Out & About....and Cuteness

WELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL...we were given the tenative, it's okay to start taking the girls places, which we have been slowly and gradually doing. NOW however, we have this fabulous outbreak of the flu. SO, I'm not quite sure what we are going to do! :( I do have to say that IF you are someone who is going to come into contact with the twins anytime in the next couple months, to prepare yourself for the HAND SANITIZER conversation. ALL who touch the girls have to sanitize their hands and cannot be sick...regardless of the end of RSV season, we still need to be super careful about getting the girls sick. So, it's not that we think you are dirty or that we don't like you...it's just best for the girls.

Last weekend we had our March of Dimes walk...which was great. Next year I am declaring that we are having a team for the girls...complete with donations and cute PURPLE or TEAL t-shirts! :) The walk was interesting...you'd have sworn that NO ONE had ever in their entire life had see twins before...of course it didn't help that as always they were stinkin' adorable!

Both Matt and I are eagerly anticipating the arrival of summer..as demonstrated by the many cute pictures you will be seeing, we anticipate that the girls will continue to look super cute...as long as they are wearing HATS. :) Going to the pool, zoo, Grant's Farm, picnics, parks...you name it..we're looking forward to LOTS of firsts with the girls! We've actually started planning the girls FIRST Birthday party...it seems soooo far away, but it will be here sooner rather than later.

The girls are quickly becoming VERY interactive...and are gaining weight fast...it appears that we'll be soon out of our 6 month clothes and into our 9 months clothing...craziness how fast they are growing now that they can eat solids! Soon, we shall see some teeth and then the slow slow slow introduction of table food.

Eating our Puffs....

Olivia.......

Sydney......

The girls....

Goin' on a walk with our Mommy....

Sydney...

Olivia...

Mommy messing with the camera...
A Friend of mine commented how sad she was that she doesn't have a lot of pictures with her and her children when they were younger...sooooooooo I've started taking pics with me in them! :) One of these days we'll post some pics with Daddy too! :)

WEll, if you can't tell...we're not too exciting these days..so..........I'm off!

Hope all is well!

J

A Fun Filled Easter Weekend....

We had a great first Easter weekend!

Here are some pictures from some of the MANY Photo Shoots that the girls had this weekend! :)

Green Babies Rule...is a onesie that I picked up last January (before we even know we were pg much less having twins) when Matt and I saw Wicked at the Fox. The 2nd onsie came from a friend of the family (Vicki Noon) who is the lead in Wicked:San Francisco! I love this series of pictures because the look on Olivia's face is priceless as Sydney starts to steal her hat!

This is where sitting nicely beside eachother in our rocker starts to go haywire!

"What in the Heck are you doing, KID?""I think I like this...."



"Gotta have it NOW!"

"Hey...I did all the work for that, give it to me, it's MINE!"


"AHAH...I have it now!""ALL MINE!"

If you can't tell, we love hats for the girls, especially since they don't have a TON of hair these days, but what they do have is WHITE Blonde! :) These hats were given to us (along with a ton of fabulous outfits for when the girls are older) by a friend of mine who has triplets...love them!

Last year, in preparation for Easter, we ate out with Sharon, Rick, Vicki, and Gale because in the words of Nana Sharon as she is now known, "for the next couple years it's going to be a little hectic, so we should eat out while we can!" So, we did...little did we all know (really) quite how hectic our lives were going to be with the girls! As they get bigger, new 'challenges' arise...like the fact that pretty soon we're going to have some (well at least one) crawler on our hands...OH.MY.GOD. I am so not ready for that! But, I digress...back to our weekend!

Our weekend started on Thursday afternoon with the girl's NICU Follow-up Appointment at Children's Hospital. It is NEVER a good thing when you get a letter in the mail reminding you of an appointment and it also includes the statement "This appointment may last anywhere from one to three hours!" FUN. So not looking forward to this, but in a way I was. The appointment went great and our Dr's were VERY impressed with how well the girls were doing. We did discuss the girl's weights (they are still pretty tiny), but over all they were super impressed with how they are doing! WE even got the clearance to start taking them places, SMARTLY. Meaning, still keep them away from sick people and do ask that people who have been around sickies to stay away and as always wash hands and use hand santizer at all times! Okay...this should be interesting, b/c as nice as it is to have clearance to take them places, man is it an Act of Congress to get ready to go out! After we got home from our fabulous Appointment, Grandma Vicki and PaPa Gale stopped by to visit with the girls for a little while..it was good to see them! A little while Later, Uncle Mike and Aunt Nozomi came over to hang out in aticipation of the arrival of GrandDude (my dad) and Grandma Carol from Seattle who came in for the weekend to see us. Well, who am I kidding, they came in to see the girls, NOT any of us, we were just the added bonus!

The arrival of GrandDude and Grandma Carol OR the Paparazzi as they are often known in our household, marked the arrival of a trillion photographs (many of which will soon be added to the blog). WE had such a great time with them this weekend and I know that the girls really enjoyed having other people around to spoil them (besides the normal Grandparents/Uncles/Aunts, and Mom and Dad)!

Friday, was a day spent spoiling babies as Matt and GrandDude went to see a movie and then Carol and I went shopping (Grandma felt the girls needed an outfit with bunnies on it for Easter)! We had originally planned on going to the zoo or somewhere outside on Friday, but the return of the cold and crummy weather kept us from that. Plus it's so hard to take the girls places these days b/c they eat so often! Craziness!

Saturday, while Grandma Carol and GrandDude when out to lunch with some friends, Matt and I took the girls out on their first OFFICIAL outing! We went to lunch at McAllisters where people stopped by to gwak at the cuties and tell us how cute they are. And then we went to Target. Target was interesting. Daddy wanted the girls to ride in the cart like regular kids and Mommy almost had a heart attack b/c of all the germs on the cart. SOOOOOOOO we compromised...we bathed the cart in bleach wipes, put down a blanket so that Olivia didn't touch anything and put her in the seat upfront. Sydney who was napping stayed sleeping in her car seat! One of the MANY baby purchases we made at Target that day was a shopping cart cover so that we don't have to worry about nasty germs at the stores as the girls get bigger!

Saturday night, Matt and I went out on a date night to a wonderful (seriously, did I just say that?) sushi restaurant in Clayton called Tani. I actually enjoyed it, which means some good things for Matt, since he loves sushi and always wants to go out for it! :) It was great to get out with just the two of us! The girls had a lovely evening with GrandDude, Grandma Carol, Uncle Mike, and Aunt Nozomi....they were very pleased to report when we got home that the girls had their witching hour as I call it...crabbiness BEFORE bathtime! Poor girls.

Easter Sunday was fabulous as well. In the interest of keeping everything EASY, everyone came over to our house. It's just better that way since the girls have all of their stuff at our house and we don't have to drag the universe around! Also, we parcelled out different dishes so that no one person was cooking all day long. My stepmom commented about how nice Easter was b/c for the first time in FOREVER she didn't have to cook the ENTIRE meal, which was nice! WE all had a great time...however the girls did get tired and crabby. I think they were sick of photographs! :) Poor babies, all we ever do is take their pictures, you'd think they'd be used to it by now, but NOPE!

In upcoming news...Matt and I are working on identifying a church that we'd like to attend so that we can get the girls baptized. :) Matt and I are looking VERY forward to a trip to Vegas in June! Which means that the exercise campaign has hit the house in full force. You cannot imagine how difficult it is to get back in shape from bedrest and taking care of babies. I some days seriously feel like I am going to fall apart, this from the woman who used to run/walk for 6 miles a day! Never thought I'd say that! :) Probably the hardest part of working out besides my lazy muscles is the fact that I get up at 5am to do this. UGH. Oh well, as my friend in college used to say "you can sleep when you're dead"....so in about 50-60 years I'll make up for all my missed sleep! :) In order to help with the get in shape campaign, Matt and I have declared that we are going to do a Biggest Loser with each other that will end on Sunday, June 7th. The winner will receive $300 and will not have to do baths for a week (this was Daddy's request...apparently he hates giving baths!)! I sure hope I win....I want the $$$ for shopping! And this of course is the incentive I have to "sleep when I am dead"!

ON Saturday, April 24th, We will be participating in the March of Dimes Walk that is in Forest Park to help raise awareness about prematurity and the hope that one day all babies will be born healthy or Full term!

Dad and Carol are in the process of moving to Arizona where my Dad has accepted a job at ASU Tempe..we are super excited for him! I think he'll love being in the education field. We are also preparing for the girls upcoming 1st Birthday. I believe (and don't hold me to this if it changes), that we are going to do a revolving Open House...mainly because we want to use this as an opportunity to introduce the girls to a lot of people and our home is not THAT large that we can have TONS of people over at one time! This way people can come on their own terms and leave without waiting for something to happen! Also, we're getting geared up for next summer/fall (2010) when Uncle Sean is going to get married to future Aunt Kelsey and the girls are going to be Flower Girls...so cute I am sure they will be, especially if they have LOTS of hair by then so that they can have some sort of cute hair-do!

Stay tuned for more fabulous Easter Pictures to come...these are just some Teasers!

Hope All is Well,

J

Mizzou-Rah!

So Jeni and I have been getting back in the swing at being at work after our vacation. It's never fun that Monday morning when the alarm goes off and you have to drag yourself out of bed when you haven't had to the last 7 mornings...

Nothing too new or exciting has happened over the past 2 weeks really. Olivia did have a brief bug that made her sick for a few days starting on Sunday evening of March 23. After we all watched the Mizzou Tigers advance to the Sweet 16, the girls were sitting in their high chairs getting ready for their dinner. I noticed that Olivia felt very warm. Her head, arms, face, everything was very warm. I got a cool rag to put it on the back of her neck to help cool her down. Unfortunately that immediately upset her. She started screaming immediately and then vomited. Poor baby. That was the first time I've seen either girls vomit... Seen spit ups, but nothing like this. And poor Olivia was so upset and confused she didn't know what to do. We called our pediatrician and took her temperature. I also had to make a run to Walgreens for some more Infant Tylenol and Pedialyte. The next morning I took her in to the doctor. Sydney stayed at home with Nana Sharon and Papa Rick. Turns out the doctor said Olivia was going to be fine. Just had a mild case of something and to monitor it and give her the pedialyte so she didn't get dehydrated. After a few days she was back to her normal self. We could really tell Olivia didn't feel well as she was super crabby and tired all the time over those days. That's totally not her usual self.

Jeni has been knee-deep in MAP testing for school, which is just about her equivalent of living hell. I've also been super busy at work finalizing some Intern recruiting for this Summer and filling a couple of other positions in our Legal Department and Communications Department.

The girls were very excited that in addition to the first weekend of March Madness, they again got to wear their Mizzou outfits to cheer the Tigers on in the Sweet 16 AND in the Elite 8 game. Unfortunately, the outfits weren't good luck against UCONN and Mizzou lost. Great season though! Also unfortunately, they lost on my birthday... Bummer. I couldn't think of a better birthday present than for Mizzou to have made the Final Four.

We actually went out for a nice dinner a week before my birthday with some friends to Big Sky Cafe in Webster. We hadn't been there for years. Great to make it back there and the food is still outstanding... I highly recommend to anyone! I was a little bummed that they took their porkchop off the menu, but I suffered through with some delicious sea scallops and risotto.

On my actual birthday, since Mizzou was playing, we just stayed at home and watched the game. Nana Sharon & Papa Rick came up later and Jeni and I went and grabbed a nice casual dinner at Steak N Shake. We also visited Borders and picked up a few books.

We were very happy to welcome some new soon-to-be friends of Sydney & Olivia's to the world in the last couple of weeks. Our friends Laurie & Dan welcomed Brendan Daniel's arrival while Julie and Allan welcomed Kara Grace. With these two new additions and the kids of all of our other friends, our girls will have plenty of playmates! Seems like nearly all of our friends have had kids in the past 3 years or are currently expecting. We are going to have tons of birthday parties to attend!

Sydney & Olivia also had a visit from Jeni's friend Stephanie. Stephanie does photography, both professionally and as a hobby. She was nice enough to come over and took tons of photos of the girls! Unfortunately Sydney & Olivia didn't cooperate for some of her time here, but I think she got some great shots. We look forward to sharing them with you when we see them.

Finally, this past Monday was opening day for Major League Baseball and the Cardinals. So, of course, the girls had to get dressed up to celebrate as well!

Well, that's all for now. We are in super clean up mode preparing for the arrival of The Grand Dude and Grandma Carol from Seattle for Easter weekend. Jeni and I anticipate that their visit will mean a little break time for us, since I have a feeling that both her dad and step-mom will want to have as much baby time as possible!

Here are some additional random photos from the last 2 weeks...

Sydney (left) & Olivia (right) modeling their new hats

Sydney is very excited by her Exersaucer.

Olivia looks surprised by everything...

Sydney with her new pink hat

Olivia in Black & White

Sydney REALLY wants to try Daddy's beer

Olivia & her paci

Yes, Olivia, Green Babies Rule. And drool, too apparently.

Sydney showing off her favorite Broadway musical and telling you that this is 'The End'.

Take care.

M

Spring Break & March Madness!

So, Jeni pointed out that it had been quite a while since I had made an entry into our Blog. You would think that since I am on vacation this week that I'd have tons of extra time to do this, but oddly, I haven't. We've been packing lots of family fun into this week! Before I get to that, I'll get you up to speed on what's been going on in the last week or so.

The girls were supposed to get their RSV shot on Saturday March 7 but our doctor's office called to tell us that we needed to reschedule. So we had to go in on Wednesday the 11th instead. The girls are finally putting on some weight as they both are up to 12lbs 12oz! Still small for 8 monthers (as they turned on March 10th) but good that they are still showing steady growth. They got 2 different shots (in 3 needles unfortunately) and actually handled them well. We didn't have the massive meltdowns that we've seen from them in the past.

The girls have graduated to eating some fruits including apple sauce, bananas, and prunes. Next week we'll be doing pears. They have also started being more vocal. Sydney has started a constant babble of "Mamamamamamamama" Now we understand that she doesn't actually know she is saying "Mama" but it's nice to hear.

Thursday night Jeni had Parent/Teacher conferences and worked late at work. I invited Uncle Ben (no, not the guy who makes the rice) over to visit the girls. Jeni got home around 8:00 just in time for the girls' last bottle.

On Saturday, I met some friends at BWW in SoCo to watch Mizzou play for the Big 12 Championship against Baylor. Great game and a great win for the Tigers who take home the Big 12 Conference Tournament title the first time ever!

On Sunday Grandma Pat, Uncle Mike, and Aunt Nozomi came over for St. Patrick's Day dinner featuring, of course, corned beef & cabbage. The girls also got visit from their Great Aunt Nancy and Great Uncle John. The last time they saw the girls was late last Summer when the girls were still very tiny and in the NICU.

Playtime BEFORE our visitors.....

Olivia....

Sydney....

Great Aunt Nancy with Sydney....


Great Uncle John with Olivia....

Olivia....
Sydney....all tuckered out from visiting.....


After our visit with Great-Aunt Nancy and Great-Uncle John we had to get our outfits changed...a common occurance these days! :)

Sydney...

Olivia...

Monday was the start of my vacation and Jeni's Spring Break. Typically I try to take a week's vacation during Jeni's Spring Break and spend the week doing nothing but relaxing. Well, obviously with the new additions to the family, relaxing wouldn't be as easy. So this year, since the weather was predicted to be so nice, we planned some outings.

On Monday, Nana Sharon came up and we took the girls out for lunch. We went to Chevy's and sat on the patio. While it was a little chilly in the shade, it was nice to get out. After lunch we went to Babies R Us and picked up a few things, including some cute hats for the girls...

Sydney.....modeling her new hat...there are sure to be new pics in this hat of BOTH girls to come this weekend! :)

On Tuesday, St. Patrick's Day, we had a family outting to the Botanical Gardens. We started the day with breakfast/brunch at First Watch. We've taken the girls there several times now. We love the big booths where we can put their car seats next to us. The girls are always really well-behaved and usually end up sleeping almost the whole time.

The weather was absolutely perfect for our day at the Gardens! It was sunny and 80 degrees. It was so nice to get out of the house with them and enjoy the weather. We definitely were a spectacle as we made our way around the Gardens with the twin jogging stroller. Nearly everyone we passed stopped and stared. Most of those we passed would say "Oh my! Look! Twins!". It doesn't hurt that our kids are about as cute as can be...and that MANY people commented on how perfectly beautiful they are!

After the Botanical Gardens we headed down to Ted Drewe's and got concretes. Well Jeni and I did anyway. It'll be a while before the girls can enjoy that favorite St. Louis tradition.

It was a BIG day for everyone, so when we got home everyone took a nap! We weren't very inspired to cook dinner, so we ordered some Chinese. The girls had some prunes for dinner which I know they enjoyed (oddly enough).

Sydney...
Olivia....

I have to say, Tuesday was one of the best days we've had as a family. It was so nice to actually have a normal outting that didn't include a doctor. As Jeni remarked to me later, "This is the kind of day that makes all the stuff we had to go through last year worth it." I agree completely. This day will be one of my fondest memories that will stay for a long, long time.

Daddy and Sydney....

Daddy and Olivia....

On Wednesday of this week, the weather was supposed to turn ugly with storms and rain, so Jeni and I planned a day out together. However, our nanny called to tell us that her sitter was sick and couldn't watch her little boy. So, we called Nana Sharon and Papa Rick and asked if they wanted to come watch the girls. I know Papa Rick was having some Baby withrawl because a few days ago Mom had asked if they could stop by and just see them if possible. So Rick and Sharon were very happy to come watch the girls for a couple of hours while we went out and ran some errands. Nothing too exciting was accomplished. We went to O'Charly's for lunch and then to Target for some basics. We made it back home and then Jeni left again to get a few items from Sam's Club. That evening, we spent another nice relaxing evening at home playing with the girls.

That brings us to today. Today started at 7:15 when Miss Sydney decided to wake up her mommy and daddy in a new way. Remember I said that she likes to babble mamma? WELL this morning, instead of waking to her crying we woke to her saying MAMMMA...so precious... oh well, back to why else today is important!

Today marks the start of one of my favorite 4 days of the year: March Madness opening weekend. Whether I spend the day at home or in Vegas, I try to avoid being stuck at work during the Thursday and Friday of March Madness. It's a guilty pleasure of mine just sitting at home watching some exciting college basketball for 4 days straight. It makes it even more exciting this year, that my Missouri Tigers are a #3 seed and are expecting great things from this tournament. So, I'll be comfortably seated at home today watching games basically starting around 11:15 through, almost 11:00pm tonight... The NCAA is nice enough that they provide a little break around 3:30 this afternoon for a couple of hours so I can grab some dinner before games resume around 6:00...

Tomorrow will be more of the same, except I'll be meeting some of the guys at a local sports bar to watch the games (including Mizzou). Also, tomorrow will feature the girls...all decked out in the Mizzou wear in support of their Tigers...even if Olivia is still scared of Truman! :)

Have a great weekend and here are some pictures!

Go TIGERS!

M