The light at the end of the tunnel

Jinx or no jinx, Kristi allowed THE MAN to lay down the rules and we let the boys "cry it out". Needless to say, WE WON!!! The first night was 1.5 hours of pure torture, Ethan woke Shawn up and they both wailed for over an hour each (have no fear grandmas, we checked on them every 5-10 minutes, with very little threatening). The next night the agony lasted 2 hours - poor Ethan was very tired the next day (go figure). Night three - 15 minutes. Night four - (drumrole...) 3 minutes. And beautiful night FIVE - about 4 grunts and done. Thank you, thank you - we are now faced with the nights full of sleep, we do not know what to do with ourselves (David - I will keep this to a PG rating - but i thank you for your opinion), and what the heck will we write about on the blog - time to get some new material.
Ahh, the joy of success. We are very lucky to have two good babies, and I know full well that they will regress and i will pay for these statements - but DANG it feels good to sleep! I will put it this way - 9 months ago, I wanted a new mattress - last night I was convinced that I was sleeping on THE most comfortable mattress on the planet - Its also shocking how much we like each other more with some shut eye - apparently, Andy does not look very good with bags under his eyes and Kristi did not wear that "dont mess with me, i'm tired" look very well. SLEEP, WONDERFUL SLEEP!!! Christmas has come early!

aside from the conquering sleep, Kristi has started making baby food. The real thing takes a heck of a long time to prep, but OOH WEE! its pretty good! the boys are all about it.


Ethan is days from crawlingBristo is days from being shot or asked to run away (he is an attention whore, any time we are playing with the boys, Bristo insists on being part of the action) - things are looking up for Bristo, however, the boys are moving to solid foods and testing their hand eye coordination with puffs - its not going well for them, but Bristo has hit the jackpot!
Shawn has started physical therapy for his neck - no need for alarm, either his head is giant or he favors one side - we have enlisted some light impact workouts to get him back on pace.

Shawn also grew two sharp teeth from tuesday to wednesday - he woke up one morning with two very sharp biting utensils - teething is easy (so far).


Other than that, we are slowly evolving into a normal and boring family (+/- one dog), i am sure once we have two babies crawling in different directions, we should have an entertaining story or two.

6 months, a bit of progress and a lot of chaos...

the last six months have been about the longest span of our lives - a lot has happened and each night is an adventure in patience, (spousal) tolerance, and the delicate experimenting of "how much sleep do need to achieve (fill in the blank) task". People ask us what it is like with twins - Andy's cousins are twins and they had a perfect response, "what's it like not being a twin?" - we could not even imagine. These two boys are amazing in every way, we could not even fathom the work load or our lives with only one. Our relationship with each other and the bond with our kids would be entirely different. It was cheesey when we heard it, but this last six months has been the hardest, most rewarding times of our lives - we feel like the luckiest people on the planet... here's to them never growing up and making me eat these words.

November Highlights:
1. we finally started the boys on rice cereal
2. Shawn sleeps through the night
3. Ethan does not
4. Shawn is practicing for american Idol
5. Ethan tried to convince us that our bed was the only way he could sleep at night - we fought and won that battle.
6. Ethan rocked the vote on Nov. 4th
7. Shawn can sleep through a gun fight
8. Ethan can not
9. Shawn can be put in his crib at nap time and fall to sleep on his own
10. Ethan does not
11. Kristi can change baby A diaper and still manage Baby B from rolling off the couch
12. Andy cannot
13. Andy can change a diaper at 2am without opening his eyes
14. Kristi does not think that is something to be proud of
15. The boys think Andy is the funniest person on the planet
16. Kristi does not

"BOO"-ya

The boys first Halloween - we didn't make them look that ridiculous.


Sorry boys - the costumes looked really cute on the rack - we had no intention of making you both look like ewoks. you were supposed to be monkeys...


Trevor, Ethan and Shawn exhausted after an excruciating night of trick or treating - dont worry, all the candy they secured is included in this picture... can you spot "it"?