So yesterday, we went to the zoo.  My parents, all six grandchildren, three daughters (or DIL) and one SIL.  The son and other SIL had to work. 

The babies in their stroller…

My mom was trying to keep Abby (in the carseat) from crying, but it wasn’t working.  Apparently, she didn’t want to wait until her sisters were done in the bathroom before we went into the zoo!

Abby’s adorable older sisters…
 

Here’s Jason.  He’s 16 months old and terribly cute!

Except when he was unhappy about having to ride in his stroller.  Good thing Dad came to save him!

The animals and the carousel are always the big hits.  And Grandma is too!

And just for fun…some gratuitous cuteness for your Wednesday enjoyment!
      

Spent some time at the farm last weekend.  Fun, but tiring.

We actually managed to take the babies to Eric’s grandparents house so that Grandma could make us dinner.  She’s been “dying” to do that for us for months.  Now it’s done.  And it was more fun than I thought it would be.

The babies have started to show the occasional sign of separation anxiety.  Hopefully, they won’t get too bad.

Eric and I took the babies to the zoo on Sunday afternoon to spend some time together.  It was good to be out with him (and all the thousands of oblivious people who were also at the zoo on Sunday…does no one watch where they walk anymore?).

Both babies slept all the way through the night again (woke up about 5:40).  Apparently, Alex’s waking up at 4 and 4:30 was hunger.  Good to know…

I got all our laundry done yesterday.  And cleaned up my house from two weekends of traveling.  It is nice not to see clutter everywhere I look.  And to see clothes in my drawers again. 

I need to go shower and start the day.  Happy Tuesday!

The Stuff
The babies were seven months old yesterday.  Crazy! 

Their personalities are starting to come out now, which is fun.  Erin is getting really mobile these days.  She rolls around to get toys or until she runs into a barrier.  But she is happy to play with toys or explore a new texture (like the bricks on my dad’s fireplace) by herself for the most part.  Alex is not terribly into the whole moving thing, though he can roll if he wants to.  He is a jolly little social guy, though.  He loves to laugh, and he prefers to interact with people, unless he’s tired.  He likes to suck on the tags of his toys these days, and he’s started sticking out and sucking on his tongue.  Too cute!

And I figured that some pictures would be appropriate, too.

Alex sitting up in a chair…sort of…
 

Erin just generally being adorable:

The “babyproofing” I’ve done so far…a makeshift corral (those are our pack-n-plays)!

The Nonsense
Yesterday, we spent the day in C-ville with my parents and visited Michelle and her girls for a bit since they were in town.  Fun times!  Kathy has a really cool playset in the backyard now.  Wish it had been there when we were growing up!

We took the babies on a hike in their carriers on Tuesday evening.  My hip hurt really bad yesterday.  I guess I was carrying Erin a bit wrong or something.  But it was fun, so we’ll have to figure out how to do it better next time!

We watched the pilot of a new Sci-Fi channel series last night (Warehouse 13) and really liked it.  And Eureka is coming back on Friday night.  WooHoo!  Who needs reality TV when you have Sci-Fi shows to watch?!

Of course, I have two episodes of America’s Got Talent to watch on DVR, too.  So I guess I’ll have to admit to the more “normal” fare, too! 

I think we’re going to make a quick trip to the farm this weekend.  Eric is probably going to take some (or all) of tomorrow off and we’ll head out, stay one night, and come back on Saturday.  We really do need to get out to see everyone, but I can’t do another two-night excursion this soon!  I do think we can manage a one-nighter, though.

I think that’s about all I have for now…later!

First, a mommy question:

Alex is still constipated.  He seems to need more liquid in his diet than he is getting from me, but I’m not sure he really needs more food (ie, formula).  I’ve tried formula after nursing, but he wouldn’t take it (warm or at room temp).  I’ve been trying to get him to drink water from bottles and sippy cups, but it’s not working very well.  He doesn’t seem to want to drink from bottles (formula or water) and he’s not very good at sippy cups, so most of it just ends up down the front of his shirt.  I’m still trying different bottle options and I may try juice to see if he will drink that.  But does anyone have any suggestions for helping get a baby past constipation?

Second, a baby food question:

I’m going to try making baby food this week.  If you’ve done that, what did you find that worked or not?  What suggestions can you give me?

Finally, a question about ants.

The sugar ants came back last week.  I guess Eric never got around to spraying the foundation a couple of weeks ago, so now they’re in my kitchen.  Anyway, I started with last summer’s solution, so they’ve only been on my counters in ones and twos instead of hundreds.  That’s good.  But last night, I realized that since I’ve blocked their access onto the counter, they’ve been coming up through my dishwasher.  Which means that they are crawling on (some of) the dishes in dishwasher, dirty and clean.

So here’s my question:  If you had ants in your dishwasher, would you
1) re-run the dishwasher to re-clean ALL the dishes?
2) only re-wash the dishes on which you actually found ants?
3) start washing all dishes by hand until the ants are gone?
4) some other option?

And most importantly, how, exactly, does one stop ants from getting into a dishwasher?

This morning, I stayed in bed until 8:00 am.  I felt a little bit bad about it since Eric got up at 6:00 am and was off to work at his normal time.  But only a little bit.  I worked hard all day yesterday without much of a break.  So I took my break this morning!

Anyway, this weekend we went to Buffalo to visit with my mom’s family.  It was a good time, but it meant two 6-7 hour drives and two nights in a hotel with two 7-month old babies.  I was a little nervous about that.  But we didn’t do so badly.  Erin did great on the drives and in the hotel.  Alex did okay on the drives (he screamed right before he fell asleep) and not well at all in the hotel.  He just doesn’t seem to sleep well in pack n plays.  Friday night we were up from 3:45 to 5:30 or so.  Saturday we were up from 10:30 to 3:00 when I finally got him to sleep on a blanket on the floor.  Somehow we’ll figure out something with him eventually.  And overall, they did really well.

As for the rest of the weekend, we got up leisurely on Friday so Eric could sleep in (since he was giving up his 3-day weekend for a trip to visit my family that he’s only met like twice) and we loaded up and left after the babies had lunch. We arrived about 7:00 pm, checked into the hotel, fed the babies their dinner, and then my parents watched the twins while we went to get dinner. 

Saturday, we had breakfast with Les and Rosie (my mom’s brother and wife). Then my mom and I did some quick running-around before it was time to feed the babies lunch and head to my Uncle Andy’s house, where we stayed for the rest of the day.  The kids swam in the pool and played on the ginormous swingset they have now.  And the adults just sat around, eating and talking.  The weirdest part was that my youngest cousins are now like 16-20 years old.  We had normal conversations with them…crazy!  I guess that means I’m old…

Also, for the family members who read this blog and wondered who was there, the attendees were: Andy & Joan, Marie and Ben (her husband) and Marie’s four kids; Les & Rosie, Phil and 3 grandkids (Britney (not spelled right), Damon, and Zion), Stacey and John and their 2 kids (plus their 3rd, due in 6 weeks); Glenda and Josh; Timmy and Luann, Emma, Luke, and Samantha (who came later); Sara and Danielle (and two of Danielle’s friends); Ruth and Kevin (plus his girlfriend and girlfriend’s mother) and Keith; Grandpa and Greta; Jim and Rachel; and our clan.

Saturday evening, we went back to the hotel to try to get the babies down at a “normal” time.  We got close.  Chris and I walked to the Bob Evans next door to get supper for everyone. Then Eric watched babies while I went down to watch Kelly and Holly swim for a bit.  And of course, we had a really bad night in the hotel that night.  So, we loaded up the car the next morning and headed out about 9:30 am.  We stopped for lunch just before we got to Ohio.  I drove from just above Cleveland the rest of the way home so Eric could rest.   And he eventually climbed into the backseat to entertain the babies for the last hour or so.

We got home about 4:00 last night.  We spent the evening readjusting the babies to being home and getting things put to rights again (or I did anyway).  But, thankfully, I was in bed about 9:30.  And Alex slept almost all night without too much fussing.  Lovely!

So today, I’ll be working (slowly) on getting the rest of our trip stuff put away.  And I might throw the laundry in to wash just so that’s done.  But mostly, we’re just going to be hanging out at home.  Very nice!

Happy Monday!

I feel slow this morning.  Xanga is slow this morning.  The babies are already about ready for a nap.  A sloooow morning, I guess.

Unfortunately, I need to have a fast and productive day today in order to be ready for our trip tomorrow.  Of course, nothing on my list will really take hours (except maybe packing), but I need to be better about staying focused and doing all the things on my list instead of goofing off. 

I did go to the zoo with the babies yesterday.  It was a bit chilly and we did get rained on a little bit, but it was nice to get out and walk around and stop only at the exhibits that I wanted to see.  Unfortunately, the otters were closed, though, so I didn’t get to see every one of my favorites.  But with our spiffy new zoo pass, I guess I’ll just have to go again soon to see the otters!

As of a few days ago, I had decided to keep nursing the twins for a while longer.  I simply figured that there was no real reason to stop at this point and I needed to remember to enjoy the time we have with them at this stage.  Of course, in the last week or so, Alex has seemed to have fewer dirty diapers and a bit of constipation.  This was the one thing the pediatrician said would indicate they aren’t getting enough to drink.  So, either my supply is a bit down because their appetites were low because of their colds last week.  Or I may need to move to formula sooner after all so that I can make sure he’s getting enough liquids in his day.  I am planning to keep an eye on him for a few more days (since I don’t want to make a big change while we’re traveling) and see if things improve.  If not…then let the weaning begin!

I think that’s all the big news of the day.  And as I probably won’t post tomorrow, here are a few pictures of the babies to end the week.

Gotta love this smile!

She’s doing her pushups!

Mommy and babies (don’t you love Erin’s hair?)!

I stayed in bed this morning and didn’t get up to exercise…just because.

I think I’m going to take the babies to a park or the zoo to wander around this morning…just because.

I have no firm to-do list for the day, so whatever I do, it will be…just because I want to.  Nice!

Of course I’ll probably need to get some things done since I only have today and tomorrow left to prepare for our first-ever family road trip with babies.  But I can’t do a lot of things until tomorrow anyway, so I’m not going to sweat too much about it today! 

Wow…look at me be flexible this morning!

Yesterday was a pretty relaxing day.  I went to Target and found everything I still needed for our trip this weekend, including a swimshirt for Alex. Yay!  Of course, I hung the shirt on my stroller handle and then filled the basket with the rest of my stuff.  And I realized just before I got to the door that I hadn’t paid for the shirt!  Oops! So back through the line I went.  Glad I noticed before I set of an alarm or something!

In the evening, Eric’s brother Ryan was coming over.  He’d loaned us the movie Fireproof, so I started watching it in the afternoon so I could give it back to him (Eric watched it without me weeks ago).  He ended up showing up around 4:30, while I had about 20 minutes left on the movie.  And then Eric didn’t get home until almost 6:00 (very late for him).  He told me later he’d forgotten Ryan was coming, so he’d stayed to do a complicated run.  Oops.

Anyway, I chatted with Ryan until Eric got home.  Then they started tasting teas.  They’re both into brewing looseleaf tea these days (thanks to this store at Easton), and Ryan had about 6 different teas for them to taste.  Thankfully, they did run and get Chipotle for dinner about halfway through their tastetests.  I pretty much minded the babies for the evening.  I made for a long evening for me since Ryan didn’t leave until about 8:15.  But they had a fun brother time so that was nice.

I started to read Les Miserables for the first time last night.  We’ll see how long it takes me to get through it.  I was needing a challenge…I think that should cover it!

Okay, I think that’s all the big stuff.  Later, taters!  Happy Wednesday!