short update..

So, yeah, like my last post says, I'm a total slacker. At least I have an excuse! I'm a mommy, and I'm pregnant. That and we didnt have internet for a while. Dont really know why, though.

So, I am 25wks pregnant now. I am also HUGE! I'm measuring about 8 weeks ahead. Babies are doing great! Moving around like there is no tomorrow, and making their presence known. And, we found out (over a month ago...*cringe* sorry!!) that we're having GIRLS! I'm super excited! We are naming them Baby A: Cynthia Paige and Baby B: Gabriella Catherine. I want to call them Thia and Ella, but knowing my family the way I do, they will have about 10 other nicknames, too. At least my family loves them already! As soon as I have 10 more minutes to rub together, I will post some ultrasound pictures. Or I'll just wait til my 28 week appointment, and put up new ones. Or I'll do both.

Gavin is doing really well with his therapies. He's back to sleeping in his bed, and even has gone to bed on his own for the last few weeks. Yay! He's talking more, and interacting more, but I'm still seeing how far behind he is on some things. Like, today, at a website I visit, a mother posted a picture that her newly turned 2yo drew. It was a distinctive smiley face complete with ear. Gavin can tell me that he is drawing it, but it ends up looking exactly like whatever Lena tries to draw. It makes me sad, but I know that if we keep working on it, he will get it.

Lena is still fat. She still likes to eat. She's finally walking, so that's good. She is ALL girl. She likes to "help" me pick out clothes for her. She sits still so I can put her hair in pigtails. She even lets me paint her toenails! Then she points to them and tells me "Preeey!!". And, yes, they are pretty, even though they are VERY small. LOL. We got her a diaper bag for her babies a few days ago, and she likes to put her baby in it and walk around with it. She took it to Gavin's therapy appointment on Thursday, and was so happy to show it off. She likes to carry it and scream, loudly, "My BAAAABBBBBYYY!!!!". Again, she's too cute.

We are still waiting to move. We were supposed to have a house August 17th, but when Russell went to sign for the keys, they informed us that they had tried to get ahold of Russ the week before, and when they couldnt (after only one voicemail, and no phone calls to me) they gave our house to someone else. So, now, we have to wait until sometime in early Sept. In the meantime, I'm still sharing a room with Gavin. Which means, great, another routine change once we move. Not looking forward to that.

Otherwise, we are doing ok. Looking for a cheap van, waiting for a house and taking care of the babies. Both air and non-air breathing babies.

And this post turned out a little longer than I anticipated. Oh well!

Wow...been a while..

So apparently, I'm a total slacker when it comes to posting. Sorry. Not a whole lot going on here, just PREGNANT AGAIN! LOL...we're having more babies, and this time I mean babies. I'm pregnant with twins! Oh man, how am I going to deal with twins, and 2 toddlers??? I'll figure it out. I'm due 12/2, so send lots of good vibes my way!

On another note, Lena finally learned to crawl, and now she's cruising the furniture, and trying to stand by herself. I am a very bad blogger, since I missed doing a post about her birthday. She's ONE now! Oh man...my baby's growing up! We had a party for her the day before her actual birthday, that was fun. We had it at my friend Katies house (since it's soo much bigger than mine). Lena loved her cake, got it all over her face. She got lots of clothes for her birthday, including a beautiful homemade dress from her Mawmo. Lena now weighs in at 22lbs, and her thighs are still as chunky as ever! I will post pictures soon, I promise.

Gavin is making leaps and bounds going to speech therapy. He goes to speech and occupation therapies once a week. Behavorial-wise, he's not doing much different, except he is now sharing better, but only part of the time. Speech-wise, we can actually understand a bunch more of what he's saying. It's great. There are times when he still gets frustrated because we dont understand what he is trying to tell us, but we're learning with him. My mom is going to send us some sign language dvds so hopefully that'll help. He's also starting to hide when his ears hurt, since he hates going to the dr soo much! I took him in for pink eye, and unexplained fever, and it turns out his fever was because he had flaming red ear drums. Didnt show us at all that they were even bothering him. He's way too smart!

We are finally going to move! We have been living in a 2 bedroom house for all of our married life, and we are finally going to be in a house that will fit our family! With all the problems Gavin has, he cant share a room with his sister, so we got put on the waiting list for a 3 bedroom. But, then we found out about the twins, so they put us on the list for a 4 bedroom! It's awesome! Dont know when we're moving, hopefully it's soon, so we have time to get it together before I probably end up on bedrest. That, and I want my baby sisters to come stay with us for a bit, but they cant come til we have a better house, since at this point we dont have anywhere to put them. Right now, Gavin and Russell sleep in the living room (gavin is afraid of something in his room, and wont sleep there), Lena sleeps in the "master bedroom" and I'm sleeping on the guest bed in Gavin's room. It's a rough situation.

Anyway, I'll try to post some pictures soon...I'm soo tired all the time that I feel like doing exactly NOTHING every day. It doesnt work that way, but I wish it did!

The many faces of Lena

Ok, I know..I'm a HUGE slacker. Forgive me, I've been dealing with a lot. Lena's teething, Gavin's bleeding from his ear, and I'm not sleeping. It's all loads of fun.

Ok, so about the title. I had to take pictures of Lena, to try to get a head shot. A woman I know needed a model for a porject she's doing, and when the clients showed her what they were looking for, she thought of Lena. So, fresh from a nap, I took some pictures. In a span of about 5 minutes, she gave me a variety of faces. All cute, of course. And, the great news from that, is my friends clients REALLY loved her, so she is now their logo! Yay for my beautiful baby!!! Enjoy!






I'm not looking!

MMMM tasty fingers!

WHAAAAAAAAAAAA?

Big Smiles!

pictures I promised!

So I promised pictures. Oh, and Lena had an ear check yesterday and she's up 1 lb. She now weighs 16lb 3oz. 1 pound is a lot for a baby. So, she's getting fatter!

Gavin likes to wear Lena's headbands. Daddy's not the fan Gavin is, but I remind daddy not to worry since the headbands almost never match his outfit.

Dancing with Auntie Molly. He's very good at it.

Posing, while dancing. I love that he sees the camera and hams it up.

Giving Lena a ride. It was truly funny.

Lena loved having her big brother push her, and he did such a great job of making faces, just like mommy does.

One of the shirts from Miss Loretta (does anyone know why we call her "Miss" when she was married?). He was not too happy with me for taking a picture and not letting him do it.

Lena in one of the outfits Miss Loretta got for her. Let it be known, that she is sitting by herself in all of the following pictures. Daddy's just there for mommy's sake.

I love the surprised face.

Such a happy girl. She has teeth, you just cant see them.

One picture of her sitting by herself...that you can tell she is. She's getting so big!

There ya go folks! Enjoy!

quick update

Sorry...it's been a while. No pictures today, though. We (meaning me, gavin and lena) went to DC for Kevins wedding at the end of July. It was a lot of fun, even though Gavin learned how to climb out of the pack and play. That meant putting him back in every night when I went to bed. Lena was also teething, so that was no fun. After DC, my mom, dad, and sisters came down to Savannah and stayed with us for a bit. Dad left after a day (back to work and all that) and the rest stayed for a few days before moving on with their trip. After they left, Lena went to her 4 month appt, where we found out she's long, and heavy. She also had her first ear infection (double, of course).

So, here's Lena's stats. She's 5 months now. She's got 2 teeth (had them before her appt). She's 26 inches long, and 15 lbs 5 oz in weight. She rolls only if she wants to, loves to rock when she's sitting on my lap (not really rocking, more like throwing herself around). She sleeps through the night when it's convienent for her, or she's not teething. She loves nursing, hates cereal. She's trying to sit on her own, and can for about 2 minutes until she starts to sway. She does pretty well at keeping herself up though. She loves to be held. I put her down, and no kidding she screams until I pick her up..then she smiles and laughs like it was all a joke on me. When she does let me put her down and stay down, she moves in circles and backwards, then gets mad because whatever she's looking at and wants gets further away. I, of course, laugh and tell her that if she just went forward, then she could get the toy. She doesnt listen.

On to Gavin. He'll be 2 in about 2 1/2 weeks. I'm not sure how tall he is, but I know he's almost 26 pounds. He's regressing in his speech, so we've been seeing an ENT for that. His tubes are fine, but they're doing a hearing test the day before his birthday. We'll see how that goes. We might have to do speech therapy with him (though that wouldnt suprise me, since both his parents had to do that too). He is way too smart for his own good. He "brushes" his teeth any time anyone says anything about going into the bathroom. "I tee? I tee?" is his usual statement. He sits in the big boy chair at the big person table, and thinks he's the first. He knows where to go when we go for a walk, he knows his friend's house. He knows what he wants, and he's not afraid to try and tell us what it is. Of course, when we dont understand, he's really not afraid of trying to get it himself.

Other than that, there's not a whole lot else that's new. I have promised my mom some pictures of the kids (they got clothes from Miss Loretta, and Gavin looks handsome with his new haircut). Those will have to wait til Gavin gets up from his nap.

pictures for Molly to steal

Molly told me to put up pictures that she could steal, so here they are. They are from the weekend of the fourth, and from a little earlier than that.

All smiles for mommy and the camera!

Eating a fruit twist (I thought of you, Cath, when he was eating that).

Pretty Colleen (Ca-een) holding a pretty Lena!

Yumm...fruit snacks!

TRACE ADKINS! HECK YA!

We really weren't as close as it looks like we were...I just have a really good camera.

All partied out...or as Russ said, "This is what happens when you drink too much!"

A sleepy Lena, with a happy daddy.

Lena and Gavin's first bath together. Gavin just LOVES it.

More bath time. I believe he was showing her his awesome bath crayon.

Explaining something to her. Just like big brothers are supposed to.

Gavin watching Lena talk to a turtle (see next picture). Again, I think he was trying to explain something to her about it.

Lena had a very in-depth conversation with the turtle that day. She was telling him all about how mommy was mean and made her be on the floor, and that her big brother is the bestest big brother ever..and some other things that I didn't catch.

movies

I love old movies. I've been watching them a lot lately. On AMC, TCM, anywhere I can find them. I guess it's a good thing that while I was in New York for Robs wedding, mom had me go through all her VHS's (since we have a combo dvd/vhs player). There were a ton of old movies that she had taped off tv, and some she bought. I've watched (so far): Cheaper by the Dozen, Bells on Their Toes, Showboat, and Life With Father. Interesting things about these movies. I've been watching them since I was little, but it's amazing what you notice when you haven't watched them for a while. For instance, in Cheaper by the Dozen (from here on out it will be CD) they got the birth order right. Janie was the 11th child, Robert the baby. However in Bells on Their Toes (BTT), they are showing Janie's graduation from college. Mrs. Gilbreth is reminiscing about life after Mr. Gilbreth died (that happened at the end of CD). She mentions that she cant believe her baby is graduating. The whole rest of the movie Janie's the baby, and Robert is older than her. Also, during BTT In the scenes where they show all the kids, there are only 11 kids. 6 boys, 5 girls. Very odd. I know they mention in CD that they had 4 girls first and then a boy. In BTT I don't know what the order is, only that 11 is a boy and 12 is a girl.

Next order of business. In Life with Father (LF) the second son (John) is the same boy that Earnestine (BTT) got engaged to after the summer at Nantucket. He was in LF first, so he looks much younger and much smaller (he definitely bulked up before BTT). Also, I didn't know Elizabeth Taylor was in LF...not until I saw it in the credits. However, while watching it, I hit myself over the head since I saw her and realized that I was being stupid. I recognize her. She was very young (the movie was made in 1947). Also, how weird is it that the father goes to an employment agency to find a new maid. He walks into a room to find it filled with women. I think that's odd, having all those women sit around waiting for employment. All together. Clarence SR plays a song on the piano that the older kids sing on the beach in Nantucket during BTT.

Now, about Showboat (SB). While watching SB, I realized the amount of influence that slave music played in that movie. There was a lot of gospel type music and lots of soulful music. Very beautiful. Also, while watching it, I wondered...was it worse (in the 1890's) to be half black, or a bastard? Julie (the leading lady on the ship during the first part of the movie) was the daughter of a black woman and a white man. So, that being said, she was half black. But, chances are she was also a bastard, since the races very rarely married one another. There lies my problem...which was worse? I guess being a half black bastard was probably the worst, but out of the two which was? (I would like to state for the record, that I personally don't think either is wrong, but there was a stigma that followed such persons in that time period).

Now on to Gavin. The DVD player is acting up. So, we've been watching the kid tapes that I got from mom. He LOVES Disney movies. So far we've watched Old Yeller, Hercules, 101 Dalmatians (the live version), and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. He loves "helping" me pick out a movie. I'll ask him if he wants to watch a movie, and he'll run over to the bookcase where all the dvd's are and point and talk..almost like he's trying to figure out which one to watch. When I go to the closet where the tapes are, he follows me and points til I get the one he wants to watch. Then he takes it and runs to the entertainment center. When it starts, he gets his blanket, wraps up in it, and puts his head on the arm of the couch. He's soo cute. He also dances to the music.

Anyway, there will be another post (hopefully tomorrow) with pictures of the Trace Adkins concert we went to on the 3rd, Gavin and Lena's first bath together, and Lena talking to a turtle.