Tu-Tu Cute!

Here are pictures of our BEAUTIFUL ballerina! Thanks Auntie B for the gorgeous tu-tu!!

Bates Update

BROOKELYN:
This week has been quite a doozie, but we are officially pink eye free-YEA!!! Brookelyn managed to make it to her school's music program on Monday night. She did a wonderful job and sang much more than she did at the Thanksgiving performance!

Little Brother and Daddy were very proud of Brookelyn--Braedyn even started dancing!

Brookelyn is int he little leopard dress, third from the left.

BRAEDYN:

He is just growing and growing. This morning he even managed to stand without holding on to anything for about five seconds! I truly think he is going to skip crawling (he prefers rolling) and go straight to walking. Here are some pictures I snapped of him last night after his bath:

Isn't he a cute little hippo?!

Back to the Urgent Care!

On Saturday when we picked Brookelyn up from the gym daycare I noticed that her right eye looked a little pink and yucky. I took her to the bathroom and washed it off, and we didn't really think it was a big deal. However, by the time we sat down to eat lunch she was complaining that it hurt, and it was very watery. We were planning on heading home to put some warm rags on it, but she spied "the bike store" (Dick's Sporting Goods) and wanted to go for a ride--her Daddy always lets her. So, with her mind off the eye we shopped around a bit, and then headed to her favorite store--WALMART! That's where things went downhill. We spent FOREVER in there, and she spent 99% of the time crying for me, making her eye look absolutely horrible! By the time we got home (about 4:00) her eye was swollen shut, had a large red spot on the white, and was extremely red. Since we hadn't been to the doctor for her since her stitches incident, we figured that it must be time--and of course on a Saturday night.

I called an urgent care facility, checked her in online, and waited for them to call us. (They call when your room is ready so you don't have to wait forever in the waiting room.) In the meantime we fed, bathed, and put the kids in their pjs. Finally, at 6:45 they called to tell us Brookelyn's room was ready. After both kids were loaded, of course Brookelyn had to get out to go to the bathroom for the 100th time, but then once we were reloaded we were off. We arrived to a full waiting room, but I walked in and gave my information, confident that we were ahead of all these poor people who didn't know about online check in. So we waited, and waited, and waited. After 15 minutes, I went up to the receptionist and explained we were told Brookelyn's room was already ready. She said there was one person in front of us still. Apparently, since it was so late (and the clinic closed at 8 pm) they called everyone who was left and told us to come in so they could have us there and ready for them. We waited a bit longer when a little girl got up from her chair with a horrible look on her face and proceed to puke FOUR times only centimeters from Allen's tennis shoes. If you know Allen you know how puking is something that he HATES more than anything in the world (when I first met him he had not puked since he was a young boy, and was terrified of doing so. Now, he is much more seasoned :) ). I grabbed Brookelyn and walked to the front of the waiting room while I tried to conceal my hysterical laughter (I know it is mean, but I just knew what words were going through Allen's head--words that I cannot write). Allen, not surprisingly, darted out the front door with Braedyn. Needless to say, we spent the remainder of our painful 40 minute wait in the glassed in lobby rather than in the waiting room. Here is Allen and Braedyn--he is talking to his mom on the phone.

They finally called us back and we got to wait for an additional 30 minutes! During this time I got to listen to Allen repeatedly tell me how germy and dirty every inch of the office was (it was actually very clean looking); he moaned and groaned as Brookelyn tossed on the examining table, letting her face touch the plastic of the table rather than the paper covering or dropping her baby on the floor. I think the highlight of our experience in the exam room was when we watched a husky dog tear apart and eat a giant whale on the small TV in our room--what were these people thinking showing this movie with children present?!

Here is the poor patient:

Finally the doctor entered, a young girl, which I was glad for since Brookelyn doesn't do well with male doctors. She explained that Brookelyn had an extrememly acute case of Pink Eye and prescribed both oral antibotics and eye drops.

After we left we of course had to go get the prescription filled. Unbenowst to me, not all pharmacys are 24 hours, so after driving through four different ones, the fifth was open. For some reason, taking the bottles off the shelf was going to take the pharmacist at least 15 minutes so we went over to Sonic and ordered a chili cheese frito burrito and a ice cream. Brookelyn , who was oddly enough not asleep yet, shared both.

About 9:00 both babies were finally in bed--after a major fight to put in the eye drops--and Allen and I crashed too. What a fun Saturday night!

Braedyn's Nine Month Check-Up

Under the watchful eye of big sis, Braedyn had his nine month check-up this morning. He passed with flying colors, which is a big improvement from the last time we visited Dr. Richardson (when he wouldn't eat, sleep, or use the bathroom). His "stats" are:

weight: 18.15 lbs-25th percentile

length: 28 3/4 inches-75th percentile

head: 18 1/4-90th percentile

So since he is gaining weight and continuing to increase in the other categories (even though he isn't "even" across the board in all areas and his percentiles vary) the Dr. said we are good to go until the one year check-up!

Here is Brookelyn taking care of her baby while we waited for the doctor to come in. Of course we had to bring ALL of baby's accessories with us to the doctor's office.

What a Wonderful Weekend!

We had a very busy week and weekend! Honey flew in on Tuesday to help me with the babies since Allen was in Lubbock for the week (on strike training), and thank goodness she did! Wednesday we dropped Brookelyn at school, went straight to Braedyn's music class and then back to Brookelyn's school for her Valentine's Day party. She had a great time, and Honey helped with the games and craft (thanks to Aunt Rita's wonderful idea for the king/queen of hearts crowns).

That night we had some "bonding time" in Brookelyn's bathroom about 10:30 pm as we sat with the (crying) kids while the tornado sirens blared outside. Luckily, everything was fine and we were able to go back to bed about 10 minutes later.

Sashi and Daddy came in town on Friday, so we had a full house. That night we went out to eat and as Allen pulled up to the restaurant Brookelyn said, "Look that man with the grey hair looks like Sashi!" We laughed and laughed--Sashi can no longer deny that his hair is grey! Allen and I were able to sneak away for a Valentine's Day dinner on Saturday while Honey and Sashi took the babies to McDonalds; it was great to get away for a while and have a peaceful dinner!

On Saturday we met Jenna (Brookelyn's godmother) and Mark (her wonderful boyfriend) for lunch. It was great to see them and catch up.

Now that everyone has gone back home we miss them all! Come and see us again soon!!

Brookelyn Boogie

Here is Brookelyn dancing away. I think we should switch her from ballet to hip hop class!

Playing with the Parachute

Today we got out the parachute and had a blast--thank you to Gymboree for introducing it to Brookelyn...and now Braedyn! Here is big sis taking "the reins":

And here's mom taking over (under Brookelyn's orders of course):

Chicago Here We Come...In 8 Months!

So, on one of those incredibly long car rides between our home and our family over Christmas Allen somehow managed to talk me into running the Chicago marathon. Yes it is 26 MILES, and yes neither Allen nor I are experienced runners. In fact, neither of us even enjoy running, and Allen has a problematic knee. Yet, last night we signed up and put our money (the enrollment fee) where our mouth was. So, for the next 8 months we have sold our souls to the running gods, and truly so far so good. In the past 5 weeks we have worked up to running 2 1/2 miles at a time. Here's to working up to 23 1/2 more!!

SO PROUD!

I just wanted to say how proud we are of Miss Brookelyn! She has worn big girl panties three nights in a row to bed with NO accidents! Yeah Brookelyn!!

As you can see, this makes for a very happy Mommy too!!