Update w/ Easter and Mommy's B-day

Ok, so it's been another two weeks, sorry! I have to be relatively short this week too cause I need to order some child-proofing items online. That's right, the boys are crawling!!! It all started about around Easter weekend. Both boys have been doing the whole bouncing on their knees thing for awhile and finally, Jonathan decided to move forward. He's a bit slow, but steady..just the way to keep me calm. Bryan really wasn't interested until just last week. Just yesterday, we had a race between the two of them and Bryan took off while Jonathan stood still. Fast learner! Either that, or Jonathan wasn't interested in moving at that particular moment. So, it's just a matter of time before the boys move up to the waddler room at day care. I can't believe they've grown so much! I can remember when they were so tiny and we were hoping that they would eat one ounce of formula. Now, they're downing 8oz at every sitting plus whatever baby food we give them. *sigh* Where has the time gone?
As far as everyone's health goes, Matt and the boys just got over whatever virus it was that they had. I've got a dry cough that I think broke this morning. It looks like Bryan has another ear infection, but we can't do anything about it because he can't have medicine two weeks before or after surgery. Hopefully that will heal on it's own really soon. Other than that, we're all very happy.
So, here's a suggestion to any new mother. Get an activity center - one of those things that's stationary, you sit the baby in it and they play with all sorts of toys around them. It's the boys' favorite toy by far and Grandma Jean got it for them a little while ago. Here they are tearing at it from every angle. They both love to chew on that mirror-like thing then they get excited and bounce like crazy. It's hard not to watch them when they're in it cause you just can't stop laughing.
One day we put the boys in their Penn State Altoona onesies. Great Grandma and Great Grandpap Miller arranged to have these sent to the boys. Thanks! They weren't really in the mood to pose for a picture that afternoon, so I'll have to try again sometime. One day I dressed the boys in their "West Elementary School" sweatshirts. These were made especially for the boys from a friend of Grandma Jean's. She is the principal at West.
It was my 30th Birthday on March 29th. Ugh! Well, all my coworkers took me out to lunch and this was what my cube looked like when we came back. The culprit still hasn't fessed up.

To celebrate my big b-day, Matt and I went downtown to visit some museums in Chicago. Grandma Jean and Grandpa Mark were nice enough to take the boys for a sleepover at their house. They had a blast! Bryan slept in a crib upstairs and Jonathan slept in a pack-n-play downstairs. According to the 'rents, they ate, played, and slept well the whole day. They even went out to lunch and had a bath that night. Bryan slept through the night and Jonathan woke up once wanting a bottle (the usual).
The only eventful thing that happened to them happened at lunch. They went to Red Robin and Jonathan had a toot that didn't fade (if you catch my drift). Jean took him into the ladies room, but they didn't have a changing table, so she had to wash off the sink and change him there. He's started to really squirm during changes and even roll over, so this is no easy task. Luckily, he didn't move all that much and Jean was able to change him with out incident.
So, Matt and I had a great time downtown. We stayed at a really cool/modern hotel named the Amalfi. It was right across the street from Harry Caray's (spelling?) . We didn't go there because we only had jeans and the picture in a restaurant book made it look like a no-jeans kind of a place. I just learned today that that's not the case, but we know now for next time. Here I am with a Moose sculpture that was in front of the WGN building. I actually cropped this picture to what's showing because the original has a big chunk of the building and a bunch of people in it that we don't know. Matt's picture skills are not that desirable. Hence, me not being in too many pics, 'cause I'm taking them all. At least he got the sculpture in the picture. He took another picture of me in front of one of the lions that sits in front of the Art Institute of Chicago, but he didn't bother getting the lion in the picture. Ugh! So anyway, we only got to the art gallery because we ran out of time there. There was so much to see! A lot of very famous paintings that I've only seen on tv or in print. breathtaking! If anyone is interested coming to visit Chicago, I highly recommend a trip to the Art Institute! For dinner, we tried to go to Ed Debevik's, but it was way too busy and there was a huge line at Gino's East, so we went to Carson's. This is a legendary BBQ rib place, which is right in line with my taste. We loved it! Here's a picture of Matt, annoyed that he had his picture taken, but sucking it up because it's my birthday. Good husband.

Here's a picture that Matt took of me. I was in mid-sentence and a bit goofy, but it's not a terrible picture I guess.

Ok, that's a little bit longer than it should have been. I guess I'll be looking for childproofing stuff tomorrow. :)

March Update

Sorry for such a long time since my last blog post. I hope to be better about this in the future. There's only 4 weeks plus two more working days till busy season is over, so I'll be even better about it then. I'll start by saying thanks to everyone for your support about Bryan's tube operation. I've scheduled it for April 16th and I really can't wait now that I've heard all such great things about it.

In other news, this past week, the boys have been battling something that day care called a 24-hr bug, but has come back on more than one day. It's really weird....Day care will call and say that the boys (started with Bryan on Tuesday) are throwing up and have a runny diaper. So, I went and picked them up, but the whole rest of the day there was nothing! Just happy boys. It wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't busy season and I didn't fear for my job. The next day, I would bring them in and it would be the same thing. This happened all week. Luckily, Matt took them on Wednesday and they lasted the whole day Thurday and Friday (if I'm remembering right) without being sent home. What could I say? You can't really argue with the people that you're entrusting the safety of your children. Well, I guess you can, but I trust them. Remember, they were the ones that found Jonathan's hernia. In any case, they were great this weekend, just your normal spit up and no runny diapers. Matt on the other hand, was really sick! He started to get over it on Sunday, but it came back overnight with a vengence. Yuk! That's all I have to say about that!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!! Here are the boys in their Patty's Day outfits and bibs thanks to Grandma Jean. Little do they know that they're going to get their 6mo shots today! Lucky them. :)
Here's a picture of Matt and the boys on the Friday before last. I came home from work and they were all "wrastling" as we like to call it.
That weekend, the boys had their own wrastling match at their grandparent's house. They were allowed one prop each. Daddy was the referee. Jonathan won this match. Look at that form! Nice pin!
Later that night, we all went to Red Lobster to celebrate Uncle AJ's spring break visit. Here's Jonathan showing Uncle AJ his best impression of Elvis. Uh huh!

Rant for the Month

Ok, I normally don't complain to the point of public announcements, but this has really got me going. Almost every day (and seemingly when it's a particularly cold day) when I'm dropping off the boys at daycare, all of the parking spots up front are taken. Now, this wouldn't be such a big deal to me if it was to give up prime walking distance to other non-toddling parents - or even to parents of children younger than let's say 5. It's so annoying to see Mothers (and I really haven't seen any Fathers do this) park their huge trucks in the only three open spots and have their kids jump out and walk themselves inside while I've got to carry not one, but two car seats in. And this is the funny thing, most of the time, those Mothers will see me coming grumpily from up the hill where the other spots are and open the door for me. Seriously!?!
I'm going to make a point of having the boys walk with me from the far away spots when they can comfortably walk. No wonder we have an obesity problem with children today - what kind of message are we sending our kids when we won't even display some courtesy to parents of small children by parking farther away from the door of where were're going. Seriously!

It was inevitable

Well, Matt took Bryan to see the Pediatric Ear, Nose & Throat(ENT) Dr. yesterday afternoon and we learned what we thought was the inevitable. Bryan will be getting tubes put in his ears. He said that he's got a lot of water trapped behind his ear and it's just a matter of time before he gets his next infection. The statistics say that a child his age normally gets about three ear infections in the span of about 6 months. Bryan had his in less than 3 months. I'm actually happy about the diagnosis because this means that Bryan won't have to have any more antibiotics pumped into him and he'll be able to hear better. The Dr. said that he's hearing the way it sounds when you're under water - not great when you're trying to learn how to talk. So, Matt and I decided to go ahead with the procedure, which takes about 10minutes and is very standard. He'll be put under, but will be brought right back up. I expect him to recover just as well as Jonathan did when he had his hernia surgery. We're scheduling it for just after April 15th so I can be there and not be distracted. *sigh* Will these guys ever be not-sick??? I hope everyone out there is keeping healthy!! Take those vitamins!!

Last week of February, first weekend of March, 2008

This week flew by! Thank goodness because it was so stressful! I'll save my rant's for another day(when I have more time). I just had to post these few pictures from the weekend. The first is from Saturday. Grandma Jean stopped by to visit the boys and feed them some Squash. They were in such a good mood the entire day. They are both scooting around with their backwards push. I previously thought they were scooting around on their backs, but they're really on their tummy's. They're doing the cute pushup, and bounce thing, then they push out their feet and end up moving backwards. Jonathan is particularly annoyed by this. He really wants to move forward and he'll start to fuss when he realizes that he's getting farther away rather than closer to the toy that we taunt them with. They really love the newfound talent that they have though. We'll place them on the activity mat at the center of the livingroom floor then a couple of minutes later they'll be at either end of the room. One time we found one of the boys under our glider/rocker giggling away. Boys!
On Sunday, we put on our Sunday's best and became Sven and Ivan. We went to breakfast with none other than Grandma and Grandpa Bevevino to a new restaurant, "Mimi's Cafe". The food was good and the atmosphere was enjoyable. We even saw two other sets of twins there! This was the first time the twins sat in a highchair at a restaurant. They didn't stay in there long, but it was a good effort. Here's Jonathan "Sven"... And here's Bryan "Ivan"...

That's about it for that weekend. Jean and I went to the outlets and bought the boys some size 9mos. clothes. They had about three outfits in that size. Now, well, that's more than taken care of. Darn those sales!

Next week, we've got Bryan's Ear Dr's appt and a fair at Grandma Jean's school.