Birthday DAY

Today was pretty uneventful. John left for Lancaster on Sunday afternoon and didn't get home until after the kids were asleep today. I wished them a Happy Birthday like 10 times but I know they didn't get it. Reagan has learned to blow kisses within the last two days and Nathan is finally giving regular kisses (so far just to me but we will be working on dad this week and weekend). We took back a duplicate gift from Grandma and to Toys R Us so I got them the Mickey Mouse Surprise Clubhouse with the cash that we got back. I am about to set it up so they can play with it tomorrow when they wake up. We also went to Kmart (I'm getting really good and pushing a cart and pulling a cart). This time I left my bacon, bananas and turkey lunch meat behind instead of Reagan so I would say that I am improving in getting out with all 3 kids

Dad was super great and came to the rescue of my missing groceries on his way home. I am really hoping to get Nathan and Reagan out in the snow sometime this week since they really haven't had much snow time yet.

We Are TWO!

Nathan and Reagan officially turn 2 on January 26th but we celebrated their birthday this past Saturday. We had a party at our house and we had quite a few friends and relatives stop by. Nathan's cake was decorated with a Wiggles theme and Reagan had Mickey Mouse. Thank you to everyone who joined us in celebrating with the twins.




Here is the video that Mom took of everyone singing Happy Birthday. Dad was helping Reagan blow out the candles and Iris stepped in to help out Nathan. Afterwards Mom needed to use a lot of soap and a lot of Spray n Wash, you'll see why.....



The weirdest thing is that Nathan also had a run in with Green Icing on his 1st Birthday. I guess I will have a bucket and some Spray n Wash handy for Birthday number 3 just in case.

First Haircuts!

Nathan and Reagan got their very first haircuts on Thursday. Mom took all three of the kids to Dominique's Hair Salon. Everyone was very well behaved.

Reagan went first. We decided not to put a cape on her for fear that she might freak out so Dominique just did a quick trim to even out her hair a bit. Dominique gave her a couple hair rods to keep her mind off the hair cut and Reagan really liked playing with them. In fact she liked the hair rods so much so that they actually went home with us.

Nathan was up next and he had a bit more hair to cut off but nothing too dramatic. I of course brought the infamous jump rope for him to play with. That darn jump rope occupied Nathan through about a dozen of mom's ultrasound visits when she was pregnant with Riley and it's still occupying him now.

After the haircuts we took a quick trip to Toys R Us to look for some last minute birthday items. After I loaded everyone back in the minivan for the 3rd time that day I thought that I should take a picture. So here is a shot of everyone all buckled in and ready to roll in what we nicknamed the minivan "the Red Dragon". It may not be the prettiest minivan but it sure gets us where we need to go, I don't know how we would survive without it - Thanks Grandpa!!!


And last but certainly not least is a cute but very embarrassing video of Reagan. I guess she must have picked up on what the word "Scream" means (Dad thinks she learned it because he often tells Mommy to "Stop Screaming" when she starts to get a little loud). Well none the less, Reagan knows what screaming means and she is so darn cute when she does it.

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An optimistic day

Nathan and Reagan just had another evaluation by the state Early Intervention program. They were doing Speech Thearpy in Luzerne County but we had to restart the whole thing out here on the other side of the state. This time they brought two more evaluators and Nate ended up qualifying for Occupational and Developmental Therapy as well as Speech. This means that we will be doing a total of 4 hrs of therapy a week between the two of them. It is good though, they really need all the help that we can give them. The evaluators made me feel better too because they said that some kids are wired to develop along a regular path and others like mine are wired not to. She said that it is nothing that I did or didn't do as a mother and the proof is that she sees kids in very less than ideal parenting situations who are still following the regular developmental path. She made me feel better about questioning my ability as a mother an she also said that almost every child makes great progress once they are in therapy for about 3 months. So today was a very optimistic day.

Pittsburgh Children's Museum

THE STEELERS ARE IN THE SUPER BOWL!!!
I snapped this picture while we were downtown heading home from the Children's Museum. I must say there were a lot of Steeler fans tailgating before the playoff game.

On Sunday we all took our very first visit to the Pittsburgh Children's Museum. Mom being as thrifty as she is, thought it was a good idea to get at least one visit in before Nate and Reagan turn 2 since the cost will then go up $16 for our family.

The kids seemed to have a lot of fun. We only had a couple hours at the museum so we didn't get to explore everything but both kids really enjoyed the Toddler Area with the Bird seed table. Nathan thought that bird seed was pretty tasty and I caught him putting some in his mouth a couple times. Of course the Water Play area was also a HUGE hit! I had know idea until we got there that they would have water fountains to play in. Luckily the museum had water sandals that you can borrow so we just stripped the kids down to their onesies and let them get as wet as they wanted to. Just as we expected, they had so much fun playing with the water fountains that they didn't want to leave (actually I don't think that dad wanted to leave either). They both had their typical "I don't want to leave tantrums" as we were trying to dry them off and get them changed. I did bring some apple juice to give them as a treat but apparently juice only works at avoiding tantrums when leaving the mall playground and not when leaving a water play area. I guess next time I will have to bring some M&M's too. Nate and Reagan also had their own favorites at the museum. For Reagan it was the Ball Maze and for Nathan it was running over a bridge made of see through plexi-glass with toys underneath it. Riley enjoyed the comfort of being worn on Mommy in the Becco carrier as we toured the museum. I don't think Riley had a clue what was going on because she slept the entire time and we never heard a peep out of her. We did get Riley an Exersaucer over the weekend so she was able have some fun at home.







Here are a few videos:


Reagan having fun at the Bird seed Table


Playing with the Ball Maze

At home dancing to the Wiggles

Our new game - Riding the high chairs!

Riley has a High Chair

We picked up a high chair for Riley over the weekend. She has been showing an interest in eating real food so we thought it was a good idea to have her join us. Her high chair has all kinds of fun toys and it plays music to keep her entertained. It is definitely the nicest chair in the house. Nathan and Reagan did have a couple of stylish high chairs that would have given Riley chair a run for it's money but unfortunately Mommy killed those high chair pads when she ran them through the washing machine without reading the "DO NOT WASH" label. I ordered replacement pads today and I really hope they get here before the twins 2nd birthday otherwise poor Reagan will have some really funny Birthday Pic's with her hair all full of static from the plastic on her chair.

I tried to give Riley a bit of rice cereal today. It felt really strange feeding Riley out of the same bowl and with the same little spoon that I once fed Nathan and Reagan with. Riley had a little taste of the cereal but I'm not sure she was ready to push the food back in her mouth and swallow. I did have it pretty watered down already but I will give it another go tomorrow and see what happens.

Please ignore the total ugliness of our kitchen wall in the video. I think most of you know that we are in the process of tearing down wallpaper. I feel like I need to get one of those signs for the twins birthday party that says, "Under Construction, pardon our dust"

I Left Reagan In Babies R Us - it's not what you think!

Today I decided to take all three kids with me to Babies R Us. I wanted to get Reagan and Nathan these little Radio Flyer Ride-On Toys for their birthday and my coupon was about to expire so today was the day to go.

Since I knew that we were just going to be in and out of the store rather quickly I didn't want to take the time to get Riley out of her car seat/infant carrier and I also didn't want to take the time to put one of the kids in my Becco frontpack/backpack. So I came up with the bright idea of pushing one cart and pulling another cart. I have heard mom's of twins talk about doing this type of thing but I have never been brave enough to try it until now.

The whole thing started off really well. I parked right next to one of those little cart return areas in the parking lot and I was pleased to see that there were two carts available. One cart was a really big Babies R Us cart and the other was a really small Marshall's cart. I thought to myself that this was perfect for what I was planning to do. I grab the carts and put Reagan in the child's seat of the smaller cart and Nathan goes in the seat of the larger cart. I then set Riley's car seat in the basket of the cart that Nathan is in. So everything seems to be going just perfect. I work my way into the store by pushing the larger cart and pulling the smaller cart. The store wasn't crowded at all so I was able to quickly maneuver around. I found the Ride-On toys and threw them in the cart that Reagan was in and then I picked up some overnight diapers before making my way to the checkout. I was so pleased at how easy this whole adventure was going right up until I was getting ready to leave the store.

So here I am making my way through the exit. I am still pushing Nathan and Riley's cart and pulling Reagan's cart behind me. I got outside and realized that I had forgotten to cover Riley with a blanket to protect her from the cold. So I stopped for a couple seconds to cover her and when I was done I realized that the Exit Door had shut. Now picture me standing outside the Exit Door with two out of three kids and looking at poor Reagan who is just sitting there inside the store in her little Marshall's cart all by her lonesome. I tried to get the door to open back up but that was useless since a Powered Exit door won't open from the outside. At this point I begin to speed walk and push Nathan and Riley's cart back through the Entrance Door to the store. We rush into the store, through the checkout aisles and back through the Exit again to retrieve my poor daughter! I felt like such a fool and a horrible mom. I don't think Reagan noticed a thing (thank goodness) and I don't know if I will ever tell her I did this for fear that it may scar her for life to know that her loving mother left her behind at Babies R Us.

To Aunt Patty (if you are reading this) -

• Well, you told me how you had triplets - And then I got pregnant with twins.
• You told me how you had a singleton 20 months after the triplets - And then I had a singleton exactly 20 months after the twins.
• You made me laugh so hard that I cried when you told me the story of how you accidentally left one of the boys in the Walmart parking lot. - Well...now here you go, I left Reagan in Babies R Us. Anything else you want to share? Did you ever hit the lottery? Just kidding Patty, we all love you!

I don't really have any new pics or videos to share, but since Reagan was the star of this post I thought I'd show off her flare for fashion. YES, she did put 4 hats on her head all by herself. She actually does this pretty often if you can believe it. Maybe my little fashion queen wouldn't have minded staying behind at Babies R Us and playing dress up with all their 2T clothes?

Our Professional Christmas Pics

We had pictures done at Walmart over the Holidays and as you probably guessed it was pretty darn difficult to get a picture with everyone looking at the camera and having smiles on their faces. Pretty much from the moment the photographer started snapping pictures Nathan and Reagan refused to stay put. We tried holding them on our laps, letting them stand, giving them treats and even letting them hold props but nothing was working. Finally someone came up with a plan that worked. We let Reagan throw an absolutely enormous shiny Christmas Ball (that I can only assume was a prop) back and forth to the photographer and that got both Nathan and Reagan to crack a smile. However the throwing of the Christmas Ball resulted in all the adults saying, "One, Two, Three...YEAH!" just before each photo was snapped. And that my friends is why the adults all have our mouths wide open in the pictures. But hey, at least the kids look cute.

Christmas & New Years Have Come & Gone

We have been a very busy family for the past few weeks with trying to unpack, getting ready for the holidays and trying to fix up the house, so Mom hasn't had much time to update the blog. This post will just be a slide show of some photos that were taken around the Christmas Holiday.

We hope that everyone had a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.