Two little videos...

I took two little videos during dinner and both of them turned out so cute that I had to post them! Watch that mean-as-a-snake monkey in the first one and my crazy girlfriend in the second one!

MONKEY'S VIDEO

GIRLFRIEND'S VIDEO

Practicing Reading

These kids are so crazy about books! It's incredible! I mean, I think they might even choose a book over Baby Einstein! Okay, maybe not.. but they love books more than any other toy they own. They'll play with them up to an hour at a stretch - which is supa long in baby time. I love it and I hope that this is something I can perpetuate so that they don't become little tv addicts when they are older. I used to think that reading sucked. Why read when you can watch tv?!?! It's mindless and effortless and I can go from being stressed out and exhausted to being an entertained vegetable in less than half a second. Plus, books have that old person smell and sometimes it takes forever to get to the freaking finale. But, over the last couple of years, I've really come to love books again. I hope that I can get the kiddos to hold onto this...

This is Cal Bear reading one of her books. I catch her all the time "practicing reading" and was lucky enough to catch a version of it this morning. Usually, she lays on the floor with the book open and "reads" outloud. (By the way, daddy was her hairdresser this morning... just in case it wasn't already obvious.)

Where's Waldo?

Hahaha! My brother called me yesterday and called me out on the "very gourmet, sliced, canned cranberry on the elongated plate!" I about died laughing because it never dawned on me how freaking ghetto that looked! Hahaha! Then my aunt called and mentioned the same thing! I'm such a dork, but I DO have good justification... Brent and his family only eat the kind that comes out of the can like smooth dogfood, with decorative canned ridges, in one big plop. I did the best with what I was given! Ha! I'm the biggest nerd ever!

I couldn't find that darn cat yesterday morning. Anywhere.

I've been doing such a bad job of keeping up with the flowers that Brent gets me but I got these yesterday and thought they were so pretty. Hopefully I'll do better at keeping track of them...

We lounged this weekend. I really thought that I was going to get all this stuff accomplished, but never did. For one, it was the last real weekend of football before the bowls start. I am so sad. That season went by way too fast and I really enjoy the heart of the season more than the bowls. I wish it lasted all year because Saturdays lose character during the off season. Then, of course, the kids and I were still getting over being sick and I was dead tired from that Friday morning crap. Brent's mom taught me how to sew while she was here and I attempted to make Callie a dress while we watched football. I'm not apologizing for it, but I do think it's pretty homemakery. It turned out pretty cute too! (Insert joke here... I DID set myself up for it!)

Thanksgiving Pics

Thanksgiving was nice and relaxing and the weather was overcast and perfect. Brent's parents and grandfather came in town and it was good to see them. I cooked all day... we ate it in 20 minutes. The rest of the day we just enjoyed the kids and wallowed in our thanks for them. They got to eat some stuffing and really loved it too!

The next morning Brent and I got up at 4:30 to hit the stores for the "big deals". It was gross. I can't believe we found the motivation to actually do it. There were swarms of people who had their fangs out ready to go blow for blow over chicken dancing elmos and crockpots. Once we were out, we stayed out for awhile and got some Christmas shopping done, but Brent and I only got 1 item that was on sale and the rest of it was all regular price. There's no way in hell were going out in it again next year.

Here are some pics from the weekend. I hope everyone had a good one! We are thankful to have each and every one of you in our lives!

Elf Yourself!

This is the cutest little thing! Click on the link below!

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=9569795660

Happy Thanksgiving Wishes!

We're sick. I don't know how or why, but Wyatt got it first and gave it to Cal and then I got it. Brent never gets sick because I'm sure he spent his childhood licking the bottoms of shoes, menus at restaurants, and door knobs at gas station bathrooms. Poor Wyatt is cutting one of his top chicklet teeth and he's just miserable. So, we've had a couple pajama days. Here are just a couple of random pictures of the kids... Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

And it begins..."You'll go blind sitting so close to the TV!"

Hambone

Girlfriend

My Favorite Toy Advertisement This Year...

The crazies are out!

If anyone braved the crowds today, you know what I'm talking about. Every sketchy three toothed slack-jaw and all their kin climbed out from underneath their flea-infested rocks to help bring on the holiday spirit. The stores are crammed full and while you're shopping packed in shoulder to shoulder, you wonder if your flu shot might help ward off rabies too! Earlier this morning, I was foaming at the mouth thinking about Black Friday and all the good deals I was going to get... now, the reality of the "thundering herd" just makes me feel like someone peed in my cheerios! Today, we went to another holiday craft deal at the Savannah Convention Center, and even though it too was infested with loons, it was kind of neat seeing River Street from the opposite side of the River.

Less than a week...

It's true. This week has gone by so quickly too... I think because I'm not ready for Thanksgiving yet, and we've been running errands left and right trying to get stuff done before Tday. Callie had her follow-up appointment with the neurologist yesterday and he said that she is almost completely caught up to where she should be. He said that he didn't see any thing that would make him worry which is such a relief! There were tons of kids in that waiting room that had very obviously severe issues and I just sat there thanking God that our problems were about as minor as they come. Sometimes I take for granted how lucky we are to have two healthy children. I think that was the biggest gift we've received this year... maybe our whole lives!

Precious turtle still buckled in!

Terrorizing her brother!

Curlz McGee

"Momma"

Chucktown...Again!

We can't help it! It's too close and we had an entire free day... There was a Christmas Holiday Market at the Coliseum in Charleston which was a good enough excuse for us to go again. It was cute. I got a little Furman ornament which is a pretty rare thing to find and picked up some other little doodads for a friend. There was a "Santa" there too and although we hadn't planned on it, the line was so short that we decided to visit him anyway. We plopped the kids up on this very fake looking Santa and right away Callie dug her fists into the dude's beard. After the pictures were taken, we picked the kids up and as I was grabbing Wyatt off of his lap, the guy looks at me and tells me he is sweating his ass off in his outfit and beard. Now, I know that Santa isn't real and all, but a part of me was really kind of heartbroken to hear this crusty guy speak from beneath the outfit. I kind of wanted to clasp my hands over my ears and pretend like nothing happened, much as you would if you heard a nun fart or something, but instead, the crushed little girl inside of me just handed the fellow a spare bottle of cold water. We walked away with the not too merry feeling of knowing we had just sat the kids in a puddle of nether-region sweat. Sick!

After that, we dorked around at the outlets, the mall, and found time to pop in on my friend April who lives in Mt. Pleasant. The kids did great and Wyatt is getting really good at saying "momma". I need to put it on a video to post on here. Last week, I found out that one of my roommates from college and her husband live like 2 minutes away from us! Small world! We had them over for dinner and football yesterday. It was fun catching up and very trippy to see their 4 year old daughter. I can't believe that we are old enough to have kids!

Cal Bear loving on her new bunny.

Braving the weak chill at the outlets.

Hey RICHIE and KATIE - Thanks for the love!

I apologize for the lack of posts this week... Brent was out of town most of the week and when that happens, I go into hermit-survival-hibernation mode. I do have to say though, that the older the kids are getting, the easier it is to take care of them for a stretch like that by myself. Monkey dude pulled up to his feet on Monday night and Callie pulled up to her feet Tuesday morning...within a few hours of each other! (C.T.S. - Creepy twin stuff.) She just skipped the whole pulling up to her knees part and went straight for the feet. On Wednesday, Callie started dropping the "Momma!" bomb. It was the best ever! She couldn't find me and when in her little state of emergency, she pulled it out just like she had been saving it for the appropriate moment. So the word tally around here is Wyatt: 2 (Hi and Momma) Callie: 1 (Momma). She had the 'Hi' part down too a couple months ago but lost it after only a couple days.

Early this morning in all their precious bed-headed glory!

Rotten to the core!

I'm so sad because I've had the video camera out within arms distance for the last couple of weeks so that I could capture Wyatt pulling up to his feet for the first time, but the little squirt snuck it in when we were least expecting it and it was too late by the time we grabbed it. YEA Monkey Dude! His personality is starting to ooze out of him this week. He's starting to laugh when we are laughing regardless of whether or not he knows what it's about. He's social laughing. It's really cute!

Both of them have an irrational fear of soccer balls (which we learned today) and monkey can't handle being around me when my hair is wet and not pulled back. I usually pull my hair back everyday to prevent being scalped by one of the boogers so it scares the ever living crap out of Wyatt when he sees my hair down and wet. Dry hair is okay. Wet... not so much. He also knows when he is doing something he's not supposed to because he's always checking to make sure we aren't watching and gets really startled when we call him out on it. He's getting to be such a rotten little nugget!

Also, miss thang is smuggling toys in her mouth... she got busted several times with this little basketball shoved all the way inside there! We died laughing!!!!!! It's such a Callie thing to do!

Grandma & Grandpa Harbin

Brent's parents were in town today and we went to the Savannah Seafood Festival on River Street. All the Savannah "festivals" are the same... same vendors, same arts and crafts, gotta have that random homeless dude experience, and gotta hold your breath when you think the pigeons are going to get run over. It was pretty crowded down there today. We saw two other sets of twins which is kind of like seeing an automatic friend. Both families start out nodding and laughing like, 'Wow! Can you believe this crap!?!?!' Then your share war wound stories (i.e. - How long were yours in the NICU? How many weeks did you make it?) And eventually walk away wishing these people were your next door neighbors. I saw a girl at Babies R Us a couple weeks ago pushing around triplets and felt silly for my petty twin drama. Thank the lord we never had to walk in her shoes (although at one point, we were pretty damn close). Anyway, it was nice seeing Grandma & Grandpa Harbin today and I know that the kids enjoyed seeing them too.

Listen closely around second 28...

Tonight the kid was laughing at his own farts! I'm fairly sure though that he didn't pick this up from us. I mean, I am a total sucker for toilet humor as is my brother and we have always been like that as far back as I can remember. When the babies were born, it cracked me up to hear the both of them farting like a pair of 300 pound men, but that got old real quick and their anal symphony has since become nothing more than background noise. So now I have a theory that our sense of humor is hard-wired and poor Wyatt got the potty humor gene! We are going to have our hands full with this one!