I'm getting anxious.

I am finally finished with my real estate classes. Yay! I still have to take my final exam in the morning which is starting to make me anxious. For the most part I think I will do fine, but there are a few areas where I am still a bit weak. I can retake the test if I don't have a high enough score, but it will throw off my plans for the state exam if I have to do a re-test. I'm hoping the take the state exam for my broker's license on Wednesday. I am so ready to be past this phase so I can start my career and get back to spending quality time with the monkeys. For now, I must return to studying.

Tooth! and My Birthday

Caitlin has her first tooth! She wouldn't let me feel her gums for a couple of days, but I believe it broke the gum line on Monday or most likely Tuesday. Her first one is the bottom front right tooth. I'm so happy we are starting to make progress! Hopefully they will both get the other front bottom teeth through soon so we can have a few weeks without cranky babies.

Monday was my birthday. It was such a nice day! We spent the day at home with the girls and a few friends came over for a b-b-q that evening. It was a very low key day, unlike our normal Memorial Day b-b-qs. Life has been so crazy lately, that a quiet day was extra special. My friend Sandi made this spring fling cake for me:

She also made a second cake that was from the monkeys. She was going to have them put their hand prints in the icing. It was such a cute idea! Unfortunately, Caitlin's hand pulled up a large section of the icing so it didn't exactly work out as planned.

Here are a couple of rare pictures of me with the girls and a couple of the girls playing.

Me and Caitlin

Me and Isabella

Isabella

Caitlin

Aaahhhh! and Pssst!

Aaahhh!!! Mommy, do you really have that much stuff to do in the next 24 hours??? You are never going to get it all done!

Pssst! Our mommy's birthday is tomorrow. We have been trying to plan something special for her, but it's kind of hard when we only know a few words and we can't walk. If someone could please say Happy Birthday for us, we would love you forever. Thank you for helping us!

I am so spoiled.

We have a sleep number bed and I love it. I have my side set on a nice soft number. When I lay down the bed cradles me in a cloud of comfort. I almost always fall asleep within a few minutes. I admit that I am completely spoiled. I am happy with that, except when we travel and I have to suffer on a hard bed. Admittedly, I do try to find hotels with pillow top beds to make sleep less miserable than it would otherwise be. Outside of being pregnant, I never thought I would have to suffer through another night of pure bedtime misery at home again. I failed to realize that one night I would find myself sleeping on the living room floor.

Last night was my reality check on how spoiled I really am. The last several nights have involved hours and hours of screaming. Mostly by Isabella, although Caitlin has chimed in her fair share. Last night we tried to put the girls down at their usual time. Two hours later we were still trying to get Isabella to sleep. She did finally succumb to her exhaustion and I thought I would be able to crank out some serious studying. Nope, an hour later she was at it again. Two more hours later I finally accepted the fact that she was not going to sleep unless I was right there with her.

Unfortunately, she does not like to sleep in our bed so I didn't have many options. She is too squirmy to try sleeping with her on the couch or in a chair. I decided my only safe option was the living room floor. I piled up as many blankets as I could find and settled down with her in front of the tv. As much as I hate to admit it, watching Nick at Night was absolutely calming her down and, for the first time, I intentionally parked her in front of the tv. We curled up and watched the late night shows until she finally fell asleep. I dozed off for a short time. Then I woke up and was stiff as a board. This spoiled body just can't handle two hours on a hardwood floor. Foolishly, I thought I would be able to move her to her crib so I could go to bed. That didn't work out so well. After some more screaming that involved Caitlin this time, we ended up back on the floor. This time I was smart enough to leave her there until it was time to get Jeff up. Thankfully, he had a vacation day planned and took over for me so I could crawl into my cloud of comfort for a few hours.

I love spending one on one time with my daughters, but I hope I don't have to spend any more time sleeping on the floor with them. I really hope they learn to like my cozy bed soon!

I am officially an Oompa Loompa.

Isabella is starting to show signs of pulling herself up, so we decided this week that it was time to lower the crib mattress. There is only a couple of inches difference between the middle setting and the lowest setting, so I told Jeff to go ahead and lower it all of the way since it is kind of a pain to do the adjustment. I knew that when we lowered the mattress I was going to have a problem reaching into the bottom of the crib because the front rail is fairly high. I might have underestimated how much of a problem it would be. The only way I can reach into the crib now is by stepping on my nursing stool and stretching. If one of the girls is at the back of the crib, I can't stretch far enough to reach her. I am officially an Oompa Loompa.

After a few rough nights involving lots of screaming, the monkeys were kind enough to let their momma have a nice long nap today. I really needed it and was very grateful. When I woke up they were quietly lounging in the crib. Apparently their mesh bumper makes a nice footrest.

Going for a walk with Grandma.

Woohoo! We are going for a walk with grandma!

Aren't we cute in our hats and sunglasses?

What is taking her so long to get the stroller ready?

Why did mommy put the butterfly hat on you? It matches my outfit better.

I don't care if it matches your outfit better. You can't have it.

Back off sista or I will show you what these sunglasses are really for!

Tooth!

Isabella has her first tooth! Well, ok, she technically had her first tooth last Saturday. The left front tooth on the bottom broke the gum line last weekend, but I just didn't really feel like I could say she had a tooth until you could see a significant amount of it above the gum line. It is coming up sooo slowly, but it is starting to be more visible. I can't believe how sharp that jagged edge is! She bit my finger just the right way the other day and it hurt so bad that I might have let a naughty word slip out. Oops! Her bottom right front tooth is almost ready to break the gum line too.

Caitlin's teeth are taking a bit longer to come through. Both of her bottom front teeth are sitting just below the gum line. I think she is going to get her right one first. Hopefully she will catch up with Isabella quickly.

Let the biting begin!

Eat, eat, eat and No

Isabella's new favorite word is eat. Eat, eat, eat is what she kept saying today. I'm not sure if she understands what it means, but she sure likes to say it. I have been trying to get Caitlin to say it. This evening I asked her if she could say eat. She said no and shook her head. Looks like she knows the word no now. I guess I've been saying it to them more than I realized. Considering how fascinated they are with everything around them, I'm sure I will be saying it a lot more than I want to over the next few years.

New Stats

The monkeys had an appointment with their pediatrician today. She was very happy with their progress. They are behind on some of their gross motor skills, but they are rocking the scale on their fine motor skills and their verbal skills. She was very impressed with their vocabulary. Their length is fantastic. Their weight is not great. Isabella's weight is making progress on the charts but Caitlin has lost some ground. The pediatrician is not yet concerned about it though. Here's the skinny of their new numbers:

Isabella
Length - 28 inches, which is the 70th percentile
At birth - 17 1/4 inches
Weight - 17 pounds, 1.8 ounces, which is the 16th percentile
At birth - 4 pounds, 15.4 ounces

Caitlin
Length - 28 inches, which is the 70th percentile
At birth - 17 inches
Weight - 15 pounds, 14.4 ounces, which is the 5th percentile
At birth - 4 pounds, 3.3 ounces

Go directly to Jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.

Help! We have been imprisoned against our will. Can anyone help us?

This place is worse than a third world prison. The only food we have been given is a leather camera strap. It's ok to suck on, but we would at least like some bread and water. Milk would be better!

We have rights and we know it! We have been screaming for our release for over an hour. We demand to see the warden!

Free at last! Free at last!

Thank goodness, we are free at last!

Do you like our hair?

Since several of you have commented on Caitlin's peacock hair, I thought I would post a few pictures from days when we have played with the monkeys' hair. Enjoy!

Shopping is so exhausting.

Mom and I took the monkeys out for our regular shopping excursion on Monday. We go once a month (when Similac is on sale) and stock up on all of our Target stuff. I needed a new phone so our first stop was the Verizon store, which turned into a major time waster thanks to a super slow sales guy. That's almost 3 hours out of our lives that we will never get back. :( By the time we got to Target the monkeys were exhausted. It didn't take long for them to drift off to sleep. Shopping is a whole lot easier when they are not fussing or trying to grab everything they can get their hands on! Usually when they are sleeping people don't stop us as much as they normally do, but this time Caitlin fell asleep with her leg in its favorite place. The cuteness of it caused more people to stop us instead of less.

9 Months!

The little monkeys are 9 months old today!

Caitlin wants you to know that being the little sister does not mean that she is afraid to pick a fight with her big sister.

Let's get ready to ruuummble!

You wanna fight? I'll fight you. Let's take it to the mat!

Fighters take your positions.

This is so easy I need something to entertain myself while I wait for you to surrender.

I can wrestle, read and play with my ball all at the same time. Do you want to take me on too?

And the winner is Caitlin The Multi-Tasker with a solid leg pin.