Doctors/Little Moments/Weigh In

My quest to lose 8 pounds in 10 days is almost complete.  I'll weigh in for the last time upon waking tomorrow morning.  As of this morning I lost 4.8 pounds which makes me very happy!

It was time for me to get a complete physical.  It's been a long time.  When I called to make my appointment you could have knocked me over with a feather that it would be two different appointments.   Ahh, the signs that tell you age is creeping up faster then you could ever imagine.  No more quick semi naked visits to the doctor for me.  Now its extra blood work, x-ray, EKG, Totally naked & much longer visits.  The good news is my blood work, x-ray & EKG all came back great!  My cholesterol is actually low even with all the chips & salsa I eat...  :-)  My visit yesterday started off before I even went.  Upon getting ready to leave I saw that my legs hadn't been shaved for way to long.  So into the shower I went. At the office the nurse talked to me for a while.  She is sweet if super smelly {heavy smoker}.   Then it was time to get undressed.  I like to keep my socks on.  It just feels better for some reason.  The doc came in and we chatted.  He went back out to get the nurse for the physical part of the exam which cracks me up.  As an infertility patient the male doctors never go get a female to come in for the exam.  Ha ha.  So all checked out well with me.  They also did an x-ray on my tail bone that has been hurting for the last six years.  If anything is wrong they will call me.  My other follow-up call today was to ask me to go in for a baseline mammogram.  Dang, I surely am getting old.

It really is the little moments in life that make life so worth every negative thing we go through.  For the rest of my days, I'll remember how sweet it is to see my kids get up into our bed just so they can hang out in daddy and mommy's space.  They love us.


Madison is clearly enjoying pulling the blanket up while Blake is slyly checking her out.


Those bangs.  I'm sooo happy they are almost grown out.


They have switched spots.


He gets more expression-able instead of less as he gets older.  I see the 'Class Clown' label in his future.


There is his daddy's smile.


Even though she acts like Blake drives her crazy, she is always looking to him for approval or following him around the house.


I so don't remember what he was laughing at, but love him!  Maddy is in her own little world.


Still happily doing his thing.  Still in her own little world.


He took off to be cuddly {maybe sit on her face} with Madison.


He is still so happy & she definitely does Not want him to be touching her.


Still no touch.


A minute later after a hug from me.


Now it's her time to play around.  He still is doing his happy thing.


Wouldn't it be nice if she actually left her barrettes, bows & rubber bands in her hair.


A little gangsta


I love her lips & deep blue eyes.


Fun times.


A very unedited picture of me with Madison.  See the India dot & other red mark are back?  The dot between my eyes & red mark on the side of my nose.  They are blood vessels at the surface.  There is also a pretty good shot of my forehead showing where I'm losing my skin pigmentation.  When I get tan the white spots are really noticeable.  Who cares!  I love that I have pictures with my kids.  Hopefully they will like them too.  As I tell most of my clients, kids remember you and do not care about any of our imperfections.  They love us no matter what.


We are off first thing in the morning for our plane ride to Miami & a fabulous cruise.  Woooo Hoooo!   I'll be back on when we get back with pictures & stories.

Oh, Blake and Madison were both accident free today and BOTH kids pooped in the potty!   Oh yeah... Right on!!  Our kids totally Rock!

More January photos & a cool Giveaway!

My friend, Tabitha, is giving away a $150 gift card to Skin Care Rx!  Go enter.  Even if I don't win, you might! Tabitha always has beautiful photography, an awesome Sunday Citer {quote} and definitely lives up to her blog title, Fresh Mommy.  She's one of the few blogs I make sure to read whenever I am doing my blog reading.  I feel like if we met in real life we'd be great friends, and consider her a friend already.  Boy could I use the skin care gift card.  Really, who couldn't?  Everyone needs to take great care of their skin since it's really hard to repair the damage once it's done.  My loss of pigmentation speaks for itself.  Thankfully, it really shows up clearly/obviously only when I'm tan which I try to avoid.

What's better then monster trucks on TV?










I'm not sure Blake thinks there is much better! The TV picture makes it look like a cartoon which it wasn't.  It was also the first of January when we took down the Christmas tree shortly thereafter.

It's a good thing Blake is so cute.  This morning he had me taking him to the potty every five minutes for an hour and a half.  No exaggeration.  He then proceeds to come up to me for the whatever time to saying, "Poop!"  Only this time he had already gone in his pants.  WHAT!!!!  Talk about frustration.  Mine, but probably his too.  They are doing so good overall.  I think it's the impending trip coupled with my lack of time to get any of my photography work done that made me so over the top frustrated.

After talking to Guy, who is working 12.5 hours today, he will take charge of the kids after work so I can get some work done.

Tomatoes are yummy!




These were my favorite pj's on Maddy.  Too bad she grew out of them already.


Approval for taking the last two, maybe?


They will eat tomatoes every day.



This cracked me up!  I looked into Madison's little catsup bowl for her baked fries to find the little girl with a swim suit on.  LOL  It's perfect.

Sing it: I'm leaving on a jet plane... don't know when I'll be back again....

The pictures do not go along with the text.  They are from our trip to Marbles Children's Museum in Raleigh a few weeks ago.  I've loaded a TON of new pictures up to make it a bit easier to blog on the fly.  Most of the time it's the pictures that take me the longest to get ready.


We just got our pictures back from our October photo shoot.  My photographer friend had nothing but computer problems the past few months.  I'm hoping to work on them in the next couple days so I can share them with my family & on here!  The kids were really tired and hungry by the time we got to our little family pictures, but there are a few gems.



The kids are so cute.  Last night they were playing in the living room.  Madison was sitting on top of the slide with Blake standing below at the bottom.  He got right up to the edge & climbed just on the bottom.  Madison went down.  They thought it was hilarious.   When they noticed us looking at them with parental love {amusement}, they decided they needed to give us a show.  They started giggling, hugging and rolling around on the floor.  At one point they were laying next to each other on their side/bellies with their faces almost nose to nose and each had an arm over the others back.  We loved it.



Guy is a genius!  He has spent some time online in the past few months trying to find me a cruise we can afford.  Well, last week he found us one, and we leave on Saturday!



I think it's the perfect remedy for our little families recent emotional trials.  Sure, we could use that for another fertility cycle, but it just might not work.  Remember, it took us almost five years and at least $20,000.00 to get the kids.  We both feel really good about the size of our family.   Sometimes, I feel a bit bummed about us not adding to the family.   One thing that's helped is to stop being a part of a twin message board online.  While it was fun to give advice it was making me a little crazy since almost all the posts were by the pregnant women.  I have a great network of friends with multiples the same age as mine & some who are a bit ahead.  There are also a few preggo friends I've made recently who I'm excited to get to know better.  Photographing the little ones is definitely no biggie.  When that work cap goes on my brain is really all about how to work the magic.  Besides, who doesn't love to hold a new baby?!?!



Life really is what we make it.  That doesn't mean we don't go through trials & experience sorrow.  For us there are so many other things to focus on at any time, we don't dwell on those things that will bring us down.  We've also prayed to know our family is good like it is.  Both of us have received peace & comfort from these prayers.



Do you think it's possible to lose 8 pounds in 10 days without decreasing your food intake?  This is how much notice I've had to bring us to cruise day.  I'm on day 4 with pretty much no results despite working out almost every day at least 3 times.   Every day has had one work out for sure with most having 3.  With the fertility cycle and the month of eating to excess the month after I've put on 8 pounds.  No fitting in a swim suit for me!



Luckily, even if my efforts do not pay off Lands End had a spectacular sale on their overstocked slimming swim suits just for me.  The new suit should arrive by Thursday.  I've wanted one ever since hearing about them.  My friend, Allison, has the most darling full coverage swim suit which convinced me that a full coverage suit {no tummy and a skirt on the suit} does not need to look like a granny suit even in all black.  Maybe it's because she is so cute, but it will certainly be more comfortable.  My thoughts are if I feel more comfortable then I'll be more confident thus appearing better regardless if the suit really helps or not!  Isn't confidence supposed to be more attractive then real beauty anyway?



Both Madison and Blake are doing really well at potty training.  We couldn't be more happy with them.  This evening Guy was cleaning up something while I was on the elliptical.  I turned to see what the kids were doing in the bathroom he had left them in.  Madison must have indicated she needed to potty because they teamed up to get her pants and undies off for her to climb up to the big potty.  She announced to Guy when he returned {upon me yelling to him he had to see what they were doing} she had gone pee pee.  They are so good.  We have some accidents.  They are mostly still poop, though Blake does most of his in the potty now.  Blake also gets busy living live and doesn't think about needing to go until it's too late.  Madison is starting to get really good at announcing to us when she needs to go pee.



Maddy is also learning the need to go pee will get her out of things like finishing her food, cleaning up toys, being in trouble & Blake pestering her.  For now I humor her each time, and hopefully she will learn those things will all still be waiting for her to finish when she is done on the potty.



Are you totally wondering about the cruise details?  Since most of my readers are my Facebook friends you most likely already know most of it.  We will be leaving out of Miami & stopping at four fabulous Eastern Caribbean destinations over the course of 7 days.  This includes a stop at the famous pirate spot of Tortola!  We are looking forward to the clear blue water, white sands & yummy food.  The kids are getting really excited & have loved the YouTube videos of ships blowing their horns Guy has shown them.   They loved the Disney {we are not going Disney} one the best as it does the famous Disney tune.  The bags are almost packed, snacks are purchased & potty training is good enough.

We are almost outta here!

Updating

Life is going very well here at the White House.

The photos in this post are from a day back in December when Blake {assisted by Madison}opened and tried to empty out almost all of the baby wash & lotion we had.  He also broke a light bulb that was hidden in the back of the cabinet.   Luckily the sink is shaped in a way the bottles only lost a little bit since all were in there pointed up.  of the 12-18 bottles he only managed to completely empty 2.

We are still potty training.  Hey, they are young so I wasn't expecting perfection, even though that would have been nice.  Madison ran a fever last night and this morning.  We think it might have been brought on by constipation.  Yes, really.  She didn't go for almost two days because we stopped letting them wear diapers at nap time.  We were also very vigilant about getting her on the potty often not giving her a chance to poop in her undies.  She got us today though by sneaking off to drop a bomb in her undies.  She definitely does not let us know when she has the urge to go & says no whenever we ask her if she needs to.  I'm getting really good at knowing when she does so she has only had once accident in the last two days.  Blake did great going poop in the potty twice in the last three days.  He has started to have a few accidents as the newness of going in the potty has worn off.  He gets to playing and goes without thinking.  

I've had about one session per week since the beginning of the year which is quite impressive in this slow season.  I'm hoping that translates to being fully booked once spring hits for real.  There are actually a couple of weeks already booked out in the spring.  My senior reps are almost all lined up, and they are all great kids {almost adults}.  If you know any great kids about to be high school seniors not attending West Johnston please let me know.  I'm still looking for a few more in the next week or so for the sessions on February 27th.  

Poor Madison is having a hard time sleeping tonight with her waking up every 20 minutes the last hour and a half {hence why I am not in bed}.  Speaking of not sleeping, Blake still gets muscle cramps at night waking himself and Guy or I up for 10-70 minutes 2 or more nights a week.  Guy says he remembers getting leg cramps often as a kid.  Poor little dude.  

We did a major switcharoo in our house.  I'm loving it!  When we got married we talked about never having a TV in our bedroom.  Upon moving into our small home we had two large TV's and only one living/family room.  We put the TV in our room that turned out to be a life saver after the twins were born. It pooped out on us after a few months and now lives happily in the garage.  However, I never used our fantastic elliptical machine with no mindless TV to keep my mind of the minutes ticking slowly by.  We discussed putting it in the living room before always agreeing it would look ugly.  Guy mentioned the other day it really would be convenient to have it in the living room.  So yesterday I started with the kids room.

I moved their beds, the dresser and the bookshelf to different spots.  The recliner went in front of the window & the love-seat went into the kitchen temporarily.  Guy woke up in time to help me move the living room love-seat into the kids room, the elliptical into the living room, the love-seat from the kids room into our room & some miscellaneous things around as well.  We then decided the recliner would fit in the living room for more seating.  I love it!!!  The toys are now out of the living room & the kids room looks like a kids room instead of a baby room.  We had to do the love-seat switcharoo the way we did to get the matching couches into our room.

Both of the kids are now regularly speaking in short sentences.  They can both say their ABC's and count from 1-10 by themselves though never in front of an audience.  I guess they will not be performers.    They can hop and jump, follow simple directions, clean up without being asked, put their dirty clothes in the laundry, use an adult fork with some proficiency and operate the fridge water dispenser :-(.  They have a basic understanding about most topics I discuss with them.  They love showers & brushing their teeth.  Madison has a love hate relationship with hair ties, bows, bands & ribbons.  They love to assign ownership of every item they see, i.e. Daddy's, Bake's, Madiii's & Mommy's.  Every time Madison sees the phone she wants to call Nana {she says the same, Nana, for all the grandmas but knows each well}.  Madison is officially a 3T girl though we still cram her in some 2T's until winter is over.  Blake happily catches up to her in height for about one day before she grows again keeping more often then not a 1/2 inch of height on him.  His legs are a bit shorter letting him still fit into his 2T pants.  His shirts are definitely a 3T though.   

He looks so remorseful, doesn't he?