Friday Nights!!

On a Friday night ten years ago, I would have been headed out for a night on the town with my girlfriends in good ol' Nacogdoches, TX to celebrate living through another week of college. On a Friday night five years ago, Brian and I would probably be going to grab dinner and drinks with friends to celebrate surviving another week of work.
On a Friday night these days, I am on the floor playing with the babies until it's time for bath and bed time and then it's a little relaxing and off to bed for me too!! Friday nights are still chaotic, just in a different way!! This is how it usually goes:

Free entertainment!

That's what we live for these days. Not a whole lot of extra time and cash as of late, so we absorb all the fun we can out of moments like these! These were taken while playing around last night before bath time. Brian was working late and mom was over helping me (THANK YOU mom!).

So tell us Lilly, is it true that blondes have more fun?

Anyone ever see the show "The Flying Nun"?

I love Texas..

Weather, that is!! We all wore short sleeves today. 81 degrees in February!! Ahh, sunshine. Hello, old friend!! Maybe I will try to get the babies out for a walk when I get home from work today. I could definitely use some fresh air. That trip to the grocery store on my lunch break didn't count. Hmm..

The forgotten Pierson!

Our dog Mattie was our first baby, long before Nate and Lilly came along. After I thought to add a picture of her to the side of my blog, I decided to dedicate an entire post to our poor mistreated and neglected pooch. If she is spoiled (and she IS), it is all my fault. If she thinks she's human (and she DOES), it is all my fault. We got her from an animal rescue when she was a few weeks old and we treated her like royalty for four years. She snuggled with me on the couch, and even slept with me in bed for that year and a half Brian worked nights. She kept me company 24/7 while I was on bed rest with the twins, and I even used a framed photo of her for my focal point while I was in labor!! I swore up and down that I would always give her 100% of the attention I gave her before the babies were born. Alas, I have failed miserably. I still love her so much, but I have to admit sometimes I look at her as one more thing to feed and take care of. She is still an inside dog, but with every loud bark she gets closer to becoming an outside dog! She is what I like to consider a "special needs" dog. She is very fearful (A.K.A. pees and poops uncontrollably), but very loud and hyper at the same time. It's quite a confusing combo. She follows us around constantly. When anyone enters the house she freaks out, and you can't take her for a walk without having a real mess on your hands (ICK). When I was pregnant, we even got a professional dog trainer to come out to the house to help, anticipating the fun times yet to come with Mattie plus two babies. I don't know if we just weren't doing it right or what, but it didn't really yield much for results. Don't feel too sorry for her- I still try to give her attention.. after the babies are asleep! :) She still sleeps in her dog bed on the floor right next to my side. The great thing is that she is awesome with the babies so far, but still pretty weird with everyone else. We just took her to the vet last weekend to get her all caught up on her shots and blood work and despite our neglect, she got a clean bill of health!! Anyway, I just wanted to acknowledge her as a part of our family and post some pictures of our sweet prima-doggie.

Such a sweet li'l pup!

Mattie doesn't like the Vet!!

Road trip!

Always curled up beside me while I worked from home on bed rest..

on the couch with preggo. I feel pretty, oh so pretty..
Cuddling with dad.

Splish-Splash (I almost forgot)!

Another thing I wanted to report that I almost forgot- Nate and Lilly LOVE bath time. And so does mommy, since it is one of the few things that only I do. Since I give them baths individually, it gives us special time to laugh and play together one-on-one. We turn on the bathroom radio and jam out while we wash away the slobbery mess of the day! They love getting lathered up and even getting their hair shampooed (poor Lilly doesn't have much to shampoo). In keeping with our "assembly line" routine, after we are finished with the first baby bath, while I am diapering, lotioning and putting on jammies, Brian is striping the other baby and off to the bath I go with the naked baby while Brian takes the clean baby to feed the night time bottle. After I am done with bath time duty, I give the second baby their bottle while we watcha little TV (sigh), and then the sweet-smelling babies are off to bed. I posted these pictures a few weeks ago by themselves, but I thought it would make sense to move them up and add them to this post.

Rub-a-dub! (Lilly)

(Nate)

Happy 8 Month Birthday!

Hard to believe we are only four months from ONE YEAR OLD, but here we are! I guess time flies when you are going nuts! Nate and Lilly were 8 months old last Sunday and this has been one of the most exciting months yet (I realize my "new mom" definition of exciting is a little skewed)!!

Nate is quite the big brother (he was born a whole 15 minutes earlier, don't forget), leading the way and showing Lilly how to get things done. He is holding his bottle on his own and eating puffs right from his high chair tray. He piles them in so fast, we have to keep an eye on him. As soon as one puff hits his lips, his little chubby hand is headed back down for another one. He grabs it with the palm of his hand, so he usually has to put his whole fist in his mouth to get to the puff! He hasn't quite grasped the "picking it up between your thumb and pointer finger" yet. I don't want to jinx myself again, but he has been sleeping pretty well through the night. He loves to make spit bubbles/motor boat sounds with his mouth ("raspberries") and he says "da-da and ba-ba". He has been trying to clap for a few weeks and finally got it a few days ago while sitting in his high chair. Every time we did "Patty cake" you could tell he was trying to figure out how to make his hands do what ours were doing. He was so proud of himself! It used to be difficult to get him to laugh and smile, but he is very playful these days as you can see in some of the recent pictures. He loves to smile for the camera now, just like sis. And how can I forget- two little teeth are popping up on the bottom this month! From our scales at home, it looks like he weighs around 19-20 pounds. He loves standing up in our laps, and can do this now for long periods of time. He is sitting up great all by himself, but last weekend decided he wanted to throw himself violently backwards. I think five minutes before I had said "Oh, such a big boy, you don't even need the boppy pillow behind you anymore!" I turned around to show Brian a picture on the camera and heard a very loud "THUD". OUCH. No swelling, no bleeding, no bruising, no brain damage, so we were good. I can tell Nate is going to be the more adventurous one, trying more physically, and having the bruises to show for it. I wonder if that's the little boy in him?

Lilly is following behind Nate pretty closely, but is definitely her own person. She is still our laid back baby. She has been doing this hilarious thing the last week where she tilts her head WAY over to one side when she is trying to focus on watching or listening to something. It is the cutes thing. I am trying to catch it with camera or video camera!! She is also holding her own bottle, but still needs a little help, which I don't mind at all. She is doing awesome at sitting up on her own, but she shows no desire at all to stand up. Her legs are usually like rubber when we try to get her to stand up in our laps! She is definitely not very aggressive. Weighing in around 20-21 pounds, she is still a great eater and she loves the puffs too. The first night we put them on her high chair tray, she grabbed them and put them in her mouth (before Nate figured it out). We were so excited, but now she acts like she forgot how! I think she just enjoys being fed. So now she either grabs them and drops them, or stares at them and looks back at us, waiting for us to put them in her mouth! A great accomplishment for Lilly this month is that she is pretty much paci-free. She found her fingers a few weeks ago, and it's been a done deal ever since. The paci just won't do. As soon as she gets tired, those fingers go in the mouth! It is really sweet, but I hope it is not a habit for long! Lilly is very vocal like her mama and in addition to some weird Canadian goose noises, her favorite thing to say is "Na-na". SO CLOSE!!

Here are some pictures from last weekend. Shockingly, Nate was actually more photogenic, so I got more of him this time!!

Hey everybody!

Give me your best Elvis impersonation..

Playing on our 8 month birthday Almost got it!

Lilly trying to take a lesson from the piggy..
Look closely and you can see two new bottom teeth!!

Perhaps I shouldn't have waited until bedtime to take the official "8 months old" picture!

Lazy Saturday mornings

Last Saturday morning, we were finally having our front and back doors replaced and since the draft was a little chilly, I kept the babies back in the bedroom with me for a while where it was warmer. We played on the bed for a bit and they even helped me with the laundry! :) I love Saturday mornings.

Haven't we all found ourselves in laundry jail a time or two?

Sometimes Lilly has to smack Nate around a little!
Help!

Who needs a play pen when you have a laundry basket?

Stay at home mommy.. for a couple of days!

Last week was fun because our babysitter went on a cruise (lucky her!), so I got to take off work Thursday and Friday to stay at home with the babies. They were in great moods thankfully, and we had a lot of fun. They slept A LOT (they may be going through growth spurts), but not so much at the same time, so I got a lot of one-on one time with each of them. Here are a few cute pictures I took while we were playing "hooky"!!

Big boy holding his own bottle!

Not to be outdone, Lilly shows us what she can do!Something must have been hilarious!
What a poser- cheeseburger smile!
Starting to get very curious about Mattie..