A Bubble Pool

Our kids are happy and we're just going to have to bank on that.

Because they are also very naughty--they climb on the counter to feed the baby,

they color their faces with markers,

they steal daddy's body wash and make a bubble bath in the outdoor pool.

Whose kids do such things????  Ours.

Alex looks like he will soon enough follow suit.

Can Our Home Be Declared a Federal Disaster Area?

 The morning started off easy enough. I set the twins up with some toys and went to take a less-than-five-minute shower. 

When I emerged from the shower baby in tow, a strange scent (familiar but foreign) pervaded my entire home.  Then I looked at my windows and saw a strange greasy substance dripping down all of the windows.  I was then greeted by a smiling JR, holding a bottle of orange glow furniture spray and spraying his chest like he was some sort of WWF wrestler.  As I assessed the damage, I realize he sprayed his chest (like sunscreen), Zoe's hair (like hairspray), all the windows (like Windex), the tile floor (like Swiffer), and Wally (I guess so he wasn't left out??).  I started with the floor so they wouldn't track it throughout the house.

While on my hands and knees cleaning up the damage, I heard a small voice from upstairs say, "Mommy, I found the lotions."  The pitter patter of little feet came running down the stairs and there was Zoe--covered in zinc oxide diaper cream.  At this point, I put the baby under my arm like a football and dragged the twins to the shower.

After bathing them, I decided they could play OUTSIDE with sidewalk chalk.  In the middle of this activity, the baby had a blow out diaper.  So, I changed it.  I turned around to discover the twins drawing all over the tile floor with sidewalk chalk.  Deciding that crying wasn't an option, I confiscated the chalk and took the baby with me into the office (I was busy filling out the forms for the pediatric opthamologist because JR had injured his eye by falling into the corner of a filing cabinet).  Zoe bounds into the office carrying a piece of blue sidewalk chalk.  I say, "Zoe, put the blue chalk down."  Zoe responds, "No" and then proceeds to draw all over the walls of the office.  Horrified, I exile her from the office and lock the door.  The children were then uncharacteristically quiet.  I thought, "I guess they learned their lesson."  After a few minutes, I walked out to see what they were doing.  The little angels were sitting side by side on the piano bench.  And then I saw it--they had removed the valve from their sippy cups and they were pouring juice on my piano keys one by one.

Needless to say, this was one of the worst days ever.  The children are still alive--barely.  John came home early to preserve his progeny.

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.