11 Months!

Wow, I finally found a few minutes, and I do mean just a few (so forgive the typos) to give a brief update. Every spare moment has been spent with the girls or unpacking, running errands, painting and getting the house in order. Here is an overview of my schedule, you tell me if you see any time for blogging, lol ...

5:40 Wake Up, Eat Breakfast, Get Ready
6:15 Girls Wake Up
6:30 Wake Up Aidan
7:00 Off to Work
3:45 Get Home, Spend time with the girls
5:00 Girls eat dinner
5:30 Girls' Baths
6:00 Girls' Bedtime
6:30 Dinner for us
7:00 Clean Up Dinner
7:30 Shower
8:00 Unpack, Paint, Hang Pics, Etc.
9:00 Spend time with Sean (he is leaving in a few weeks after all!)
10:00 Bedtime

Thankfully, we are almost finished unpacking and Sean does a lot of the painting and errands during the day, so I am hoping to have a little more time soon. In fact, tonight I unpacked the last box (except for the hidden laundry room boxes, lol) which is why I am rewarding myself with a short break to blog!

I completely missed the girls' 11 month update post on the 23rd. Cassidy is now walking, actually sometimes she is even running, lol, and Candace has finally started standing independently. They still seem too tiny to be toddling around! Both girls say kitty-cat, dada, mama, yum, and uh-oh with accurate association for each about 90% of the time. They interact a lot more with each other and steal toys, share toys, wrestle, giggle at each other, and talk to each other regularly. Cassidy has discovered how to point and points at everything, calling most things "kitty-cat." Cassidy is the kissing queen and although Candace can also give kisses, she is more stingy with them and reserves them mostly just for her daddy. Both girls can also wave bye-bye. They are eating mostly all finger foods, but are still nursing four times a day and a couple of times at night... only about three weeks to our one year breastfeeding goal! Their favorite foods are peas, carrots, cheese, noodles, and bananas. Their favorite things at 11 months are peek-a-boo, books, music and dancing, cats, and any sort of silliness! They are learning new things every day and I am endlessly amazed with their cleverness and cuteness!

They are at a very fun age and I am so sad that I miss so much of it during the day.
They are doing great with the nanny. She is absolutely wonderful! We couldn't have asked for a better person to care for them, but it is still SO hard to leave them all day.

Yikes, my few minutes are up! I will try to write again soon!

Here are the few pics I've had time to take and upload...






Getting into Trouble with Cousin Logan (they came over to help paint!)



They (mostly Cassidy) like to pull all the toys off this shelf and climb on it!

Cassidy's News

In my last post I said I had some exciting news to post about Cassidy. Drum roll please..... Cassidy is walking!!!! And I mean REALLY walking! She has been standing and taking a few steps for the past month, as many of you have witnessed, but as of about two weeks ago, she is a full-fledged walker! She walks across entire rooms and even stops to bend over and pick up toys along the way, LOL! She is so proud of herself. It is very amusing because she just seems too tiny to be walking! So it goes down in the baby book, Cassidy's first steps were at 10 months old, but she became a real walker at 10.5 months.

The first half of the clip was taken a little over a week ago, the second half was taken a couple of days ago, so you can see the difference in just one week!

Move Update

We made it to Arizona! It was not an easy trip and we have been going non-stop since we got here, but at least we are finally here. I will definitely NOT being flying anywhwere with the girls' again anytime soon!

Our flight here went as well as can be expected, considering the circumstances and challenges. We were supposed to depart Tampa at 10:10 am, have a 90 minute layover in Dallas, and arrive in Tucson at 4:30 pm (Florida time.) We specifically scheduled this flight so we would not be traveling past the girls' bedtime. We boarded the plane in Tampa as scheduled, which is NOT an easy task traveling alone with two babies, two carseats, a stroller, and three carry-ons. We get all situated and as comfortable as possible. After about 30 minutes of waiting on the plane for take off, the pilot announces that there is a problem with the plane and everyone has to get off! UGH!!! So we deboard, again just as challenging as boarding. We had to reschedule both flights since we would miss our layover in Dallas and the next flight leaving Tampa was not until 4:30!

So we were in the airport from about 9:00 am until 4:00 pm before even departing. The girls were awesome (for that part anyway!) Thankfully there was a nice, clean play area in our terminal so we hung out there most of the time. It was probably not the most sanitary choice to let the girls crawl and play there, but it was a much better option than keeping them in a stroller that long before making them sit on planes for six hours. They did great playing and even took both their regular naps in the stroller. For a day spent in an airport, it went surprisingly well!

At 4:00 we finally boarded the plane. There was a wonderful, kind couple that offered to help us board and even switched seats with other passengers so they could sit in our row and help during the flight. They were so amazingly helpful! The girls did okay, but only because I had the extra pairs of hands to hand babies off to and help keep them happy and entertained. In any other circumstances I would probably be more hesitant to hand my baby off to a stranger, but in these circumstances you do what you have to do! The kind couple even helped us get to our next terminal for the layover in Dallas, even though they were at their final destination and I am sure were eager to get home. I must have had some good karma coming back to me because they were truly a blessing! I am forever grateful to them for making the trip so much more manageable, especially since the last leg from Dallas to Tucson was quite a challenge.

By the time we boarded our plane in Dallas, it was already past the girls' bedtime, they were tired of being on a plane from the last leg, and the boarding agents were less than helpful. It was a rough flight. They took turns screaming off and on. Thankfully they finally fell asleep for the last hour of the flight. Again, we were blessed with a wonderful, kind flight attendant that tried to soothe and carry whichever baby I wasn't holding. She also paid special loving attention to Aidan and gave us both lots of free drinks and snacks, which was greatly appreciated since we had not had time to eat during our layover in Dallas. She also helped us deboard the plane and helped carry the car seats to baggage claim.

We arrived around 11 pm (Florida time) so it was WAY past the girls bedtime. They were not happy campers. I still had to go pick up my rental car, but thankfully my sister Jenna came to meet us at the airport and stayed with the kids while I did that. They passed out in the car on the way to her house and actually slept pretty well that night.

I truly can not say thank you enough to all the amazing people that helped us on our trip: Sean, for getting us and our luggage to the airport and helping through security, the wonderful couple from Dallas, the flight attendant to Tucson, my sister Jenna, and the most amazing, wonderful, helpful boy ever... Aidan! They all played a huge part in me arriving sanely and safely in Arizona and they may never realize just how much they are appreciated.

Ever since landing we have been busy, busy, busy! We arrived Sunday night, we closed on our house on Monday, we settled into the house on Tuesday, and yesterday was spent shopping for food and other necessities and setting up utilities. Today we are having the carpets cleaned, we have a few more errands to run, and the nanny is going to come meet the girls this afternoon. Tomorrow I am going to the school to register Aidan, meet my substitute, and set up my classroom. The movers will be here with our stuff on Sunday or Monday and Sean should be here in a week. There is no end in sight!

I will try to post again soon with more details about our new house. I also have some exciting news to share about Cassidy, but it deserves it's own post so I'll wait!

Halloween Costumes

Well, seeing as how we leave first thing tomorrow morning I SHOULD probably be packing, but unfortunately most of what I still need to pack are things we are still using (boosters, toys, etc.) Guess I'll be up late tonight!

Anyway, I have a few moments in between loads of laundry and cleaning, and I was thinking about Halloween, I'm a planner! I have a few cute ideas, but I'd love some feedback! I posted a poll on this page to the right, please vote and feel free to leave comments or suggestions.

Here's the pics of the costumes (or similar costumes) to what I had in mind....


Bunny & Kitty





Flowers





Cow & Pig





Ladybug & Bumblebee

Final Florida Fun

Boy, have we been busy! My sister Jenna and 8 month old nephew Logan have been visiting from Arizona. She arrived on Saturday and left today. It may seem kind of silly for her to fly all this way to come see us when we will be moving out there THIS weekend, but she bought her ticket and planned this trip before we found out about Sean's deployment and our move. So, we figured it shouldn't go to waste! We really enjoyed her visit and shared a few final Florida activities.

On Monday we went to Treasure Island Beach. I will be perfectly honest, I am NOT a beach girl! I'll take the mountains and desert over the sand and surf any day. I hate the grainy, course sand that gets everywhere, the water with unseen creatures lurking in it, the bright sun, and the unrelenting heat. It is just not my idea of a good time! But all that being said, I really did want the girls to experience it before we left and my sister, who is different from me in SO many ways, is a beachy kind of gal. So we loaded up the car and the kids, slathered on the SPF 100, and made the 45 minute trek to the beach.

True to their like mother and father nature, Cassidy HATED the beach, just like her mama, and Candace was mostly indifferent, much like her dad. Granted, the girls were both cranky due to a missed afternoon nap, but I can safely say that Cassidy is NOT a beach bum. She hated the feel (and taste) of the sand, the screechy gulls, and the rushing waves. Candace was content as long as she had some Cheerios, but was not a fan of the bright sun and didn't really seem too enthralled with the water or sand. My nephew on the other hand LOVED the beach, just like HIS mama, lol! He crawled right towards the water and birds, investigated the shells and sand, and observed all of his surroundings with eager curioisity. All in all, it was an exhausting trip and I can still confidently say I am not a beach person. I will not miss it at all!!

Yesterday we took on Seaworld. It was free for our family because of the "Here's to the Heroes" program for military, but unfortunately my sister had to pay. The babies all did amazingly well the whole day, including during the 90 minute drives each way, but we did not really get our day's worth of "fun." Seaworld is NOT a baby-friendly facility! EVERY show and exhibit does not allow strollers, which means that you pretty much have to carry the babies around all day, and if they fall asleep in the stroller (which was the case with us) there is nothing you can see or do. We were there for about 5 hours and Sean and I only managed to see two shows and none of the exhibits. My sister Jenna saw a few of the exhibits while we took on baby-duty, but it was overall a waste of time and money. The highlight of the day was the pet show. All of the babies and Aidan loved watching the cute animals, Cassidy especially enjoyed the kitty cats! Seaworld is definitely a better place for older children. We took Aidan and my step-son Chase last summer when they were seven and we all had a great time. It was a much different experience with infants!

We also enjoyed a few visits with friends and their babies while my sister was here. It was great that she got to meet some of my friends and their babies! She even did a photo shoot of Damiane's twins for their first birthday at the end of this month. She got some great shots of Indira and Arjun!

It has been an exhausting, but enjoyable, week. Even though some of our activities didn't go as well as planned I really enjoyed my sister's company and the time with my adorable nephew Logan! I'm so glad we will be moving so close to them and will be able to see them on a regular basis!

The next two dyas will be busy with final moving arrangements and packing and then I will be busy getting settled in, so don't expect another post for about a week!


Beach Pics
(There are more pics of Candace because Cassidy was being held by me and whining most of the time!)



















Our ONLY Three Seaworld Pics






A Sample of Arjun & Indira's Photo Shoot
(Isn't my sister an AWESOME photographer?)