Alright Already

Ok, after receiving death threats from friends and family for not updating the blog, I decided to push through my exhaustion at the end of the day and finally add a new post. But can you really blame me for not updating sooner??? ;)

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Ava is almost 2 1/2 and amazes me everyday with the new things she does and says. I love that I can actually communicate with her and she can communicate back. She LOVES to count and LOVES to say her abc's. She can count to 20 in English and is trying to count to 20 in Spanish, but usually can only get to around 13 on her own. She enjoys learning the few Spanish words we teach her and what she learns from watching Dora the Explorer. I hate to admit that last part, but she actually does learn from that cartoon. This week she told the door to abre or open. Lol. She adores her little brother and sister to pieces. She wants to hold their bottles, bring me diapers and wipees, hug and kiss them constantly, give them toys, calls out to them and tells them she is coming and not to cry when she hears them crying from their cribs, and had a meltdown the other day when she saw them getting shots. It broke her heart that they were crying so hard from them-she kept telling them "sorry, sorry" over and over. I love her SOOO much. She makes me laugh every single day!!

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The twins are getting big too. I still can't believe that they are already SIX MONTHS OLD! Aaaaaahhhh!! Time is FLYING!!! At their last appointment Ella weighed almost 16pounds and Owen almost 14. Ella continues to weigh a full two pounds more than Owen. He is soooo little, and I am just not used to having a small baby. I seem to make big girls. Ava is in the 95% for height and 100% for weight-wearing 4t clothes and a size 10 shoe... at TWO. Ella is getting close to moving up to 6-9 mo clothes and is in the 50-75th% already...and she is a PREEMIE!! My little man is only in the 5-10th percentile and at 6 months still wears 0-3mo clothes. He will catch up one day, but until then I am enjoying having one child that is not breaking my back.

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The twins are rolling all over the place, play with toys while on their bellies, chew on everything and put everything in their mouths, are drooling like crazy, trying to crawl but haven't quite tried getting up on all fours...just push with thier legs causing them to scoot across the floor with their face on the ground, holding their own bottles, and just enjoying their big sister. They just light up when they see her! We haven't introduced food to them yet, I am still just pumping and giving them milk. Oh, and did I mention that they are still sleeping through the night...BOTH of them. I am been afraid to really mention it because I didn't want to jinx it. We put them down at around 8 or 830 and they wake up anywhere from 830-11 the next day. Yup, you read correctly a minimum of 12hrs a night to 14.5 hrs. I am truly blessed.

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I also have them on a wonderful nap schedule during the day. Exactly one hour after they eat I simply walk them to their cribs, lay them down and they go to sleep on their own three times a day. They sleep for atleast an hr. Usually one will wake up after an hour and the other will sleep longer, but they both always go down for a nap at the same time. It is beyond wonderful having babies that will just go to sleep on their own without any rocking, patting, coaxing of any kind. Ava was a HORRIBLE sleeper. She didn't really sleep through the night until she was one, and was never really a good napper until 18 months. She was the kind of baby you had to rock to sleep, lay her down ever so gently in the crib, pat her on the bottom for another 5 minutes and then tip toe or crawl out of the room. UGH kills me just to think about those days. The twins are miracle babies in the sleeping department as far as I am concerned.

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They are wonderfully happy babies as was Ava. They wake up smiling. Laugh and smile throughout the day and only fuss when they are hungry or tired. It has been amazing. It is a LOT of work, is VERY stressful at times (when everyone needs diaper changes or needs to be fed ALL at the same time), but for the most part has been a lot easier than what I was thinking it would be having 3 kids under 2. So many people shared their horror stories with me about having twins, but maybe that is because they had twins as their first kids. If I had had the twins first-being a new parent-I would probably have felt the same way. But since I am more laid back because I have been properly broken in, it has been great. I love it!! Every night I can't wait for 9 o'clock to roll around when all the babies are in their beds for the night, and I can just melt into mine, but then I can't wait for the morning to come so that I can see them again. They are all truly amazing, and I can't believe I have been blessed with these little angels.

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And lets not forget about Hunter. At the end of February he turned 15. Yowzers. That is still so crazy to me. He can officially start learning how to drive. Eeek. He is 6'2", 220lbs, has outgrown his size 13 shoes, and wears a 36x36 pant. He might just end up being taller/bigger than his Daddy. Just imagine little ole 5'2" me trying to repremand a teenage boy of this size. Hahaha. He finished up playing quarterback for his freshman football team and is now playing 3rd base and pitcher for his JV baseball team.

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I will leave you with some pictures I recently had taken of the little ones. Now that the main part of flu season is over the twins are allowed out a little more in public, so I took them to get their pics taken professionally. Let me tell you it was a HUGE undertaking. I went with my mom and little sis, and lets just say that it took all 3 of us adults to manage all 3 of them. There is no way just Jamie and I could have done it, and I will never try to.

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Ava was somewhat cooperative, but with all the other kids running around outside she just wanted to go and play. Also, the photographer told her she could push the button on her camera to make it flash if she was good. Well, after she pushed the button once that is all she wanted to do the whole session and didn't want to do anything else. BIG mistake on the photographers part! We did manage to get a few good ones though.

Owen of course was a pleasure. He didn't cry once, and was very smiley the whole time...even though the photographer kept missing his big ones. :/ He is the most laid back, calm and gentle souled baby. His sisters are definitely going to run all over him.

Ella on the other hand has the nickname of the Queen, because she is every bit high maintenance. She wanted NOTHING to do with taking pictures and cried the entire time, only adding to my stress. You may not be able to tell from these pictures, but her face is red and she actually has tears in her eyes. I was tickling her and we were able to catch a few laughs that were cry laughs. Lol. Amazingly they look better than any of the smiles we were getting from good nature Owen. Go figure.

This is my absolute favorite picture of them together. They both have great smiles...love love love it!

We tried to take pics of all three of them together, but that is just next to impossible at this age. They just turned out like this...

...or this. Not happening. You can see in this pic Ella's true attitude to being forced to take pictures against her will. Lol.
I will leave you with my favorite picture of Owen. He is so cute sitting in the chair, and has the best laughing smile on his face. I would have ordered this picture, but then I noticed that my mom had put his shoes back on on the wrong feet. Hahahaha. Maybe that is why he is laughing so hard.
I will try and get back into the habit of posting a few pics every few days and not every few months. I really want to keep everyone up to date with news and pictures, but it is IMPOSSIBLE to do anything during the day because someone is awake at all times, and when all the kids are in bed the last thing I want to do is get on the internet. My brain is pretty much fried and my body is exhausted. I will though try my very best (ahem Stacey).

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Oh, and one last thing before I go...in case you didn't know my sister Diana is expecting her second child...a BOY due one week after Maddy's second birthday. Yippeeeeeeeee! So so thrilled for her and Eric.