Best Friends

The boys are becoming more and more fascinated with Singer and Petunia. Petunia sightings, which are rare, cause squeals of delight with lots of stomping and pointing. Although she will usually only allow me to pet her and occasionally Andy, she seems to know that she should be more tolerant of the twins. She will allow them to touch her for a second before she hisses at them and runs away, which brings about more squealing, stomping, and pointing.

Singer is somewhat interested in them, especially when they are eating. She has figured out that the boys are messy eaters. And they have figured out that Singer will eat ANYTHING! Ben loves to feed her but is sometimes surprised at how quickly she grabs food out of his hand. Henry loves to play with her tail. And he likes to pet her, but he is still learning the meaning of "gentle." Here are a few pictures of the boys with Singer.

In other news, Henry has ear infection #3. And we're not sure what is going on with Ben. He has had diarrhea for two weeks now. Andy and I are tired of changing poopy diapers, poopy sheets, poopy changing pad covers, poopy clothes, etc. And I am wondering if the house will ever smell normal again. Hopefully we'll figure out what is going on. As for Henry, we're trying a third antibiotic to see if it clears up the infection and the fluid. If not, he may have to get tubes.

I think that's it for now. Hope everyone has a happy Thanksgiving!

Ben's First Haircut

I'm not doing a very good job of blogging regularly, but we have been busy as usual. The boys are growing like weeds and are even starting to run some. It is fun to watch them chase one another around giggling. And now they have a second room to run around in. My mom came last week to help me try to get more organized. We cleaned out the front bedroom and baby-proofed it so they can play in there. They seem to like it although the first night that they were in there, they both climbed up onto the storage piece that we have along the windows and were walking back and forth across it. Andy saw them and pulled them off of it. A few minutes later we heard a thud followed by a cry. Henry had climbed up onto it again and fallen off. After we got him to stop crying and checked for any serious damage, we let him return to playing. A few minutes later we repeated the process although this time he had climbed onto and fallen off of Andy's camp trunk. Then when Andy and I were getting dinner ready, we heard Henry crying in the front bedroom. We went in and found him standing on the camp trunk crying because he didn't know how to get down and didn't want to fall again. At least he learned something.

On Saturday we hit a major milestone - Ben's first haircut. I was really hoping to wait until they were at least 18 months before getting their hair cut, but Ben's had gotten really long. It was in hanging in his eyes and over the back of his collar so it was time to get it cut. I took him to see Mark, the guy who cuts my hair. Ben sat in my lap facing me so Mark could get to the back of his head. Ben was very good and didn't seem to mind although he was curious about what Mark was doing. Every time Mark would be about to cut, Ben would turn toward him trying to see what Mark was doing. Amazingly, his hair cut turned out okay. I'm glad I didn't try to do it myself (Andy's suggestion).

Other than that, the boys are sick again after a record of two full weeks without missing any days of school. I took them to the doctor this morning , mostly to check Henry's ears since he still has fluid in them. We have to keep a close eye on them since they are so susceptible to ear infections. The fluid is still there, but no infections. And now Ben has fluid in one ear so hopefully that is not a sign that I will have two children who are prone to ear infections.

Here are some pictures of what our bathroom looks like after Daddy has given the boys their bath and Henry sitting in his favorite spot.

A House Divided

As I write this, my beloved Longhorns are losing to Andy's beloved Red Raiders. This is the one day of the year when one of us doesn't like the other very much. I have dressed the boys in burnt orange most of the Saturdays this fall, and Andy doesn't seem to mind. But today we had to be fair so Ben wore his burnt orange Longhorn t-shirt and Henry wore a red and black striped onesie. I tried to get a good picture of them, but they refused to cooperate so this is the best I could do.


We drove to Waco this morning to see Gee and Pops. The boys were really good and had fun exploring. They discovered the piano and had a great time banging out some songs. If only we had room for a piano at our house. Maybe one day someone will actually buy our house so we can move to a bigger house and buy a piano. I can still dream, can't I?

For lunch, we hit my favorite spot in Waco - Schmaltz's. It was absolutely packed with Baylor students and their families since today was Baylor Homecoming. I've never seen so many people at Schmaltz's - the line was out the door for most of the time that we were eating there. But it was well worth it.

I remembered to bring my laptop with me so I could download pictures from my mom's camera. She is pretty good about taking pictures of her grandchildren and has a really good camera, but she doesn't know how to download pictures and email them. So I was able to get a picture of Hayley in her Halloween costume. She was Minnie Mouse.

Gee was in Houston with Hayley this week while Christi stayed in Austin with Bryan. For those who don't know, Bryan had surgery a few weeks ago on his back and developed a staph infection that landed him in the hospital for the last week (both in Houston and then in Austin where he had the back surgery). He is doing much better and is home now, but he faces a 6-week course of IV antibiotics. Please keep Bryan in your prayers.