Halloween continued...

So today was pretty fun. We went to the playground across the street to play before the trick or treater's came. That's where that picture came from.


Then after dinner, I took Kaiden out to trick or treat. He was having SO much fun. He would run up to the house and say "teeotee" then grab the candy and put it in his bag. He was laughing and trying to keep up with the big kids that kept running past. I didn't take Kayley because Clint stayed here to pass out candy, and I didn't want to stress with both of them. It worked out well though. Kayley was the one putting the candy in the bags of the kids. She would laugh, then the next one would come and she eagerly put it in the next bag. Of course, she kept trying to steal some for herself. Turns out it was a good thing I took Kaiden, because we wouldn't have had enough candy to pass out otherwise. We basically just recycled the candy. I don't need the extra calories anyway :)


Potty training and Halloween don't mix by the way. Kayley had 2 pee accidents while we were busy with the trick or treater's, and I was gone with Kaiden. Oh well, tomorrow's another day.

Halloween fun...

We had a church Halloween function tonight. We dressed the kiddos up in pirate costumes. The kids had a BLAST running around and even got to do some TOTing. They were absolutely adorable with their bags. They would hold them out and say "Tee o Tee". I told people we were collecting candy for potty training bribes :P Anyway, here are their pics...

On the potty training front...

Kayley did amazing tonight!!! We kept her in a pull up just in case. But she held her pee and poop the ENTIRE time we were gone. Which was over 3 hours. When we got back I put her on the potty and she peed right away! Then I waited a few more minutes in the bathroom and she started saying "ew" with that uh oh face. So I put her on the big potty and she pooped a ton...sorry if that was a little TMI ;) I am so proud of her. She did such a good job on the potty today...NO ACCIDENTS!!!

At a loss...

Here is the problem. I don't really think the whole wait until they're ready thing applies here. I know she is "young" by many people's standards. But Kayley has shown signs that she is "ready" to potty train. I know several people cringe at the word "ready". Sorry about that. I have played with the whole EC thing since they were about 6 months, but was never consistent. It was more just to show what the potty is and get them used to the sounds of a flushing toilet.
We aren't working with Kaiden right now. 1 at a time thanks ;)
Well 3 weeks ago we started full time potty training with Kayley. We did 2 weeks and she was doing well, but she she started getting stubborn and throwing a fit just to sit on the potty. We were having days in a row with no accidents with pee and just poop accidents. We put her in underwear all day except when napping and night time, which we'll put her in pull ups for. So at the end of 2 weeks, the rebellion started, and we took a few 5 days off. But she started saying "I pee pee" "I stinky" and "ew" everytime she had to go. So we started back up with the training again.
What we do is take her to the little potty, because she won't stay on the big one. With some help with warm water on her feet she'll go right away. Several times, she's go without any help, and she'll fill up the potty with all her pee. So I know she has bladder control. Sometimes I just have to say is go pee pee and she'll go right then and there. Then we take the pee and put it in the big potty, flush it, and wave bye bye.
She has accidents every once in a while with the pee, but over all I think she is doing great for just 3 weeks of it.
Now my concern is the poop. She has NO problem pooping in her undies. She knows what she's done, because when she's done she would walk up and say "stinky". Well after the break we took, she doesn't say it after she goes anymore. Only if we find out what she's done. Then she starts crying saying "stinky". She refuses to go on the potty with the poop. We can sit there for 20 min. and nothing. As soon as we let her out, she poops right away. I thought, well maybe it's the whole comfort of something on the waist. Well, not so. She has no problem pooping without undies on, with undies on, in pull ups, no pull ups. It doesn't matter. This girl poops fast! By the time we get to her when we see her trying to go, she's already done. I have tried showing her where poop goes, either big potty, little potty. Doesn't seem to matter.
This isn't a matter of her getting constipated either. Kayley poops like 3 times a day, at least. So giving her something to help her go, would do more damage than good.
I am really at a loss on what to do next. I have a potty in the play area, and she'll sit on it without me "making" her for 30 min. Then go walk away and poop. We have a potty in the bathroom, and a couple times DH has just let her run around in there, and she'll squat and start to go and he'll rush her to the potty and she'll finish it off. But for some reason, she won't do it for me. Heck, she'll even sit on the big potty to finish off her poops with him, but won't for me.
So what do I do now? DH can't be home, he works, but when he is here, he will usually take over. I tried going in with him while we wait for her to poop, but she won't. As soon as I walk out she will.

Back in the saddle again...

Ok, not the horse one either :)
We started back up with the Potty Training on Sun. so far so good! She actually pooped in the potty!!! Hopefully we can keep this up. Things are going a lot better than before. I think the break did some good. Kayley even says "I pee pee" and "stinky" when she goes.
On the other hand, the kiddos are both sick. Last night Kayley was up every 15-20 minutes. We are all dragging today because of it. We took the door off from their room. Kaiden can get his body up on the side of his rail on the crib. Which means within this week he will be getting out on his own. So we didn't want him smashing his fingers in the door. We put a baby gate in the doorway though so he can't go wandering off in the middle of the night. We also put lots of pillows on the floor for the "thud" when he falls out of the crib.
Kayley can totally get out by now if she wanted to. She doesn't seem to care. Although, she is a lot more tempted in the playpen. She can get her whole leg over the side of that. And that's taller than the crib rail. So who knows. There are pillows under her crib rail for when she gets out too.
There isn't anything in their room they can get into trouble with. The only things that fit in there are the 2 cribs. And the closet has a door knob that we can lock. Their dresser is in the guest room.
So whenever they choose to get out, the room is ready.

HAHAHAHA! Edited to add:
Kaiden got out of his crib. Well, fell out, and bruised his face. So the crib rails are off and they are officially in toddler beds now. The cribs grow into stages. They turn into toddler beds, then full size beds. They were having a party up there. We had to take Kayley's off because she was screaming that Kaiden could get out and she couldn't. So, should be an interesting night.

Cox Farms :)

Today we went to Cox farms and had a blast! The kids had so much fun. They went in a corn maze, hay ride, pony rides, huge slides, a train playground, a petting zoo, and a pumpkin patch. They were running in all directions and giving Clint and I the exercise we needed to burn off all the calories from the yummy food they had there!

Not much to report...

Things are calming down here. Not much is really going on. We have made a decision for where we are going for the Holiday's this year. We'll be going to Clint's parents in NC. for Christmas and Thanksgiving. We were going to go to NY. But Clint's brother Bob, won't be back until after Christmas. So we are thinking of going to NY. after he gets back, so maybe not until Spring Break. That's several months away, so we haven't really planned for that.
Clint also can't really take any days off since we just got here. So he'll get the normal federal holidays. Since Clint's parents only live about 7 hours away, that will be where we end up going for both. Less travel time taken away from the vacation days.
We have both already voted for who we would "rather" be president this year. Not necessarily who we "want" to be president. The lesser of the evils I guess. At least we are on the same page as far as who we voted for. His vote won't really make that much of a difference in the state he is registered for.
My vote is in one of the battleground states. Colorado. So hopefully, we get the one we voted for there.
LOL, like I said, nothing really going on :P
This weekend we are going to go (weather permitting) to Cox farms. It's a fall festival type thing. Hay rides, pumpkins, petting zoo. Basically a place where the kids don't have to be contained to a stroller! A friend of mine that has twins posted on her blog about it, and I thought it sounded fun. The kids need to get out and play.
As far as the potty training front, we'll get to it eventually. I'll likely start it up again on Monday. That will be a week off, we'll see how she does. Take care all!

The step back...

So the whole 2 steps forwards, one step back. Yeah, that's us right now. Kayley has gone on potty strike. We don't know what else to do with her, and I am losing my 1 ounce of patience I do have. So we are going to take a break from this until Fri. then try approaching the issue again.
The hardest part, is knowing she has to go, but she absolutely refuses. So much for hopes she'd be done by Halloween. At this rate, we'll be lucky if she's done by Christmas. It's so frustrating when it becomes a power struggle to get her to stay on the potty.
We went to giving in to her "demands" just to get her to stay seated on the potty. Well all that has done is created a spoiled little girl. She whines over every little thing now when she doesn't get her way. So in order to preserve mommy's sanity. We are holding off for a few days.
Some may be thinking, "she's not ready". Sorry, but I have read horror stories of those who have waited until the kids are "ready" and the kid is over 4 years old. She's already showing signs of "waiting too long". Especially in the poop department. That little bugger will have poop starting to come out, and yet she refuses to sit on the potty. As soon as underwear goes on, she poops. She'll just scream and scream until she gets the underwear on. Then happily poop away.
I am at a loss.

Short but sweet...

For me anyway.

The last 2 nights I have been out riding my horse. She has been doing amazingly well! I absolutely love her :) I got to ride for over 2 hours today.

Her leg is healing nicely too! She is getting much better about respecting boundaries now. I go out again in a couple of days for another ride. I am trying to get as much time on her since we are all going to go on a trail ride in a couple of weeks. Maybe even as soon as this coming Sat. So far things look optimistic. She has never been on a trail ride away from home, with me anyway. We will actually be loading the horses up in trailers to go to some nice trails not far from here. So I need her to be as ready as possible before then.

Ok, off the subject of potty, pee, and poo :P

How about a more pleasant topic!

Although it seems all my thoughts only consist of the above mentioned items these days. Other stuff is going on.

As you may have read, my horse really messed up her leg. It's healing very well. I actually got to go out and ride her a couple of nights ago. Just inside the arena. It went well considering her cut leg. Great training for her and for me. There were some other horses in there, and she didn't know them. Yet she did very nicely and paid attention to me...and the gate :) Something about horses and gates. It's bad practice to let the horse stop at the gate going in and out of the arena. So that's my biggest task I am working on with her. Getting her to only stop when I tell her to stop. Not when she wants to stop!

Clint is doing well. He is settling in at work. They kept saying they would be moving his office here on base this month, turns out it's not going to happen until sometime after the New Year. Am I surprised, not at all! He is heavy into this Fantasy Football thing they have online. I guess they pick several players they want as a "dream team" and when they play in real life, they can stack up points for his "dream team". The winner gets a prize. I think that's the true love of his life during football season!

Kayley is doing well in other areas beside the potty. The last couple of days she has been able to count to 10! Ok, not every number. But she'll fill in the blanks when I count to 10. She knows 1,2, 5, 6, 7, and 9. Very impressive I think for a 21 month old. She doesn't know as many words as Kaiden, but that doesn't mean she isn't just as smart! The fear that she may have autism is gone. She has definately caught up to her peers.

Kaiden is a riot! He has mastered the skill of jumping with both feet in the air. He had been working on that for a couple of months now. He is getting very good at puzzles. We have a wooden puzzle with 9 pieces, and he can get the thing put together in about 20 seconds. When we put them to bed at night, he'll say "night night" and blow us kisses and wave bye bye. When ever he notices a car, he yells "car...beep beep". Same with when he sees a cow, "cow...moo moo". Horse is still "sueie...neigh neigh". They love throwing a ball to each other, ok, more at each other.

For me, I am trying to master the skill of patience. I think my kids will have the entire dictionary memorized before that happens though ;) I am trying to get back to becoming me, not just mommy. There are times where I find myself asking, "what about me???" Of course, those thoughts always get interrupted by a screaming child or a child trying to capture my attention by playing peek-a-boo around the corner. I complained of how I had no life when I was a teenager. I was always bored. Not anymore! These 2 keep me going all day, and sometimes all night :)

So what exactly do we do to get her to go?

So several people have been asking what the process is that I have been using, so here it is:
The first day I started off just having her nakey bottom. I would keep track of how often she would pee. Then show her the potty and tell her that's where pee goes.
I then put underwear on her with a baby washcloth as a pad inside the underwear. For Kayley, she pees every 60-70 minutes. So I take her around that time. To start her I used warm water and would pour it on her private parts. She wasn't comfortable with that. So I decided to just try letting her play with warm water. I got a tupperwear container and put warm water in it on the floor. Then I would put her foot in, and instantly she would pee. I then rewarded her with an M&M, at first it was every time, but now she get's an M&M every other time.
I also let her play with toys in the warm water, so it keeps her entertained. Today I was able to just run the water in the bathroom and she would start peeing. For her, the reward for peeing is now getting to actually play in the water. She gets mad because she wants to play in the water, but she's already peed. So I just let her play for a minute or so.
Then I take the little potty and put the pee in the big potty. She doesn't like the big potty at all, even with a sizer in there to make the seat smaller. But she loves saying bye bye to the pee as it flushes down the potty. She waves to it and everything, it's hilarious.
Tomorrow I am going to try and put the water container that is usually on the floor, on top of the step to the potty. That way it's as though she is on the little one.
As far as timing her. Some people use a timer, and that's great. I am afraid of that. Not sure if you know of Pavlov and his experiments. He is the one with the dog and saliva at the sound of a bell. Anyway, I am afraid that if I use a timer, then she'll associate that with peeing, and start peeing at the sound of a timer wherever she is. So I just log down everytime she pees and poops. Then use that log to get an idea of when the next pee will be at. I keep a tally of how many accidents she has, and how many times she used the potty correctly. It's very encouraging to see the numbers add up in the right direction.
Believe me, this isn't easy. I am the worlds most impatient person. I want things done immediately. So this has been very hard in that area. I am also a control freak, so I am working VERY hard to not yell and get mad when she does have an accident. So far I think I am doing ok. It also helps that when DH comes home from work, he takes over for the evening. I think that helps her to know she doesn't just have to use the potty for me.
Sorry if I rambled. I hope I gave you some ideas to work with. Give yourself a goal. TJ made me :P She said give it 1 week. If I didn't see improvement, then I could stop and go back to it at a later date. Well, I have seen a ton of improvement, so I really can't stop at this point.

A little review and an update too...

So a week ago DH and I started working with Kayley full time on the potty. We introduced her off and on for several months (same with Kaiden) but we started officially training her last Wed. Here it is a week later and she is WELL on her way!
She will pee 8-9 times a day in the potty. Very rarely does she have pee accidents now. She does have poop accidents. I'm still trying figure out how to get her poops in the potty.
Day before yesterday she had no accidents at all, but then again she didn't poop that day.
She is no longer in diapers during the day now :) She wears pull ups at night and for naps, but other than that, she stays in underwear.
Today she started vocalizing when she needs to pee. She'll run up to the gate and say "pees pees" which I think is please and pee combined. She says please all the time too, and she'll say pee pee when she's actually on the potty peeing. Today she said potty for the first time. She peed 11 times in the potty today, and only 1 accident, but that was poop.
Anyway, I am so proud of her. I think by Halloween she may be potty trained during the day completely. Maybe ;) No later than Thanksgiving I'm sure.
I took her out today for the 1st time since we started training, and she was overdue to pee by 30 min. but she held it until we got home and she went in the potty!!!
Definate progress :)
As far as Kaiden, well, I'm waiting on him and just working with Ky for now. When I am sure she'll tell me when she has to go the majority of the time, then I'll start with Kaiden.
Kaiden is fully diaper trained. He FREAKS out if he goes to the bathroom without a diaper on. So I think he'll be a lot more work :(
I know in PT 2 steps forwards 1 step back. So I am mentally preparing myself for a "relapse".

When the going gets tough...

BLEH!
Ok OK, Kayley is doing well as far as no accidents today! Yup, all 8 times she went to the bathroom, she did so in the potty.
However, keeping her ON the potty is a WHOLE other story. I had to resort to a popsicle today just to keep her seated. At least she peed with that one!
I'm preparing myself for that step back, you see, today...she didn't poop. Which means tomorrow, we may not be so blessed as we were today.
I was not at my proudest moment today. I had a mommy breakdown. With all the stress, I finally lost it. I had my pitty party and now I am up on my feet again...we'll see what happens tomorrow.
Clint, he is my biggest sanity saver. I really don't know what I'd do without him. When he comes home from work, he does't skip a beat. He jumped right in to the potty training. I don't think that's what he really wanted to do. But I had had it. I couldn't take anymore. Maybe he sensed that and went with it.
My other problem, is when I take Ky in to the potty. Kd gets EXTREMELY jealous. He wants that attention. So today I decided I would try just having him in with us while I tried to get Ky to pee. That did absolutely no good. All that did was get Ky distracted and want to play. Ky is doing so well with not having so many accidents. I think it's more that we're trained, but not her. I don't care, I am saving a bunch of money on diapers! She hasn't been in a diaper in 4 days. She wears the pull ups at night and naps.
If nothing else, I am learning my daughter's cue's on when she needs to go. The problem is getting to her fast enough. I am not wanting to use timers to get her to go because the fear that we'll be out and about, and someone's timer will go off, and she'll just start peeing. I don't want a Pavlov experiment on my hands. He was the scientist that got the dog to salivate with a ringing of a bell. I don't want her peeing with the ringing of a bell!
Although I do have to use one from time to time if we are busy with something and can't see a clock.
So instead I have a log of all the times she pees and poops, and I try to guess when she needs to go again. My theory is that I can push her between times, by distracting her or whatever, so that the number of times she has to go get's less, but more comes out each time. So instead of every 45-60 min. I would love for 1.5-2 hrs. on a regular basis.
I guess right now, my main focus just needs to be getting all potties in the potty though

Great Job Daddy!!!

If any of you are going to talk to Clint, give him kuddos! He has been taking Kayley to the bathroom for the last 3 days. He has been the one to really get her going. So great job Clint!!!
The totals for today: 8 in the potty and only 1 in her undies!!! She wouldn't have had that one, but I was a little too late running to get her. I saw her look down when she started to pee, but by the time I could get to her, it was too late.
She really is doing well though. She managed to get 2 poops in the potty today!

Things are looking good, but....

Kayley is getting really good about peeing in the potty. The poops are harder to get in the potty though. She shows no signs that she is pooping. So I have no idea how to get her to go poop in the potty and not just pee. Her totals for today, 8 in the potty and 4 in her undies.
On another note,
The kids are progressing very well. They have TONS of new words now. Kaiden knows more than Kayley, well, he can say more than her anyway. They really are such fun to be around. They have very different personalities. I wish they would both have their Dad's but sadly they don't.
Kaiden has mine. I have the worst temper. I am not always very good at hiding anger outbursts from the kids either. Kaiden sees that and now I am getting bit in the butt by it. They are copying words very quickly, so we have to be very careful what they are exposed to now. Especially TV. I can't believe the words they are allowing on there now. At all hours of the day too. Thankfully Disney and PBS are very good about it. Those 2 channels are my sanity saver!
So developmentally, the kids are doing great. They are mastering all kinds of skills, from throwing, climbing, and actually walking up stairs now, instead of crawling.
Kayley's favorite game is good old "Pat a cake, pat a cake"
Kaiden loves "Head shoulders knees and toes"
They actually sing along with it as I sing it to them.
By far, Kaiden's favorite word is sui. Sounds like sue ee. Daddy taught Kaiden Horsie instead of horse. So now he sounds like he is speaking chinese or something. Especially with how he fluctuates his voice when he says it. I try and correct him and say "no horse" to which his reply is "no sui". LOL, it really is cute.
Kayley has been doing this really cute thing with her arms. She'll throw them out to her side and say "what" which sounds like "whaaaaaat?" It really is adorable. She and Kaiden will both put their hands to their face and say "oh no" and have a pouty lip as they say it with sad little voices.
When Kaiden sees Kayley cry he will run up to her and give her a hug. When Kaiden cries Kayley looks at him with disgust. Mostly because he is crying because he can't have her toy. Which inevitably, he always gets.
If Kayley falls down and starts crying, Kaiden will get jealous and purposefully fall down and pretend to cry. It's quite hilarious.
They have both mastered utensils. Well, mostly. They can actually get the food in their mouths now, instead of their eyes, ears, hair, etc. They are also using plates and bowls now too. Instead of eating directly off the table or high chair tray.
Kayley can undress herself. Kaiden can't. Kadien can put shoes on, Ky can't. Basically, they are both at the same stage developmentally right now, but just better at different things than the other one. They are interacting a lot more now than they used to. They actually "talk" to each other and play with each other. Before, they just played next to each other.
I am so blessed to have these two. I know I complain about the stress a lot, but they really are very good kids and a whole lot of fun. Thanks for reading!

Potty Training (PT) continued...

Oct. 2nd

So today we had a step forward in potty training Kayley.
She woke up and went potty right away.
The totals for today are:
In her underwear 2 in the actual potty...8!!! So A LOT better than before! She is doing great today. We have been warned for the 2 steps forward 1 step back in potty training. We'll see what happens.
Kaiden was so cute watching her today. I had her on the potty and he would sit in front of her making the "psssss" sound. Kayley was laughing at him.
Not much else to report. Bonita is healing well. She doesn't even act like her leg bothers her. Good thing, it looks really painful.

The potty training chronicles...

OK, this is it. Potty training has OFFICIALLY begun. We have been "playing" with the potty idea, and have had hits and misses (mostly miss). But Tanja left yesterday, and we are officially "housebound" well, the kids are anyway.
So far...AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH! Ok well, it's just a lot more stress than I bargained for :) We are moving forward with the plan anyway ;) Even if I just end up working with one at a time.
The beginning of this process is crazy. If I had a singleton it wouldn't be so bad. But I don't, I have 2, making work twice as hard, if not more. Why is it that when you have one on the potty, the other one decides they will go potty, and not in the toilet?
This morning started off with Clint taking Kd to the potty right before work. He didn't go. Duh. So after about 20 min. I decide to take him to the toilet. Ummmm, nothing. Ky wakes up and I bring her to the potty, again, nothing.
So naked bottom they went. Within 5 min, Ky peed all over the floor. Great.
I fed them breakfast, and then within a few min. Kd sarts grunting. So I take him to the potty. He SCREAMED like he was dieing. I figured, what the heck. Forget it. Then decided to work with Ky. She sat on the toilet for a couple of min. Then decided she was done. I took her back to the play area, and she pees in the corner. Wonderful. I look over and Kd had peed all over the floor and couch. Uggghh. This is going to be one VERY messy process.
So I decided, maybe nakey bottom is a bit much. I put underwear with washcloths in them on Ky and left Kd in his diaper. It was only a matter of time for him to poop anyway. I look over and Ky has peed in the underwear. YIPPY!
So I went on the big potty to show them how to potty. They thought it was hilarious. I put Ky on the potty with chocolate chips and M&Ms to keep her motivated to stay there. She hadn't pooped yet.
Kd started grunting so I took off his diaper and put him on the potty. He didn't want the chocolate. I couldn't leave to find more bribary, since Ky was still on the toilet.
Kd on the other hand started screaming and freaking out like he was terrified. I looked over and poop was coming out his bum. I knew it didn't hurt, the poop wasn't hard. He was terrified to go without a diaper. Well, his butt is going to be in underwear when not sleeping now. I do not want him being terrified to go without a diaper on. I want him potty trained, not diaper trained.
After reassuring him that it was ok to poop, and showing him where the poop goes, he finally calmed down. But that was after the enitire bathroom floor was covered in poop smears. OY!
Ky never did go in the potty. I took her and Kd out of the bathroom. Ky went to a different corner and peed on the floor. Uggghh. Well, at least she isn't afraid to go without a diaper. She thinks it's funny. She was pointing at it like "look Mom...I peed!!!"
And that is just 3 hrs from this morning. They are napping peacefully in their diapers.
EDITED TO ADD:
So after their naps I decided I am just going to work with Ky for now. She was only in diapers for her nap and bedtime. The rest of the day she was nakey bottom or in her undies. She did manage to poop on the potty (not in the potty) But we'll count that! So the grand total for today: Floor 2, Undies 4, potty 2. Hopefully tomorrow the potty can get a higher score!
I just need to keep repeating this quote:
“Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.” Dale Carnegi

July through Sept. 2008 review...

Hope you don't mind that I c/p an email I sent to friends and family. Some of it is a little repetitive from my other post. But there are pics at the end.:
So DH will be home from his deployment On Aug. XX!!!! We have orders to be stationed in Washington, D.C. and we will be living on Bolling AFB.
We have quite the trip ahead of us, and I won't bore you all with the insane details of our move. For some reason jumping off a cliff looks a lot more pleasant than a 4 day drive with 19 month old twins, a horse, 2 cats, a camper, horse trailer, truck, van, myself, DH's mom, DH, and myself.
Anyway, we have been assigned a house at Bolling. Which was a huge fear because we have been pretty high up on the waiting list. We started at 59 a few months ago. A few days ago we were at XX, but we got a call, and we have a house now! The move in date isn't until the XX of Aug. We are definately looking forward to just getting there and settled in!
We have a horse stable lined up for Bonita, which thankfully is only a 25 min. drive. Everything else was about 45 min.
We are only going to be about 6 hrs from DHs parents. We'll be about 7 hrs from every other family member he has out in Buffalo, NY.
I'm also excited about how close we'll be to major tourist spots. I have never been to NYC, and we're only going to be about 4 hrs away!!!! I can't wait!

Physically: Kayley is 22 lbs 4 oz. which puts her in the 16th % for weight. She is 31.25 inches tall which puts her in the 32nd % for height. Kaiden is 22 lbs and is in the 4th % for weight. He is 31.75 inches tall and that puts him in the 25th % for height. Remember, boy and girl growth curves are different.
They are both going to need to have surgery on their upper lip when their baby teeth come out, before the permanent come in. The flap of skin is too short and thick, which could cause problems for their permanent teeth.
Kaiden is overall advanced for his age develomentally. He is catching up physically though. He may need to go back to the neurologist for an eval on his head since the sutures of the skull closed prematurely. He is starting to get a very prominent ridge on top of his head. His ears are also getting very uneven. If it gets really bad, then they would have to go in and break the bones in his skull and reallign them.
Kayley, wow. Something is always going on with her. The doctor is suspecting mild autism. If she has it. The doc wants to wait until Ky is 2, to give her a chance to catch up to her actual age. She is still having to go by adjusted age since she was a preemie. Even though Kaiden isn't having that problem. There are a couple of signs that the doctor noticed and wants to keep an eye on it. In addition to that, Kayley may have to get leg braces. She has been doing a lot of tip toe walking. Almost the entire time we were there she was walking on her toes. So she has a refferral put in for physical therapy.
So, once we get settled in the D.C. area, we have a lot of doctor appointments we'll be going to.

Sorry things have been REALLY crazy around here. We are in DC now. After a VERY long drive with some very crazy adventures on the drive. Anyway, we're safe, and in our new house. We finally have internet and cable. But we still don't have our household goods yet. So we have been using folding chairs and the floor as our "furniture". The kids, Clint, and I are really stressed out, and just can't wait until our goods are here, and unpacked.

So yesterday our exchange student Tanja (she used to be our exchange student a few years ago), got to experience the "grand entrance" of the president and VP. Some huge motorcade of like 5 busses with 10 police escorts came by to the white house. Then a secret service motorcade came by with even more escorts. Then the helicopters came by with the president. We were standing at the Washington Monument when the motorcades came. Then we were at the white house when the president landed. That was pretty neat to experience that with Tanja.


OK, I have tried and tried, and tried some more, to be patient and optimistic about this place. It's just not working. EVERY time I feel like "hey, it can't be that bad" I am only kidding myself, no, torturing myself. At every turn something goes wrong... here's a little bit of what I am talking about....
We moved to DC in Aug. We got to temp lodging where we stayed for a couple of weeks. The people upstairs had 6 kids, yes, 6 and they all figured that the floors were a trampoline. Yet there was no where else for us or them to go. So we had to wait there for our house. Now usually, they give you your address as soon as the house opens up. Well, they refused because this and that. Finally they gave it to us. We should have been all moved in by the 27th of Aug. Household goods and all. Well, because we didn't have the address, we couldn't even get household goods here until the 5th of Sept.
Well, let me back track. While we waited for the house, we decided to buy a TV so that we could "do" something while we waited for our stuff. We went to Target, which is normally a nice store. Well, not here. Target is the "walmart" out here. I don't know what happened. I think it's worse than walmart. And I actually liked Walmart. We waited for the guy to get done talking to his girlfriend, who also works at Target. He finally decided to go get the TV for us. After about 30 minutes, he finally comes back with the TV. The end result, we have a TV that skips on the DVDs. In otherwords, broken. We went back again to get a couple of car seats. Different Target mind you, and waited for over 45 min. for the seats to be brought out.
Well, we then got our house. So we had to wait for our household goods sleeping on air mattresses and only had a couple folding chairs for a couple weeks.
We decided we needed a new mattress anyway so off to the furniture store we went. We got a really nice mattress. Hmmmm. Supposed to be anyway. We had them set up for a Tues. delivery. I called midday that Tues. They said that they weren't supposed to come out until Wed. Which meant another night on an airmattress that deflated throughout the night. Trying to reason with the guy was useless. The next day the mattress got here. The thing had dirt all over the bottom of it. They said they could take it back. LIKE HECK!!! I was more than happy to deal with some dirt than another few days on an airmattress. They gave us a promise of a $75 check to pay for cleaning costs. Yeah, great. When I was at the store, I told the lady, I didn't care for a bed frame, that it will just end up moving all over when we get on and off the bed. She talked me into it.
The thing is sitting in our closet.
We had to do a walk through of the house to write a list of broken things. The carpets had burn marks on it, the back porch light didn't work, one of the stove burners didn't work, the fridge was leaking, the smoke detectors didn't work, outlets didn't work, the ice maker didn't work, and the garage smelled like cat urine.
So Service (contractors) came out. They fixed the smoke detectors. Attempted to fix the light switch, didn't touch the carpet, said they didn't see the obvious leaking in the fridge, they fixed the stove, and they fixed the outlets. They also fixed the icemaker.
Well, apparently "fixed" is a relative term out here.
We called them back, because the fridge was definately leaking, all over the floor. Let's just stick to the fridge a sec. He came back, fiddled with it, and says "I promise it won't leak anymore" uh huh...So the third time he comes out, and said, "I guess this fridge is done, we'll bring a new one out". Well after a few days, I called service and asked where the fridge was. The lady had no record of them saying they would replace the fridge. WTHECK??? Instead, we'll send yet another tech out to come take a look. So he'll be here tomorrow.
Well, then there's the light on the deck. Apparently, by fixed, it means that the light is no longer working, and the fixture is hanging upside down. OY!!! We'll be calling on that again. By the way, they came out 4 times to fix that thing.
Then there's the stove/oven. Yup, they fixed the stove. But after several nights of cooking and nothing seemed to be cooked all the way through in the oven. I got an oven thermometer. Well, the oven is about 75-100 degrees off what it says it's at. No wonder my food isn't cooking all the way through. We'll be calling on that tomorrow.
Ah yes, the cable and internet. Let me tell you first, there is this thing on post called a monopoly. Only one internet provider, one phone provider, etc. Lucky us.
We had them come out to set everything up. We have a desk top comp and a laptop. One is wirless, one isn't. We have a wired/wireless modem. Provided by the company. Well they came out to set everything up, but the internet only worked for about an hour before we kept getting bumped off. So we called in. After being on hold for about 30 min., we finally got someone. They said they'd send a tech out. YAY! The tech comes out, pushes a couple buttons. Internet works...for about 45 min. COME ON PEOPLE!!! I told the guys, it's got to be the modem. Just replace the modem. When the thing plugs in, the "power" button should light up. It didn't for a minute or so after. They said, nope, we did this this and this. Your internet works. OK, no biggie. Thanks. I am not kidding you, about an hour later, it no longer worked. Now, those guys came out 4 times. Each time we called we were on hold for 30 min. then it would be 3-4 days before someone could come out. Then they would be out here for a couple hours...each time. The end result, they replaced the modem...and the internet has been working just fine for several days now. GRRRRRRRRRRR, I told them that's all they needed to do.
Well, then the cable. Oh yeah, internet and cable are the the same company....WOOHOO!!! We had it set up. Then it would work for awhile, then not. We were supposed to get the DVR (records live TV), instead, they gave us a stupid HD box. In addition, it only had us getting 20 channels, when we had ordered a lot more than that. So after being on hold, they said that we could either wait a couple weeks for someone to come out to replace the box, or we could take it in ourselves at any time. Wonderful. We took it in. We got back, turned it on, and they didn't give us all the channels we already paid for. After another 30 min. hold, they finally fixed it. Oh yeah, and a tech was still supposed to come out, but he was a no show, at least we got a $20 credit to our account for that.
Well, now the cable and internet are good to go... for now.
Then the movers came to drop off our stuff. They had broken several sentimental figurines. It looks like they drop kicked our kitchen island down a flight of stairs. They literally broke the legs off the thing. What's worse, they had left crystal glasses inside the cabinet portion of it, unpacked. Those weren't broken. Yet the "packed" figurines I have were. Go figure. They ripped the bottom of a king size mattress we have, and broke the fronts off of 3 different dressers. They lost a bike seat that was attatched to a bike...how does that happen??? They ripped the backs of our couches too. I can't believe how much stuff was broken and ripped. So we're still waiting on the claim adjuster to come look at everything.
Let me add to the mix, I have fibromyalgia and a messed up back. All aquired from a serious injury in the Army. Stress and humidity levels make mine worse. Uh...lets see. Not stressed, yeah right. Washington DC...yeah, definately humid.
So then I tried to get a medical appt. Because the fibro has gotten so bad that I can't stay in one position for long, because my legs and arms start tingling and get very sore. Well, I can't make an appt. because even though we are in the military, and use tricare/triwest, we are only registered in the west region, not the north. It's all the same exact insurance. And it's on a military post. I shouldn't even have to register to be seen on post. But according to them, we have to wait up to 10 business days before I can make an appt. Because it takes that long just to push "enter" on the computer.
So, I think I am done ranting now. If you have read this far, thank you! I know things could always be worse. In fact, I feel bad complaining about this stuff. I just needed to let it all out.

So today Heather (theholleranfamily) and I with all of our kids met up today at a local park. She's a friend of mine I met off www.iVillage.com She has twins that are just 6 days younger than mine. We had a great time. Although, I think the squirrel had a better time. Word of advice, never take pumpkin chocolate chip cookies to a park where squirrels live!!!That little bugger took off with a huge bag of them and left them up in the tree so we couldn't get them...Punk!

"Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong"
Murphy's law is kicking our trash. We are officially in a funk. I posted in the rants of how bad things have been going. But now this isn't a rant. I am two steps away from locking myself in a padded room...
The plan... I was going to take the kids out to see our horse at a ranch we board her at. It was a very nice day, and we hadn't been to see the horse "Bonita" for a week due to weather. I was going to get some great pics of the kids sitting in the saddle enjoying being with her. What ACTUALLY happened... That is a horse panel. Supposed to hold horses IN a contained area. My horse didn't want to be in that area. She wanted to be near the hay on the other side of it. So like a typical "toddler" which she is still considered to be. She threw a FIT!
TMI TMI TMI if you get sick at the thought of blood. I won't show pics of the actual wound. It is bandaged.
I pulled up, no one else was at the ranch. I saw Bonita on the far end of the barn. As I got closer I could see that her leg was red. The whole leg. I didn't even notice the panel. I got on the phone with the emergency vet and the lady that owns the barn. While I waited I got a closer look at the leg. I shoul have taken a picture, but I think even TOS violations would kick it off for being too gross. There was a 6-7 inch flab of skin hanging off of her, just dangling there. She was bleeding really bad. The ranch owner got out and helped me calm Bonita down, and calmed me down. The vet came out. Took one look and decided we needed to sedate her. She was messed up bad. She basically tore off all the skin down to the muscle. About 7 inches long and 1.5 inches across. She was still bleeding too. After sedating her she gave a tetanus shot. Then she had to cut the skin off.
It was still bleeding nearly 2 hours later. So she had to "explore" the site to make sure there were no major arteries involved. Thankfully there wasn't. She did have pockets under where the skin was ripped off that were pretty deep.
So now she has to have 2 forms of antibiotics, Butte (pain reliever/swelling reducer), bandaged changed daily, and on stall rest for 2 weeks. Here are pics of her after the bandage:
She looks kind of silly because she was still somewhat sedated. So what was supposed to have been a peaceful couple of hours, turned into having the vet come out and care for my horse.
Then they showed me the panel. I couldn't believe it. The panel was older, but sheesh! The vet said Bonita is very lucky that she didn't rip her tendons and break any bones. I very well could have been faced with thousands of dollars in surgery, or having to put my horse down.
Add that to all the other crap we have been dealing with...I don't know how much more stress I can take!!!!

Apr. through June 2008 review...

OK everyone, sorry it has been a while for posts. Things have been going very well. The kid are doing great. They definately keep me on my toes! They both say several words, can climb mountains (ok, well it seems like they can), and follow several commands. They play and fight with each other a lot more now.
Clint is coming back Aug. 8th, and we will be moving to Washington D.C. on the 1oth of Aug. We have a place to board my hourse, now we just have to find a place for us, otherwise we will be living in the stall with Bonita.

Ky was admitted to the hospital. We are home now but here is what happened...
She had been throwing up and having horrible diarrhea. She was at the doc on Thur. getting IV fluids. But after a couple days, she was getting more sick. Saturday night, she started throwing up dark red blood. Bright red blood would not have been as much of a concern because it would just mean her throat and esophagus were irritated. Dark red blood means that somewhere her stomach is bleeding, or the valve going into her stomach was bleeding. I won't use all the medical terms they used on me...luckily I have a medical background, otherwise I would have been clueless.
So around 11 on Saturday night, I called her on call ped and he said to get her to the ER right away. After being in the ER for 4 hours they had her started on more IV fluids and different medications to help ease the nausea and coat her stomach. Then they admitted her to the RTU (rapid treatment unit). Where she was put on more medication and given D5W (dextrose...sugar solution). This helped flush her system, while giving her some necessary nutrients. She didn't sleep at all during the night. She didn't finally get to sleep until about 5:30 am Sunday morning. But she kept getting awakened when they would come take her vitals.
Around noon they said to try giving her oral fluids (she was put on bowel rest, where no fluids or food were allowed orally). So after a couple hours with no throwing up, they said to give her some crackers, still no throwing up. Around 5:30 she had a normal BM (bowel movement). Well, normal texture, the color was like chalk. We then gave her more food, and she still had no issues. They discharged her at 6 pm.
She was exhausted. Given the sugar IV though, she was loopy. She would laugh weird, and just seemed drunk. So that's why she seems "normal" in the picture I posted below. You can see that she was still pretty pale. She was doing a little better at the time I took the pics.
Today she is doing A LOT better. She has been eating a little more, hasn't thrown up and hasn't had the diarrhea she had been having. The doc said that at some point today she could get bad again, but unless she just isn't drinking, then she should be ok now. So far so good. Thank you everyone for your prayers!!!

Well, the lab results came back and Kayley had Salmonella poisoning as well as campylobacter. I was in CA. at the time she was exposed, and so we can't really pin down where she got it from. Maybe when we had gone to a public pool and someone had pooped in the pool. Either way, she is doing great. She is happy and healthy and back to her old self again.

Jan. to March 2008 review from other blog site...

Hey all. Not much going on right now. Clint comes home on Fri. for 2 weeks. When he gets here, we will be going on vacation. We will be staying at a ski resort for 2 nights without kids :) Our anniversary is while Clint is home, so we are going all out. We will be snowmobiling, tubing, a roller coaster in the snow, and a 2 hour horse drawn dinner sleigh ride. We are so excited!

Clint got home for his 2 weeks leave from deployment on Valentines Day, which was a surprise because he wasn't supposed to be home until the 15th. We were very excited about him being home sooner :) Over that weekend we spent some much need time alone as a family. We went to my Dad's on Sunday and Monday, where we had family come over to see Clint. We had a great time. I have 12 siblings. The ones that were there were my triplet sisters, and 4 of my brothers. Then cousins, etc. It was a lot of people, and a lot of fun.
Our anniversary was on the 20th, but we didn't do anything to celebrate, because we would be celebrating the following weekend. We did however spend 5 hours at the mall. We are having our pics professionally done on Tues. so we had to get some outfits put together. The kids didn't get too bored. They were entertained by all the people and things to see.
The 21st we went to the Ped. to get the kids weighed. Last time we were there, the doc was concerned that the babies weren't gaining any weight. Well, they are doing great now. Kayley is 20.08 lbs and 29.92 inches. Kaiden is 20.22 lbs and 29.53 inches. For the 1st time Kaiden weighs more than Kayley. Awhile back he weighed more, but that was because she was very sick. So that doesn't really count. The Ped said the kiddos are doing great now, and to keep feeding them the way we are.
That night we stayed at my Parent's house. Some of my siblings watched the kiddos while Clint and I took my brother Alex (the one that lives with me) and his girlfriend out to dinner. We went to the Cheesecake Factory. I had never been before. I hate cheesecake, but I found out they don't just serve cheesecake...lol. The retaurant is amazing, and the food is awsome!
Friday, the 22nd, we dropped the kiddos off, and we started our weekend trip away from the kiddos.
We started off by going to see the movie "Jumper", the movie was really good, although we could have seen a flop and thought it was good, neither one of us have been to a movie in a long time. From there we headed up to Park City, UT. We checked into the condo, and we were very disgusted by the room. It was a disaster. The drywall was falling apart, the beds were stiff, the place smelled of dirty feet and mildew. We decided to make the best of things and left to go walk down historic Main Street. There were lot's of cute shops. We strolled up and down with hot Cocoa and chocolates. It started snowing really bad so we decided to head back to the condo. Oy, our van sucks in the snow! We were were slipping and sliding all over. We even slid onto a one way street, and we were headed the wrong way. We were laughing in a scared laugh kind of way. We managed to get back to the condo and went to see if we could switch rooms. They said they had no availability for that night, but could switch us the next night. I explained that the room they gave us looks nothing like the one on the web, and they claimed they didn't know what the one on the web looked like. Grrr. So we decided to head next door to the Marriott.
We asked for availability, and they said they didn't have anything available in the "lower" pricerange. I explained how Clint was home from a deployment, and asked if there was anything they could do. The lady at the front desk went and talked to her manager and explained what was going on, and they came back and said they can't go down anymore on the price, but for $266 we could stay in a corner suite. We jumped on it. Especially since the going rate on that room is $999 a night! The room was amazing. I only got pics of the bed area, forgot to get them of the Living room, and spa bathtub. We had huge windows. The bed was sooooo soft, and down feather blankets and pillows. It was beautiful! Unfortunately, they only had it available the one night though.
Saturday we woke up and headed to our snowmobile tour. When we got there, the guy told us that we couldn't do our 1 hour tour because they didn't have enough tourguides, but we could do the 2 hour and he'd take 10% off the 2 hour tour. They had 2 huge groups doing the 2 hour, so we went with them. We had a BLAST!!!!!! Neither one of us had ever been snowmobiling. I guarentee this won't be the last. They took us up into the mountain, and we stopped at a cabin where we had cider and hot cocoa. Then headed out again. It was an amaing adventure! We hit a couple jumps, and on one of them we got a good 4 foot of air under us. We couldn't stop laughing all the way back to the lodge.
From there we went on an Alpine Coaster. Which was so much fun. The thing goes all the way to the top of the lift and you can control the speed of your cart all the way down.
From there we went Ice skating. It was so cute watching Clint fall off balance. We skated for about an hour. Then went to the photo place and asked if we could get pics taken for later. They said they closed at 5. Our event was at 5:30. I pulled out the deployment card, and a photographer was willing to stay behind and take pics for us.
We had a dinner sleigh ride reserved. The horses came down, and we took a wonderfull sleigh ride up to a cabin where they served us dinner cowboy style. The whole thing was fantastic. The food was great, and the service was wonderful. We enjoyed dinner next to a fireplace with a musician singing and playing his guitar and harmonica. He played a huge variety of music other than country. We were very impressed! From there we took the sleigh back down and headed back to the old condo. They had changed our rooms, and the room looked good. But it was awful. We could hear conversations in the rooms next to us, we could hear people walking on the next floor above us. The bed was harder than a rock. We got up earlier than normal, and decided to head back down the mountain and go home.
Yesterday we went to Dad's and hung out with family and watched some TV shows that Clint missed while being away.
We don't have anything exciting planned for today. Tues. we get pics taken, nothing planned the rest of the week though.

So if you all remember my good friend TJ, she is the one that had twins 4 days before I did. We went to CO. to spend time with them.
We arrived at TJ's on the 18th and stayed until the 28th. Things were hectic but very fun at the same time. Let's just say TJ and I have a new found respect for Jon and Kate (the ones that are on TLC with twins and then sextuplets). We finally got them all on a schedule after about a week :) Yes...all 4 babies were STTN!!!!
We took the kiddos shopping, and figured we should put them all in one cart, so we could fill the other cart with groceries and supplies.

Oct. through Dec. 2007 from prior blog site...

Kaiden and Kayley: Starting to stand unassisted. Walks along furniture. Has developed the pincer grasp (can pick up tiny things like food). Walks with support. Crawls up stairs as well as all over the house. Says "dada" and "baba". They are also able to eat table foods now, but just no citrus, peanut butter, or honey.
Kaiden: 17lbs 3oz. and 27.5 inches in the 5th % for weight, and 20th% for height. His head is in the 19th % (very tiny head) He has 2 bottom teeth and 1 top tooth.
Kayley: 17lbs 7oz. and 27.6 inches in the 25th % for weight, 47th % for height. Her head is int the 85% (big head!) She has 2 bottom teeth, and 4 top teeth.
The kiddos are now caught up in height and weight as each other, even though Kayley still looks bigger. Kaiden has grown almost an entire foot since he was born. Kayley has grown about 8 inches. She has gained about 12 lbs since birth. Kaiden has gaind about 14 lbs.

So we had Kayley's surgery today. We got there about 10:15 for check in, then had to wait in pre-op for 2 hours. The surgery started at 12:20. They took her to the back and intubated her (breathing tube). The surgery took about an hour. She woke up pretty quickly after the surgery, long enough for a bottle of glucose water. Then they transfered her over from PACU to the recovery area. She took about 2 hours to wake up, but I just rocked her until then. At first she was grumpy, but then within just a couple minutes she became the silliest little goofball. She was all smiles and laughs. Of course the drugs had their influence. I swear the 2 hours of deep sleep must have given her a muscle boost because it was all I could do to get her into her car seat! She was strong! So after we finally got home at about 5pm she was doing fine. Right now she is starting to get fussy, the drugs are probably wearing off. The doc did about 12 internal stitches and "glued" the outer layer of skin together. Because of the angle and shape of the cut, she will have a little bump of tissue on the ends of the cut. When she is a couple years old, if she hasn't outgrown the little bits of tissue, they will just remove it. The doc is pretty sure she will outgrow it though. The nevus (the mark on her leg) was removed and sent to pathology, we should hear back in about 4 days whether or not it was melanoma. I am just glad the thing is gone. To have a "ticking timebomb" on my daughters leg was not what I wanted. Now it is gone, and we just have to keep an eye on her so that any other marks don't seem to grow at a rapid pace. Thank you so much for everyones prayers and support!!!

Our kiddos are in a Gym class where they have all kinds of free play, as well as structured activities (ok, ok, as structured as you can get with 10 month olds). Anyway, they have been in the class for about a month now, and they love it..er uh..well they love it, but they moved the time of the class to the same time the kids are supposed to take naps. So Kaiden gets really upset and doesn't want to do the activities. He loves the ball pit and the swings the best. Kayley enjoys all of it.

Bonita, my horse. This is my other baby! Ok so she is a little hairy She has been in great hands with my good friends Joe, Cathi, and Diane out in CO. Since I have my hands full out here, I didn't think it would be fair to bring Bonita out here. I wouldn't have had much time to ride. Plus, she is still young and is getting great training and playtime in with my friends. They ride her for me frequently, so that when the year is up, she will be ready for me to get on her. I "had" her before I had the kiddos. When I was on bedrest, we would park our camper right outside her stall so that I could be next to her.

Kayley has been sick for a couple days. So I took her to the doctor today. It started off as just a little cough but then she got to the point that she was throwing up every meal, and was sleeping all day. She wouldn't even wake up when Kaiden would poke her. I was going to take her to urgent care last night, but decided to wait until this morning. Well, the doc said that Kayley has bronchiolitis that turned into asthma, so now I have to give her breathing treatments every 4 hours. She was so tired yesterday cause she was having to use her stomach muscles to breath instead of just relying on the diaphragm. On top of that her throat looks awful, and she is snotting up something awful too. Her doc also said that if she won't keep any liquids down that tomorrow they will draw more labs and give IV therapy for a couple hours. The vomitting is caused by her coughing/ stomach breathing/ and sore throat. The ped said that this could all be RSV related or flu virus. Even though they just had their flu vaccine a month ago. The problem now is that since it looks like asthma, she is now more likely to get more sick than the average child. This could have all been the result of them being preemies. She may grow out of it, or she could have it the rest of her life. It may just come to the surface when she is sick. All Kaiden has is a runny nose. That could just be because of genetic factors. Hopefully she will get better quickly. I have been sick as well, which makes for a very chaotic household.

Oh my goodness, my little man can walk now! He isn't that great, but he can take 3 steps without falling. He has to get in his starting position 1st. Which is standing and leaning his booty against something, and then he puts his arms up and can take 3 steps I will try to get pictures as soon as I can. He usually falls by the time I can get the image though. It is way cute. He is so proud of himself. After the 3rd step he gets so excited that he forgets to step again, and he just falls. Wow, my little infant is not so much an infant anymore!

Earlier in the blog I had talked about my good friend TJ and her twins. A refresher:
TJ and I met online, found out we lived just a couple miles from each other, that we were preggo with twins together, we were on hospital bedrest together, our babies were born 4 days apart, the babies all spent 3 weeks in the NICU together, they all came home on oxygen together, and both of our husbands deployed together. That's just the tip of the iceburg of the amount of things we have in common.
HAHA, do you think we have a lot in common?
Anyway, so she came out here for a couple days so that we could see each other (she is still living in CO).

WOW! I have had such a great time on vacation. Jody flew up to UT. and then we all drove down to AZ. to visit with Jody's parents and his sisters Nancy and Sandy. We had such a fun time and I am sad to have to go back to just me and the kiddos again.
Anyway, we stayed at a really neat inn down in Camp Verde, and the scenary was so nice. The kids had a lot of fun too. They were just eating up all of the attention. So now I have to unspoil them again. It was well worth it. We then headed out to CA. and got to see more family and friends. The kids also got to ride a horse for the first time too. Jody and I put the kiddos up on his horse Rio. Ok, so they didn't actually ride, but they had fun sitting on Rio. They were smiling from ear to ear. Here are some of the pics. The ranch is where Jody lives. It looks amazing!

This year has gone by so fast in some ways, but very slow in others. The kids are developing quickly now. Kaiden can walk about 6 steps and Kayley is able to take 2 steps. They both have 8 teeth. They are LOVING solid foods. They are able to have just about anything now, and they can't seem to get enough.
They are back to a regular schedule from our last vacation. LOL, now we will be going to Louisiana and they will be even more messed up on their schedules! They are a lot of fun, and Kaiden...he definately has the Revere genes!!! He is one tempermental little boy. If he wants something, he will scream...for an hour over the same thing! If you don't do what he wants, he arches his back, falls on the floor, and freaks out. Kayley is so opposite of him! She really could care less. She will get mad when her limits get pushed, but overall, she is really one of those "go with the flow" kind of people. Just like her Dad. I can tell that I am going to have to deal with another me as Kaiden gets older. I am in SO much trouble!!!
Clint is doing well. Bored out of his mind, but hanging in there. They have him doing so much PT (physical training) that he is always dealing with sore muscles. For Thanksgiving he was able to go to the house of one of the higher up people, and they had a dinner for some of the soldiers. He said he had a good time, and they gave the soldiers tons of movies to watch. He is going to come home for 2 weeks at the end of Feb., which is great because that is our anniversary. Perfect timing for the kids cause they will be walking and a lot of fun to play with.
I am doing well. Taking it day bay day...like I have a choice. The vacation was great, but now we are back into a routine again. We will be leaving the 21st and coming home th 3rd of Jan. We will be celebrating the babies' birthday while in LA. then when we come back we will have a small get together for them in which case my Dad will be making a cake for each of them. He makes the best cakes! He got the recipe from my stepmother who passed away a few years ago (Jamela). She was such a great cook, and left behind the legacy of the "Strawberry Dream Cake".
Other then that, not much to report. The kids had the 2nd part of their flu shots yesterday, and Kaiden didn't even cry, it didn't phase him at all. Kayley only cried for a minute or so, but was fine. I don't have weights or anything on them. They are still very tiny for their age group. The way they are eating now, it won't take long to catch up.

So the last week or so Kayley had a fever that was around 102 degrees. I kept her on motrin to keep the fever down. A couple nights ago, she started bleeding out of her urethra. I took her to he ER and they said it could be some kind of viral issue. She didn't have a rash then. Well she started getting it yesterday, and now it is all over her body. It is roseola, so the worst is over. But she looks so sad. She is cutting a molar right now too. we are on vacation in LA. with family and friends right now. The kiddos birthday party is today, and she has a rash all over her face. I can't believe it. I never thought my babies would get the measles. Uggg. Anyway, I don't have my camera cords to post pics, but I will be home on the 3rd, and can post them then. Anyway, just thought I'd share.
Kaiden doesn't have the measles, and hopefully he won't get it. This last week has been a nightmare. Colic has nothing on the measles. So much for a good vacation :(

Well, we had a good time in LA. The kids met my goal last year of meeting all of their great grandparents in 2007. I don't have many pics yet. Still working on that. First we went to Papa and Ruths, and had Christmas there. The kids had a great time, they were opening gifts and playing in the wrapping paper. Ruth made a fantastic dinner, and we were chowing down. The kids favorite dishes were the sweet potatos and pumpkin pie. What can I say, they take after me :) We had a very relaxing time. Kaiden mastered walking while we were there, and is really good at it now.
Then we went to Aunt Sherri's and that's when Kayley got really sick. Turns out it wasn't the measles. I got confused on the info. Roseola is not the measles, it used to be grouped in the measle category. She was very sick though. She is better now, but that was a rough week!!! They celebrated their 1st birthday out there. Aunt Sherri threw them a birthday party. Kayley screamed the whole time, and Kaiden just kind of stared. It was not the birthday I had imagined at all.
We came home, and had a "redo" of their birthday at my dads. HAHA!!! That wasn't any better. My camera sucks, and I didn't get any good pictures at all. I am hoping I can get some from my cousins that took the kids pictures while we were there. We'll see. Let's just say thet the song that says "It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to" definately applied!
The kiddos are doing well now. Kaiden is copying just about any sound I make, Kayley just watches. No, Kayley is not walking yet :( She'll get there, but she can't take more than 3 steps by herself. They have been off of bottles for 3 weeks now. They are on soft tip sippy cups. I am hoping to switch them to hard tipped within the next couple weeks.
The kids have their 12 month check up on Friday. They are due for more shots :( I'll update on percentiles then. Kaiden got his 1st molar on Friday, and his 2nd one on Monday. Kayley hasn't had one pop through yet. Kaiden has 10 teeth now, and Kayley has 8.
Next week I am going to have my 1st overnighter away from the kids since Clint left. I am going with my family up to a condo, and we are going to go skiing. Well, they are anyway, we'll see if I can. It depends on my hips. Anyway, my friends are going to take the kiddos overnight :) I am definately looking forward to that. I got a break from them twice when we were in LA. My Papa and Ruth watched them for several hours, while I got to go in a boat up and down the river, and then again when we got to go into town to look at some small shops and had lunch. It was nice to be "free" for a little while. It makes coming home to the kids that much more enjoyable. I am happy to see them when I come in the door and they smile and hold their arms up for me to hold them.
Other than that, not much else going on. We are waiting to see if Clint gets promoted this year. We should find out in about a month and a half. We should also find out where we will get stationed next. KY. didn't fall through (thank goodness!), so we are looking at different slots that are opening up. We have a couple more months to see what opens up, then we'll have to sign up for one, otherwise, we could get stuck with whatever the Army wants to give us. I like the idea of us having at least some control over where we go. They usually have about 5-6 slots open at any given time. So far, we haven't seen anything we like.

July through Sept. 2007

Ok, so we live in military housing, but we live in the newer homes. Well, for some reason, the newer homes have bad mouse problems, whereas the older ones don’t. Well, we have lived here for a year, and have not had one rodent problem. At least not until 5 days ago.
We have 2 cats, both are declawed in the front, but hunt all the bugs and eat them, so we thought they would be good mouse hunters. We didn’t even know we had a mouse until my cat came out from around the corner with it in her mouth. We thought “YES! Go Ginger” What does the cat do??? She drops it and lets it get away. Apparently it is a toy. So we watch our cats the next day, they kept eyeing different areas of the house where this little stinker kept running. I figured we needed to pull mouse detail and find and clean where this mouse has been. HOLY CRAP!!! This little guy has been all over. Tore open bags of rice, baby cereal, and yes, even hot chocolate packets. Luckily I hadn’t been feeding the baby cereal to my kiddos. Anyway, so then we saw the cats looking under the oven in the broiler. Sure enough, mouse droppings. We then saw them eyeing down the laundry closet. Yup, droppings. So we decided to pull out the washer and dryer. Well sure enough there was a little mouse hiding in the corner. SO we called our cat over thinking she would catch it. NOPE! The mouse jumped at her, and she bolted, the other way. She was more afraid of that mouse than he was of my cat! So, the mouse bolts into the hot water heater closet. There is no way in the world we could even begin to try to scare it out. Sure enough there are days worth of droppings back there. Plus a nice size whole in the wall where the stupid gov’t. contractors didn’t seal it. So now we know where the mouse is coming from. The problem is that there is no way to get back behind the heater to close it off. So we sealed the door instead.
I am against killing an animal if there is a possibility of catching and releasing it. So we got some humane live mouse traps, where it has a ramp they can go in, but can’t get out. We got three of them. So last night we put the traps out, one in the broiler, laundry, and pantry. This morning we had caught the mouse!!! I was so happy that we didn’t have to kill him. I took the trap drove about a mile from here, and opened it for the little guy to get out.
That darn mouse ran straight for the van and ran up the tire, and is now somewhere under the hood. So now, the stupid, or smart (depending on how you look at it) mouse hitched a ride back to our house. So either I have brought him back into the house, therefore the whole catch and release effort was pointless; or I have killed the mouse because of him hiding in the engine, therefore completely destroying my whole effort of not wanting to kill an animal if it can be released. Uggghh. I guess we’ll see what that mouse decides to do tonight. So far, the mouse is winning.

Today the kiddos turned 6 months old. We went to their well baby exam. Here are the current height and weight:
Kayley: 14lbs 15 oz. and 26 inches
Kaiden: 14 lbs 6 oz. 25.5 inches
The doc said thatthey have both hit a growth spurt. They are right on target in every area of development.
A couple of disturbing things were mentioned.
Since Kaiden's head is really shifting (he has a flat spot), and his soft spot is closing, which could be causing the shifting problems. The doc put in a referral in for the neurosurgeon. There could be some deformities that may get worse due to the way the skull plates are moving into. He will most likely have to wear a helmit to put pressure in the spots that will make his head go back to normal. Or worst case scenario, he may need surgery on his skull to shift the plates to their normal positions.
Kayley has a birthmark on her leg that is supposed to stay the same size, as she gets bigger, it's supposed to appear as though the birthmark is getting smaller. Unfortunately it has almost doubled in size. So now we have to take her to a specialist so that they can make sure that it isn't some type of skin cancer. That's worse case scenario. More than likely it isn't. Hopefully.
They had their shots today too, so they are so sleepy and have slept since their appt. at 11. It is now 5:30. Poor babies.

Kaiden has made several accomplishments the last couple days. He gets on all 4's and bounces back and forth. He is trying so hard to crawl.

Kayley sticks out her tongue at everyone now. It's cute now, but maybe not later :)

Well we just got back from Denver. It took 1.5 hours there, waiting for 2 hours for the doc cause he was way behind and the secretary had overbooked several patients. Anyway:
When the doc saw him he said his case is so mild that he wouldn't recommend any treatment, and that by 9 months it should correct itself. He said it won't be 100% though. As far as his soft spot, he said for some babies the soft spot is really small, but that the sutures are still there and aren't overlapping.
IN OTHER WORDS GREAT NEWS!

Well, we just had Kayley's dermatology appt. and the doc thinks that it is safest to have it removed. He said it isn't actually a birthmark, it just happened to be there at birth. He said instead of staying the same size like birthmarks do, this one will keep growing as she grows. It could get as big as a credit card. He also said these things are like a ticking timb bomb, you never know if and when they will become something to really be worried about. Also, due to scarring it is better to remove it at a younger age when the thing is smaller. He said he couldn't absulutely rule out that it could be a type of cancer, especially since it has an abnormal shape and is already bigger than the size of an eraser. So when we get to UT. we will have to find a surgeon so that he can keep a close eye on it to make sure it is removed if it starts to look really bad. Anyway, thanks for all of your prayers. Take care :)

Hey all! We are very busy with the move but got to spend several hours relaxing at a picnic for all the babies that graduated out of the NICU. The 2 twin boys with our kids are a friend of mine's. Her and I were pregnant together with twins, ended up in the hospital on bedrest together for 3 weeks, and our kids were in the NICU with ours for 3 weeks (her's were in a lot longer though). Anyway, these kiddos have been going through every developmental milestone together, and this is the first time we were able to get pictures of them. The baby playing with Kayley is her first "boyfriend" lol, but she isn't his first girlfriend ;)

Well, everything is packed and on it's way to a storage facility in UT. When we find a place, the military will move it in for us. We will be heading out midmorning today (Wed.) instead of the planned Thurs. We had to stay in the worst hotel, worse than the Bates Motel from Psycho. The sad part, is this "inn" as the Army calls it, is for out of town guests. We have been here since Mon. afternoon. We should be at our destination tonight, and hopefully in the next week, we will find a place to live. My Dad has offered up his home for us to stay in until we find a place. The kids are stressed out, they cry more and fight sleep more. They aren't happy about being cooped up in an unfamiliar place. Neither are we. That's all I have for now, I will update when we get more settled in.

Well, we found a home and it is very comfortable. The kids love it, they have a huge room that is just for baby toys and the babies. It is a 4 bed 3 bath, living room, family room, house. Very nice looking too. So we are now unpacking and getting settled in. We will be heading to NY next week to see Clint's friends and family. We will be gone a week and then Clint leaves the 29th.

WOW! Kaiden crawls...fast! He is all over the place and we are very fortunate that we found a place when we did. The camper bunk no longer contains him anymore. They are starting to mutter "da-da" and "mama" But it doesn't come close to sounding distinct. It sounds more like "ehdededede" and "ahmememema" and Kaiden does it more than Kayley. She however makes some very cute babble and cooing noises as she is learning to combine different vocal sounds together. Kayley isn't crawling, yet, but she is very close. Kaiden will crawl to a stair and stand up, but his legs are so far apart that he starts shaking, he then gets mad because he doesn't have the strength to bring his legs together while standing. Other than that, things are going well, and we are a lot less stressed since we have found a place. We don't have internet right now, and won't for several days, so I am using my Dad's internet for updates.

Well, have you ever tried to stop a mac truck...because that's what Kaiden has become. He learned to crawl not 2 weeks ago, could pull himself to a standing position a couple days after that, and now...he can climb stairs. We were so not ready for that. We figured a couple more weeks. Yeah right. He climbed 4 stairs in just a couple minutes. The 1st 2 we didn't even realize it. We had gone to the kitchen to make some bottles, and we looked down to see what they were up to and by that point he had already climbed 3 and did the 4th one while we were watching. This is crazy, this boy is going to be walking before 10 months old, and I am not looking forward to that just yet.

LOL, the first time I went to NY I was 23, my kids get to go at 7 months :) We had a great time. Clint's brother Bob hosted us while we "made the rounds" with all the family and friends. The kiddos grandparents from NC drove all the way up too. The flights out there weren't too bad. We had 3 of them! The 1st one, the kiddos were a little fussy, but the next 2 they slept the rest of the way there. The first day, all the boys went to a place called Lasertron. They got to play war with each other. Apparently the little kids were taking out the "big kids" (though they would never admit it). The next day we just hung out and the guys played X-box games. Sunday Bob's family hosted a farewell for Clint and a lot of his friends that he grew up with were there as well as a ton of family! Grandparents and other family took the kiddos so we could visit. I still think that was mine and Clint's chance to get away for a few days and ditch the kids ;) The kids also got to meet there Great Grandma Ivy. She was so happy to see them, and the kids were having a great time with her. The kids also went swimming for the 1st time. Bob has a very nice salt water heated pool, so it was really easy on their skin. They had a blast!
The flight home was awful. The delays, not the kids. They were really good considering we had 2 hours worth of delays. We didn't even get home until 2 am!

Wow, so things have been crazy lately. Very busy. Clint left 2 weeks ago for Kuwait. He calls every couple days. Everything is fine on his end. He is still waiting for his own room. While he is still settling in, and doing his briefings, he is on a waiting list to get a room. So our phone calls haven't exactly been private, since he has to use the one in the hall.
The kids are doing well. Kayley is finally crawling on all 4's and not doing the army crawl. They are on solids now, they couldn't for awhile because they had problems digesting it. The doc gave them some medicine to get things moving along, and now they aren't having problems. Well, except that even after stopping the medicine Kaiden is still pooping around 5-7 times a day!!!!!! Ugggh. They are bored with the stage one foods that are like liquid, so now they are getting stage 2 with more texture. They love it. They are eating finger foods now too. Kayley got her 3rd and 4th tooth a couple days ago. It the top middle front teeth. Kaiden is about to get one of those. They are best buddies, lol and some sibling rivalry. They laugh and play with each other, mimic each other...which is not so fun when they mimic crying! They play together, and steal each others toys, which results in temper tantrums. Kayley hit a growth spurt and is quite a bit bigger than Kaiden now.
We have been referred to a surgeon for Kayley's mark on her leg. So we'll see what the plan is from there. The appt. isn't until the 28th. They are crawling and climbing over everything. Kayley can stand unsupported for a few seconds now. Kaiden is walking along furniture and transfers from couch to table without sitting down to do so. I give him maybe a month before he is walking!

So we went to Kayley's surgical appointment today. The doctor is worried about the mark on her leg. She fears it is melanoma, and wants to remove it immediately. Kayley is set for surgery on Monday Oct. 8th where she will undergo general anesthesia. The Doc doesn't want to biopsy it, she wants to get it off of her as soon as possible, which would be the 8th. The Doc also said that even if the thing isn't Melanoma now, that they almost always turn into it. So please say lots of prayers for Kayley and her surgery.