A Chat With My Pregnant Self

If you could go back in time (think: Marty McFly) and have a chat with your pregnant self, what would you say? 





Dear Pregnant Self,

You are, unbelievably, going to have twin boys.  Quit reading pregnancy books that describe, in detail, all of the horrific things that can go wrong in pregnancy - and especially don't read about multiple pregnancy complications.  None of that will happen to you except a little gestational diabetes - which will be managed not by insulin injections but by your diet.  Praise the Lord for your years of Weight Watchers training - you'll be able to count carbs like the best of 'em and will consume approximately 13 lbs. of cottage cheese and goldfish crackers in just 2 months' time!

You will gain weight - but you have to.  Your boys will be born at 35weeks, 3 days, so gain as much as you can!  Don't worry about the weight - most of it will come off and only a little will still be there when you type this letter to yourself 9 months later.  None of that matters because the boys will be healthy and you can take care of the weight later.

 

May 23

Yes, I said they're coming early.  Your doctor isn't going to put yourself on strict bedrest, but you need to take it easy.  And by easy, I mean, easier than you will, even though you think you're a sloth.  You will never, never, NEVER, be able to lay around like this again.  Because once they come - whoa, Nellie!  Take comfort in the fact that your water will break on Memorial Day at 5:30 am, your doctor will be on call and deliver the boys via C-section at 9:30am.

 May 25

You won't go through a painful labor, but recovery is going to be - um.... really, REALLY bad.  They'll be in the NICU for 7 and 10 days, which will seem like eternity, but just keep telling yourself how fortunate you are to have the biggest and healthiest babies there - because you do.

And get over the C-section thing NOW - you think that it's so honorable to deliver them vaginally - whatever.  What's honorable is carrying TWINS to a healthy delivery date.  Remember the safety of you and the babes overrides any of your silly hopes and dreams to push them out.  Wrap your brain around the fact that your children will be born HEALTHY and WHOLE and that when it's all over, you'll be a mom and Steve will be a dad, and isn't that what you want? And you'll have the battle scar to prove it.

I know you want to breastfeed, so go for it.  It's going to hurt and you're going to cuss like a sailor, scaring yourself, your husband, your mom, and the babes, while your poor breasts are going through breastfeeding boot camp. Just don't beat yourself up so much.  It will work because you're so stinkin' determined to do it, but geez, can you just relax?

Your sons will be healthy and perfect.  They'll smile, coo, laugh, roll over, scootch, army-crawl (I doubt they'll crawl like normal babes at this point), babble, and say "Da," first.  They'll meet every baby "milestone" you read about - no developmental delays for having been preemies.

 

9 months later

The best part will be, like today, when you go into their bedroom after their nap, they will laugh and smile and squeal with delight because you're they're mommy, coming to rescue them.  You'll be a good mom, so relax and take it easy.  And eat as much ice cream as you can before you're diagnosed with diabetes!

Much Love,
Me

Friday Funnies

We're out of baby cereal, so I ground up regular oatmeal in the food processor, nuked it with some formula, mixed in a naner, sprinkled in cinnamon and voila!  the boys are eating "real" food! 

 

Matthew mastered the art of standing up last week (this week he's mastering the art of landing on his tushie instead of his head when he's tired of standing).  Nathan just couldn't take it anymore that his brother was doing something he couldn't, so this morning....
 

He did it!

Actually, Matthew is the one who says, "I did it!"  Matthew also says "Heidi," even though the little girl he was playing with at school yesterday is named Anna.  They're both saying "Da." Apparently, Steve and I are both "Da." It makes Steve feel so proud!  And me?  Well, you take what you can get. "Da" is better than "hey you" (which Matthew said to Nathan yesterday, I swear!) or "milk lady," or an assortment of other things they could call me!

Snot and Naners

I just couldn't take one more day of snot after my Nathan alarm kept me up from 1 till 2 am last night - after I had stayed up WAY TOO LATE watching the Olympics. (How was I to know that they were going to fill the whole night with ski-cross and then the ice skating was going to go untill 11pm?  It stops every OTHER night at 10pm for the news, so I STUPIDLY assumed it would last night, too.)  The nerve, Nathan!

We had a little family reunion in the nursery last night for a bit since Nathan's wailing woke up Daddy and Matthew, too.  Oddly, Matthew didn't seem to mind and took it as an opportunity to play with his toys, chatter to us and practice pulling up on his crib rails.  It would have been cute had it not been 1:30am. 

With his history of sinus infections, I assumed it was yet another one and packed up the boys to go to the doctor this morning.  We met a new (to us) nurse practitioner today, who, while nice enough, kept us waiting a LONG time.  Thank goodness the boys were well behaved - a bottle for Matthew and some nursing for Nathan kept them happy.  I'm SO GLAD I kept them in their Graco Safeseat carseats.  I wouldn't have been able to contain Matthew if he hadn't been buckled in - the way he gets around now, waiting for that long in the tiny room would have been like being caged with the monkeys at the zoo!

And the verdict is....

A COLD VIRUS.

I suppose I should be happy since she ruled out ear infections, sinus infections and the like.  But it just makes me feel kinda dumb, like I'm a hypochondriac-over-protective-over-reacting-hovering-mother, which I SOOOO don't want to be.  I mean, a COLD.  Duh.  I knew THAT.

She did give me clearance to take him out and about, though, so watch out, ECFE, we're going to school tomorrow!  Mommy can't stay locked inside with the monkey-boys this many days in a row!

Here are your pics today.  The monkey-boys can feed themselves little banana pieces dusted in baby cereal.

 

What's this?

Mmm...good banana!

Yummy naners!

More, please!

Lazy Weekend

Daddy made it home at one a.m. Saturday morning, and both boys came down with the sniffles, so we took it easy this weekend.  Amazingly, Nathan cut his 7th tooth while the snot was pouring down his lip, but I've been assured by doctors that sniffles are NOT associated with teething.  Mmm hmmm....7 cases of the sniffles, 7 teeth.  My butt they're not associated.

Here are a few shots of our lazy weekend:

 

Matthew's Thursday night bath hair

Matthew's Sunday night bath hair

 

Rotting their brains with Baby Einstein (hey, it's better than TLC or HGTV - or ESPN - which they just so happen to LOVE)

 

Cutie pie pic of their OshKoshB'Gosh overalls

 

Nathan playing ball...if you look, you can see where the 4th tooth came in the next day on the bottom.

I'll have a more thoughtful post later this week...but I know most of you just want the picutres!

A Day in our Wonderful Life

There was a time in our lives when we thought that being trapped in Vail would be something thrilling, exotic, and fun.  We're not there anymore.  Well, Daddy's there, waiting for the weather to clear after a not-so-thrilling-exotic-or-fun three day business trip.  And we're here, having a slightly more thrilling, exotic, and fun day at home.  What have we done?

• For starters, we mysteriously went to bed like angels at 7pm last night but played tag-team crying from 10pm-12:30am.  Make sure to wail like an ambulance when Mommy leaves the room after trying to console us!
• Then we woke up chattering like chipmunks at 7 am pretending that nothing happened last night
• Matthew's nose has been running like a faucet today, so I wiped it all day, but only when it was dripping badly enough to be worth the fight he puts up.  Meaning, when it almost reaches his lip
• Mommy napped when the babies did at 9am because she just wasn't functioning well after last night's fiasco.  Should have made coffee, but was way too lazy.
• The boys are good eaters, so that's not a fight, thank goodness.  I fed them prunes/bananas for breakfast and blueberry applesauce for lunch to help with the "GRRRUUUNNNTTTTS" I heard last night, immediately followed by tiny little rabbit turds that rolled around on the changing table as each child torqued his body into unimaginable shapes - maybe they'll be acrobats?
• Changed Nathan out of his PJ's (we declared it PJ day to encourage sleep) and into new ones after he spit up purple puke  I should have seen that one coming. Nice.
• Rescued Matthew countless times from his new talent: pulling himself up on the couch, the stool, the dishwasher, the changing table, the exersaucer and the Jumparoo (which resulted in a big bonk on the head)

 

• Changed a pantload of diapers as this morning's fruit began to work its magic
• Sat down and did absolutely nothing for a half hour of their afternoon nap.  Okay, watched a rerun on TLC of "18 Kids and Counting." It's my method of birth control! (Just kidding)
• Measured the snow - we have 2 Nathans of snow on our balcony now!
• Answered hubby's second phone call during diaper change number 45 today - his 1-hour delay is now an indefinitely delayed flight
• Plop the boys in the exersaucer/jumparoo to post some pics for daddy on the blog because he's missing them so much and won't be able to tuck them in like he'd planned
• Now what?
• I'll feed the munchkins some dinner, clean the prunes and blueberries out of Matthew's ear, be their jungle gym on the floor, do the bedtime routine, change the Diaper Champ, and pray that hubby gets home tonight  so I don't have to eat the entire roast that's been cooking all day by myself.  because I miss him.

Exciting and thrilling? Nope, just a day in our wonderful life

Fun at School

Dear Daddy,
We had a lot of fun at school today!  We played on the blocks, laughed at ourselves in the mirror, learned about going to the eye doctor (mom said we'll do that this spring), sang songs and played with a LOT of toys!  Nathan got to sing with the teacher's assistant today, and guess what?  Our buddy, L, can WALK!  He was showing us how to do it - can't wait to try it out soon.  There were SO many kids there, but we were really good boys for mommy.  We even went straight to bed when we got home to take a nap.  Mommy said she's very proud of us!
Love, Nathan and Matthew

 

  

  

 

Way Back Wednesday

 

Baby Stevie
 

Baby Matthew

 

Baby Kimmy

 

Baby Nathan

Food For Thought

A number of things have conspired to make me cook.

1. New pots and pans as gifts from my mom and mother-in-law. Having the right tools makes things much easier. Thanks, moms!
2. A bit more time to actually cook things, now that I'm staying at home.
3. Cub grocery store and I have a regular date night once a week, something I look forward to these days.
4. I've mastered the basics of one-dish skillet meals and crock pot cooking and I'm bored with the old recipes.
5. We don't go out to eat anymore.  We just don't.

About a month ago, I was making a grocery list, trying to decide what to make, when I decided to try some new recipes. My husband unwittingly inspired me to do this when he brought home a sampler pack of spices from his business trip to Turkey. I took out my big 'ol Good Housekeeping cookbook, (my cooking Bible) and a "healthy cooking" type cookbook I'd rarely used because I didn't know what some of the ingredients were. Made a list, shopped, and cooked. Here are the results:

1. The "healthy cooking" cookbook introduced me to lemongrass, thai fish sauce, and red curry paste. The recipes using those ingredients were just okay. Other recipes were terrible and I couldn't find some of the crazy ingredients! I've given up on that cookbook because, let's be honest, it's winter, I'm in the suburbs, in the Midwest...not gonna find that stuff at my neighborhood grocery store! The only one I kept after ditching the cookbook was "Sticky Sesame Bananas," where I got to caramelize sugar, pour it over bananas and dip them into a sugar/vanilla/mascarpone cheese concoction. YUM!

2. MUCH better results with the Good Housekeeping book! I've made homemade meatballs, stuffed cabbage, lemon icebox cookies, sweet potato pie, Italian sausage and peppers, cottage pie (because, did you know, that shepherd's pie is made with lamb, but if you make it with ground beef, it's cottage pie?), turkey chili, omelets, and frittata.

Okay, they're not ALL turning out great. For example, I needed to contribute something to the weekly brunch at my mom's group one Tuesday morning. The frittata recipe (beside my successful omelet recipe, below) looked easy enough. Just cook it "until the middle is almost set, about 10 minutes." Ten minutes goes by and it's looking like raw eggs in the pan still, so I keep cooking it. Fifteen, then twenty. Okay, this has got to be long enough, I think. I pop it in the broiler for one minute like it said, take it out...still looks goopy - pop it back into the broiler one more minute...yes! It looks like I think it should (wish I had a picture for this recipe), so I sliced it and...it's CRUNCHY on the bottom. Not just, well, it's still edible kinda crunchy. No, it's NASTY CRUNCHY. I cut myself a sliver. Yuck! Steve's curious, so I cut him a sliver. "We have a problem," he says. Yep. Five minutes later, I was walking out the door with a huge tray of orange smiles.

I'm very proud of my omelets. I wish I'd have taken a photo, but that was before it occurred to me that I could digitally document this foray into cooking. It's a simple recipe and I'm a bit ashamed it's taken me this long to figure it out, but I learned that the PAN is the key. Yep, I thought I'd been making omelets all along, you see, but I finally got a 10" pan in my box of pans (I mean OUR box of pans) for my OUR Christmas gift.  What I'd been making was scrambled eggs pressed down to resemble an omelet.  A TEN INCH PAN is what makes scrambled eggs into omelets!

Basic Omelets from Good Housekeeping
make your filling beforehand.  I halved the following recipe:
1Tb. olive oil
1 small onion
1 green pepper
8 oz. mushrooms
1/4 tsp. salt
cook until vegetables are tender and liquid has evaporated, about 10 minutes
add 4 oz. sliced ham, finely chopped (about 1 c.) and heat through.  Use 1/4 filling for each omelet.

8 large eggs
1/2 c. water
1/2 tsp. salt
4 tsp. butter (or margarine, but I've converted to the good stuff for cooking)
1. Prepare filling.  In a med. bowl, with a wire whisk, beat eggs, water, and salt. (Water?  I'd been using milk, so there ya go, something new)
2. In a nonstick 10 INCH SKILLET melt 1 tsp. butter over med-high heat.  Pour 1/2 c. egg mixture into skillet.  Cook, gently lifting edge of eggs with heat-safe rubber spatula and tilting pan to allow uncooked eggs to run underneath, until eggs are set, about 1 minute.  Spoon 1/4 of filling over half the omelet.  Fold unfilled half of omelet over filling and sline onto warm plate.  Repeat with remining butter, egg mixture, and filling.  If desired, keep omeltes warm in 200 oven until all omelets are cooked.  Makes 4 main-dish servings.

Soon, I'll be making omelets for my sons.  In the meantime, I'm adjusting to the fact that they are big enough to feed themselves Cheerios.  Here they are eating breakfast before this morning's mom's group

 By the way, they're loving the homemade babyfood.  Tonight is an extra-special treat.  They're getting the sweet-potato pie filling (before I added all the sugar and eggs): sweet potatoes with cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger.  Mmmm...I tasted it and it's good!

So is the pie:

 

I think I'll go have a piece now.

First Zoo Visit

Today was a special day - Matthew and Nathan's first visit to the Minnesota Zoo! We are very fortunate to have a world-class zoo just a few miles from home, so we packed them up and took a family trip to the zoo.

Our first stop was Discovery Bay, where there are lots of things for kids to touch. I know it will be just a few months and my boys will want to stick their hands into the tidepool to touch the starfish and whatnot. We watched the dolphins swim first, but the boys were more interested in the shark tank. Nathan isn't looking at dad because he's squirming to get back up on his feet and bang on the glass at the sharks!






We walked through the Tropics Trail, where there are all kinds of tropical animals and plants. It was so nice to see orchids blooming and flamingos bathing on a chilly February Minnesota day! Here are Matthew and Nathan watching the flamingos. There are two special things about this photo: first, it's the boys first ride in the stroller without the car seats, and second, Matthew is waving!





He kept right on waving at things all through the zoo (Nathan was banging on the cupholder, so I think it's his precursor to waving), so we took a video of it when he was waving like crazy at the tropical fish tank. (Disclaimer: it was taken with our digital camera in the dark and the sound quality is poor. There's nothing wrong with your computer!) You see Matthew waving, Nathan watching the fish, then a sweet little rub of the eye because it's naptime.


I'm so happy that we bought a yearly membership, so we can take the boys back again and again. There are many more animals to see outside of Discovery Bay and Tropics Trail - I'm sure it will take us all year to get to them!

Lewis and Clark

That's what I've been calling our little explorers this weekend. While Steve and I were eating dinner, the boys ventured into uncharted territory on Saturday night: (I know the first screen is black, but the video works)

First Class Babies

If you know our boys at all, you can see how this scenario may be in our future.  Guess which one is Matthew and Nathan?  Enjoy!

Baby School: Take Two!

Last week, I wrote about the boys' first day of school, which was a tad bit hairy.  (We can't go into the Multiples class after all, so we're staying in "Incredible Infants.")  I'm proud to report that today, their second day of baby school, went much, much better!  Why?  Daddy was there!  Yep, herding cats is much easier when there are two wranglers.  (SO, any of you faithful readers who have Thursday mornings available, you're welcome to join us at ECFE when Daddy can't go - I mean it!)

 

Here we are dressed in some new digs, taking our "official" 8 month photo before school this morning.  

The fellas enjoyed climbing the cushions, laughing at themselves in the mirrors, storytime with Daddy and Mommy (switch babies!), singing time with Mommy and Daddy, and playing with fewer than 11 toys during discussion time because this time I remembered that everything they mouth has to be washed afterward.   In fact, they discovered a barn toy where they press the farm flap characters down, then I flip a switch or push a button and they come back up - it kept them both occupied for hours ten minutes while I talked to my nice neighbor-mommy.  Things are looking better for this class, thank goodness!

In other news:

• it looks like Nathan has another tooth coming in on the bottom and Matthew might be cutting his top teeth soon -the gums are pretty puffy.  Currently, the tooth score is Nathan 6, Matthew 2.
• the car seats' new 'home' is a blockade in front of the computer desk because Nathan is fascinated with the cords and lights
• Matthew has learned to pull himself up to standing along the couch!
• Matthew has also figured out how to open the entertainment center's glass door and pinch his fingers in it, so one chair cushion is now residing in front of it
• We're eating CHEERIOS now!  Oh, my gosh, I just can't believe that one.
• Nathan's doing the the one-armed-one-legged army crawl, Matthew's doing the arm-over-arm army crawl and I'm beginning to think they're just not going to crawl like normal babies.  My mother-in-law says Steve army-crawled until he could walk, so....

Mr. Mom

My husband is one versatile and muti-talented guy.  Last week, he was flying all over the world (literally, not figuratively), working hard but taking time to call us from Zurich and Skype us from Paris.  Yesterday, he was a stay-at-home-dad, trading business meetings for bottle feedings and pressed pants for poopy pants, all so I could have a "day off." 

Here's a peek at Mr. Mom's day at home:

 

Lunch on the floor!  Lunch on the floor!  Looking like a mom with your lunch on the floor!

 

Matthew helps load the dishwasher

 

We measure the snowfall with our babies: there is one Nathan of snow on our balcony

 

Zoom, zoom, I'm getting fast!

 

This was Sunday night - the boys' first Superbowl game

Thanks for giving me a day off, sweetie!

After a long day at home with the boys, how did Steve feel?  "Tired!" he said.

(Hee, hee)

Question of the Week: Schedules

"Are You a Strict Scheduler?"

How old are your kids now? Have you always followed a rigid schedule?
Matthew and Nathan are 8 1/2 months old and we've been following a schedule since we brought them home from the NICU.  They were born at 35 weeks, 3 days, they were put on a strict 3 hour gavage-feeding schedule at the hospital, so we kept it up at home.We then started stretching it to 4 hours at about 4 months.
 
Do you think that your schedule is conducive to healthy sleep patterns in your kids?
Yes! Yes! Yes!  It took just a few weeks of training and they've been sleeping through the night since the middle of the fourth month.  Now they sleep 7am-7pm with the exception of illness or travel.

Do people give you a lot of flack for being a strict scheduler? How do you respond?
I think a few people disagreed with me during the sleep training period, but I didn't let it get to me.  The multiples moms I knew continued to encourage me that it was the right thing to do - and now I'm glad I did. 
 
Has your routine become more relaxed as your kids have gotten older?
No, not much.  We're starting some weekly morning activities this winter that will interfere a bit with the morning nap, but I think they're beneficial for the boys and me so it's worth putting them in our schedule. One week in and they've done well just taking the morning and afternoon naps a bit later. 

How do you kids react when they are completely off their schedules- and how do you get them back on track?
Whenever we travel with the boys, the first night there and the first night home are always the worst.  It usually takes a day of just staying at home and "reprogramming" them to our old schedule and they go right back to it.  We keep to such a tight schedule that their little tummies know when it's time to eat or sleep...yesterday they both did the army crawl into the kitchen and slapped the floor, hollering at me while I made the bottles!

Mischief

 

I'll help myself, thank you very much!

 

This is really funny when it's blowing hot air!

  

Who needs a dog when you have this little golden retriever?

 

This is my personal favorite!  Any guesses who wraps himself up like this?

First Day of School

Today was Matthew and Nathan's first day of school!  We went to our first ECFE (Early Childhood Family Education) class - you might remember me blogging about it last month.  I don't have any pictures today since the camera is in Zurich, Switzerland with Daddy, so you just have to imagine it:

• 1 teacher
• 12 mommies sitting in a circle around a rug filled with toys
• 12 little tiny babies, being cute and cooing on a blanket, sleeping, or holding a toy
• me, crawling around after the boys, sitting next to a nice neighbor-mommy
• Matthew, crawling away from me, crawling into the teacher's lap, crawling around the teacher to the mommy on the other side of her, crawling over to the mirror and laughing at himself in it, crawling across the circle rug to touch the other babies
• me, getting up to bring Matthew back to our side of the circle several times (no one else has to do this the WHOLE class time)
• Nathan, crawling to the mommy next to me, trying to touch her baby's head, me grabbing Nathan away and trying to surreptitiously wipe his snotty nose, Nathan chewing on one toy, then another, then another
• the teacher, telling us to try to keep any toys our babies play with in our area to keep their germs away from other kids
• me, for the rest of the class, trying to keep both boys playing only with the first 11 or so toys they'd put in their mouth the first few minutes of class
• Matthew, continuing his quest to discover more and more amazing parts of the room with only one shoe on
• me, retrieving the backup binks, then trying to do what the teacher told us and get to know the mommy next to me while all the aforementioned antics are being carried out
• teacher, offers to bring the exersaucer over to our area and corrals Nathan (why'd you pick HIM? Can't you see he doesn't go as far?  Oh, but his nose is running so at least that's contained next to me now.  Better try wiping that again.)
• me finally able to talk to neighbor-mommy because I can hold onto Matthew
• teacher takes Nathan to hold in her lap for song time (I offered him up because I knew he'd be smiling and go along with it, albeit the nose)
• me, singing "Wheels on the Bus" and other assorted baby songs with actions with Matthew, who was getting a wee bit crabby 
• Nathan, smiling and giggling to the baby songs on the teacher's lap
• Matthew, smiles a couple of times - guess it's not so bad, even though he'd rather be exploring
• me, packing them up and asking the teacher what she thought of us moving to the Friday morning Multiples class because I'm having my doubts about this one because she'd talked about having to split the class due to its size (4 mommies and babies weren't there, for a total of 16 mommies and 17 babies signed up - HUGE class).
• Matthew and Nathan falling asleep on the 5 minute ride home
• me, blogging and waiting for the teacher to call to tell us we can go to the Multiples class where I'll feel better around women who know what it's like to have two little tornadoes there is more room for us.

 

Who, us?

Amazing Race Application

If you know me even a little bit, you know that Steve and I are Amazing Race GEEKS! If you've never heard of it, go to http://www.cbs.com/primetime/amazing_race/ and check out the show. Season 16 premiers Sunday, February 14, so you'll need to learn a thing or two about the show because.....
WE APPLIED FOR SEASON 17!

Yep, I just got back from the post office, where I overnighted our application forms, photos, and a DVD of our two-minute application video. Can you believe that? Me neither!

I think the cuteness factor was over the top because we dressed the boys up in their Phillies Phlyers snowsuits, gifts from our dear friend, Uncle A, and took them out to one of our local 10,000 lakes to touch snow for the first time! (Insert huge THANK YOU to Steve's friend M for his videotaping skills here!) The boys were not too sure what to think about it while we were taping, but when we posed them for these two quick stills afterward, Matthew voiced his opinion: IT'S COLD AND I DON'T LIKE IT! We're right there with ya, buddy.
You also know that Steve is the brains when it comes to technology, so you'll have to wait a few days for his return to upload the video to our computer before I can post it here. I'll update this entry and re-post it then. Believe it or not, I did try, but not very hard because I really don't want to screw up the computer and be without the internet until he comes back this weekend. (Insert huge THANK YOU to E&S here for their DVD-making skills, since we had to outsource the job!)

I don't know if we stand a chance to get on the show, but even just completing and sending the application is a thrill for us. For crying out loud, I have no idea what we'll do if we get a call for a semi-finalist interview! Probably scream and jump up and down and wake the babies, only to realize we'll have to make it to the out of town interview with our ankle-biters. But I'm pretty proud of us for crossing off one of our "Bucket List" items: apply for the Amazing Race, something we've been talking about doing for years.

We'll let you know what happens! Wish us luck!

Baby Storytime

Our local library has a wonderful children's program and we are fortunate to live just a few blocks away. I can't wait until it's warm enough to plop the boys in the stroller or wagon and walk over!

Once a month, they have a special storytime just for babies, so Steve and I packed them up for a special family outing to the library.

That day's theme was TRAINS! Grandpa A took Steve and his brothers to watch trains all the time when they were little and even watched train videos with our boys at Christmastime, so it was a great choice. They LOVED watching the librarian read the stories, giggled when we sang and danced to a train song, and enjoyed turning the pages of the train board books.The boys are watching all the older babies in this photo. I think they were a bit intimidated by the big kids playing with a mass of noisy toys after the stories were finished!

We taught them how to check out books and can't wait to go back soon for another storytime!