Thanksgiving 2008

We had a lot of fun at my parents for Thanksgiving this year. Even though Luke tried to eat Bailey's play-doh, because she told him it was a cookie. In Bailey's eyes, it was! Gotta love holidays with 4 children ages 3 and under!

Luke and Ashley are probably too young to understand.. and may not understand for a very long time... but for the rest of our lives, each Thanksgiving, we will be giving thanks for the wonderful life we were given on January 3, 2007. I am so thankful for my children, HEALTHY children! I love them more than they will ever know. I just don't think it's possible to understand the love you feel for your babies until you have your own. Mom and Dad, I'm sorry if I put you through anything you didn't deserve!

As I was making cheese straws, I started to get frustrated, because I couldn't get anything done! I would just start to push the dough out of the cookie press and Luke would start tugging at my shirt, "up. up. up, mama, up" I would turn around and trip over a truck, or a doll, or a pot, or Ashley! It didn't matter, my kitchen was a wreck and in total chaos!! How do you cook with TWO TODDLERS in the house?! And the mess?! How can 2 babies make such a mess in such a short amount of time?! Then I stopped and thought, about the Trace Adkins song, "You're Gonna Miss This" and just smiled. (turn your speakers on if you don't have them on already) I am the luckiest person in the world to have this situation! Why would anyone wish it away? Here is the chorus that means so much to me.... Especially in times when I'm ready to pull my hair out!

You're gonna miss this...

You're gonna want this back...

You're gonna wish these days...

Hadn't gone by so fast...

These are some good times...

So take a good look around...

You may not know it now...

But you're gonna miss this...


Now, I'm on to planning Christmas dinner that's going to be at my house! Bring on the chaos!


I am so thankful for my family, immediate and extended.

Halloween 2008

I love Halloween!! I loved it as a kid, and I love it even more now, watching Luke and Ashley run around acting crazy! It's hilarious. I had in my mind that I wanted them to be Raggedy Ann and Andy for a long time, then my brother said, "Luke will kill you one day for that!" So, I started coming up with other ideas, "Charlie Brown and Lucy" "Bamm Bamm and Pebbles", etc. I just couldn't decide. Then one day we were having a "refusing to poop" issue. To try and coerce them, I simply said, "EVERYbody poo poos! Elmo poo poos, Jackson poo poos, Savannah poo poos, even Mama poo poos". (I can't believe I'm writing this here, but whatever) So anyway, we head out to reading hour at the mall later that morning, when all of the sudden Luke starts telling everyone and ANYONE, "Mama poo poo! Mama poo poo!" The more I would tell him to stop, the more he would say it louder and louder. Until he was screaming "Mama poo poo!" as loud as he could, then he would laugh and laugh... So that's when I decided, That's it! he's going to be Raggedy Andy, whether he likes it or not! I can't get over how much they've changed since last Halloween! Check out the difference!



2007
















2008

It's so crazy how different things are down here for the holidays. It's HOT on Christmas, and Halloween pumpkins? Well, they don't do well in the heat.....

Before:

After ONE night on the porch!

I am thankful, Brent got home in time from his trip to see the twins all dressed up.

Here are some more pictures from the month of October!

"Rusty!!!!!"

OK, time to get back to some happy stories! Let me begin with, Savannah. She's doing really well. She is walking, running, playing and this morning, when we got up, where was she??? on the couch! She's not supposed to get on the couch, but oh well. She did it AND she jumped down on her own. The dog is crazy! Brent and I were talking last night. We haven't seen her act this well in a very long time. Looking back, she must have been in pain for awhile and we didn't now it. I am now 100% sure, I made the right decision.

I finally got a break (if you call going to a 3 year old's birthday party a break) on Saturday. Bailey had a rodeo party, complete with pony rides. Only when my dad, the twins and I were half way there, did we think, "we should have brought a can of Beef-A-Reeno". Do y'all remember the Seinfeld episode when Kramer fed his horse a whole can of this? "I'm terribly sorry, Mr. Ross, one never knows how the gastrointestinal workings of the equine are going to function". "Rusty, no! No, Rusty!!!" HILARIOUS! Why didn't we think of this earlier? Can you imagine the chaos at kids' birthday party with a gassy horse! haha! Well, we didn't laugh because the ponies were gassy, but we did do a lot of laughing. No surprise, Ashley LOVED the horses, and Luke, hated them. We managed to get Luke on for a quick picture, but he was not happy, so we took him off. Ashley loved every second and rode up and down the street. (Yes, I said street. This is South Florida- there aren't many fields around here)Here are some pictures and video clips from the past month and the party.

I am thankful for my niece, Bailey. She brings us lots of laughter! Happy 3rd Birthday Bailey!


Ashley's first pony ride

Luke taking a stroll with Grammy, contemplating whether or not to get on that mangy thing...

................ When twins want to ride on the same car at the same time (they did this on their own)

................ Just going for a walk

.

.

.

Luke in my brother's sailor suit, from when he was a kid.

Ashley Elizabeth

Watching the boats go by

Proud Baby Girl

Sitting in my chair, waiting for the game to start.

.

.

.

.

Watching the game!

................................ Ashley on pony

http://s262.photobucket.com/albums/ii118/mbfykes/?action=view&current=20080906164702.flv

Luke on pony

http://s262.photobucket.com/albums/ii118/mbfykes/?action=view&current=20080906165110.flv

Bailey on pony

http://s262.photobucket.com/albums/ii118/mbfykes/?action=view&current=20080906164415.flv

Caitlyn on pony

http://s262.photobucket.com/albums/ii118/mbfykes/?action=view&current=20080906164758.flv

"Inspiration"

"You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally by the time you are real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all; because once you are real you can’t ever be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.” Velveteen Rabbit

Why am I starting with this quote? It's actually a really great quote and can mean so many different things to different people. To me, personally, it's about my dog, Savannah. It's really hard for me to express my emotions right now, because they are still so raw, but I feel like I should update those of you who know and love Savannah. Unfortunately, her cancer is back, only this time, it's in her bone. (First of all, I want to say, that I have great respect for my friends and family who have dealt with cancer and I don't want you for one second to feel that I think this is as big of a deal. I can not imagine going through what many of you have)

I wanted to post this here because I thought this would be easier than explaining it several different times. The past few weeks have been difficult for me because I had to make a tough decision. We decided to have Savannah's front leg amputated and start chemo in 2 weeks. I know this is probably a shock to some of you. Why would we choose this? Well, my initial reaction was, "no way!" But y'all know me, I did lots and lots of research and realized, this is the most humane way for Savannah. I did not do this to keep her around longer for me, trust me, I did this for Savannah. It's what's best. She had the surgery on Tuesday and came home to us Wednesday. I'm not going to lie, it's been difficult. I only slept for 30 minutes the first night she was home (part of that was on a dog bed!). But with the help of my mom, we got through that first night. I know one day, my mom and I will laugh about how we carried her outside (for the first time) on a sheet, in our pajamas at 2:00 in the morning. Neighbors were flipping on lights... ugh... oh well. She currently has on a morphine patch, so she is not in any pain. (even if she was, they say, the pain of the surgery doesn't even compare to the pain she would eventually feel from bone cancer) She's a little loopy, but other than that, ok. The good news is, SHE'S WALKING!! She started trying last night. We haven't let Jackson get too close to her yet. Not that he would hurt her, I just want to keep her as calm as possible. She's doing really well, but in "typical" Savannah style, she knows that I will do whatever she wants, and that means feed her whatever she wants. So, she turns her nose up at the dog food and manipulates me to give her real people food. Oh well, whatever Savannah wants, Savannah gets. I've always described her as beautiful, she's even more so now. This just shows her strength. She is such an inspiration to me, and I am so proud of all that she has overcome, especially in the past 24 hours. The twins were crying last night to go downstairs and see "JaJa" and "YaYa". We tried everything to distract them, even Elmo, but that didn't work. It's just too early. I know the next few weeks are going to be a challenge, but I know Savannah, and she will get through this like she has everything else. I will keep you posted, and hopefully get back to happy stories on this blog.

I am thankful Savannah will now be pain free. And I'm thankful, we caught the cancer before it moved to her lungs.

M

"Dooooody!!"

It has been awhile since I have posted because I've been SO BUSY! The second we got home from Antigua, 3 weeks ago, the twins got sick and are still sick! Brent's been out of town a lot, so, I haven't had any time to post. Not much has been going on around here, just taking care of the babies, but here's a little story...

The other day, the twins needed a big time bath since they had bug spray on them, so I got the tub ready. (Brent was out of town, so I was on my own) Like a normal mom, you would undress your child and gently place them in the water, right? Wrong. I undressed Luke and he TOOK OFF! He thought it was the funniest thing ever! So, I turned to Ashley. Yea, I know, refocusing on Ashley and not looking at "the naked" Luke is genius right? I really thought, if I got her into the tub, Luke would see all the fun she was having and want to get in. Not so much. When I got her undressed, she took off! In the meantime, Luke has discovered that he can pee all over the floor only it would freak him out when the pee would touch his foot, so he would move to another spot and try again. Laughing the whole time. I'm thinking to myself, do I grab the camera? Do I start crying? I grabbed the camera. (Only after much thought, I decided, I really can't post the pictures, so sorry, maybe in 15 years when I need to....) Luke would kill me one day. But, oh I have pictures for blackmail. This baby boy better not mess with ME! After chasing them around the house in a full sweat, I get Luke in the tub. Ashley soon follows. After much play, and not much cleaning, it happened...."Doody!!" Only this was NOT a Baby Ruth! (For all you Caddy Shack lovers out there) AAAHHHHH!!! I'm talking out loud to myself at this point, " Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh!!!" "Grooooosssssssss!!!!"" Ick!!! "get them out, get them out, get them out!!!!" I grab Luke, put him on the floor and go for Ashley, meantime, I hear Luke cracking up as he pees on the floor and Ashley's screaming because she doesn't want out. I'm so grossed out, I'm pretty much gagging! Should I start crying now? I know that y'all are thinking that I'm making this up, but I'M NOT! This really happened! Somehow, I need to get a diaper on Luke QUICK! Seriously, how much urine does a baby bladder hold?! And PLEEEEEASE! Ashley! Stop screaming! You'll have another bath soon!! WITHOUT E. COLI!

After I got them both dressed and cleaned the bathtub, I sat down. This is when I started to laugh. I am SO thankful for my babies. I love laughing at them. I can't imagine not thinking something like this is funny. I love my life. And more than anything, I love being their mom.

Although, I can't post the pictures of my naked baby boy, I'll post some recent ones.
M

Beer, fish oil, and sour milk....

Today turned out to be a great day. Especially after having such a crazy morning! Well, actually, it's been a crazy week! It started last week, when Savannah (my dog) had to have an emergency surgery to remove another cancerous tumor. As many of you know, she's been in remission for almost 3 years. A few weeks ago, I found a couple bumps that made me suspicious so I took her into her oncologist, Dr. Correa, to have them checked out. Turned out to be cancer again so we immediately scheduled a surgery with her regular vet, Dr. Grigsby. Problem was, Brent would be out of town for a few days, during which, I had to keep Savannah calm and locked inside, as well as the twins. The twins are "loving" the dogs right now and all they want to do is play with them. Ashley just about gave me a heart attack the other day, because, as I was changing Luke, she got a beer bottle out of a case that was blocking off the steps and tried to give it to Jackson (my other dog)who was behind a gate. Only thing was, she couldn't get it over the gate to Jackson and dropped it on the floor. I ran into the room (while leaving poor Luke with a poopy diaper half on, half off, and saw beer EVERYWHERE and Jackson drinking it.) UGH... Luckily, she didn't get hurt, she was just covered in beer and stunk for the rest of the day. I swear people were looking at me as we walked past them in the wagon, thinking I had been drinking all day. Looking back, maybe I should have started when that happened... Because the week only ended up getting crazier! So, that was the end of using a case of Samuel Adams and a case of Pellegrino to block off the stairs.

After a few days of taking care of Savannah and the twins, things seemed to get back to normal, and Brent came home from his business trip. Because he was gone for a few days, he had a ton of laundry and I was so busy carting the twins and Savannah back and forth to the vet, I was WAY behind on the rest of our laundry, so I decided to do one HUGE load. Only to find out that my genius husband, "who is not afraid to let you know that he was a member of MENSA" left freakin fish oil pills in the pocket of a pair of pants! Fish oil pills??? What? First of all, why in the heck were they in his pocket??!! Well..... my HUGE load of laundry? Stunk like fish. I'm talking rotten fish. We are the only people in the neighborhood (probably the whole state, that when you walk by our house when we're doing laundry, you don't smell the freshness of a fabric softener, you smell fish!) I re-washed the laundry, but just can't seem to get the smell out. I'm thinking because it's an oil?? Anyone have any suggestions for me? All we need is to replace the washer and dryer now. Good one Brent, kind of makes me think of the time you left lobster tails in our freezer when the hurricane hit. (ended up having to throw the whole refrigerator out...)

Speaking of refrigerator. We had a bad storm come through here last night, and lighting pretty much zapped out our phones and our fridge. Only thing is, I didn't notice the fridge was out until this morning when all the food I spent 2 1/2 hours making yesterday for the twins to have while we're out of town went bad. Our milk was sour and, yup, you guessed it. Brent and I had Mahi Mahi last night for dinner. Where were the leftovers? In the HOT fridge.

So, just when I'm about to lose it, I call and check my messages on our phone line (which is dead from the storm) and get the message from Savannah's vet. I am so happy to report, that Dr. Grigsby removed 100% of the tumor with clean margins. This means that she is CLEAR! We have an appointment on Thursday with her oncologist to check out a few more things, and then hopefully, I can say, Savannah is healthy. So, turns out, today was a great day. All this other stuff, doesn't mean anything. Besides, I'm going on vacation! I think......
M

I'm thankful for having one of the best veterinary oncologists in the country only 45 minutes away. I'm thankful for Dr. Correa caring so much about Savannah, and I'm thankful for Dr. Grigsby doing Savannah's surgery on such short notice. And most of all, I'm thankful for my girl, Savannah, she's been my best friend for 10 years, and hopefully, will be for many more.

Here's a picture of Savannah just taken this week to show you how well she's doing!


And of course, I can't leave Jackson out. He loves Ashley so much. Especially since she gives him beer.....

Swim-Float-Swim

Well, our swimming lessons have concluded. I must say, that I'm a little relieved. It was every weekday for 6 weeks. Very time consuming. This wasn't like your everyday swimming lessons. They were taught to swim, float, swim and find their way out of whatever body of water they fall in. (it's really survival lessons) Their personalities REALLY came through at the lessons. Luke was all business, and would swim, swim swim, "get me out of this pool!!!" Where as Ashley would just float.... "Look at the sky and float". Don't think one is better than the other, but I know that if "god-forbid" they fell into the water, and nobody was around, they would survive. That's all I care about. One thing the program does, that I think is really great, is that they put them in full winter clothes. Blue jeans, sweatshirts, shoes and a real waterlogged diaper, (adding about 10 extra pounds) to make sure they can float this way. Because chances are, if they're going to fall in, they won't be in their bathing suits. We were going to video tape them at there graduation lesson, but of course being down here in South Florida, it got canceled due to weather, so all I have are a few old pictures. You can't really tell too much what's going on, but at least you can see them floating. I'll post a video when I get one..


M


I'm thankful for programs like ISR that teach my children to be safe.

You can't force it.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have a twin? I have. When I was a little girl, I read the "Babysitter's Club" and "Sweet Valley High" books and I thought, "I wish I had a twin!" Why is that? Is it the constant companion? Is it having someone who loves you, knowing ALL your flaws? Is it having someone there, knowing, they will be there for you for life? I don't know, but I know that I used to wish I had a twin. Why are people so obsessed with twins??! I've posted in a past entry about how I get stopped whenever I'm out and asked the same questions over and over. I have to admit, I love it when a "twin" comes up to me and talks. They always tell me about the bond they have with the other, and how special they feel. And I always ask them, "how do I instill this in my babies?" They're answer is always the same, "you can't force it. you can't make them love one another.... They just will." SO... I'm trusting all those twins out there that have stopped me. My babies will love each other no matter what. They already do. Check out this video.

http://s262.photobucket.com/albums/ii118/mbfykes/?action=view&current=20080526175733.flv

I am thankful that I have twins. It's something I've always dreamed of.

Back bend like blue men.

OK, nobody wants to confess to this, so I will..... we sometimes hide from our kids. I'm sure many of you have been in the situation during the day, when you're like, "Yes! Finally!!!" He/she (or in our case, he AND she) is playing happily with that book, but Oh My Gosh! I've never been so thirsty in my life! Problem is, you have to pass by them to get to the kitchen to get a bottle of water. What do you do? Well.. WE pretend we're in Vegas and silently back bend like blue men into the kitchen, but does it ever work? Heck no!! Why is it, that they don't hear you when you say, "It's time for bed." But when you're trying to sneak by them, they stop what they're doing, scream and follow you? Do they have eyes in the back of their heads? Do they just hear really REALLY well? Or do they have both? I was laughing at Brent the other morning because he hid between the pantry and the family room and ate his cereal. CEREAL!! come on! How hard is that? The twins won't let him eat! When did we get to the point where we had to sneak around? I remember being like, "OMG, they're so cute! I never want to be apart from them for a second!" WHAT??!! We're like, "QUICK! HERE THEY COME!! HIDE!!" Is that bad???

Of course there are times when we can't get enough of them! Here are a few recent pictures.

Luke and Ashley having a "twins' conversation". I wish I could understand what they're saying. Then again, they're probably making fun of me anyway...

Ashley Elizabeth

Luke Thomas

Ashley's hair after a nap

Luke, loving the wind blowing through his hair

Sharing Garlic Bread, their favorite

Hanging out on the step. Their latest trick.

I am thankful that we WANT to hide from our babies because that means they are active, and if they are active, they are healthy.