short video

I was playing around with the digital camera one day last month while in the van. I don't remember exactly but we hung out in the van for a little while and played in the garage before going into the house. You will see just how much Big sister loves the babies... this is a very typical moment of her playing with them. :)



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Love from Texas!

We're home again!

I'm still here - sorry I haven't checked in.. I feel like a college kid again... you remember those days when you finally paused long enough to remember "eek, I haven't called home in a loooooong time!" Well, it isn't that I haven't thought about blogging, I have... I just haven't taken the time to sit down and write. So, here goes :)

Ever had one of those days where you rush and rush, do and do but at the end of the day don't feel like you accomplished anything much? Well for me, the whole week so far has been like that.

It all started Monday around 6am when baby girl couldn't stop coughing. She had started this while we were away from home and both the last night in the hotel and first night at home her coughing was much worse... so first thing Monday I call the pediatrician and they told me to get here ASAP and I'd be worked in. Well four hours in a waiting room that is crammed packed was NO fun! Luckily David was able to stay home from work and go with me to help.

Dr said that she didn't sound "too bad" but gave a prescription for a cough med and also ordered us a nebulizer to have at home just in case cough gets worse. OK, I guess...it didn't cost us anything and now if we ever need one we will have it.

Both babies got their 6 month shots Monday and also a flu shot. Again, thanks Doc for letting our visit count as the checkup too instead of making us come back in a week!

Baby Girl weighs 13 lbs 6.5 ounces and is 24" long

Baby Boy weighs 14 lbs even and is 24.5" long

Both of the twins are doing what babies their age are doing... rolling over, scootin and pushin across the floor, lifting their upper body up with their arms, grasping items, and both have discovered their voice boxes :) Milk Jug even has his two bottom teeth! They popped thru just after Halloween... oh and speaking of Halloween - I never finished uploading photos from our trip at the end of October! Guess I got side tracked with packing for the trip to KY...

Oh well... better late than never - here we are on Halloween in Pooler, Georgia.

I'm really looking forward to baby girl getting over her coughing. Maybe soon I will be back to getting "some sleep." This week she is waking up coughing so badly it sounds like she is vomiting and the only thing to get it to stop is to go pick her up and hold her sitting up. This is in addition to my regular getting up between 3-4am for milk jug's middle of the night feeding and it is wearing me out! Plus big sister is stuck on Kentucky time and waking up before the sun comes up and although she comes crawl es in bed with me there is no chance of me sleeping!!! She is playing roughly with my hair or tracing my face, milk jug is nursing and David's alarm clock keeps going off every 9 minutes as he hits snooze for the upteeth time! .....one day this will be just another faded memory.... LOL

Love from Texas! ~Bonnie

Happy Early Thanksgiving

We are leaving Saturday morning to go to Kentucky for Thanksgiving and won't be back for a week... so I wanted to leave any visitor that stop by a special Thanksgiving message. It’s not often I forward emails but recently I received a GREAT one and forwarded on to all the moms that I know and love. Each of of the Moms I sent it to have inspired me in one way or another.

And although I have not met any of my blogger friends, I think you will also enjoy this following message if you are a mom or perhaps it will remind you of your own mother. This comes at the perfect time too of Thanksgiving and it was a great motivation for me to “keep on keepin’ on!” I really needed to hear/read this!

Happy Early Thanksgiving & Love to all of you from Kentucky,
~Bonnie

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I know it’s long, but all of you moms need to read this!

I'm invisible. It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I'm on the phone and ask to be taken to the store. Inside I'm thinking, 'Can't you see I'm on the phone?' Obviously not. No one can see if I'm on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all. I'm invisible!

Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more:

Can you fix this?

Can you tie this?

Can you open this?

Some days I'm not a pair of hands; I'm not even a human being.

I'm a clock to ask, 'What time is it?'

I'm a satellite guide to answer, 'What number is the Disney Channel?'

I'm a car to order, 'Right around 5:30, please.'

I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes that studied history and the mind that graduated summa cum laude - but now they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again. She's going ... she's going ... she's gone!

One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England. Janice had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself as I looked down at my out-of-style dress; it was the only thing I could find that was clean. My unwashed hair was pulled up in a clip and I was afraid I could actually smell peanut butter in it. I was feeling pretty pathetic, when Janice turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, 'I brought you this.'

It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe. I wasn't exactly sure why she'd given it to me until I read her inscription:

'To Charlotte, with admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees.'

In the days ahead I would read - no, devoured - the book. And I would discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could pattern my work:

(1) No one can say who built the great cathedrals - we have no record of their names.

(2) These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished.

(3) They made great sacrifices and expected no credit.

(4) The passion of their building was fuelled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything.

A legendary story in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, 'Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof? No one will ever see it.'

And the workman replied, 'Because God sees.'

I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place. It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, 'I see you, Charlotte. I see the sacrifices you make every day, even when no one around you does. No act of kindness you've done, no sequin you've sewn on, no cupcake you've baked, is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can't see right now what it will become.'

At times, my invisibility feels like an affliction. But it is not a disease that is erasing my life. It is the cure for the disease of my own self-centeredness. It is the antidote to my strong, stubborn pride. I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on. The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree.

When I really think about it, I don't want my son to tell the friend he's bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, 'My mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for three hours and presses all the linens for the table.' That would mean I'd built a shrine or a monument to myself. I just want him to want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, to add, 'You're gonna love it there.'

As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we're doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible women.

God Bless You as you build your Cathedrals! (Author Unknown)

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PS - I did a little searching and even found some photos to add from our local Cathedral! :)

Vacation Photos Part 2

Photos Part II.

Here are some of our touring Savannah photos we took. My friend Tricia took us down to River Street and tried her best to get us good parking but all the ramps down to the river were closed for construction so poor babies had a very bump, bumpity ride in the stroller on the stoned street. Here in the photo of me and Knucklehead they look smooth... but trust me they are not even close to being level!!! But according to my friend they were loaded on ships to equal out the weight and brought into the city. Then as they loaded the ships with weight they got rid of the rocks and they used them to pave the streets.

Here is a photo of Daddy with the babies. The grass was so pretty and very green. Aaaaaahhhh to see that beautiful Spanish moss dripping form the Live Oaks again :) Made me wish we lived in Georgia again! and of course while Dad was loading and unloading the stroller and car seats each time we got out Big sister loved playing with the Spanish moss - shaking it like a pom-pom :)

Here is a photo of our oldest (right) with our friends' youngest son, Trip 18months. He and Knucklehead had fun sitting in the "way back" of the vehicle.

And we couldn't leave downtown until we had visited St. John the Baptist Cathedral. Tricia stayed in the car with the twins while big sister, David and I went in for a look. It was my first time to go in although we passed by it when we were in Savannah for St. Patty's a few years back. David, however, actually had attended a mass service there once before... way back in 1999 when he was going thru RCIA to become Catholic. I missed it at that time b/c I was in KY with my mom during her battle of cancer.

For some better photos and more info visit their website. http://www.savannahcathedral.org/ Their Baptism fount is beautiful! The photo doesn't show the detail as well as in person but each tile was about the size of my pinkie fingernail.

Of course we stopped to light a candle and say a prayer in thanksgiving of the family we have become!!! Grateful is such an inadequate word for what I felt when I said my prayer. It still brings tears to my eyes to recall that just four years ago that David and I, were at such a different place than we are now.
For months we did this following mass each week - praying that we may become worthy to be parents of a child that God would create for us if it be in His plan for our lives. Many prayers offered up during that time and intersessions from Mary and her mother St. Anne (who was childless many years too) and many other saints..... and to think we went form being childless the first 7 years of our marriage to having 3 kids within just three years! :) Praise Be to God!

....and of course hearing Knucklehead say her Hail Mary prayer in her little voice after she lit her candle... aaaahhh, what a great memory! I am so glad we took the time to visit the Cathedral that day!!!
...and when we got back to the car, Tricia was having some fun with the babies letting them entertain one another playing footsie and blowing raspberries at each other :) Milk-man on the right and stretchy sister on the left. :)

to be continued tomorrow night...

Love from Texas!!! ~Bonnie

Photos from our Savannah Vacation

Below are a few photos from our trip to Savannah to visit the Melvin Family. We had a great time... I didn't get to take any photos of us in Charleston b/c my battery went dead and I could never remember where I had packed the charger for it in the 5 suitcases that we had!?$@##?!

I bought a disposable for our visit to the Aquarium and Fort Sumter but haven't developed them yet.

.....and now that we have been home a week - I STILL HAVEN"T FOUND THE CHARGER! :P and that stinks b/c we leave Saturday for our trip home to Kentucky for Thanksgiving and it isn't an item you can buy in stores. :(

so enjoy these photos they may be the last for a while.

Here's Big Sister with her Dora backpack and carry on.

in Atlanta she spotted these "water stops" and was so excited that they had one just her size that she could "drink out of with her feet on the floor." .....only bad part is that she wanted to stop at every one she saw and we only had a 42 minute layover and had to walk fast to make it just in time to our next concourse and gate.

Both of the babies did great on the plane! I prayed that their little ears wouldn't hurt and thankfully they had no problems. Of course Daddy sat behind us and he and I traded them off for plenty of momma-milk :) Above is a photo of me and milk-man waiting to get off the plane.

Our friends had the perfect set up for Knucklehead! She loved sleeping in this blow up sleeping bag. ......however that phone jack on the wall is another story! Amazing how entertained she was by it while trying to doze off each night? but there wasn't anywhere else to put her bed in our guest room. We also had two pack-n-play beds in there with our queen bed... so we were a little limited on space.

Here is our Godson singing "We're the kids of America" to the babies. :) He is quite the performer! Of course he had an excited audience that kicked and squealed for more!

See that mauve recliner in the background? - That is where I slept every night. My cold I got just before we left got worse while we were there and I didn't want to chance keeping my husband and three kids up all night if I slept in their room.... and actually sleeping sitting up helped keep me from coughing as much. But I still coughed a LOT :(

this is all I can post Blogger is not letting me upload anymore so I will make another post. ~Bonnie