Oh me Oh my

"1, 2, 3, 4 I declare a thumb war!"

LOL Doesn't this photo look like they are playing that game?

This a photo of Blake with his gang banger sister Mady!

Below is the slide show of our photos from before the trip to Phoenix when we had a play date with Allison and Anderson.




It's official. The babies have both thoroughly found each other! Most of the time they are much more gentle with each other then with anyone or anything else. The rest of us are subject to excruciating full fist pinches, kicks and head butts!

This last 10 days while we were in Phoenix the babies have gained a ton of new skills. They are having times of sitting with little to no support. They are loving their runny food. We have almost eliminated the cereal in their formula and are happily mixing it with their veggies now. Blake is a great eater. Madison has her tongue in the way quite a lot despite being the better eater to begin with. Both of them definitely know what food is and are eagerly waiting for the day they can have some of ours. We have already received complaints from them when we deny them what we are eating. The babies love to play with each other and also are enjoying taking their naps together. Blake is fantastic at reaching successfully for items with one or both hands. Both of them know how to move their bears from one hand to the other, but that hasn't quite translated to everything else. Blake has also found his feet and his wing ding once during a diaper change. Madison finally started rolling onto her side more often. She still gets just as much enjoyment out of watching others have a good time as she does participating herself.

They both appear to have grown an inch while we were gone as we had to raise the exersaucer up to the tallest height. What?!!?!?! They are only going to turn 6 months later this week! lol. I bet we are in for quite a surprise at their 6 month appointment in a couple of weeks.

Our trip was very nice. We started out with a great visit with most of our family at my cousin Ty's house after a brief stop at Aunt Madelynn's house. Most of the family from Aunt Mady's came with us to Ty's for some pizza and chatting! We stayed at a nice Marriott (thanks Grandma!!!!) with my mom by their houses since it is an hours drive away from my mom's. The next day we all caravaned up to Sedona Arizona just like the old days! After getting some fried chicken we all headed over to Slide Rock for a picnic. The kids were the only ones brave enough to go down the slide because of the cold water. Slide rock is a natural slide carved out of the rock by Oak Creek. Guy got pretty wet rescuing all the kids before the slide ran into a deep pool. I have quite a few photos I'll share in the next few days hopefully with some captions.

After returning from Sedona we picked up the truck we borrowed from my Aunt Karen and headed to Andy, Melissa and Madelyn's house for the night. We didn't get to visit much that night as it was pretty late. The next day we hung out with Melissa and Madelyn. Guy did his 'fix/do stuff around the house' that we all love so much about him. We got our first taste of Native New Yorker honey hot wings that Monday night. Tuesday morning we headed out after a lovely relaxing morning with a load of laundry done to Mando, Aleesha, Ethan and Jaxson's house. Aleesha's parents were also visiting from NC. All the boys had just come home from an overnight camping trip. We all lounged about visiting that day and night. Brother Bake made what I call Indian Fry bread and what they call Scones for supper. Yum yum...

Wednesday Guy and I ate at Native New Yorker for our second round of tasty wings before heading over to my cousin Steve's house. There we met my mom and grandma to visit with Aunt Jean, Steve, Gretchen and their three girls Ashlynn, Katie and Jaquiline. While there we visited, played on the trampoline and had the babies get their feet wet in the pool. We all headed out to dinner at my mom's favorite restaurant, Texas Roadhouse, because she is a steak fiend. After dinner we took a few family photos of the Lairds. Unfortunately we took to long eating and missed most of the good light. Sheesh. Hopefully I can work some magic on them. The two guys helped a woman get into her car who was locked out before we left the neighborhood lake.

Thursday started out with the babies having upset tummies. We hung out most of the day before heading to Abuelo's for some Mexican fare. It was not as I remembered it at all. That night started my uh oh as noted below. Friday and Saturday we hung out at the house. Saturday I searched for a while to find a babysitter so we could go meet my mom for the evening, but did not find anyone on short notice. Melissa & Andy had volunteered, but her grandma passed away calling them away to Cali. Sunday we also hung around the house....

Monday we met up with Aunt Karen, Jennifer (Ty's girlfriend) and their boys for some lunch. After lunch we headed back to Ty's house where Aunt Madelynn met us. About 4:30 we headed over to my friend Christina's house to get a look see at her twins and visit for a while. She also bestowed upon us some lovely hand me downs for Madison!!! From there we packed up and headed home Tuesday morning. Since arriving back at home we have settled in and gotten down to the business of living life in Raleigh. The babies seem to be happy they are home.

The rest of my 'Oh me Oh my' pertains to two parts of our trip. The first is we got the stomach flu which manifested itself by the babies throwing up for about 12 hours. As soon as they started to feel better my tummy turned sour. I spent about 12 hours with peeeooop and projectile vomit followed by another 12 hours recovery. About the time I began to feel better Guy came down with it spending the better part of 36 hours on the toilet, but thankfully not throwing up. My mom followed him with her own toilet time. Oh, and about the time Guy got ill I developed pink eye! After $70 in an out of state and weekend medical diagnosis and prescription it is now almost gone. The second part is all about how we started to have second thoughts of moving to Phoenix to have those completely obliterated (forever, I think, this time) by my sister! This may sound very harsh, but after spending more money then 1/2 of what Guy brings home each month it was such a huge disappointment.