Thursday, August 21, 2008

Appreciating my hubby...

If you have a husband and children (of any age), you must read today's post at "Mothers of Multiples Tell It Like It Is" (see link at right) entitled State of The Union. Well said. What do you think?

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Summer's Nearly over....

What a crazy whirlwind since our last post. I celebrated my birthday with our Supper Club friends last Saturday and we had the "SuperTwins" (G, A, Ean & Quinn) early birthday party on Sunday--our friends Chris and Stephanie and their twin boys are moving to Florida, so we won't be able to celebrate all four babies' first birthdays together. We swam at their pool and the adults ate yummy chocolate raspberry cake! Check out Steph's blog to see the pics: http://eqsmom.livejournal.com (or click on the link to the right)

Sunday was a huge milestone day for the twins...
Abigail took her first steps!!!! We were sitting on the floor at the Nichols' and A stood up on her own, took one step, became off-balanced, grabbed my shoulder to steady herself and took two more steps!!!! We were in disbelief!! She was so tickled at herself! She took a couple more steps later, but then kept trying to RUN--imagine that! Steph caught her later steps on her camera (see her blog).

George has mastered pulling up to his knees and contnues to crawl all over the place. Yesterday, George conquered the mighty "box" and with help, he stands behind it and takes off pushing the box on his own! He is still learning how to shift his weight from leg to leg but he is so proud of himself...ear to ear smiles and laughter!

It is so fun to have two crawlers; Abigail will come around the corner and hot in her pursuit a few seconds later is Georgie! A laughs all the time at seeing her brother crawl...she is so excited to have him chase her. A few mornings ago, I was making breakfast and heard the babies laughing hysterically. I peeked around the corner into the dining room right as A pulled up to standing on the sliding glass door. She whacked her head really hard on the glass and I was waiting for the wails to follow. Instead, G started cracking up and Abs did the same; she then fell to her bottom and fell on top of him, both roaring with giggles! That is one of the best twin gifts is watching them interact positively with each other! I love it!

Other recent remarkable aspects of crazy Jank life:

~Yesterday, when our friend Susan came over to bring her daughter and our AWESOME nanny Amy lunch, A waved and said "bye-bye!" to Susan as she left! She has been trying to talk and repeat what we are saying.

~Sunday, G had his first major wipe-out...the first of many to come between the two babies I'm sure. He was standing up holding onto a chair at the pool at the "SuperTwins" party and fell, hitting his head on the concrete. He had a small goose-egg and concrete rash on his face and shoulder that healed by the next day. Needless to say, my heart jumped into my throat...I guess it's payback for the countless accidents I had as a child and stress that I put my parents through...

~Believe it or not, G has ANOTHER ear infection. Yes, he got tubes, but apparently it won't stop him from getting ear infections if he is anatomically compromised (due to the position and size of his eustatian (sp?) tube). The tubes will hopefully change the course of treatment to antibiotic ear drops instead of oral antibiotics and the effects of the infection won't be as severe. We'll see...

~We are going on Day 11 of the poop-monster! The twins have had a stomach virus that has been going around and it has not been fun. They have been on a bland diet and we started soymilk yesterday--who knew that soymilk has binding properties?? Needless to say, we abandoned cloth diapers over a week ago and I am very eager to begin again since we have been through 100+ disposables since this began. Abigail has started to put weight back on and George has started eating again too, so I hope we are on the mend!

~After eleven and a half months of breastfeeding, the twins have begun to wean themselves. My goal was to make it one year and we have succeeded--I say "we" because without Matt's 200% support, it would not have happened! The babies have cut out the nighttime nursing (before bed) themselves and they are fine eating solid food all day. I will still breastfeed in the morning for a few more weeks and gradually stop pumping...by this time next month, we hope the babies will be on cow or soy milk completely! I feel very mixed about it, but it gives me confidence that G&A are showing me that THEY are ready!

We have two big things on the horizon. G&A start their children's day out program tomorrow (3 days per week, 5 hours per day). My heart sits in my throat as I realize my babies are growing so quickly. Tears filled my eyes when I purchased their nap mats a few days ago....they're too little for nap mats!!!! Their first birthday is coming soon. We are looking forward to having family here for Labor Day weekend to celebrate and can't wait to see them have their first taste of "sweets"!!!

Monday, August 11, 2008

Big Crawler and Near-Walker...

Here's a few glimpses of the past week...harvesting tomatoes....g crawling...picnic with Sunday School friends....playing with Avery....

Big news today!!!!!!!
G's main goal in PT was to learn to crawl....since he has mastered that goal, he graduated!!! No more weekly PT! His PT Amy felt very confident in his accomplishments and felt that he is on the right track towards pulling up, standing, cruising, and eventually walking. G was so proud of himself!! Thank you Ms. Amy and Ms. Sarah for all of your therapeutic expertise!

Friday, August 8, 2008

Can't believe they are 11 months old....

Nearly a year old. I am speechless. I wasn't sure we would make it. Of course we made it, and we are thriving, all four of us!
Major milestones this month...

George~
~pivoting on his bottom, transitioning to the crawling position by himself---started CRAWLING the night he got his tubes and has been crawling every day since!!! YAY!!!
~will stand at the couch independently and needs minimum assistance to get to standing
~learned how to go from laying down on tummy to sitting all by himself!
~mastered his sippie cup once we switched to the straw cup--likes watered down apple juice
~teeth: has top two and bottom two with incisors on the way!
~talking up a storm!!! Uses "DaDa" appropriately and explores his vocal range well
~favorite toys: loves to play with his "drum" (oatmeal container with OJ lids in it), soccer or beach ball and spoons--anything he can manipulate with his hands and feet
~wears 9-12 month clothes (ab 21 lbs.) and never wears shoes!

Abigail~
~loves to "walk"/run pushing a diaper box all over the house--smiles and laughs like crazy when she does it
~stands independently for a few seconds before falling to her bottom
~crawls EVERYWHERE!!!
~says "DaDa" and "Mama" and "Bubba" appropriately--my heart melted when she called for me the other morning from her crib!
~mastered her sippie cup once we switched to the straw cup--loves to drink watered down apple juice--even took a few swigs of breastmilk the other day
~teeth: has top two front, rt. incisor, and bottom two teeth
~favorite toys: anything she is not supposed to have like our shoes or cat's food dish, music toys
~wears 3-6 or 6-9 month clothes (ab 18 lbs.) and also loves to run around on her tippie toes!

Hard to believe that this all happened in a month...and that things change sooooo quickly! We are so very blessed to have George and Abigail.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Tubes are in

Just a short note that Geo had his tubes put in yesterday, and things went pretty well. The whole procedure lasted about 6 minutes. He screamed for the whole time, but had his paci and Mommy and Daddy right there with him. He just didn't like being strapped down with his head held still. As soon as he was unstrapped he stopped screaming, and he stopped crying by the time we got to the reception area. Even smiled a bit as we were leaving the office.

He was a clingy in the afternoon, but took a 3 hour nap, and acted his normal lovable self until just before bedtime, when we had to put earplugs in before and during bathtime. Gave him some motrin and he slept through the night without waking once.

On a side note Abs only laid down for 10 minutes when Geo went to the Dr's office. She knew something was up with her brother gone.

Thanks for all the prayers, and keep praying that the tubes will keep the infections out.

Monday, August 4, 2008

Twin lovin'!

Have you ever seen two cuter babies? This was taken after we got home from church. It was literally 101 degrees and we stripped the babies down to cool them off. Abigail loves her brother so much that she decided she wanted to sit in George's lap. They are getting soooo big!!

A Little Bit Greener...

Many of our friends in Oklahoma accuse us of being crunchy, and I guess by "typical" Oklahoma standards, we waiver to the side of granola-y. Perhaps this media push to be "green" is suggesting something that we should be doing all along....using our resources, not wasting, being frugal, using renewable and natural elements. It cracks me up that it is now in vogue to be green.

I have learned that to better myself as a person, I must surround myself with goodness and positive people. Many of my daily practices are result of a myriad of influences from others. I think that as we change and evolve, we are pushing ourselves to challenge the mundane. So instead of the ordinary, Matt and I are thinking and practicing outside of "the box" to better our family and souls. It is amazing how lazy we can become and how quickly we can become creatures of habit. Why throw away perfectly good Ziplocs when you can rinse them in hot water, put them over a tall bottle to dry and reuse them (thanks Mom--I cannot make fun of you anymore!)

My hope for this post is that it will challenge you to examine your own daily practices and change to something better. Maybe by hearing what others are doing, you will re-think your methods to improve upon them and be a positive influence to someone else down the line. Or else don't do anything....

1. Homemade Laundry Detergent--Matt found a recipe and video for making laundry detergent, which costs pennies compared to the $17 bottle of Tide we were buying monthly. It was simple to make--took about ten minutes--and cleans the clothes and diapers well. Not so great at stains and does not have a scent (requires a paradigm shift as I was raised in the era of fragrance and softness=clean), but it does the job for a tiny fraction of the cost. See below for the cost breakdown. Pennies, I tell you! Recipe can be found here.

Cost analysis:
$2 borax
$2 ivory soap (12 pack)~ ab 17 cents per bar
$3 Arm & Hammer washing powder
$4 bucket with snap-on lid
Total ...$0.81 per load of laundry (total ingredient list makes about 8 batches of soap which lasted us for over a month, and we do a LOT of laundry)

2. Cloth Diapers--When you have two babies that go through at least 6-8 diapers per day, costing us $80 per month buying from Sam's, that was great motivation to use cloth. The process to change the diapers is nearly as simple as disposable diapers plus washing one additional load of laundry per day...it was easy for us to see the benefits quickly. I have to make sure the re-used Ziploc is in the diaper bag each time we leave the house, but other than that, it's simple. I won't even get into the benefits to decreasing the amount of diapers in our local landfill and how much better it is for G&A's skin to be in cloth. Plus, they are so darn cute in cloth!


3. Biking to church--we have started a family practice of trying to bike to church each Sunday. We live less than 2 miles from our church and McFarlin even has a bike rack under a shade tree. The babies are so cute riding in the bike trailer and we get a good quick workout. Although I will say it was a test of our new transportation to ride home in 101 degree heat yesterday...good thing the ride is short.

4. Driving slower--Matt did an experiment and learned that he could increase gas mileage by 5 miles to the gallon by driving 60mph to work. Good lesson to leave a few minutes early and SLOW DOWN---in all of life!

5. Cooking out on the Grill--Our new favorite method for cooking summer meals is on the grill. Our oven and stovetop heat up the kitchen and house soooooo much. Plus the grill cooks faster and we have a yummy meal in no time.

6. Diaper wipes--I tried an experiment to make our own wipes using a wipe solution recipe and paper towels. Needless to say, it did not work. Instead, we use the cheap baby washcloths and a spray bottle with water in it! Then we throw the wipes in the load of cloth diapers we are already doing each day...too easy. I still use commercial wipes for going out of the house because I haven't found another system to work well...but I'm open to suggestion.

7. Turning off lights, opening window blinds and running ceiling fans--we are able to set the house thermostat on 78 or 79 degrees and depending on the time of day, it saves on electricity. In contrast, we close the windows on the sunny side of the house at peak heat times.

8. Change bulbs to flourescent bulbs--we're not replacing light bulbs nearly as often now.

9. Growing a garden--still working on this one. Once the nearly 200 tomatoes that are on our vines turn red and are ready to pick, we plan to share produce with other friends who have gardens as well. Great for healthy eating and the twins love their daddy's squash!!


10. Decrease the amount of paper towels and napkins used--we try to use cloth napkins, towels and washcloths for kitchen use. Amazing how we can stretch out the time between bulk paper towel purchases.

11. Curbside Recycling--yay Norman! Finally we have curbside recycling! They pick up everything but cardboard, so we have a bin in the garage where we store cardboard and make our bi-monthly run to the recycling center (coupled with other errands of course!). It is AMAZING how much we have decreased our trash output by recycling everything we can.

12. Reuseable Grocery bags--or use the plastic or paper bags you get for other purposes--or take them back to the store with you to refill with more groceries.

13. Composting--still working on the system and waiting for our first batch to be ready to use, but paper scraps, as well as food scraps have lessened the amount of trash we are throwing away. Plus, the garden and lawn will love the extra nutrition from the compost.


We are certainly not extreme in our practices, but we have found that if we do a few simple things that take a wee-bit more effort (some of it does not require more effort, just planning ahead), the cost savings can be significant and it makes us feel a whole lot better about how we live. Pretty cool that George and Abigail are being raised knowing that recycling is just a way of life.

Please share things that you do in your household....we love to try new ideas!!

Friday, August 1, 2008

Argh...

Yet another ear infection for G. Tube procedure scheduled for Tuesday. Prayers for miraculous healing again.