1st Crawfish Boil-- or not

Today was our once-a-year opportunity to indulge in 1 thing we truly miss from Louisiana-- CRAWFISH! The DC LSU and other LA college alumni associations get together every spring for a big all-you-can eat fest with a band, beer truck, tons of crawfish, jambalaya, and 1500 people in a nice park near the Mt. Vernon estate along the Potomac. We've been before, but because of bedrest and new babies, have missed the past 2 years. We were back in action and looking forward to it, even if it meant a 1 hour drive to get there. We packed everything for the babies and even brought our big overhead shade contraption at the last minute. We were only 1 hour late to meet friends, but lucked out by getting a very close parking spot. Our friends had a nice spot under the trees all laid out. That's where our good luck ended.

We had seen the weather reports forecasting the possibility of storms later in the day, but that never scares us since the weather is often incorrect here. We were there about 15 minutes with our first batch of crawfish and then the black clouds swept over us. We had the babies in the double jogger and decided our 10x10 cover wasn't enough for 4 adults and 3 kids. So we ran to the van and loaded the babies and me back in. Darrell ran to put everything under the cover. But wait-- we forgot the stroller, which was all the way open still, by the back bumper. It was toast-- SOAKED since it poured down like crazy for several minutes.

Now, in LA where we're from, thunderstorms don't scare us since they literally happen daily in the summertime. Usually they pass within a few minutes and life goes back to normal. Not this time. What we thought was "passing" was a big mistake. We had unpacked again and set up the Pack-N-Play under the cover. Darrell digs into the very very very spicy batch of crawfish, I take 1 sip of my beer. The babies are munching on cheerios and puffs. Darrell goes to get another beer at the truck and brings the umbrella just in case. Then it starts getting extremely windy and starts POURING, I mean, POURING again. By the time Darrell gets the 100 or so yards back to us, hail is coming down all over. We are huddled under the cover and I start praying that no tornado or lightning strike takes us. Meanwhile, our blanket was soaked (oh yeah, we were downhill and on dirt rather than grass) in muddy slop. Everything was soaking wet-- us, the babies, the chairs, blankets, diaper backpack, EVERYTHING.

We had to wait it out again, but after 1 stranger joining us undercover (a father of 36-year-old identical twins-- yes, we got to know one another quickly since he helped hold the umbrella over the babies for us) and 30 minutes or so, we go back to the van and load up everything. Problem is, instead of removing all of my school stuff (and students' gifts for the end of the year) from the back of the van, we now piled up all of the soaking wet equipment and took off.

Of course, it was sunny in our neighborhood when we got home. Libby refused to sleep and was grouchy the whole way. Then it hit me-- neither Drew or Libby has had a diaper change since we left home 4.5 hours ago. Parent of the year here. She was soaked all the way through, so no wonder she was grouchy. It was awful. Both had a nice dinner (since they had cheerios and puffs for lunch--- parent of the year again) and went straight to bed. They are pooped. Darrell and I took our very cold crawfish we got and ate on the deck together. This was the spiciest batch I have ever eaten. I mean, they were so hot that our mouths and lips were on fire for hours. So, after a very long day, the $74 we spent for 2 tickets got us 2 batches of cold but overly spicy crawfish, 1/2 beer from each of us, 2 cranky and wet babies, a completely trashed van, wet EVERYTHING, and cost us about $30 in gas and 5 boxes of 64-crayons. Hopefully next year will be better!

Flashback Friday

It's a great week here because I found out I got 2 A's in my graduate courses (woo hoo) plus I also found out that I made it through the round of layoffs at my office. Our district is in a budget CRISIS and our office alone lost 12 teachers and a secretary. I don't know how I made it, but I'm just so grateful. Phew!

Flashback Friday...It's hard to pick out flashback photos when your babies are only 13 months old! I looked through some tonight and these caught my attention. I remember this day clearly. It was last June and I took some photos after a bottle in our bed. Darrell was at work and I was trying to capture some smiles from L&D for Father's Day Gifts. I didn't get too many, but we surprised Darrell anyway.

Thank Goodness for Green Goodness!

Libby hasn't been herself for several days now-- at least during meals. She started last Friday by spitting out anything with texture, so we stuck with smooth things. I had originally suspected new teeth coming in, but then wondered if she was just getting picky since she ate any kind of fruit. By Sunday she had some diaper trouble and by Tuesday night we had to change 3 blowouts in the middle of the night and gave her 3 baths in 24 hours! She has basically eaten nothing and is even rejecting milk. But we've been giving her water and some "Green Goodness" mixed and she's taking that well. She has no fever and is still wanting to play, but isn't as peppy as usual. One of my student's parents is a family physician and she told me to just be sure she's hydrated, so that's our goal. If no fever, that's good, so hopefully it will work its way out of her (and not literally) soon! Let's just pray that none of us get it next!!!!

Pulling Up!

I've been wanting to post this for a while, but never had the chance to upload the photos until now (yes, my 2 graduate courses just ended this weekend-- woo hoo)! Anyway, the big news was that on May 3 (Uncle Jeff's bday), we went to get Libby from her nap and found this:



Yep, that's my baby girl finally pulling up for the first time! She has taken her time to get here, but we are so pleased with her progress. She's still just doing the military commando crawl, so I wonder if she'll do that until walking. We'll see.

And of course we took photos of our precious baby boy so as not to leave him out of the photo shoot. He's so adorable (I know I'm biased)!

More, More, More

If any of you have the Baby Signing Time DVD's, you know the song about how "you put your fingertips together for more, more, more..." Sorry if that is now stuck in your head for the rest of the day! Well, Libby and Drew have been sort of hit or miss with signing, even though I've been doing it for the past 7 months now. Friday night we went out to dinner and Libby was sitting between Darrell and me. I had stopped feeding her because Darrell and I were talking. I see something out of the corner of my eye and it's Libby signing "more, more, more" over and over again. I couldn't believe it. She has never initiated this sign before-- only lets me do hand-over-hand with it sometimes. Anyway, I thought it was so great and praised her like crazy. She then asked for "more" about 10 more times. Then today, at our friend Sam's birthday party, she showed her daddy what she thought about the cheese pizza we were feeding her for lunch! Take a look...


And tonight when we were finished with bath, but she obviously wasn't, she started signing "more" again! How funny. The hard thing is not letting her have more even though she clearly wants it.

Flashback Friday

I reminisce about the days the babies could be swaddled and sleep so soundly. But then again, I won't take those sleepless nights and Libby's colic back for anything! Here's a cute video:

Libby's 1st Word

Every night at bathtime, we go over body parts and clothing when they are getting undressed. This weekend, Libby was touching my face and moved up to my eyes and said, "Eyes, eyes!" I wondered if this was just coincidence, so a few moments later when she was looking at something else, I asked her where mommy's eyes were and she pointed to them again. She even found Daddy's eyes. Now she loves to put out her pointer finger and say, "Eyes, eyes." In fact, when we got their portraits taken on Sunday, they got some shots of her doing it and it was so cute. Another proud moment for her speech-language momma!

13-month portraits

Well, we finally got our act together and took the babies for their 1-year portraits. Too bad we were 1 month late! It actually worked out to our advantage because the outfits their Nana bought them fit a little better. They were so good, but I'm apologizing to Libby in advance because I just don't know what to do with her hair when it gets frizzy like this. We use conditioner on her already. What's next-- hair wax? I can't wait until the teenage years!

Flashback Friday

Since the weather has been getting warmer, it makes me excited that summer is almost here! Here's a picture of L&D in their baby pool last July. They were 3 months old.