Happy First Birthday, Ellie and Maggie...

A year ago today, Ellie and Maggie decided that they had had enough of life in a small town. So they packed their bags and quit their lease two months early (born at 32 weeks gestation). Well, the Sheriff caught up with them heading out of town and put them under house arrest until they could pay off the remainder of their lease (NICU). In the end it only took them about 4 weeks to be paid in full, at which time they high tailed it out of town. Unfortunately, their run-ins with the law had just begun. Two weeks later they both wound up back under arrest for misconduct, and scarring the locals (RSV). This time the Sheriff was lenient and let them off after only 4 days for good behaviour. Maggie had a few more brief encounters with the sheriff, but otherwise until this month, the girls tried to keep a low profile. This month, getting tired of lying low, the girls enlisted their older brother in one last heist. The three of them snatched some gold jewelry and tried to make a run for it, but were quickly caught by the sheriff and hauled into court. The jewelry, however, was never found and the three of them were released for lack of evidence. And so ends their first year. What will they think up next?

With their history, the local Sheriff is going to be keeping a close eye on them.

No Really, My Dog Did It...

The new dog, Brandon, is too smart. It took him only one week to figure out how to open the kid safety gate that is suppose to keep the kids in and the dogs out of the playroom.

So yesterday I was outside for a moment messing with the garden fence when low and behold, who comes crawling out to meet me, but Ellie and Maggie. Ellie had a paint brush in her hand and picked up a rock to chew on, and Maggie had a spoon in her hand and a lego in her mouth. Yum. The grin these girls gave me could have stopped a bus! They were so proud of themselves, having escaped the safety of the kid room to join their older siblings in the great outdoors.

So I grabbed Maggie and took the lego and spoon away, grabbed Ellie and removed the rock and paint brush, and took them both back inside. The gate was wide open.

I guess I now need a dog proof gate as well as a kid proof one.

On that Note...

We are now the proud owners of a very warn upright piano. Yay!
I have been dreaming of owning a piano for a while because I really want all the kids to learn how to play. So I have been keeping an eye on Craig's List, and today I hit the Jackpot! Someone in the same city I live in, was selling their piano for $50. Better yet, he was willing to deliver it no extra charge! So with great glee I cleaned out a spot on the floor and welcomed a beautifully used out of tune wonderful piano.

Ah,...sweet music to my ears...well maybe not yet, but there will be!

So I Forgot to Mention...

Ellie took her first step last Wednesday, the 21st. I'm actually thinking though, that she might have been doing it for a while I just haven't had the privilege of watching her until now. She looked a bit too steady for a first time stepper.

The End of an "Ear"a...

For those of you who do not know, I have identical twin girls. To tell them apart with ease, I had their ears pierced when they were about 4 months old. Ellie got pink earrings, and Maggie got blue ones. For many around us this became a life saver when trying to tell them apart. I will say that as their mother I can tell them apart without the earrings, but I definitely have become accustom to the ease and convenience of the color coding.

Well, the good news is that nobody swallowed a sharp pink piercing earring. The bad news is that we had to take Ellie, Maggie, and yes even Jon to the ER Saturday night because one little pink intestine perforating earring had gone missing.
The Great Earring Hunt (perhaps we'll make it into a yearly tradition) started at about 3pm. We looked in every toy bucket, under furniture, and we even carefully picked though the vacuum cleaner after using it to suck up everything but a little pink earring. We did find the backing, the one safe to swallow part, on the floor. But no matter how hard we looked we couldn't find the post. So off to the ER we went to have three little tummies x-rayed. Now of course none of this happened during normal hours, because really why go to the ER at all if your not going to be there all night.

At this point I really need to break from the story and say thank you to the Hahne Family. After a quick, pleading phone call, we dropped Eddie and Katie off at their house, where they played, watched a movie, and spent the night having a glorious time. THANK YOU!!!

Back to the plot at hand...

I must say that I really liked our new ER. No, not the sick and infirm, but the nurses, the Dr., and all the other staff. They were Great! They put us in a quiet visitors room instead of the curtained of beds everyone else got. I can tell you from experience that when you have to go to the ER with more than one infant/toddler, you will be so very grateful for a peaceful place to sit.
The Dr. checked all three tummies and sent us home with instructions to find the earring before the kids do. Yeah, that's right, the Great Earring Hunt 2.
We still can't find it, so in the end we have done the only thing left to do.

We removed the other three earrings, because believe me, we don't want to do that ever again.

It's really the Key to the Whole Situation...

On Wednesday last week, I had to give Joe a ride to the office so that he could pick up his work truck. So off we went, kids and all.
After leaving Joe with his truck, I decided to make a quick stop off at Costco (notice I said quick). So I parked my car and unloaded all the kids into various carts/strollers and locked and closed the car door. At this point I would like to say that I always check to make sure I have my keys...well there's always an exception to the rule right? I was walking away from my car when I realized that I did not in fact have my keys. You would not believe the panic I started to feel as I dug in my purse frantically. I pushed the cart and kids back to the car (we had only gotten about 10 feet away from it), and dutifully checked all the doors for an unlocked one. Ok I thought, Breath, just get out your cell phone and call Joe...uh oh, no cell phones (I have two)...they were in the car with my keys. Ok, now I was really panicking, because I don't memorize any phone numbers, I keep them all in my cell phones. Plus, (to make it a real exciting trip) I also left the diaper bag in the car since this was going to be a "quick" trip. So I pushed everyone into the return side of Costco, and begged to use the phone. I called my mom in CA thinking surely she would be able to call my insurance for me. No answer...the only number I have memorized, and no one's home. So I begged again, and they used 411 to get the number to my insurance company. So I called and asked for roadside assistance. The told me it would take 60 minutes and that I could stay inside Costco until the time got close and then I should wait by my car. They were very considerate about the fact that I had kids, and they didn't want me to have to wait in the parking lot, hence the time. So I thought, why waste it? I did a quick run though Costco. After about 30-40 minutes I was standing in line to pay, when one of the Costco workers came up to me and told me that a Tow Truck was outside waiting near a green minivan. Mine is red, so I thought maybe not for me? But I hurried with the kids and the produce out the main doors and to my car, just in time to see the such said Tow Truck drive away. He didn't even drive near my car. Can I panic now? Please? Honestly, if I hadn't wanted my kids to see me cry, I would have lost it right there in the Costco parking lot. So I waited around 10 minutes at my car, then pushed kids, groceries and all back into Costco, and begged to use there phone once again. My insurance company told me I still had 10 more minutes to wait until help would arrive, so I told them that the help had come and gone without helping. They called the Tow Truck company and were told that the driver had sat and waited for 25 minutes and then had driven around for 25 minutes. Well, I don't know how good at math you are, but I wonder how the driver had spent 50 minutes total, when only 50 minutes had passed...In any case, my wonderful insurance company called a different tow company, and they arrived on time in only 15 minutes, and had my car unlocked and open in 5 more. Ahh,...peace at last, well except for the very cranky kids, the thawing groceries, and the 10mph traffic that took me home.

So there's only one think left for me to do...

Learn to pick locks.

It's a Dog Day Afternoon...

Meet "Colonel Brandon" our German Shepard/Border Collie mix. Sorry the Pic is so dark, I will try to get a better one later.

(I don't know if you've noticed the Jane Austen connection, but if not...Colonel Fitzwilliam is Darcy's cousin, and Colonel Brandon is married to Marianne Dashwood.)

We Just Can't Help Ourselves...

For those of you who know Colonel Fitzwilliam (a.k.a. Fitz)...

...He was a lonely dog...

...Until one day his owners took pity on him...

...And found him a friend...

Introducing Fitz's new friend...(name: to be determined)

Oh, what joy and happiness there is to find when one has such friends as these.

Oh, Potty Time, I thought You Said Party Time...

Yesterday, Jon started down the sometimes long road to becoming a "big boy". There were a few surprises along the way (for me that is). First, even though he still shakes his head no about using the potty, he had a 50% success rate! For a first day I thought this was Fabulous! My next surprise was that Katie seemed to decide that it was her job to be his coach. I kept hearing her high little voice saying, "Sit on the potty Jon. Good job. Now stand up so I can see if you peed. Ok, now sit back down. Good job, your going to be a big boy now!". My last surprise was the least pleasant. Unbeknown to me, Jon had dropped a nugget on the floor in the play room. The nugget, not made of wisdom or gold, was found by Ellie who had eaten it. Yuck! I found her smiling with something less than pleasant smeared on her hands and face. After cleaning her up, and then cleaning her up again, I still couldn't get rid of her "fresh" breath. At the risk of being redundant, Yuck! So now I call her my "E-coli kid". And yes, I called the Doctor's office and found out that no, this is not the first time in the history of man that this has happened, nor was there anything that I could do about it. Over all, I think his first day potty training was a triumph.

Cheers! May today bring more of the good, and less of the bad.

One Small Step...

Maggie just took her first step!

To Quote an Old Movie (well maybe not that old)...

"This is not the end. This is not the beginning of the end. This is the end of the beginning."

What a hopeful thought. Sigh....my first thought is that he's got it backwards. The World does seem to be shutting down (it could still take a million years, but we are on our way out), not just starting up. But as I look closer at this, I start to think that maybe he has it right...this world is not our home, just a starting point that we endure. Some of us will go to an eternity in glory with Christ, and some of us will have an eternity somewhere else. But there it stands, we are just starting out with our eternal souls, even if and when this world ends, our souls don't.

So this year I am going to try to see others this way, as created beings destined and designed for eternity by an immortal unchanging forever God.