Sick.Again.

Reagan and Nolan are sick again. It has been a whopping 13 days since they were at the doctor last. We trekked wwwaayyyy across town to take them to the only open Cleveland Clinic branch this morning to be checked out. We were sure they have ear infections, but they said no. Just bad cold. My poor boy has a fever of 101.7 and is all stuffed up and there is not much we can do for him. Reagan, even though she is under the weather as well, is handling it better. She is still her ornery self and is busy running around and playing. Last night was another story! It is the first time in almost a year that I rocked my babies to sleep. Too bad they had to be sick because it felt so nice to be that close again.

Week in Photos

Reagan and Nolan don't have many "alike" outfits, but I have a soft spot for Halloween and Halloween clothes. Reagan couldn't stand still long enough for the picture so that is why she is the blur in the background. Food Porn- Black Pepper Sugar Cookies Hanging on Grammy for story time this week. Wonder who the ghost is hanging over Nolan's left shoulder. Wearing one of her mommy's hats. Yes, My mother put me in that hat. Often. Being silly while playing with Daddy. Riding the motorcycle at the park Listening to polka's at the Tremont Arts Fest. Finding the swings (and his tongue) more entertaining than the polkas! Washing the windows for Mommy!

The Facebook Vortex

I'm sure I'm this close to getting getting emails about my lack of updates on the blog. You see my computer time in the evenings when I used to write blog posts has been sucked up . I am cheating on blogger with facebook. I admit it. I am addicted. I have gotten in touch with people I haven't talked to in years. It is so much fun to see where life has taken them and what they are up to. I'm even working on a reunion of sorts for Thanksgiving weekend of my fellow high school thespians. Maybe that is something you didn't know about me. I used to act. Recently, I was told I should get back into it. I swear pregnancy fried all of my memory brain cells and I'm not sure I could retains lines. I was pretty shy (can you believe that?!?) in high school and joining drama club really helped to bring me out of my shell. Thanks to Carrie for convincing so many years ago that it was a good thing. I'm not sure I've ever told her that! Anyway, I met a core group of people while doing plays that greatly impacted my life. Some of them I see often, others I just email with or play blog tag, and others I haven't had contact with since the summer of 1990. That has all changed thanks to facebook. I can't wait to see these people again. As far as family stuff..... Reagan and Nolan are busy kids. They have been to storytime, shopping at Legacy Village with Grammy, parks, lunch date with their twin friends, Ava & Lydia, and dinner with Grandma P. I attended a blockwatch meeting at the police station this week and plan to become involved with them. It is active in other parts of the city, but not so much in my area. We don't have the same problems the other areas do, but it is still helpful to keep an eye out for the people in the community that need help. For example, parts of my city were without power for 3 days due to Hurricane Ike and the blockwatch helped people keep their wheelchair batteries charged and meds refrigerated by getting generators from the fire dept. I need to download a weeks worth of pictures so there will a "week in pictures" coming soon! You could always come on over to facebook and join me. We'd probably chat a lot more if you did. Come on, I dare you. All the cool kids are doing it!

Crying Over Spilled Milk

Being the green mommy that I am trying to be, I brought all my reusable bags into Giant Eagle this morning. Not my fave store, but I was pressed for time, meaning I had about an hour before the kids melted down and needed a nap. I even lined the groceries up on the belt the way I would like them packed so unpacking is that much easier for me. Call me OCD, but I can get the kids in the house, down for a nap AND get the groceries unpacked in 10 minutes. It remains a mystery why the person doing the bagging didn't use all my bags and instead put the gallon jugs of milk in the cheap plastic bags. The kids were getting their last licks in at "driving" the car cart, the one where they are low to the ground in the front of the cart, as I was loading groceries into the mom-mobile. I only had the two gallons of milk to go and we were done. I picked up the first one, the bottom of the bag promptly let loose. The gallon of milk bounced of the roof of the car cart, hit the ground hard causing it to compress and burst on the side thus splattered Vitamin D all over Nolan, me, and the cart. I'm not sure what scared him more, being doused with cold milk or his mommy yelling the "queen mother of all curse words" as the river of milk ran through my crocs. So, yes, sometimes there is a reason to cry over spilled milk!

PAWS For Autism: A Night For Nicholas

My mom's co-worker has a son, Nicholas, who is severely autistic. In the hopes of improving his communication and social skills his family would like to get him a therapy dog and explore treatments not covered under insurance. The cost is upwards of $20,000 so some of Nicholas' mommy's friends are holding a spaghetti dinner benefit for him. I hear there are some really cool Chinese Auction prizes and it is a mommy night out for me. If you'd like to join me, my mom is selling tickets so I can hook you up. Event info: Thursday, November 6, 2008 6pm Pine Ridge Country Club- 30601 Ridge Rd, Wickliffe $20 Cash Bar

Best.Park.Ever.

We finally made it to Preston's H.O.P.E. today. I've seen it from the freeway and always say, "We really need to go there." I've even driven through the parking lot once while the kids napped in their carseats, but I never seem to think of it when we need somewhere to go (and I have an extra set of hands with me because this is not a place to take 16 month old twins alone). WOW. That is all I have to say. Just an amazing place...... and it is FREE! It is a boundless playground, meaning it is accessible for disabled children. Just look at how big it is. No way could I even attempt to keep an eye on both monkeys here alone. They just don't stop when you ask them or come when you call their names yet. We had a very busy day. First we went to the Metroparks schoolhouse for a story time, hike, craft and snack with Aunt Deb. After a brief nap, we went to lunch with Grammy and then to the park. We were all tired out! Fun times. There's even a sandbox.... Watching the construction going on next to the park was cool!

A Day At The Park

We have been blessed with some great weather these last few days. I'm trying to get the kids out as much as possible because the days of bundling up are just around the corner. My mom and I took the kids for a drive, to go see if the for sale sign had gone up on our old house. That's right, it is for sale. Just a year after we moved.I looked at the listing, she didn't change a thing except for removing that beautiful, huge buckeye tree in the backyard. Yes, it was a PITA, but it was a majestic tree. I can say that now that we don't have to scoop up 7 cans of buckeyes every fall. We also stopped at the ice cream store that sells the Euclid Beach Ice Cream. It was their last day of being open for the season so the pickings were slim. Vanilla or Vanilla. They still had some shake flavoring so the kids had a banana shake. After that we needed to burn off some energy so we headed to the park. I'm not saying what park because it is our secret park. No one is ever there and the kids have a blast. Swinging with Grammy. Baby jail. WWWWWEEEEEE! SSSWWIIINNNGG! Shaking things up with Grammy. Playing together. I'm so thankful they have each other. My monkey on the bars My sweet boy It's Electric!

Then Out Went The Lights

The wind blew so hard on Sunday night that we lost power for 12 hours right around 7pm. Too bad the same thing didn't happen at Cleveland Browns Stadium. Reagan has developed a fear of the dark so that made things a little rough. Nolan went right to sleep, but not Reagan. She ended up coming downstairs with Bill and I as we sat around the living room with our outdoor solar powered lanterns that Bill pulled out of the landscaping (good thinking), listened to the Browns game on the radio (would have been better off not doing that), ate peach cobbler (gotta love fresh fruit in season), and "read" picture books over and over. She finally ended up going to bed around 10pm. Nolan woke up screaming at midnight. What a night! We took them to the doctor Monday since Nolan has been running a fever off and on since Friday. Reagan went along for the ride because she had a fever for a brief time Sunday, but seemed fine after that. Better safe than sorry. Turns out our little guy has a double ear infection. No wonder he woke up screaming and holding his head. A few doses of amoxicillin down his throat and he is feeling better already! Saturday while Daddy and Reagan were out, I noticed some lumps on Nolan's head along his incision area while I was washing his hair. Of course I panicked, but in the back of my mind I tried to remind myself that Dr. Papay, his surgeon, mentioned he would be lumpy for some time after surgery. I just didn't like that these were two new BIG lumps, one at the soft spot and the other above the right ear at the incision. I called first thing Monday morning and got a call back by 11am. The lumps are normal. It is bone growing and healing. He will be lumpy for up to a year after surgery. Completely normal. Completely normal for Mommy to panic each times she finds a new lump too, I suppose. Something that made me feel good about his surgery was that the doctor we saw on Monday was not our regular ped. When she looked at Nolan's chart she asked about his cranio surgery. She had to ask me where the scar was. She trained under Dr. Papay so she knew where to look. Damn good work. The man is amazing. Here's some pictures to catch up on what Reagan and Nolan have been up to besides being sick. Our neighbors brought chocolate pudding over. The kids didn't care for the taste, but they sure enjoyed "finger painting" with it. We are back to story time at the library with Grammy-yea! My sickie. He would drag Elmo around and just plop down wherever he felt like it. It was all too quiet in the living room so I stopped cooking dinner to check in. Reagan was very interested in my Wine Buzz magazine. Yes, we are raising little wine-o's! She was so serious about "reading" every page!

(Bill adds: too bad that's a GE ad in the picture. Ed Wept. ;-)

Nolan jumped into the pic at the last second.

The girl LOVES corn!

These are from Labor Day weekend. Hanging out at Uncle Sam & Aunt Deb's. Way too amused by the bag that holds their beach toys.

Nolan pointing to Reagans belly "bucky". At least that is what it is called in our house.

Me & Nolan

Even though Nolan is under the weather, he is still the sweetest boy ever.

He and I stayed in Saturday night, while Daddy and Reagan met Sam & Deb for dinner. Like Friday night with Reagan, it was so nice to have one on one time with my boy. I just wish it hadn't happened because he was sick.

He shared his dinner with me, a banana and meatloaf (it was all I could get in him). We built a tower of blocks and then knocked it down, we watched TV, and then took a bath. He mainly just wanted his Mommy to hold him and that was fine with me!

Nolan had a nice bath to help bring his fever down. I think he liked having the tub all to himself. When it was time to get PJ's on, we went into his room and I was getting the stuff out of his dresser. When I turned around to call him over to the changing table, this is what he was doing. I just had to laugh and go get the camera. My boy riding his Porsche Boxster in the buff! Daddy said the only way this could have been better is if he would have been wearing his new camouflage mucker boots (that look like hip waders on him since they are too big.)

Nolan has really started to talk in the last few weeks. He says shoes in the cutest way. It is dragged out and he his mouth forms an O and pouts out.... shoooooewwwwsss, he says. Another favorite is ba-na-na. He also says block, moon, camera, circle, boat, ball, momma, daddy, coffee, kitty, dog and puppy. He is really blossoming in the vocabulary area. He no longer repeatedly asks "What's That?" Instead he asks once and then tries to repeat what you tell him.

I picked up two life-size Elmo's at the Moms of Multiples Sale and I was watching Nolan play with one. He was so cute. He took his paci out and put it in Melmo's mouth (or just Mo as he is being called these days.) He gave him kisses and then used him as a pillow before dragging him over to share with me.

Such a sweet little man. I hope he stays this kind forever.

A "Date" With My Girl

Nolan is sick. Fever. Runny nose. Can't sleep. Won't eat. No fun for any of us. We had dinner plans with John, Jan, Fred & Linda for Friday at Bar Cento, but it was apparent that Nolan was in no shape to go out of the house, let alone out of his PJ's. Bill offered to stay home with him since he was out Thursday night for a going away party and I had Nolan glued to me for 15 hours. I felt really bad leaving him. Those rosy cheeks flush with fever, watery eyes, runny nose capped off with the big green paci pulled at my mommy heartstrings. (yes, I'm letting him have the paci out of the crib while he is miserable.) Reagan and I said our bye-bye's and set off on a girls adventure. I always say it and have intentions of spending more one on one time with each child, but we don't actually do it. We need to make the effort.

Reagan and I had a really good time and she was an excellent girl at dinner. She laughed when all the grown ups did, she ate and ate and ate; practically devouring half of the sour cherry bread pudding. She seemed to really have a nice evening.

(Not from our girls night out, just a recent pic of Reagan being Reagan.)

She is just smart as a whip. There is a building as you are going into downtown that has whales painted on it. She has seen it a handful of times. Tonight, before we even got to the building she started to yell "fishies!" How does she know?!??!?! She is only 16 months old. Both she and Nolan know the sights around their neighborhood. They know the boats are down the hill when we get near the river and they enthusiastically point out the "BALL" at the soccer field. She has a large vocabulary and will repeat a lot of what you tell her. She now says "girl", but it comes out ggggrrlll. Yesterday my mom said Okey Dokey and she answered "Dokey, Dokey, Okey". In addition to all the words she has been saying for months, she now says, broom, moon, shoes, mommy, tree, yellow, purple, block.......just about anything you say, she tries to repeat. Time to clean up our acts! We heard that Nolan and Dad had a nice time, even though Nolan was under the weather. Saturday night is Daddy's turn for a "date." Nolan and I will be staying in. I'm sure the pchaks4 will all have a nice evening.

Just Call Me Kathy Lee

They wanted to "help"......

At Least The Tailgating Was Fun

Wow, the Browns sucked. I have a feeling Romeo's days are numbered as head coach. We had a good time before the game though, as usual. Lots of beverages, food, and laughs. We like being at the top of the hill. Bill's Pulled Pork & Scallion pizza done on the grill Big Boy called. He wants his pants back. John & Bill playing with sausage Bill demonstrating our "tailgate" seating but it tastes so good..... thai sausage peanut sesame noodles caprese salad John,Jan, Ed, Shel, Bill.....what a crew! pictures speak louder than words........