An Afternoon on the Farm

What a fun day yesterday was. Despite the 107 degree temps, we ventured 30 minutes north to visit our friends, the Cottens, and their farm. Actually, it's not a farm so much as it is a home in New River which is zoned for all sorts of animals, and they have enough acreage to accommodate four children, 5 or 6 horses, a dozen chickens, a dog, and four cows (am I missing anything?). There were no red barns, overalls, or straws of hay poking out of our mouths. The kids had a BLAST--I think it was the first real life, non-Baby Einstein DVD-related farm animal experience for the twins. The babies lit up at the sights and sounds (and smells?) of the animals and just wanted to "touch! touch!" them.

And here is Jenna later that night at home with her new prized possession. The Cotten boys allowed Jenna to keep a precious (old, rusty, unusable) horseshoe she found laying about. She is thrilled. She would sleep with it under her pillow if her mean mother would just let her.

Thanks, Cotten family, for showing us such a great time! We will make plans soon to return!

Hotter than Hades today

As if I would let a weekend go by without completely whoring out (via blog--not actually selling their bodies) my children. Today was as hot as the surface of the sun (okay, it was only 108 degrees), so we hung out in the kiddie pool and sprinkler to cool off and get a break from DVD's. Jenna was in rare form. The babies had messy faces, matted just-napped hair do's, and no swimsuits on, so there are no pictures of them today. LOL.





















Facebook'ers, there's a video here--must link to origina post to see this one.



Happy June!

Birthday pics & video

Today after dinner, we threw an impromptu birthday celebration for the twins. I am an attention whore, you know, so I had to share:

Tweet Tweet! Happy 2nd Birthday, Twins!

My two little jokesters lately are Lauren and Jenna. Here are the jokes from them last night:
Lauren: Knock knock
Me: Who's there?
Lauren: Bluebird
Me: Bluebird who?
Lauren: Tweet! Tweet!




and





Jenna: Knock knock
Me: Who's there?
Jenna: Nose.
Me: Nose who?
Jenna: Booger in your nose!

Marvelously funny, eh? Lauren's just two, so she gets a pass (1. that's actually an adorably clever joke for someone who can barely hold a pencil, and 2. she's super cute when she says "tweet tweet"!). But Jenna? That's the best knock-knock joke you can come up with, honey? It's clown college for that child, for sure.


In another Byrd House news....The twins turn 2 today--Happy Birthday, my sweet babies!

26 months ago--a walk down memory lane

When I was about 25 weeks pregnant with the twins, we had a very dramatic pre-term labor scare and I was hospitalized on bedrest. We thought I would stay hospitalized until 36 weeks (holy crap, right?), but as it turned out, miracles occured and I was sent home in just under two weeks.

Anyway, so I was going back through some thoughts I had typed out during that time frame--what with their 2nd birthday approaching this week, I was getting sentimental, I guess. And I came across this narrative. It cracked me up so thoroughly that I wanted to share it with everyone.

I'd nearly forgotten about this little gem of a woman. So many things were happening at the time, and obviously gossip about the lady next door shouldn't have ever taken priority over the life-and-death drama I was personally dealing with. But I got such a kick out of rereading this. Enjoy!

4/13/2007
Some things to share about the patient in the room next door.
Purely unproductive gossip. But I find it interesting, considering the lack of other interesting things to pay attention to here.

She's 2 weeks ahead of me, pg with a singleton, and is here due to preterm labor. She shouldn't be out of bed for any reason, yet she frequently leaves her room to visit the nurses station for a pen or to throw something away, therefore I see her. She wears satin nighties. That is all she wears. No robe. Sometimes the nightie is black satin, sometimes leopard-print satin.

She is an attorney. Her family comes to see her regularly, and every 2nd or 3rd day they bring a roller suitcase with them...have no idea what could be in it, since she doesn't wear clothes. Her her is stringy/frizzy, and she is quite skinny. She is a diagnosed anorexic, and her baby belly is very, very tiny--I didn't even know she was pregnant when I first saw her, even from a side view.

The nurses and even the cafeteria were unable to adequately keep up with her requests for toast, so they brought a toaster up to her room. She burns her toast about once per day. Blech.

She has a daughter who visits everyday who is a couple weeks older than Jenna, and it's sweet to hear a voice similar to Jenna's when Jenna's not here.

Three times this week, when a doctor has knocked and entered her room, he's backed out of the room and explains to the nurses in surprise, "She's buck naked in there". So, I don't really get her. I'm pretty sure I don't care for her, though.

New music ideas, please.

I'm an iPod/iTunes whore. And I'm desperate for new music. I have 2,000 songs in my music library, but only 389 songs in my usual everyday playlist. I need some new stuff. I need good, new stuff. Something not by The Fray or Miley Cyrus or Jonas Brothers (heaven help me) or Katy Perry or Black Eyed Peas.

Post your 5 favorite songs in comments, all 2 of you who read this blog. Your favorite songs don't even have to be from this year--I'll take any suggestions.

To get this party started, here are my top 5 (in no particular order), using my own playlist as a guide:
1. Pick Up the Pieces -- Average White Band
2. All the Small Things -- Blink 182
3. Santa Monica -- Everclear
4. I'm Yours -- Jason Mraz
5. Leave Out All the Rest -- Linkin Park

and a few more favorites, to continue the party, because I'm in charge and I can list more than five because I say I can:
6. In Your Eyes -- Peter Gabriel
7. Closing Time -- Semisonic
8. Rock This Town -- Stray Cats
9. Hard To Handle -- Black Crows
10. I'm Beginning to See the Light -- Bobby Darrin

Give me more good stuff, oh blogger world.

Twins' Birthday Party

The twins turn two next week, and we had their birthday party today. We kept it very small, but they got so many great gifts! Wooden puzzle, latches board, basketball hoop (hopefully to use when they're in their new stander, which we don't yet have), Wiggles and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse DVD's, bath toys, Mr. & Mrs. Potato Heads, Colorforms felt board (haven't tried this one yet, but hope to post a review of it later sometime), and a Vtech music & learn turtle thingie (quite the hit). We had a great time with our family today, and can't figure out where two years has gone....

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Lego Exhibit Fun

My mom and I took the kids to the Arizona Science Center this morning to check out the Lego exhibit. Such fun! It wasn't as big or polished as I thought it would be (the Lego exhibit, not the Center), and there was no Lego merchandise in the gift shop (booo!), but the kids enjoyed themselves. We had such fun that we bought a one year family membership. So we'll spending lots of time there this summer, I hope. The facility seemed very wheelchair and stroller friendly, too. If anyone cares to meet there one day this summer, let me know and we'll arrange it! (not on Mon, Wed, or Fri, though.)

If you're reading this on Facebook, you'll have to click through to the "original post" in order to view this video:

Our June has been so mild that we've only had a handful of days 100 degrees or hotter. Our neighbors' swimming pool is still cold! It's tolerable in the day when the sun is out, but we tried to swim last night in the shade of a barely-setting sun and we only lasted 20 minutes. Such a shame. We finally got our second head float, but haven't had the chance to use it yet. I'd really love a heated pool in my backyard, in case any wealthy philanthropists are reading.

Then later at home, we threw the wee ones into the baby pool for some cheap and easy water fun, while Chris grilled up burgers and made tater tots and sliced up watermelon, then we played the Wii. Burgers, watermelon, and Nintendo? You can't get more American than that!

And finally some video of Kyle, the hamburger eater-slash-chair dancer:

Friday Update

I can't stop posting videos now of the tiniest little things. Things they never would have been able to do pre-May 2009, but they do now. All because of the valproic acid med. I wish I could get some good footage of Kyle doing stuff, but frankly he's just not as cooperative as Lauren, and he also likes to act clueless as soon as the camera turns on. But I will make it my mission to catch him doing something soon.

Chris got to go to the Harry Potter exhibit in Chicago when he had some downtime this week. http://www.msichicago.org/whats-here/exhibits/harry-potter/ He reports that it was totally cool and wishes he had a ton of money to blow in the gift shop. He brought Jenna back a t-shirt and her own Golden Snitch. She's thrilled.

I seem to be all better, from whatever germs attacked me last week. Hooray!

I really am getting tired of this place... I want to go on a trip. Almost anywhere. Well, anywhere that is a little cooler than Phoenix--sorry, no Tucson or Vegas. A road trip to SoCal would be so much work, but it'd be worth it. Lego Land or Disneyland sound awesome right now. But it'll never happen, darn it. Chris can't get any time off of work. And I'm not about to do it by myself. Plus the logistics around finding a hotel suite big enough yet affordable is always a PITA.

The Families of SMA annual conference is in about 10 days, and so many of the SMA families we've met on the internet are going. It's in Cincinatti. Most of the families attending are driving, since their kids are too fragile for air travel, which means many of them are posting updates to their Facebook or blogs that they're starting to get packed up and mapped out, etc. I'm jealous. I wish we were going. It's just too, too far to go for us. I would never drive that far from Phoenix with the kids (just too much time in the car), and that's way too long for us to be on a plane with almost-2 year olds. The flight to Salt Lake City was 1h 15m and it was about the maximum we could comfortably do with them. Hopefully some year, the FSMA chooses a host city a little closer to Phoenix.

Happy Friday!

Lauren knows her ABC's--and you can almost understand her.

For your viewing pleasure.

Updates and goings on:

1. I have ramped up an addiction to Twitter.

2. We're planning the twins' second birthday party--we're going to keep it small this year, with only immediate family, and it will be a Sesame Street theme. Big surprise there. Did you know a Cookie Monster pinata costs nearly $20?? And it's not filled with anything!

A Whole Lot of Booty Shakin' Going on

Fun times today! We explored how much "fun" it can be to lay on tummies. Enjoy!

I'm sick again, unfortunately. I'm spending my time washing my hands until they're dry and practically raw. And we finally got the paperwork filed to begin the long process to procure the babies' wheelchairs. The rep will come to the house next month to take their measurements and show us a catalog. I understand it can take about 3 months to receive it after the order is placed. Anyone know of a local place which can convert a Toyota minivan to accomodate two powerchairs? I want an electric lift, not manual ramps. I do enough work as it is, no need to make me in charge of pushing heavy chairs up old-fashioned ramps. I guess we'll need a ramp for the house, too, so that they can enter and exit the front and back of the house.... along with wider doorframes.... hmm. This is a pretty significant change in our lives.

The new medication the twins were prescribed from Dr. Swoboda last month still seem to be working. Our physical therapist agrees with us that their stamina is improving, and their overall perkiness and morale along with it. Plus they're still eating really well--I'll take it! I love me some chubby babies.

That's all the update for now. TGIF!