Irene's Blog

Parker

2010-06-18T07:52:00.005-05:00

So we had to make the difficult decision to amputate Parker's leg. As you may remember back in December we found a tumor on his leg. It turned out to be malignant. We were lucky that the type of cancer it is it's one that does not spread but the tumor keeps growing. He had surgery at the end of December to try to take as much of the tumor out. Because of the location they were not able to take the entire thing. So the tumor grew back and it was becoming a problem again. The problem with the growing is that it became ulcerated so it was bleeding and it was making it hard for him to walk. He kept picking at it. We tried keeping it bandaged up but as you know Parker well there is nothing more that the likes than picking something, especially a wound. So the poor thing was with a cone for a while and then a boot.

In April the tumor was back and worse than December so we decided to try another surgery to try to take the tumor out. The tumor was so large at this point that after the surgery he did not have enough skin to be able to close the wound. Since April it has been a nightmare trying to make it heal. He keep getting infections and he was just in pain.
So last week we decided to amputate. By amputating the cancer problem goes away but then the new issue of walking on 3 legs arises. We were concerned about his age, he will be 11 in November. But we figured that at this point it was either amputating or putting him to sleep and I was not ready for that especially since there was a chance he could recover.
So he had surgery on Wednesday. He spent the night at the vet and we picked him up yesterday afternoon. I was amazed when I saw Aaron walk out of the vet with Parker hopping next to him. I was expecting a big wound and lots of stitches but it was worse than I had imagined. I forget how much they have to shave him, he looks like a poodle with no hair in about 1/2 his body.
The girls were excited to have him home, although Izzie lost interest on him and went back to playing within 5 minutes of being home. Somehow they did not notice the big wound or the fact that he was missing a leg.

I had tried to prepare Natalie and after we got home she told me that I was wrong. That I had told her that Parker would look different but that he looked the same to her. Apparently she thought that he was going to change colors or something because while we were waiting for Aaron to come out of the vet with Parker she asked me what color he was going to be.

So we put a t-shirt on him to cover the wound and he is doing better. He looks good, he is in pain but I am amazed at how animals recover. He can pull himself up and he stands and hops around. He gets tired quickly and he does not sit anymore, he goes down and lays down but it is way more than I was expecting.

He ate his dinner well last night (again this is Parker when has he turned down food!). He slept well, but at 1am I woke up to his whimpers. Turns out that somehow he had turned and he was laying on his surgery side so he could not get himself back up and I am sure it was hurting. Because he is so heavy and I was afraid of hurting him I had to wake Aaron up (which he was thrilled). But we turned him around and he was better and he slept fine. This morning we put him out and we left him in the yard for a few minutes when then I heard a whimper and I found him on the back porch. He climbed up the 4 steps from the yard to the back porch. I have no idea how he did it, and it exhausted him but he did it! If he can do this not even 2 days after surgery I have hopes that he will recover.

He is taking it easy, given that I think he will try to go upstairs I am keeping a gate so that he does not even try to climb upstairs. It helps that our bedroom is downstairs so at least he can sleep with us. Also given that it is so hot he is happy to stay downstairs where it's cooler.
We are sad for what he has lost and that he will never be the same but we are lucky that he is still alive and he will get better.
here are some pictures...

Parker on Tuesday, the day before his surgery wearing the boot.

When we got home yesterday afternoon. His whole belly is shaved.

This morning, tired after climbing up 4 steps.

As I was writing this he kept whimpering because he did not like being by himself. I then hear him hopping and I turned to find him in the entrance. He had crossed the living room and wanted to come and lay by the front door closer to me and where he usually lays. It is amazing watching him because he loves to lay against the walls and as he was getting closer I could see that the way he was standing he was going to have to lay on his surgery side but he must have a realized it too because he turned around so that he could lay on his good side.
Here he is standing making his way across.

Ballet

2010-05-23T19:05:00.012-05:00

I know it's been a while since I have updated the blog. We have been busy and I keep forgetting.
The girls are done with school for the summer so the next 3 months should be interesting. I have never looked forward to Labor Day as much as I do right now!

Natalie had her big ballet recital yesterday. We are so proud. When she started in September I just hoped she would stay interested and make it through the recital. Well she loved it. She loves ballet and she would practice at home. She is taking a class this summer and she is already signed up for the fall again.

She did great at her recital. She was so excited. I was worried she would get scared, given this is Natalie and she is afraid of everything. But she danced and enjoyed every second. They did two dances. The first one is ballet and they danced to Tinkerbell's song "Fly to your Heart" and then tap to Bambi's song "Little April Shower". During the first song Natalie jumped and her hair piece went flying. I was afraid she was going to stop dancing to pick it up but she never even noticed.

By coincidence the daughter to one of Izzie's teachers was at the same recital (they have so many classes they have 3 different ones). She volunteered to help so she was able to get in early and she got some great seats. Well she had her husband takes pictures of Natalie. Which was great because I was sitting so far back and had Izzie on my lap that there was no way I could have taken any good pictures.

So here are the pictures. Hope everyone is doing well.

Snow!!!!

2010-02-23T16:33:00.006-06:00

For I think the third time this winter they were calling out for snow today. I did not think it would happen given that previous times it was pretty much sleet with tiny flurries that lasted 5 minutes.
Also it was hard for me to believe given that on Sunday it was 75 degrees and we were outside in shorts.

This morning we woke up to rain, as expected. But they had said that by 10 am it was going to switch to snow. Well I was shocked when at 8am I looked out the window and saw big snowflakes. The girls had school today but given that I know the snow here can last just a few minutes I took them outside so they could see it and take some pictures.

On the way to school there was a mix of everything. Rain, then sleet and finally big wet snowflakes.

When I picked them up at school it was still snowing. They had a great time at school, they took all the kids outside so they could enjoy it.

When we got home it was naptime and around 3 the snow started up again so I bundled the kids up and we went outside.

The dogs are loving it. It has been 2 years since they have seen snow. But boy have the dogs aged in this past 2 years. Parker who loves the cold and love the snow was eating the snow and trying to play but he kept shaking so after about 15 min I had to bring him in the house.
Abi did better, but she does not like the cold so she is happy to be inside.

Natalie was very excited. We tried to build a snowman but there was not that much snow and every time we tried to turn it into a ball Parker would come and try to eat it. So I had to do a little one and put it out of his reach.

Izzie for some reason got scared of the snow. The moment her feet touched the snow since it was a different feeling she freaked out and started crying. She went back up on the back porch and stayed there. She touched the snow she just refused to walk on it.

this morning before school. Izzie is still in her pjs :-)

mid morning, the snow is picking up.

I have never seen palm trees with snow.

the golf course

getting ready to go out

Parker eating the snow we wanted to make our snowman

Izzie refusing to come down and play in the snow. She wanted me to carry her.

our little snowman. the girls lost interest before we could finish it.

All Grown Up!

2010-01-18T08:14:00.003-06:00

Well Izzie is all grown up! We took the side off her crib and she is now in a toddler bed. For some time now she has been getting up on Natalie's bed and trying to sleep there. She has not climbed out of her crib but we figured she was ready for a toddler bed. Plus she is almost getting too big for the crib and we want to get her used to sleeping without a side before we put her in a big bed.
She was so excited. As Aaron was taking the side off and putting up the little rails she kept saying "big girl bed" over and over again. She is very happy to be able to get in and out all by herself.
Now if we could only get rid of the paci and the diapers......

During nap time....

Picnic

2009-11-10T15:56:00.002-06:00

The girls are getting to such a fun age it is funny watching them play and watching their imagination. So today while they were in school I got a new rug to put in front of the door to the back porch. I just found the girls sitting on the rug with their blankets and some of their playfood because they are having a picnic.

Pumpkins!

2009-10-05T11:46:00.003-05:00

The girls have been noticing the houses in our neighborhood decorated for Halloween so they wanted pumpkins. As Natalie said, she wanted a pumpkin with a happy face...
So I took them to Target this morning so we could get a pumpkin to decorate the front door.
Well who knew that they also make pumpkins in different colors. Natalie of course picked a pink one and Izzie for some unknown reason wanted blue. She kept saying it was yellow and I kept telling her it was blue and she was happy. I was trying to encourage her to pick a pink one so that they would be the same which meant no fighting later on at home but Izzie would not let go of the blue pumpkin. At least the pink one looks a little like orange, the blue not so much. Either way it's their pumpkin and they were very excited.
We got a big one for outside and the little ones have batteries and they light up. I have a feeling this little pumpkins will be around for a while, not just Halloween. They actually are pretty good nightlights.....

Check out the pictures, you can see the rock that Aaron spent 2 days spreading all over the front bushes. It looks great and hopefully it will last longer than mulch.

My day today.....

2009-09-30T18:23:00.004-05:00

So I am having such a wonderful day today that I had to share!!! (can you tell my sarcasm....)

So my day started at 5am (i am rounding here it was like 4:50am) when I heard banging around coming from upstairs. So I dragged myself out of bed and sure enough I find Natalie ready to start her day. So some arguing about the time and some threatening and I go back downstairs to try to get some more sleep. Well of course I can't sleep. I can hear Natalie opening and closing her dresser. So she is not going back to sleep. Now we need to make sure Izzie does not get woken up. So finally at 5:50am I give up on any sleep and get up. At 6:00 am Izzie is up. She normally wakes up at 7:00 so waking up at 6:00 is not good.
So I tell them they need to stay in their rooms until it's time to get up (my plan 6:30).
Whole lot of crying & screaming. It's barely 6am!!!

So 6:30 the girls come out. Sure enough Izzie is cranky! She is tired and clingy and whinny and I am trying to get ready for the day ahead of me.

By 8:00am the girls have had so many time outs I lose count.

At 9:30 I have had enough of all the screaming and fighting that I put them each in their room before it's time to go to Natalie's ballet class.

At 10:00 I go get Natalie to get her dressed for ballet and I find her sitting on her sink, pulling medicines from the medicine cabinet because the baby doll needs medicine. I look in Izzie's room and I realize that they have been going to their rooms through the bathroom and that Natalie had already been through Izzie's medicine cabinet. Luckily she could not open the motrin & tylenol or the huge bottle of baby oil..........

We go to ballet then it's home for lunch. Things are looking up. I see naptime in my future......

The girls go to sleep and although they did not take a very long nap like they should given how tired they are, it was still a good nap so hopefully the afternoon will be better.

At 3:15 we leave so that we can go pick up Parker's medicines at the vet which I had already called ahead so all we had to do was pick them up. And then off to playgroup.

So we get to the vet, I asked for the pills, they are finishing getting them ready. The girls are at next to me. I look down and Izzie is laying on the floor. I make her get up, why is she laying on the floor at the vet's . So as I am checking out I notice Izzie's shirt is all dirty, she stinks and she is holding on to something in her fingers.
I smell poop!
Then I notice poop on the floor and realize she has been playing with it, rolling with it on the floor and I am hoping she did not try to eat it. This all in the 5 min we have been there.
So Izzie starts crying and has this look in her eyes like she did something bad. She gets all serious and does not talk. So I am thinking she ate poop.
So I tell the people working there that there is poop on the floor, I take her shirt off, which is has poop all over and stinks. Well Izzie still stinks, so I take her to the bathroom (with Natalie following behind trying to leave the bathroom because she does not want to be stuck there). So I wash Izzie's hand, and I am trying to smell her mouth to see if she ate any, spraying water in her mouth just in case (in the end I don't think she ate any but I am not 100% sure) and cleaning her chest. I think we are good to go, when Izzie says "poop" and points at my feet. Well Izzie had stepped on it too, and she had stepped on my feet, so now my feet have poop too.
So I get my foot and flip flop cleaned and 15 min later we are out the door. We were at the vet for almost 1/2 hr when all I wanted was to pick the pills.
We leave and poor Izzie is shoeless and shirtless.

Thank goodness we had playgroup and Aaron came home early so when we got back he was home. The girls are still tired and I can't wait for bedtime!

I just hope tomorrow is a better day!

Natalie goes to Ballet

2009-09-08T12:20:00.002-05:00

Natalie had her first ballet class today. She did great. I was afraid she was going to get all clingy when I dropped her off but she did great. She gave me a hug and a kiss and she went in with her teacher and her new ballet bag (with blanky inside her ballet bag of course....)

Class is only 1 hr long so I did some quick errands with Izzie. That was tough. Izzie would not stop asking about Natalie. She kept pointing at the empty car seat and asking "Natalie, were did she go". In the beginning it was cute that she was asking for her sister. But after 30 min of non stop talking and asking about Natalie no matter how I responded it started getting very annoying.

We got back and we still had about 20 min before class ended so we could see her through the little window and she looked so happy. She was smiling and following instructions and jumping.

When class was over she came running and kept telling me "Mommy I had so much fun".
I am glad she had fun, so far it's been a hit! If only Izzie could do it too it would be fantastic!

My Little Princesses

2009-08-26T08:23:00.002-05:00

Izzie has started playing dress up, Natalie has not been as interested but when she sees Izzie dressed up then she wants to be dressed up too.
Here are some pictures of them dressed up from last night.

Ring around the rosie......

2009-08-24T12:35:00.003-05:00

Caught the girls playing Ring around the Rosie with Hello Kitty. Each of them are holding Hello Kitty's hand and spinning around. It was so cute to watch.

silly with her monkey shirt (and the crazy hair

CT Trip

2009-08-19T19:37:00.008-05:00

We just got back from spending a week in CT. We went to see my sister and her husband and their two boys and also we got to see my brother who lives in NYC.

We had a great time. The girls had a blast. They loved playing with the boys and going to new places. We were very busy but we had such a good visit. Natalie has not stopped talking how she is going to go back and visit Titi.

The girls did great on the plane ride. I was most concerned about that. We were flying from Austin to Chicago and then on to White Plains NY. They did awesome. I really did not expect it to go so smoothly. I have hope that as they get older traveling will continue to get easier.

On the first full day we were there we went to the Norwalk Aquarium. The girls had a great time looking at the penguins and seals and the big turtles.

On Friday we took the train to NYC. It was so much fun. We were exhausted by the end of the day but the girls had a great time. It was their first time on a train and they were very excited. Then in NYC we went to the Central Park Zoo. We took a cab to the zoo and Natalie kept talking about how much she liked the yellow car. I realized that she does not see that many here at home. At the zoo they saw all the animals but they had the most fun in the petting zoo. Natalie was beyond herself when she saw the piggy. For some reason she loves pigs. She wanted to go inside the pen and be with the sheep and the cow. The most fun I think for Natalie was that she got to ride the Central Park Carousel. She had never been on Carousel before. She loved it. She cried when it was time to go. Izzie enjoyed it too. She feel asleep on Aaron while on the ride.

On Saturday we went to Ridgefield beach and the kids had a great time swimming in the lake and playing in the sand. In the afternoon we went to Bridgeport for a baseball game.

Sunday the girls were exhausted so we took a rest day ;-)
Monday was a full day at the amusement and water park. It was very hot that day so the water park side was very busy. The girls had fun on the pool but they enjoyed the kiddie rides on the amusement side more. We all went on a ferris wheel. Izzie got to do the rides too. It was fun seeing all the kids playing together.

Then Tuesday was time to come home. We can't wait to go back.

Now we are home and the girls are back to their routine. Aaron had to leave this afternoon to go to Seattle for work. The girls are a little upset after spending so much time together that he left. He will be back late Friday night. We are looking forward to a relaxing weekend.

Here are some pictures

on the train station waiting on the train

RC & Natalie in the train

in the Central Park petting zoo

Izzie being silly

RC & Natalie

Izzie's baby went everywhere with her

Jack

RC & Jack (Natalie in the background)

In the Central Park Carousel

Frances & Jack

Natalie was very excited to ride in Uncle Rob's convertible

At the baseball game

Natalie, Izzie & Jack having a snack

Natalie, Frances & Jack

Natalie & Tio (my brother Jaime)

Natalie & Buster Brown

At Lake Compounce

About the take off in the Ferris Wheel

Sea World

2009-07-20T06:54:00.005-05:00

We took the girls to Sea World yesterday. My friend from high school and her husband are moving back to San Antonio so they met us there. It was so nice to see them, hopefully we will start getting together more often.

Now the girls had a great time at Sea World. They were both so excited to go. We have not been since last December so I was worried about them forgetting and being scared again. Well not really worried about Izzie, more about Natalie who is scared of everything.

Well Natalie was jumping up and down, she even fed the dolphins!
We saw the Shamu show and the aquarium and the penguins. We did not see any other shows because it was very hot so we decided to take the girls to the water park side. There they went nuts. They had a little splashing pool and they were so excited we could not take them away.

We got to Sea World right when they opened at 10am and left at 4:30!!! The girls were exhausted but they had a great time. You would think they passed out in the car for the 2hr ride home but nope, they stayed awake. Izzie finally fell asleep with just 1/2 hour to go. Natalie stayed awake. They did sleep good last night.

Here are some pictures:

Feeding the dolphins

Natalie feeding the dolphins

Izzie feeding the dolphins

Natalie & Aaron coming out of the pirate ship

Save the Bunnies

2009-07-15T13:31:00.004-05:00

Somehow a rabbit made her way into our yard and built a nest. Yesterday morning Natalie very excited was telling me the story how Parker found baby rabbits in the backyard.
I am thinking "hmm Parker found baby rabbits, not good". Natalie unaware about Parker's intentions was thrilled. I asked Aaron the outcome of the rabbits trying not to give away any information that may upset Natalie. Aaron told me that indeed Parker found a nest and they saw 2 bunnies running away. Parker did not get to them, Aaron was able to get a hold of him before he could really take off and chase them.

So all day yesterday I did not put the dogs in the backyard. I knew that once outside Parker was going to go and find them. I was trying to wait until Aaron got home from work so that someone could supervise them.

Well of course Aaron had a late meeting and was coming home late so I put the dogs out. The girls were happy playing in the laundry room (they were happy I don't ask too many questions). So I went outside with them. Parker immediately goes where the nest was and where Aaron had told me the bunnies were. Sure enough he found one. The poor bunny is yelping, so I started screaming at Parker and I went after him and he dropped the bunny. I was not sure if he had killed him or not but at least he did not eat him (yes they eat them, in NC they found a nest of chipmunks and ate them all).
Anyway I drag Parker inside and they were done outside. A little bit later I went to check on the bunny and he was gone so I figured he was ok.

After the girls went to bed I told Aaron we had to move the bunnies to the front. If they stayed in the backyard the dogs were going to kill them.
So off we go to rescue the bunnies. We found 2 of them and Aaron was able to get them inside a basket and we moved them to the bushes in front of the house. One of them (the one Parker had "played" with) ran to the driveway, I guess he was scared but he looked ok.
The other one just hid in the bushes.

So now we are feeling pretty good that we rescued the bunnies. Aaron puts Parker on a leash and walks him around the yard in case there are more. Parker is sniffing but shows no interest. So we take him off the leash and sure enough he finds another one by the fence. Ahh we were so mad, I only wonder what our neighbors where thinking. The two of us at 8:30pm yelling and running after the dog in our own backyard! Anyway this poor bunny was not so lucky and died.
I felt really bad but at least 2 survived.

This morning we saw the mommy rabbit we believe she is looking for them. I went to see where the one from last night was, if he was still there but he was gone. Hopefully he is somewhere safe.
The one that Parker "played" with that I last saw in the driveway I found dead in the driveway. I have no idea what happened because he looked ok when I last saw him, he was hopping around. At least he is out of the girls view so they have not seen him. I am not removing the body so he will have to stay there until Aaron gets home from work.
Natalie & Izzie saw the mommy rabbit this morning and Natalie is all concerned that she can't find the babies.
I hope she does not try to get into the backyard. I don't trust this dogs. Hopefully she won't put another nest in the back.

I was able to get some pictures last night.

this is the nest in the grass. the hair on top is from the mommy rabbit.

the little bunny hiding in the grass. this is the one that we believe is still alive

they are so cute. i thought about keeping him!

this is the one Parker "played" with.

Izzie goes to school

2009-06-30T09:32:00.004-05:00

Today is Izzie's first day at school. Aaron and I were going to wait until she turned 2 to start her but she is so ready to go we decided to start her now.
When I told Natalie that Izzie was going today, Natalie was very excited and started jumping up and down. This morning we got all her stuff together and packed her lunch.
Poor Izzie really did not understand what was going on but she loves going with Natalie so I was sure she was going to be fine.
We went into her classroom and she started playing with all the toys. I had Natalie with me to keep her company. I stayed in the room with her for about 15 min but they were both playing with the other kids and the toys happily so I got up to leave. I figured this would be time that she would come running and hold on to my legs. Nope, that never happened. She never cried, not one tear. She and Natalie just kept on playing. I stood outside the door trying to see if she would cry but nope she was fine.
Now Natalie is not staying with her all day, not sure how it went when Natalie had to go to her classroom. Also I am curious to know how she does for nap. Naptime is in a mat on the floor and she is still in a crib at home.
I have a feeling that this afternoon she will either be exhausted or extra clingy.

Today Izzie turns 20 months!

So now what to do with a whole day all by myself. Well as it turns out it has not rained in a month and today it is raining. Actually it is thundering so I am not alone, I have Parker laying on my feet shaking and panting. So it will not be that relaxing of a day. At least it's just Parker at my feet and not two little monkeys also on my lap.

Here are some pictures I took this morning.

Shoes

2009-06-20T07:30:00.004-05:00

Yesterday I left the girls playing upstairs while I showered. They came downstairs with their plastic play shoes. Izzie was so proud to be wearing heels. Natalie demanded to have her picture taken, and was even posing for the pictures.
Aaron was not too thrilled when he saw the pictures. I think he is getting more and more afraid to their teenage years.

My little mess maker

2009-06-16T08:45:00.005-05:00

It seems like Izzie's terrible two's are different from Natalie's. Natalie's were more tantrums and whinny meltdowns. Izzie it seems like it is anything that she can make a mess and get in trouble.

Last week after lunch while I was cleaning up the kitchen I sent the girls to play upstairs. I thought they were playing with their toys.... turns out they were in the guest bedroom pulling out all rolls of wrapping paper and making a mess with anything else they could find. I found Izzie running around on top of the wrapping paper listening to it crinkle. Now on that incident it was both of them but it seems like Izzie is the one that starts and Natalie helps her in getting her what she can't reach.

At least once day I find Izzie with the dog's food. Feeding Parker who is very excited about his morning or afternoon snack. She also likes to dump the food in the dog's water dish and then she puts her hands in it to try "wash" her hands.

Also she has figured out the usefulness of a step stool. So she gets the step stools and positions them to wherever she wants to reach. Lately it has been to the desk chair. So she puts the stool in front of the desk chair, then she climbs on the desk chair, from the desk chair she gets on top of the desk where she gets a hold of pens, pencils & markers. Usually if she is quiet it means trouble. I have found her multiple times just sitting on the desk coloring.....

Finally her favorite place, the pantry!
Last week Natalie & Izzie were banned from the pantry after a huge mess they made in there which involved spilling salt all over the floor and then spreading it all over the kitchen and living room. Oh and this was done 15 min after I had just finished cleaning and vacuuming the whole house. Needless to say they have been forbidden from entering the pantry. Until today.....
I was upstairs doing my exercise video. Izzie was playing in the playroom. I guess she decided she wanted to go downstairs. I thought she was playing with her toys downstairs. Apparently I did not shut the pantry door all the way and she made up for not being allowed in there in the past week. The best part is that when I find her she just starts laughing.

Here are some pictures for your enjoyment....

Ready for the pool?

2009-06-04T12:05:00.005-05:00

Izzie likes to play in the dog's water dish. Normally she just sticks her hands in it.
When I was getting dressed this morning I head splashing. I come out and I find this:

I guess she is ready to go the pool!

Diaper Change

2009-05-28T10:09:00.003-05:00

I just witnessed one of the funniest things I have seen the girls do in a while. The girls were outside playing and I was picking up stuff around the house.
Natalie comes in murmuring something about wet, diaper, poop. I figured she was talking to herself so I did not put much attention. She came in went upstairs and then I see her walking back out the door with one of Izzie's diapers in her hand. Izzie is outside too playing in the sand tables.
So Natalie is now outside in the back porch and even with the door closed I hear her yell to Izzie "Izzie come you have a poop". So now I am curious as to what Natalie is doing, since she is holding a diaper in her hand.
Izzie comes over (not sure why when Natalie calls her she comes but when I call her she ignores me). So I am not sure if Natalie is going to bring Izzie to me or what so I watch what they are doing and next thing I know Izzie is on the floor with her legs up in the air and Natalie is sitting with her taking her shoes off.
Natalie pulls off her pants and takes Izzie's diaper off. At this point Izzie gets up and Natalie realizes that there is no poop in the diaper says "ahh no poop just wet". So now Izzie is running around half naked and Natalie is trying to get her to lay down to put the diaper on. Since I don't think Natalie can put a diaper on I went to help.
I was able to get some pictures but they are from the inside through the windows so they are not very clear. If I would have opened the door they would have stopped.

So as I am writing this, Natalie comes back in the house and is again talking to herself something about again. I watch her come down the stairs with another diaper. She tells me that Izzie's diaper is wet. They are playing in the dog's water dish outside. I tell Natalie don't worry that I will change her diaper and she tells me "no no I will change the diaper". If only she really could change them that would be great!

Silly Girls

2009-05-13T10:40:00.002-05:00

I had to share this cute picture I just took of the girls. I was on the computer and the girls were with me in the office "reading" books and playing around. Izzie loves books now and wants you to read to her all the time. Her favorite thing to do is to sit on your lap while you read her books. So I was on the computer and Natalie was looking at the address book when I hear Natalie say "ohh Izzie sit on my lap". I look over and sure enough Izzie is sitting on Natalie's lap waiting for Natalie to read her the book. Good thing I had my camera right next to me!

Happy Mother's Day

2009-05-10T18:43:00.009-05:00

The last couple of weeks have been very busy for us. Two weeks ago Aaron had to go to Las Vegas for a work conference. He left on Sunday after dinner, but before the girls went to bed. They were fine when he left but when Natalie was trying to go to sleep and she realized that Aaron was not here and could not come she started crying and calling out for him. I felt bad especially since he was not coming home until Friday afternoon so it was going to be a long time. Every day she asked if this was the day he was coming home or tomorrow. She did not really understand the whole 5, 4, 3 days from now. Luckily to make things easier for me my friend Stacy from NC had to come to Round Rock for a training at Dell. It was great timing since she was able to stay with us and keep us company. Also having someone new at the house distracted the girls from Aaron not being home.

Stacy left on Friday and a couple of hours later Aaron got home. We all survived the week and hopefully he will not have to travel for a while, at least for not as long. The girls were so excited to see him. Especially Natalie she really missed him.

Then on Sunday my parents came to visit. They had spent some time in NYC and Connecticut visiting my brother and my sister so they planned a layover in Texas. We had a great time with them. Last time we saw them (well I saw them in Feb in PR at my grandmother's funeral) was in August when we went to visit them. Izzie had just started walking. How things change in a few months. Izzie is now running around like a crazy girl, Natalie is not as shy and talking nonstop. Last time my parents were here was in May of last year, we had just moved in and did not know Austin that well. Now we are more settled and the house more in order. Natalie and Izzie had fun showing them their rooms and all their toys. My parents left on Friday and Natalie misses them. She likes having company in the house, also she loves getting spoiled!

Since the last couple of weeks have been crazy and I have not been getting that much of a break from the kids Aaron took them out yesterday morning. He took them walking around Town Lake in downtown Austin, I got a couple of hours of peace and quiet in the house. Today for Mother's Day Natalie was very excited to celebrate with me.
In the morning we took the girls to Mansfield Dam in Lake Travis. The original plan was to try to hike/walk around the water's edge. But in the end we just looked at the beautiful view and the girls had a blast picking shells (can't really call them sea shells since we were on a lake) and throwing sand in the water. Natalie was not afraid of the water this time, I am glad that she is getting over her fear. Izzie on the other hand was insane. She walked right in. At one point we had to stop her because the water was to her belly. The best part is that I did not plan on this so of course they are in shorts and I did not have an extra set of clothes for them. Izzie had to ride home in her diaper. The girls had such a good time. Natalie kept saying she wanted to go in the water further. For being a lake the water was not that bad, it was a little chilly but not as bad as I was expecting. I miss the beaches in Puerto Rico & North Carolina but at least we have something here that the girls can enjoy.

We stayed home in the afternoon, Natalie wanted a cake (and I did too) so we got a chocolate cake and after dinner Natalie wanted to sign to me and have me blow a candle. So they sang Happy Mother's Day to me in the tune of Happy Birthday. It was so cute since Natalie was leading the way, all Izzie could say was Happy. They enjoyed the cake and are now exhausted from their long day.

Here are some pictures

Here is Natalie with my Mom

Natalie on a rock overlooking Lake Travis

Throwing sand

Izzie giving us her silly smile

Izzie wanted to go in further

Recent Pictures

2009-04-21T12:32:00.005-05:00

It has been a while since I last put an entry in the blog. We have been busy hanging around and playing. The weather has been awesome lately so we have been spending some time outside. Summer has begun, Izzie has a nice tan to show it.
The girls are getting so big, especially Izzie. She does everything Natalie does. They are playing much better together and it is very cute watching them play. They can entertain themselves for longer periods of time so they have been giving me some nice breaks while they play. They still love playing with their kitchen and feeding the blankets and all their stuffed animals.
Izzie's latest trick is that she does not want to climb up the stairs or come down sitting down. She wants to walk up and down the stairs. It is a little scary watching her do it, especially because we try to have her hold our hands and she shakes her head no. She does hold on to the rail but it still scares me. Natalie is very excited and cheers her on.
Here are some recent pictures I took at the end of last week and the weekend. They are showing off their new nightgowns. I got them nightgowns since they are a bit cooler, getting ready for the Texas summer!

Natalie wanted to show off her cupcake PJs too. She now loves to have her picture taken.

Izzie coming down the stairs

Natalie's Surgery

2009-03-18T09:54:00.003-05:00

We just got home from Natalie's surgery. We had to be there this morning at 6:45am and the surgery was scheduled for 7:45. Last night she saw me getting some stuff ready and asked what they were for. I told her we had to go to the doctor this morning but she really did not understand. We did not really go into any details since this was right before bedtime and we did not want to upset her.

This morning she woke up at 6, right before we went up to get her. We had to take her earrings off and at that point she figured that this was not good. She never cried but she kept saying she did not want to go and that she wanted to eat breakfast.

At the hospital she did very well. This time it was at a pediatric surgery center so it was all made for kids, so they had tons of toys and more kid friendly. This definitely helped. It also helped keeping Izzie entertained.

When it was time for them to take her she went with the nurse, she took her blanket and Pi with her. She was wearing a gown and her pj pants and some sock slippers that they had given her. She was very brave and never cried. Surgery took 20 minutes and the doctor came back and said that everything went very well. She had some fluid behind her eardrum but it was not infected. Also the adenoids were covering about 50% of the space behind her nose so he said that it should definitely help with her breathing (although she does not snore) and also help with the fluid not accumulating. We had to wait another 20 minutes before they brought her outside.
When they brought her out she looked very sad and all confused. They had warned us that sometimes kids are crying and inconsolable. She was just dazed. She still had the IV on and wanted it off but we got her calmed down so she would mess with it.

At this point Izzie had enough so Aaron had to take her outside so she could play and be loud and not bother the other patients. I stayed with Natalie and read her some books while she drank some juice. She fell asleep on my lap (the pain medicine had kicked in). After about 20 minutes they told us we could go home.

She is feeling much better now. She is watching Mickey and eating some goldfish. We are glad that it is over and hopefully no more surgeries.

Natalie's 3rd Birthday

2009-03-16T21:23:00.008-05:00

Today was Natalie's 3rd birthday. I can't believe she is already 3. Time is going by way too fast. On Saturday we had her birthday party. I was worried because I was afraid it was going to rain. It had not rained in about 6 weeks and of course now it was supposed to rain. In the end it did not rain on Saturday but it was chilly and cloudy. I did not mind since we could at least be outside and enjoy the bouncy house we had rented.

Saturday morning we were busy trying to get ready for the party. Natalie was all excited, she thought that her birthday was that day. We tried to explain to her that it was just her party but we are not sure she got it. I am afraid that tomorrow she is going to say it's her birthday. We will see.....

Around 10:30 am the bouncy house showed up and she was very excited when it was set up. She kept saying "Mommy come see MY bouncy house". I was worried what was going to happen on Sunday when they took it away so we had to keep reminding her that we were just borrowing it. Anyway we had things under control as far as party planning so we got to enjoy jumping around in the morning before lunch. Izzie could not jump but she was having fun walking and trying to not to fall. The dogs of course were all confused. Parker was trying to jump to be near us on the side and Abi was doing her best to stay away from all the noise and the big thing now occupying her yard. The girls took a nice nap and then the party started. All the kids had great fun playing in the bouncy house and in the sand tables in the backyard. They also played upstairs. We had about 10 kids so it was fun watching them all run around. Then it was time for burgers and hot dogs and then the pinata. It was now pretty chilly outside so we did the pinata inside, the kids had lots of fun picking all the stuff. Then it was time for cake and then to open presents. I was afraid that the kids would get bored but somehow it was now 7pm. Some of the kids left and some of our friends stayed so we enjoyed more playing in the bouncy house.

Natalie was exhausted at the end of the day. She had so much fun. On Sunday we were getting ready to go and jump but it was raining so we had to wait. We had the bouncy house until that afternoon so we wanted to take advantage of it while we could. It stopped raining and Aaron went to dry it off. We had been jumping for about 1/2 hour when Aaron decided to see how far we could jump. Well as you can probably guess he jumped a little too much and too close to Natalie. When he landed he sent Natalie flying and when she landed she hurt her knee and now was screaming and would not get up. So we had to get out and when she calmed down she could not stand. She kept complaining her knee hurt and would not put any weight on it. So I called the doctor and they gave me an appt so the doctor could check her out and maybe do an X-Ray. Luckily the pediatrician have Sunday office hours so we did not have to got to the Emergency Room. She did not want to go to the doctor but she did very well. The doctor examined her knee and her leg and said that it was just a mild sprain, nothing serious and no X-ray. On the downside she could not jump anymore and we still had the bouncy house at home! We felt bad that we were not able to enjoy it more, maybe next time.

This morning for her actual birthday we opened presents in the morning with Aaron and then Aaron went to work. Natalie started playing with all her new toys and then we went to the park to feed the ducks and play in the playground. We had playgroup in the afternoon and then after dinner there were more presents that had arrived during the day and the last round of cake!

She had so much fun on her birthday weekend. Now we have to wait until Oct for Izzie's birthday.

Now we are getting ready for the surgery on Wednesday, she has no idea what's coming. I just hope she is not too upset and it is over quick. I will post an update on her surgery on Wed afternoon.

Here are some pictures from the weekend.

the bouncy house

Natalie & Izzie

Waiting on burgers & hot dogs

Pinata time

Time for cake

burning up some energy after cake

all her presents this morning

at the park Izzie was playing peekabo

Cooking

2009-03-11T17:10:00.007-05:00

So this afternoon we stayed home. We did not have playgroup and the weather outside is pretty nasty. We have not had a drop of rain in over 3 weeks. Of course because Natalie's birthday party is on Saturday now it decided to rain. They were saying on the news that over the next 3 days we will have the most rainfall from one weather event since 2007. Just my luck. Sunday looks to be nice and the latest forecast are calling for 30% or 50% chance of rain on Saturday depending where you look. I am hoping they mean morning and it will be rain free for the afternoon.

So this afternoon we were home and Natalie said she was going to cook dinner. She was going to make chicken. So she wanted her apron on, which then meant that Izzie needed to have an apron on too. The girls were so cute "cooking" together. Natalie is getting more and more interested in her kitchen as she is doing more of the pretend play. Izzie just likes making a mess and playing with all the pretend food.

Here are some pictures

Natalie making some coffee

Izzie going grocery shopping

Coffee is ready.....

ENT Update

2009-03-05T10:40:00.003-06:00

Just wanted to write a brief update on the follow up ENT appt. So last Friday I took Natalie for her hearing test. Natalie did not want to go but it was a easier this time since Aaron was home with Izzie. They did 2 tests, one was sounding this noise and she was supposed to look at the speaker that the noise was coming from and the other test they put a probe in the ear (not too far down) to measure how noise traveled given the fluid in the ear. She did ok, not great but no kicking and screaming and most importantly no throwing up.

We got the results earlier this week and she does have fluid in both ears and it is causing some hearing problems. So we have two options, one is to give her a round of steroids & antibiotics to see if that helped get the fluid out or put tubes in, again. At first I was thinking of doing the medicines, just to avoid another surgery but on second thought we decided on tubes. In the past she has been on antibiotics so many times, at one time she was on for an entire month straight and although they worked great to cure the infection and avoid infections it never got rid of the fluid. So we did not think the antibiotics would work and we were going to be in the same position in a few weeks.

Now since this is the third time putting tubes in the doctor wants to take her adenoids out too and instead of the regular tubes they are going to use this tubes called "T tubes". They last 3-4 years and then the doctor has to take them out, they don't fall out. The doctor can take them out, no need for surgery but they do need to sit very still (and not throw up....) so I am sure it will be a while before we take those out.

She is scheduled for surgery on March 18 and I guess because they are taking out the adenoids too they are doing the procedure this time at the pediatric center not the regular place like last year. I have not mentioned this to her, I don't think she will understand the whole surgery hospital thing. Hopefully this will be the last time she will need ear surgery.

Kite Festival

2009-03-01T13:51:00.004-06:00

This morning we took the girls to Zilker Park in downtown Austin for the 81 st annual kite festival. We missed it last year so we have been looking forward to going this year. Earlier in the week I got two kites for the girls so that we could bring them with us. It was a little chilly this morning but it was a beautiful day with nice wind. We got there right before it started and got a good spot to put or chairs and blanket down. Natalie was cold at first but by the time we left she was kicking and screaming because she did not want to go. We brought sandwiches to have a picnic and eat there. They also had some bouncy houses so Natalie was able to go and jump. We flew our kites early in the mornig when we got there but then it too crowded so we could not but it was ok it was fun watching all the other kites. Izzie had a great time playing with the dirt and with everything we brought. We had to keep our eye on her because she liked to go to other people's blankets and go through their stuff. We wished we could have stayed longer but the girls needed to come home and nap. Maybe next year we can stay longer.

Aaron flying our pink fish kite

Izzie having a good time while eating her snack

view of the kites

ENT Appt

2009-02-25T13:03:00.003-06:00

Just wanted to share my experience this morning at the ENT. Natalie had a follow up appointment today. Long story short last April she had her second set of tubes put in and in the 6 month checkup in Oct the tubes had already fallen out. She had not had an ear infection but she did have fluid in her ear and they attempted a hearing test. Key word "attempted".... she screamed so much that the test did not give accurate results. So the doctor said to wait it out and see what would happen during the winter months and to bring her back in Feb. So now it was time to do the follow up.

I was optimistic that she would do ok this time, since it has been a while since anyone messed with her ears and also a month ago she was very good for the pediatrician and she let the ped. check her ears and her throat and she never screamed. So I was hopeful. Yesterday I mentioned to her that we were going and she was ok with it and even told me she would not cry.

Well we get to the ENT's office and she starts crying. She did not want to get out of the car and wanted me to carry her. Which was a little difficult since I was already carrying Izzie. So she calmed down and we went inside. In the waiting room she was doing very well, an improvement from last time. We got called inside and she was still doing pretty well. She did not want to go but at least she was walking and was not screaming. Then the doctor walked in and pretty much hell broke lose. I was sitting with Natalie on the chair, Izzie is happy playing with my purse emptying out the contents of my wallet. The doctor was trying to look in her ears but she was screaming and kicking so hard it was hard to see. She has fluid but it was hard for him to see how much since she was so hysterical. Then the doctor wanted to look in her throat. She is screaming and starts gagging. Not sure if you know but Natalie has a very nice trick mastered which is that when she is really upset she can make herself throw up. So I realize she is about to throw up (as she is still on my lap and the doctor is right in front of us). So I put her on the floor and tell her to calm down that we were all done and to not throw up. I then go to open her sippy cup so she could have some water when she threw up all over herself and the floor. At least she did not throw up on me or the doctor. So the doctor leaves to get something to clean the mess and I started cleaning up the mess and to clean her off. At that moment Izzie starts crying. She is still sitting very good in the couch with my purse and my wallet. I think she is crying because Natalie was crying when I realize that she is holding on to the sippy cup of water. Apparently when I was getting it for Natalie I turned it and loosened it so Izzie finished opening it and spilled the entire sippy cup on herself. So she is sitting in a puddle of water. My purse, wallet and everything that was in my wallet is soaked. So I finish cleaning the floor so I could put Izzie on the floor and clean up the water mess. So now Natalie has vomit on her clothes and Izzie is soaking wet. The doctor comes back to this disaster and tells me Natalie will need another hearing test but that we don't have to do it today. Good thing because I don't think I would have been able to handle it.

So we leave the doctor. About 5 minutes after we leave Natalie informs me that she has to pee. So now I have to stop somewhere so she can pee.

We made it home in once piece but I am ready for their bedtime tonight. I guess I can settle for nap time for now.

The sad part is that I need to go back soon for her hearing test. Next time I will bring extra clothes for her and me and I will try to leave Izzie with Aaron.

Weekend Pictures

2009-02-25T07:17:00.006-06:00

The weather has been very nice for the past couple of days so we have been enjoying it and spending time outside. Natalie is showing us how she can pedal in her tricycle. Izzie is just being her typical silly self.
here are some pictures

Natalie got tired and then Izzie wanted to ride but she needed Aaron to push her

Playing in the driveway

At the park feeding the ducks

Playing in the backyard wearing their new hats I got them in PR

Past two weeks

2009-02-06T13:05:00.007-06:00

So I have not made an entry in about two weeks and although there are many times I want to sit down and write something for some reason I have not been able to do it. We have been pretty busy and a lot of times in the evenings I have been too exhausted to want to write. So here is a little summary of what we have been up to and some funny stories....

Izzie had her 15 month checkup last friday 1/30 on the day she turned 15 months. She now weighs 22.3 lbs and is 30 inches long. Looking back at Natalie's chart it looks like Natalie was about a pound lighter and an inch longer. Izzie is now near the 50th percentile for both height and weight. She has moved up, she used to be in the 25th to 30th. We think it's only going to be a few more months that Natalie will be able to push Izzie around, pretty soon Izzie will be the one pushing Natalie around. Should be interesting when that happens.....

Natalie is doing good, her imagination is sometimes out of control. We don't really know if this falls under the category of imaginary friend but it is pretty funny. Now as you probably know by now Natalie has her favorite stuffed animal/doll which is Pi (the pig) and although Pi is her baby she alternates between Pi and her blanket. Yes her blanket is her baby sometimes. Now it is not a specific blanket (thankfully) it is a series of about 7 different blankets that my Mom made when I was pregnant with her. She has had this blankets since she was born, and they were great to swaddle her so we used them on her all the time. Well she loves them and these are the only blankets she wants. At least she is not attached to a specific one but it has to be one of this kind. She usually has about 3 at a time and of the 3 that she picks one as her favorite for the day or for the time she has them until we have to throw them in the wash. Lately she has been favoring the pink ones (of course). Well the blanket attachment is not only that she wants to bring it with her wherever she goes it is that the blanket is her friend. Here are some of the things she does with her blanket.... she feeds the blanket baby food and milk from either bottles or sippy cups ; the blanket goes down for a nap; the blanket goes down the slide and swings in the swing; the other day the blanket had really bad diaper rash (no idea where she got this from) ; blanket sometimes wears a diaper ; the blanket rides next to me in the passenger seat with the seat belt on when we go in the car ; the blanket goes pee pee and poo poo in her potty ; the blanket pooped outside in the grass like the dogs but then Aaron had to tell the blanket not do poop outside; she reads books to her blanket and when they are the touch and feel books the blanket has to touch them; she drags the blanket around to show me how "blankie is walking" ; she pushes blanket around in a stroller; blanket has a paci ; blanket cries if we leave her at home and don't bring her with us; on tuesday I asked Natalie who she played with at school and her response "me played blankie" ; the blanket has to pick up toys and is very good at cleaning up (is what Natalie says). So as you can see it's almost like I have a third child. The other night I was reading books to Natalie before bed and I had to whisper the entire time because the blanket was already asleep! We have tried to explain to Natalie that the blanket is not real but she does not understand and does not want to hear it. She talks to the blanket and ask her questions and even waits for the blanket to respond, I think in her mind the blanket responds to her. I have no idea what is going through her head but it is pretty funny to watch.

Izzie from watching Natalie drag her blanket all over the place is getting attached to her blankets too but she is too little to play like Natalie does, but Natalie has been trying to get Izzie to play with her blanket the same way she does, time will tell if Izzie ends up as goofy as Natalie is.

Speaking of goofy.... Izzie is crazy for yogurt. But the only way she likes to eat is if she feeds herself. She does not want it if I feed her. Needless to say it is a mess. I had to take some pictures of the ordeal. As you can guess she was brought up to the tub for a bath right after.

Today I took the girls for a haircut. Natalie has been in need of one for a while. She kept telling me that she did not want a haircut. All other haircuts that she has gotten have been an adventure, her screaming and crying the whole time. This time she was ok with the idea as long as Izzie got one too (and of course Izzie had to go first). I wished I had had my camera because Izzie was so cute sitting up on the chair like a big girl all by herself. They gave her some animal crackers and she was happy as a clam. She got a little mad when they were getting her hair wet but she did not mind when they started to comb it at cut it. She did great. Natalie realizing that it was not that big of a deal then sat on the chair and never complained. They both did great and their hair looks so much better. I was a little reluctant on cutting Izzie's hair since I was afraid the curls were going to go away but it was the opposite. Now she has more curls. I love it! I hope her hair stays curly.

Here are some pictures from the past couple of weeks.

Natalie feeding Izzie yogurt

Izzie getting ready to go down the slide and Natalie waiting to catch her

Natalie being silly

Izzie is 15 months old

At the park with Parker & Abi

The yogurt adventure..... (last night)

This morning before haircuts

After haircuts

Florida Trip

2009-01-20T14:47:00.009-06:00

We just got back yesterday from spending a couple of days down in Stuart Florida visiting with Aaron's family. His sisters and his Mom were able to come down from North Carolina so it was very nice to be able to see everyone.

So we left on Wednesday and everything started ok. We got to the airport and through security with both girls without any problems. We were flying out of Austin with a layover in Tampa and then to West Palm Beach. Well when we were at our gate I saw on the screen that our flight was now delayed an hour and a half which meant that we were going to lose our connection in Tampa. There was another flight going direct to Ft. Lauderdale that was leaving on time, at the same time our flight was supposed to go so we were rushing trying to get into that flight. If we did not make it into that flight and kept our original flight it meant that the next flight from Tampa to West Palm Beach was not going to be until 9pm which meant about 5 hours in Tampa. With both girls that sounded like a disaster so we were very eager to get into the Ft. Lauderdale flight. Luckily we were able to change flights and things were looking good again.

Then we got into the plane and the girls were in good moods. The plan was to give them lunch on the plane and hope they would take their nap afterwards since it was naptime. Izzie was sitting around and playing, Natalie was fascinated looking out the window. Then we started leaving the gate about to take off and Izzie went nuts. We have no idea what happened but she freaked out. She was screaming and throwing herself around. She did not want to be held and was trying to get our of our arms. Both Aaron and I were trying to console her but she was irrational, just screaming. She cried (screamed actually) for about 30 minutes. She finally calmed down and took a little nap but it was not long enough. She kept crying and being really fussy. As time went by she got more used to it but she was not happy to be on the plane. Given all this commotion Natalie did not sleep but she did great coloring and watching some cartoons.

We landed in Ft. Lauderdale and Aaron's dad and his stepmother were there to pick us up. Our bags made it and we were very happy to be able to have had a direct flight. Not sure how Izzie would have done with the connection but now we had that to look forward in our return flights.

For the next couple of days we just hung out and enjoyed visiting with everyone. The kids had lots of fun in the pool. It was a little chilly for south Florida but the pool was heated and the kids did not seem to mind. Natalie was a little cold but she still went in and had fun. Izzie was insane for the pool. We had to keep our eye on her because she wanted to go swimming all the time. The girls enjoyed visiting with the cousins. Natalie really enjoyed playing with Rachel & Sarah and Libby & Abby. Natalie was not shy at all and was giving out hugs and kisses all around. Izzie was a little more reserved but she did ok. It definitely was a lot easier now with Natalie being older and being able to understand more so I am looking forward to when Izzie is Natalie's age. Hopefully we will be able to travel more and it won't be so difficult, especially considering how far apart all our family is.

On Sunday afternoon we went for a walk on the beach to collect sea shells. Natalie was very excited to pick them up and was walking around and running in the sand. I was very happy to see her more comfortable in the beach. When we went to Puerto Rico on August she refused to walk on the beach because she did not want to get her feet dirty by the sand. Izzie was scared of the waves but given that she is less shy than Natalie if Natalie over came her fear I am sure Izzie will too.

Yesterday was our flight back. We had a 6:30am flight out of West Palm Beach with the layover in Tampa again. We had to get up and leave for the airport by 4:30 am! We woke up and got dressed, packed the last few items, loaded up the car and picked up the girls and put them straight in the car seats. On the plane Izzie freaked out again but she quickly fell asleep and slept the whole flight to Tampa (about 40 min) and then slept through the layover. She woke up as we were boarding the plane to Austin. I was afraid she was going to freak out again inside the plane but she actually did very well, the nap must have helped. The girls were awake for about the first 30-45 min but then they both feel asleep and the slept the entire flight up until we started the descent into Austin. So not a bad flight in the end.

On the plus side of having such an early morning flight was that we were home by 11am. They were so happy to get home. Natalie ran inside to kiss Parker and Abi. Then they both ran around and I think they pulled out all of their toys. They had toys everywhere but they were so happy to be home. They took good afternoon naps and today we are back to schedule.

Izzie has been a little fussy. She has a runny nose and some coughing but no fever. We are not sure if its a cold or just teething, I thought I felt a molar coming through so we will see. She is doing much better today since Natalie is in school and she can rest a bit more than if Natalie was here.

Now today and tomorrow should be interesting since Aaron had to go on a business trip and left early this morning to catch a flight to Atlanta. He comes home tomorrow night but the girls won't see him until Thu morning. This morning when Natalie asked where he was and I told her he was not coming home for a couple of days she asked me "Mommy cooked dinner?" and I told her yes that I would cook dinner for her tonight and she responded by saying, "No, daddy come home cook dinner". I guess she know who the cook in the family is!

Here are some pictures from the trip.

Izzie loving the pool

Natalie was very happy to see Aunt Becky

Izzie was trying to be in the noodle all by herself

Natalie & Aunt Jenn

Natalie & Libby

Sarah, Rachel & Natalie

Happy Three Kings Day

2009-01-06T12:26:00.006-06:00

Growing up in Puerto Rico we always celebrated Three Kings Day. In Puerto Rico today is a holiday so it is weird here in the States since it is like any normal day. Aaron and I (mostly me, Aaron just follows along ) have been trying to keep the same traditions for the girls we had growing up. So we always celebrate Three Kings Day too. Last couple of years Natalie was too little to understand so this year I was excited that she was more aware of what was going on and I tried to explain more to her what today is. So to keep up with tradition last night we took the girls outside so we could cut some grass to put in a box for the camels (we used to leave grass for the camels to eat, kind of like leaving cookies for Santa). The girls had no idea what was going on but Natalie played along and tried to cut some grass. We had told her the Kings were coming tonight and that they would bring presents but we had to put some grass out for the camels. As soon as the word presents was mentioned she was up to anything.

This morning she woke up and came downstairs and I guess she must have looked in the shoe box under the tree because she came in our room and told me the grass was all done. When we put the presents under the tree last night I took the grass and put some in the floor and along the walk to the front door and outside in the driveway so the shoe box was mostly empty. So then Natalie said that the camels came and ate the grass and brought her presents. Pretty funny how she was thinking that it was the camels, not the 3 Kings that gave her presents.

So Natalie again was very excited to open presents. Izzie has lost interest in present opening so Natalie pretty much opened them all. Izzie wanted to play with the toys not waste time opening presents. But then Natalie had to go to school and Aaron had to go to work so it's back to a normal day. Although Izzie is pretty happy to be playing with the new toys without having to share with Natalie.

Here are some pictures:

last night cutting the grass

Izzie opening presents

Natalie opening her Pluto. She was very excited and wanted to bring Pluto to school with her

Cheers!

2009-01-04T08:10:00.006-06:00

I don't remember if it was when we sat down for dinner on Christmas Eve or Christmas day but we had our wineglasses and we did Cheers! or Salud like we say in Puerto Rico. Anyway the girls got a kick about us clinking our glasses. Natalie wanted to do it too with her sippy cup so we clinked our wineglasses with her sippy cup. Izzie just watched and laughed. Well after that meal we now have to do Cheers at every meal. With water glasses, coffee mugs, soda cans, whatever we have. For the first couple of meals Izzie would just watch us but after a few times she got the hang of it and now she joins in too but they want to do it over and over again so now we do it once and then we have them do it with each other. At first it was Natalie that initiated it. She said she wanted to do cheers, but last night Izzie was screaming and swinging her sippy cup around. We had no idea what she wanted until we realized it was that we had not done cheers yet. She was happy once it was done. They are goofy girls!

Happy New Years

2009-01-01T19:09:00.009-06:00

Happy New Year! We are very excited to start 2009. The girls are getting so big so fast that we can't wait to see what 2009 brings. It seems like 2008 went by way to fast. It is amazing how things change in just one year. Looking back at this time last year we were in our home in North Carolina with no intention of moving. Natalie was a little over a year and a half entering the terrible two stage, Izzie was a tiny little baby just 2 months old. I was about to start my leave of absence not knowing how staying at home full time was going to be.

Now just one year later, we have moved to Texas and the girls and the dogs are all settled in. Natalie is almost 3 years old, she is potty trained, sleeping in a big girl bed and talking nonstop. She is not a baby anymore! Izzie is trying to catch up to Natalie badly. She is walking, actually she runs now. She dances and has started to talk (more on that later). She loves whole milk and all kinds of food and she loves to feed herself (more on that later too :-). I survived a year staying at home and Aaron is enjoying his work at Dell. We miss NC, all the friends and family we have there but we are starting to make some really good friends in TX so it is starting to feel more like home. So we are very excited to see what 2009 has to offer and we are looking forward to watch the girls grow up and all their new adventures. Although I am a little sad to see that my babies are growing up.

We have been spending the holidays mostly at home. We had a great time with Sue and we were sad to see her go. Hopefully she will come back next Christmas. Natalie keeps talking about Grandma so I know she misses her. Natalie has been busy playing with her new kitchen. She plays with it all day long, making us foods and now she has started feeding all her stuffed animals too. So cute watching her play. Izzie is trying to play along but she does not really understand the whole pretend food playing. So she tries to eat the play food and when she can't bite it or it does not taste like food she looks at us like we are nuts. She is starting to realize that we are just faking it but she still takes bites and tries to drink from the cups.

On some exciting news Izzie has started talking. Natalie was a late talker so it is amazing seeing and hearing Izzie talk. It is funny because she is so little to be running around and now she is talking, amazing. Here are the words that she knows: apple, help, papa (for parker), abu (I think she was trying to say Abi but Abu came out first, either way my mom is very excited), abi (she later said it right ), up, milk. It seems like every day she repeats something else. The funniest is when she says help. She says help for anything that she wants. Like help is the magic word that gets her whatever she can't reach. She is starting to become more independent too. Today for dinner she wanted a yogurt, because Natalie was having one. But she did not want me to feed her. Needless to say she made a mess. She gave up on the spoon and was putting her hand into the container trying to grab the yogurt with her hand and then trying to eat it. I had to take some pictures!

Well I hope everyone had a great New Years Eve we hope to see you all in 2009!

I was trying to get some pictures of the girls in their new dresses from Titi Nilda but Izzie was a little cranky. Thank you Titi Nilda for the dresses!

A blanket and a paci made things better for Izzie

Natalie then wanted pictures with her kitchen

Natalie playing.....

Izzie likes the pretend fruit

Coffee and sandwich time for the animals.....

Lillian came over to play so the girls had a little tea party

Izzie trying to eat the yogurt with a spoon

moving on to use her hand

what a mess, although in the picture you can't see the yogurt in the hair......

Happy Hanukkah

2008-12-27T06:56:00.004-06:00

We gave the girls yesterday their Hanukkah presents from Grandpa Stan & Grandma Cindy (Aaron's Dad & stepmom). The girls were very excited to receive more presents. They got food for their kitchen and Natalie got a very cute chef's outfit. Natalie wore the apron but Izzie wanted to wear the hat. Now in addition to coffee we get to have sandwiches too! The food came in cute baskets so now they walk around the house with their baskets full of food and Natalie pretends to be going to the grocery store.

Merry Christmas

2008-12-25T19:52:00.007-06:00

Merry Christmas to all our family and friends. We had a great Christmas Eve & Christmas Day. Sue (Aaron's mom) arrived without any issues on Tuesday afternoon. Natalie waited patiently for her to get home. She was so excited to see her and show her around. She even requested Grandma read her books before bedtime that night.

This morning Natalie was all excited for presents. She did not want to wait for Izzie to wake up but luckily Izzie woke up early and they all opened presents together. Izzie lost interest halfway through and started playing with the wrapping paper. Natalie was very excited with all the gifts and just opened anything that got put in front of her.

The girls got a kitchen (pink of course) with all the accessories for it (appliances, dishes, pots and food). They also got a table and chairs, a dollhouse, baby dolls, baby stroller, baby cradles and highchair. Needless to say lots of girl toys but they are loving it. Natalie is such a little mommy. Izzie is just playing along trying to imitate Natalie.

Sue & Aaron made dinner which was delicious and we had a great day. Natalie kept feeding us cookies & coffee from her new kitchen :-)

Here are some pictures from yesterday and today.

Firsts

2008-12-21T13:22:00.007-06:00

We have been keeping busy with the girls trying out some new fun things to do. On Thursday night we met with our friends Kristin and Ryan and their twin boys Luke & Logan and we went to the Trail of Lights in Austin's Zilker Park. It is a little over a mile walk of Holiday lights and different scenes. We tried to go as early as we could but it opens at 7pm and traffic was really bad so we did not get there until 7:30 which is the girls bedtime so they were a little tired. We had them in their pjs and they rode in the stroller. Natalie walked for a little bit but then got tired and I think she got scared of all the big crowds of people. But they really enjoyed looking at all the lights.

On Friday afternoon we went to see Playhouse Disney Live. Natalie's favorite cartoons (actually the only thing she wants to watch) is Mickey Mouse. We were not sure how Izzie was going to do. Aaron was ready to spend the whole time outside but if you give her a bag of Vanilla wafers she can sit still (somewhat at least). Natalie was very excited to see all the characters and she danced along. She had a great time.

This morning we went to the original Whole Foods in downtown Austin where they have an outdoor ice skating rink. We wanted to be there when they opened at 10am so we got there around 9:30. For the last couple of days the weather has been very warm, yesterday was actually in the upper 70s. Today of course is freezing and the wind is really strong. It was in the mid 30s when we were trying to ice skate. Natalie kept saying she was cold but she still tried it and she had a good time. She tried to walk and could go a little bit on her own. I held her hands and arms and we skate for a little bit. Izzie could not go since she is too little but she wanted to so bad. We had to hold on to her or she would walk into the ice. She got mad when we left and she could no do it. We definitely want to take Natalie ice skating again, maybe we will try indoors next time so it won't be so cold.

Now we are getting ready for Christmas. Natalie is doing a little better on her fear of Santa Claus. She used to say she did not want Santa to come. Now she is ok with him coming but she is not very specific about what she wants. She just says she wants presents. At least she won't be dissapointed. I don't really think she gets it so we will see what happens on Thursday. But she is very excited for Grandma Sue (Aaron's mom) to come on Tuesday.

Entrance to the Trail of Lights

Kristin & Logan

Ice skating

Sea World

2008-12-08T20:05:00.006-06:00

We all went to Sea World yesterday. The Blows are still here so we took the kids down to San Antonio. They were all very excited to go see the fish and the whales. First thing we did when we got there was go see the dolphins. It was feeding time so we got to feed them. Natalie was afraid of feeding them but she was not afraid to get close up to them, which is an improvement. Izzie on the other hand was trying to get into the pool with them and even threw a fish at them. The twins had a great time feeding them too.

After the dolphins we went to the aquarium and the kids got to run around and see the fish. Izzie again had a blast. She would laugh and giggle when the fish got close to the glass. After the aquarium we did the Shamu show.

For lunch we had arranged to eat the park in what they call Dinning with Shamu. We had a coupon with our season pass and you get to eat in a reserved area where the private pools are for the Shamus are. So we ate while the whales were swimming near us. Afterward they bring them out and do some tricks and we can take really good up close pictures. It was amazing to see them up close and the kids were mesmerized with them. To make it even better we were the last group to leave and one of the trainers asked us to go up to the big pool and we could get really close to them. They came right up to the glass and where sticking their tongue out and trying to get us wet. It was amazing seeing them swim right there so peaceful. They were in the big show pool and it was empty just us so it was nice and quiet. The kids got to get up close to them and they loved it.

After Shamu the kids played in the playground they have for a little bit, we did a tea cup ride and then we went to the Sea Lion show. Then it was a little bit more playing to make sure they got good and tired for the ride home. The girls feel asleep right away. We were all a little tired yesterday but we all had so much fun. The kids are still taking about Shamu.

Here are some pictures.....

Val and the boys with the dolphins

Izzie feeding the dolphins

while dining with Shamu

Izzie & Shamu

Irene & Natalie on the ride

No More Paci!!!!!

2008-12-08T19:49:00.006-06:00

Natalie is done with the paci! She has been using a paci for bedtime and naptime only (except for school which for some reason she is ok without one....). Aaron and I have been trying to figure out when it will be a good time to stop giving it to her. We were going to wait until after the holidays but Natalie apparently is so stubborn that she has her way. Well turns out that the Wed before Thanksgiving I thought she had a low grade fever. She had a cold and looked a little sick so that night before going to bed I tried to give her some motrin. In case you did not know Natalie used to love motrin. She used to ask us to give her some even when she was not sick and if Izzie was taking it she would ask for some too. Well apparently she does not like Motrin now and did not want any. So she refused to take it. I told her that if she did not take the Motrin she could not have the paci. Usually that is the best trump card I have and she usually gives in. Well not this time and as a result no more pacis!!! The next day for naptime she asked for it but I reminded her that she did not take her medicine and she did not insist. For a couple of days she asked for it but if I reminded her that she did not take her medicine then she would stop. She has not asked for it for a couple of days now.

So last Friday we were at the mall and I wanted to give her something as a reward for giving up her paci. So we went to Build a Bear so that she could make her own stuffed animal. I thought for sure she would pick a puppy since she loves them. Well I was surprised when she picked Hello Kitty. I have no idea why, she has nothing of Hello Kitty at home. In fact she is afraid of cats.... but she insisted and ever since Hello Kitty has been her companion. I have been reminded her the reason she has Hello Kitty and it's pretty funny because she now tells you that it's because "no more pacis" and that she is a big girl.

Here are some pictures of Natalie and the twins with Hello Kitty.....

Birthday, Thanksgiving and more....

2008-12-01T20:39:00.006-06:00

So the past week has been pretty hectic. Last Tuesday was Aaron & Parker's birthday. Of course the girls were very excited to help Aaron open cards and presents. Aaron turned 34 and Parker is now 9. The girls (mostly Natalie) enjoyed the cupcake that followed. She is getting pretty good at this birthday stuff and kept singing Happy Birthday all day and kept saying how she was going to blow out the candle. I am sure that given that all of our birthday's have come up in the past month she is probably wondering when is hers.

Then on Thursday of course it was Thanksgiving. It was a little weird this year since we were not with the Merkin family. For the past 9 years I have spent Thanksgiving with them and it was strange not to be together. It was pretty much like any other day for us, playing with the girls and Aaron made a very yummy meal. The turkey we had was huge, since the smallest one I could find was a 16 lb turkey, just for us. We have eaten a lot of turkey in the last couple of days.....

Then on Friday my friend Val and her husband Eric and their kids Caleb, Jackson and Tristan came to visit. The live in Virginia and are going to be staying with us for a little over a week while Eric has some work to do in San Antonio. Caleb & Jackson are identical twins and are about a month older than Natalie. Tristan is almost 6 months old. Natalie is having a blast playing with the boys but things are a little crazy here with 5 kids but it is fun watching them all play together. We will be trying to keep them entertained and show them around Austin and enjoy the nice weather before they head back to the cold winter in Virginia

Here are some pictures from the past week.

Happy Birthday Aaron!

Happy Birthday Parker!

The dogs & the girls playing while Aaron finished the Thanksgiving meal.....

All done, yummy!!!!

Jackson, Izzie, Caleb & Natalie during breakfast

Jackson, Caleb & Natalie helping Aaron make breakfast

TGIF

2008-11-21T19:07:00.005-06:00

The week is finally over! I did not think I was going to survive this week. Aaron had to go to California for work this week. He left Sunday after dinner and got home late late last night. So that meant 5 bedtimes by myself and 4 full days with both girls. What made things worse was that Izzie got sick. Something always happens when Aaron goes out of town. Natalie's ear infections used to always start right after he left. And if it was not her ears then it would be very bad weather or some other issue that always prevented us from getting a good night sleep and made everyone very cranky.

So this time it was Izzie's turn. She has been fighting an ear infection for the past 3 weeks and she just finished her antibiotics so earlier this week I thought she would be fine. Well Tuesday she had a fever, nothing too bad but the doctor had me bring her in since she was on antibiotics to make sure nothing else was going on. He said that it was just a cold. Wednesday her fever was very high and she was very cranky and looked really sick. I called the doctor again but they told me to bring her in on Thursday. She had a fever all afternoon and it finally went away after she went to bed. Thursday she woke up fine and never got a fever again. I took her to the doctor (again) and they said that it was a cold with a sore throat which was causing her to throw up when eating solids. But at least her fever was gone and she was doing better on Thursday. The week seemed to drag forever. Good thing that I had arranged for Natalie to go to school on Wednesday so that I could spend time with Izzie.

Aaron came home last night and the girls were very excited that he was back. Izzie of course had no idea what was going on but Natalie was very upset. She cried on Sunday when Aaron was leaving and every morning she would ask me if Aaron was home. Same thing in the afternoon. I felt so bad because she did not understand when I would tell her that he was coming home in a couple of days. She did talked to him on the phone a couple of times and even though he does not really realize it one day she was actually telling him all about her day. She was walking around with the speaker phone telling him about things she did at school and about home and Izzie being sick. She even made him read her books over the phone. I had to help him out since of course she picked books that he had not read in a while so he did not have the words memorized. But she really liked that he read her books.

Aaron had the day off and he spent the day with the girls and giving me a break from them which was nice. He is currently putting Natalie to bed and she even asked for him to read him books tonight, which I am glad because I know he missed her and I am glad that she is showing him that she missed him too.

Here is a picture I just took of the girls. We are trying to get Izzie's hair to curl. Sometimes her hair goes crazy and it curls at the ends.
Natalie is showing off her PJ's with feet. Last year she would not try them on and for some reason she loves them now. I think it's because Izzie has some like that.

Birthday Parties

2008-11-10T13:35:00.004-06:00

On Saturday we had a combined birthday party for Izzie and for me. We invited our friends over and had a great time. The girls really enjoyed the pinata. I got a pinata like the ones I used to have when I was a kid. Instead of hitting it it has strings that you pull and the stuff comes out. Much easier for toddlers to do. Even Izzie was pulling on the strings.

We had dinner and cake and then the kids played. Natalie was very excited and kept thinking it was her party too. We had 2 cakes and Natalie kept asking for her cake. We tried to explain it was not her birthday but she did not want to hear it. She was also very excited about presents the next day when we opened them and played with all of Izzie's new toys. Izzie had lots of fun with balloons.

Here are some pictures from the party.

Izzie's checkup

2008-11-05T13:35:00.003-06:00

Izzie had her 1 year checkup yesterday. Her weight was 19lbs 4oz and she was 28 1/4 in long. She is in the 25 percentile for both weight & height. So it looks like she will continue in Natalie's footsteps of being a little peanut. Not sure if it is that she is getting taller or the walking but she is losing the rolls in her legs. She still has the chubby checks though. It's funny but I am always surprised at their weight. To me they both look heavier than they are.

Izzie was scheduled to get 3 vaccines yesterday but she is still recovering from the ear infection and cold so the doctor did not want to give her the vaccines. So she will need to go next week.

She is becoming a big girl. She loves whole milk. We stopped formula last week and she has not missed it at all. We are starting to transition her to a sippy cup. She does very well. She actually tries to get Natalie's. The only time she has a harder time is when she is tired and just wants to go to sleep.

Natalie is doing well. She is adjusting to the time change. She has been waking up around 5 for the past couple of days and of course she is very cranky and tired early. Hopefully soon she will get back to normal (of waking up at 5:45......) Hey maybe she will go to 6:30.... I can only hope. Aaron is traveling in a couple of weeks so I hope they are both free of colds and ear infections. Maybe they will both be going through a growth spurt and will sleep 12 hrs at night w/o waking up.... again I can only hope.

Happy Halloween

2008-11-01T07:23:00.008-05:00

Happy Halloween! We had a fun filled day yesterday. The girls were dressed both as ballerinas because that was the only way I could get Natalie to wear a costume. She liked this one for two reasons, one it was pink and the other one that Izzie was wearing it too.

In the morning I took the girls to a nearby park in Round Rock where they were having a Fall Festivals. It was great because it was for toddlers & preschoolers so it was all little kids. They had games and hay rides. It was a beautiful day so it was nice being out. Natalie was fascinated with all the kids in costumes. She was not that interested in doing the games but she had fun looking at everyone. We did go on the hayride and both girls enjoyed that.

In the afternoon Natalie's school was having a Halloween party so after nap time we headed that way. Aaron met us there from work. It was cute watching all the kids from her classroom dressed up. They had a bouncy house so Natalie was very excited.

After the party at school we came home and had a quick early dinner and then around 6pm we hit our neighborhood. I guess it was still early but since the girls go to bed so early we had to do it then. Natalie was very confused about the whole thing, going to people's houses and knocking on doors but not going in and they give you stuff. She was shy at first but then got the hang of it. Izzie was just following us around no idea what was going on, but she was looking very cute and everyone enjoyed watching them.

So after going to a couple of houses we came home and put the girls to bed. By this time people are starting to make their rounds so Natalie was very curious about kids coming to get candy. Still Aaron read her books and put her to bed. So Aaron and I went outside. We were planning on sitting out front that way we could hand out the candy before the kids rang the doorbell and not having the dogs bark and wake up the kids. After about 10 minutes of being outside, Natalie showed up. She could not sleep and found us outside and saw the people on the street and forget it, there was no way she was going to sleep now. She sat with us and handed candy out. She kept screaming when she saw people on the street because she was so excited. She would get mad if people would not come by. She did not understand that they had already been here, she just wanted people to come and keep coming. So she had a blast outside. She will definitely have a lot of fun next year. At around 8:30 things started getting quiet and she was getting tired but she would not go to bed unless we came inside too, so we called it a night and came inside. She passed out immediately.

We had a very fun day yesterday, now we are trying to figure out what to do with the huge amounts of candy we have left. Trying to hide it from Natalie & ourselves. Aaron will have to bring it to work, we need to get it out of here :-)

At the park....

The butterfly class at Emerson Academy

Natalie & Luke or Logan (can't tell which one ;-)

Natalie pushing Izzie

Natalie liked the pinata

Natalie & Izzie with Ocho the goat

At home after trick or treating in the neighborhood

Happy Birthday Izzie

2008-10-30T19:32:00.008-05:00

My baby turned 1 today! Hard to believe she is already 1. We had a very good day today. Aaron went to work and Natalie went to school. Izzie is still recovering from her cold and ear infection so she actually spent most of her day sleeping, but we had a good quality day. In the afternoon we had presents and then dinner and then we had cake. Natalie was very excited about the presents. She kept thinking they were her presents. Izzie had fun with the balloons. She tried to open one present and then gave up. Natalie opened all of them and wanted to play with the toys immediately. Natalie sang happy birthday to Izzie. It was so cute hearing her sing to Izzie. We had chocolate cake which Natalie took a bite and said "yummy". Izzie had one bit and moved on to strawberries. I have weird kids. Natalie is just starting to like cake and she did not even finish the slice.

On a funny story yesterday I was telling Natalie that today was Izzie's birthday. But she does not really understand what that means so she was quiet. I was trying to explain it to her and told her that it was the day that Izzie came out of mommy's belly. So then I asked her if she came out of mommy's belly too and she said "no, Daddy's belly". So apparently she thinks she came out of Aaron's belly.

Here are some pictures.

Izzie and the big balloons

Her favorite gift were the balloons

Opening presents and Izzie trying to grab the balloons

While Natalie played with her new toys she took the opportunity to play with Natalie's car (and of course bring the balloons with her)

Natalie playing with the new toys. She keeps saying "mine". Should be a fun day tomorrow

Izzie driving the car, she moves the wheel and hits the horn. Her feet barely reach the bottom but she loves it.

Natalie singing Happy Birthday to Izzie

Family picture

Natalie blew the candle out for Izzie

Yummy cake, I mean yummy strawberries

Yummy cake :-)

Fun Tuesday

2008-10-28T15:50:00.003-05:00

We had a pretty busy day today. Izzie has had a cold for the last couple of days but yesterday afternoon and evening it got worse. She had a little fever in the afternoon and at night she was having trouble sleeping. She kept crying like something was bothering her. We figured it was either her ears or her throat. Natalie had a field trip from school today. They were going to go to a pumpkin patch in the morning and I was planning on going too with Izzie. Well since Izzie was not feeling well I made an early appointment at the pediatrician so that we could go to the pumpkin patch afterwards. Natalie for some reason wanted to go to the doctor too. I guess she wanted to see Izzie get checked out. So by 8:30 am we were out the door. The girls did very well at the pediatrician, Izzie did not even cry. It was a little crazy since a lot of people are sick so they were very busy. I was running out of ways to entertain them in the little room since we had to wait about 20 min for the doctor to come in. For some of you it may not seem like a lot of time but with the two of them it seemed like forever.

Turns out Izzie has an ear infection. I don't think it's that bad, it's just in one ear. Here we go with ear infections. This is Izzie's first. Hopefully she will not start the cycle Natalie was of ear infections every 3 weeks. Time will tell.

After the doctor we went to the pumpkin patch and then we dropped Natalie off at school. Izzie and I came come and had lunch and Izzie took a nice long nap. When she woke up we went to vote. Early voting is great. No lines and we were in and out in less than 10 minutes.

While I voted Izzie sat on the floor and played with my purse.

Here are some pictures from the pumpkin farm.

Natalie & her friend Carson

Natalie & her friend Dylan & Dylan's dog

Sharing

2008-10-23T12:59:00.004-05:00

Izzie has started sharing early..... only problem is that she is sharing her food. Not with Natalie but with Parker & Abi. As you can imagine they are in heaven! As soon as they hear the highchair they come running and they lay by each side of her. She takes turns going from side to side feeding them.

In this picture you can see her top tooth.
She likes to snort

Busy Weekend

2008-10-19T20:01:00.010-05:00

Well we had a pretty busy weekend. Aaron took Friday off and we went to Sea World for the day. We got there right after lunch time and we were concerned how the girls will do given that it was their nap time. Natalie which used to be scared of everything in Sea World had a great time. She even wanted to feed the dolphins! She had a great time looking at all the fish, dolphins, sea lions and the Clydesdale horses they have. We bought her a little stuffed Clydesdale which she named "Ocho". Ocho is the name of the little baby goat they have in the little farm that is next to her school. Apparently to her the horse looked like the goat, not sure what she was thinking. But Ocho has been with her ever since.....

Anyway we had a great time in Sea World. Some of the rides are closed for the summer. Natalie wanted to go on a little ride, we tried but she was still to short. We tried to explained that to her but she did not understand so she kept saying "ride" over and over. I can do the little rides with her now but when she is older not sure what we are going to do. Neither me or Aaron are big fans of roller coasters.

They have this playground that is like a pirate ship with rope tunnels. Natalie saw all the kids and wanted to go with them. So I went with her. She had so much fun. We were very surprised that she wanted to do this, given how shy she is but she kept on going. Aaron stayed below with Izzie which apparently was mad that she could not come with us. Maybe next time Izzie can come.

We saw a sea lion show and Natalie was fascinated with the sea lions how the jumped in and out of the water and how they "danced" and followed whatever the instructors told them to do. She did not want to get wet but she enjoyed it. Izzie would not sit still so Aaron had to take her out and she spent her time collecting rocks.

We also saw penguins and alligators (or aberbators like Natalie calls them). It was a fun day but we were all very tired when we finally got home.

On Saturday we took the girls to a pumpkin farm nearby. It was more a farm than a pumpkin farm, but they had all this fun stuff do to. They had all sorts of farm animals and you could even ride a pony. We tried to get Natalie to ride the pony, given her new love for horses but she wouldn't. Ocho came with us to the farm. They also had a hay maze and a hay ride. Natalie really enjoyed the hay ride. Then we got to pick some pumpkins. The weather was really nice so the girls had fun being outside.

This morning we went to the big park (as Natalie calls it) in Georgetown. Natalie loves all the cool stuff they have to play with. She is getting very good at climbing stuff. Izzie had fun in the swings and trying to eat mulch.

We took it easy this afternoon but the girls are still very tired from all of the weekend adventures. Izzie did have a little incident this afternoon. We were in the backyard when I looked down and noticed something dark on Izzie and realized she had fire ants all over her legs. She was not crying yet but I picked her up and got them off but I got bit in the process too. Poor Izzie had bites on her thighs, knees, legs and even some on her arms. She did not seem to mind that much.

Oh I almost forgot... to continue on the doggy updates.... Abi is doing much better on her ear. It is healing nicely and hopefully she will not need surgery again. She still has to have the stitches for another week. Now Parker on the other hand apparently felt left out and decided to get an illness. On Thursday I noticed this ugly looking lump on his tail. So we go get it checked out. I was really afraid they were going to tell me it was cancer. She lump was the size of a golf ball and it was red and oozing. I had to put a bandage and it was bleeding a little bit. Well the vet checked it out and said it was actually an infected cyst from an ingrown follicle hair in the tail. He actually has 2 lumps just one that is infected and apparently he licked and made worse. So now Parker & Abi both have collars on to prevent them from picking at their wounds. For Parker the vet said he may need surgery but then on Friday night the cyst ruptured. So Saturday morning Aaron took him back to the vet and they said that since it ruptured he would not need surgery and that this was normal. So at least no surgery for Parker but the poor dog was in a lot of pain.

Here are some pictures taken this weekend

Here are the girls with the Clydesdale's

Izzie looking at the dolpins

Natalie and Izzie at the pumpkin farm. They also sell Christmas trees in the winter. You can see their trees in the background. Natalie is holding Ocho.

Natalie petting the donkey

Natalie & Izzie at the park

Natalie enjoyed walking on the tight rope

Interesting Week

2008-10-12T10:41:00.012-05:00

This past week was a little on the crazy side. It all started with Abi on Monday. As you may remember Abi had surgery not even 2 weeks ago to fix the hematoma she had on her ear. Well Monday morning I noticed that the ear had swollen up again. So I called the vet and we had to bring her in. So another trip to the vet with both girls. Turns out that Abi messed up her ear and needed to have surgery. Again!

So Tuesday morning Aaron takes Abi to the vet and then takes Natalie to school. Right after on his way in to work he got hit by a Direct TV van. Neither car was going too fast and Aaron was not hurt but you can imagine van vs jetta. Needless to say the jetta is not looking too great. The damage is not that bad but it pretty much covers the entire passenger side of the car. So now Aaron needs to deal with the insurance people and we are trying to figure out if we should get the car fixed or not. The car runs fine but we are debating fixing the car given that it is 9 years old. We will see what we decide to do.

Ok so now we are on to Wednesday. Natalie had an ENT appt in the morning. It was her 6 month check up on the ear tubes. I thought it was going to be a nice quick visit. I had the appt first thing in the morning so Aaron stayed home while Izzie took her morning nap. Well turns out both ear tubes had fallen out. We were hoping they will at least last through this upcoming winter (if it ever gets cold here). Natalie screamed the whole time and it was horrible. Then they had to do a test to see if she has fluid in her ears. Again screaming non stop. It was almost impossible to do the test. The test showed that she has fluid in one ear, the other one not sure since she was screaming and kicking. She has no infection but could possibly get one if she gets sick. The doctor said to wait and see what happens. But if she starts having ear infections then it's tubes again (for the 3rd time). He said that we may consider putting "T tubes" which I guess last longer.

After the ENT Natalie & I stopped at the vet and picked up Abi. We went home and Aaron went to work. At 1:30 I noticed that Abi had taken her bandage off. So I called the vet and they tell me I have to bring her back in. Both kids are asleep so I have to wait until they wake up and then head over to the vet, again! They put the bandage again and luckily she did not pull any stitches out. Now Abi has to be on that E-collar (or hat like Natalie calls it).

Thursday was pretty uneventful. Well I had a little incident with a roach but I survived and the roach didn't so everything was good in the end ;-)

Friday was going to be another crazy day. I had scheduled for Natalie to get her flu shot and given how well she did on Wed at the doctor I was dreading it. Plus this time I was going to have to bring Izzie along for the ride. Well thankfully Aaron volunteered to meet me at the pediatrician. I took the opportunity to schedule flu shots for all of us, that way Natalie could see that we were getting them too. Natalie was very excited to meet Aaron and was very happy when we told her we were having lunch together. She did ok with the shot, it was quick so that was good. It was actually faster than we had thought so we had some extra time before lunch. Natalie wanted to be with Aaron so he took her to work with him for about 1/2 hour. She apparently walked in with her backpack and had fun looking at everyone. Aaron had her coloring on the dry erase board. Then we had lunch and Natalie had a nice long nap. At least the week ended much better than it started.

Oh I almost forgot, through all this Izzie has been extremely cranky. She is getting her top front teeth and she has been miserable. Crying and not eating. The left one finally broke through the gum yesterday. She is even having some problems sleeping because I guess hurts so bad. Can't wait for the other one to cut through and hopefully she will start feeling better.

Yesterday we went to a doggy festival. They had it to benefit the ASPCA. There was a little walk and some music and a bouncy house. They had other stuff scheduled like a doggy costume contest but we had to come home and put the kids down for their nap. The girls had lots of fun looking at all the doggies. We bumped into one of Natalie's friend's from school named Dylan and they had fun playing in the playground and in the bouncy house. Natalie was a little scared at first but she followed Dylan and then we could not get her out.

Today Natalie got invited to a b-day party from twin boys from her school. She is starting to really play with the other kids so I can't wait to see her playing. She of course is excited because of cake!

Well that has been our exciting week. Abi is doing ok, although she is miserable in her cone. But given how much we have paid on the 2 surgeries she is wearing the cone all the time!

Hopefully next week will be nice and quiet :-)

Here are some pictures taken this week.

Here is Izzie having some fun in the chair.

Abi after her surgery before she pulled her bandage off

At the doggy festival

Natalie & Dylan jumping around

Natalie had so much fun

We put Izzie in but she just sat. She was smiling the whole time though. Natalie wanted Izzie to be with her.

Our little helper....

Helping Aaron put bricks around the tree

Izzie is 11 months old

2008-09-30T20:20:00.004-05:00

Today Izzie is 11 months old. I can't believe that in 1 month she will be a year old. Incredible! She is such a big girl. She is very funny and her personality is really coming out. She seems to be even more goofy than Natalie. She seems less shy than Natalie was.

I had no idea how much she weighs and I was very curious. She has not been to the pediatrician since she was 9 months. I ended up having to take Abi to the vet this morning because I was afraid her ear was filling up with blood again so while we were at the vet I figured I could get Izzie's weight checked. So I stood Izzie up in the doggy scale. Her weight was 19.9 lbs.

Izzie was very sleepy today not really sure why. Maybe she is going through a growth spurt but I am not complaining with Natalie in school today I had a nice relaxing day. That is until Natalie got home and then it got all crazy. I was able to get some pictures of the girls today. They like the puppy pjs.

My little tennis star

2008-09-28T19:55:00.007-05:00

Natalie has always been interested in watching sports. When she was a baby she would watch soccer with Aaron for hours. This summer she enjoyed watching the Olympics. Aaron used to play tennis before I came along. He enjoys watching it on TV so Natalie watched Wimbledon and the US Open with him. We have some tennis courts in our neighborhood and she saw some people playing the other day so she wanted to go into the courts and play. We let them run around for a bit, no one was playing at the time. We figured we could get her a racket and see if she wanted to play. Aaron was very excited.

So this morning Aaron took Natalie to get her a tennis racket and get one for me and some tennis balls. After the girls nap this afternoon we hit the courts. Natalie stylish as ever with her sunglasses and pink (of course it had to be pink ) racket. Izzie just had fun chasing balls and playing with water bottles. Good thing no one was playing on the other court as the balls were going all over the place and the girls were too. I realized I am not good at tennis but at least we tried. It was a lot of fun and the girls had fun running around. It was very hot so we could not stay for too long (it's almost Oct and it still feels like middle of summer).

Here are some pictures of Natalie & Izzie having fun.

Abi

2008-09-27T16:33:00.005-05:00

On Thursday morning Aaron noticed Abi had a hematoma on her ear. She had one 5 years ago. She either shook or kicked her head too hard to cause a blood vessel to break. Either way she needed to have surgery. Aaron dropped her off yesterday morning at the vet. Natalie was very concerned about Abi going to the doctor. She even said she wanted to go to the doctor with Abi. Surgery went well but she needed to stay overnight. We had playgroup yesterday afternoon and we got home after Aaron was home. Natalie thought Abi would be home by then so she started asking about her. We had to explain to her that Abi was still at the doctor. Izzie had no idea anything was different. Parker was very upset. He was very down all day and spent most of the day in the laundry room. He looked really sad last night. I can't remember the last time they were not together.

This morning Aaron went with Natalie to pick Abi. She was very happy to be home. She looks good although she has a whole bunch of stitches on her ear. She has to wear one of those funny collars but she is actually doing well without it. She just needs to be under supervision when she is not wearing it to make sure she does not kick her ear and pull the stitches out.

Yesterday the house felt weird without her. Sometimes the dogs make me crazy but I missed her yesterday. I am glad she is home and she is ok. Hopefully she won't need this again. We are going to try to get her on some hypoallergenic diet and see if that helps her itchy skin and her constant ear infections.

Here are some pictures of Abi's ear.

Also I had to take a picture of this. This is what happens when Aaron dresses Natalie.......

Independent

2008-09-23T15:13:00.006-05:00

Natalie & Izzie are becoming more and more independent. Which is good and bad. As far as Natalie goes it is good since she is starting to play better by herself and she has also started "playing" with Izzie. She wants Izzie to play along but poor Izzie has no idea what is going on and what Natalie is telling her to do. Still Izzie likes when Natalie pays attention to her so she is very happy to be included.

Natalie has also started playing with other kids. Before whenever we got together with other kids she just did the parallel play but she is starting to do more pretend playing. She plays with Lillian & Caroline. Lillian will be 2 in October and Caroline turned 2 in July. It is very cute to see them playing together.

As always Natalie's first friends were Parker & Abi. She just loves playing with them outside. They like it when she is outside with them. She tries to catch them but she can't. She can get to Parker since he gets lazy and stops running but Abi she can never catch her. Natalie definitely thinks she is part of their pack. Not sure who is the leader but I don't think they know either or care.... Last week we had fall like weather. Well early fall like weather. It was great. We played outside a lot. I started throwing the ball to Abi and Natalie comes over with a tennis ball saying "me turn". I thought she wanted to throw the ball to Abi so I waited for her to throw the ball. Nothing was happening until I realized Natalie wanted me to throw the ball to her. So I threw the ball and off she went chasing it in the backyard. She then bent down and tried to pick it up with her mouth, which she could not do (thank goodness). But then she came running back to me holding the ball up to her mouth pretending like it was in her mouth. We did this for about 10 minutes. Her running after the ball. Abi was just looking wondering what was going on.
Later on Parker & Abi were scratching their backs on the grass and Natalie gets off the swing and proceeds to get on the grass and scratch her back too. I have no idea what she is thinking she is but I guess she just wants to be part of their pack.

Natalie is now starting to enjoy the game of chase and hide and seek. There are a couple of things she still does not get, like actually hiding but she will get there. Also since Aaron always ask her "Do you want me to chase you" she thinks the name of the game is "chase you". So if she wants people to chase her she says "chase you chase you".

Izzie is also becoming more independent. Now independence on Izzie means trouble. She is very curious (nice way of putting it) and quite often gets into trouble. Her favorite past time now is to see what she can dunk in the dog's water dish. Her favorite items to put in are shoes, dog toys and Aaron's dress socks. She loves playing with their water and makes a mess. She also is enjoying climbing up the stairs. She had a little mishap last week. I believe she tripped trying to climb up the steps in the back porch. She got a little scratch on her face and a bump in her forehead. She is all healed now but I am sure this was the first of many injuries. She is always going somewhere and she is very quiet about it.

We are doing well, waiting for the weather to get cool. It still feels like summer. I will miss the North Carolina fall with all the trees changing. I don't think there are that many trees here that will change leaves. Also getting ready for Izzie's first birthday. I can't believe she will be a year in 1 month! Time is going by so fast.

Here are some pictures :-)

Here is Natalie in the backyard. She figured out she can use the potty as a step stool to get into the infant swing. She can now get in and out of the swing by herself. She also uses the potty to push herself.

Izzie showing her injuries....

Natalie & Izzie watching cartoons before bedtime.

Check out Natalie's hands... Aaron does the same thing.

Natalie & Caroline playing with puppies

Weekend Adventures

2008-09-14T19:39:00.008-05:00

So I figured I will write something even though we have not done much. We had a pretty uneventful weekend. Hurricane Ike was coming to the Texas coast and all week long they were talking here how it was going to rain and we could even get some tropical storm winds. Well we got pretty much nothing. It was just a cloudy breezy day and it never rained. Aaron & Natalie even went to the pool! We took the girls to the park in the afternoon.

We have been cleaning out the storage area. We don't have much space and it is full with baby stuff. Since we are not going to need the baby stuff anymore I have been trying to sell stuff on craigs list so that I can at least get something. So far I have sold a crib, mattress, swing, bouncy and the gymini mat. I have some other stuff and I need to add a whole lot more it just takes some time to take the pictures and write the posts.

Last night we moved the desk that had my computer from the playroom to the guest bedroom and we moved the computer downstairs into Aaron's office. Aaron does not work from home that much so we figured since we have an office we might as well use it. He is not too thrilled to be sharing his office with me again but he will get over it. He is complaining that I am going to make him keep it neat and organized but I think deep down he is not that upset about it. But it was an ordeal trying to fit another computer with all my other stuff from the desk in the office. We have a lot of furniture in one small room. The kids were very excited when the opportunity of playing with office supplies appeared to them. We look over and Izzie has my digital camera, then the video camera. Natalie on the other hand was trying to grab scissors and permanent markers. I can only imagine what she would have done with the permanent markers, she already colored the living room with the washable ones. But the office is done and everything fit. I have the big desk, Aaron has the little one but again he is not here that much. The playroom upstairs looks a little weird without the desk there. We had to move the toys around but there is a lot more room now which is nice. I want to get the girls some big toys for Christmas so I wanted to start making some space.

This afternoon we gave the dogs a bath. Well Aaron did, I was going to help him but Izzie decided to climb up to the back porch and I had to watch make sure she was not going to decide to come down. She has learned to climbed stairs and she loves it.

Natalie is doing very well with her potty training. We did have a little issue today...... She had to go potty and went in the normal potty but apparently she missed. We did not realized she missed until Aaron stepped on it and walked all over the kitchen. So I was trying to help Aaron first off clean his foot to stop getting urine all over the house. Then I was cleaning the trail he left while he tackled the puddle in the bathroom. I left an antibacterial wipe on the floor and next thing we know Izzie is chewing on it. I cleaned her mouth but I was concerned so I made Aaron call poison control. They said she should be ok and maybe would even throw up. She never threw up and she ate her meal without a problem. But now we feel like we have reached a new milestone.... having called poison control. It took us 2 1/2 years. I figured something like this would happen with Izzie, she is a little firecracker. She gets into everything and it's not scared or shy about anything. So different from Natalie.

Izzie has become quite the eater. She eats so much that at each meal we are surprised. She eats about twice as much as what Natalie eats. It is unbelievable. She can be in her high chair for about an hour just eating. It is so nice that she can feed herself. If only we could get Natalie to eat that well.

Well here are some pictures taken this weekend. Enjoy

this morning I found Parker & Abi on the dog bed in the living room together.

Here is Natalie & Izzie outside playing.

Here is Parker & Abi after their bath.

Not sure if Izzie has learned this from watching Natalie but she got Parker's collar and put it in the swing and was trying to swing it. She kept getting hit in the face with the swing.

Natalie giving Izzie a hug

Izzie's latest trick climbing stairs.

Pantry

2008-09-04T10:58:00.005-05:00

So our pantry is a weird shape. It is under the stairs so it is very long and narrow with shelves on one side. Izzie loves to go in there and play. Pretty soon she is going to lose a toe because she likes to play with the cans of vegetables. In the last couple of days Natalie has shown some interest in playing in the pantry as well. Now Natalie opens the door and gets Izzie to go in there and then she shuts the door and they stay in there for a while. I had no idea what they did in there. There was always some little mess when they came out but nothing too bad. But today I figured out what they have been playing with....

I was vacuuming (fun Thursday cleaning day for me) in the pantry and because of the shape the pantry is we have a little cart where we keep all the baking needs. We have the sugar, flour, cookie cutters, and other cake decorating stuff. As I was vacuuming I noticed sprinkles all over the floor, underneath the cart. A lot of them crushed into powder. The sprinkles are in the cart but they are in a container to make sure they don't fall out. Well the sprinkles are missing their lid. The sprinkles jar is a huge one, I got it at BJs (like Sams club for those who don't know what BJs is). I have sprinkles for the next 5 years. Well apparently their color was appealing to them and they have been having fun with them. I don't know if they are eating them. I am sure Izzie has probably tried them if Natalie offered them to her since Izzie eats anything you put in front of her. Natalie is more skeptical but she likes them on donuts and cupcakes so who knows how much they have eaten them. Natalie also likes to get Parker to go in there with her so I have to be careful know she does not start feeding him sprinkles. I guess I will have to move them, who knows what they will find next to play with.

Updates

2008-09-01T18:57:00.004-05:00

Wanted to share a couple of updates....

Natalie is now officially off diapers and doing great in the potty. She had 1 accident on Friday and 2 on Saturday but yesterday and today she had not accidents. I even took her to Target yesterday and she stayed dry. We went to the grocery store today and she also stayed dry. She even went #2. She was very excited when she went. Aaron and I are so happy we took the diaper genie out of her room. Good riddance.

I forgot to put an update on Abi. She had a urinary tract infection. She had antibiotics for a couple of weeks but she never had any more accidents in the house. She is back to her normal self.

Izzie is back in her room. A couple of months ago we moved the extra crib from Natalie's room to the guest bedroom. Izzie was waking up a lot at night and we wanted to let her cry it out without waking up Natalie. Aaron had a couple of rough nights with her but it seemed to have worked. So as of yesterday she is back in her room.

Big Girls

2008-08-31T08:02:00.006-05:00

It is hard to believe how fast time goes by this days. This weekend we had some pretty big milestones. First Izzie turned 10 months old yesterday. I can't believe she is that old. She is walking all over the place now. She is still working on her balance but she always starts out walking and if she falls then she tries to stand up and if she can't then she crawls. But she can walk from one end of the room to another. We took the girls to the park yesterday afternoon and we put some shoes on Izzie and let her go. She did very good, it is harder walking on the mulch. The only problem was that she kept trying to sit down and eat the mulch. But she was happy to be able to walk around and follow Natalie around. Natalie was very excited too to have Izzie walking and she kept trying to get Izzie to follow her on the play equipment.

Izzie is also done with baby food. For the past couple of weeks it has been harder and harder to feed her. She wants to eat people food and wants to feed herself. I ran out of the baby food veggies she likes so last night for dinner we only gave her our food. She had green beans and carrots and some ribs that Aaron made for us. She ate a bite of each. Of course she had a flour tortilla. She loves them, we buy them at the grocery store, they make them in the store. She also had some fruit. She is a very good eater and eats anything you put in her tray.

As far as Natalie goes we ran out of diapers ;-) We have been potty training for a while now and she does very well when we are home and she is naked. The problem is that she never wants to wear underwear. She wants to wear diapers. I think it's a comfort thing. But she has been telling me when she is going pee and if she is naked and playing around she goes to the potty without me even asking. So for a couple of weeks now I have been telling her how we are running out of diapers, and she will need to wear underwear. So on Friday I hid all of her diapers and when she went looking for them very matter of fact she said to me "diapers all done" . So I said, yep they are all done and she has been wearing underwear since. Now if we are home she pulls them off and remains naked but that's ok. Hopefully she will get used to them. I think she feels like something is missing or lose because she keeps pulling up her pants. She has had 3 accidents so far, all while wearing the panties. If she is naked she does not have an accident. Hopefully today will be a good day.

Now the novelty of the underwear is fading. I have pull ups for her to sleep on and I keep calling them her bed time underwear but she has figured out that they feel like diapers because this morning she kept trying to wear them. We will see how she does when she goes to school on Tuesday and has to be on underwear all day.

Here are some pictures taken yesterday.

Here is Natalie showing off her underwear. She wanted Mickey Mouse underwear but the Mickey underwear is for boys and the Minnie is for girls. She insisted on Mickey so she has some boys briefs on.

Here is Izzie walking around in the park trying to make sure she does not fall and looking at all the mulch that she wants to chew on.

The girls playing in the park.

Izzie eating last night. You can see Parker not too far behind...

PR Trip

2008-08-27T08:06:00.010-05:00

We just got back from our trip to Puerto Rico. We drove to Dallas spent the night there at the hotel in the airport and on Thursday morning taking a direct flight to San Juan. We were off to a rocky start on Wed since apparently Izzie had a 24 hour stomach bug. She had diarrhea and after we got to the hotel while we were having dinner in the restaurant she threw up. We were expecting a fun trip the next day but thankfully it only lasted one day and she was fine while we were flying. The flight from Dallas to San Juan is almost 4 1/2 hours, which is the longest they have been on a plane for. Other times we had gone to PR we always stopped in Miami which was halfway from Raleigh, plus we had never flown to PR with Izzie.

They both did extremely well on the plane, I thought they would get bored but they did ok. It was harder for Izzie since she wanted to crawl around and walk. Natalie we could entertain with coloring books and stickers.

So we got to PR on time and my Mom picked us up. We got to my parents house and Natalie was fascinated with it. I guess she did not remember it from last time. She was looking at all the plants and just running around getting a feel for the house.

We did not do much, my parents have a pool so we swam almost every day in the pool and we visited my grandparents. Natalie was a scared of them, I guess she does not understand that they are a little sick. Izzie was having a lot of stranger anxiety so she pretty much was with Aaron or me. But after some time the girls opened up and were being less shy. Natalie liked my aunt a lot and kept hugging and kissing her.

On Saturday we went to Luquillo beach. It is about an hour drive from my parents house. It is near the rain forest and the beach there is awesome. We did not know how Natalie was going to do since she is not that fond of the beach. We have taken her there before and she did not like it. Izzie was very happy and wanted to stay in the water the whole time. Natalie was definitely more excited than before but she does not like being dirty so the did not want to play in the sand and she did not want any sand on her feet or hands. Kind of difficult to achieve since we are at the beach..... In the water she wanted to be held and would not even stand in the shallow. In the afternoon while Izzie slept I took Natalie back in the water and she was watching the other kids play so she decided she wanted to walk. From that moment on she was just crazy. Running around and jumping. She was not coming in and out of the water, she was just running along the shore but she was having fun. We saw fish and she had a great time. We were there pretty much all day and both kids were exhausted.

Monday it rained all day and by that point the kids had had enough. Yesterday was an interesting travel day. Unlike when we left we had to do the plane and the car ride on the same day. The car ride from Dallas is about 3 hours. Izzie was so tired in the car and ready to be out and free. Both kids were very happy when we got home and they could play with their toys.

Parker & Abi stayed home, we had a girl from the neighborhood come 4 times a day to feed them and put them out. They were happy when we got home but they did very well. Parker did not eat or destroy anything.....

Well here are some pictures from our trip.

Here is Izzie helping me pack before we left.

It was very hot and humid. Very different from the Texas summer. We missed the dry air from Texas. But we found out that Izzie's hair gets curly with the humidity. I loved her curls, I wish she had them all the time.

Here is a picture of Luquillo. It is hard to see in the picture but Natalie is walking around in the water and I am laying down in the water following her.

Swimming at my parents house.

"ma ma ma ma"

2008-08-19T09:18:00.005-05:00

Izzie has started saying "ma ma ma ma". It is very exciting to hear. She does not necessarily say it to me, just as she is babbling around she will say it. I don't remember Natalie saying it so early. It seems like Izzie is doing everything much faster than Natalie was. She is growing up so fast. She is definitely not a little baby anymore.

She is getting much better at walking. She can take about 20 steps without falling over. It is so funny watching her because she concentrates so hard and she stops if she starts losing her balance to avoid falling over. She always walks with her hands up in the air too to help with the balance.

We are getting ready to go on our Puerto Rico trip. Should be interesting flying with both of them. I don't think it will be as bad as when we came to Texas since now they are older but it is a longer flight.

Natalie & Izzie's new tricks

2008-08-11T15:15:00.005-05:00

Natalie loves to be thrown up in the air. I guess Aaron created a monster since he started throwing her up a while ago. Now the problem is that she wants to go higher and she does not let him rest. He was throwing her up on Friday and he hurt his back, but she had a great time.

Check out the pictures....

Izzie is trying to walk all the time now. She tries to practice but sometimes it's too impatient and starts walking before she gets her balance and falls. But over the weekend she walked about 10 steps and then sat down.
Here is a picture showing her new trick

Izzie's walking

2008-08-08T17:03:00.003-05:00

Izzie has started taking some steps today. She took about 2 steps a week ago trying to get to me.
Today she is doing much better, taking about 4 steps and trying to walk to get to her toys. Natalie
saw her and got very excited and said "Izzie walk". She still needs to practice on her balance but she is getting better at it every day. She is almost standing up by herself without holding on to anything. Hopefully she will be walking good soon. She really wants to go after Natalie.

Vet trip

2008-08-06T12:35:00.004-05:00

Yesterday afternoon I noticed that our bathroom had a funny smell. Before going to pick up Natalie from daycare I went into her room and found little traces of blood on the carpet. Abi had been in Natalie's room earlier so I figured it was from her. Then I realized that the smell in our bathroom was that Abi had peed on the floor. When Aaron got home from work he found more bloody traces in our closet. This morning we found a little bit more so I figured she needed to go the vet as soon as possible. I was concerned she had a kidney or bladder infection so we needed to have it checked out so we could start her on antibiotics.

Aaron normally takes Abi to the vet since she is so scared and needs to be carried in. He is in meetings all day and the earlier he could take her was tomorrow. I did not want to wait so I braved the trip with Abi and the two girls.

Abi would not go in, so I had to bring her back to the car and have someone from the office carry her in for me. Natalie was very concerned about Abi and kept saying that they were going to check Abi's ears (all trips to doctors for Natalie means ear check since pretty much that is the only thing they checked on her). So we go in the room and everything is going good. They had to take Abi in the back to get a urine sample. Natalie wanted to go back with them and was very upset while Abi was gone. Abi was too nervous and they could not get enough so we had to do it the old fashion way. We had to get her walking and see if she peed. So outside we all go. We left Izzie in the stroller watching us and I was walking Abi with Natalie next to us and a girl from the office behind us with a ladle waiting for Abi to pee so she could catch it. Thank goodness she was quick. Now we have to all go back inside and wait 10 minutes until the results came back. At this point Izzie is pretty much done with the stroller and Natalie is opening all the cabinets and drawers in the room. Abi is shaking non stop.

So I got the girls out of the room, Natalie wanted to she the office kitty cat which was hiding (he must have heard her coming). They have a nice little room full of toys so Natalie went in there to play which was fantastic. She was very entertained in the room. I left Abi by herself in the little room. I don't think she minded since now she was not being harassed by Natalie.

So the doctor comes back and says that there is some inflammation and the most probable cause is a urinary tract infection. It could also be stones but usually it is a UTI. So he recommended antibiotics and some pain medication. They are going to send the sample in for a more detailed analysis to confirm the infection. Hopefully that will be the case, otherwise they would have to do x-rays to see if its stones and if not an ultrasound to see if it's a tumor in the bladder. We should have the results early next week.

While I went to get Abi and pay I put Izzie in the play room with Natalie. It was cute seeing them together. There is no way Izzie would have stayed there by herself if Natalie would not have been there. We were at the vet for almost an hour and a half. The girls did great, much better than I thought I would have gone. Natalie had a great time and did not want to leave the playroom. I have a feeling she will want to go back to the vet really soon.

Izzie's checkup

2008-07-31T13:15:00.002-05:00

Izzie had her 9 month check up today. She did very well although she was trying to walk all over the floor. I have no idea how we are going to entertain her when we go to PR in a couple of weeks. It will be a long flight. Anyway back to the appt. she got one shot that she was supposed to get at 6 months but did not get because they were low on supply and they had to draw blood to check her iron (normal check at 9 months old). She did well but she cried a lot. Poor thing. She has a band aid in her finger that she is trying to eat.
Here are her stats and I am including Natalie's at the same age, funny but they are almost the same!
Izzie
weight: 18lbs
height: 27.75 in

Natalie
weight: 17lbs 11.75 oz
height: 28 in

9 months old

2008-07-30T13:27:00.008-05:00

Today July 30 Izzie is 9 months old. I cannot believe it. I have no idea where the last year has gone by let alone the last 9 months. She is getting so big so fast it is incredible. I thought time was going fast after Natalie was born but since Izzie came along now it seems to be going by even faster. My babies are growing up. Although if you ask Natalie if she is a big girl or a baby she will tell you she is a baby. I am sure if Izzie could talk Izzie would say she is a big girl. She just adores Natalie and whatever Natalie does she follows her and tries to do too. Now Izzie has started playing with the baby strollers. Natalie so far has been good at sharing them but not all the times. We have one of those big riding cars in the house downstairs and Natalie gets on it and Izzie takes off crawling behind her. Natalie does loops around the house with Izzie behind. Pretty soon Izzie will be pushing something behind her.
Izzie is cruising really good. She pulls herself up on anything that will provide a little help and support. She is very curious about everything. She still has not tried climbing on the stairs but I am sure it is just a matter of days.

Izzie has been crying every time I put her in her car seat. We think she was not that comfortable in the infant car seat. I was not comfortable carrying it. It was so heavy. So I got Natalie a booster seat and Izzie got Natalie's convertible car seat. Natalie loves her new car seat since it is pink and apparently that is her favorite color. Izzie seems to be doing ok in the new car seat but she is getting tired of facing the back. I am sure she will be very happy come October when she can face the front.

Izzie's latest funny faces is that she has discovered her tongue and that she can stick it out. She crawls around with her tongue sticking out and then grabs and pulls it. She is so silly.

Natalie is doing very well with potty training. She does not tell me she has to go but if I tell her to sit she goes pee pee. I have noticed that she has started to hold it for longer stretches and she is peeing a lot more than just the drops she was doing a couple of weeks ago. I am trying to keep her without a diaper when we are home to make it easier to go the potty and make her hold it. So far it seems to be working but the other day she went #2 in the carpet. The potty was right there but I guess she is still not getting it. Later on in the day she was playing and forgot to go sit so she peed on herself. When Aaron got home from work he asked her if she had poo poo in the carpet and she informed him "and pee pee too". We will see how this progresses. The latest in her adventures is that now Pi (her stuffed piggy) goes potty. She sits her (we were told by Natalie that Pi is a girl...) down in the potty and gives her stickers.

Well here are some pictures taken today of Izzie and the girls with their new car seats.

Our Weekend

2008-07-27T18:53:00.009-05:00

So we had a pretty uneventful weekend. Yesterday Aaron took Natalie to the pool and the park while Izzie took her morning nap and I did some chores around the house and enjoyed the quiet house. Aaron took Natalie on the backpack. The pool and park are a little over a mile away from our house. I have no idea how he was able to walk that far with her but they made it and apparently she had a great time. In the afternoon we all went to the pool (in the car though). Izzie had a great time, she loves the pool.

On Sunday Aaron took Natalie to the park again. They were going to go on the backpack but at the last minute she wanted to go in the car.

Sunday afternoon we went to Georgetown looking for a playground that I have read was supposed to be one of the nicest in Texas. We did not find it but we found another park that was pretty and Natalie had fun running around and looking at ducks.

Here are some pictures taken this weekend.

Here is Aaron with Izzie at the park.

Here is Natalie at the park

Here is a picture of Izzie showing off how well she can stand by herself. On Thursday she took 2 steps towards me. She is getting much better at standing by herself without any support. We think once she can stand better she will take off walking. She can't wait to chase after Natalie.

Here is a typical Izzie smile. She always tips her head back and grins as wide as she can with her eyes all squinty.

"I pee pee grass"

2008-07-22T20:52:00.005-05:00

So we started a little bit of potty training Natalie. They do it in school and she started going at school so I decided to try it at home and see what happens. Some days she is more willing than others but in the last few days she seems more interested. I have a special box full of stickers which she gets one every time she goes. But now she has learned how to work the system. She realized that she gets one sticker every time she goes so instead of doing all her business in one sitting she goes a little bit, stops, she tells me she went, shows it to me, goes to the toilet flushes it and then asks to have her hands washed and get her sticker. So I think she is done, as I am about to put a diaper on she says "I pee pee more" and off she goes back to the potty and the whole cycle starts again. Yesterday she did this 5 times. By the last time she is pushing with all her might and getting only a drop, but hey she got 5 stickers so she was very happy.
Today in school she actually peed in the potty the whole day, every time they took them and she stayed dry all morning. We will see how she does at home tomorrow. I try to get her to wear underwear but she is not interested at all. She will wear them for a little bit (5 minutes) and then take them off. She does not ask for a diaper she would rather stay naked. Apparently she does not like the feel of the underwear.
Now on the issue of #2 it is a different story. For the past year Natalie has been doing her business mostly outside. I guess she likes to be in nature with the dogs, who knows. But usually in the mornings or early afternoons if she tells us she wants to go outside it is to do her business. So as we started potty training every time she asks to go outside I ask her if she has to poop and if she does she should go in the potty. Her response " I poo poo outside". I even tried bringing the potty outside one day and she paid no attention. So today after dinner she says she wants to go outside. Given that she had such a successful day at school I ask her if she has to go poop. I get her usual response of "I poop outside". I tell her that I will bring the potty and I would read her a book. She gets all excited and agrees. So off we go to the back porch. She sits, I start reading her book and she pees. So she is happy and I am thinking that this may work after all. Well after peeing she says she wants to move the potty to the fort part of her swing set. So we move the potty and she sits down and I continue to read. I guess now that she peed once she lost interest and seeing the dogs go in the grass she starts thinking because next thing I know she is off the potty standing in the grass and telling me "I pee pee grass" and there she goes peeing in the grass, standing up. She is very proud of herself, I have to stop myself from laughing because the last thing I want is to encourage this. (This morning she came inside half naked because she was able to get her diaper off ). So after doing this once she runs around after the dogs and stops by the fence, her back against the fence and I can see she is concentrating on something and then I see that she is peeing again and she starts yelling to me "I pee pee grass".
At least she did not go #2 outside since I did not really want to clean up that mess. We will see what she does tomorrow. Here are some pictures of Natalie outside today....

Izzie is doing good. She is all into people food and eats anything you put in front of her. She likes chicken, ground beef, cheese, pasta. She likes all kinds of fruit. She eats her baby food as long as no one else is eating around her. If we are eating she screams until we give her what we have. And if Aaron is cooking and she can smell it forget it, she wants it too! She is standing really well on her own now and her cruising is much better and faster. She loves getting into the pantry and playing with whatever is at her reach.

Pictures

2008-07-17T21:07:00.006-05:00

So last week I got the brilliant idea I wanted to get an updated pictures of the girls. Last time I attempted this was back in January. I really wanted a picture of both girls together. Natalie was almost 2 and Izzie was almost 3 months. I thought it was possible. Well little did I know. Natalie would not even get out of the stroller. So it ended up being an Izzie session only. So now I thought that Natalie was bigger and could understand more and Izzie was able to sit up by herself and stand so again me with my brilliant ideas..... All week long I kept mentioning to Natalie how we were going to have pictures taken. I bribed her with everything I could think of. She was always very excited about it and kept saying yes that she would have her picture taken. So off we went on Wed morning. We had an appt at 10am. I figured it was a great time, Izzie would have taken a morning nap so she would not be cranky and it was still early for Natalie. Well it was an ordeal. Both girls crying and would not stand in the middle and let the lady take their pictures. I finally convinced Natalie by making her jump around. Since she likes to show off this worked pretty well. Then we tried both girls. This is when things got crazy. Izzie is a little too mobile. She is crawling all over the place and Natalie is going in the opposite direction. When Izzie would sit still Natalie would be on the other side and nowhere close for a picture to be taken. We tried for so long. I was helping myself to all their toys, just anything to try to keep them still and together. Natalie was getting restless and was trying to climb back into the stroller. We got only one picture of them together. Izzie looks ok, she is somewhat smiling. Natalie looks like she is being tortured. Needless to say I did not get a together picture. At least the girls did very well on the individual pictures and I got some really good ones so I can replace them, especially the ones of Izzie since she does not look like any of the pictures I had. So then it was time to leave when they tell me that their printer is broken and I had to come another day and pick up the pictures. At first I was upset but at this point it is almost noon and everyone was starving so I just wanted to get out of there, give them lunch and put them down for a nap. Today I picked up the pictures, they are really cute and I am glad I got them. I am still hoping soon I am going to get one of them together. Part of me wants to keep trying and part of me wants to avoid this things altogether. Maybe I can convince Aaron to come with me......

Sisters

2008-07-13T19:45:00.002-05:00

When I was pregnant with Izzie and I found out I was having another girl I was excited for Natalie to be able to have someone to play with. Since they were so close in age I hoped they would be very close. After Izzie was born I thought it would take a while before they could start playing together. Well I can start seeing them playing together now and I am excited that it is happening earlier than I thought. Now that Izzie can pull herself up and crawl she pretty much follows Natalie around. Whether Natalie wants it or not. Whatever toy Natalie is playing with Izzie has to come and check it out too. It is annoying for Natalie but it is very cute to watch them. At the same time Natalie likes it, she gets to boss her around. There are times when Izzie falls and hurts herself and cries and Natalie comes running and asks her if she is ok. Other times when Natalie is the cause of Izzie's crying then I can tell because Natalie is usually running in the opposite direction trying to hide it. Izzie is starting to show some personality and every day it seems like she is sillier than the day before. She is still liking cables but now that Natalie knows that Izzie should not be near them then Natalie is my cable patrol and tells Izzie no. Again she loves to boss her around. The other day Natalie came over and grabbed Izzie by the hands and tried to play Ring around the Rosie with her. Izzie can only stand while holding on to stuff so it was very difficult to try to do this, specially since Natalie was trying to also spin her around. The falling down part they both nailed. You would think that Izzie would have been upset since she can barely stand up and here is Natalie spinning her around and pushing her on the floor but Izzie was so excited to be playing with Natalie that they were both giggling. I can't wait for Izzie to get bigger so that they can play better.
Natalie is still in her dancing stage. She now dances to any music that she hears. At the stores she stops walking so that she can dance. The other day at the mall I was in the dressing room with both of them and I turned around and Natalie is standing in front of the mirror dancing. She then decided she wanted to try clothes on so she took off her shorts and diaper. She then opened the door and was trying to run down the store half naked. Good thing the stroller got in the way.
We did not do much this weekend. We went to the pool this afternoon. Natalie was in the pool for a little bit but then she sat in a chair eating a snack with her sunglasses on like she was sunbathing. Aaron is getting a little scared of what the future is going to hold for him with the two of them. Izzie loves the pool so she just hung out in her raft.

Here are the most recent pictures
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=19okkvhx.4g44nzy5&x=0&y=kmigb0&localeid=en_US

Messy Izzie

2008-07-08T15:49:00.009-05:00

So today I got the brilliant idea to give Izzie a blueberry nutri grain bar. She is losing interest in baby food and I wanted to give her something that would fill her up more than just cheerios. Well I am sure if you ask her she would tell you that she loved the nutri grain bar and would eat one every day. If you ask me it was a disaster and it is going to take a while before I give her another one. Check out the pictures and you can decide.....

Also yesterday Natalie went to her first friend birthday party. It was from a little girl that lives in our neighborhood as is part of our playgroup. The party was at Chucky Cheese. Natalie was a little scared at first but then she had fun in the rides. Her favorite part was the cake :-)

First blog - 4th of July weekend

2008-07-06T19:56:00.004-05:00

Hi ! I have been meaning to do this for the past two years and now I finally decided to do it. Hopefully this way I can keep you all updated with what we are doing in Austin and how the girls are doing.
So far we are doing very well. We are settled and starting to know the area better. We don't get out much (thanks to our little monsters ;-) but slowly we will get there. It is starting to feel like home so that is good.

The girls are doing well. Izzie is 8 months old and is growing up really fast. She is very good at crawling now and she is pretty fast, especially when she sees a cable she wants to get her teeth into. She is pulling up on anything she can find and has started cruising around. She loves to play with all of Natalie's toys, especially the ones that Natalie is playing with at the time. Also Izzie has discovered the basket where we keep the dog toys and she thinks they are her teething toys, so we have to keep our eye on her. We started giving her some table food. She tries to eat it but it ends up mostly on her lap. She makes a big mess but she is very happy about it and is happy to try. So far she likes peas, broccoli and chicken. Parker is very excited and he has become our official high chair cleaner.

Natalie is doing good as well. Also getting very big. We moved her up into a big girl bed. She loves it and I can't believe she is not a baby anymore that does not need a crib. We started a little bit of potty training, since they do it at school but she does not have that much interest at home so I stopped trying until she shows more interest. She is currently crazy for dancing. She pretty much dances to any music she hears, even commercials. It is hilarious to watch. She has finally accepted other music than Jack Johnson so Aaron is very happy to be able to hear other music. We have been going to the pool and she has been enjoying it a lot. Not as much as Izzie. Izzie could be in the pool all day if we let her. Natalie jumps in and tries to put her head in the water. Maybe by the end of the summer she will. At least it is better than last year.

The doggies are doing well. Parker hates the heat. Abi does not mind it as much. They are both in hibernation pretty much all day and are awake early in the morning and in the evenings. The rest of the time Parker is somewhere in the tile floor and Abi is hiding from the girls.

This past weekend was 4th of July. On Thursday there was a party at Natalie's school. They had all the kids in their bathing suits playing in the water and running around. It was cute seeing all the kids running around. Natalie was trying to show us around the school. At the school there is a little farm with some ponies and goats. She was showing us the horses. She won't pet them but she gets close to them through the fence. They do have a baby goat inside the playground and all the kids are crazy for him. We were shocked to see Natalie pet him. Since she is so afraid of everything. We will see when the goat gets bigger how she does with him.

On Friday we went to downtown Round Rock for their annual parade. We went with a mom I met at playgroup and her husband and their 2 year old daughter. We had a lot of fun. Izzie did very well. Natalie was scared but she did better than we expected. As people walked by they would throw candy. Natalie never tried to get any (must be Aaron's genes). For the rest of the weekend we did not do much more. We set up Natalie's new room with her new bed and stuff and moved her old stuff into Izzie's room.

I will try to keep updating as much as I can and put pictures or the links to kodak gallery.

take care
Irene