Wednesday, July 23, 2008

9 Month Appt and Randomness

The babies had their 9 month appointment yesterday.

Weights:
Jonah=19 pounds, 9 ounces
Claire=15 pounds, 5 ounces

I went out to the car the other day to take some stuff out. When I came back in, I was greeted with this acrobatic display:
Jonah is less than 2 1/2 pounds away from outgrowing his carseat so we are currently checking out "big boy/girl" carseats. My babies are growing too fast!! We went ahead and bought a new stroller because we won't be able to use our current one when they are out of their infant carriers. The picture would be cuter with the babies in it, but I haven't taken one yet :).

Jonah is still wheezing so we will see a pediatric pulmonologist next week. Hopefully we can figure out what is going on and take care of it! The doctor said he wouldn't be as concerned if it were "wheezing" season, but since it's the middle of July, it doesn't look like asthma. So we'll see and hopefully the J Man won't have to wheeze forever!

The babies also got into a new daycare. We are super-pumped! We just never could get comfortable with the last place. We are a little concerned that we won't like this place either (even though we love it right now :) ), just because nobody is going to do as good of a job and love them as much as their mommy and daddy!! Hopefully it will work out, though, especially since it is a little more expensive than the last place. But hey, we were already paying more in daycare costs than we pay for our mortgage, so what's a little more money?!?

We got these paci's on vacation. Remember, Tony claimed Jonah as the Alabama fan, and I claimed Claire as the Auburn fan!

Monday, July 21, 2008

Family Vaca: Tuesday (July 1, 2008)

Tuesday: Today we started out the day by going to Rainforest Adventures in Sevierville (which I'm pretty sure most people just assume is part of Pigeon Forge).
I am pretty sure that most of the animals wanted to eat the babies! See! This snake is TOTALLY trying to break through the glass to eat the babies! Allen decided to work part time as a bird hunter while we were there! He helped capture a wandering bird! You can kinda see the bird up on the ledge!

We got to see a different honkin' big snake eating a honkin' big rabbit. I will spare you the gory pictures of that!

We had lunch at the Apple Barn. Can you say "Yummy apple fritters and apple butter"??? I can! Matt enjoyed a huge plate full of food and Tony enjoyed a tiny plate of small meat. It was really funny when they brought out the plates of food because the pork tenderloin that Tony ordered was so small and they do vegetables family style so that was pretty much all on his plate. Matt, on the other hand, ordered the club sandwich and fries and his plate was piled so high!

The grounds of the place are beautiful! We, of course, took some time for pictures:

After lunch, we split up again so that Pops, Gigi, Matt, and Katie could go to Magic Beyond Belief. They said it was really awesome and they even got Lynne to go up on stage and be part of the magic show!

The four of us went outlet shopping while they were at the show--one of our most favorite pastimes!! We all ate supper at Fuddruckers which has the sloppiest burgers in the world. I LOVE a sloppy burger!! Phoebe decided to take us home a different way that night so we got to see some more of Random, TN. It was very pretty, but we were afraid the whole time that Phoebe was trying to take us to her murder shack!

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Family Vaca: Monday (June 30, 2008)

Monday: On Monday, Matt, Katie, Pops, and Gigi went to Dollywood while Tony, Claire, Jonah, and I took a ride on the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad. I have loved the idea of train rides ever since I got to ride a train with Aunt Nancy to North Carolina. My sister Lisa, cousin Chris, my Grandma, and Aunt Nancy rode all the way from Birmingham, AL to Greensboro, NC. It was such a neat experience!!

Here is the train that we rode. We got on at Dillsboro and got off for a layover at Bryson City before we returned to Dillsboro. We are from Florida and REALLY appreciate the air conditioning so we, of course, opted for the air conditioned car!
They filmed part of The Fugative (the one with Harrison Ford) around here and here is an actual prop from the movie:Once again, the babies ate on the run. The babies were super troopers! Here I am feeding them on the train. I think Jonah's saying, "That sure is some good cookin', Mom!":We went through a tunnel and it was pitch black dark for 60 seconds straight. The babies didn't seem to mind at all! Here are the babies trying to decide if they're gonna enjoy the train and then the babies deciding they like the train:

On the way to Dillsboro, Phoebe took us by the Jackson County Courthouse. We thought she was going to take us by it on the way out and we were going to get a picture of it because it was so cool! However, you'll have to settle for some silly, possibly professional picture instead of a Tony or Susan picture because Phebes chose to take us out a different way. The first picture almost captures how majestic it looked up on the hill:
We were also really close to Western Carolina University so we decided to tour the campus. It is amazing where you can go when you have this voice talking to you! Their basketball arena looked super cool! Part of it was at the end of one of the football endzones. It is all black glass. Like I said, while we were riding the train, the rest of the fam was at......Eating large vegetables... ...hangin' out... ...and ridin' rides...

Friday, July 18, 2008

Our First Family Vacation! (June 29, 2008)

We took our first family vacation to Maggie Valley, NC. I will blog it in installments since it was such a fun-filled, packed to the hilt, week!

Saturday: Saturday was our travel day. We left at 7:30 AM (30 minutes later than we wanted but still OK), with Phebes (you may call her Phoebe) giving us all of our directions. After the trying-to-find-our-way-home-from-camp fiasco (did I forget to mention that in the camp blog...)we purchased a GPS!

We did all of the babies' feedings on the road. I climbed into the backseat and fed them their bottles. Then I fed them their vegetables/fruit. Jonah had a banana explosion so we had to pull over and clean him up and his car seat. I'm pretty sure it will smell like bananas from now on!! We got to the family condo at about 7:00 PM. Needless to say we were a little grumpy from our long drive! We tried to take pretty pictures on the deck, but it kind of just turned into this: (Jonah on left, Claire on right)and this: (Claire on right, Jonah on left)We enjoyed a thunderstorm Saturday evening as well! One thing you should know about me, I always enjoy a good dark, scary sky! Anyway, the thunder echoed off of the mountains so every time it thundered once, we heard it 4 or 5 times. It was really cool!

It was bed time so we set up the PeaPods for the kids to sleep in. I found these while reading "the other quad chick's" blog. Instead of taking 2 pack-n-plays which are very handy but very huge to travel with, we got them these that fold up to about the size of a school clock. This is the babies napping in them at home to get used to sleeping in them:
Sunday: On Sunday, we went to church and met another set of boy/girl twins. And we saw the guy that used to preach at North Lowndes before my dad, and his wife. Crazy how small of a world it is!

Here are Claire and Gigi, all ready for church (with the outfits that Gigi gave them):

The J Man all dressed and ready for church:

No, your eyes are not deceiving you...Claire's foot is digging in my Cheetos bag! And yes, she was doing that on purpose!And here is Claire honking Uncle Matt's nose: Claire is practicing her crawling skills. However, she has not quite figured out how to crawl forward. She started out on the blanket and made it backwards to between the car seats!We ate supper at Butts on the Creek . Somehow we made it out of the house without any cameras! We also went to Lake Junaluska and took a stroll and had a family devotional. It was really neat to do that! It rained on us a little, but it wasn't too bad! And we saw LIGHTNING BUGS!!! Lightning bugs are my favorite! I really miss seeing them down here! The lake is a very pretty place and we really enjoyed spending time out there!

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

9 Months and a Successful Sweat Test!

Jonah's sweat test today revealed NO CYSTIC FIBROSIS!! Praise God!! The normal range is 0-49 and Jonah's was 42. The sweat test measures the concentration of salt in a person's sweat. A high concentration of sweat indicates CF. We weren't too worried because neither of us could figure out anybody in our family that has it and CF is a genetic disorder.

On a much lighter note, today the babies turned 9 months! 9 MONTHS!!! Please let me know where I can get a time-stopper! I really need to purchase one soon so they'll stay little forever! They are so super-cute and so super-sweet and such good babies! Here are some pictures proving my point! Here are the babies in the too cute onesies that Aunt Grandma Nancy got them:Claire's says, "I'm the princess, I'll do things my way!" and Jonah's says, "When my mommy and daddy made me, they were just showing off!"

Here are the babies in the rockin' GAP outfits we got them at the outlets on vacation:

I totally forgot to put a bow in her hair! She's wearing bows now!!! Her hair is finally long enough!You can see the two teeth on the bottom!
Claire is up on all fours rocking but always seeming to go backwards. I'm placing my bets on her to be the first to crawl! Jonah will sit up and hop. He can get pretty far hopping on his hiney. I went in to check on them after I put them down for a nap and Jonah was sitting up. I think I finally figured out how he got to the sitting position from laying down! I'm hoping to catch it on video!

Monday, July 14, 2008

DADDY!! (June 25, 2008)

Well, it has happened once again...Jonah said "Dada" yesterday and Claire said it today! Again, they have been babbling, but we are officially marking the dates when we think they have said it on purpose! Our conversation is now complete. Well, not really...the next thing we're working on is "I love you".

Sunday, July 13, 2008

MAMA! (June 10, 2008)

OK...We're going to go ahead and call it...Jonah said Mama yesterday and Claire said it today. They have been babbling random things alot and have been babbling mamamamamama. But we're pretty sure that they said it on purpose these times! We have been practicing with them. They mostly say it when they're upset, though.

The big talkin' man, Jonah:
The dainty talkin' lady Claire:

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Peas, Please! (June 5, 2008)

Today was the first "real" food for the babies! They've been on cereal since they turned 6 months (April 15), but we were waiting until I got out of school to tackle the real stuff. The logical choice seemed to be peas. Neither of them were too sure about it and both made funny faces like "what is this in my mouth!?!" They both ate the whole container, though!

Here's the hungry little Jonah Man! Looks like he's really enjoying those peas! Here's the hungry little CB!...she's saying, "Seriously, Dad?"

Thursday, July 10, 2008

"ACTION HEROES" CFBC 2008 (June 21, 2008)

While the babies were at "Camp Grandma/Aunt Grandma/Aunt Anne", Mommy and Daddy were at Central Florida Bible Camp. The babies were there with us on Sunday. It was sad to say goodbye to them for a few days! Jonah in front, Claire in back: When I got to my cabin, I set up the baby shrine:And then taught the girls how to play Pit. Me, V, Heather, Nurse Kayla, McKinsey, and Lindsey:Here's a pic of the chicks in my cabin: (remember, camp=no makeup/hair done Susan in the mornings!)
One of the most entertaining things was mail call! I had to sing "this little piggie" to Tony while playing with his stinky little toes! There happened to be a big yellow glove on the table so I used that so I wouldn't get any toe funk on me!Another entertaining time was when somebody got caught with their elbows on the table. Then some loud mouth (wonder who that was!) would start singing the song and come up with something gross/embarrassing for that person to do. Jon was missing his girlfriend, so he made out with the fish!And I will probably pay dearly for this since Stephanie has her own blog, but she did finally get caught and have to go around the dining hall hopping like a frog:One of the funnest things I've ever done in my life...the MASSIVE slip and slide! Thanks to Willie, Matt, Jon, and Brandon for catching me...the 2nd-5th times I went down. They kindly let me slide out through the grass the 1st time! (I think Trey might have been involved in that, too. Hum...):I don't know who that kid is, but you can kinda see how big the slip and slide is in this picture!We got our baby fix on Wednesday. We made them come and visit. It went by WAY too quick, though! JM and Daddy, CB and Mommy:We of course had a couple of torrential downpours! Here is one where we got stuck in a small building and all campers/staff made the run to the big open air pavilion! Check out the hottie in the bottom right!And the MOST AWESOME thing to happen during the week: 2 campers were baptized! This is Tony baptizing Natalie from our church:Natalie's friends/new brothers and sisters--(back) Stephanie, Colin, Montana, Susan, Tony (front) Patrick, Gabrielle, Natalie, Elizabeth, HeatherOne of the guys from our youth group that was on staff for us became the camp stud that all the girls were drooling over! Here's Brandon with his admirers:This is a picture of the Highlands gang at camp. We took alot of people to camp!And of course we did have fun just hanging out with our friends! Tony, Susan, Stephanie, and Trey:Tony, Susan, and Jon:And, as usual, it was a romantic week of relaxing vacation for me and Tony!! (do I hear a "yeh, right!"?)Once again, we had an AWESOME camp week! We TOTALLY LOVE our volunteers and campers!!!

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

School Picture (April 11, 2008)

This is the babies' first school picture. (sorry it's really poor quality. maybe my loving husband can scan it into his computer and get better quality, hint, hint!) Unfortunately, the babies were not actually in their first school picture. They took it the Friday we had to go out of town for PaPa's funeral. But here the picture and also a picture of the babies within a couple of days of this picture so you can picture how they would look in it :).

Teachers: "Miss" Vera, "Miss" Jessica, "Miss" Paris, and "Miss" Patti

Babies: No idea...maybe I'll get Sarah to help me out because Maison is in there on the bottom left!Obviously the cutest babies in the class!