I've got the kiddies in their high chairs eating lunch while I am posting.Oprah calls it "multi-taskin"! I am listening to the sweetest sounds ever to be heard on this earth. Right now Audrey is chattering away telling her brother something and every now and then James will throw in a "uhhhh" in response to his chatter box sister. They have got to be the sweetest babies ever. How blessed I am to be their mother and how blessed I am that my husband shares my enthusiasm about me being a stay at home mom. Yes there are stressful days. (streeeeeeessssssfuuuullll) Days that I want to pull my hair out and run deep into the woods and not come back for hours. Days when I wish I had the time and energy to actually fix my hair instead of just pulling it back. Days when I wish it didn't look like Gustav made an early stop at my house. Days when I am lying on the couch after I've "clocked out" at night and suddenly realize that somehow I forgot to take a shower earlier in the day. How does one do that anyway? Days when, well I could just go on and on but y'all get the picture!
But oh the joy that can be found in the role of Mother! My heart is full at this moment. I couldn't be any happier if I tried. I have a wonderful, loving husband and two healthy, beautiful children. Children that won't stop growing by the way. James is crawling and pulling up and I have caught myself getting teary eyed every now and then lately. When Audrey started doing all those things it didn't make me sad; I guess because James was still "just a helpless baby". But now he can follow me out of a room and sit up on his knees and oh he is growing up. They both are. In a little more than a month they will turn 1. 1 year old people! When did it happen? I promised myself that I would never dwell on the fact that children grow up too fast and try to just be thankful that the Lord blessed me with them and live in the moments that we have. Instead of being sad when I think about them not being my tiny babies any more, I try to look forward to all the happy times to come. It works for the most part!Notice we still have a pappy bandit!
Since our power was out for almost 48 hours everything in the fridge and freezer was nasty so I got the immense pleasure of cleaning that out today. If there is any one thing I hate to do around the house it is cleaning out the refrigerator. Just ask my mom, I always put out it off until I know she is coming 'cause she is so good at cleaning out 
Hannah stayed on for the rest of the week so I am extra busy now! We are having a good time though and she really is lots of help with the twins. She loves them and they love her so we're good!
Now I have something to tell him that just pains me to think about. This morning as I was packing the diaper bag to drop the kids off at the baby sitter so I could go get a new license, I found my wallet. Yep it was in the diaper bag the whole time. I am seriously considering NOT telling him that little detail but now I guess I'll have to since I just told all of you! I went to get a new license anyway because I had been needing to change my address. Oh and by the way, choosing to go get a picture taken (not to mention a driver's license pic) during the middle of a tropical storm is probably not the smartest thing I've ever done! I begged them to use my old picture because they used my old weight but they wouldn't budge. The lady told me "Nope every time you walk through the door you have to get a new picture" Bologna. I think she just enjoys knowing that she gets to make one more person suffer every time they have to show their i.d. for the next 4 years.
James and Audrey are using 
Notice anything out of the ordinary in the picture above? Yeah, Audrey doesn't have a diaper on! Monday evening while daddy was in charge Audrey had what he called "a bomb" and he decided to let her crawl around without a diaper after he cleaned her up. I'm not sure what his logic was for that moment of insanity but her naked hiney sure was cute popping up in the pictures he took that night! (She only pee-peed once on the carpet he said! Nice.)
So today marks the end of Jon's official first week back at work and I have adjusted much better than anticipated! It is lonely with out him all day (or any other adult to talk to for that matter!) and I am completely exhausted by the time James and Audrey hit the hay. But other than that I got back in the groove with out a hitch!
We started "crying it out" this week. Audrey has taken to it like a duck to water; James however, has not. We rock for just a song or two, then I put him down with pappy and teddy. If he has his eyes closed it takes him long enough for me to get out the door before he starts whaling. If his eyes are open when I put him down he has this look of surprise come over his face and then he starts kicking and screaming. We made progress today at nap time though. No rocking with a few tears and then he was out. He is still waking up a couple times a night but it is starting to not take so long to calm him down without picking him up. Hooray!
I rock Audrey for a couple songs too and then put her down and if she isn't asleep she plays between crying fits in her bed. She may sit there playing with her pappies or blankets for 30 minutes before she falls asleep but she does eventually fall asleep on her own! She cries some but is really good at the whole self-soothing thing!
The Lord has really blessed me with 2 children that are exact opposites! He knew how much harder it would be with 2 children that slept like James or moved like Audrey!
All I could think about was the first night we brought them home and how little they were, all swaddled up in their blankets with hats on their heads that barely fit them. They hardly took up any space on that big mattress! I couldn't help but cry when I thought about how I slept in the single bed in their room and Jon insisted on sleeping on the floor by the their cribs all night. He is such a good daddy! That night we were so tired but all the tiredness in the world couldn't have squashed the excitement and happiness we felt on that night.
They are growing up so fast and changing every second of every day. We have rough patches, as all parents do. But 1 good day can make up for 10 bad ones! And the contentment and joy that was in our hearts on that first night is still there and it only grows with each passing moment!
That is what my daddy has always told us when he starts aggrivating me and my sister! Poor James has been tormented by his little sister from day 1 and until he gets real aggressive (which I don't see happening any time soon) he will continue to suffer. But and however he is slowly starting to learn to fight back and the scene that unfolded last night in Audrey's room after their bath, had me and Jon rolling in the floor.
When we travel I always pack travel size items such as baby wash and lotion. Well for some reason the little pink bottle of baby lotion has become the toy of choice for my little uns and there is only one so you can only imagine how that went down last night. As you well know Audrey wants and always takes anything that James has in his fat little fist, until last night. He had the bottle of pink baby lotion and she wanted it. (She tends to have the advantage you know since she can sit up on her own and crawl.) James was on his back and Audrey was sitting next to him and started grabbing for the bottle of pink baby lotion and he wouldn't give it up. He had a kung fu grip on that little bottle and even as Audrey got the bottom of it in her mouth he was still holding tight to the top. And man alive did Audrey get MAD! That is the first time ever that she has not been able to take something away from him and it didn't sit too well with her! She tried a couple more times to get it but James wasn't giving it up so she eventually got bored and found something else. I wish I'd had the camera rolling but that is a scene Jon and I wont soon forget!
As I predicted Destin was not the same this year. Not by a long shot. Instead of wrestling 2 monkeys for the sunscreen, I had a monkey and a cat. James has a holler that can rattle the inside of your brain when you are doing something that he doesn't like but at least he is still. Good grief his little sister WORE ME OUT last week! Putting on sunscreen, changing clothes, taking a bath, eating, you name it and me and Audrey wrestled with it. She isn't even fussing half of the time, she is just constantly wriggling and squirming. Oh my word.
Tuesday afternoon we sunscreened it up and hauled the kids down to the pool where we began the 5 day long event of whining/laughing babies. Audrey of course didn't want to stay in her float at the pool which meant I got to wrestle her in the water, which resulted in lots of nose dives and gaspings for air! Bubby was quite content to stay in his float and play with a new toy, much to his mother's relief! Oh if they were both like Audrey......................
Tuesday evening after Jon got there we took them to the beach. Oh they squealed with delight when they first saw it so we walked close to the water to put their feet in it. Oh boy, if only we'd had the camera rolling when James got his feet wet. He started screaming and shaking and clung to me like a cat to a tree and wouldn't have it any other way except to get away from the loud, rushing water. Poor baby. He even hated the sand. We've got video of Jon pouring sand on his feet and James goes nuts. Needless to say we didn't spend a whole lotta time at the beach this year but he did sit in his Bumbo seat on a towel that was covering the sand one day for a long time. Until Will put some sand in his own hand and as soon as he started bringing it close to James, well he lost it. I think we went in soon after that! It was pitiful for him to be so scared of it but man it was hilarious. I know, I'm a terrible mother. Forgive me! 
Audrey didn't like the ocean to much either but she loved the sand! She demonstrates that in the video we took! There isn't too much Miss Pepper doesn't like or can't do for that matter! We didn't get a lot of comfortable sleep that week which translates into: The twins weren't sleeping good so they ended up in the bed with us every night. Oh what fun that was! I did get to go shopping, me and Emily went twice as a matter of fact and got some pretty good deals! And Friday afternoon I left the kids sleeping (with grandparents of course!) and went down to the beach to sit with everyone for a while and enjoy some conversation that didn't have to be shouted or repeated!
All in all we had a great time, even though it wasn't much of a "vacation" for any of the parents this year, and I'm not any taner than I was when I left and I didn't get to read up on Brad and Angie's twins, Harrison and Pearl (Isabella earned a new nick name while at the beach) and the twins really enjoyed playing with each other and that's what really counts, right?!
