When you think of October, you think of fall, leafs, Halloween and pumpkins.  Well, little did we know that when you have toddlers that anything they do in October they end up giving them one (ore many) small-sized pumpkins.  Between trips to the petting zoo, their nursery school class field trip and a trip that Jen and our friend Stacey (and her kids) took to a local farm we have more little “shot put” sized pumpkins than we know what to do with.

Wow, Halloween is this Friday.  I can’t believe that October is over this week.  Time is moving at a pace that I didn’t know was possible.  I think (for me at least) part of what has been making the time go by faster than usual are the longer hours that I’ve been having to put in at work lately.  People ask me how I’m doing with my mom’s passing and all that and what I tell them is that honstly I have been too busy with everything lately to sit down and soak it all in.  Don’t get me wrong, there are definitely moments and occasional reminders that pop up that get me sad, but I think I just haven’t taken (or had) much time to sit and just think deeply about everything.  I guess I don’t know if that’s bad or not?

Things here are doing well.  Adam is doing something new every day and is crawling around like a rocket and is even starting to pull up on things.  Today, for example, Jen went in to get him from his afternoon nap and he was standing in his crib.  That’s a first.  I got a call from her telling me “guess what your son did…”  Usually that means Alex did something and somebody has a new bruise.  Luckily this time it was something new Adam did, which apparently he was pretty proud of.  I’m sure Jen snapped some pictures of it, which we’ll get uploaded this week.

Speaking of pictures, if you haven’t already checked out the October album you definitely should.  You can see the kids with lots of farm animals and those lovely pumpkins I was taking about.  We have a ton of videos too that I am going to get uploaded to Google in the next week or so.  I’ll post them up here as soon as I do.  There you’ll see fun clips of Adam crawling around, Alex chasing around chickens, and all kinds of wacky stuff.

Let’s see, what else is new….

Oh, Avery decided she was ready to be potty trained and just picked it up like a champ.  Now both kids are wearing under pants and regular old potty pros.  Avery picked it up so quickly it’s amazing.  She also seems to have a much better ability to hold her pee in, which helps.  Also, she has switched to a big girl bed.  Geeze, a big girl bed, going potty, she seems to have changed overnight from a baby to such a big girl.

Where does the time go?

We made it back from the beach late on Tuesday night at around 12:30 am.  The drive home wasn’t bad at all.  We left the Outer Banks at maybe 7:30pm so we definitely made good time.  Luckily even with road construction in various places traffic never slowed down at all.  Alex and Avery took a little while to fall asleep but did pretty well once they were asleep.  Avery screeched every 45 minutes or so but it didn’t take much to get her back to sleep.  Adam surprised us all and slept from home all the way to my dad’s house on Friday, which shocked me and Jen.  I kept asking her if she was sure that she put him in the van.

The vacation itself was great.  We got to spend a lot of time with grandpa (my dad) and the kid’s aunts.  The action pretty much consisted of going to the beach and swimming in the pool.  Luckily we were blessed with good weather the whole time, so we didn’t have to spend any of our short trip couped up in the house if we didn’t want to be.

Here are the pictures from the trip.  I didn’t take as many pictures as I wanted too, but the ones that I did take I think were pretty good.

Wow, it’s been a month already (well, it WAS a month last week). We both feel guilty that we haven’t had as much time to post lately. Don’t worry, we’ve been taking plenty of pictures (see the April and May galleries) and have lots more that need to be uploaded.

Last week Adam had his 1 month checkup appointment. All was well and he has gained weight as expected. He clocked in at 12 lbs 6 oz and 22 1/2″. Definitely still a big boy and has plenty of smiles to share. He seems to enjoy his floor gym and lets out little coos and noises when laying on it. He also has no trouble holding his head up and dishing out the occasional head butt. His strength scares me and Alex needs to look out once he’s mobile!

Here are a few pictures. Jen took the one on the rocking chair on his actual 1 month birthday. We’ll use the same chair for each milestone and try to put some signage up next month. An old co-worker of mine puts their son next to a bear so you can see the size contrast. We’ll have to start doing that too.

Jen’s been doing a good job with all 3 kids by herself.  We all (me and the 3 hoodlums) are all VERY lucky to have such a good mom/wife around the house that can deal with the daily stress associated with being a stay at home mom of 3 kids under 2!  I definitely don’t think I could have the patience to be here all day with the kids and not go completely nuts.

We’ve uploaded a lot of great new pictures to the April album.

I think there’s some resemblance, what do you think?

(Left Alex, Right Adam)

We need a new digital camera. The old one just seems to be having mechanical issues where the zoom function seems to get stuck anytime you touch it. Is it me or do these cameras only really seem to last 2-3 years? The current Cannon that we have is the 3rd one we’ve had since Jen and I have been together. We’re ready for our 4th one.

Luckily with the prices as cheap as they are these days I guess we may get away with spending under $150. I wanted to see if anybody has any suggestions on small compact models they may have and that seem to last and work well. I am great at doing research on the web but I’m finding that even the ones that I’ve bought, which were highly rated, don’t seem to last.

Sorry for taking so long, but new January and February pictures are online.

Our basement looks like Geoffrey the Giraffe threw up. You know, the one who doesn’t want to grow up, he’s a Toys R Us kid?

We’ve got a play kitchen with food and dishes, puzzles, new books, a Magnadoodle, a bouncy inchworm thing they can ride on, Little People and their accessories, a remote control car that Alex likes to drive off the end table, and so much more. The kitchen was left by Santa, and both kids were all over it as soon as they came downstairs Christmas morning, opening doors and drawers and mixing and stirring and cooking up a storm. I’m soooo glad they like it so much. I actually got to make breakfast in peace and go to the bathroom alone, with nobody asking me “Peepee? Poopy? Wipey?” because they were so entranced by the kitchen. Yay!

After a break for breakfast and to get halfway dressed, we came back down for round 2 of gifts here, when Don and I finally opened our gifts too. Highlights included matching Crocs shoes for Don and Avery

a new drill for Don, and an awesome diaper bag and hotsling for 3.0 and me. Avery and Alex took a teamwork approach to opening gifts and wanted to play with every single thing before they could be coaxed into opening the next package. We didn’t even open stockings until the 26th, it was taking so long! Then it was a mad dash from here to Grandma Pam’s for lots of kisses and smiles, then to Pop-pop’s for lunch and presents. Well, it was going to be presents first, but someone said something about eating and Alex made a beeline for the kitchen, so everyone took a food break. A&A loved everything Grandma picked for them, especially the wooden tool puzzle and velcro wooden food and metal pots and pans for their kitchen. Alex still seemed to want to get into my dad’s cabinet with Franklin Mint model cars, though. Smart boy!

After that, we headed to my Uncle Gene’s for more presents and food, and once again, as soon as someone said it was time to eat, my children were first in line. It’s unreal how much these two love to eat - they certainly get it honestly considering how much I like to eat, but still… Whoever says toddlers are picky eaters has not met these twins! Great Grandma gave them awesome Radio Flyer tricycles that Don can put together for the spring, with handles an adult can use to push or steer. My babies are so big all of a sudden! They also got a Little People garage that they are loving thanks to engineering and assembly courtesy of Daddy and their cousin BJ.

Overall, I was amazed at how they held up all day with two short naps in the car for Alex and one even shorter one for Avery. We left my aunt & uncle’s just past bedtime - like 7:20 - and I would have bet money they’d be asleep within minutes and zonked all the way home. Instead, Avery paid quite an homage to the stream of consciousness style the whole way home. We were treated to just over and hour of “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, skajfc hqioueya ckjnei Poohy Poohy Poohy sfivnw elau ;.zfmeu Mommy, Mommy, Mommy kfcj qhalifeu Beary, Beary, Shoey, Shoey kjclfeiuo oituari Butt-Butt, Butt-Butt” from her, with a little whining and crying from both thrown in for variety. But they went right to sleep once in their cribs, and Avery slept til 8:20 and Alex was out until 9 am the next morning! They both took a rock solid nap for a couple of hours right at noon, too. The day had definitely worn them out. Don and I were beat, too. The traveling is hard, but it’s worth it to see the twins put the joy back into Christmas for so many people when you’ve been so used to that jaded, grinchy feeling that seems to inevitably invade the holidays as you get older.

We’ll end with some more gratuitous cute pics from the day. Enjoy!

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!!

They start earlier and earlier. Here’s a shot showing how Avery just gabs on her cell phone all evening. It’s amazing how they can text message before they can read, write or form complete sentences.

I’m afraid to see her first cell phone bill!