Six Months and Counting

Alex turned six months in June.  So, our nanny Analisa had a party with the twins.  As you can see, Alex isn't so sure about the celebration but the twins sure are. 

Having never lost his newborn hair, Alexander is sporting a rather unique hairstyle--John thinks he looks like Coolio. 

After six months of three in diapers, I decided I needed to memorialize it with a photo and the kids were oh-so-cooperative.

Zoe likes posing for pictures (on occasion) and it's a good thing she's cute because behind this adorable face is a series of tantrums and messes that are almost unimaginable.

Swinging in the Buff

In April, we finally ventured out to get some pictures of Alex.  The handsome boy was cooperative.  The twins were less so.  But, amazingly, we did get a picture with them all together, even though Alex is falling out of JR's arms.  JR had been holding him for a long while and given the weight difference (JR was around 30 pounds and Alex was around 20 pounds), JR did a splendid job.

John spent the springtime vacuuming, including vacuuming Zoe and JR's hair.  As you can see, they really enjoyed that.

In May, John (with the help of some good friends from Austin) built a playset in the backyard.  The twins love playing on it and especially love getting "underdogs" on the swings.  My favorite memory of the playset is when the twins decided to run outside and swing on the tire swing naked--at some point, you just have to accept the chaos.

Frog Fountains

Most people who visit the Dallas arboretum spend time admiring the lovely flowers and view of White Rock lake. So, one spring morning, I dressed up the kids and took them to the arboretum. Apparently Alex was the only one in on my "admire the flowers" plan. Zoe & JR immediately dashed across a field and ran straight into the frog fountains. I chased after them with Alex in tow but was too late (see pictures below). Gratefully, my friend Natalie brought some spare clothes for her boys, so we borrowed them for the rest of the day.

Fugitives and Fire Ants

Springtime in Texas brings my favorite wildflower: the Bluebonnet. It is actually a crime in Texas to pick a Bluebonnet. I now am the proud parent of three fugitives.





Look closely at JR's head in the picture where he is trying to escape from me; before we left, he dug his hands into a jar of vaseline and spread it all over his head.


Baby Alex thought it was incredibly fun to pull huge handfulls of Bluebonnets.

The bluebonnets were also home to a colony of fire ants. By the time ur visit was done, we were running for the hills with ants crawling (and biting) all over us!

Easter Bunny Blessing

Easter was great fun for our family this year. Grandma came to visit--which was awesome. Then grandpa came to visit--which was also awesome.





Then baby Alex was blessed at church, while wearing (that's right) an Easter bunny suit (see below; and yes, John was the culprit). At his blessing, he was so heavy that the blessing lasted about a nanosecond--everyone thought that they were going to drop him. I, of course, heard nothing since the twins decided to sob hysterically as soon as he was being blessed. I am told that he is named Alexander. :)

Dying Easter eggs was fun. Oh, did I say eggs? Mostly we spent the time dying our hands. The twins did an Easter egg hunt at the Dallas arboretum.



We did a practice run at a park a few days before--it was a good thing we did that too. In our practice run, the twins (a) refused to hunt for the eggs; (b) once we got them to look for eggs, they gave them away to the other kids; (c) once I taught them to be selfish and put the eggs in their own baskets, they decided to "hide" the eggs back in the field. Finally, as a last resort, I helped them understand that there was candy in the eggs. While this minimized their disbursement of the eggs to other kids, they still thought it was more fun to hide them.

Bunny Foo Foo

The spring brought lots of smiles from Alex.

We went to the arboretum and the twins got their faces painted (JR was a dog; Zoe was a bunny, bunny foo foo to be exact). Then Zoe proceeded to hop like a bunny the whole walk to the car, making onlookers laugh aloud.

We extended the gingerbread house fun to Easter and decorated an Easter Bunny House. As you can see, the twins are quite the artists.

JR has found new joy in putting the pacifier in the baby's mouth--that is, when he wants to give it to Alex; on other occasions, he still enjoys the pacifier himself or puts it in whatever crevice a small pacifier would fit.

Sleeping Like a Baby

John and I always thought the phrase "sleeping like a baby" was strange--in our home, that means waking up every couple hours, screaming at the top of your lungs. Well, with Alex, we discovered what the phrase sleeping like a baby means. Zoe & JR think being the big sister and big brother is great.