Date Night

This weekend Todd and I went to a couples shower for one of Todd's friends.  It was at a wine bar in Grapevine and we really enjoyed the evening.  We have had opportunities to get out and about without the children when Todd's parents come to visit and we always appreciate it.  But this was our first real 'date night', where we weren't wearing t-shirts and shorts, since Jack was born.  I made Todd pose for a picture together before we left.

And this has nothing to do with our date night, but it is pretty cute!  When I was pregnant with Jack I found this spider costume on sale for $0.99!  Well tonight I saw it hanging in his closet and realized it is a 0-6 month size.  So I thought I better try it on him and at least take a picture.  Here is our itsy, bitsy, spider :)

Family Pictures

Here are some of the best from our recent shoot:

No More Cradle

Up until last night, Jack was sleeping in our room in a cradle at the foot of our bed.  He was mostly still in our room becuase it made me feel like he was still a sweet little newborn, and because it made it easy to nurse in the middle of the night.  When he woke up, I would feed him and then he would sleep the rest of the night in bed with us.  As much as I loved having him with me, I was starting to worry that he would get too attached to sleeping with us.  So last night he spent his very first night in his crib.  He did great!  He woke up at 11:30 and 5:30 to nurse and then went right back to sleep.  The 5:30 feeding was perfect timing because I have to leave for bootcamp by 6am anyway.  Here is my happy little boy when I returned from bootcamp this morning.

A couple of weeks ago we had a photographer come to our house to take family pictures.  Today she posted a sneak peak of some of the pictures on her site.  I am looking forward to seeing the rest of them!  Here is the link if you would like to check them out:

http://www.sherahwittphotography.com/?p=859
And I will end today's post with a picture I took of the kids this morning.  I had to sing, dance, twirl, and jump but out of 37 pictures I managed to get a few cute ones.  Here is the best.

Surprise

This week Kate had a surprise in her diaper for Todd.  He was changing her diaper and said to me, what is this?  From a distance I thought it was just a grape skin.

Nope!  Not a grape skin.  It was a glass bead!  I was shocked and alarmed by this.  We had no idea she had even swallowed this.  I don't even know where she found it!  Then I remembered I had these beads out several weeks ago when we made sock puppets.  So either it took a very long time for her to pass it or I dropped one and she found it more recently??  Who knows, but I will now be keeping a closer eye on this little stinker!

Other big news this week, Jack slept in his crib for the first time.  It was an afternoon nap and only last for about an hour, but I still had to document it.  For some reason I feel like if I move Jack to his room, he won't be my little baby any more.  Todd jokes that he will be 4 and still sleeping in a cradle beside our bed :)

Jack has also been spending more time rolling around on the floor and practicing his sitting skills.  He can balance for a few seconds before he topples over and is getting better at it everyday.

Splash Park

It has been so hot this summer that we decided to cool off at a splash park.  I wasn't sure if Ellie and Kate would like it since they have not been crazy about running through the sprinkler in our yard, but they ended up having a good time.  I think once they got wet and saw the other kids playing they decided it was pretty fun.  Kate ran around like a wild child, laughing, splashing and playing with everyone.  Ellie stayed close to dad and cautiously explored things.  Two very different little personalities!

Grammie's Visit

Summer has been busy, busy, busy.  A couple of weeks ago my mom (Grammie) came to visit for a week.  I love it when my mom is able to come and stay with us and so do the kids!  We stayed busy the whole time she was here and made at least one outing a day with the babies.  It is not so easy for me to get out of the house by myself with all of them so it was great having the opportunity to do some fun things.  We went to ikea, target, and pump it up jr.  Even a trip to the grocery store was exciting for the girls becuase they rarely get to go.

And while the girls were napping we cooled off in the pool.  Jack hasn't had that many chances to swim becuase Todd and I cannot take all three in the pool by ourselves, but I think he likes it!

While my mom was in town we also went to portrait innovations to have pictures taken of just Jack.  When the girls were his age I took them there several times and I think it is important to do things with just Jack as well.  Jack had a blast and smiled and laughed the whole time.  It only took the photographer about 15 minutes to get all the pictures on each of the backgrounds because it is so easy to make him smile.  This was a WAY easier experience than when I came with the girls.  I really think having twins first has made me appreciate how easy one baby is!  Here are some of my favorites from portrait innovations.



We had a great week with Grammie and are already looking forward to our next visit!  In September Todd and I are going to try to make a road trip down to San Antonio with Ellie, Kate, and Jack.

Healthy Heart and Other Stuff

Yesterday Jack had his follow up appointment with the cardiologist and he said everything looks great and that we have a healthy little boy!  When Jack was born they noticed he had a heart murmur and after an EKG and ultra sound they determined that he had a small hole in his heart called a VSD.  As you can imagine this was very scary news to hear in the hospital right after giving birth.  I was quite emotional and upset but after talking with the pediatric cardiologist we felt much better.  He assured us that this is a somewhat common, very minor defect, and almost always corrects itself in the first 12 months of life.  Well he was right!  We went in for Jack's EKG yesterday and he said it looked great.  He was almost certain the hole had closed and all we have to do is come back in a few months to make sure it is gone.  Jack did an awesome job at the doctor and smiled and flirted with the nurse.  I wish I would have snapped a picture of him with all the wires stuck to his chest, he looked like a happy little robot :)

Jack had a busy day yesterday.  When we got home from the doctor, he was playing on his floor mat and he rolled from his back to his tummy!  He did it several more times that afternoon and everytime I would cheer for him and the girls would say, " Yay Jack!"  Although I don't think they knew why we were cheering for him.

Now for a little bit about what Ellie and Kate have been up to.  We have been struggling with sharing and 'stealing' toys from one another, so I have been trying to teach them to trade.  Kate has a bad habit of snatching things away from Ellie and running away with it.  Kate thinks this is a hilarious game and wants Ellie to chase her.  Ellie on the other hand is not a huge fan of this game.  The "trade" concept is helping with this a little, but has also backfired on me.  The girls will now bring me half of a soggy graham cracker and expect me to trade them for my cell phone!

I don't have any pictures that really go with this post, but here are a couple of pictures of my silly monkeys playing in a drawer full of placemats.

kisses