April 18, 2005

Last week my oldest two children turned 6.  It was a slightly emotional time for me because I cried for about 2 minutes the night before their birthday.  Andy stepped up to the plate and asked, "Why are you crying?"  He managed to comfort me after receiving an, "I don't know," response.  I still don't know what made me cry about Boston and Olivia turning 6. 

Then I had the most amazing idea.  I should post pictures from my pregnancy with them.  Please be forewarned:  I was very large at the end of my pregnancy!  Heck...who am I kidding?  I started getting large from the get-go.   


This picture is when Andy and I found out we were having twins.  We were sitting in the waiting room waiting to see the doctor, and we kept asking each other, "Does this mean there are 2 babies?"



My very first pregnancy picture.  This was the first day of school of 2004, and I don't think I knew I was pregnant.




9 days before the babies were born.  I had to buy an outfit because I had no clothes to fit me to go to a friend's baby shower.  Notice I'm big (and uncomfortable!) from head to toe.  My toes were even fat.  I could feel fat pockets in between my toes once I started to lose the weight.  In case you are wondering...my final weight was 195 lbs. on my 5"4" frame.  The weight gain eventually became a game of Can Christi Weigh As Much As Andy?  Yes, I won that game by getting to Andy's weight.  I hope that never happens again.




Moments before they were born.  My older sister came into the room and noted my dreadful appearance.  She put on a little makeup and tried to fix my hair.  I kindly returned the favor when she had her baby!




This is our first picture together.  Boston and Olivia were 3 days old. 




Their first trip to church.  Don't you love how squinched up they are?




First time to swim.  4 months old.




Pretty little girl.  Around 4 months.




Picture for 1st birthday party.

 I occasionally see a set of boy/girl twins out and about.  I fondly look at those babies and remember when mine were babies.  I feel like telling that new mommy everything I've experienced with my twins.  Instead I smile and remember when.  People used to tell me to enjoy it because it flies by too quickly.  When the twins were less than 6 months old I thought, "Yeah right."  Time sure picked up once they hit 6 months.  Now I would love to go back to that time to hold them and cuddle them and just have them as babies again.

Boston's 6th Birthday Party

Sophie's birthday party was on March 18th.  Olivia's birthday party was a sleepover on April 1st.  Boston's birthday party was on April 2nd.  Can you say one tired momma?   Boston wanted a baseball themed party and to invite all 23 children in his class, plus some friends, and his sisters.  Thankfully his party was at Minimonsters which provided less work for me.  I was beat after all the prep work from Sophie's and Olivia's parties.  I even had Andy and Boston put together all 30 goody bags.  I'm regretting not getting a picture of Andy using the paper cutter and glue dots!

The only way to get the baseball theme in was to have a baseball cake, baseball plates, and baseball goody bags.  Andy's parents were conveniently coming for a visit before all of the parties, so they brought loads of baseball items for me.  The goody bags contained Big League Chew gum, baseball cards, baseball bouncy balls, baseball stickers, and all of these favors were placed in a mini Astros batting helmet.  Because there were so many countries represented at his party and most of the invitees didn't know about baseball, I provided a description of the items in the goody bag.  This way our new friends could learn about a sport that is important to Boston, Andy, and America. 

Goody bags

The folded red paper contains the baseball info.

Boston had this face all day.  He is either happy, tired, or overwhelmed.  Olivia starts dancing when music comes on. 

Hungry kids after playing for an hour and 15 minutes.

Most of the 30 children were crowded around this small table for the "Happy Birthday" song.

Tired kiddos.

The most oft repeated phrase from after Boston's party, especially from our friends that attended all 3 parties, was...You are done for the year!  That is so true.

Olivia's 6th Birthday Party

Olivia celebrated her 6th birthday Friday night.  This was a big year for her because she insisted on having a party separate from Boston.  In fact, she chose a very girly party.  I wonder if she did that so I would have to do different parties?  For the first 5 years, I was able to have one party for both of them.  I even managed last year to have one party for all 3 of them!  Anyways...lots of planning for my children's parties, but I have to say, I really enjoyed Olivia's party.  It's my second time to have a girly party.  The first being Sophie's 1st birthday.  That party was all about sweet, feminine pink.  Olivia's party theme was Pajama Glam.  There was plenty of pink, black, and sophisticated details.  The 6 girls that spent the night had a great time with dress up, painting nails, drinking from champagne glasses, pink popcorn, and of course all sleeping in the same room.   

The red carpet form the front door to the gift table.

Favors were black evening bags containing bath sponges, bath gel, headbands, bracelets, and barettes.

Furry headbands

The table!!  My favorite part.  I also made wreaths with pink and black paper flowers...no picture, though.

Pretty pretty!

Olivia waiting for her friends to arrive.

The birthday girl.

All of the girls including Sophia.  She's in the back.

Sparklers!  Olivia hid under the table because she was scared.

The next morning.  One went home during the night :(



Special thanks to Jon and Hilary for helping me at the last moment.  Hilary was fabulous with the girls and Jon, Boston, and Andy escaped all the girls to play basketball.  Also special thanks to Andy's parents who brought me lots of party supplies for Sophie's, Boston's, and Olivia's parties.  Also thank you to Aunt Emily who brought me craft supplies.

Next post....Boston's party.

What Goes Around Comes Around

 When Olivia was 4 months old, I happily started feeding her rice cereal just like the doctor advised.  This was such a momentous occasion with the video camera, regular camera, and Andy and I both in the kitchen waiting anxiously to see how our twins would eat.  Little did we know that Olivia would turn into a very picky eater...actually she didn't eat.  She refused to eat anything given to her.  Sometimes I would get a couple of bites into her mouth only for those to be spat out again.  Olivia endured speech therapy for this refusal to eat and continued drinking baby formula until she was 15 months old because she couldn't get enough calories, fat, and nutrients from the small amount of food she would occasionally eat.  One time she ate mashed potatoes.  And like every other good mother would do, I promptly made mashed potatoes for her every day.  But guess what?  Eating mashed potatoes was a one time thing.  She still won't eat mashed potatoes.  She also would sometimes eat cereal bars.  I brought food with me to the therapy appointments and a cereal bar was always placed in front of her to eat.  Sometimes she ate it and other times not.  She also hated the spoon.  How dare I try to feed her with a spoon!!! 

Well...today at church poor Olivia had a huge surprise in for her.  She eagerly volunteered to help the large group leader because she was intrigued about what was under the tablecloth.  Olivia and 2 boys were selected for this activity.  What was there when the tablecloth was lifted?  Baby food!!!  This was a food competition of who could eat the bowl full of baby food the fastest.  Andy and I looked at each other and said, "Oh no.  She doesn't like this.  She never ate baby food."  The teacher talked for a couple of minutes while Olivia nervously played with her hair.  She kept pushing it behind her ears and running her hands up and down up and down.  The nerves she experienced.  Her tummy had to have flip flopped back and forth over and over.  Finally her teacher said to eat the food.  The boys dug right in and shoveled spoonful after spoonful into their mouths.  Olivia bravely put 2 bites into her mouth and then the tears started.  She just couldn't keep up with how quickly the boys were eating.  The other kids were cheering on Olivia and the two boys, but it was too much for her.  An eating competition in front of 30 kids pushed her to her limit.  She tried to keep the tears from falling and thankfully the competition ended shortly after that.  She stood in front of all the kids and did something that was so difficult for her.  Andy and I cheered for her and told her how great she did .  In the end she received a bag of Skittles for her hard work.  And what did I do?  I lost her candy.  Bad Mommy.

Don't worry about Olivia.  She recovered quickly from her experience.  Andy and I joked with her several times about her being the one out of all the other kids selected to eat baby food, and she laughed right along with us. 

Happy Birthday Sophia

My youngest child, Sophia, turns 3 tomorrow, March 20th.  Sophie shares this special day with her Paw Paw, my dad.  Her first birthday consisted of a party with our family.  Her second birthday was a joint party with her brother and sister because we were preparing to move.  This year is Sophie's first "real" birthday party, so I had to make it special.  She has loved The Little Mermaid for quite a while, so naturally she had a mermaid themed party.  She was very excited about her party and told people she met all about it.  "I'm having a mermaid party and Mimi, Pops, Hazel, and Annabel are coming," she'd say in her squeaky 2 year old voice.  But...several days before her party she became shy about being the birthday girl.  In fact, she didn't take a good picture with Ariel or Eric.

She's holding his bum.

She's deciding what to think about Ariel.

Emily also had a hard time getting the other 4 children to take an appropriate happy looking picture.  Awkard family photos anyone?

I giggle every time I see this.

Sophie livened up once the party started and enjoyed jumping, running, and eating.

Playing with her cousin Hazel

In between jumping and sliding.

Eating her cake after she changed clothes.

And then it was cake time and my little muffin turned shy once again. 

Lighting the candles.

Trying to pick her up.

Singing "Happy Birthday."

Blowing out the candles.

Andy and I had to hold her up for the camera and cake.  Did you notice how awkard we look trying to hold her?  She had recently peed on herself and of course we didn't want that on our clothes.  She stripped down to her birthday suit in the backyard in front of all of her guests after she blew out the candles.  Really Andy and I blew out the candles because she was too shy to do that.

Prince Eric and Ariel favor bags.

Gummy fish swimming in the ocean.

Ursula and the birthday banner.

The cake.

All in all Sophie and her guests enjoyed the birthday party tremendously.  The best part was that Andy's family was able to celebrate with us.  The kids had 20 days to play with their cousins which mainly consisted of all of them playing happily together.  Sophie's party was a good ending to our visit.  Now the countdown is on until we arrive home for summer vacation.  14 1/2 weeks to go!!

Visitors

My sister-in-law arrives in just a few hours.  She is coming with my nieces and their, babysitter Kiley.  They've been in India for 9 days and now they are headed to Dubai.  This trip has been planned since we moved here and is now finally here.  There are so many activities from which to choose when you live in a touristy city.  We are going to the Burj Khalifa, Ski Dubai, beach, little league baseball games, Sophie's 3rd birthday party, dhow cruise through the Marina, bus tour, shopping, the pool, and maybe even a waterpark.  Needless to say my 3 little muffins are beyond excited and can't wait to show their family our life here.

The roller coaster swing at Mimi and Pops's House

Watching cartoons

Aunt Emily taking a fancy picture

Be on the look out for posts.  That is if I have the time and energy!