developmental milestones....

Whitney learning to knit. The most important part of this picture is that there is sunlight. Glorious direct sunlight.
The top of the lantern shows how much snow we got.

Whitney crawled in and out of the laundry basket herself while helping fold laundry.

Ode to dad.
Enjoying the bitter cold beach
Tucker intent on the button with his one finger.

Watching the snow fall.
Playing with Mommy
The babies with their uncles at the locks


So Jim asked me this week if Tucker learning to put his finger in his nose is a developmental milestone that he should be completing. I didn't respond to that one. I was telling my dad about that and he laughed. Then, after the Thanksgiving meal, I asked my dad if it was worth the 16 hour drive up one way for three days up here. He said "Yes. It is the first Thanksgiving with grandkids. It's a developmental milestone." I had a good laugh about that.

This week was awesome!! I've really been missing Utah of all things (laugh away Aut), but lucky me, it snowed. And then it stuck. Apparently it is not something that happens around here much, the sticking part. The trash service skipped this week altogether. It was good timing for lots of kids, I would imagine. School was cancelled Tuesday and Wednesday. Just in time for a longer thanksgiving break with lots of snow to play in. The part about Utah I was missing was the stillness and brightness that comes with snow. Snow seems to muffle everything and it also reflects sunlight and moonlight so nicely. I enjoyed how much it seemed to light up the house. But I also didn't go anywhere for three days. It rained before it snowed and no one came to put sand on the road until way later. We live on a steep hill and not many people around me know how to drive in the stuff, so I decided not to get in an accident with the babies and stayed home. Which made Thanksgiving so much more enjoyable. People!!!

Thanksgiving felt like such a vacation but at home. I left the house every day. Three days in a row. I often don't leave the day after I go out because of the effort involved, but with lots of helping hands I could do it!! And with someone to keep me company every time. It was awesome. I was also able to leave the house without the babies three days in a row. Once to go running, once to watch a movie and then again to go running. Wow!! Exercise for my body. Another wonderful thing.

Having four men in the house was also pleasant. They ate almost all the turkey and leftovers in three days. Perfect. I get sick of any leftovers after three days, so it was taken care of without wasting and I didn't have to meal plan.

Anyway. enough with the writing. The videos and pics will say more than we could. Enjoy!!

The first video is Rocky being peppy. A rarity, hence the video. Apparently he loves snow.

The next video is the babies playing one of their favorite games on the stairs. Shouting while dancing.

The last video is Whitney when her nose is stuffy. The face she makes makes us laugh.

boy repertoire increased dramatically

Tucky passes out during dinner. Must be all those late nights.
Daddy is a pro at putting tucky to sleep
The babies playing one of their favorite games. Shouting while dancing at the stairwell.
Tucker helping mommy weed. That lasted 10 minutes. Too cold.
Whitney helping mommy weed. yep. too cold

Whitney takes over the dog beds. Good thing I waited to put on church clothes.

Tucky has been feeling better. The antibiotics have helped, although Tucky exceeded the diaper several times. I've never seen so much poop. He might test product limits when he gets older. He also downed 16 ounce bottles every night this week. He has been up every night because of the messy pants and I think hunger from the food going through him so much from those pesky and good antibiotics. I don't think my stomach can handle 16 ounces of milk at once. One morning he woke up with an exploded diaper from all that fluid. There were diaper beads everywhere. He also figured out how to unroll toilet paper and flick grape pieces across his high chair tray with one finger.

Whitney is working on other team skills. Like learning to flush the toilet, and she has been banging on the toilet lids. Not much longer before she opens them. Whitney also knows how to climb stairs, but reverse is always much more difficult. They both figured out how to hold their bottles while sitting up in the high chair. What a blessedly wonderful skill. now I can eat while they eat.

Whitney is cruising a ton. Walking by christmas may be her achievable goal. Whitney also loves new flavors but textures cannot be mixed. Bananas and oatmeal don't go together apparently. She spits is right out. She went with Daddy to the grocery store this week. Apparently she told him to get gouda cheese. She loves it. She also loves corn tortilla quesidillas. She doesn't like meat sticks too much, though.

Tucker thinks getting his socks pulled off or falling objects is hysterical. This week when I pulled off his socks fast, he laughed so hard, he fell over. One of their favorite games is pulling to stand on the stair banister and shouting. Whitney likes to dance really hard while this is all happening.

Due to Tucky's better moods, I've been able to do more. I put up some pics, hung out with a friend on Monday and Friday, spray painted my ugly light fixtures silver and got a leave/pine needle blower to help me fight the war on pine needles. My hair dryer broke last night. Jim asked me why I didn't use the blow dryer that I got this week. You know, the one out in the garage......

I haven't messed with two stroke machines much. I hate weed whackers with a passion. Leaf blowers are the same, except I was motivated to use the leaf blower. It is WAY better than sweeping moist pine needles, the only things we have around here. We can't have dry pine needles. No, that would be too easy. So I went to the store one night to buy it. They are on sale now. Awesome. The next day I went to put it together during one baby break. Then the next baby break was to figure out how to mix 50 parts fuel to one part oil. Then the next break was mixing the fuels. Then the next was learning to start it cold. Then when it finally started, the parts fell off, so I had to turn it off and click the tubes in place. Duh. By then it was dark and I was out of baby breaks. So Jim did the leaf blowing. Sure. By then, all he had to do was pick it up and turn it on. Whatever. At least he got up on the roof to blow them off so then don't keep falling in front of my door and getting tracked in the house.

One of the friends I met with has twins 2.5 months younger than Tucker and Whitney. They are going to terrorize the nursery at church in a few months together. They got along great.

Today it snowed. It is so weird to me that it can snow at such a low elevation. It doesn't stick though. Perfect. Whitney tried to catch them, but got mad at the flakes for not staying still.

Overall this week was tiring but rewarding and frustrating all at the same time. (one day the lack of sleep really got to me and I was wondering if I was a good mom or not> Good thing Jim was around to remind me that the babies are happy, so it works ok and they are taken care of. Good hubby).

Oh yeah. I almost forgot. We had our neighbor over for dinner and tucker threw up all over in the middle. She stopped eating, but I was so hungry, I kept eating after everything was cleaned up. She was awesome. She stayed after to clean the kitchen up a bit.

Anyway we got a new phone number because Jim got a church calling that having a local number will make it a lot easier on people, so email me if you don't get it in two weeks or so.

Happy thanksgiving!!

rocky fights back

Tucker somewhat mad about being stuck under the table.
Apparently doing dishes is very relaxing and kick-back.


I think the funniest thing that happened this week was Rocky and his relationship with Whitney. A few of you may remember the video of Whitney ripping Rocky's face off. Well, Rocky is now very aware of his need to defend his floor space and to run when Whitney gets too close. This was made very apparent to me this week. Rocky was chewing on his chew toy peacefully when Whitney whacked at it (the end was sticking way out) with her hand. You know how babies have that phase of hitting everything. Well, Rocky doesn't know much about that phase. As soon as she whacked his toy, he growled and relocated. But not very far. She didn't think much of it and pretty much ignored him while she went on playing ( no worries. I moved her and told her no, too) with her toys in the same room. Well, as happens with toys, they roll and one rolled near Rocky. Near means within a foot. She crawled over and was within his peripheral vision when he started growling and yelping like Whitney was hitting him. Hmmmm. Sounds like something I did with my siblings once in a while to get them in trouble. He did it several times. Then he took his chew toy and went in the other room. Finally. But what really makes this story funny is the next part. A few minutes later Sammy started barking at something in the living room, probably a squirrel outside or something. Rocky came running down the hall, trying to bark, but not too successfully because he had his chew toy in his mouth. Can't let Whitney get it.

The other cute thing this week was that Tucker learned how to stand up in the crib. I went in after naptime and they were both standing in their cribs, chortelling at each other. Whitney likes to laugh really hard and rock back and forth while standing holding on to rails. Tucker is pretty impressed he can do it too. This means he can also pull to stand on chairs. He was practicing under the kitchen table, but since he's an inch taller, he got stuck. His head was hitting the bottom of the table ledge and he couldn't get out. That made him mad and he cried a ton until I got him out. Since he is taller, he can reach the top of the table. Sigh. And everything goes up another level.

I asked Jim what we should blog about, what cute thing they did this week, and he said, what. Besides being sick and not sleeping through the night? So that brings up something else. We haven't slept this week, or the week before, or the week before that. Now I totally get it when parents say "well, my kid was sick this week, so not much else happened". yeah. Between lost sleep and thirty thousand loads of laundry and diaper changes, I get it. So Tucker went to the doctor since it had been three weeks he's been off, and he has a double ear infection. The doctor said it is mild, but since it's been so long and he hasn't been sleeping, then it would be wise to bust out the meds. Dang it. I was hoping to avoid amoxicillen. I remember I went through a lot of that stuff when I was a kid. Same stuff. Cleans 'em out in more ways than one. So I get it now when parents say their kid was sick. Throw up and poop at night seems 50x bigger and more stainable.

Whitney hasn't been sick. She eats her vegetables. She has been a very good and patient baby while tucker has been so fussy. She discovered ice this week. While I was putting away groceries, an ice cube fell out on the floor where she was playing. She held it for a good 20 seconds. I was surprised because of how cold it was. It fell out of her hands because it melted enough to be slippery. She was very intrigued!

the awesome kindness of strangers and family

Tucky loves the fish. Future Scuba buddy.
Whitney doing baby snorkling at the aquarium
Whitney getting comfuy on the way home.

Eating with Haly
babies at the park
Tucky eating with taylor

a most ideal picnic
What is that?!
I don't know. Grandma says its an osage orange
Enjoying the last of fall color
whitney is so cute!
tucky in the tub
tucky and eddie
whitney "cooking"
whitney loooking out the airplane window
Whitney making international friends
Tucky getting energy for the upcoming adventure.



We did it! We made it to Illinois and back. With lots of help. Hence the title of this blog. I had this crazy idea in September to visit my aunt in Illinois. I've really been wanting to visit ever since my parents went to Illinois when I was about 23 and not taking me with them. I was very bummed. But didn't want to be a bum by not having a job. So I stayed home. And then went later when it would be easier. Like traveling with two small children. When I booked the flight, I was thinking, well, I'll do it then because my mom is coming up and it would be nice to have another set of hands and who would say no to visiting Auntie Jill. Now I know. It would have been impossible to go without my mom. My arms are sore and I'm used to hefting Tucky around.

We left our house at 9 and got to Auntie Jill's around 8. There was a 35 minute lay over, which I thought would be ideal as it would minimize the amount of travel. We thought we gave ourselves plenty of time to get through security at Seattle, but found it was the perfect timing. Just as we pulled up to the gate, they were calling for us to board. Whoops. Didn't have time to buy water after security for the baby bottles. Help number one. Oh yeah. I guess it is help number 2. The guy behind us retrived the stroller tray that popped off when I was trying to make the stroller skiny enough to fit through the conveyor belt. I didn't know that was sent through security. I also didn't know that the front tray came off until it was on the other side of the security belt. We got a little delayed at security because the lady in front of us had a rock in her bag. She had gone for a walk on the beach and picked it up. She didn't take it out of her bag because she didn't know it was bomb material. silly her. I think she might have been very close to missing her flight over that rock. TSA wouldn't allow her to leave her bomb and run to catch the plane for some reason. Anyway, that caused us to not have enough time to buy water for the babies after security.

We then sat on a full flight for four hours. That was an adventure. The babies needed to eat twice during that time and were very curious about their surrounding environment. Especially Whitney. No nap for her. Life is too short to sleep. The people sitting next to me were awesome. The lady next to me didn't speak a lick of English. I believe she was from Hong Kong. It didn't matter. She sang and played with Whitney all the same and Whitney smiled and played back just like she does with me. Either she speaks better Chinese than English, or that's about as much sense as my English means to her brain. The lady sitting next to the window let Whitney look out the window. Whoa. THAT was fascinating. Whitney had a blast. This same lady also asked the flight attendent about our connecting flight to Bloomington. This resulted in the flight attendent moving us up several rows on the plane. Our flight would be arriving late. In fact, the plane would be landing the same time as we were supposed to be boarding. I guess the 35 min layover wouldn't happen.

Once we moved up a few rows, we met more awesome people. The ladies sitting next to my Mom took over. They carried Mom's luggage (Tucker was fast asleep in her arms this entire time. 2 hours or so to be exact. My mom's arms hurt still), got the cart driving people to drive us to the elevator, found the flight screen to help us find our next gate, and were generally wonderful. The ladies sitting next to me played with Whitney and helped me get a move on also. One of them was returning from Hong Kong after a college recruiting business trip. Which is why I think the people next to me are Chinese.

We ran. From one gate to the other, we ran. Part of it was uphill and lots of it was supposed to be up and down stairs/escalators. That was my workout for the day. Lucky for us they held the plane enough to let us catch it. That was awesome!!! Bloomington airport is small but very functional. And smaller than I thought. After being in Minniapolis and Seattle, it was a noice treat. My aunt saw us through the windows and I didn't even know that she was that close to us. Then we didn't have carseats. I guess the transfer was too close for carseats to make it, so we had loaner ones. So we waited until the Delta guy made something work with the American airline people. On the way back, we met awesome people that talked and played and helped with the babies. One even offered to buy us a sandwich so we could eat on the next flight, since they knew we wouldn't have time to do it going to the next flight. Everyone was more than understanding about those babies.

And the babies were awesome!! They only screamed twice. Once was because I didn't realize they were still hungry, and the other was Tucker on the decent back into seattle because his ears were hurting. They did awesome!

Then we got to my aunt's. She made welcome baskets for us. They had toys, books, blankets and pj's for the babies. Good thing. I ended up needing those a lot. My aunt also found pack and plays and a high chair so we didn't have to bring that stuff. It helped a ton. My aunt also made welcome baskets for my mom and I let us have her room with the babies. It was great!!

We went to Allerton park, a park that is like walking around in the A and E version of Pride and Predjudice. Absolutely beautiful. We went to Lake of the Woods and walked on the swinging bridge. Everyone was nice about Tucker screaming every night and giving up their space. It was so good to visit with my family all day every day and not be by myself. I got to get out of the house everyday, enjoy the sun, eat lots of yummy food, and my aunt did all the cooking and cleaning. She spoiled me rotten. And I ate it up. I hope you enjoy the pics as much as we enjoyed the trip. Daddy was so glad to have them back and took them to the aquarium today. Enjoy like we enojoied the trip!!
our last night in Illinois