Cookeville -- Pronounced Cooguhvull

Moving along the interview trail, we had a stop in Cookeville, TN. Cookeville is about a half hour from my parents house in Sparta. Perfect, right? Well, we really loved it. It is affordable, family friendly, faith-based, all-in-all nice community. I think our family would be really happy there. BUT, they don't have a shopping mall. Quoting my friend Ashley, "how is that possible?" Haha. The nearest shopping mall is 40 mintues away. Not bad, but defintely not easy for a quick trip. If my family was safe, happy and the kids had opportunities to grow, this would be a small price to pay for living in Cookeville. AND, my family is close by. What could be better?

We stayed at my parent's house in Sparta. We had a cookout on Saturday night which was super fun. Dad made a fire and Allen grilled burgers and dogs. Martha, baby in the oven, Andrew and Josh stopped by, Granddad was there, me, Edgar, mom and dad. The girls were in bed so I was free to enjoy some wine since they wouldn't nurse until the next day. We had a really great time. In fact, I'm convinced that at our next house, we need to have a firepit or some sort of outdoor fireplace so we can have more gatherings of the sort. It was really fun. I just wish more of the family could have joined us. I'm dying for the family to meet the girls. Why do we have to live so far away!?

Anyway, so the interviewing process was interesting. They took us out to dinner at Crawdaddy's. Actually, it was a really cute place! The partners and their wives are super duper nice. We were the youngest ones --- most of the partner's kids are in high school, some in college. So, they are still really young. Anyway, so after dinner and after we said bye to everyone, we went back and sat on the patio and had a drink to mull over the events of the night. We agreed that it was a pleasant evening. We had an invitation to one of the partner's houses the next night to enjoy some wine from his extensive collection.

The next day, Allen was booked solid with interviews. The girls and I enjoyed our morning routine of coffee, cereal and a nap (they napped, not me) and then we picked up Granddad.

The great thing about Granddad is, he is 91 years old. But the great thing is, the man is ready to do anything at any time. I walked in his house and said, "Granddad, let's go." And he said, "okay." Without ever asking me where or what we were doing... he was up in a flash, grabbed his fedora (love it!) and we were on our way to Cookeville to meet mom so she could show off her grandbabies. After we showed off the grandbabies, we met Josh, Martha and Andrew (and baby in the oven) for lunch at Jackson Street Grill. It was lovely!

While we were in Cookeville, we also did a community tour with a real estate agent. We learned what we could afford, what we liked and didn't like. We really fell in love with the neighborhood called Hickory Flats (or something like that) where we could build an extremely affordable home with everything that we hoped for and had room to grow. It was really nice.

Anway, here are some pictures. My dad had fun with our new camera. He attempted to teach me some tricks with the DSLR, but unfortunately, I'm not the best student when it comes to gadgets like that. He, however, took some great pics.

Valentine's Day

Grandmuggs and Pop Pop came into town so Edgar and I could have a date night. My family never really celebrated Valentine's Day because it is the day my Nana passed away... so we were never really excited about that day. But then I got married and you know, it is a fun day... but not one of my favorite holidays.

Nevertheless, it is always nice to go to a good restaurant and drink some good wine sans babies. And that is just what we did. We went to Sullivan's in Raleigh. An okay restaurant... but the company was fantastic. It was nice to reconnect. Something we need to make more of a concerted effort to do now that we have kids. I finally got Edgar into that bow tie I bought him. Doesn't he look dapper?

We have a few more things coming up that I'm looking forward to: the Kings of Leon concert, as well as our 5 year wedding anniversary trip to Punta Cana. Can't wait!

Adventures in Interviewing

So the first installment of the interviewing process went smoothly... that is until we left Greeneville, TN. We were there for just a quick trip so Edgar could meet with Laughlin Hospital. It was a great meeting and the grandparents got to spend some time with the girls (see previous post for pictures from that visit... I think they are under the 8th month). This post is all about the drive home from that trip... what a trip it was!!

We knew that we were supposed to get some bad weather, but thought it would be later in the day. On Sunday, Edgar and I felt confident that if we headed home to Durham after the girls had their lunch, we'd make it in plenty of daylight and miss the weather. WRONG.

We didn't even make it to Black Mountain!!

We were driving up a different mountain, forget the name of it, and as we climbed higher, the snow started to fall harder and harder. We knew that if we could make it over the mountain we'd be fine. Weelllll.... as we were traveling up the mountain, the snow was probably a couple inches thick. While that doesn't sound like much, North Carolina is hardly equipped to handle such a snowfall in such a short period, much less on the "rural" roads that we were on. A truck to our left spun out, and nearly missed our car. I FREAKED out. But, Edgar, the cool, level-headed guy that he is, kept his wits about him and trudged on.

As we proceeded up the mountain, we came across a black mustang with three guys pushing the car up the mountain. Clearly, these guys were idiots for not pushing the car to the side of the road. Becuase of these guys, the semi in front of us had to come to a complete stop. Fine. We were willing to wait it out for the idiots to realize that they can't push the Mustang up the mountain. Their wheels were spinning and clearly not going anywhere. Fine. Uuuuntil...

... the weight of the stopped Semi caused the truck to jackknife and slide back into the car beside us. Had Edgar not have had the wherewithall to change gears and reverse, travel to the far left of the road... the jack-knifed Semi would have creamed us. It was moving that fast, coming towards us, backwards. I jumped in the back seat with the girls. Not that that would have helped anything, but I at least felt like I could "protect" them. I was so scared for our safety. Luckily, we were able to reverse and narrowly miss the Semi. Narrowly. I know I sound dramatic, but it was darn scary.

Meanwhile, Grandmuggs and Jeffy were FREAKING out because they couldn't get in touch with us and they knew we were in trouble. There were cars and trucks stranded all of the side of the small highway, but we knew that we could not have stayed up there with two small children. Since it was such a short trip, we didn't have nearly enough supplies to last us. In fact, we had exactly 4 diapers and 8 wipes. I was wearing flip flops for crying out loud!

Anyway, so we soldiered on down a 6% grade down the mountain. While we were going down, the snow was not nearly as bad... but we still had another mountain to climb before we could make it home. And we weren't playing that game again.

So we got a motel in Woodfin, NC. Never heard of Woodfin? Yeah, us either. It wasn't a glamorous hotel, but it did the trick. (and thanks to Grandmuggs and Pop Pop for surprising us by picking up the bill!) The pictures are above. The snow was not nearly as bad in this picture, but it got worse. Luckily, by the time we got the hotel, a nearby restaurant was still delivering pizza (and beer!). Later that night, the motel was filled with no vacancy. I guess other travelers had the same sentiment. Anyway, when we got there, we wallowed for a bit -- see the pictures. (sidebar/disclaimer: in the picture of me... you can see my hair is starting to grow back from the post-partum hair fall out. I have little spikes all over my head! Terrible picture of me --no makeup --but we had a good time.) We put the girls down for the night and cracked open a six pack. It was fun! I felt like I was back in college -- see our makeshift cooler.

Due to the lack of supplies, we had to mix the girls' cereal in a hotel paper cup and feed them with a plastic spoon. Not an easy feat, I must admit. We heated the water in the coffeemaker. Thankfully they don't take bottles and thankfully we had enough babyfood. On the way home, we operated under the "don't ask, don't tell" policy with the diaper situation.

This is the stuff memories are made of!

Later we found out that the jack-knifed Semi caused the road to be shut down overnight.

The Second Installment of the Birth Story...

...can be found under Feb. 21. Not sure why it is posted there. I think that may be when I started it? Anyway, there it is. More to follow

The Eighth Month

What a great month.

(but, before we get started blogging... let's clear something up. When I say the 8th month, I'm really talking about the past month. So all the events that I'm blogging about in this post actually apply to when they were 7 months old. Make sense? Same goes for all other "month" posts. Glad we got that cleared up!)

This is the month that we broke out the babyproofing because the girls were MOBILE... crawling, perfecting their sitting skills, talkin' up a storm. This was a really, really fun month.

Sleeping

The girls are still on a great sleeping and napping schedule. They'll go down around 7:30-8 and will get up around 4 to nurse. I'm not complaining! Although, Livi would like to eat around 2, I usually try to hold her off by letting her think about it in her crib. She goes back to sleep. Looking forward to the days when she will sleep through the night entirely, but you know, I'm fully prepared that she might never be that great of a sleeper. In all honesty, I still wake up at 4 and have to make myself go back to bed... which is usually right around the time the alarm goes off (well, at least when I was working). All in all, I really can't complain about their sleeping. They are still napping at around 9 and 1. This gives me time to hop in the shower, pick up the house and start on homework.

Eating

It has been so long since I've blogged that I forget if I told you that I've been making my own babyfood? Anyway, so yes, I've been making the girls' babyfood and they LOVE it. Especially the fruit. They have been splitting four tablespoons of oatmeal cereal (mixed with formula... I'm SO over pumping for breastmilk that I don't even bother... formula is not the F word and I'm okay with the little bit that they get from the cereal), and splitting a stage 2 fruit and Yobaby yogurt for breakfast. For lunch they get cereal, stage 2 orange veggie and a fruit. For dinner they get cereal, a green veggie and fruit. These girls are also nuts for Cheerios, puffs, peas, crackers, cheese ... basically anything that they can self-feed.

They are still nursing about 5 times a day. I just can't seem to get them to take a sippy cup which is disappointing... and perhaps a reflection upon my will as a mother to "force" them to learn. I just don't see the point... yet. I know there will be a day that I will perhaps regret this. Emma used to be my baby that will take anything from a bottle, but even she won't even touch a bottle, much less formula. Oh well. I'm very against giving juice, but I have resorted a time or two to doing half prune juice (homemade, of course) and half water in a sippy cup trying to entice them to learn how to drink from the sippy cup... no such luck. I'll try again in a few weeks.

I know the importance of this skill because at the end of May, Edgar and I are going on our 5 year wedding anniversary trip to Punta Cana (yay!) and Grandmuggs and Pop Pop are going to watch the girls... so I must have them weaned and able to take cow's milk from a sippy cup by then. They'll be 11 months old. The pediatrician said it is okay to give them cow's milk by then. I just don't see the point in weaning them just to give them formula (and the heartache of a bottle) for just a few short weeks. Anyway, I'm very emotional about weaning. I didn't think that I'd be able to breastfeed TWINS this long... my goal was 4 months, then 6 months... now it is just second nature to us. I can't imagine NOT doing it. I'll save this for another post... moving along...

Milestones:

Let's see... so much has happened since then. I need to keep the months relevant. At 7 months, these girls were perfecting the art of sitting up. I think they were a little delayed in this simply because they were preemies. After all, they were born 6 weeks earlier than everyone else that is their "age". So, I have to keep telling myself that it isn't really fair for me to hold them up to the same standard as other term babies. Nonetheless, they were only a week or two behind the other kids in our playgroups. Not bad, and I'm pleased.

So, they are sitting up and CRAWLING!! Yup, they learned how to crawl. As previously blogged, their main mode of transportation for several weeks was rolling from point A to point B. Now, they are both doing the army crawl. Which is funny because both girls are doing a non-traditional crawl together. Funny how twins work. If one twin starts doing something, the other is just a day behind.

Both girls are babbling up a storm. Mama, Dada and "blah blah" (as Emma says... she's already sassy!) are their favorites. They like experimenting with the pitch in their voices and will say those words ten different ways. They both like to blow raspberries (especially while eating, spitting food all over me) and they both have learned to squeal with delight. While these girls are very smiley babies, they have yet to laugh unprompted. Not sure if that is unique to their age or their personalities. I mean, they belly laugh, don't get me wrong ... but I can't wait for the day when they cackle cackle.

Emma still prefers her right hand, Livi her left.

Emma likes to give kisses, Livi is a hugger. Emma gives big, soppy wet kisses on your cheek. She'll even crawl over to Livi and plant one right on top of her head which usually sends Livi into a fit of anger as Emma has not yet learned where to place her hands. When you pick up Livi, she throws her arms around your neck and you think you've died and gone to heaven. It is the sweetest thing ever.

I'll have their 9month stats to post next.

All in all, it was a really great month. I am amazed at how they change on a daily basis. They are learning something new every single day.

In other news, this was a tough month for me and Edgar because he was working a lot and I had TONS of schoolwork. So ready for this semester to be over with.

Also this month, we made a trip to Greeneville, TN so Edgar could meet with the CEO of the hospital there. It was a great meeting.

Here are some of my favorite pics from this month:

These next pictures were from Grandmuggs and Pop Pop's house... the girls HATED broccoli.

I really love this picture of Grandmuggs with the girls. She loves those babies. LOVES those babies. Doesn't she look like she is in heaven in this picture??

Catch up

Life has been sooo crazy. I have lots to catch up on... but this week I really need to focus on school. I hired a babysitter for tomorrow -- our first one that isn't a friend or family member --and my stomach is in knots. I don't know how mommies drop their kids off at daycare. My heart would break every day. Anyway...

Here is my catch up to-do list:

Birth Story
Valentines Day
Greeneville Trip
Cookeville Trip
Chattanooga Trip
Milestones
8 Month Pic

I think that is it??

Until then...

xoxo,
b