Watch out world! Here comes #3!

Yep. It's true. Someone decided we weren't challenged enough with the twins so added another whirlwind of a surprise to our world. I think Dusty was secretly hoping for a boy to help even out the household but Dr. Rowe's swears it's another girl which is fine with me.

I found out on Dusty's birthday. I had been feeling sick for about a month and a half and it didn't even dawn on me I might be pregnant till someone in my office said I didn't look good and asked if I was pregnant. Of course, my reaction was "Heck no" but then as I made the drive home, all the pieces started falling in place. I actually started to cry on the way to buy the test for several reasons. One... obviously the hormones were already kicking in.  Two... because, are you kidding me, I'm 37... but the main one was that I knew Suzy was looking down on me laughing so hard she was crying. I remember the day she told me she was 5 months pregnant and I laughed because who doesn't know they are pregnant... yeah, the irony...Suzy Gregory... you got the last laugh as always...

When Dusty got home from work, I told him I had his birthday present for him, had him close his eyes and when he opened them, I showed him the test. The first thing out of his mouth was "Ha ha. You borrowed that from Erin (our friend who had just told us a few weeks earlier, she was pregnant). My only thought was that's gross, who loans out pee sticks? But then again, apparently you can buy them on ebay so must be a popular item. Who would have thought?

I was pretty sick in the beginning and even on the pump again but by week 14, I had stopped it and things seem to be pretty normal since then. You know, tired, uncomfortable, hungry every two hours and bathroom breaks on the hour but I can deal with that compared to last time.

The girls are super excited about their baby sister. This was after Aunt Debs had convinced them it was a baby brother and his name was Jesus. Brylee still asks about Jesus every now and then.  It's cute. So, as we prepare for baby girl #3, prepare yourself for the blog updates and pics to come soon!

It's always a good day

Yesterday was a complete disaster. We attempted to have a happy day at the in-laws and from the beginning, it was a disaster.

Everyone woke up fussy (including Dusty). No one wanted to eat breakfast. Once we got in the car, it started raining and the concept of morning naps went out the window. Due to the length of the trip, lunch time fell right in the middle of the drive so we proceeded to attempt to eat turkey which got thrown on the floor, cheese which got shoved in between the seats and applesauce which got spit out everywhere… which reminds me I probably need to clean my car today.

We got there and Brooklyn still hadn’t taken a morning nap and then decided to skip her afternoon nap as well. This was after she was sitting on the bed, leaned over to pick up a toy and tumbled down on the tile. Brooklyn was outside playing with the water hose and Brylee decided to turn the concrete pavement into a slip and slide and now looks like Rudolph with  a huge scrap on her nose and forehead.  We finally decided to throw in the towel and head home around 5pm. We hadn’t even made it out of the driveway and both were sound asleep. Of course, that didn’t last long and we woke up screaming so we had to pull over on the side of I-10 so the child that was hyperventilating could catch her breath. I finally gave in and let Brooklyn have the ipad and Brylee my phone. 5 minutes later my new iphone case that I just got replaced because Brooklyn threw it over the upstairs rail and shattered it, was now broke again. At least the guy at the Whataburger drive-thru was nice and complimented us on our two well-behaved children… (that was the only 5 minutes of the day they were good).

By the time we got home, we took them upstairs to the playroom, sat on the floor and just stared at the wall in disbelief. Luckily, they went to bed on time and so did mom and dad.

With all that being said, I still sit here and when I think of yesterday, I can’t help but giggle. That morning as we were getting ready to leave, Dusty wanted to go back inside to get an extra pacifier. He stepped out of the car and as I told him not to worry about it, I pushed the button to close the garage door. He insisted on getting it so tried to squeeze under the garage door as it was shutting. Sensing something was in the way, it started to go back up; however, the back of Dusty’s t-shirt had gotten caught on the door and as it is going back up… there goes Dusty attached to the garage door. As I sat in the front seat of the car giggling to myself and angry that I didn’t have a video camera, I hear Brylee from the back seat with her famous phrase… “Uh-oh” and she is pointing at Dusty…. All in all, I love them and their cuteness and no matter how bad they behave, it is still always a good day.

Damn I suck at this...

I really suck. I finally decided to log back on and see when I last wrote on the girls' blog. Where did the last six months go? Oh yeah, I have twins...

So much has happened in the last six months. Here are some of the highlights.

• We sleep in our own cribs now and we finally got them out of our room. We started out with both cribs in the same room because of course they would want to sleep together... Yeah right. I'm sure this is just the beginning of wanting their own space. But whatever it is, works for now so we are going with it. Strange part is when the cribs were in our room, Brylee slept through the night and Brooklyn woke up several times. Since they have moved upstairs, they have also switched roles. Lucky us.
• We love eating! Brooklyn's favorites seem to be, well pretty much everything. She eats what she has and usually finishes Brylee's too but seems to really like blueberries. Brylee's favorites are carbs.  They both love watermelon and strawberries.
• Whenever we hear a plane, we point in the sky. You can also ask them where the plane is and they will point to the sky. We also know where our belly button, piggies (toes) and nose are.
• We can wave. Usually only happens when someone is leaving and then followed by a lot of screaming. Yes, we still have abandonment issues.
• We went on our first cruise. Chris, Michelle, Deborah, Kathy and Sandy were all brave enough to join in the fun. It went pretty well. Dinner time not so well. But the girls and their wagon were a hit on the boat.
• The shuttle stopped in Houston on a ferry flight to California and the girls got to come see it!

Here's the another great six months!

WOW... One Year Down

Wow! A year ago today I was sitting in the hospital with absolutely no idea how much my life was about to change in the over the next 24 hours. I was feeling great, super excited that today was finally shower day (after 5 days without one) and getting ready for a long hospital stay. Oh how I was so wrong….

Instead, I welcomed in to the world two beautiful angels (even though it would be another 24 hours till I actually felt good enough to go see them in NICU) and life couldn’t get better. Today…
· Brooklyn has 8 teeth and Brylee is catching up with 4.
· They are both crawling like crazy and pulling themselves up and standing on anything they can hold on to.
· Brooklyn can take about 4 steps before crashing. Brylee is a little too top heavy for that just yet.
· We have a wide array of nicknames for both. Some have come and gone... like Piglet and Poo (yes, there is no “h”, hence you can probably guess where there name came from). Some have slightly stuck… like Feather and Chunk. But apparently Brylee Bear and Brookee have stuck the most (although really not crazy about Brookee so we are welcoming any new names)
· We are getting ready for the girls first birthday party this weekend. Dusty is holding fast that they really don’t need a party because they won’t remember it. Then he decided he wanted a Hello Kitty piñata. Man, if only I could find one of those…
· But most of all, they are growing like crazy and can’t wait for Year #2!

Get out of my box!

The girls love sitting in Simba’s box. I think sometimes they crawl in and just wait for him to come in and see them in it, then start giggling. They are still pretty wobbly and usually it is Brooklyn that falls and hits her head on something, but last weekend, Brylee took a pretty bad fall and hit the corner of the box. It looks like she got in a fight... at least she won.

Wow! What happend to the last two months?

Somehow we flew by the last two months and it's already 2012. Someone asked me last week "so when is the birthday party going to be?" and I responded "who's having a birthday?" So, I guess I need to start planning for that...Christmas went well. The girls loved playing with the bows and wrapping paper... presents not so much but that will come in time. Tracy took some amazing pictures of them that I absolutely love!



Brylee still only has one tooth while Brookly is sporting 8. They are crawling on everything. Pulling on up on anything within reach and tumbling down just as fast. There isn't a day that goes by that Brooklyn doesn't have a bruise somewhere on her.

Thanksgiving 2011

Finally getting around to posting some pictures from Thanksgiving with the family!

Time Flies

I can’t believe my baby girls are 8 months old today. The last few weeks have been full of firsts.

· Both are starting to crawl. They have been rolling for quite awhile and are able to get where they want to go by rolling to their destination, but the crawling is about to take full force.
· Brylee was sitting up on her own (still a little wobbly but getting there)
· Brooklyn got her first two teeth! Brylee isn’t showing any yet but the amount of drool is ridiculous!
· Brooklyn and Brylee had their first fight. For awhile now, Brooklyn has been hogging the toys. We put all of them spread out on the floor next to the girls and when we come back five minutes later, Brooklyn has managed to grab them all and stuff them under her. Well, Brylee finally and enough. Brylee was playing with a book… Brooklyn grabbed it….and Brylee let her know that wasn’t nice.

Halloween

Halloween went well. The girls were ladybugs and actually kept their costumes on longer than expected. The pictures came out good and when Brylee actually smiles, she just lights up the room. We are working on making that happen more often.

On a separte note, a fellow MoM (Mom’s of Multiples) had this as her facebook status today…
“A mother asked me to watch her baby and 2 1/2 year-old because she couldn't fit the stroller inside the restroom. Not a problem. However, I am left wondering if I just look that trustworthy or if she just assumed there was no way that the woman with eight month old twins would be tempted to steal someone else's kids.”

I couldn’t quit laughing (Still grinning) and thought to myself, how true.

Sleeping... or lack of

The girls are finally getting on a little better schedule at night. During the day, the eat every three hours (or at least we try to feed them every three hours). Brooklyn has decided that she doesn't like to sleep, when we give her a bottle, she usually try to get her to nap afterward, so in perfect logic, if she refuses to eat, she won't have to go to sleep. Or at least that is what she thinks. So, there is usually a lot of screaming and flipping around to try to avoid eating. However, in the evenings, if they anytime after 9pm, they go to sleep for the night. They both start out in the crib but about 3:30am, the fussing starts and we move Brylee into the swing and Brooklyn into the bed. Then every hour or so "Flipper" does her thing and starts flipping around in the bed because she loses her pacifier. Once it is returned to her, she is happy and back asleep. This usually goes on till about 7:30am. So, in the gran scheme of things, I know we are pretty lucky.

So, yesterday Becky comes into the office and proceeds to announce that Liam sleeps from 7pm-7am. The best part is that she didn't just say it once. This was followed by me politely scratching my nose with my middle finger. This was followed by me thinking... I HATE her. (Not really because she is one of my best friends, but at the time, I definitely hated her.)

She proceeded to reiterate her perfect baby's great sleeping habits at Bunco last night, where again I had to scratch my nose as well as did Dusty, but, I was happy for her... really.

Then, this morning, I get this email from Becky...

In other news, I have to say that karma is a bitch. After 4 days of 12 hours of awesome sleep, little man woke up at 4:45 am with a poopy diaper that had exploded out the side, through his jammies and onto his sheet. He then proceeded to scream until 7am when I loaded him in the car and took him to grandmas…then he fell asleep. Never, ever will I mention how good he is sleeping again. I totally jinxed it so now it’s probably back to 4:30-5am wakeups each morning. Figures…

Love ya Becky!

Yum!

Hanging out together. Waiting on Dad to get home with a new DVD player. It's absolutely amazing how addicted they are to Baby Einstein and how miserable Mom and Dad's life is without it.




Brylee liked sweet potatoes!

5 months

Better late than never. Here are the girls 5 month photos with Mr. Bear.

We also found out the girls LOVE Rockband. It was so much fun Brooklyn passed out after the first song.

Well, it happened

Brylee rolled over today. I thought for sure it would be Brooklyn who rolls first as she is always sleeping next to me on the bed and rolls into me. Although, I guess that just gets blamed on gravity helping and Brylee did it all on her own. However, she didn’t seemed surprised when it happened which makes me think maybe it has happened before where she rolled over went “oh crap” and rolled back so we would never know. All I know is that this officially moves us into the next category, the “you can’t just leave them somewhere and expect them to be in the same place when you come back.”

She also has started smiling a lot more.

This is so going to be the girls in the very near future!

If only...

Liam, Brooklyn/Brylee's future boyfriend finally arrived and Becky is such a trooper. After being there with her, it made me appreciate how fairly simple (at least the actual birth part) I had it. From when my water broke to when I had my two bundles of joy was about an hour and a half. Most of which I don't remember thanks to the Ambein and never once felt a contraction. Since his arrival, Becky has been way to good at updating her blog so I decided "If Only" was an appropriate title for this post since if only, I was as good as Becky about updating my blog. I say that as I sit here in the dark (because Munchkin #1 is sleeping on the bed) typing with one finger (because Munchkin #2 is on my lap devouring her hand).

They are growing so fast. It is amazing. I look back at the pictures posted on the blog and it doesn't even look like them.

Some updated pics...

Chillin at the pool with the nice beer bottles in the background. Wish they had been mine. I still haven't had anything to drink (going on a year next week) and am actually afraid of how my first drink will go. I remember about 7 years ago when Jennifer had her first drink after having Jack and it was quite the scene. I have a feeling my friends wouldn't let me stop at just one and I would be the hit of the party when the time comes.

The twins meeting the twins.

The twins meeting Mike Coats, former astronaut and current JSC Center Director. I wasn't sure I was ever going to get my children back. He absolutely loves kids and is great with them. I am pretty sure he cleared off the entire afternoon to spend with the girls which makes for a pretty cool story.

Family picture at the lake house. I can't wait till they are big enough to take on the boat. Hopefully, that will be next summer.

Back at work and busy

Well, needless to say, it's been awhile. I went back to work on June 6 and it has been absolutely crazy. Since then we have:

• Spent Memorial Day at the lake where Brylee managed to poop all over Maria (and I do mean that literally) but she was a great sport about it; although, they have yet to come back over... hmmmm.


• Went shopping at the Outlet Mall. Who would have ever thought that was a good idea? But, the girls did great and we got a ton of good deals. We must be really lucky because we hit all the "Today Only!" sales. Strange how that is the day we always seem to go on? ;-)


• Went for a walk at the lake house and for anyone who has been there, just imagine me and Dusty pushing the double stroller up that hill right as you leave the driveway. It was quite the scene. Needless to say, the next night we went the other way down the street and avoided the hill. However, we did get chased by the Wild Ginney who apparently lives in the neighborhood. Wish I had a video of that.


• Went down to the beach house and hung out on the porch but never quite made it down to the water


• Had our first pool experience at Susie's. No swimsuits yet so our diaper had to do. Brooklyn had a blast since she got to wear Aunt Deb's sunglasses.


• Started sleeping through the night for the most part. On good nights, they both go to sleep around 11pm and sleep till about 6 or 7am. On bad nights, well... we won't talk about those


• Interviewed our first nanny. Her name is Susie. We really liked her and I feel it is a special angel's way of still watching over the girls. Sometimes I still find myself just staring at the girls thinking how blessed I am to be able to spend those moments with them and end up in tears because for some, those moments are gone.


• Dusty entered a picture of Brooklyn in the Gerber baby contest. You can vote once a day at http://apps.facebook.com/gerberphotosearch/entry/182325/brooklyn.aspx Of course, as usual, Dusty waited till the last minute and submitted the first picture he could find at 11:59pm since the deadline was that day at midnight. The cropping tool wasn't the best so her head is huge but still cute.
  

Photo Shoot Take 2

Here are some of the pictures Tracy took. I am working on posting all of them.

Rocking and the magic touch

Here is how the afternoon has gone...
Two crying babies
Dusty and I both take one, put them on our lap and start rocking
Mine quiets immediately and falls asleep within minutes
Dusty's continues crying
I volunteer to trade and hand off the sleeping baby to him in return for the screamer
And again, mine quiets immediately and falls asleep within minutes
Dusty's wakes up from the peaceful sleep and begins screaming
I again volunteer to trade and the cycle continues...

Dusty is devastated that his rockin' skills aren't up to par. What can I say to that?

Photo Shoot Take 1

David came over a few weeks ago and took some pictures of the girls. Of course, it didn't go quite as smooth as we had hoped. Hence, why I had Tracy come out and take some more. Here is a link to David's photos https://picasaweb.google.com/ddehoyos/TheCejkaGirls?authkey=Gv1sRgCO69-6nX34ffwwE but my favorite one by far (or at least the funniest one) is the one of the four grandkids.

Bathtime photos

Abby took some amazing photos of the girls after bath time. Bet you can't tell who is who? Scroll to the bottom to see.

Top two are Brooklyn and bottom two are Brylee.