8 month wrap-up...

my handsome little man, growing up way too fast!

They like to follow us around the house. They can get themselves anywhere they want to be!

I think he likes that little guy on the other side of the mirror :)

We are soo ready to get rid of our winter coats!!

For some reason, Kenley thinks she must be ON TOP of Kaden at all times. Anytime they are near each other, she is crawling all over him....and he just takes it.

"mom, do I have food on my face?"

Their first night in the big bathtub. Ok now, don't judge. I know they should have been in here a long time ago. But it's just been so much easier giving them baths in the little tub in the sink. Now bath time lasts a little longer...it's so much fun!!  Kaden gets a little scared though (have I ever mentioned he's kind of a chicken?) If there is any water dripping from the faucet, he starts to whine...if he catches the sound of the water slowly draining from the plug, he starts to whine...AND we've had to remove the rubber ducky, because you know he was SUPER SCARY!! 

The past couple of weeks Kaden has not really been in the mood to go to bed at night. And when he's not ready....he's NOT ready. It's not even worth it to attempt to put him to bed because the screaming is ridiculous! But, if we let him play a little while longer until he is ready to go to bed on his terms, then he is much easier to put down. Car seats are so much more fun to play with than going to bed!

Fun in the tub!!

home-made baby food

Every few weeks we get out the Beaba babycook and whip up some more baby food. The kids are doing great with the homemade food and will eat anything!! When we first started it, they weren't too sure about it, but now they eat it all!

Some of our favorites:

*squash

*sweet potatoes

*peas
*green beans

*pears

*bananas

*mangos

*blueberry/cherry

*blueberry/pear

*avocado/banana

good morning mom

Many mornings when I go into the kids' room to get them up they are both still sleeping and we feel so terribly bad having to flip the light on and wake them up. But on occasion, they wake up on their own and when I walk in the door this is what I get to see.........

It is the cutest thing EVER!

crawler #2

I am very disappointed to share with you that my baby boy has now started crawling too and I can't get the stinkin' video to upload :(

But he is, and it's soo very cute. They both still do the "inchworm" but are getting around nontheless. They are certainly keeping us busy and have figured out their way around the house. They are pretty good at finding us no matter which room we are in.

It makes me a little sad, ok A LOT sad, that they are growing up on us soo quickly!!

thoroughly annoyed!!

Here was our unexpected Saturday plan, that completely turned into a waste of a day!

As we continuously hope and pray for warmer weather, we know summer will eventually get here...and we have been on the hunt for a camper. Cody spends his time in the evenings on the internet looking for that "perfect" camper, for the "perfect" price. Well last night we thought we finally found it on Craigslist. But it was in Rochester, MN. Cody spends a lot of time looking and researching and comparing, so when we decide to go and look at something, it's usually with the intent of buying. So even if we do have to travel some, it's usually worth it. The seller and I emailed back and forth several times last night and set up an appointment for late this morning. Before going to bed last night Cody mentioned the fact that we should probably give him our cell phone number just in case something comes up on his end and he has to cancel, so he can let us know right away....ya know, since it will be a 3 hour drive for us. So I emailed him our number and everything was set. We got up at 6 oclock this morning in order to be on the road by 8:00. We talked about this camper the entire way to Rochester...we were so excited! If it really was everything the guy told us it was, then we were ready to pull it home. We missed out on camping season last year due to my inability to move and then the birth of the babes, so we're ready to take back our summers. ANYWAY, our appointment was to meet at 11:00 and we pulled up to the house about 10:45. But there were people there. People who were looking at the camper. Hmmm...Cody said to me under his breath "this doesn't look good." So we stood back for a minute and waited for the guy to finish putting up the awning. Then he came over to us and said the words that made steam come rolling from our ears. "Are you the people I talked to through email last night?"   Yep, that would be us.  "Well this couple just came a few minutes ago and they want to buy the camper. I know you guys drove a distance, but you know how it goes."  

EXCUSE ME?!?  "YOU KNOW HOW IT GOES?"  NO, I guess we don't know how it goes!!  We were literally on the guy's driveway for less than 90 seconds!  We were SPEECHLESS. We got back in the pickup to turn around and drive home.

Not only were we angry, I was very disappointed in the guy. I would like to think I would have handled the situation a little differently. We would have never driven that distance, with 8 month old twins stuck in their carseats for 6 hours, if we weren't significantly interested in purchasing. But that's just me. Maybe I'm a little too kind for the world today.

today...

*Cody had his follow up MRI this morning.

*Because we discovered he is allergic to MRI dye (which is VERY unusual), they pre-medicate him with Prednisone. He has to take a pill 13, 7, and 1 hour prior to his scan. This morning, they wanted him to bring his medication with him and take the last pill while in the office and then wait that hour before having his scan. This was ridiculous. We're pretty sure he can be a "big boy" and take his medicine on his own and come in when it's time for his appointment. We were at the hospital for over 2 hours for a 40 minute scan......yes, I'm whining a bit! But apparently it helps, because he had no reaction at all today.

*Cody did his routine lab work

*We had lunch together and did some shopping...without the kids...they were staying with grandma. It was so nice to be able to run in and out of places, quickly. We got so much done!

*We met with the doctor, who gave us the good news.....Cody's scan is still unchanged from the previous ones!!!  It looks like this spot is just scar tissue and is not new tumor growth. Thank the Lord!! The dr. is still very concerned with Cody's blood though. Apparently he makes too much of it? He is completely convinced that Cody is a smoker and that we are lying to him when we say he's never smoked in his life. This is the only explanation, without doing more tests, that would explain his blood levels and for some reason, he just doesn't believe us.

*We picked up McDonalds on our way out of town. They messed up our order and the fries were way too salty....a little disappointing :(

*We got back to Brewster about 7:30 tonight. Just in time to unload everything from the car and get the kids' baths started. They both had fallen asleep on the way home, and once we got here and took them out of their seats....HOLY CRABBY!! 

*Once Kenley had her bath and was given a bottle, she went right to sleep. Kaden on the other hand, not so much. I took him into the dr. on Monday to discover that he had an ear infection. We knew something wasn't right with him because he has been so crabby lately. Well...he's still crabby! Like super crabby. And mad. He gets soo mad at us when we try to put him to sleep and he is not ready. Like ear-drum-blowing-screamin'-mad!

*It's 9:30 now and both kids are sleeping...finally.

*We are SOOO glad that another appointment is behind us. And we're also a little excited that it's Friday tomorrow, aren't you?

it's time once again...

**Cody has his follow-up appointment Thursday, April 14th**

MRI ~ 9:45

Dr. M. ~ 2:30

just because they're soo stinkin' cute!!

 

 

 

8 month schedule

5:30am: mommy gets up for the day
6:05  mommy wakes daddy up
6:15  the kids get up
     *they both get 1/2 prevacid tablet while still in their
       crib
     *Cody gets up one baby, gets them dressed, and
       feeds them a bottle....while I finish getting ready
     *I get up the second baby, get them dressed, and
       feed a bottle
     *Kenley gets a nebulizer treatment
     *both kids get their inhaler treatment
7:00  leave the house for daycare
     *Cody washes and refills bottles
7:20  drop the kids off at daycare and head to work


**7:30-3:30 ~ miss my kids like crazy**


3:40  pick the kids up from daycare
4:00  get home from daycare
     *play time
5:00  Cody gets home from work & dinner time for the kids
     *Gerber puffs
     *rice cereal
     *fruit and veggie
     *4oz. formula ~ practicing with sippy cups and then
       finish using a bottle
5:30-6:30  Kenley lays down for an evening nap
         *Kaden play time
         *our time for dinner, dishes, laundry, getting
           things ready for bath/bed time, preparing for
           the next day
7:30 bath time
      *Kenley gets a nebulizer treatment
      *both kids get inhaler treatment
      *bottle
8/8:15  bed time

tonight...

my house looks like this......

but my kids look like this...



Goodnight :)

we have a "crawler"!!!

American Idol

This momma is a huge reality tv fan and I think I've gotten Kenley hooked early!  HA...just kidding!!  We absolutely do not let the kids watch tv, if we can control it at all :)   But I came out of the bedroom the other night and caught her....................

sweet potatoes?

Kenley says...NO THANK YOU!!

We have been making our own baby food with fresh vegetables, however we do have a few jars from the store in our cupboards for any "just in case" moments. Well I think the kids have maybe had too many tastes of the store-bought-fun-flavored-stuff because they are wrinkling up their noses every time we offer them the homemade veggies. Kaden often gets a full body shiver, however he typically finishes his meal. Kenley on the other hand literally hates it! When I give her a jar of the "good stuff" she will lunge towards the spoon for her next bite literally shooving the spoon down her throat. When it's not her favorite, she gags, shakes, spits it out, seals her lips up tight, looks the other direction, and when I do get a bite in her mouth she will actually give me a sound like she's pretending to throw up, loudly!  Although maddening, it's sooo funny! When I first intended to make my own baby food, I knew I shouldn't have given them the jar food first...for this exact reason. But I am determined to make this work..........not only because it's cheaper, but I know it's soo much healthier for them and know that the transition to real table food will be much easier. So, as long as they are not starving, I plan on continuing to present it to them until they realize that it's not soo bad.

But, I think I may keep away from the sweet potatoes for a little while :)

check out our teeth!

Kaden won this milestone. He had both teeth pop through at 6 months and they are coming up quite nicely :)

Kenley's first tooth popped through while she was in the hospital (6 months) and her second tooth just poked through a couple of weeks ago (at 7 months)

**getting these pictures was next to impossible. I took MANY pictures before these two were going to let me capture those pearly whites.

nebulizers and inhalers

We are lung junkies around our house these days. We have been dealing with respiratory junk for far too long this winter. WE'RE READY FOR SPRING!! 

Both kids had appointments with the Pulmonologist (lung doctor) last Thursday. Kaden has still been doing well since coming home from the hospital. Kenley girl just can't seem to kick it. We've figured it out... since the beginning of January, she has had one full week where she has been "cough free." She's still battling the cough and congestion in her lungs. She often coughs to the point where she ends up throwing up (usually when we're ready to walk out the door and then we have to change her and get everything cleaned up...and end up being late to wherever we are going!)

This is a rare occasion. Kaden screamed through 95% of his nebulizer treatments. We have actually stopped him now and are on an "as needed" basis.

Kenley actually prefers to do her nebs upside down...silly girl :)

 

The kids are to get two puffs of the inhaler both morning and night. As you can see, Kaden hates it. It's really not that bad though, because the second you remove the mask from his face, he instantly stops. The whole process only takes a couple of minutes.

For some reason Kenley starts to panic the instant the mask is put to her face. She tries to hold her breath and then she struggles to breathe. We try to calm her down to help her realize that she can relax and just breathe normally. It's pretty hard to watch. They need to take 6 breaths before we can count that as "one puff", so by the time we remove the mask from her face, she's out of breath. Poor thing.

When they are finished, we need to clean their mouth so they do not develop Thrush, a fungus of the mouth that can be caused from the steroids.

They are both very tolerant of this as we've brushed their "teeth" from the day they came home from the hospital. It's not as easy as it used to be though with those little teeth coming in on the bottom :)