So........regarding my last post. I did sleep Wednesday night and it was FABULOUS!!! Sleep is 100% NOT overrated. Work went well...busy but ok. Jon had a great day with E Squared...they behave beautifully for him (of course)(not that they misbehave for me)(but it's not always as easy as he had it Thursday)(so now he thinks I am exagerating (sp)). He did some laundry, cleaned the floors and dishes and even had dinner made for me when I got home.......SEE
FYI.....it's a hamburger patty. Hey it's the though that counts. Right???
Edie and Ella are eating more and more solids.....I haven't built up to more than 1 meal per day or even every day for that matter.....I am in no rush for them to grow up.......they are at such a fun age right now. So if I don't feed them then they won't grow......just kidding. They are still just fine on mostly formula......feeding is just for practice right now. It's great fun and they love certain things....especially yogurt!!! Here they are after a recent "harvest vegetable" meal...

Feeding a baby is harder than it seems......they get this messy with me feeding them. Ella loves to hold onto the spoon and chew on the rubber tip so she gets extra messy for that reason and Edie like to put her hands into her mouth with every bite.......I used to try to hold their hands but then decided it was may more trouble and it's quite fun to let them get all messy......hey that's what baths are for right??? Besides it makes for some great pictures.

Now here are those adorable outfits I promised pictures of....sorry it took so long to post them but I actually forgot about it until I uploaded these this morning........

Sleep IS N!O!T! overrated!!!!!

I am really looking forward to tonight. Know why? I get to (theoretically) sleep!!! I NEVER get a full nights sleep....no kidding. In the past 6 months the longest stretch that I have had has been 5 hours on 3 separate occasions. It is very very sad that I know precisely how many times I have gotten a short stretch of sleep out of an ENTIRE half year. Jon gets to sleep ALL day when he works....good. sound. can hear snoring in the living room. sleep! Of course he has to stay up all night at work so he does deserve to sleep all day BUT I am still jealous. Well starting tomorrow I will officially be "back to work". I am on the schedule 2 days every week. I have to be at the hospital by 7am and my job does require me to be able to function level headedly (is that a word.....it is now!) so I need to sleep. Now, realistically...we have sick babies so I may actually feel too guilty to sleep in the guest bedroom but we will see. Last night was absolute torture....Edie Claire did.not.sleep.!!! We each got about maaaaayyyyyyyybe 1 hour of sleep TOTAL. I don't know if she has caught the cold that I recently had or if she is teething but she is in misery. So we are in misery. She has classic cold symptoms but also diarrhea (just a tiny bit, once). Everyone has their opinion on teething symptoms so the only thing is to wait and see. The thing that leads me to lean more towards a cold is the sneezing.....and I hope it is a cold because if we have to go through this for all....what.......20 something teeth. Heaven help us!!!
Everything else is going along fine here........the house stuff is running smoothly.....expensively smoothly but smoothly nonetheless. Say that last sentence 5 times really fast. If nursing happens to ever go sour for me I will definately look into being some sort of home inspector....man they are high priced "professionals". There is pest inspector, home inspector, home appraiser.....haven't they ever heard the word consolidate??? Two hundred dollars here, four hundred there, half a million somewhere else........geez!!! I need one of those money trees my dad used to have. At least I thought he did.
Now on to the good stuff.....cutie pies!!!!!!!! I also have a video of Edie jumping in her jumperoo that I will post as soon as I have time to remember how to transfer from the video camera.....ENJOY!!!
This is the face we see every morning when we get Edie from her crib.....I have finally captured her awesome grin on camera.........
Ella seems less than enthused in the jumperoo......her feet don't touch the floor well enough yet.

I have them in the absolute cutest outfits today......once they are both awake at the same time and not crying I will get some pictures for you all to see........but for now here is a sneak peek.....

Tomatoes, Sweet Potatoes & Monkeys!!!

I know I know -- your wondering what the heck have I posted a picture of a tomato for. Well I happen to be very proud of this particular tomato! Those of you who know me are aware of the fact that I have "black thumbs". In fact, the first thing my dad said when he saw the pictures of our new house was "you better get some green paint and start dipping your thumbs in it for a few days".....I know I know how corney.....he is notorious for corney lines... well not really notorious but....well lets just say he has some corney jokes/lines... funny but corney none the less...(is that supposed to be all 1 word??? nonetheless???) My how I digress. The new house has quite the landscaped backyard complete with raised garden beds...tomatoes, herbs, peppers...lovely! That is until I get my hands on it.....fortunately though there is an automatic drip system in place. That will help. So to make a short story long.........................................
A while back we had some friends over and V (the wife of the couple) brought over a tomato plant and even planted it for me. I have (mostly) remembered to water the plant and it has grown quite large. There are about 15 tomatoes on the thing......the thing is only 1 of them has turned red. Jon thinks we should just go ahead and make fried green tomatoes and I just might do that for him since he was actually the one who (mostly) remembered to water the plant while I sit here and take credit for doing it. So there you have it...my very first LIVE red tomato!!! Maybe there is hope for my black thumbs after all..........
I mean I did grow these sweet potatoes...........

I love little buff shots of them.......sweet little roly poly monkeys!!!

Mommy spit -- all purpose cleaner!!!

Read the next post and you will understand that title!!!!!

Gossip girls..........

Ella go so excited this morning while reading how Jessica Simpson found love again that she decided to eat the article......the girl likes her gossip -- she gets that from her mommy!!! The downside to this story is that the magazine ink will not come off of her face...all she needs now is a full saggy diaper and from afar she will look like a little trashy baby......oh yeah and a little diet coke in her bottle!!! Any ideas on how to get newsprint ink off baby skin???
On another note......we got a house. We put an offer in on Friday and they accepted it yesterday!!! The house has a website and if anyone is super excited to see it you can email me and I will send you the link....I don't want to put that up for the super creepy lurkers of the WWW to see our address!!! But here is a picture of the front of the house.

I love it.....it's not Jon's first choice but the first offer we placed (his first choice) was a short sale and the bank was taking FOREVER to hand down a decision so we had to move on. The only thing we need to do to this house is add a little color.....it's very nice and clean on the inside but everything is white. It's twice the size of the house we live in now so that will be nice....alot of stuff comes along with a baby Xs 2. So there you have it our very own half a million dollar starter home!!!!!!!!! Oh the price you pay to live in Cali!!!

Daddies little cheerleaders!!!

Ella and her tongue.......

TOUCHDOWN!!!!!!

Edie hanging out in her new favorits spot.......under the sofa.

Little Giants !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

E squared had their 6 month check up this mornings and all systems are in check!!! They are both right on target developmentally and Dr. B is happy with their growth.....Ella is in the 25th percentile and Edie is about 75th. They only got 2 shots each which was a nice change from the 4 each they have gotten at past appointments. They won't get any at their 9 month check up unless we opt for the flu vaccine...which (shhh we haven't told them yet) we probably will. So without further ado.......here are their stats.

Ella Grace:
length -- 25 inches
HC -- 42.6 cm
weight -- 14 pounds 11.8 ounces (gain from birth weight = 10 pounds 1.8 ounces)
Edie Claire:
length -- 27.25 inches
HC -- 42 cm
weight -- 16 pounds 15.4 ounces ( gain from birth weight = 10 pounds 15.4 ounces)

Rubi:
length -- pretty long with her bushy tail
HC -- who knows....her snout is very long though
weight -- 89 pounds -- according to the vet that is about 11 pounds more than she should weigh.... she needs a diet and more exercise!!!

Now on to part 2.........

We are back from our little mini vacation and are ready to dive into the second half of E squared's first year!!! We had a great great time in Monterey......we walked around Carmel, Pebble Beach, Monterey......went to the Aquarium and Fisherman's Wharf. Just had a grand time........a great way to spend an anniversary (minus any romantic dinners but that's ok) and a half birthday!!! We have some fun pictures to share.
First.....just to remember our great fall before the trip on mommy's first day back at work.....here is Ella Grace sporting her ankle bracelet from her trip to the ER.
Edie getting really excited about heading down for a long weekend........

"Should we bring the couch mommy?"

Here they are on the bed practicing their synchronized bottle holding for the 2012 summer olympics......this was their first time staying in a motel.......we stayed in a motel on the way down on Friday night before checking into our luxury hotel (paid priceline price of course)... notice the rug burn on Edie's belly.......she loves to scoot around on the floor......fortunately it was a temporary irritation.....went away real quick. Please don't call CPS on us.......we are good parents I swear!!!

Edie and I at Pebble Beach......don't I look wonderful after a wind blown day haha!!!

Here we are at the beach in Carmel....what an awesome little town. We've been there before and it is always a great time........we have decided to make it our annual anniversary/half birthday spot!!!

Edie showed quite a fascination with the beautiful jellyfish....they were exquisite!!!

Ella and daddy with the baby bjorn for the very first time......she had such a great time. She squealed with delight very often this weekend........super cute!!!

Here they are with Monterey Bay behind them at Pebble Beach......

The Pebble Beach Lodge.....where we will NEVER be able to afford to stay....UNFORTUNATELY!!! Here they are after the Monterey Bay Aquarium......we had fun!!!

Ella.......relaxing with daddy at Pebble Beach.......

Just being cute!!!

Here are the bathing beauties........right before we took them swimming for the very first time. The water in the pool at our hotel was heated to 82 degrees..NICE. They loved it and believe it or not I did not get one single picture of them in the pool..drats!!!

Half a year old........

*** I am posting this a day early because we are heading to Monterey, CA for our 5 year anniversary and Edie and Ella's half birthday which are both tomorrow



My oh my....where has the time gone??? E squared is already 6 months old. That is half a year people!! I have a stack of pictures from the day they were born that my friend Lauren took and I keep looking at them over and over and over......it's unreal that these are the same little people. Born at 6 pounds and 4 pounds 10 ounces BUT now pushing 16 pounds and 15 pounds respectively. They are wonderful little ones.........we have been blessed that's for sure -- they were well worth the wait.

I went back to work on Thursday. It wasn't hard like I thought it might be - I actually enjoyed it. It's great to get back out there and feel like I am contributing again......even though I am doing alot by being with the girls at home. Jon was home with them and they had a wonderful "first full day" together.........IN THE EMERGENCY ROOM. Yeah that's right.....in the E.R.!!!

Poor guy -- he feels terrible. As he was trying to juggle both babies, he left Ella on the bed to run to the living room and get Edie....he thought this would be a safe option because little Ella hasn't been much of a roller.......UNTIL THEN!!! So he built her a pillow fort and sure enough she navigated that fort and landed on her little noggin right on the hard wood floor. She has a goose egg to say the least. He brought her to see me at the hospital hoping that the car ride would get them to go to sleep......since they hadn't napped all day for him.......I decided to take her in to get checked out. She had her very first (and hopefully very last) skull xray. No fractures. I got to look at it with the radiologist (perk of working there) and she had a suspicious area but he decided it was a venous channel and not a fracture...that made me a little nervous BUT all is well -- aside from her little lopsided noggin.

I will leave you with a VERY long photo montage.....it's hard to sum up such a beautiful life. (click on the picture below and don't forget to turn on your speakers -- the music makes it)
Enjoy 6 months in 6 minutes............


half a year old.........

All the rage!!!

Diaper tats........my kids are cool!!!

Monsters in the closet.......

It looks as though our sweet kitty Gumbo has found himself a brand new bed/hiding spot --- right in the bib bin!!!

Daddy Fashion !!!

I am going back to work this week -- 2 days anyway. Our schedule runs for 4 weeks and I am only scheduled for 2 days this time.....I will work more days starting with the next schedule. Maybe 2 days a week but 12 hours shifts. Jon will have E squared while I work so I don't feel as nervous and stressed as I might if someone else were keeping them. I am nervous because I haven't worked in 8 months......since January 13th. I do feel grateful that Jon and I can work around each others schedule and not have to use child care. That is one of the great perks of both of us being RNs and working in a place that never closes......24/7/365!!! We can work day or night, week or weekend, rain or shine, football season or not. Yeah...Jon plans his schedule around Alabama's football schedule -- but hey if you can do it, do it. Right?
I had some errands to run today so Edie and Ella spent some time with daddy while I was out. They always have a good time together....today daddy and Ella decided to put on a fashion show! Here she is in her plaid sun dress matched with an unmatching plaid mini skirt -- new this season.......
Here is an awkward sideways view showing that in fact she is wearing a dress and a skirt.

She doesn't care!!!

I am sure I will come home to many more of these "daddy fashion" concoctions and I assure you I will take pictures and you will get to see them. I am by no means complaining - I think it is adorable that he took the time to go through the closet to find something to change her into since she soiled the outfit I left her in. It was just too cute not to share..........

Uh Oh !!! What are we in for??????

It seems that Ella Grace has a new fascination with her tongue. She loves loves loves to stick it out........see
and here is a better one............

It seems that Edie does not enjoy this new fascination........see

It's their first fight!!!

Here is Ella listening to her nanny on the phone..........getting the latest update on their hurricane Gustav survival.

What? They don't feed me around here.........a girl has to survive and these fingers were all I could scrounge up........