Assorted Pictures from Sick Days in Early May

The kids picked up Pink Eye in day care (they go to day care once or twice a week), then were really congested and Kiera got an ear infection. The two of us got sick, too with Maddy eventually losing her voice. We always seem to get cute pictures when they're sick, so we wanted to post a few from this bout of illness.

Maddy and Dylan sick and sleeping on the couch

Kiera stealing Dylan's bottle even though her bottle is right next to her

Obviously Dylan's sick if he'd let anyone take his bottle and he's not crying!

DFW Ski Resort

According to this Web site, we'll have a ski resort in the DFW Metroplex in a year and a half!

http://www.bearfireresort.com/

We've considered that this could be a hoax, and its funny and bold if it is fake. It takes some courage to create a Web site about a fake ski resort in our heat!

Kiva

Kiva has opened up more opportunities.

If you're unfamiliar with Kiva, its a novel concept that allows us to loan money (as small as $25) directly to desperately poor individuals in third world countries who are trying to start a business. Many of these people just need a few hundred dollars to start a sewing, cleaning or cooking business that would make them "rich" in their country. You get to read about the people who want loans and you can decide who you want to loan money to and how much money you loan. The recipients ("entrepreneurs") are screened by real financial institutions and repay the loans within about a year. Once its repayed, you can find someone else who needs a loan.

If you're wondering if you'll make money off the interest, don't even click the link. This is to help others. But instead of just donating money to something and never seeing it again, you can actually see the money helping someone, then with that same money, you can help someone else. Its a very cheap and selfish way to help others! :) You get to see the good things happening and feel good about yourself. And what other organization lets you use your same donation over and over? With everyone else, once you give it, its gone and you can't claim to donate it again. Not with Kiva. You can resuse the same money.

If you come back later and can't find this post, Kiva is in our Links section.

Beckett

For those of you who don't read the Rowe's blog to know about Beckett Rakes, please go to the Rakes Fam to read an incredible story about a wonderful little miracle. Todd works with Matt & Scott and we're thrilled with how wonderful everything is turning out.

Even knowing that Beckett is going strong today, you can still get emotional reading their old emails.

High Chairs

The twins are seven months old and we have gradutated to high chairs! We can't believe how fast they're growing up. High chairs in restaurants are still a little ways off as the ones we've seen don't have a tray to help hold them up in case they start tipping over.

Dylan's excited to eat

This is the first thing she does everytime we put her in a high chair. She reminds us of an old cartoon character who did something like this at a table, but we can't remember its name.

What? You've never seen someone nibble a tray before?

They're pretty clean eaters.

Tagged

Well I have been tagged with this question: What three skills or hobbies would you learn if you had unlimited time, money, and tools?

1. Scrapbooking: ohhh unlimited time, money and tools?!?!? well there is no question, it would be to have an awesome laptop and printer and then learn and spend all day every day digital scrapbooking

2. cooking:I know how to cook but I can only cook with a recipe. I would love to spend several days with family and friends that are completely comfortable in the kitchen and then be that comfortable in my own kitchen.

3. sewing: I would love to really know how to sew with my sewing machine so that I can make curtains and clothing if I wanted to

I'm tagging Teah, Charis and Jessica J.

Swaddles and Pterodactyls

It has been exactly one week since we decided to stop swaddling the twins. Just to explain, because they were so small and had problems with temperature control we had to swaddle them tightly for the first month and after that it was a habit that the little guys demanded prior to falling asleep. About 3 months ago we began to swaddle them with their arms out, we then noticed that they were spending first 15 minutes after lying them down to get out of the swaddle so we took the plunge. The first night they kicked their legs like crazy as if wondering how they had so much movement but then went on to sleep. The first nap, when they would nap, was a little bit more of a fight but they are now sleeping day and night WITHOUT being swaddled!!!! Our little munchkins are growing up.

Dylan has been working on new sounds. Some are normal baby sounds: da da, ba ba, ga ga etc. There is one that Todd and I lovingly (imagine a lot of sarcasm here) call the pterodactyl. It is a HIGH piercing screech that I am sure is destroying all of our hearing especially pour Kiera. As I have told some of you Dylan never developed different cries like Kiera did. He has the same cry for hungry, tired and bored. Now add in screeching/pterodactyl cry. He screeches when he is happy or upset. You can’t tell what is going on unless you are looking at facial expression.

Another development, jealousy! Until 3 weeks ago each baby was so into their own little world where they didn’t notice when one was being held and the other was not, now they know. If they are both on the floor and Dylan is crying, when I pick up Dylan, Kiera looks up at me with this terrible hurt look and immediately starts crying and vice verse. They also do not like to share being held. They know how it is supposed to feel when only one is being held and they DO NOT like being held at the same time by one parent. They want only one baby per adult. I consider myself to be a pretty good mother of multiples but I’m not that good! I have not been able to grow another pair of arms or figure out how to hold them both so that they think only one is being held at a time.

Sitting, Rolling, Holding

Dylan and Kiera have been making a lot of progress. So besides being the cutest babies ever, they're also the most advanced.

Dylan's been on the verge of rolling over for quite some time, he just has to get past that bottom shoulder. He does a great job of holding his own milk bottle which is a big help to us. Dylan also loves to caress your face and have his face close to your face. He loves to play with toys, kicks up a storm and goes from being super serious to super silly. Dylan has this sly grin that's almost indescribable.

Kiera learned to sit up about a week ago and started rolling over today. She's also improving on holding her bottle and has started caressing faces, too. She gets so excited and has this wide open smile. She's also sleeping through the night much of the time!

When either of them is sick, the other is an absolutely perfect baby and doesn't cry, which really makes it easier for us to take care of the sick one. Along the same line, neither of them caresses each other in the face except when Kiera got sick a couple of weeks ago. Then when she'd cry, Dylan started caressing her face. It was the sweetest thing. He doesn't do it anymore, just when she was sick which seems to make it sweeter.

Cool Poses

Todd's cousin, Clint, has signed to play football at Montana State. We're thrilled for him and for the good excuse to take some vacations in the mountains over the next few years!

Clint with the Super Hero pose

Dylan's also looking cool