lovely day gone bad

With the high for the day topping 80 degrees, I thought what a great day to go to the mall and let Matty enjoy riding his favorite train. How was I to know it was going to end up as bad as it did? Neither the fact that the husband complained of body ache even before we left the house, nor the fact that Matty started the day whining at 5:30AM gave me a single clue.

For $2 a person, who wouldn't have fun riding in this?

Enjoying the ride with me in the blue car.

There was some sort of family happenning and we enjoyed a lot of Storm Troopers, Padawans, Imperial Guards, Darth Vader, and even Young Anakin. I don't know why Daddy (the Star Wars geek) didn't want his picture taken with Darth, though?

Daddy and the girls waiting for us to ride the train.

So far so good, right? Little did I know that Matty was planning on riding the train again, but this time with his Daddy. Daddy wanted to go home but went ahead and agreed. All the 4 train cars had people in it. If they wanted to go ahead and ride, they would have be in the cars with someone else. Matty refused. Apparently, he wanted to ride on the red one and that one was already full. So they stayed behind until the next ride (they should get first pick of which train they wanted to get in to since they were in the front of the line). By this time, I left them to enjoy the ride so that I could go browse in one of the stores.

When I saw the train pass me, I saw Matty and Daddy in the black and not the red and Matty was screaming and crying. Why wasn't he in the red one? Here's the story... When Daddy and Matty were about to get in the red car, the family behind them (family of 5) asked if they could get in the red one since it's the only car that was big enough to hold all of them. Well, well, well... wouldn't you know it, Daddy said yes. So they went and rode in the black one instead. It was a bad decision on Daddy's part, but to his defense he said he wasn't thinking straight because he was in pain.

From the moment they got off the train, the tantrum intensified. Daddy grabbed the stroller from me and pushed on ahead of us because he has finally reached his limit. So there I was trying to hold a 3 year old who was having a full body fit. It was hard enough to be carrying a 40 lb toddler, but a screaming, squirming, tired and sleepy toddler?

The planets definitely didn't align for this trip.

Jojo has just made me a liar!

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jojo crawl toward the baby wipes. Of course, being the sadist that I am, I took it away and moved it farther to see if she'd do it again. She crawled about 2 feet to get to it. Yay, Jojo!

But instead of an arm over arm, military-type crawl, she did an inch worm move. She planted both her elbows on the floor and brought her butt up bringing both her legs up closer to her. And when her legs were up, she pushed with them to move forward and she did it all over again.

My fear of having to chase after 2 babies going in 2 different directions is now not far from being realized. Yikes!

Twins Mobility Check

Katie is still crawling with her torso down. She experiments with lifting her butt off the floor and pushes forward, but she reverts back to the military-type crawl. But she is very very fast! I put her down on the livingroom floor, and turn around to grab a diaper and she's already 3 feet away! She pulls up when we reach for her and when I set her hands on something firm. But she doesn't do it on her own yet. She doesn't step forward on her own when we hold her up by her hands.

Jojo still moves in a circle, but hasn't yet started moving forward. We've coaxed her but she is just not motivated enough to want to do it. But she does scoot when she's sitting down. I don't quite know how she does it, but I could be sitting right in front of her and still don't know how she moves 2 feet from where I set her down. She tried to pull up using the exersaucer one day, but the thing is highly unstable so she never tried again. She pulls up to standing position when we reach for her and she takes steps when we hold on to her. If we hold her by her hands, she takes steps on her own. She gets her legs crossed sometimes though. I had her holding on to the side of the crib one day, and she managed to move sideways. She is experimenting on cruising, but she eventually falls down because she steps over her other leg.

I have pictures to post, but not on the computer I am using at the moment. And I'm too lazy to change computers.

Both Katie and Jojo have a cold and their noses are dripping like a faucet. Katie has taken to refusing the breast for this reason. I had to pump one night and just gave her breastmilk through a bottle.

Matty's skin is suffering form little itchy bumps, no doubt caused by pollen. Thankfully, he's been on allergy medication for a couple of weeks now, so at least he's not itching as bad and not sneezing like he usually does this time of year.

Jarred green beans with rice and meatsticks for lunch

'Nuff said, Jojo. 'Nuff said.

Little Miss Speedy Gonzales

Katie only started moving forward 3-4 days ago and all of a sudden, she's giving Speedy Gonzales a run for his money. This was taken yesterday. (It's a piece of a Thomas The Tank Engine railroad that motivated her.)

I'd like to thank my little angels for easing me into this before they both start crawling everywhere and drive me crazy.

If you have to dust, dust thoroughly

Here is little Matthew (19 months old at this time) helping me dust the house with the swiffer. And as you can see, the dogs needed dusting too, apparently.

Trip down memory lane

In August 2006, we went to Disney World and had an absolute blast with our then 18-month old little man. I told someone that we spent most of our time in the Animal Kingdom because our son loves animals. This person had disappointment in her voice, "awww, that's not fun!"

On the contrary, it was a ton of fun. Sure, we didn't get to ride on roller coasters. It was quite a surprise how much fun we had watching our son "ooooh" and "aaaah" at everything he saw and experienced.

We evolve. As a single woman, my idea of fun was a lot different than my idea of fun as a married woman. And now that I am a mom of 3 little children, my idea of fun has changed yet again. Does it mean that I have lost myself? Heck no. I am more of "me" now than I ever was before, and not so surprisingly, my husband has confessed the same thing to me.

So, here is our little Matty enjoying all the sea creatures, big and small. And if you listen closely, my husband and I, are just as excited.

Katie Crawls and Jojo Scoots

Katie has started to crawl. She is doing a military-type crawl. All I had to do was entice her with a few toys and off she crawls. I thought it may take her a few days to do it regularly, but I was wrong. The minute I put her down on the floor sitting up, she leans forward as close to the floor as she can and then stretches her legs and off she goes.

Jojo still goes around and around and only accassionally experiments with moving forward. It seems she prefer to do the butt-shuffling instead of crawling. I've seen her bounce around in time to a music, but apparently that's how she moves forward too.

I am in such big trouble! I put them both down on the floor yesterday in order to fix Matty something to eat, and when I checked on the girls 10 minutes later, they were far from where I orginally set them up.

Katie & Jojo's Baptism

Here are some photos from the girls' baptism. It was bright and early on a rainy Sunday morning. Even though I only got 5 hours of sleep the night before, I thought I handled things fairly well. And many thanks to my mother-in-law and father-in-law, things definitely went smoothly.

This is Jojo's water immersion. Surprisingly, the crying didn't start until she was on the water. (Do you see how Katie is watching the whole thing?)

Then it was Katie's turn to be immersed.
(The four people on the right side are the godparents.)

Finally, the girls are introduced to the community.

Notice that Jojo has socks on, and Katie doesn't. This is because I was the one who changed Jojo after her immersion, and Daddy changed Katie. :-)

This is after the mass. We make a lovely BIG family, don't we?

Behind us is the deacon who performed the baptism. He is the same person who baptized Matty as well.

Some brotherly-love and Papaw-love

Is that a hug or a head-lock?

Katie seems to be doing just fine, but poor Jojo is on the way down to the floor. AGAIN!

Jojo's one-on-one time with her Papaw.

Cuteness Check

Here are a few pictures taken from 2 weeks ago. I'm slacking, I know.

I told him I was going to take his picture and this is the pose I got. I do believe that's chip stain on his face.

I snapped a photo of Katie and this is the face I got because of the red-eye reduction light. Her eyes got even bigger after the flash. This is also the first time I was able to use a barrette on her!

Little Jojo has a perpetual look of mischievousness, it seems. Cute barrett!