notice the shadows

There was a rumor on the radio news today that there might only be a CHANCE of a late afternoon shower. As soon as I heard this I started to take full advantage of the day and get the kids outside. Yes, it was very wet (b/c it rained all night) and there were large pools of mud, as shown, but I did not care. All that dirt can be washed off. My next challenge for the day is keeping the second nap, I am fearing they are starting to lose it... boohoo

the saving grace of the screen porch

Yes we got a great deal on our house and for the most part it was in move-in condition, other than painting, the selling point for me was the extra room. Even though it is a screen room so it limits our use to April/may to October. It is by far one of my favorite rooms in the house. With all this rain it has served as an extra playroom for the twins while staying dry and getting fresh air at the same time. I keep the doors open all day and they are able to ride their "outside" bikes around. I allowed for that only because of the rain, as soon as this mess is over everything is going back out, along with children and DOG!

here is the screen porch, as you can tell it is a good size room with a nice high ceiling. My sister was nice enough to pass down a couch so now it really is an extra living/play room


As some with kids already know, never underestimate the power of a cardboard box

the garden (not)

I have decided to try and plant a garden this year, unclear of how to plant a garden and where, and what to plant I did it anyway. As it turns out 80% of my back yard is shaded 80% of the day. Neither one of these factor when planting a garden. I only planted a few plants just to see what will work. I have a good feeling that i will be planting seed in the fall and reconsidering my garden location. As for all the rain, I can guarantee that I did not plant maple sapling and mushrooms although these pictures might lead you to believe that I did.

rain rain go away

Now that we are on our tenth day of rain, even though I think it has been raining since the end of April, we are completely stir crazy. The boys need to be outside and quite frankly even playing in the rain in no fun, it is cold, rotten and nasty. There was a quick break in the weather the other day and we took advantage of the brief, almost glimpse of the sun. As you can tell, the boys are playing in what would be a sand box but we haven't gotten any yet. Anyway, it is FULL of rain water. I heard today that the rain fall for June so far is above 5" and it has yet to hit 80degrees.

thomas feeding william

breakfast of champions

The babes love to sit in the front window and car/people/dog watch. I gave them bagles this morning, since I packed up all the bibs (they remove them) I used some towles thinking it might get messy.

william

a true kid

 

Gene's birthday

Somehow we managed to convince Gene to come off "the island" and visit our home. After a backbreaking train ride he finally made it. Yeah! We celebrated his birthday, on the actual day and had a wonderful bar-be-que with great food and awesome family.
pre-party, we gave Gene a cell phone. Giving the gift was the easy part, now we must give a complete tutorial on how to use it.

me - suffering severely from allergies for the first time in my life, enjoying the pregnancy, not enjoying the allergies

william patiently waiting the arrival of cake into his mouth

I guess we did not take the camera out until the end of the day. The table was filled with ribs, steak, chicken, grilled veggies, the only thing missing was the salad

like father like son

reclaimnig the old toys

So apparently I let them play in their pajamas all day this particular day, or at least through lunch. We pulled out some old toys to loan to a friend and the boys were all over them, we had them taking turns which they are very good at. For lunch there was pizza and frozen peas (a house favorite)

popsicles and pj's

The twins are early risers and still are going strong with two naps a day. We are outside usually by 7am-ish. On this particular day i decided to give them some Popsicles while still in pj's. It was just some frozen juice so i saw no harm in that.

spring

it's oficial

As i sat in the doctors office with a sonogram wand inside me, (the most logical place a wand could go in this situation), two babies in a stroller looking for crackers, and my doctor trying to find the egg. All of a sudden this popped up on the screen. Before my dr. could even say anything i yelled "Holy Shit, No Way!"

and this is how the rest of the conversation went
Dr: You saw that
Me: UH Yeah there are two eggs there
Me: Are you kidding me
Brief pause so i can call Larry who was trying to get there,
Me: Does this happen
Me: Is this normal
Me: Holy Shit (a few more times)
Dr: Well we have never seen this in my office
Babies: Still calling for crackers

As it turnes out, I had all the cards stacked against me, and this is what I found:

"You, your mother, or her mother's mother is a fraternal twin".GRANDMA "These women may carry a gene for hyperovulation," (a term here i did not like.) "which means they release more than one egg during an ovulation cycle, increasing their ability to conceive fraternal twins. The chances may be high as 1 in 17 if the mother is a fraternal twin herself."

"You've already had one set of fraternal twins." CHECK "For mothers who have already had one set of fraternal twins, their chances of conceiving another set are four times greater than the average woman, or about 1 in 12!"

So here I am, about 8 weeks pregnant, eating french onion soup and thinking about how I will soon have 4 children within 24 months. Larry and I are so happy and truly excited. We understand that we (I) won't have much of a life for the next few years and that this puts up way beyond minivan status. I will be looking at a Michigan Van as we call them here on the east coast.

As a child and growing up through the years all I ever wanted to be was a mom. I never had one job in mind that i wanted to grow up and be. All i wanted was to be a mom, someone like my mom. Someone who makes warm cookies for kids when then walk in the door on cold winter day. Someone who can teach my children how to plant vegetables and pick berries. Or someone like my dad, who even at the end of the day when I am tired I will still go out and do something special, like fishing or go to the park. Or take my kids for a long hike even while teaching importance life lessons, like yes if you fall off the cliff it could kill you but it is still ok to look down, there is a lot to see down there.

Thank you mom and dad you are both amazing people and I am so blessed to have been raised by you both. Knowing that I have been given the knowledge to succeed in my life I know that I will be able to catch the challenge put in front of me this coming year and succeed with flying colors and some really cool kids too...

sick (and i'm tired)

This year has been the worst ever for stomach viruses. It all started the the "family funk" back in January, pre-move. Our whole family, extended family too has the runs and puking. (remember the week before our move). The second bout happened the night of Colin's birthday. William was first with the puking and the diarrhoea down his legs to the floor. Thankfully that was all he had in him. Thomas on the other had started puking at 3am and didn't stop until 6pm. This was a Thursday and at that point we took him to the hospital fearing he was becoming dehydrated.


The ER Doctor felt he was ok since at that point he was sipping water and keeping it down. We went home and he mostly slept through the night. He woke up the next day and vomited once, i think because he drank to much to quickly. After that he fell asleep and slept the whole day only to wake every so often to drink some water.

By 6pm that night the diarrhoea started again and we immediacy called the doctor and rushed our lethargic baby to the ER, again. When we walked in the same doctor was on and looked at him in my arms and said "oh no he looks a lot worse" It was at that point they hustled a into a room and "tried" to get and IV into him asap. It was a horrible experience to witness our little fella getting an IV in his arm unsuccessfully and then his foot with success. So Thomas was checked into the hospital on Friday night for hydration purposes. He was such a great patient and we were starting to see improvement in him by the following afternoon. I did the overnight shifts and kept him in the bed with me, I did not have the heart to put him in the metal crib that resembled a jail cell. Larry would come in the afternoon and take over. By Saturday afternoon he was eating Cheerios and drinking juice and water. He looked very stylish and cute in his hospital gown, however once was enough for us.







When all is said and done, both boys are very healthy, Thomas was in the hospital, but it was only for hydration purposes. The only antibiotic either of them have been on was an eye drop for pink eye and that was during this fiasco.