NOT FUN ISLAND!!!!

And here we are coming to you live from the sick, sick, sick house. We had our bout last December and now we are apparently experiencing our spring bout with illness. The last few Sundays we have missed church because of runny noses and then this last Sunday, only Josiah, Naomi, and myself went to church because the twins were in throw up mode. I haven't officially been counting the numerous loads of laundry I have done in the past few days, but I am guessing the load count is close to 20 or so!! The saying "double trouble" is definitely the case when it comes to twins getting sick at the same time. "Not fun island" as my Aunt Genny and her family would say (that side story on the bottom of this post). I won't digust you will ALL the gory details, but let's just say that both ends of both twins are giving me grief and plenty of laundry to wash.

Oh and incidentally...this post was interrupted by me going to say goodnight to the twins and I changed not one, but two explosive poopy diapers from the same twin (Daddy changed the other twin prior to my arrival). Needless to say, lots of hand washing and Lysol spraying around here these days.

Ugh....God please give me grace to deal with this, I hope it is over very soon! NOT FUN ISLAND!!

***SIDE STORY: My Aunt Genny and her family were out on the lake one time when her kiddos were little and they had this big inflatable circular deal that had the words "Fun Island" on it and they were really excited to use it as a family. It was supposed to be a nice thing to float on as they were relaxing in the lake. One of her girls was really afraid of it though and didn't want to go on it and informed her folks that it was "NOT fun island!"

Naomi's Ooo's, Oh's, & Ah's

This is sweet Naomi at one month and two days old and she is showing us the right way to say "Oooo" and is sporting a very nice thinking pose as well.

And here she shows us the appropriate mouth position for the "OH" sound and she adds the look of surprise just for fun also!

And lastly, our little Tomato-head is showing us very demonstratively the "AHHHHHH" sound! Enough pictures already Mom!! Sheesh!

My New Friend Melody

This is my new little friend, Melody, born to my friend Mara and her husband Jeff on February 4th, 2010. Two months after she was born, they were taking her into Urgent Care thinking she had a bad virus (she was struggling to breathe) and they were immediately whisked away to the ER after the Urgent Care folks realized that she had a heart defect that needed to be taken care of immediately. Apparently, this type of heart defect tends to show up around the 2 month marker, and it it the kind where there is a narrowing of the artery that leads from the heart to the feet. Melody has always had really cold feet (despite efforts to warm them) and she also had a hard time trying to nurse and along with a few other symptoms her heart defect may have been caught sooner, but a lot of these things can be just normal newborn stuff too, so it is hard to tell. They cut out the small part of the artery and reattached the artery where it was wide enough to fix the problem. She had her heart surgery last Monday and the doctor told her parents afterward that it was "textbook" in how well it went for her. She recovered nicely as well too and is now back home with her parents! Praise God! She will have to have regular visits to the cardiologist for the rest of her life and may need to take some medications, but overall her life will be a normal one with no real major side effects from the surgery.

This is Mara holding our little Naomi when I went to visit her where she was staying while Melody was in the hospital. It was wonderful to see her and I was glad I had the opportunity to do so when they needed the support. Naomi stayed with Mara's mom in their room, while I went to the hospital with Mara to see Melody. It was reminicent of when the twins were in the hospital to see her in her isolette with all the monitors hooked up and all that. She was very alert when we came and was chomping away on her pacifier very vigorously. She was certainly very precious and I was thankful to have the chance to meet her. Thanks Mara and Jeff for letting me meet your sweet little one!

Pull Up Pants Mud Dance & Pretend Play

I saw the kids doing this with their pants and said, "What are you guys doing?" And Josiah informed me that this is the "pull up pants mud dance" and they were stomping around the room with their pants pulled up as pictured. Daniel was doing this too at one point, but I was too slow to catch him on film.

Caleb the little mimicker of his big brother was also sporting the "pull up pants mud dance" pose for me.

The other day Daniel came into the kitchen with this teddy bear wrapped in a blanket and he said, "Baby," very tenderly. He then proceeded to want to put "baby" in the swing in the kitchen and very vigorously pushed "baby" in the swing. It was very precious! He is a very compassionate little soul.

Gardening with Daddy

We have had some REALLY nice days of late and David took advantage of them and his time off from work and did a lot of work on our yards. He and Josiah went to the "tool store" and got lots of pretty flowers "for Mommy!" Josiah also got his own work gloves, watering can, and shovel. When he came up the front walk with them he excitedly said twice, "I'm so excited for gardening!"

This picture was so cute! David was trying to get him to pose for the picture and told him to "put his shovel right here" and I love David's knowing look to me about Josiah's excitement! At one point, David said, "We're making good memories!" And Josiah parroted back, "Yeah, good memories!"

Josiah is pointing to the pretty flowers we planted. They are all across the front of the house now, the yellow in the back, purple violets in the center and white filler in the front. Josiah was SO proud of their work! The next day, Daddy took Josiah out to the back yard and they dug up all the dandelions that they could find in the yard. David used it as an object lesson comparing the weeds to sins in our lives. Afterward, Josiah was spouting some theological truths to me about getting rid of sin in our lives. It was very sweet!

Outdoor Fun!

Josiah kept hollering, "Mommy, look at me...I climbed the tree and I am not getting hurt!" He was very proud of himself that he could climb the tree by himself.

As I was taking pictures of Josiah in the tree, this little guy (Caleb) came sauntering up to the camera and I got a really great shot of his precious smile!

Daniel was following Daddy around with the play lawnmower, but I got him to stop and pose for this lovely picture.

This picture is comparable to a similiar shot we have of Daddy and Josiah when he was about the same age. I will have to look in the archives and find it and I will edit this post again and indicate where you can look for it. Here is the link to Josiah and Daddy doing the same thing in June of 2007. Josiah was almost two in this photo.

This is a great shot of Daniel with the lawnmower and Caleb eyeing it as if to steal it soon afterward.

Latest Naomi Pictures

I rarely get her to sleep in her crib, but during the day I sometimes get lucky and she will stay there and sleep. She is wrapped in all her pink garb here and her hands are so carefully placed as if she was saying a prayer.

She has many funny faces and she likes to lurch around when you are holding her. I wouldn't be surprised if this one could crawl much sooner than the others as she already can almost hold her head up!! She is a fiesty one for sure! Her onesie says, "Mommy & I agree...Daddy's charming!"

This one of her first baths here at the house. She was very sleepy and I was trying to get her to wake up, so we tried the bath. As you can see, I wasn't too successful in waking her up, but she does seem to enjoy the bath now when I give her one!

This is sweet Naomi in the dress that I wore as a little girl. We took her to church in this outfit a couple of Sunday's ago. It says on the pockets, "Daddy's Little Girl."

Family Fun!

Today we decided to take the entire family (including our newest addition, Naomi) to the Supermall for some playtime. The underlying parent motivation was to run the boys down in order to get all their energies out and that goal was met!! Josiah here is at the top of the mountain and I told him to say, "I'm King of the Mountain."

Josiah is "helping" Caleb here go down the slide. Caleb doesn't need any help really and as you can see he is working hard (check out the tongue action)!

Josiah was having a blast making friends with all the little boys and girls who were there and running around gleefully!

Caleb's serious face as he climbs "Mt. Rainier."

Another prime example of Caleb's tongue action going as he is working really hard to climb the mountain. He is definitely our climbing one and pushes his way up there even with the bigger boys climbing as well! One time I saw him try and head butt a boy's legs who was standing on the top of the mountain!

Caleb came over to this and said, "ishy" for "fishy" and had a fun time riding and climbing on the fish.

Daniel was enjoying a ride in the boat here and I captured a typical Daniel look and his beautiful blue eyes as well.

Daniel also enjoyed riding the fishy!!

In this shot, Daniel is showing me the airplane above his head.

We all had a nice time and we even met someone there who had a 4-year-old there with him and triplets (3 months old) who were at home with his wife. We were commiserating with him about the various woes and blessings of raising multiples. More blessing than woes, but mainly discussed how funny people are sometimes when they hear you have twins/triplets. The "you have your hands full," "did you take drugs?" and "how do you guys do it?" comments we agreed were the top three things perfect strangers will say to us. He was a nice guy and David even made a work contact with him as well (he works for Microsoft).

First Outing with Naomi!!

I decided I was feeling well enough on Friday to go to my regularly scheduled MOPS (Mother's of Preschoolers) meeting and technically could have left all the boys home with David, but decided instead to give him a break (he has been doing SO, SO MUCH to help out around here lately) and took them all with me. I have a friend at MOPS who I call and she helps me get them in and out of the car and to their classes, etc. I also brought the camera seeing that I don't have many photos of Naomi and myself I wanted to get one! She was very interested in looking around at everything while we were there. I didn't let anyone hold her yet, just as a precaution, since she was still only 8 days old. It was nice to get out though and I think the boys enjoyed their time at MOPS too!

Many Stages of Caleb Drama

I was able to catch on film a lovely Caleb fit and you can see the various stages of horribleness as each picture progresses. He was NONE TO HAPPY that I was snapping photos during this time and was trying to dart the camera at every turn. I can't even remember WHY he was so unhappy at this time, but clearly something was really wrong!!

This is where he realized I was taking pictures and he got more angry.

Here is my favorite pose of all as he is throwing his fit. Classic Caleb right here!

Comparison Photos

My Mom brought over some pictures of me when I was just a few days old and even with the different quality of the pictures, it was clear that little Naomi bears a strong resemblance to her Momma! I couldn't find "exact" poses that looked alike per se, but rather I just selected photos with the appropriate people and thought you might be able to see some of the similiar features. The above is of me holding her in the hospital. As I was looking for pictures of Naomi and myself, I said, to David, "We don't have many of me holding her do we?" And his response was, "Well, you have held her all this time, now it is our turn!" And I guess he is right, but I plan to get a few more pictures of me holding her on the outside as well.

This is my mom holding me when I was just 2 days old.

Daddy is holding his sweet little princess here in this one.

And this is my Dad holding me, though this picture is when I was 3 weeks old. This same wide-eyed look that I had is one we see often from Naomi as well.

I threw this picture in also of my Dad holding Naomi. I do have a picture of my Grandpa Hal holding me, but I haven't scanned that one yet because it was when I was older, so I was going to wait and do those later when we have older pictures of Naomi to compare.

This is my Grandma Betty holding me when I was 5 days old. The way my mouth is shaped and how I am looking at Grandma is yet again another expression that Naomi gives us.

And lastly here is Grandma Marti holding little Naomi when she was just 2 days old. It was fun to look at the pictures and see the comparison. Thanks Mom for bringing these over!