Sam and Grapes

Tonight we had our friends the Hunters over for dinner, with their kids Sam and Grace. They have been sweet friends for several years, and have walked the journey of having twins with us. They have 5-year old boy-girl twins, and we have been the lucky recipients of many of their twin hand-me-downs! It was great to catch up with them tonight.

The highlight of the evening was watching Drew and Hailey play with big Sam and big Grace. The four of them raced throughout the house for two hours, and had so much fun! Hailey was completely enamored by Grace, and went to sleep tonight saying "I love Grace... I love Grace a lot!" They were hugging and playing dolls together like they had known each forever. So cute!

The funny line of the day came from Andrew, this afternoon. I said, "We have friends coming over tonight named Sam and Grace, can you remember that?" He said, "Yes, Sam and Grapes." Ha!!

Here is a video of the dancing fiesta! And a few pics.

High Risk Infant Follow-up Clinic

Andrew and Hailey were born at University of Washington Hospital in Seattle, 2 months early. Since they were preemies, they were put into a program at UW Hospital that watches and monitors their development for their first 8 years. It is a phenomenal program, and we are so fortunate to have great doctors assessing the health of our twins, ensuring that their development is relatively on track.

So, this morning we had our big assessment for this year. It is a 3-hour long appt, and it includes assessment of overall physical health, cognitive testing, motor skills, hearing, and other mental development. Greg went through the tests with Andrew, and I went with Hailey. They literally go through about 100 different exercises, and they are watched and assessed by doctors. Some of the examples of tests are: stringing beads, stacking blocks, recognizing shapes/colors, buttoning a button, having them hold a pencil and draw, running and stopping, counting, matching items, determining who has 'more,' putting items in, behind, between, on top of other objects, detemining the shape of things that they cannot see but can only feel, etc. It was very interesting.

Well, the great news is that the kids are both right on track! They are completely normal for children who were born in August 2007 (even though they were born in June 07). They are assessed as though they are 31.5 months old, even though they are 33.75 months old.

Hailey scored about 2 months ahead on the Mental /Cognitive scale, and at about 98% on the Motor scale. Andrew was a little ahead on the Motor scale, and just slightly below on the Mental /Cognitive scale. So interesting!

Other stats: Hailey = 30.0 pounds in weight, which is 75% (slightly above avg.). She is 92.5cm in height, which is about 50%. Andrew = 31.4 pounds in weight (not sure of %), and 94.7cm in height, which is a tad below average.

We are so grateful that our preemies have turned out so healthy - they are perfect, and the doctors had nothing but good things to say about them. Whew! We are also so grateful for our fantastic health care we have through Microsoft. Many thanks to Bill Gates, who has decided that Microsoft will pay for any and all medical expenses for his employee's families. We are forever grateful that we haven't had to pay a penny for our children's health care. Praise the Lord.

Little Farmers.... Day 4

Today was our last day of our Little Farmers class. Hailey and I have had so much fun doing this together. The highlight of the whole course was today... riding a horse!! Hailey loved it, and now we need to start a new bank account to save money for a family pony! Hopefully, someday she will fall in love with horses and love them just like I do.

We also had to take shavings from this big pile and put them into a stall to make a new bed for the horse. Hails loved this, because it also involved raking and sweeping, two of her favorite tasks....

"I am so good at this that I can use two brooms!"

Oh, and for Craft time, we made a little bag with lots of puffy stickers on it... Perfect for my sticker-lovin' girl!

Today's lunch

Here is our lunch today.... a new twist on the same old PBJs!!

My blue-eyed girl

Greta turned eight months old yesterday. Wow, I can hardly believe life without her.. she is a precious gift to us in every way. Her joy is overwhelming, and she smiles and giggles all day. She continues to be an easy baby, and we all adore her. The twins are nuts about her and say "I want Gretty to sit by me," all of the time. We are blessed.

Some pics from her 8-mo b-day:



I love this one, because it has some good foreshadowing of her mischievious ways that I am sure we will come to know and love! Can't you just hear her saying, "Yes, Mommy, I put your toothbrush down the toilet... hee hee."

For the love of cars...

You have heard us talk endlessly about Andrew's love of cars... Well, here is a funny video where he shows us how he knows ALL of the car logos out there. Greg actually made flash cards with over 30 different makes of cars, and Drew knows them all. Here ya go:

This week's activities...

Today I basically did a commercial for Oxy Clean laundry soap. That is to say... I made chocolate covered pretzels with A&H! Lemme tell ya... one must have a very high tolerance for being messy if one is going to take on an activity like that! We had a great time, and of course, the kids loved it. They were concentrating the whole time, and then sneaking licks and bites whenever possible. They dipped the pretzels in the melted chocolate, and then poured sprinkles on them; Hailey somehow got a hold of the sprinkles and dumped the whole container everywhere... eeek! After a load of laundry and some kitchen cleaner, we are all back to normal!

One activity I did two days ago was to make our own batch of play-doh. I found a great recipe online, and then made a double batch. I think it took about six minutes in total... so it was very easy. Now the kids have been rolling out the play-doh with a rolling pin, and then using cookie cutters to punch out shapes. This is a good activity, as they have been asking to do it again a few times a day...

Hailey and I went to our second "Little Farmers" class on Wednesday. This week we learned all about goats, which included feeding and brushing them. Here is our 'lil farmer in action...

A few funny videos

Here are a few videos I have taken in the last week....

In this one, A&H don't realize that we are watching them. So, you get to see how cute they are when they play together..as they sit under this blanket together. But wait 'til the end when Drew pounces like a cat on Hailey!




Greta LOVES watching her Bro and Sis. Here she is, soaking in all of the excitement while the twins run around...




I took the kids to the Bounce House this week, where Hailey went down the super high inflatable slide a million times. The girl knows no fear!




As usual, Andrew loves his cars. Here is a funny clip of him while he counts to twenty... no, twenty-teen. Enjoy!

Australia, college roommate, aquarium, and Gretty Spaghetti

Greg has been on a business trip to Australia and New Zealand for the last week and a half. I have had a great time with the kids on my own, but it is a lot of extra work! Thank goodness that Grandma Judy was here for a few days, and that I had some extra help on a few other days.

I also had a wonderful visit last week from my college roommate, Kathleen, and her husband Mike, and their kids Maddie and Mason. They were here two days, and we had a spectacular time. The twins were engrossed in following the 'big kids' around, and they were all crazy and spastic running around the house together. The highlight, however, was heading down to the Seattle Aquarium for an afternoon. We have been there before, but A&H loved it.

Maddie was the oldest of the kids, and she was a great babysitter-helper!

Kathleen and I were roommates at Wake Forest University, where we went to college. We have had so many crazy memories and fun times together!

Exploring the Seattle waterfront, on a beautiful warm spring day...

Of course, we had to hit the park, since the weather was great. Greta's new favorite thing is the bucket swing; she giggles out loud, and it is precious. By the way, Greta has acquired several new nicknames:

- Baby Gret

- Gretts

- Gretzky (in honor of her whistler olympic visit)

- Gretty Spaghetti (or, just Gretty)

- and her rap name, Big Lil' G

Feel free to add more!

Hailey = Little Farmer

This morning I took Hailey to a class called "Little Farmers," which meets at Kelsey Creek Farm. I have mentioned this farm before, but it is part of our Bellevue park system (so it's free), and it is only a mile from our house. We go there almost once a week, because they have great farm animals to visit, and a great playground. Well, I have literally waited almost 2 years for Hailey to be old enough to take this class - it is all about doing farm chores and playing with the animals. She is as bonkers about animals as Drew is about his cars.

So, suffice it to say that Hailey was totally enthralled and mesmerized for the whole 90 minutes. We have 3 more classes, and today's theme was chickens. So, we started by feeding all of the chickens there (I swear Hailey went back to the feed bucket about 5x more than any of the other kids.) Then we got to go into the chicken coop and pick the eggs out from the hens! It was great. After that, we trudged into the back of the barn with our pails, and picked up shavings to then make new "beds" for the chickens to sleep in. Given how much Hailey "makes beds" for all of her stuffed animals, you can only imagine how much she loved this. She was in heaven...a real bed, for a real animal? Sign me up!

Then going with the chicken and egg theme, we actually cooked up the 11 eggs that we had gotten from the hens, and ate scrambled eggs for "snack time." (Not a snack you normally see at preschool events!). It was hilarious that I tried to give eggs to Hailey for b-fast this morning, which she refused, and then only 3 hours later, she was devouring them, and feeding them to me. Context is everything!

We also had arts-n-crafts time where we made "play beds" for these little tiny fake chickens; Hailey has been carrying hers around since we got home. Add a little reading time, puzzles, play-doh, and petting roosters, and it was a top-notch activity! Next week is goats!

Oh, and are you wondering what happened to the other 2/3 of my children? They were home with my nanny, in good hands. I just always try to make it a priority to do 1:1 activities with each of the kids, and this one was certainly perfect for Lil' Farmer Hailey.

Whistler Olympics!!

Last week, Greg and I had the wonderful privilege of attending the Winter Olympics in Whistler. We were there for four days, and couldn't have had more fun! The excitment in the air was fabulous, and it was such a festive celebration everywhere we went. We spent one afternoon at the bobsled track, which turned out to be spectacular; we couldn't believe how fast those sleds passed us. And we were able to stand right along the track - scary! The next day we spent at the cross-country ski venue, watching the women's relay. I was delightfully surprised to find myself transported to Scandinavia for the day, since we were surrounded by flags from Norway, Sweden, and Finland at every moment. I loved it, since that is my heritage.

We had our own enjoyable vacation on another level, because we had only baby Greta with us; we left the twins in Grandma Judy's capable hands. It was sooo wonderful to spoil her rotten; we so enjoyed having time with just one baby, since we have never had that experience. She came with us everywhere, and was an ANGEL - not a peep or complaint from her at all!! We stayed at our place in Whistler, which is situated right next to the downhill ski races. So, we were able to watch the men's and women's races, right from our complex; that was an added bonus.