Movin' Sites

Well, after about a week of prep it's finally time to move to our new site. All of our posts, comments, and pictures have been moved over to our new server and Shae put together a few images for our page headers. If you bookmarked our blog or subscribe to the RSS feed (or follow us on Blogger), make sure you update your bookmark or feed with our new URL .

Our new site is at http://thelorigans.com.

Head on over and enjoy.

Slow Times

Well, nothing much has changed since my last post. It's weird how the babies figure something out, make no progress for weeks, and then make another major jump. Ella basically figured out how to crawl over a week ago, but since then she's made very little progress. She can crawl well enough to get to a toy she really wants (or to get into trouble if we look away for a second), but really hasn't gotten any better since the first or second day she figured it out. Not that I'm complaining, of course. The longer we can delay the baby chasing, the better. Jack, on the other hand, seems to have everything figured out. He's not really into this crawling thing yet. Why crawl when you can sit on the floor and stare a the toy you want until Mommy gets it for you? Crawling is for suckers.

Even though she hasn't quite mastered the whole crawling thing yet, Ella's moving on. The past couple of days she's been trying to pull herself up into a standing position using whatever is available. I actually had to tell her, "You've gotta crawl before you walk, baby girl." Who would've thought I'd ever get to use that line literally?

Other than that, there really isn't a lot going on. Shae has finally decided to put her love of photography to use and is starting to line up some photo shoots with some of the other moms in her "Mom's" group, so we've been a little busy setting up a new website for that. Along the way, we got a couple of extra domains so we will probably be moving our blog and image gallery over to another server in the next few weeks. We really needed more space for our photos since we're almost out of space on our picasaweb account, and we should also be able to host extra stuff (like the March Madness site) on our new server (which will be nice since it should be more reliable than my home server). Don't worry, if/when we move we'll make sure everything is transferred over to the new site and redirect this blog to the new URL.

First Bath Together

For whatever reason, Shae and I got motivated to do some work on the babies' bathroom today. Since Jack and Ella can sit up on their own now (take that Dr. who said they needed to work on sitting), we decided it would be nice if we could bathe them together in their own bathtub. So today we finally got around to replacing the shower doors with a shower curtain and rod. Of course, somehow the tub ended up covered in frogs (I'm sure Shae had nothing to do with that). After a little bit of work and a lot of caulk jokes (I put caulk in the hole, hehe), we could finally give the munchkins a bath together. They seemed to have a good time. Here are a few pics (more over here). Oh, and if you don't think you'll be seeing about 20,000 bath pics of the babies over the next couple of years you don't know me at all.

Time For Another Crib

The babies have finally started to pay quite a bit of attention to one another. That would be great, except they've decided they'd rather bother each other than go to sleep at night. They've been sharing a crib, and every time we put them down to go to sleep Ella rolls over to Jack's side and starts bothering/hitting/chewing on her brother. I guess tomorrow we'll be putting together the second crib so they can get some sleep. Shae and I are both too tired to write up a real post, so instead I'm just going to post some pictures of the kiddos. Besides, I figure everyone would rather look at pics of the babies than read my babbling.

That's it for now. There are a few other pics over in our gallery.

What's The Big Deal? - Updated

OK, I've given this whole baby thing about 8 months and I have to say I just don't get what all the fuss is about. Don't get me wrong, I love my babies and they let me clean food off they're mouths (awesome), but they seem overrated. Everyone makes such a fuss over every little thing they do, but I'm not impressed. I wish someone would get all excited about taking me for a damn walk.

Every little thing the babies do is such a huge event to the other humans, but I don't understand it. They're 8-months-old and everyone makes a big deal out of the girl baby learning to sit (Mom said to make sure to tell everyone that Ella is sitting now. See what I mean? I can't even write a blog post without having to plug the stupid babies). When I was 8-months I had already graduated my obedience class as Top Dog. Sitting? I was sitting by 4-months. Not just sitting, but sitting on command. Did everyone make a big deal out of me figuring out how to sit? Nope, they gave me a tiny treat and told me to do it again. Totally unfair.

Speaking of unfair, the double standard that Mommy and Daddy have between me and the babies is ridiculous. There is baby crap everywhere (and they're toys look exactly like my toys), but I never chew on any of their toys. Not even the stuffed animals, and if you know me at all you know how hard that is. (I have chewed on the occasional pacifier, but seriously they're delicious and they're everywhere.) If I ever did eat a toy I would get in lots of trouble. Then there are the babies. They eat everything, even my toys. Today the baby girl threw all of her toys to the side and started eating my rope. When Mommy took that away she started eating my Kong. Did she get yelled at, or even scolded? Nope. Hell, the babies chew on ME and no one says anything to them. I just have to lay there and take it (although I secretly love the attention). Daddy got new glasses last week and the babies are always grabbing and pulling them. Of course, no one says anything to them. I licked his glasses today and got in trouble. One lick. Total crap.

I haven't even mentioned all the stuff that the babies can't even do yet. Apparently even something as basic as Ella crawling about a foot forward is worth talking about. Really? Crawling? She's 8-months-old! I was running around before I was 1-week. Don't even get me started on the house-breaking. I never took one dump in our house (I did drop a deuce at The Learning Garden once, but it wasn't ours yet and it smelled weird), and it only took 2 weeks for me to figure out that I'm supposed to pee outside. The little humans have taken about 10,000 poops in the house and no one seems to care. I've heard rumors they even poop in stores. Imagine if I stopped and squatted in Target; I'd never hear the end of it. They just throw diapers on the babies and act like everything is fine. The worst part is no one seems to be trying to fix the problem. They don't even take them out to the lawn to teach them to "hurry". How are they ever going to learn?

There's plenty of other ways I'm way better than the babies, but Mommy and Daddy want the laptop and I still have to check on all my Twitter friends so I better go. I love my babies, but I'll love them a lot more when they can take me on a walk. Until then I'm going to go hide my toys so they stop eating them. [Update: Here are some pictures of the babies torturing me!]

The Beginning Of The End

Well, crap. We all knew it was only a matter of time, but Ella finally figured out how to crawl. As we were putting the twins to bed tonight Ella started crawling forward. I'm sure by tomorrow she'll be scampering all over the place and Jack will probably be a couple of days behind. I can't wait to spend my weekend chasing them yelling "Ella! Stop! Jack!! Put that down!" Super.

Sitting Around

Not that there was ever any question, but if we needed any more proof that Jackson is my son we have it. In general, Ella develops ahead of Jack. She leads the tooth race 5-0 (yup, she just got another one), smiled first, rolled over weeks ahead of her brother, and seems ready to crawl any second (while Jack is happy to just roll around). However, there's one area where Jack is kicking his sister's butt: sitting. That's right, my boy is awesome at sitting on his ass. Just like his daddy.

At the twins' last checkup, the doctor told us that they should be sitting better than they are. We hadn't really been working with them on sitting up because they were doing so great rolling around and didn't seem to want to sit still. Well, after the doctor's visit we (we being Shae) started working with the babies on their sitting.

A few weeks later, Jack is a sitting pro. We can sit him on the floor and he'll hang out for 15 minutes or so. Like I said, just like his daddy Jack is skilled at sitting around. Ella on the other hand has no interest in sitting, at least not when we want her to. When she's sitting in her bouncer she has no problem sitting up and looking around. If we sit her down on the floor, she just flops down and starts rolling all over the place. She's going to be super fun to chase when she finally figures out how to crawl. Yay.

Anyway, here's a pic of our baby boy sitting:

And just because, here's a pic of Ella (not sitting of course). There are a few new pics over in our gallery:

Feeling Ill

It's been a rough couple of weeks around here, but everyone is finally feeling better. Since I had a four-day break over Memorial Day weekend (thanks to an off-Friday and the Monday holiday), of course I got sick on Thursday night. Thanks a lot babies. I can't wait until they start going to daycare and school and bring home all those super-germs. It's going to be awesome. Anyway, here's a recap of our sick weekend.

Shae's parents drove down on Friday, so we spent the day straightening up and resting. Of course, the babies were still sick so they didn't make cleaning very easy. My sore throat and body aches didn't help either. Other than that, Friday wasn't very exciting. Tom and Grace finally got into town just in time to go to bed.

Saturday was international blacksmiths day (everyone knew that, right?), so Tom and Grace spent a good portion of the day up at the tractor museum in Vista doing blacksmith stuff. I was very disappointed I had to stay home with Shae and the kiddos. Super disappointed. Shae, the babies, and myself all weren't feeling super so we just kind of rested and relaxed most of the day.

After the grandparents got back from the exciting tractor museum, we put the kids down to sleep, grabbed some dinner, and then Shae and I pawned the baby-sitting duties off and got out of the house for a bit. It's been so long since the two of us have been able to get away on a "date" that we were really excited to get away long enough to see a movie. We met up with Chris and Patty at the theater and spent a couple of hours watching Star Trek. Spaceships, explosions, and (best of all) no babies. It was great to get a few baby-free hours, and we both really liked the movie. Good times.

The plan for Sunday was to spend some time at the zoo, but something was going on at Balboa Park and the traffic was crazy so we gave up on that idea. Instead, we decided to go over to Fort Rosecrans Cemetery where Grace's parents and sister are buried. In honor of Memorial Day, there were flags setup by all of the headstones so Shae took some pictures. Shae and I were both feeling pretty crappy Sunday, so we took it easy the rest of the day.

Monday, Grace fired up the smoker and cooked several chickens and some ribs. While the meat was smoking, we took care of a few projects around the house. Tom and I (mostly Tom) finally put the doors on our hall closet (they look great), Tom setup our table saw, and Shae and I installed a new deadbolt and knob on our back door. We even found time to give Lunchbox a bath and let him play with the water for a while. Eventually, the food was ready and Chris and Patty came over to enjoy some smoked meat and some beer. It was a nice laid back Memorial Day.

The next day was not so nice. For starters, I guess I overdid it on Monday because I felt like crap when I woke up on Tuesday. Of course, there were some major issues at work to take care of so I had to go in for a few hours to take care of them. Even worse, something was very wrong with Lunchbox. Monday night he was not himself and Shae and her dad decided they probably needed to take him to the vet on Tuesday. By Tuesday morning something was definitely wrong with LB and he was clearly in pain. Normally, when the alarm goes off LB jumps around like crazy until I get up and then he sprints out to his bowl for breakfast (with lots of peeling out and slipping on the hard-wood floor along the way). Tuesday morning, however, he was really lethargic (he still made his way out his bowl and ate breakfast of course, he's still a lab). Shae and I were both really worried, and we decided LB had to go to the vet when they opened. I had to leave for work so I didn't see it myself, but apparently Lunchbox started trembling like crazy and Shae and her dad were both worried and decided he had to go see the vet ASAP. They took him in, and after examining him the vet decided it was most likely some sort of muscle injury (probably hurt when we were playing in the water). She gave the Box a painkiller shot and sent Shae home with some doggy-profen to give him for the next few days.

When I got home from work around noon, we had a house full of sickos. Shae and I were sitting on the couch feeling like crap, the babies were still sick and fussy, and LB was laying around drugged and sore. Everyone was still under the weather on Wednesday and I stayed home and rested. By Thursday the babies, the Box, and I were feeling better (Shae still wasn't super), and by Friday everyone was pretty much back to normal. The babies still have runny noses, but they don't seem to be feeling sick like they were before.

That's about it for the Memorial Day weekend recap. I'm going to try to write a few short posts a week rather than only writing about one post every couple of weeks. For some reason, the babies don't like to give me time to write out these posts. Maybe I can even convince LB to write a few more posts.

Probin'

Well, last night it happened: we finally had to stick a thermometer up a baby's ass. We've been able to avoid the ram & read for the past seven months, but out luck finally ran our. When I got home from work the babies were sleeping, but when I picked up Jack after his nap he was burning up. He was red and fussy, and even after some Tylenol he was still too warm. By bedtime we had no choice; we had to go find the thermometer and get a reading.

Of course, we don't have a 10-second anal analyzer so we were going to have to keep this thing up Jack's pooper for about a minute. Yay! After a short argument over who was going to hold baby boy's feet and who had to hold the thermometer (I won), I grabbed the feet, Shae lubed up the rump reader, and Jack got an unpleasant surprise. About a minute of discomfort later (Jack was very brave) the thermometer beeped and the readout told us Jack's had a fever (100.4). Even though Shae was slightly traumatized, there wasn't much we could do last night so we put the babies to bed. A few hours later we retook Jack's temperature and his fever was gone. By this morning, Jack was back to smiling and laughing. I guess we did good work.

I think Jack was a little traumatized by the probing experience. Even though he didn't feel as warm this morning, Shae wanted to take his temp just to make sure he was doing fine. Jack disagreed. Just as Shae was about to give him another jolt, he defended himself the best way he can: he peed on his mom. That should teach her to think twice before trying that again.

A few updates:

• My guess at the cause of Jack's fever was that his teeth were finally coming in. Ella already has three and he doesn't have any so I figured it was time. So it makes perfect sense that Ella has a new tooth this morning and Jack doesn't. So Ella leads the tooth race 4-0.
  
  
• Speaking of 4-0, that's the current "score" in our war against the rodents. About two weeks after deploying the WMRs (Weapons of Mass Rodent-struction, AKA D-CON), Shae found three more dead mouse-warriors. Counting the one we got with the trap a couple of months back we've taken out at least four of the little bastards now. It seems to be working because we haven't heard any scurrying up in the attic lately. I'm sure they're just plotting their next attack. Of course, the mice got the last laugh. They may have died, but I was the one who had to to dispose of their maggot infested carcasses. I'd almost rather have them making a ruckus up in the attic than have to pick that crap up again. Gross.
  
  
• The babies had their 7-month checkup on Tuesday. They're both doing fine. A few highlights:
  
  • The babies growth-rate has really slowed down. Ella was 15lbs 8oz and Jack was 16lbs 5ozs. Basically, in three months they both put on about a pound-and-a-half. I guess this is pretty normal since they are both still about average according the the chart the doc showed us.
  • Ella is still a very tall girl (90th percentile...she must get her height from her mom). Jack's height is still right about at the average. He would have been a lot taller if they counted the height of his faux-hawk.
  • The expectations for the babies get higher every visit. Last time everyone was impressed that they drooled. This time, no one cared how good they were at drooling (Ella is a superstar drooler); the doc wanted to know about their sitting, rolling, "talking", etc. I guess it's kind of like school where not pissing on the floor is a big deal in kindergarten, but by the higher grades you have to do math and stuff (Note: this comment is based on kindergarten when I was a kid, not the crazy requirements now where kindergarten students do algebra and calculus). Actually, I think teachers at every level are happy if the students don't piss on the floor. Maybe it's not the same at all.
  • Another visit, another round of shots for the babies. That part gets tougher every time because the babies are more aware of the pain as they get older. Especially Jack. He's our sensitive little boy.
    
    
• Last weekend my mom came down to visit for Mother's Day. It was a short visit, but we squeezed in a trip to the zoo, some pictures at Balboa Park, and we took in the Bodies exhibit that is currently at one of the Balboa Park museums. Oh, and lots of baby time. It was a very nice visit.

I think that's about it for now. Hopefully Shae will get around to processing and uploading some new pics of the kids sometime soon.

An Update From The Box

I've decided that I'm tired of letting the humans write my posts for me, so I decided to get my own account and take care of things myself. It's only fitting since I'm such a grown up dog now (2 years old!). I've got my own email address (lbthedog@gmail.com), and I'm even on Twitter (http://twitter.com/lbthedog). I'm quite the Web 2.0 puppy (I guess that makes me "Lunchbx").

This weekend was the big yard sale in my 'hood. For the humans this means lots of sunscreen and shopping. For me, it just means a super long walk. Last year was crazy. It was really hot and there were humans everywhere. Cars were parked on the median, and on every curb. There were so many crotches to sniff! Of course, Mommy still had babies inside her (the good old days as I call them) so we had to take lots of breaks. This year it was a lot cooler and there weren't as many humans.

After the humans finally got out of bed and fed me and the babies, it was time to go on our walk. I was so excited about the yard sales that I grabbed a $5 bill out of my private stash (I'll never tell where it is) and brought it to Mommy to buy me stuff. Of course, we couldn't just go walk. I threw on my pirate outfit (you never know who you might meet at the yard sale, gotta impress the bitches (I can say that, I'm a dog)) and was ready to go, but the human babies take forever to leave. They had to have cute outfits, hats, sunscreen, bottles, and everything else the humans could find. Those little things sure are a lot of work. It's bad enough when they wake me up at night, but getting in the way of my walk is completely unacceptable. Anyway, eventually all of the humans were ready and it was finally time to go out and get our walk on.

Since my human parents don't trim my toenails often enough, it's a little tough to type everything up so I'll just skip to the highlights. We walked all over the area and saw tons of humans and even some other dogs. Apparently the humans didn't find anything they liked, because they didn't buy anything but some breakfast burritos (they spent my $5 and didn't even give me any, totally not fair). I got to play a little with a Wiemariener (any idea how hard that is for a dog to spell?) at one of the houses, but we had to leave before the W and I started breaking stuff. The craziest thing I saw was two dogs being walked in strollers like the human babies. Why would the dogs agree to that? What's the point of going on a walk if you don't, you know, walk? Some dogs are lame. You won't catch me riding in a stroller. Mommy's ankle has been acting up lately, so we had to cut our stroll short (if an hour-and-a-half is short). I was so tired when we finally got home, so I pretty much napped the rest of the day. I can't wait until next year's yard sale.

The humans want to use the laptop so I guess I better wrap this up and go get some water. Typing is a lot of work. I'm exhausted. Time for a nap.

2 Years

Tomorrow is April 28th, which means it's been two years to the day since Lunchbox was born. There was something about a wedding on that day, too. While it's easy to see LB is only two-years-old (he seems more like six-months), it's hard to believe that a couple of years ago Shae and I weren't married. Two years ago I didn't really expect to have one kid by now, much less two. Nevertheless, here we are. Quite a couple of years.

I've been pretty swamped between work and home lately, so I hadn't noticed it has been almost three weeks since the last post. I guess that means it's time for an update on how things are going around here.

The babies are doing great. They keep growing, and their personalities keep developing like crazy. They aren't crawling yet, but Ella's close and they both roll enough to end up across the room if you take your eyes off them for a second. A couple of weeks ago Shae took the little ones with her up to Lockwood for a week, and it was hard to believe how different they were when they got back. They're on a pretty good schedule lately, and are sleeping through about half the time now (Or so I've been told. Shae quiets them down so quick I don't even hear them).

Lunchbox is doing his thing. As much as he acts annoyed by the new additions, he loves his babies and missed them when they were gone. Even though he got taken on lots of extra walks and got tons of attention (funny how that works when there are no babies around), he was a little depressed while they were gone. Every morning after breakfast he would run into the baby-room to see if they were there, go check Shae's side of the bed, look at me with a sad puppy-look, and then go plop and his bed and pout until he got put out for the day. He was VERY happy to get the rest of his family back. Almost as happy as Ella was to see him. Seriously, she might be a little too into her dog; she loves him more than she loves either of her parents.

Shae's doing fine too. She's back on one of her photography kicks, so she's been playing with our cameras and taking tons of pictures. That would be fine, except then she wants me to look at them. "That's a nice picture of a window." "Good picture of the door there." "Oooh, that's a great shot of a window and a door." Repeat. Oh, and somewhere in between taking pictures she finds time to take care of the kiddos.

As for me, I'm doing fine. Work is a little crazy lately, but everything is pretty good. I took over as the lead of our web team, so now instead of doing any real work I spend all of my time answering email and preparing PowerPoint briefs. Fun. It would be nice to be able to do some development occasionally, but overall things are going pretty well at work.

That brings us to the Great Rodent War of 2009. Since our last update, things haven't changed much. We don't have any more casualties to report, but we've deployed the weapons of mass rodent-struction (AKA D-Con) up in the attic and are just waiting on the little mice to eat themselves to death. Don't worry, we will emerge victorious.

Six Months

Today is April 7th, which makes it six months since Ella and Jackson popped out of Shae. It feels like it's been much longer than six months, but it's also hard to believe that it's already been half-a-year. I'm not sure how to explain it other than it feels like the babies have been around forever, but at the same time it seems like only yesterday that Shae was pregnant. Very weird.

The babies just keep on becoming little people. Ella's bottom two teeth are all the way in, and they definitely work (Shae and Jack both have the bite marks to prove it). She bites Jack, and he pulls her hair. It's a fun game they play. It's also getting really hard to keep Ella in one spot. She rolls all over the place, and even goes after her favorite toys. Her favorite thing to go after is Lunchbox. She sees him, gets all excited, and rolls/squirms over to him.

Jack's doing great too. He's not quite as mobile as his sister, but he is a very happy baby boy. He has a great laugh, and loves to play (if by play you mean lie on his back and kick and laugh). His hair has grown back from his friar hair-style, and his reflux is almost all gone. It's great to feed him and not get puked on 20 seconds later.

Last weekend, Shae took the twins up to Escondido to visit the Wild Animal Park and Kit Carson Park. She got a few cool pictures, and the babies are even in some of them. She's uploaded a few of them, and will be uploading more as she processes them. You can view them over in our gallery.

At War

March 20th, 2009:
I've been living in denial for months now, but the signs are too strong to ignore any longer. The mouse droppings in the sun room, the glimpses of a rat scampering back up into the palm tree when I go out to the patio late at night, (worst of all) the sounds of plotting coming from the attic. There really is no other explanation: the rodents are plotting to take us out. They've finally decided to put the information gathered by their mouse-spy months ago to use and launch their attack.

So far, the traps we've setup to defend against the rodents haven't netted us any prisoners, but at least the enemy seemed to respect them and stay away. now it sounds like that's all changing. It's time to stop playing defense and go on the attack. We've carefully setup some traps in their territory (the attic), and hopefully we can take out a few of their warriors.

March 24th, 2009:
Well, it's been four days since Shae and I launched our counter attack against the rodents and so far we haven't had any real success yet. The rat seems to have retreated to the palm tree (or at least he's doing a better job of hiding), but our traps in the attic have not succeeded. In fact, it seems that we are just feeding the mice peanut butter while they dodge the traps. Instead of capturing the enemy, I fear we're actually giving them the protein they need to grow strong enough to launch a full-scale attack. We have no choice but to deploy the "Rat Zapper" that we acquired from Shae's parents. I fear escalating the war, but the mice seem to be too smart for our outdated traps.

The Rat Zapper is an odd weapon. I thought we would bait it using cheese, but apparently you can't use anything "cheese-like" because it will complete the circuit and fry the bait. I would think burnt cheese would be hard for a mouse to resist (it's hard for me to resist), but I have no choice but to trust Shae since she has training on our new weapon. I guess the ideal bait for the Rat Zapper is cat food. This seems absurd to me. If you have cat food, it would stand to reason that you also have a cat. If you have a cat, why the hell do you need the Rat Zapper? Whatever, war is strange. We'll have to make do with dog food and hope the Box doesn't get his nose zapped trying to get a snack.

March 26th, 2009:
It seems we have vastly underestimated our adversary. Somehow, they found a way to disable our Rat Zapper; our new technology is no match for the rodent wits. (Either that, or the last rodent caught in the trap burned out the device. Whatever the cause, the Rat Zapper is not going to help us.)

In fact, instead of gaining a technological advantage over our enemies we seem to have upset the mice by escalating our attack. Today when I went to check on our attic trap I discovered that the trap was missing. That's right, the rodents have stolen our weapons. I wonder what their plan is. Are they planning to set the traps up where we'll set them off? Is one of the mice a mini-McGyver disassembling the traps for parts and building a super weapon? Things are not looking great for the humans in this war.

April 4th, 2009:
Our efforts seem to finally pay off. My scout (aka Shae) reported back that her morning trap-check was successful. We got one! Of course, my scout is of no use in disposing of our enemy's body so up into the attic I go.

My examination of the battleground revealed some interesting intelligence. The scariest part of the scene was the trap itself. The casualty lay next to the trap, but something had eaten all of the peanut butter from the trap. That means that another mouse finished off its meal while his comrade lay dead just inches away. These rodents are heartless. They will stop at nothing to grow stronger in preparation of the next attack. Again, I may have underestimated the enemy.

Next to the successful trap, I found something even more interesting: the previously stolen trap. What could this mean? Was the fallen mouse attempting to setup the trap to use against us when he was taken out? Could he have been defecting and bringing us our trap as a peace offering to gain our trust? Did another mouse catch on to his plan and take him out before he could defect (and then feast on peanut butter afterward)? Was the trap never stolen in the first place, but instead just got pushed out of sight where we couldn't see it until we went into the attic to clean up the carcass (that can't be it). Today was a good day for our side, but the determination of the rodents is intimidating.

April 6th, 2009:
The mice seemed to go into hiding for a day or so after the fall of their fellow warrior, but they seem to be getting back to plotting again. As I sit on the couch typing, I can hear them scurrying about overhead. I fear what their next attack will bring, but after our successful attack we are optimistic. We have set out additional traps hoping to keep our momentum going. We have drawn first blood, and we are hopeful that we can end this war quickly. I guess it's back to the battlefield. More updates as the war unfolds.

Baby time

It has been awhile since we have done a real update on the babies, so I figured with all my free time I will sit down and do one.

Ella:
Ella is such a funny little girl. She comes up this these little expressions that just melt your heart. She also does this little giggle when we wash her face and hands after she eats that is just hilarious. I think I start laughing every time she does it. She is one of those babies that just lights up the room.

This last week was a pretty big deal in the life of Ella. First, I was playing with her and she does this thing where she grabs my finger and starts chewing on it. Well this time when she was chewing I thought she picked up something hard off the ground and had it in her mouth. I was wrong. It was two little teeth. Yup, that's right, Ella is teething. At almost 5 1/2 months, she has two bottom teeth pocking through and they HURT! She has been doing pretty well with it. If she didn't bite me, I would never have known they were there. The next day, Ella rolled onto her stomach. She got stuck, but at least she made it. She is very good about going from her stomach to her back so now with a little practice she will be rolling around in no time.

Ella is growing FAST. I can't believe how big she is getting. I mean wasn't she just 7 pounds not too long ago? With this whole growing thing, comes movement. She is the squirmiest little thing. When I have her on the floor she will do this little crab walk and scootch all over the living room. Just today she was laying next to Jack on the blanket and the next thing I knew, she was half way across the living room. I guess we will be child proofing soon.

She doesn't like sitting at all. I take that back, she just can't do it. She has this need to be moving all the time, so when we practice sitting, she is sooo wiggly. Now the thing she loves to do is stand. Of course she needs us to support her, but she wants to do it every chance she gets. Maybe we will just skip the whole sitting step and go strait to standing!

Overall, Ella is the sweetest squirmiest little girl ever. Oh, and cute!


Jack:
What can I say about Jack? He is one cool little boy. He also has started doing a hilarious giggle when the wash cloth gets near him. He is so sweet.

Jack wants nothing to do with rolling over. I think he watches his sister get stuck and doesn't want to go through that. I keep telling him he's gonna have to get over it. He did make it to his side the other day so I guess that is progress. Today he went from his tummy to his back for the first time. YAY! He still hates to be on his tummy and really has no desire to scootch around on the floor. He is pretty content just laying or sitting there. It is kind of nice because I only have to really keep my eye on one baby for now. When they both start moving, YIKES!

When we went home for my dad's retirement party Jack actually sat up on his own for awhile. When I say awhile, I mean he didn't immediately fall over.

No teeth yet for Jack. Part of me wishes he would get his first teeth right now too, so they can both do it together and we only have to deal with the first teeth thing once, but on the other hand, He is just too sweet to teeth already.

Jack is strong. He has an awesome grip and can pull hair like a pro. His legs are also strong. He doesn't like to stand up, but he can sure kick. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and he is kicking Ella in the head. Ahhh, it starts already. I think he will be the future kicker for the Chargers!

I think Jack is such a cool little boy!

I have added a few new albums to our photos. Go check them out!

For the Love of Peas

Jack and Ella recently turned five months old. Do you know what five months means in the world of babies? Time for food! I cheated a little and started the cereal a few days early. They don't really like it unless it is mixed with juice. As for the other foods, they have been doing pretty good. They love bananas and applesauce. Ella is a pretty good eater. For the most part, she will open her mouth for us to stick the spoon in and she only spits out a little bit. Jack is an awesome eater. He doesn't spit any of it out... Until today. We are supposed to introduce one new food each day so we can check for allergies. Today was the day we introduced peas.

I LOVE peas! I get this trait from my dad. My mom does not share this same love. When you grow up in a house where the main cook hates peas there were not very many meals that included them. Pat also hates peas. Now, if I had known about this before we got married... Just kidding. I am still able to sneak them into meals from time to time. Today was the test to see who the twins take after, me or Pat.

The twins definitely take after Pat! As soon as I started feeding Jack, he got this horrible look on his face. It was such a pleading look. You could almost see him begging me not to feed him any more. It was so funny I had to start laughing. As soon as I laughed, he started laughing. This was the perfect opportunity to sneak some more peas in his mouth. We did this for a few minutes and then he started spitting. No, it was more like spraying. I swear it was like a scene out of The Exorcist. So, Jack does not like peas.

Ella was a little better with the peas, but she still spit everything out. Between the two of them, I really don't know how much they actually got down. So, now I have a bunch of canned peas and mashed peas in the pantry and no one who will eat them. It is a sad day in the Lorigan pantry.

Traveling Fool

Well, Shae and I made it back from our trip up to King City/Lockwood. Overall it was a pretty good trip. Shae's dad's retirement party was lots of fun. Good food, a few beers, and lots of funny game warden stories. My dad and Dorothy made a trip down for the party so Jack and Ella had lots of grandparents to play with. As a bonus, it was my mom's birthday on Sunday so it was nice to be able to spend some time with her on her b-day. Like I said, it was a good trip and a fun weekend.

I could probably recap the party and grandparent visits more, but I'd rather bitch about my travels. Since Shae drove up with the little ones a week before I headed North, I caught a flight up to Monterey to meet up with them. There aren't a lot of flights from San Diego to Monterey so I had little choice but to hitch a ride on a tiny plane from SD to LAX and then another puddle jumper up to Monterey. I've had the pleasure of flying in the tiny American Eagle planes in the past so I wasn't exactly expecting first class accomidations or anything. In fact, my first flight was cramped but nothing too bad. The SkyMall magazine was in rare form this trip. From a replica Capt. Kirk seat to $70 dog nail trimmers there was tons of great stuff. It was once I got to LAX that my trip soured.

When we landed at LAX, our flight attendant read off the gates of connecting American Eagle flights and I was happy to learn that my flight to Monterey was only three gates down from the gate I was arriving at. I would soon learn that was because the crappy terminal we landed at consisted of about six gates. There must have been a whole thirty people waiting at the terminal. Talk about life in the big city. Anyway, after hanging out at the hub of LAX for a bit (and typing up a blog on my phone), I realized I should probably make a quick stop at the restroom before boarding my next flight. After about 30 seconds of exploring the entire terminal, I finally found the one men's bathroom in the terminal and of course it was closed. Seriously, if you only have one freakin' restroom in a terminal maybe you should clean it sometime other than the middle of the day. Perhaps try cleaning one of the 50 other terminals that have been graced with multiple crappers during the day and hit up the solo terminal when the place is empty (well...emptier...at full capacity the puddle jumper terminal is pretty close to empty). Just an idea.

About an hour or so after my arrival at LAX it was time to board my next flight. Once again, I folded myself into my tiny seat and got ready to get airborne. Here's the part about my entire airplane experience that really got to me. My flight was pretty full, but it wasn't packed (I saw about 10 empty seats when I glanced around). However, as we were waiting to leave the gate a representative from the airline got on board and told us that the plane was too heavy and one passenger would have to get off ("This plane will not leave this gate until someone gets of."). I understand that the airlines are hurting and need to sell every ticket possible, but if the plane can't fly with a full load of passengers then why the hell don't they take out a row or two and give everyone more leg room?!? How does it make sense to make seats smaller to get more on the plane if you can't even fly if the plane is full? If it was one or two empty seats I would think maybe the luggage was heavier than normal but there were at least 10 open seats, and I've heard from several other people that this has happened on their flights too. It cost American a $200 travel voucher to get a passenger to wait an hour for another flight, which is more than double what the full-fare LAX-Monterey ticket costs. That's some good business there.

Anyway, once the plane got airborne the flight was actually pretty nice (even if I could really have used the extra leg room that removing a row or two would have provided...go read the rant in the previous paragraph again while I calm down...OK, I'm good now). The flight from LAX to Monterey goes right up the coast for a while and then over some coastal hills that were beautiful. We landed right on time (although I would like to know how a "50 minute" flight can take off 20 minutes late and land on time...shouldn't they just schedule it as a 30 minute flight and list the real departure time?), and was met at the airport by Shae, her dad, and the twins. After a week apart, it was actually pretty great to see Jack and Ella again.

A few other random notes on my travel experience:

• As usual, I checked in online and printed out my boarding passes. The difference this time, however, was that American placed ads for hotels and tourist attractions on the boarding pass screen. I was able to find a "Print without attractions" link so the ads weren't on my actual boarding passes, but still...wow. The airlines have resorted to selling advertisements on boarding passes now. I wonder what's next.
  
  
• This is not the first time I've been on a plane since they started selling peanuts and almonds, but it's the first time I actually caught the price. $3.00 for almonds? What the hell?!? Beer/liquor bottles are $6.00, but a little bag of nuts cost 3 bucks. Out in the "real" world a can of Heineken or whatever costs what, a buck-fifty? That would put the markup at around 400% which is a lot, but nothing near charging $3 for a $0.25 bag of nuts (1200%). Does anyone actually pay three dollars for the almonds? I'd like to meet that person and ask them how long they had to starve themselves before they were willing to pay that much money for half of a snack.
  
  
• I got to the San Diego airport around 10:30 (for an 11:30 flight), and got off the plane in Monterey at 2:50. So it took me almost 4.5 hours to get from SD to Monterey, of which all of about 60 minutes was spent in the air. Factor in the hour to drive back down to King City and it actually took the same amount of time to fly as it would have to just drive (pre-baby). Of course, if I'd driven I wouldn't have gotten to learn about the replica Capt. Kirk chair and the $70 dog nail clippers. Thanks SkyMall.

Well, that's about it for my travelling rant. The drive home was much better than our last trip. Shae was able to squeeze in between the car seats so we didn't have to stop for 30 minutes every time Jack and Ella had to eat, and we actually made pretty decent time. The trip still took longer than it used to before Shae and babies, but it wasn't the 10 hour ordeal of our last drive from King City to SD. Overall it was a pretty nice weekend and it's good to have Shae and the babies home, even if I do miss being able to sleep. Shae took something like 350 photos (seriously, for once I'm not exagerating) so hopefully we'll have some new pics over in our gallery sometime soon.

One last thing: if you haven't checked out Shae's "Daily Photo" blog (not really daily, but I'm giving up on that battle), she's actually been updating it lately and has some cool photos (and edits).

The Bachelor

Shae and the babies headed up to Lockwood last Thursday, so I've had a full week of "vacation" where all I had to worry about was work and Lunchbox. I did miss Shae and the kiddos, but it was definitely nice to be able to relax and get some rest. I'm sitting in LAX waiting for my flight to Monterey so I figure it's time to recap my week as a bachelor.

Thursday:
After helping Shae get the car and the babies all loaded up and on the road, I just kind of sat on the couch and soaked in the silence. It was great to relax and watch some tv. After watching some of my non-Shae shows (24, Lost, etc.), it was off to bed.

Friday:
Wow. I had forgotten what eight hours of sleep was like. Except for a quick interruption to feed the Box I got to sleep until 10. Awesome. I love having every-other-Friday off, especially if I don't have to get up and take care of the munchkins

Anyway, after finally getting out of bed I put all my rest to work watching some more TV. Of course, Lunchbox decided he should be getting some attention so I got off my ass and we went on a little stroll around the neighborhood. Once we finished exploring the streets, I finally figured it was time to put some of my free time to use and clean the kitchen. It's kind of nice to clean up and know that it's going to stay clean for a while. That's one of the benefits to not using the kitchen much.

Other than a call from Chris to set up a man-date for Saturday that was about it for Friday. It was great to do almost nothing all day. Awesome.

Saturday:
Another baby-free day, another eight hours of sleep. Still super. I think Lunchbox enjoyed the baby-break too because he let me sleep in way later than be used to. Good boy Mr. Box.

Around noon, Chris came over to get some help setting up a home-theater PC. I'll spare everyone the details, but pretty much everything that could have gone wrong did. 14 hours, two cheeseburgers, and three movies later things were finally working well enough to call it a night. A task I thought would take us about three hours took until 2am. Fun.

Sunday:
Since I didn't have babies keeping me at home I was able to get out and play a round of golf. There are a lot of great things about living in San Diego, but playing golf in 80 degree weather on March 1st is towards the top of the list. Nate and I met up at the course and about ten minutes later we were on the first tee. Awesome.

I'd like to say the golf was as good as the weather, but that would be a huge lie. I played pretty much the worst round of gold I've played in about 10 years. Of as terrible. Oh well, it was still a great day and I had a great time even with the golf "performance".

After golf, I decided to head over to Nate's apartment for some dinner. Since LB hadn't been getting as much attention as he would like I loaded him up on the backseat of my car and took him with me. Nate has a five-month-old puppy so she and Lunchbox spent the evening running all over the apartment. When we finally got home the Box was exhausted. He was a happy boy.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday:
Not a ton happened during the week. Basically, I got up, went to work, came home, watched TV, folded laundry, and went to bed. Not exciting, but I got plenty of rest and Lunchbox got lots of attention. Hopefully neither one of us got too used to it.

Thursday:
Well, it's finally time to head up North and get back together with the family. I went into work for a few hours this morning and then hitched a ride to the airport. Shae, her dad and the babies are picking me up in Monterey and then it's down to King City for the weekend.

I've definitely enjoyed my week off, but I'm looking forward to seeing Jack and Ella again. I haven't gone more than 10 hours without seeing them since they were born so it's been kind of weird. I'm sure they've changed a lot in the week they've been gone. Hopefully they remember me.

Boxing Babies

I don't know what Shae does all day around the house with the babies,
but today I came home from work and it looked like they had been in a
brawl. Jack has a scratch and little red mark under his eye and Ella's
cheek was all scratched up. I guess while they were laying in their
crib "talking" to each other they got bored and decided to start
hitting each other. Fun.

Kissing Siblings

Well it's been a while since our last update so here it goes. As usual, I'm too lazy and tired to write up a coherent post so it's time for another list.

• Thursday, Shae and the babies are heading up to King City/Lockwood to help prep for Shae's dad's retirement party. I'll be flying up next Thursday, so that means for a week it's just going to be me and Mr. Box down here. I'm sure I'll miss Shae and the munchkins, but it's going to be nice to have some quiet and relaxation around here. I'm not even sure what I'll do with all that extra sleep.
  
  
• The babies are doing great but have taken a step backwards in a few areas, most importantly in their sleeping habits. For a while, things were pretty good. We put them down around 7 or 8 and Jack slept through the night and Ella woke up once (at most) to eat. Let's just say that's not the case anymore. Both babies are up at least once, and usually twice every night. Several nights recently Shae has spent half the night sitting in our glider in the baby room.
  
  
• They also seem to have forgotten how to drink out of their faster speed nipples. We moved them from the slow nipples to the "variable" nipples because they were taking so long to eat (and because the variable speed nipples don't spill if the babies fall asleep with them in their mouths). They did just fine with the new nipples for about a week, and then apparently forgot how to drink out of them and just started making a mess. We had to go back to the slow nipples for a while and now we're back to trying to get them on the faster ones again. We'll see how it goes.
  
  
• This is a little awkward, and I'm not sure I would have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, but Jack and Ella french kissed this morning. They were laying next to Shae in our bed facing each other and all of a sudden they were kissing. Seriously, Jack's tongue went into his sister's mouth. Gross. If you don't think I'm telling this story to every single date either one of them brings home you obviously don't know me very well.
  
  
• Ella is doing great, and is growing up pretty fast. She has so many expressions and loves to smile. Unfortunately, she keeps losing her hair. Between her cradle cap and Jack pulling her hair out she's getting pretty thin up top. Looking back at her newborn photos it's hard to believe how much hair she had then.
  
  
• Ella may not look as much like a mini-Pat like her brother does, but there can't be any doubt about whose daughter she is. The other day she was laying on the couch laughing at her own farts. Fart, laugh. Fart, laugh. Yup, that's my daughter.
  
  
• Jack is doing great too. His reflux is getting much better, and he doesn't puke after every meal anymore. It's nice to be able to feed him and not have half of it come right back up all over us. We still have to be careful not to feed him too much, but it's way better than a week or two ago.
  
  
• Both Jack and Ella have started to get into an oral phase. After not having much interest in pacifiers, a couple of days ago Jack became obsessed with them. Now whenever he gets fussy we just shove a pacifier in his mouth and he's happy as can be. On one hand, we really don't want a baby who's addicted to pacifiers, but on the other it is really convenient to just shove a pacifier in his mouth and shut him up. Ella kind of likes pacifiers too, but she is happy with her thumb, my hand, Shae's neck, or pretty much anything else she can find. The other day she almost left a hickey on Shae's arm.
  
  
• The babies really love Lunchbox, especially our baby girl. She stares at him and smiles, and loves it when he gives her kisses. It's hilarious to watch, and Lunchbox enjoys it too.
  
  
• You can already kind of see which kid is going to doing to do certain things first. Ella is going to roll over, crawl, and walk WAY before Jack. She's already about to roll over, and I wouldn't be surprised if she starts flipping onto her stomach while she's up North. I think Jack's going to talk first, but Shae disagrees. Ella makes a lot of noise, but Jack seems to already be trying to talk. He just lays there and babbles to us all day.

That's about it for now. If you haven't checked out our gallery lately, take a look because we add pictures all the time. I'm sure there will be plenty of pictures from Shae's trip North. Also, Shae has been playing around with some images lately, and her pics blog has some cool new images.

Holy crap, I won!

Ok, so I read a lot of blogs. One of the blogs I have been following since it's beginning is Prop Insanity. It is just a great place to get ideas for photos and stuff like that. Well, every Monday they do a giveaway and I actually won this weeks giveaway! I never win these sorts of things. I get to pick an outfit of my choice from K Bella Bambino Designs. All of her items are handmade and absolutely adorable! I can't wait until Ella is big enough to fit into her pretty new dress.

Excitement

For some people, excitement is jumping out of an airplane or driving a
race car. For others, it's the opening of spring training. Then
there's me. Nowadays, my life pretty much has two forms of excitement.

The first happens almost every time I change a diaper. For just a
moment after I rip the diaper open there's a split second where
anything can happen. It's like a game of diaper roulette (unless I can
already smell the danger, in which case I've already lost). Most of
the time it's an innocent enough wet diaper, but every so often one of
the babies has a stinky surprise for me. I don't know how they can
keep something that foul a secret, bit they find a way.

The second source of excitement occurs more often and is a lot more
dangerous. Every couple of nights we give the munchkins baths. One of
us gets in the tub to bathe them while the other takes care of getting
the little ones ready and bringing them into the bathroom. That's the
exciting job. It's about 15 steps from the changing table to the bath.
Normally this isn't a big deal, but when you're carrying a naked baby
chanting "Don't pee. Don't pee. Don't pee!" it seems more like 15
miles. So far we've both made it without either baby making a mess,
but it's been close a few times and it's only a matter of time before
one of us isn't so lucky. Sure, we could just carry the babies into
the bathroom and then take off their diapers, but what's the fun in
that? Then we'd have to jump out of an airplane to get our excitement
fix.

I'm That Guy

It started innocently enough with a couple of pictures on my desk. Shae gave me two frames for Christmas (one for each kid), and I picked out my favorite pic of each and took them into work. A few days later I finally gave in and changed my computer desktop to pics of the kids (again, one baby on each monitor). So far, things weren't too bad. Sure I had a couple of pics on my desk and my background, but the frames were small and most of the time my desktops were covered up by applications.

I think I can blame everything that happened next on Shae. The problem is that she has taken tons of great pics of the babies and I couldn't figure out which ones I wanted as my background. The only solution I could come up with was to pick a bunch of the pictures and then just set my desktop to randomly change images every 15 minutes or so. Of course, I still rarely saw my desktop because it was always hidden behind my applications. So I did the only thing I could: I changed my screen saver to use all of the baby pictures.

I'm not sure exactly how I got here, but now I'm that guy. If you walk into my office you'll see a couple of pictures sitting on my desk, a screen saver that covers two monitors with images of the babies, more pics of the kids covering my desktop, and my "Exhausted! (Father Of Twins)" mug full of coffee. My phone background is Ella and LB, and my Facebook profile pic is me and Jack. I thought I was bad with Lunchbox, but a couple of snapshots on my phone don't compare to this. I knew this would happen eventually, but I didn't know it would only take four months. Well, I gotta go. I think I just found another picture that would look great as my screen saver. Or on my phone.

Checking Up

On Wednesday, the babies had their four-month checkup. According to the doc, both babies are doing fine. Ella is quite the tall baby girl. She's 25.5" long and weighs 14 pounds, which puts her in the 90th percentile for height and right on average for weight. Jackson is 24" and 15 pounds, which puts him right about average in both.

The only issue with the babies is with Jack's head. He somehow ends up facing to his left whenever he sleeps, and his head is starting to get flat on one side. The doctor told us we need to prop him up so he sleeps facing to the right so that it evens out. If we can't get him to stop sleeping on that side of his head he might have to start wearing a special "helmet" to help his head develop properly. Needless to say we're doing everything we can to keep our boy out of a helmet. Of course, that's easier said than done. For whatever reason Jack really wants to face to his left. We've gone into check on him in the middle of the night and found him propped facing to his right and somehow still looking the other way. I makes my neck hurt just looking at him. He's getting better about not always facing left, so we're hopeful we can avoid something like this (thanks to Shae for her awesome photoshop skills):


One thing we learned from our visit is that drooling is a developmental step. The doc was asking things like "are they tracking you with their eyes?" (yes), "do they go cross-eyed anymore?" (no), "are they drooling?" (yes...wait, what?). Apparently huge strings of spit coming out of the babies' mouths is a good thing. Smiling, rolling over, crawling, etc. are the things I considered developmental steps. But drooling? Who knew? I guess instead of yelling "GROSS!!!" and passing the kids off to Shae I should have been giving them gold stars. It's a little late now, but great work kids! Way to get spit everywhere. You're really growing up fast. Yay.

That's about it for our visit to the doc (other than another round of vaccinations which are no fun at all to watch), but of course a day after the kiddos visited the doctor they both came down with colds. They are not happy babies. They have sniffles and coughs and are crying a lot. They're starting to get a little bit better, but it's still frustrating that there's nothing we can really do other than wipe their nose.

One last note on the babies: they've reached a stage in life where they actually want attention now. It used to be as long as we fed them and occasionally played with them they were fine. Now they have hissyfits if they get bored laying on the couch. Great. Now in addition to feeding, changing, and bathing them I have to actually pay attention to them too? This whole baby thing is turning out to be a lot of work.

Since Shae's "People" has shattered our previous record of 3 comments, I thought I'd add a couple of questions/comments that somehow got left off of her list.

• I actually mentioned this one in the comments to Shae's post, but I can't believe Shae forgot to mention people who argue with us when we tell them our babies aren't identical. They're a boy and a girl, and they don't even look much like each other at all. One of these days I'm going to pull down some diapers and show one of these people just how un-identical my kids are. Even if we had two boys or two girls, why would you argue with a parent about whether their kids are identical twins?
  
  
• Right after people ask the standard "are they twins?" and "a boy and a girl?" (or the similar "boys? girls?"), if they don't follow up with "are they identical" they almost always go "Oh! That's perfect! How lucky!". This one always bothers me. What if we had two boys? Would these people just give a polite fake-smile and say something like "Oh...great" while secretly feeling sorry for us? This actually got a little awkward at the doctor's office after our appointment on Wednesday. There was another couple there with a set of twin boys. Another mom was kind of talking to them and then saw us and did the "You have twins too? A boy and a girl? That's perfect..." and trailing off when she remembered the other twin parents had two boys. I almost expected her to follow up with "But two boys is great too", but instead she just kind of stopped talking and started paying attention to her kid.

Buy Handmade

So, I am a huge fan of handmade items. As most of you know, I tend to make a lot of things for our house and as gifts. Someday I will try and sell my tables, but until then, I like shopping for those one of a kind, handmade items. I guess my goal with this blog post is to make people aware of all the amazing items out there. I have included a list of some my favorites. Since I have the little ones, many of the items are for babies or kids, but I have tried to include some adult items too.

Knotty Baby Wear. These are a must have if you have babies or toddlers, or need a baby shower gift. These are perfect for keeping little legs warm and protecting crawling knees. I have a couple pairs of the commercial brand ones, and I think the Knotty ones are far superior. They have much better colors, and are wayyyy cheaper. If I ever start doing children's photography, these will make an appearance in my photos.

Kelly Rae Roberts. She is an amazing artist. Her work is fun and whimsical. The pieces she sells are small enough that they can fit into any room. They are also very well priced. As a new mom, price is a big deal.


Jim Jenkins Designs. If you knew me while I was growing up, you would know that I won Best of Show every year for my woodworking. One of my favorite items that actually won a Best of Show and a Best of Class at the state fair was my jewelry box. It still sits on my dresser. I like looking for interesting boxes and I came across these. They are too expensive for me to buy, but I can really appreciate the beauty and all the hard work he puts into each box. Some day I would love to buy one for Ella.

Larissa's Treasures. This shop actually belongs to a girl I grew up with. She make beautiful jewelry that is well priced.

Tiny Art... This person makes some really cute jewelery. She also makes other things, but I like the necklaces. They remind me of being in the classroom.


Cite Fuzz. I LOVE her monkey hats. I wish they were a little less expensive since I have two munchkins that would like them. I think they may get them for their first birthday. She also makes other cute hats, but the monkey ones are my favorites.

Mad About Colour. More wonderful hats for newborns. At this point, I don't really have a need for these, but I think they are adorable. If you know anyone having a baby, this would be a great shower gift. They look great in photos too.

Hannah's Tutus. LOVE these. Ella will be getting one for her first birthday outfit. I think they make little girls look so sweet. I also like that they can grow with the girl. I have so many outfits that Ella only wore once before growing out of. These tutus will last awhile.


I hope you like my selections. I think it is important to support peoples passions. When I come across other great items, I will post them here.

People

I have a question for all of you who had just one baby at a time, or have ever been shopping with someone who has just one baby in a stroller. Do you (or they) get stopped by every single old lady so they can make comments about you or your baby? I have been to the store before and seen women with single strollers and everyone just walks right by. This is not the case with twins and my two double strollers. It seems like I get stopped by everyone so they can put in their own two cents. I have decided to share with you some of the comments I have received from these women.

The most common comment I get is, "Wow you must have your hands full." So, of course I say yes, but what if I just say no?

I get this one a lot too, "Are they both boys?" Ummm, One is wearing a pink dress with a bow in her hair. So, yes they are both boys and I am just trying to turn one into a tranny.

I was taken aback by this one, "Those aren't twins. Twins can only be the same sex." Huh, I think they need to go back to high school health class.

Here is another one I get a lot, "Oh a boy and a girl, now you can stop." What if we really wanted to have more kids. I am thinking of telling the next old lady that says that that I want to have 7 more and see what she says. I even heard someone say something about overpopulating the planet under her breath.

Here is my favorite, "Oh, they are feisty! You won't have any trouble losing that baby weight." Ummm... I weigh the exact same now as I did the day I got prego.

Another question along those same lines that I have gotten is, "How fat did you get?" I told her I didn't get fat, I got pregnant.


Now don't get me wrong, I also get a ton of oooohs and aaaahs, and people saying how beautiful they are and stuff like that, but it is the rude ones that really stick in my mind and make me wonder if singletons get the same type of comments.

Pretty Slow

Sorry for the lack of updates, but there hasn't been much excitement to report. Basically, everyone is doing fine. We've kind of settled into a routine, and even though it's exhausting everything is going pretty smoothly. I get up bright and early and go to work, Shae deals with babies all day, and then we get a few hours of shared baby time before going to bed and then starting the whole thing over again. We've actually been able to put the babies to bed between 8 and 9 most nights lately so we even get an hour or two of rest, which really helps.

The babies are doing the whole eat, cry, and poop thing. They are still growing, and their personalities keep developing every day. It's great coming home from work and having both of them look at me and smile. They are very into what's going on, and love staring at the TV (especially Jack). They're even starting to interact with each other a little bit, and pretty soon I think they'll be having their own little "conversations" constantly. They'll be 4 months old on Saturday, but it's still hard to fully believe that I have two kids. The little ones have a doctor's appointment on the 11th so we should have another update on how they're doing after that. All I know is that if Jack is still below average weight then I don't know how heavy baby boys are supposed to be. He's quite the little porker.

Other than the babies, there really isn't much else going on. Lunchbox is doing fine, but I'm sure he'd disagree and argue that he needs more attention and walks. He was able to fit in two walks, a trip to OB, and some play time at the dog park over the weekend, so things could be worse for the Box. The babies seem about due to poop on someone, so I'm sure there will be some fun to report one of these days.

Silly Humans (From The Desk Of Lunchbox Lorigan)

OK so my human parents finally gave be permission to write my own blog post. This past weekend they threw me in the back of the car and we all headed off to Mission Trails park. Ever since the human babies were born, my parents have not had as much time to go hiking and exploring with me. Well, on Saturday they decided it was too nice of a day to stay inside. It was 80 degrees in the middle of January. This is my favorite temperature because I love dragging my bed into the sun and soakin' up the rays. Anyway, back to my story. Since I was coming along and I tend to be a little demanding, there was no room for the stroller in the back of their car. The humans had to strap that thing to the roof of the car. It looked pretty silly. After they put the stroller on the roof, my human daddy had to lift me into the back of the car because I am a demanding dog and I don't like doing things myself. Off to the park we went.

Once we got the the park and the humans unloaded the stroller and got the babies strapped in, Erica showed up. I got sooo excited! My tail was wagging so much. While they were getting things loaded into that monster stroller, the little human girl started screaming. I tried to sniff her to see if it was her diaper, but that wasn't it. I then licked her face to see if she had recently eaten, but there were no milk leftovers so I had to go tell the human she was hungry and they need to stick a bottle in her mouth so she would stop barking. After she got her bottle, we headed to the trail.

Now, I just have to say, my human dad got mom an accessory kit for her new camera lens for an early birthday present, so do you know what she did the entire hike? Yeah, she kept taking pictures. I swear, we would walk about 10 feet and then we had to stop so she could take a picture of a leaf or a rock or some other annoying thing that made me stop. She also had this need to take a million pictures of me with me feet up on stuff. She says I need to pose for a book she is working on, but all I heard was, "blah, blah, blah, Paws Up." At least I got lots of treats every time I did it. Anyway, the walk was pretty mellow after that. The highlight of the walk was when the humans let me off my leash and I ran around all crazy. I made the humans chase me around to try and catch me. I finally let them catch me because I didn't want them to get in trouble by a ranger. After more photos and a stroller on the roof, we headed home for the day.

I thought my good luck ended when we got home, but I was wrong. We got to go back to the park on Monday since it was apparently a holiday, what ever that is. OK, so we go through the whole loading the car spectacle again, and again I have to laugh at the stroller on the roof. We got to the park and Erica was there again. I was soooo excited. I got to see her so much last weekend!

Usually when we go to the park, the humans take me on a trail that makes a nice loop. It is pretty easy and only has one little hill. The trail is almost like a dirt road. Nice and wide. The humans say it is perfect for the monster stroller. This time we did the loop backwards so my human mom didn't have to push the stroller up the hill. This is where the real adventure started.

The hike started off like a normal little hike. We should have known something was up when we saw the orange plastic fence. Well, I think it was orange since I can't exactly see colors. The fence was blocking our normal path. The path that we were rerouted on was a narrow single track path. At this point, I would think that most humans who have great big strollers that don't fit on single track paths would turn around. Nope, not my humans. They just made sure the sun shades were down so the branches didn't hit the small ones. I hung back with Erica and kind of laughed at the scene that was before me. I thought it was going to be the funniest thing, but I was wrong. The funniest thing came next.

We got to a point on this narrow little path that started going down hill. This was not the normal down hill that we are used to. This was STEEP! Not just steep, but rocky and steep. Now again, most people would have turned around. Not my humans. Mom thought this would be a good time to switch lenses on her camera. she was right. Like always. This monster stroller does not have a hand brake on it so when the humans started down this narrow, steep, rocky path, it was HILARIOUS! The first thing mom asked was if the babies were strapped in good. Dad went down the hill first with the camera and to catch the stroller if mom lost control. OK, so we all started down the hill and things were going pretty good. Good thing it was really rocky because the front wheel kept getting stuck and slowed the monster down. At one point human mom stopped in a very awkward position and yelled down at human dad that she might need some help. He was like, "Lets just trade places, I can push it down just fine." Mom gave a little chuckle and then put the brake on and they traded places. At this point Mom ran down the hill with the camera. Dad let off the brake and tried going down the hill. He yelled down to Mom that he too might need some help. I was totally laughing at this. Mom had to run back up the hill and grab the front of the stroller and put her weight against it and they got it down the hill. The little humans were jostled but they made it. I thought I smelled something funny when we got down the hill and it turns out that the ride literally scared the shit out of the human boy. We all laughed. At the bottom of the hill Mom took a picture of the two paths and the detour sign so you can see the two paths next to each other.

The rest of the walk was pretty easy. They kept stopping to take more annoying pictures of me, but I at least got to climb a tree and that was pretty fun. It was like I was a cat. I like cats. They poop and I like to eat it. It makes the humans mad, but I can't help myself. Sorry! Puppy-ADD, or PADD, took over. Back to the story. More pictures of leaves, and dirt. At the end of the hike we had a choice of two trails. The one on the left went up to the pavement and the one on the right went by more stupid leaves and dirt. We picked the leaves and dirt. Guess what this path had? Stairs. The stairs where made of railroad ties and logs so things were not exactly evenly spaced. The humans made it down the first set pretty easily. When they had to go up the last set the spacing was just wrong and they ended up having to carry it. I was torn on what to think. Part of me was happy because it was so funny, but I knew this was the end of the trail and we would have to go home. I have to say, it was better then a walk around the block. I guess the humans are glad they had a 4-wheel drive stroller, or I should say 3-wheel drive.

The humans posted photos from our trips over in their gallery.

Turning 30

I turned 30 on Thursday, which I guess means it's time to look back on the last decade. I spent the first night of my 20's in a dorm room bed as sick as I ever remember being, puking my brains out. I spent the last night of my 20's sitting on my couch holding Ella while Jack puked all over the place. Somewhere between those two nights of puke I graduated from college, got a job, moved to San Diego, got married, bought a house, got a dog, bought a business (and closed it), and had a couple of kids. Two-thirds of those events happened in the past two years, so I guess I sort of crammed everything in right at the end. I have a feeling almost all of my accomplishments in the next decade will start with either "Ella did this" or "Jack did that". Call it a hunch.

Thursday (my actual b-day) was pretty quiet. Shae made me my now-traditional birthday tacos for dinner, and a two-crust lemon pie for dessert. After that, it was just a quiet night of movie watching at home. The real fun happened on Friday.

Thanks to Chris' sister Kat, we had a babysitter for the night and could actually go out on a date. Shae and I dropped off the babies and headed off to dinner. Now, when I say "dropped off the babies" what I really mean is carried in babies (and all their stuff), setup the Pack-N-Play, and spent about 15 minutes going over every possible baby scenario with Kat. After we were done with baby boot camp, we headed down to Seaport Village for a quiet dinner for two. It was very nice for the two of us to get out for a nice dinner and not have to deal with the twins. I love my babies, but it is definitely nice to get a break every so often.

After dinner, it was off to the Comedy Palace to have a few laughs. We met up with Chris, Patty, and Erica at the "Palace", ordered a few drinks (2-drink-minimum), and enjoyed the show. Most of the comics were the same as the last time we went (a couple of months ago), but the majority had new material this time. I had a great time, and I think everyone else did too.

After the show was over, it was off to pick up the munchkins. We got to Chris' house and found the babies bathed, changed, and asleep in their pajamas. Nice. We should do this babysitting thing more often. After driving home and putting the babies down it was time to head to bed and call it a birthday. Now it's time to see what the next decade has to offer. So far, it's had a lot of poop.

Rockabye Baby

Well, there's been a lot going on lately so I thought I'd give a couple of quick updates. Shae already wrote up an update on the babies, so I thought I'd give an update on the rest of the household. Shae and I are tired (especially Shae), but we're doing fine. Now that The Learning Garden is closed, Shae is home full time with the kids and is definitely staying busy.

My dad and Dorothy came down to San Diego last weekend for a visit. It was a pretty laid back weekend, but there was lots of baby holding and some good visiting. My dad and I were able to sneak out to Rocky's for a burger on Sunday morning, so that was nice. I was starting to think I wouldn't be able to have another Rocky's burger until the babies were 21. Other than that, not a lot to report. Like I said, lots of baby holding and lots of visiting. Oh, and yet another visit without anyone hurting themselves climbing up or down the guest room stairs.

Everyone always talks about how things change once you have kids, but I didn't truly understand how much until recently. It really hit me when I found myself writing an email to iTunes customer support about a week ago. The reason for my email: three of the tracks from"Rockabye Baby: AC/DC" didn't download properly. That's right, my lullaby renditions of "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap", "Highway To Hell", and "You Shook Me All Night Long" wouldn't play. How can my babies get to sleep without AC/DC lullabies? I'm not sure how the support person kept a straight face long enough to reply to me, but sure enough the next day I had new copies of the songs and the babies could rock out to the full album.

That's about it for the update. I also found time to turn 30 and take a couple of hikes in the last week, but those will get their own posts.

Update

I figured it was time for a baby update.

At just over three months old, Ella already has a HUGE personality. Most mornings she will wake up with a huge smile and a cute little laugh. Now I say most mornings. On the other mornings she wakes up screaming her head off. I guess you could say she is a typical woman. She is also doing the squealing thing. She will lay there for hours just squealing. We had a sales person come to the door the other day and she asked me if I had a baby because she could hear her all the way across the street. Ella is also doing a lot of kicking. I have a feeling she will be crawling before we know it. She has yet to roll over, but she tries. I haven't had her on her stomach as much as I should so I think that is partly my fault. Our little girl also loves to "talk" now. She thinks she is having a conversation with us, but I still have no idea what she is saying. Her favorite person to talk to is Lunchbox. When she sees him in the morning, she gets so excited. Now for the not so good stuff. The evenings can be rough for her. She will get in a crying cycle. I think she gets a little gas bubble, then starts crying and makes it worse. It will get to the point where no amount of comforting will help her and she won't eat. The only thing I have found that helps is Gripe Water. Give her a little bit of that and it calms her right down. The other not so good thing with Ella is that she is losing her beautiful hair. She has bald spots on the back of her head and some on the top. The ones on the back are from sleeping and the ones on the top are from her cradle cap. Yup, she has cradle cap. It is this gross scaly stuff on top of her head. I guess the dry skin does not fall off and just builds up. It can sometimes make babies hair fall out. Our poor little girl is turning into an old man. I guess that is it on Ella. She is a happy beautiful girl.

Jack is just awesome. He wakes up with a big smile and a cute little laugh/grunt thing. He vary rarely cries. If he does cry, we know there is something wrong. Usually he is hungry or trying to poop. I keep telling him that if it makes him cry then it probably isn't ready to come out yet. He doesn't seem to believe me. Jack is also HUGE. He has to be at least 2 pounds heavier then Ella. He looks like he is turning into a little bruiser. Jack went through a phase where he lost all his hair on te top of his head but it has all grown back now. Jack is also not rolling over yet and hates to be on his tummy. He has reflux so it really bothers him to lay that way. Just like Ella he is kicking up a storm. Jack tries to talk, but isn't as good at it as his sister. In a couple more weeks I have a feeling the two of them will be having full conversations with each other. Now for the not so good stuff. Like I said before, Jack has reflux. If you are not familiar with it, then that is a good thing. Basically a muscle that keeps his food down is not developed enough and he throws up a lot. We can't just feed him. We have to try and burp him after every ounce of food he eats. It can be a pain. We have had to stock up on burp rags to clean up all his puke. He also projectile pukes. We now have a nice big stain on our couch and he has been able to hit his sister in her bassinet from his. He can really get some distance.

Both babies are still not consistently sleeping through the night. They take turns and it is really annoying. I think they have both slept through the night twice since they have been in their own room. I know they are both capable of it, they just don't want me to get any sleep at night. I guess that is it for a baby update. They will have a 4 month check up at the beginning of February so I will have more then.

Visiting The DMV

Pretty much every teenager dreams of turning 16 so they can get their driver's license. Of course, these days I think you have to be almost 52 before the state of California will let you actually drive a car without some restriction or another. Luckily for me, the only problem I had getting my license was that I turned 16 during wrestling season. It's hard to get down to the DMV when you have practice after school every weekday and tournaments every Saturday. Well, the first Monday after the end of wrestling season (sometime in April, three months after my birthday), I got myself and my '85 LeBaron down to the King City DMV right after school, took my driving test, and got my license. I was so happy to have my license that I didn't even notice that they somehow turned "green" into "brown" for my eye color. I get those words confused a lot too. Very similar.

Unlike some people I know (and am married to), I haven't "misplaced" my license 4 or 5 times over the past 14 years and since I haven't had any tickets that affect my driving record I've been able to renew online whenever my license expired. So for 14 years my license has featured my 16-year-old face on it, along with my wrestling season weight and the wrong eye color. I'm not sure how I ever got into a bar with that license. What is the point of checking IDs if you're going to let 225 pound guy with green eyes in using a license that says he weighs 135 and has brown eyes? I guess they figured if I were going to get a fake ID it would look more like me than the pic on my license so I never had any issues other than a few raised eyebrows.

In fact, until last Friday I hadn't set foot inside a DMV office since that April afternoon in 1995. I guess the state of California has decided that 14 years is the most you can go without going back in for an eye test and a new picture because I finally had to pay the DMV another visit. I want to know who the genius was that decided you can go from 16 to 30 without ever getting a new picture or an eye test. I'm not complaining about avoiding trips to the DMV, but it seems kind of ridiculous that I've been using the same ID since 1995.

Since appointments were booked at all of the local offices until the end of January (after my license would expire) there I was at 7:45 AM Friday morning standing at the end of the line in the cold (well, cold for San Diego). It was definitely an odd mix of people in line, but my favorite group was the mom, daughter, and son/daughter's boyfriend standing about three places in front of me in line. They were there to get the daughter her license and both mom and daughter must have been nervous because they were smoking like crazy. Something about the mom and 16-year-old daughter smoking together before the daughter's driving test just seemed funny to me. I wonder if the daughter smoked in the car during the test.

Anyway, eventually the line started moving and I got inside and took a number for the CA DMV lottery. After a short (by DMV standards) 30-minute wait, the system finally called out "G024" (BINGO!) and I headed off in search of window 24. I'm not sure who numbered this office, but windows 1-20 were in an order that kind of made sense and "windows" 21-25 were random rooms all over the place. I finally found window 24 and sat down to renew my license. I get by without glasses, but my eyes are definitely not what they used to be so I was a little nervous about the eye test. Luckily for me the vision standard is somewhere just above "totally blind" because I passed without any problems and headed over to the camera window to get my new license picture taken. I guess in a couple of weeks I'll get a license that actually looks like me, but I'm going to miss the reaction to my 16-year-old mug shot every time I get asked for my license. Oh well, hopefully I'm good for another 14 years. Say goodbye to my old license:

Closing Down The Garden

The end of 2008 was also the end of The Learning Garden. Between the babies taking up all of Shae's time and the crappy economy taking all of our customers we decided it was time to close up shop. We spent most of the week between Christmas and New Year's eve trying to get everything cleared out of the office by the end of the month. We sold everything we could, brought home tons of stuff we couldn't sell, and threw away about a dumpster worth of old crap. It was a ton of work, but the babies helped and we got everything done just in time.

When Shae and I bought The Learning Garden a year ago, we had all kinds of ideas on how to get the business back on track. Shae did a great job, and for the first couple of months things were pretty good and she brought in quite a few new students. Then Shae found out she was pregnant and her focus shifted more towards growing babies than TLG. She still taught and put in tons of work running everything, but after a few months of baby-carrying she just didn't have the energy to get up early every morning and go in to do all the extra work/marketing that was needed to stir up more business. Of course, then the gas prices skyrocketed and all of the longtime customers who had to drive down from North County stopped coming. As the economy has taken a giant dump parents have decided they just don't have the extra money to spend on tutoring, and over the past few months business has trickled to almost nothing. We finally decided that it was time to just throw in the towel.

My feelings about closing down TLG are mixed. Part of me is sad to see it shut down. A year ago Shae and I were very excited about running our own business and were very optimistic we were going to be successful. It's disappointing that it didn't work. However, a larger part of me is OK with everything. Shae is happy she gets to spend more time with the babies without worrying about how we're going to pay The Learning Garden's rent the next month, and she'll probably do some tutoring out of the house for some of her students. It would have been nice to have a wildly successful business, but I guess we'll just be happy with two babies.