Holly Jolly

Happy Holidays everyone. Many of you are wondering.......What have we been up too? Well, alot. It's been busy, busy, busy around here and still trying to catch up on lots of stuff so I will try to keep it at a minimum.

October.... The lovely ear infections returned. As always with the start of the winter season, a cold creeps into the house. Riley gets sniffly and sneezy and of course, ear infection. A week later, Carter is at the doctors office with a ear infection as well. As the dr. always reminds us, ear infections are not, I repeat, NOT contagious. Well, they are not but the cold that probably started it all is and it never fails once one gets it the other does too. Of course, that wasn't the half of it.

Kevin was working nights, 6 days, 12 hr shifts during this time and while I taking Riley to the dr., an 18 wheeler was shredding a tire while rounding the corner in the opposite direction and huge pieces were hurling at my SUV. Then I hear a SMACK. I keep driving and inspect the car at the doctors office as no warning lights came on afterwards. I look at the grill, and I see the hole. Oh great. Just what I needed. Luckily, the windshield was not broken but the grill had to be replaced to protect the radiator from any oncoming debris in the future.

November, I thought this would be a calm month but not quite. Riley starting running a fever on a Thursday night so I decided to go ahead and take him in on Friday. I did not want to wait it out over the weekend since I knew something was wrong just didn't know what. Went in and the ears were fine, the throat, a little red. So after a little test, it came back - Strep!?! I couldn't believe it. The kids go nowhere so we must have brought it in and did not know it. So Riley gets his scrip and so does Carter for preventative measures. Carter does not eat but puts every toy, cup and what not in his mouth so more than likely he would of come down with it soon enough. So, another month of sleeping with Riley and keeping Carter calm and in his crib so he can eat at night. The boys managed to get over the strep and stayed well for the remainder of the month to get their 1st dose of the H1N1.

This wasn't the half of it. To keep it short, here's the list: DVR had to be replaced, Microwave stopped working and had to be replaced, coffee maker stopped making coffee (only 2 months old and it happened on a MONDAY!), lost our internet connection for 15 days, carpet cleaner holding tank broke while cleaning carpets and I lost lots of sleep that I desperately needed.

December, has started of relatively calm and it is going to stay that way. I did have to have a tire fixed due to a SLOW leak which took a while to find but thank goodness they did.

The boys had a wonderful Thanksgiving spending it out of the house this year. Of course, we were chasing them all over til the sleep monster finally took over but it was a great day. They are beginning to make alot more sounds and noises. Riley is pointing out things on flash cards and trying to say what they are. Carter is starting to make more noise as well and has been immitating us more which is so awesome. One of the songs I sing to them has a pirate the goes "aaaargh" and everytime I get to the line they both say it. Riley was taking his bottle the other night while I was singing it to Carter and he was pulling his bottle out of his mouth to make the sound. kinda gurgled since he had milk in his mouth but it was so cute.

One of our favorite DVD's is the Leap Frog Letter Factory. They are beginning to repeat sounds of the letters. Every time the A starts and goes " the A says AHHH they both scream AHHH!" It is so cute and love that their little personalities are still as different as night and day. Most of the day I try to keep Riley from beating up on Carter.

We do have to thank Nana and Papa for keeping our little 2 year olds overnight about a week ago. The boys have not spent a night away from the house since they were born. We have been away from them but never in our house with peace a quite for over 2 years. We managed to get most of the christmas shopping done and get some things done around the house the next day. It was a nice, much needed break and we can't thank them enough.

I will post some new pics soon as well as more things that the boys are doing. Just wanted to let everyone know that we are alive and things are going well.