Back from the beach

We are back from Destin! 26 total hours in the car with two one year olds, and we survived!  Actually, the babies were really great.  There was only about 2 hours total for the whole car rides that they were upset.  We read books, sang songs and of course took naps.  We all had a wonderful time at the beach and are thankful for all the people that made the trip possible.  

Here's a video we took on the beach.  Zane loved walking around in the sand and also loved the water.  Lily was happier sitting in the shade keeping her toys clean.  She would get very upset when sand would get on her toys so, she would dunk them in a bucket of water to rinse them off, over and over and over again.

My little tanned baby...zonked

Happy Birthday

So guess what...Lily got two upper teeth.  She woke up at night crying, now we know why.  She decided to use her crib rail to cut them through herself.  I went in to her room this morning and wondered if I had a woodchuck or a daughter laying in the crib.  

For their first birthday, the babies have gotten some fantastic gifts from generous friends and family.  We all feel so lucky to have so many people who care about us and are thinking of us.  This birthday was emotionally hard on mom for many reasons, obviously my babies are growing up, but also, when you imagine your babies first birthday you imagine being surrounded by family and friends, balloons and ribbons and party hats galore.  Living in a different city, just the four of us, makes for some homesick times, so for that, we are even more grateful for all of you who keep us in your thoughts. 

For our little celebration today, I made each of the babies a cake frosted with cool whip and spray can icing.  Not very fancy, but the babies loved it.

Happy Birthday to my babies

...and now we head to the beach.  We will all be gone for a week on a road trip to Destin, FL to join some friends and family and celebrate their birthday pool side.  We leave tomorrow morning and will be back next Sunday.  See you all in a week or so!

Last Official Baby Post

That's right.  At this time last year I was starting to go into labor and having contractions.  This is the last official baby post.  Tomorrow my babies will be toddlers.  I am having very mixed emotions about this all.  Time, in fact, does go way too fast.

Editorial: Miami

It has been quite a busy week...and it's only Monday!  Lots to prepare for in order for us to head to Destin and hit the beach.  I don't have any new pictures to share but I promise I'll take some tomorrow.  For today...an Editorial.

Pros & Cons About Living in Miami

Pro - The radio stations.  Miami has some of the best radio stations I've come across in any city.  Especially their classic rock stations.  They have 3 main ones and they are all excellent.  They play the full versions of all my favorites and there aren't a million commercials.

Pro - The weather.  Most of the time. It is the Sunshine state and that's no lie.  It's a tropical climate here and this past winter was the nicest winter I've ever been through.

Pro - The foliage.  You can grow anything here.  The soil, the weather and the climate are conducive to just about every plant on earth.  No green thumb necessary.

Con - The Driving.  Traffic SUCKS in Miami.  Do not be mistaken, if you ever thought traffic was bad in your city, come on down to Meeahhme.  There is not a quick way to get anywhere.  Target is 3 miles from my house and it takes me about 15-20 minutes to get there on a good day.  The drivers here are also awful.  You have the retired elderly people on one hand who can not see over the steering wheel of their Lincoln Towncar or gigantic Cadillac and on the other, you have the hotblooded Latin community who do not know the meaning of speed limit or lane marker.

Con - The People.  Most of them are not nice.  The majority of them are not nice.  Example.  Today I was at the Post Office with the babies on the way out to the car a large clap of thunder rumbles and rain just dumps down upon us (it happens just like that too).  We all instantly get soaked and I start running to the car.  As I'm trying to get the door open, unbuckle screaming babies and get them in their car seat about 10 people with umbrellas walk by and just sort of look at the situation.  No one offers to hold an umbrella over my wailing daughter or even ask if they can help.  In Texas, each one of them probably would have offered a helping hand.

I get cursed at, at least twice a day by someone and most of the time in spanish.  My vocabulary of spanish curse words has increased dramatically.  People here get mad at you for EVERYTHING.  I was getting a cart out of the little cart area at the grocery store and apparently I was taking too long so the woman behind me yelled at me to hurry it the hell up.  I bumped a man in the mall, he threw his hand in the air and let out a string of words that I still don't know what they mean.  Hot tempers.

Con - The food.  Cuban food is gross.  It's nothing but rice, beans and pork.  South american food is gross it's nothing but fatty cuts of beef and dark meat chicken.  The variety of excellent food available in Texas is nothing that should be taken for granted.  Yes, you can go have a wonderful meal here, but you have to be willing to pay at least fifty per plate for it.  There is no good bar-b-que and the mexican food is equivalent to Taco Bell.

Con - The bugs.  They are everywhere, Miami is a swamp and in swamps live lots of bugs.  I have our house sprayed monthly and it's just enough to keep up with all the ants, flying ants, sugar ants, white foot ants, black foot ants, carpenter ants, spiders, roaches, silverfish, biting flies and moths.  That doesn't even cover the things that live in the backyard.  Millipedes, centipedes, mosquitos, biting midges, lizards, tree roaches, and a hoard of other disgusting creatures.

Oh well, I guess the Cons win out and I should go back to Texas.  I never considered myself to be a "Texan" until I moved to a different state.  Now, all I want to do is scramble back as fast as I can.

NOTE:  Since moving here, my kindness on the road has pushed Miami out of the #1 spot for angriest drivers....sorry Miami  http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090616/lf_nm_life/us_driving_roadrage

Poor Baby....

Last night at 3am, Jason and I awoke to Miss Lily crying.  This is unusual behavior for her but we tried our best to get her back to sleep and she finally went back down around 4am.  This morning when Jason went to go get her, he found her face covered in red bites.  She has 3 on her face (only 2 are visible here, the other one is by her lip on the other side), one on her neck and two on her head under her hair.  The poor baby was being eaten by a nasty Florida mosquito (approximately the size of a chihuahua).  We still haven't found the culprit yet, BUT I did find this guy as I was searching her room.  Yes. It's a brown recluse. eeeeeeeeck.

Fred, the now dead, brown recluse spider

EDIT:  ok, after consulting an entomologist, this is not a brown recluse.  It kind of looks like one with similar features (and it had a fiddle like mark on its back), but luckily it is not.  Whew, but none the less, it was a nasty spider hanging out in my little girls room!

Boo Boos and Peek-A-Boos

Boo Boos

Peek-A-Boos

Way back when

Back in the day, mama was tired. So very very tired.  Jason took this video because he thought it was hilarious that I fell asleep with my feet still on the floor.  I had been up and down so much getting them both to sleep that I guess I just fell asleep mid-action.  If you listen closely you can hear Zane talking in his sleep, which he still does to this day.  

Breaking up is hard to do

Well, one year is almost here.  So, that means bottles are headed out the door.  For the past month I've been slowly trying to wean them from their bottles and transition to sippy cups.  This is not going well.  It's not that they have a love for their bottles but they know that milk should be in a bottle and juice and water belong in a cup.  They will drink juice and water with no problem from their cups but dang it, milk needs a bottle.  This whole process is frustrating for all parties but we're working on it each day.

Also, some of their one year old birthday presents have arrived! My mom and dad sent this cool push car and the leap frog learning table.  Another car is on the way for Miss Lily and I can't wait for them to start playing with that one either.  They love their more grown up toys.

Mellow weekend in the rain

Yes it is STILL storming in Miami.  On Friday parts of downtown flooded and South Beach lost power.  Each day in the afternoon the skies darken and it absolutely pours for about an hour or two.  In Houston, when it would rain, it would have only a few minutes of hard rain.  However, here in Miami, it is the hardest downpour you could imagine.  I can't even see the house behind me sometimes.  So we spent a lot of the weekend inside but did manage to get out to Target and have some Floridian mexican food at Baja Fresh down on The Mile.

Lily's walking skills have exponentially improved and she's moving around like a pro.

In other news, our mango tree is bursting with fruit.  These two mangos on the left were harvested this weekend (the apple is for size comparison)...

...with more mangos to come here in the near future.

Lily Walks!

We've all known Lily could walk.  She has such strong legs and is stiff as a board when you set her up right.  All she needed was to decide for herself that she wanted to go for it.  This week was the right time for her.  I've posted a video of her early attempts and I'm sure by this time next week, she'll be zooming around chasing after her brother and stealing his toys for once.

Playtime Pictures!

Poor Bailey

Video of how my babies terrorize my other baby....

Taken before bathtime...I promise my babies don't just run around in diapers all day (oh I was home by myself and they had also destroyed the house...no judging!)