Here's what you missed...

Back in November, within the week after the hurricane or rather 'Super Storm' that it is currently being called, we had gone out to get our weekly milk and eggs.  We still didn't have power at home, but had the generator, but that was only powering up a few crucial things, like the refrigerators and get us some hot water.  Alot of the restaurants and businesses didn't have power either so we ended up eating lunch at Hooters in Lawrenceville.  We brought the babies in, got three high chairs and ordered chicken fingers for them plus food for ourselves.  We ended up sitting next two a family/crew from down south that had come up to help out with the clean up from the hurricane.  They didn't stare at us or the babies - which was really cool, but we chatted a little and told them that we had some downed trees in our yard and got one of their business cards. 

The whole time we were there, Tony kept asking me if we should have the Hooter's ladies pose with little Tony - and I told him it was fine with me, but he was too chicken to ask them himself!  So just before we were wrapping up to get going I asked our waitress and she happily obliged and got a few of her fell waitresses to pose with little man. 

Right after the picture was taken, we realized that little T had a disgusting dirty diaper that stunk to high heaven and we were very surprised that all of these ladies had smiles on their faces! 
I recall that Tony sent this picture on to his brothers with some like about how little Man has more 'game' than them. 

We also ended up hiring the crew we met to take care of the trees in our backyard so, in the end, it all worked out.

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Yesterday was Tony's 44th birthday and for his special day, I gave him the best thing I could think of - a day off.  I took the day off of work and planned him a relaxing day away from the babies.  I got him bagels from the local place we like and let him sleep in.  By 10:30am, he was off to Gentle Healing & Wellness Spa for a 85 minute massage, lunch and a pedicure.  Yes, a pedicure.  It was supposed to be a surprise that I was going to tell him about the night before or the morning of, but the people at GHWS decided to call our home phone number to confirm the appointment, despite me telling them that this was a surprise and giving my cell phone number.  Oh well!  I had also gotten him a gift certificate for the movies - he's been wanting to see the Hobbitt, but he didn't end up using it because he didn't want to go by himself.  After his morning/afternoon of pampering, he went to Home Depot for a few items and to re-gain some of his masculinity!  He came home and played some video games down stairs while Mel and I took care of the babies.  We wrapped up the night with dinner at Steakhouse 85.  What a great dinner!
Here's a few pictures I took while I was home with my little sweeties!

Trio picture!

drinking our milk, sitting in our chairs...

Tony playing with Amelia - waiting for lunch!

Fourteen days and counting...

I've been working for 14 days straight and will be for 5 more before I get another day off.  I been working at my regular job at Siemens during the week, and on the weekends, I've been doing some contract work.  A while back I spotted a job online for this opportunity, but until now I hadn't had a chance to work any of their events.  They do health screenings (including hearing testing) for military personnel.  I didn't know what to expect last weekend, but I was happily surprised.  Luckily there was another great audiologist that had done several events, so she showed me the ropes.  I don't think I would have been so calm if she hadn't been there.  Well I liked it and the money it pays so much that when they asked me if I was available this past weekend too!

The only thing I'm not liking is not seeing my babies.  I haven't really spent very much time with Tony or the kids.  Lately, I don't even know what they're able to do and not do.  I'll watch them do something I didn't know about and Tony acts like it - oh yeah - they've been doing that!  I feel so out of touch.

Here's some pictures that Tony has taken over the past few days/weeks...

I can start over, right?

Ok, so I know that I missed writing about Amelia and Tony, Christmas and New Years and other stuff, I'm sure, but I just can't seem to fit the time in to write.  The past few weeks or probably months, there just seems like there's so much to do.  Most weekdays, I get up, take a shower, get ready for work, get the babies up, diapers changed and downstairs.  I occasionally have time to make some oatmeal (instant) and eat it on the ride to work.  I arrive at work - usually a few minutes late - and proceed to take phone calls.  Most days, I have plans to run errands on my lunch hour, usually grocery shopping.  It's great - there's a grocery store close by, along with a WalMart and a Target, plus Lowe's, Aldi, five below, Hobby Lobby, TD Bank plus many different restaurants.  The only thing not close that I'd like is a ToysRUs or BabiesRUs. I get back to work sometimes and realize that I never ate anything for lunch!  I finish up my work day and get home about an hour before the babies eat dinner and then go to bed.  We get them fed, bathed and in bed usually by 8:30pm.  That's when we get a chance to eat dinner.  I get to relax for maybe 30-45 minutes and I'm back up, unloading the dishwasher and reloading the dirty stuff, putting in a load of dirty laundry and/or folding the laundry from several days ago.  I end up cleaning and organizing until about 1am.  By that time, I'm pretty exhausted, so I sleep really well. 
Speaking of exhausted, I worked all weekend - It was my first OnSite Health gig and it went pretty well and I can't beat the pay.  I stand to make over $1400 for just two days of work!  I missed my babies alot. 

I have a bunch of pictures from the holidays that I'll eventually update, but here's some from this year!

My happy little man!

Olivia waiting for her milk!

Amelia playing in baby jail (I love this picture)

Olivia loves riding her horsie (Buddy the dog)!

Amelia - my happy little girl.

Tony - baby in red...

 

 

Update on Olivia

It's been a while since I've done an update on everything my babies can do.  I know I've said this before, but they never cease to amaze me.

Miss Olivia currently has nine teeth and another one coming through - two of which are molars.  We really have to be careful sticking our fingers in her mouth!  She climbs stairs easily and descends the stairs with little to no help.  I will never send her down without Tony at the bottom of the stairs, and I hold my breath with how she does it - front facing.  We started to teach her to turn around and crawl backwards, but one day she just decided to go down the opposite way by sitting and then scooting her legs down.  She seems to be in a big hurry sometimes and doesn't even bother to sit down, she just hugs the wall and goes down just like you and I would one foot then the other!  It scares the crap out of me!
She's just about 26 pounds according to my calculations or rather our bathroom scale.  She has started to step onto the scale every time she goes into the bathroom.  The funniest part is that once the number on the digital display comes up, she puts her foot over it so I can't see it.
Olivia loves to run around and play, but often has to be scolded because she has no problem with stealing toys from her brother or sister. She could be nicely playing with something and then something that her sister or brother has, catches her eye and she'll just go after it.  I watched her tonight muscle her brother out of the one of the little foam chairs.  He was sitting there and she just decided that she wanted to so she stepped into the chair, then turned around and sat down - basically on top of him and he got edged out and ended up on the floor.  I've started to try and give back the item that was taken - and then re-direct her - occupy her with something else, but she usually throws a tantrum - even with lying on the floor and stomping - as soon as the 'item' is taken away from her.  She calms down relatively quickly, but I've learned that 'time-outs' don't really work at this age.  I made a huge mistake with her last weekend with the 'time-outs'.  She was being really bad - stealing, hitting, etc. so I decided to remove her from the situation as a punishment, but I strapped her in her high chair for her 'time-out'.  I did this a few times in a row because she was continuously naughty.  What I learned from this though is that she quickly associated her high chair with being bad and for meal time she'd throw a tantrum just to sit down to eat.  We're better now, but it was difficult to get her in her high chair for the next day or so.  Oops!
Back to some of the good/cute things - I'm not sure where/when this started, but for the past few weeks, if your standing at the changing table and she's in her crib, or if you're sitting or lying in baby jail with her, she'll come over to you, lift your shirt up and slap your skin - not hard - but it's hilarious.  She's done this with me, Tony and Melanie and we all typically just crack up laughing.  Olivia has a few nicknames - she's often called Liv, Livia or even Olivie.  We all like Olive, but it's not a name that anyone of us has used consistently so not sure it'll stick.  Mel sometimes calls her Darla because she thinks she looks like Darla from the 'Little Rascals'

I'm not sure I see the resemblance... do you?

Other Olivia facts - she's very ticklish on her sides and if she's freaking out, you can usually turn it around by tickling her there.  She likes to dance/move around with any type of music.  She likes grab a book and come over and sit in your lap and flip pages.  She does NOT like anything on her head - like the flowered headband seen above.  Not sure how this one stayed on long enough to take that picture, because normally it's off in a matter of milliseconds!  She still uses a pacifier during nap times and at night and she loves to hang upside down!  She can currently point to her head, nose and belly (consistently).  I'm now trying to incorporate ears and eyes!  She can wave hi and bye-bye and says dada and mama.  I'm trying to get her to say up next. 
Olivia is still a good eater, but definitely lets you know when she doesn't want something.   She'll shake her head no and wave her hand in front of her and she's getting pretty adept at using a fork when eating.I'm sure there's more, but cannot recall them right now.  Time to wrap up the day or rather start the next one by going to bed!

Happy Thanksgiving!

In my usual fashion, I'm a little late with holiday posts - birthday posts, etc. but better late than never (I think).  We actually spent Thanksgiving day (Thursday) at a friends house - Beth - who happens to be the God mother of little Tony and Melanie - the kids babysitter and Tony's helper during the week.  They graciously invited us over knowing that we didn't have any plans because T's mom was planning on celebrating Thanksgiving on Friday to accomodate her other son's schedules.  (I was fine with this, but don't get Tony started on this.  It just gets him mad.) 

Beth and Melanie's family have welcomed us into their lives and home and feel like have an extension of our family that we can count on at any time.  They just love seeing and playing with the babies and even arranged it so we could use our attachable high chairs.  Tony and I got to sit at the 'adult' table and the babies were at the 'kid' table with Melanie, her sister, brother and sister's boyfriend.  It was nice to not have to worry about them for a change, even though I kept looking over at them every few seconds to make sure they didn't need anything. 

After we ate, the babies went out onto their back deck to run around. 

Amelia looking to play in the leaves.

Olivia running and having a great time!

 

Tony and Olivia stomping in the leaves!  Yes that's a baby track suit that has a puppy dog in a purse on it!

 All went well until Amelia fell into the side of the deck and hit her head.  She's ok - see look - soon afterwards, she was playing in Mel's room trying on her sun glasses!

We had out second Thanksgiving on Friday with Tony's family.  Everything was also very nice there, but no additional pictures - or at least not that I have!

Happy Birthday Thomas!

A few weekends ago, we attended T's brother's kid's birthday.  Thomas turned two at the beginning of the month.  The party initially got postponed because of the hurricane and no one had power.   

It's always a little hectic trying to get out of the house on time with trying to get them ready and ourselves.  I swear that some people at work must think I'm homeless and/or don't have a mirror in my home because of the way I arrive at work - my hair is usually still very wet and tied up in a bun held together with a regular rubber band that I probably got at work.  I digress... Well this is something that worked that day to keep Miss O occupied while I got dressed and ready for the party.

When we arrived the babies were a little clingy.  Tony's dad held Amelia for what seemed like the first hour.  I kept telling him that he could put her down because Olivia and little T had been running around for a while.  He eventually put her down and she got to run around and play with a whole set of new toys!

Olivia checking things out to her left...

Tony checking out something to his left too...  what's over there?

Thomas (the blondie in the middle of the three cousins) was opening his gifts and little T kept wanting to get in on the action.  We - no - I kept trying to get him out of the way because pictures were being taken (other than me) and didn't want my kid to be the one that ruined the shot, but I was trying to keep the girls quiet and occupied.  I especially love the look on Andrew's face in the top shot.

Amelia coming to get me!

Olivia sippin' some water

Little Tony relaxing on the HUGE elephant pillow pet.

The makings of a baby pile-up!

Olivia loving on the doggie chair.

The best comment of the night came from a friend of Tony's brother...She said "I see you're ok with your girls showing a little leg!"  This was in reference to how short this 18 month old dress was on her and her lack of any tights to cover her up. 

We've noticed that when we're out and about or there's alot of things to do and see, they will NOT nap.  We didn't really plan on them napping there - meaning we didn't bring a pack n play or anything for them to nap in, but we knew it was time to get going when they all started falling after taking only a few steps.  Amelia had a pretty hard faceplant on the floor from which she didn't get back up for several seconds.  Poor baby.  They were all passed out within minutes of leaving.

Amelia out like a light...

Olivia - still hanging out, but really tired...

Little Tony - on his way out.

Everyone had a good time and everyone got along (adults included)!