chocolate to come in this story of my birthday...) we then wrapped up the evening with some game playing (dominion, ticket to ride w/ alvin & dexter, and then spot on! - spot on could have it's own post, but I won't go into it now...)

then bri and danielle spent the night and suddenly it was tuesday, my actual birthday! Blake and I woke up with the babies, handed them over to danielle for another hour while we went back to sleep (glorious), and then I headed off for an 8:00 am appt w/ the eye doctor to get my prescription checked (apparently my eyes got slightly better w/ pregnancy, although not enough better to warrant changing prescriptions). bri and danielle headed off to work, and my mom and darren came over to take the babies and blake headed off to work too. whew, this really was a marathon birthday as I'm exhausted just remembering it all.

so then I went to work, where my boss had made me banana cupcakes (delish!) and after a couple hours we headed off to one of my favorite restaurants (pogacha) for lunch w/ 6 of my coworkers. then danielle swung by the eye doc w/ me and chose some prescription sunglasses w/ me (dark purple with bling). because our lunch had run a little long I went back to work just to pick up my cupcakes and fill out my timesheet and then I raced home to pump, kiss the babies, and then brianne picked me up at 4:20 to head out to an evening of fun w/ the girls!

(see? marathon birthday here). we went to purple where we split some pizzas and salads because the girls knew we had more eating in store (this did not stop us from ordering a little creme brulee however). then they whisked me off to a secret location... which turned out to be a candy and cake shop in the back of a party store where we spent 4 hours making truffles. 36 truffles. EACH. I made 14 flavors. (the lady recommended 5-7 flavors so I started with 5 bailey's truffles, but then I got a little carried away...) let's see if I can remember all my flavors...

1. bailey's
2. raspberry
3. PB&J (half raspberry, half PB, my idea)
4. PB
5. guava
6. cheesecake
7. rasp cheesecake
8. cayenne (jackie made these for her hubby, and I just stole the filling for one for blake)
9. hazelnut
10. lemon gingerbread (danielle's creation)
11. pear
12. peppermint
13. almond (I may have over-almonded the almonds... a little scared to try these later)
14. butterscotch

ta da! I remembered them all :). all of them had dark chocolate ganache (is there another kind?), 28 had dark chocolate shells, 7 milk chocolate shells (just for variety), and then I covered them all in dark chocolate again (so you never know if you'll get a milk chocolate shell until you bite into it)! then we decorated them with sprinkles (snowflakes for peppermint, hearts for rasp, iridescent hearts for rasp cheesecake, etc), salt (on the pb&j, habanero salt on the cayenne), sugar crystals of various colors (pink and orange for guava), we drizzeled some in various designs, there were even rainbow flakes, gold flakes, gold stars...

in summary it was crazy awesome, as was my whole bday. thanks to all who celebrated with me, called, emailed, texted, facebooked, sent gifts... it was a great weekend, and I feel very well loved. thanks guys :)

a post in pictures, part 2

 a lazy saturday

 happy kaylee

 ethan really wanted to crawl off the bed, so blake was letting him look over the edge

ethan and I tried cosleeping for a nap. I can totally see why other people love it, it is super cuddly and sweet and precious. but, it's not for us. ethan kept on flailing his arms and eventually (ie 10? 15? minutes later) blake picked him up and transferred him to his crib. but I'm glad we got to snuggle for a bit.

 we went to great-grandma betty's retirement home for lunch one day and the kiddos had a great time at lunch.

 kaylee and great-grandma betty

first day of the redmond farmer's market! but did we buy anything at the farmer's market? no. did we buy some coldstones ice cream? why, yes, we did. I let ethan drink the remains and turns out he's a fan!

Ethan loves baths :)

oh my goodness, kaylee tipped over!

 I will put my hand in her face...

 and go over here...

 funny, she's still tipped over...

 having a little fun w/ ethan's abundance of hair...

and we shall close with this pic of ethan trying to escape his bath. I think my children have the cutest little butts. :)

a post in pictures pt 1

note: if you can't see all of a picture, you can click on the picture and it will open in a new window where you can see the whole thing.

these are the 9 month spreads in the photo album i'm making. they're still in draft form (ie where it says "weight" it's blank because I need to find the papers from the doctor to fill that in), but I thought this would be a good way to show you the month pics from now on.

It was an entertaining photoshoot because Ethan was so thrilled that he could crawl that you would put him down on his back and he would immediately roll over and try to crawl away (as you can see). so I included some "outtakes" to remember that little phase in his life by. but, as you can also see, both kids are pretty happy.

 kaylee making a silly face

 give me that camera mommy!!!

I have a new friend, Audria. I met her through the multiples group. Her kiddos, Ben and Claire, are 2 months older than Ethan & Kaylee and she lives just 4 minutes (driving) away. So that's been fun to have another day-time friend. ha. it's like she's my new coworker, since this is how I spend most of my days now. :)

more to come later...

9 months

Posted by B.P.

My how time flies!  The babies are 9 months old.  What have they been up to the last 3 months?  I'm glad you asked.

• Crawling.  Ethan was the first crawl, but now they both it!  We've got a gate by the stairs.  Both babies like to crawl towards wires, which has forced us to remove the lights from their room:-)  Now they crawl in the dark, but they don't electrocute themselves.  We think they are still electrocute.
• Eating.  They eat all sorts of foods now, and can even feed themselves, sortof.  The self-feeding inevitably results with most of the food on the floor, and Ethan choking himself on his fingers.  Kaylee seems to have better fine motor skills.
• Clapping!  Ethan has learned to clap.  He thinks it is a very fun way to pass the time.
• Biking.  The babies like to go for bike rides in their new bike trailer. 

• Cloning.  Both babies have successfully cloned themselves twice, as evidenced by this picture.

• Splashing.  The babies like to splash around in the bath, Kaylee especially splashes us a storm.  Dana says that Ethan does too.
• Standing.  Both babies can pull themselves up to a standing position; great for licking those hard-to-reach places.
• Sitting. Ethan and Kaylee can go from sitting to crawling and back to sitting again.  Kaylee's preferred method of going from crawling to sitting is to scream until someone picks her up (but she can do it on her own)
• Teeth.  Ethan has 6, Kaylee has 2, and boy can she bite!
• Communications.  Both kidos have learned the sign for "milk".  Ethan likes to make kissing noises, and Swahili tongue clicks.  With these new-found skills, the kids have given up crying (not).
• We found some miracle drugs that have cleared up Ethan's cheeks (mostly). 
• Dying eggs.  Ethan's favorite part is spilling the dye all over everything.

Happy 9 Months!