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

Surviving this Week

After a fun day at the Eggstravaganza and finally being able to watch my niece play soccer I fell and twisted my right ankle while holding Dylan. I have to brag because as I was falling I somehow twisted up even more (not good for the already bad ankle) so that he landed sitting on me and had no idea that anything had happened. I on the other hand was in extreme pain and then panic and guilt because I fell while carrying one of my babies. Just to explain this is probably the 7^th or 8^th time that I have done this to my right ankle and about 8 times on left ankle. I have REALLY BAD ankles.

Todd is absolutely amazing at this time, running around taking care of all us. Sunday morning my ankle is still hurting and I am coming down with I later discover is yet another stomach bug (3^rd since January) what are the kids doing to my immune system?!?!? Again, I have an amazing husband; Todd took both kids to church on Sunday so that I could get some sleep to make up for a painful and sleepless night. Todd did this even though he had very little sleep due to getting ice for me throughout the night and getting up and bringing kids to me when they were hungry. God has given me a wonderful husband!

Monday comes and I am feeling sore, exhausted and weak. While Todd is off at work my mom AKA Nana invites herself over to help me with the kids. What a blessing! I love my mom! My mom and I notice that Dylan is coughing a lot, no fever and cough is clear, but we call the pediatrician and make an appointment for the next day. We then discover that Kiera has a mild fever so now she is going with Dylan to see the doctor. Day of appointment arrives, no fever for Kiera but Dylan’s cough is worse. The pediatrician says that Dylan is beginning to get a fever and they both have fluid on their ears and Dylan is congested. Well that night everything fell apart. Both kids had a fever with Dylan’s worse than Kiera’s. We were told to keep them cool due to fever, sleep with humidifier on and try to have them sleep upright for congestion. Well neither one of them would even consider sleeping upright at all. Kiera would only sleep if she was flat and on her left side and Dylan would only sleep if he was on Todd’s chest which didn’t help fever or flat which didn’t help congestion. So needless to say Todd and I only got 3 hours of sleep that night. Next morning we go back to the doctor, Dylan now has an ear infection and upper respiratory infection. Kiera is still infection free at this time. One bottle of infant’s Tylenol and one bottle of saline for infants later Kiera is feeling better but Dylan is on an antibiotic and feels horrible. I am still sore, exhausted and week but I don’t really have time to worry about that. Poor Todd is still dividing up all is spare time between me, Dylan and Kiera. I love my husband!!!!!

Sunglasses Mystery

Look at the pictures in our previous post, Eggstravaganza, and you might notice something odd. We started the day off with the kids in the yellow onesies that say, "Yes, we're twins". Those didn't last and we had to put sweaters on them when we got outside, anyway. Okay, so that's the timeline. Please look at the picture of the twins in the Bumbos and focus on Kiera's sunglasses. Then look at the picture of Maddy holding Kiera and again, focus on Kiera's sunglasses. Notice anything? The UV sticker was removed early in the morning and is not on her sunglasses in the first picture (taken at 8:45am according to the picture timestamp), but somehow returns in the picture taken at 11am. There does appear to be some residue from the sticker in the first one, but its obviously not there when you compare it to the second picture. How did that happen? We went back and looked and none of the pictures taken at home have the sticker and all of the pictures taken at the park have the sticker. Okay, this might only be interesting to us, but we don't get out much anymore, so it doesn't take much for us to get wrapped up in something.

Eggstravaganza

Saturday, we went to the Eggstravaganza that our church, The Heights, had at Breckinridge Park in Richardson. Obviously, our kids aren’t collecting eggs like most of the hundreds of other kids there, but we went to see friends and their kids. Todd said he was teaching Dylan and Kiera his “Egg Collecting Strategy”.

We dressed them in their matching “Yes, we’re twins!” outfits, but Kiera obliterated hers and ruined our fun.

The original outfits

With the Jonathon, Kendra and Carson Pike

We also swiped some pictures from the Pikes site and they're posted below.

This is Kenny Phelps (Kendra's father) holding Kiera. He performed our wedding ceremony.

Kendra's sister, Jessica, babysat for us that night so we could go out. We love her!!

Snow Day

Here are our pictures from March 4th - otherwise known as Snow Day. We had 3-4 inches of snow at our house.



We got the following cute & crazy outfits from Sam and Charis. We dress them in these outfits all the time now because it will be too warm to wear them soon.

Kiera makes some of the funniest faces

Crazy antennae ears are not going to wake Dylan up

Even the snow barely woke Dylan up. We had to get in the shade to keep everyone (mainly Todd) from squinting at the sun.

Dallas World Aquarium

On Sunday, we went to the Dallas World Aquarium with the Garrigues and Folks and had a blast. The stroller war, however, was a different story. Fighting your way through the narrow, crowded paths was not fun. Its easier to carry the little ones - especially since they don't want to be in the stroller anyway. Other than that, it was a great day.

Kiera has her first mohawk

Yes, we know the cap is too big, but Todd's a huge Dodger fan and he looked cute in the big boy cap.

Logan and Jason looking at the bird sitting in the path. The bird didn't seem bothered by people and even let some of us pet it.

Penguins - Maddy's favorite

Brian and Emma enjoying the sharks and sting rays - see below

Logan is a cutie
BTW: his shirt says "If you think I'm cute, you should see my mom"!!!

Baby Dedication Weekend

We had a baby dedication ceremony on Feb 10^th at The Heights. For the non-protestants out there, it basically means that we’re committing that we’re raising our kids according to God’s will. No snake charming, no danger of imminent death to the babies, etc., etc., etc.

Todd's parents came in town and stayed with us and other family members joined us at the church on Sunday. Below are a few picture of Saturday, the day before the dedication.

Grandmom and Kiera taking a nap

This is the last "bad bath" we've had in a while. There are sure to be some more bad ones, but it looks like they've made some progress and we're glad we have some pictures of this "momentous" occasion.

Even the cool lion towel didn't make Dylan happy about bath time

That's one mad duck!

Here we are at The Heights on Sunday. We're glad to have some pictures of the event and some pictures of all four of us at once (that's rare) and to have pictures of all four of us dressed up (that's extremely rare).

The Dedication Ceremony
See, no snakes!

Lookin' snazzy!

Todd's family
Look at Dylan scream!

Sleeping and Whatnot

I'm sure some of you thought we were taking a sabbatical again. This was written up a few weeks ago, but we're just now posting, sorry.

It is 4:30 in the morning both kids started to talk to me through the monitor at 3:15 but I didn’t quite figure it out until 3:30. They were both very polite with telling me that they were awake and would like some food but the politeness was beginning to fade. Of course Todd is snoring the whole time and has no clue what is going on. Now as I said before, it’s after 4:30 in the morning both kids have been fed, diaper changed and wrapped back up in their new blankets from Aunt Teah and they are both WIDE awake. Dylan is just looking around and Kiera is talking constantly to me, neither one with the slightest bit of interest in going back to sleep. See wide eyes below.


So we finally went out and bought a Bumbo and they love it, especially Dylan. Kiera likes it but only for a little bit. Dylan on the other hand just sits back and relaxes. He looks as if all he needs is something to drink and a newspaper or a really good novel.


Because of their size we can no longer lay them across the mattress (which gives more room on each side of them). They now lay normally along the mattress and they both still have to swaddled tight. Every night when we put them in the crib they start off at one end and somehow end up down at the other end. Now please remember from previous sentence that they are both wrapped tight with maybe just 1-2 arms free. Here is a picture of Kiera in the crib, Dylan is not feeling well and in the other crib, she started out at the other end and now her feet are about to be sticking out between the rails at the opposite end. Even crazier is that she has only been in the crib for 30 minutes and she’s not pushing herself up with her feet, she’s scooting down towards her feet. How does she do it and how do they do it together when they are both in the crib?

Todd’s Note: Okay, its about 6:30 in the morning and there’s a note to read the new blog entry. I’ve done as asked and decided to add a little note myself. Crying babies caused us to go to sleep late again. At 5:00 in the morning, I woke up to the kids talking through the monitor to let us know they’re awake. Maddy is…well…I’m not allowed to say she’s snoring, but…I’ll just say that she’s sleeping pretty hard. I walk in the nursery and the kids eyes are wide open. They see me and go crazy – laughing, screaming, kicking – they’re excited to see someone - probably doesn't matter that its me at all! So I’ve been up feeding and playing with them since 5 and I’m obviously not getting any more sleep. This is going to be a great day at work. :)