Live from Boston

Well, I made it to Boston. It was a good flight, too long, but nice. Quick trip to the hotel for more money than I was told - but, I'm not in Texas any more. Got to the room, unpacked, made room for the Fridge that I have to rent for my stay to keep the breastmilk so I can bring it home, get out the pump and realize that I have made the most horrible mistake - again! I have forgotten a most important piece of my pump, the same piece that I forgot when I left for camp this year. Too bad someone isn't coming from home tomorrow to bring it to me. I called mom, in tears and she looked into shipping the part. Just to get it here by Monday was going to be $150 or so. NOT worth it. So - head to the Concierge desk and ask the poor GUY there to try to find me somewhere to find a breast pump. Probably not his most weird request, but close to it I would gather. BINGO - in the cab, off to Target, buy a NEW pump and then head back to hotel. PUMP. This will go in my book as one of the TOP stupid mistakes I have made (and expensive, too!) I then took off on a long walk to Boston Commons. It was a brisk 25 minute walk there. I also visited the "Cheers" store. The weather is really nice here - NOT 107 degrees, but a nice 80 or so, and once the sun goes down, it is supposed to be inthe 50-60 degree range. Too bad I can't sleep outside. I brought the camera, but didn't bring the cord, so no pictures for now. Oh well, they are not that interesting anyway.

On a side note - We gave the girls Bananas yesterday. I was wondering if it would go down easier if it tasted better than rice cereal. It made no difference for Abby, but Isabelle is really getting the hang of it. They will probably be walking by the time I get home wednesday...

My sweet girls and other stuff

Well, the girls are growing so much. We go back to see the pulmonologist at the end of the month and will find out what the plan is for the winter. I am assuming that means another round of RSV shots. They are officially teething. They are VERY drooly and wet all the time. They might just eat their fingers for dinner soon. They put everything they can in their mouth. I got this cute picture last night. Abby has her arm around Izzy's neck. AWWWW
On other fronts, Josh and Emily are away at Pre-teen camp. I hope they are having a good time, and learning as well. Caleb really misses them. He is getting some good one-on-one time with the grandparents while they are gone, but he really misses them. I hope that they can appreciate that someday. Caleb really has a tender heart.

I will be travelling to Boston Saturday and returning on Wednesday for a Transplant Conference. I am going by myself, and will probably not have computer access for the entire time - yikes. I kidded about going and buying a laptop just for this trip, but that got poo-poo'd really fast. Too bad. Maybe they will have a business center that I can sneak in and keep somewhat up to date on everything. I hope the kids are easy on Rocky while I am gone. School is about to start. I think we are ready. I have been shoe shopping with the kids and only have Josh and Emily to finish up. I did the underwear shopping yesterday, without the kids. They will just be surprised. They probably won't even notice...Oh well. Off for laundry and to clean up...it never ends!

San Antonio

We just returned from our quick trip to San Antonio. Mema didn't want to go with us, so she packed up and was off to her sister's house in Garland for the week. We last spoke with her last night and she was having a blast. They were going through old pictures and reminiscing. She sounded wonderful. So, back to our trip. We left sunday morning and headed for the riverwalk. It was quite an experience traversing the riverwalk with two strollers. People just don't understand physics, you can't be in the same place as me or my stroller. SOMEONE has to move, and I'm not going to dump my child in the river so you don't have to walk in the dirt for a minute! People kept asking us if we had Quads or two sets of twins. In the side by side stroller, Matthew and Olivia were almost the same size. We had a yummy mexican food dinner on the river, saw the Alamo and then headed for the hotel. Sleeping arrangements in the hotel room were less than optimal. Olivia has never slept somewhere other than her bed, so needless to say, at 11:00, she is still up, bouncing off the walls. Finally, Sleep. We get up, eat breakfast in shifts so we didn't have to take the girls downstairs, and load up to head for Sea World. We had never been, and didn't know quite what to expect, but it was good - HOT - but good. It was amazing to me that there was NO wait for the roller coasters, we just walked on but if you wanted to walk around all day with wet underwear from the log ride, you had to wait 1 1/2 hours! CRAZY! There is a water park on the other side of the lake - go jump in the wave pool if you are hot! I totally didn't get that. Well, the kids surprised us. Josh and Emily rode the Great White multiple times, and all three rode the Steel Eel. They did great. We saw Shamu and cousins, dolphins and other marine life. The shows were great. We headed back to the hotel for swimming time. This time, I took Olivia into the bathroom, sat on the floor with her and wrestled her to sleep, singing all the time. Finally, after about 30 minutes of screaming and fighting, she gave it up. She slept very well between Josh and Emily. We took out two drawers from the dressers, lined them with blankets, and voila, baby beds! Fast forward to the second day of Sea World. We decided to go to the water park first, as it has a tendency to fill up and you can't get in later in the day. It was nice, but Matthew just couldn't cope with the fact we would stay in one pool for a short time and then head to another. We had to drag him out kicking and screaming so we changed clothes and left to go see the rest of the park again. More roller coasters, shows and REALLY expensive chicken finger kids meals. We closed down the park on the second day (well, they close at 8pm). We stopped by Chick Fil A and took dinner back to the hotel. I had booked another night, not wanting to leave the park at night and drive all dirty and stinky - and believe me - we were stinky. Even the girls were nasty! We got up, did some laundry, packed and then headed for home. We stopped at the Stagecoach Inn in Salado for lunch and then home to pick up the dog. Here are some pictures of the trip!















Julie

Why Hello, Officer

Tonight, right after dinner, the doorbell rings. I see through the front window that it is two police officers. I quickly run through my head why they would be at my door and can't come up with anything. They ask if everything is alright - it is - because someone has dialed 911 from our house. I quickly retrieve both phones - no dial tone. I check the bases to make sure all is ok, nothing. After about 5 minutes of quizzing each one of the children, I remember a phone from college that we have recently unearthed from the garage.

Turns out, one of the kids (that 8th child we have named "not me") has plugged it in upstairs and dialed 911. Well, we have Callnotes, where if you don't answer your phone, or if you are on the other line the answering service picks up. Turns out the police dispatcher had tried to call twice to check on us, and since there was no answer, sent out the police. I guess they saw all the children running around and felt sorry for us, certain that it was an accident and left. How embarrassing!

Happy Birthday

Well, today is Abigail and Isabelle's 8 month birthday. So far, they are right on track for a 4-5 month old. Rolling over, drooling, starting rice cereal. They are not really going for the cereal too much. Isabelle actually swallowed some of it yesterday, but Abby just lets it roll out of her mouth. Olivia wasn't too fond of it either. I have some great video and pictures from last night I will post. On other fronts, we made it through all the performances of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" and are very happy to have our evenings at home again (well at least I am). We celebrated Grampy's birthday tonight with dinner and S'mores over the fire pit in the back yard. We will soon be putting together the playset we bought the kids - I'll let you know how that went in a few YEARS when we get it done. It really can't be that hard. A teenage boy and girl put it together in less than an hour on the DVD, right?

Doctor's Appointment Today

Well, today we went to see the Pediatric Surgeon that I work with about the girl's tongues. They have Ankylglossia, otherwords, they are tongue tie. I noticed it after we brought them home from the hospital (why they didn't pick it up then, I don't know). All the information I had read was that it might resolve on its own, but it hasn't. I spoke with him a few weeks ago, and he said that he could take care of it in the office. Today was the day. It was really quick, but boy were the girls mad. They held them down, put an instrument under their tongue with a groove in it and clipped the frenulum with a pair of scissors. OUCH! They did pretty well, and despite a pretty good amount of blood recovered pretty quickly. Now we will see what impact it will have with their ability to suck and take baby food. We got the OK to try food last week after the pediatrician's visit and when Rocky got home Sunday, we did. It didn't go very well.

Lots of Happenings...

Well, it has been a while since I posted last. So much has happened. Lets start with the girls. They turned 7 months old on the 14th. They are doing new things every day. They seem to be right on track for your average 4 month olds, even in size. We went to the doctor yesterday and they are....Drum Roll Please.... ON THE GROWTH CHART. They have had amazing growth this past few months. I will plot them out when I get a chance, but they are in the 50th percentile for their length! Isabelle has surpassed Abigail in the weight department. Izzy is 13 lbs 3 oz, and Abby is 12 lbs 7 oz. This is the first time ever Izzy has weighed more. They are both 25 inches long. No wonder they are starting to outgrow those 0-3 month clothes! They got 4 shots each, and are pretty fussy this morning. I have dosed each one with two doses of Ibuprofen, hoping to help them feel better. They both have fevers this time and are pretty crabby.

Now for everyone else. Rocky is in Nashville until Sunday night for a Teacher conference. He Left yesterday, our 15 year anniversary. He spent all day Wednesday helping to move our school into another campus where they will be for the next two years while they tear down our school and build a new one. He is really going to enjoy his temporary classroom. It's also closer to our house, so he won't have to travel across town to get there. The kids have been good and busy since he has left. Josh had Biology camp at UTA last week where he got to do all kinds of fun stuff, including dissecting a pig. This week he is at Lego camp at TCU. Last week was also Bible School for Caleb and Emily. This week, they are at Camp Invention. Matthew and Olivia are having fun playing with each other without all the other kids around.

I guess that is about it for now. I will try to post more often (said that before), but I just can't seem to find time to sit down and do it, (wonder why?).