The Past Two Weeks Ending 5-4-08

The Past two weeks have been very busy for our family. I'll start with the oldest news and bring you up to date with this past weekend. (Sorry for the delay - I was at a client last week and could not post)
The weekend of 4-26-08, we (Matt, Me, Jean, Mark, and the boys) all went to Univ. of Illinois to see Matt's cousin, Paul, pitch for Penn State. It was a nice trip down and the boys did great. We had lots of snacks and magazines to keep us occupied and I even got a little cat-nap in (who doesn't love a cat-nap?). When we got there, we had a little bit of a hard time finding the stadium. If we didn't watch Paul pitch, this would've been the highlight of the trip. It was the classic "we saw the lights, but couldn't find the stadium" problem. We eventually found it and fortunately didn't miss too much of the game. It was a double header that ended around 7, if I remember correctly, so it wasn't too bad timing-wise for the boys. They were really over stimulated by the end of the day, so it was pretty hard to get them to sleep. Other than that, they loved every minute of it.
Here's Bryan cheering on Penn State to a victory of 10-7 in the first game. There was a home run after home run with 6 altogether. They made it look easy.


Here's Paul pitching on Sunday. Penn State was having a hard time in this game, so they called in Paul to save the day. It was already too late.

Our trip back on Sunday went pretty well also. We were all exhausted and turned in early for the night. Here's the boys when we were trying to get them down to sleep. (Jonathan on the left)

OK, here we are into this past weekend (first weekend of May). My Grandma and Grand pap Miller came to town from Pittsburgh, PA. They just got back from a trip to China, I know, amazing! We saw some pictures of the Great Wall which was just one stop of many on their tour. Matt and I hope to be as active when we're that age. Personally, I don't see myself getting my butt off the couch, but you never know. :) So here's one of the boys hanging out in a highchair. Both boys were doing this and I thought it was the cutest thing. They're using the hook on the bottom of the tray as a footrest.

Here's Great-Grandpap with Jonathan...

And Great-Grandma with Bryan. Check out that necklace. It has a little boy or girl figurine for each grandchild and great-grandchild. That's some serious bling.

Here's Jonathan (a.k.a. "the animal")cruising down Grandpap's leg with a trail of slobber. He's really progressing with his motor skills and he was untying Grandpap's shoelaces over and over again. Since they've cut their teeth, they've been trying to bite everything. I'm starting to suspect it's because of the reaction that they get. It really hurts!

Here's just a cute picture of Bryan.

It was a beautiful day on Sunday, so we all went for a walk around the block after lunch. Jonathan was in the front and Bryan in the back. Can you see his alligator sunglasses? They stayed on for at least 15 minutes! For those non-mom's out there, that's a really long time! (By the way, it was a bit windy when we took this first picture. Grandma's hair doesn't normally stand up like that.)


At the end of our walk, we had a chat with our neighbors (Diane, Lisa, Shannon, and Shannon's soccer friend were there) and Bryan had a chat with their dog Bailey (I think that's her name).

Here's Jim and Joann with Bryan and Jonathan. This was the best picture I got since they were clearly not in the mood to get their pictures taken. After this, we all went upstairs to give the boys a bath. Good times. Kinda wished I had cleaned the upstairs bathroom at that point.

Ok, there's a story behind this picture. Each year, my family on my Mom's side has a jelly bean count contest for all the grandchildren. I was out of the competition for a number of years due to me being busy, forgetting, etc., but these past two years, I've put in my guess. Last year, I had no idea what the container looked like but my count won! This year, they allowed Matt to compete as well (with a picture of the container to look at) and guess what, he won! The winner gets the container of jelly beans and $20. Yummy and Yummy!

It's official. The boys are now in the woddler room! Today I brought the camera into daycare to document the special day. Here are the boys with their Infant-room teacher, Miss Karen.

Here are the boys being passed onto their new teacher, Miss Kim.

They were really excited and so was I. I'm such a dork of a Mom! Who else would take pictures of their kids moving from one room to the next? Anyways, the boys really like this room, there's lots of toys to play with and plenty of soft areas to fall on while they practice crawling and eventually walking. The next step is to move on to the toddler room. Let's not talk about that because I'll just start tearing up again. They're growing up so fast!

Eight Months and One Tooth Older

This weekend, the boys turned Eight Months Old. I guess there really isn't a way that I can stop time and keep them like this forever, is there? Darn it!
Here's Bryan. He's doing great despite a little bit of discomfort from cutting his first tooth! We're going to call it officially cut on the 17th. He Loves to rub his tongue over it and now he's obsessed with holding onto his tongue for whatever reason.

Last night he tossed and turned. I got up two times for him and one time for Jonathan where all he needed was a consoling pat on the back to go back to sleep. Bryan ended up waking up again a third time where he earned himself a trip downstairs to sleep on Daddy. I hope this is just because of the teething. I feel really bad for them. I hear it's not painful for them, but how do we know? Has anyone used Baby Orajel? Despite the restless nights, they both wake up happy and ready to play. I wish I could bottle that energy and sell it as a drug!

So here are the boys on Saturday, their 8-month b-day. I can tell how it's going to get harder and harder to get them to sit still for just a minute.

Here's Jonathan. When Matt was little, his father used to tell him to "get excited" and he would clench his fists get a big grin on his face and shake. I wonder if this is similar to how he looked.



I don't know if it's the kick from finally being over with busy season, or just that I'm coming to my senses, but I'm missing the boys almost every minute of the day now. It's exhausting to think about it too. I feel terrible for working while someone else is having all the fun with them and I think I'd feel terrible if I'd stay at home and worry about our financial future. Anyone else grappling with this dilemma?

Bryan's Surgery

Well, everything went great! If you want more details, read on. If not, there are two other posts below this one. Yep, it's after busy season baby!
Bryan woke up the night before at 12:15. The rule was to not eat after midnight, so all I could do for him was stick in a pacifier and soothe him back to sleep. Luckily that worked and he fell asleep about a half hour later. We arrived at the Surgical Center at 6:30am. Bryan was in good spirits and he smiled at all the nurses - such a schmoozer! They opened up a toy drawer and gave him a stuffed dog-like thing. They were really surprised with how much he was smiling. Aren't all babies like that? Then Matt started to do the "boo" thing and got Bryan to laugh, then the nurses were really all over him.

Just like everyone told me, the surgery lasted maybe 20 minutes including their prep and recovery. Matt and I were in the waiting room when we heard him waking up. We had to wait until they let us in, so we got the bottle ready and waited. That was the hardest part, honestly. Knowing that he's in there upset and I couldn't hold him. When they gave the OK, I ran inside and fed him immediately. He only took about 4oz when he became agitated and started to cry again. I could only imagine what was going through that little head of his. Hearing his Mom and Dad talking and not recognizing the sounds coming from us. The Dr. said he scraped away a lot of gunk before making his incisions. There will be some more drainage before he's completely better, but it's a ton better than what it was before. After about an hour in the recovery room with Matt and I taking turns pacing the room with Bryan in our arms, we left to go home and rest. Matt went to get my car's oil changed and to get some food while I stayed at home with Bryan. I thought he'd be cranky and sleepy, but he was back to normal in just a few short hours. They used gas instead of an IV, so I think that made a huge difference. The Dr. told us that he shouldn't get behind a wheel, but I figured this one might be OK...

Accountant's Gone Wild

There's only one day (normally) that Accountant's will let loose and go wild - really wild! For those of us at McGladrey & Pullen, "going wild" includes various coctails and playing pool. Don't laugh! Ok, you can laugh. Here's the scene at the local bar/restaurant. Trust me, it didn't look as cool in person. The camera was doing someting cool with the lights. Not sure why.



A group of us played a couple of rounds of pool.

Here's Gina and Lisa on Team 1:

Here I am with Rahim on Team 2:

Here's the table with NO balls hit in after everyone had at least one chance to go. This wasn't the first game either, so you can't blame it on warming up(not that you would).

Rahim was clearly the best player, so we won the first game, but on the second game, Lisa took control and sunk four in a row, then Gina whipped up some raw talent and sunk a few of her own. The score was even at the end of the night. Good times.

Here I am trying my best not to laugh too hard at myself being pathetic.

Just 364 more days 'till we go wild again! Look out Paris Hilton!

My Little Models

I decided at the beginning of the year to submit a couple of photos for the cutekid.com competition. Each month, they choose a "cute kid" among thousands of applicants (in different categories) to be a semifinalist for a yearly competition. The prizes are awesome and include lots of money to go towards their college tuition. The cost to enter a photo is $20. I tried all winter to get a good picture that I felt could "win it all". I wasn't coming up with anything spectacular, just your average ma-ma pics, so I submitted two that I liked a lot. Remember these...


The first picture got picked as a April preview picture! The prize is a free entry into the following month's contest. Now the pressure's on!

Week of 4/7/08

This week was great! The boys are well and Matt and I are on the very tail end of our colds. You'd hardly believe it, but the little angels are quickly becoming little devils. It's becoming impossible to leave them in a room to play. I'm sure you other moms know exactly what I'm saying. As a temporary fix until we can get some gates that will fit our doorways, we've been using our pack-n-play as a holding pen for the boys when we need to get around to do things. They absolutely LOVE to crawl around and observe everything that's around them. They've been pulling themselves up to standing on a few things in the living room and Bryan's even started to shift from standing in front of a game to standing in front of the rocking ottoman to the rocker. It's scary, but really exciting. Of course where there's such bravery, there's also some bumps and bruises. Both boys have fallen back right on their heads or on to their sides. Mostly onto their sides because they'll hold onto whatever they can, but later realize that it's not going to hold them up. We've learned to say "Yeah!!!" and clap when they fall so they don't cry too much. Bryan has learned to climb into the kitchen this week. I grabbed a few pictures so you can see how he's doing it. He's pulled himself up to the step before, but never over the ledge until just this weekend. Love the one-sock look, right? Yes, it's our favorite around here.
He normally gets upset at this point and wants to be picked up, but instead... He started to lift that little leg and he wouldn't give up. It would be up then down, then up then down.. until...
He pulled his other leg up and found a whole new room to explore! He didn't even realize that he did it at first, so he was still a little frustrated, but then it clicked and he took off.

The more he crawled the more upset he got. I think he was worried he was lost. So once he reached the dining room, I picked him up and brought him back to the living room. Back up he went. *I can't wait till we find a gate!!*

Here's a spooky pic. There was a little white orb floating to the left of Bryan and he's looking at it. It's not in any of the other pictures. Maybe Great-Grandma Bryan was helping Bryan up that step!?

The next day, Bryan showed Jonathan how it's done. It was a rotten snowy day, so we were all in sweats, that is until Jonathan decided to go shirtless for awhile. Did you see that drool coming from Bryan's mouth! So when are those teeth coming already!?

Here's just a picture of the twins playing together. They were really good with each other on Sunday. They still don't share and get upset when the other one gets a toy (or person) that they want, but they'll learn eventually, right? Grandma Jean made a discovery this weekend. Any time we want a picture of the boys, we just need to clap and say "yay!" and they look up and smile. This will come in handy! I tried it with this pic.

On Saturday, Grandma Jean was feeding the boys their last stage one food, prunes. I have to say, I was really nervous. What is that going to do to them? Will Matt and I be up all night changing poopy diapers? Oh silly first-time-mom!! They really liked their prunes and we didn't have any accidents that night. Phew! Here's Bryan stylin' a stash-o-prunes. (yes, he's wearing not one, but two bibs. Some foods are messier than others and this was definitely a messy food.)

I'll be sure to update everyone on Thursday for the results of Bryan's ear-tube surgery. Hope it goes well!

First week of April '08

So this week went by without too much going on. It was the first really nice weekend, so we decided to go on a walk to pick up dinner. We tried to get the boys to put on their sunglasses, but they weren't having it. I did get a quick pic of them before they came off and became choking hazards. The walk was great. It felt good to get out of the house and enjoy the fresh air. This weekend we were extremely productive and we cleaned the whole house. Well, most of it at least. I'm still working on making a "spring cleaning" list which should take me 'till at least the fall to complete. Here's Matt, Grandma and Grandpa Bevevino, and Jonathan (left) and Bryan (right) before our walk. Here's Bryan(left) and Jonathan in their sunglasses. Bryan was hamming it up while Jonathan was stealth.
Next weekend, we're hoping to make it to Purdue University in IN to watch Matt's cousin, Paul pitch with the Penn State baseball team. Unfortunately, the weather is calling for rain and snow, so we might not be going. The good weather is trying so hard to come out!