Happy Halloween!

The boys, all dressed up! (Conrad is the pumpkin, Val is the skeleton.) I might have already posted these somewhere, but it's halloween so i'm putting them up again!

They're very into toes right now-- their own, & their brother's.

They don't always like to share toes though. Pretty much the whole time I was taking pictures, all Val wanted to do was lay on Conrad & play with his brother's toes. When Con tried to lay on him, however, THIS is what happened.

Con was much more tolerant of sharing toes :)

Kobe & Candy

we did indeed get to go out for our anniversary/N's birthday dinner last night & it was delicious! we went to a super fancy steak house (the kind of place where you have separate waiters for water & drinks & your meal & to bus... it was like havinga small army wait on our us!) anyways, it was REALLY nice. we needed those 2 hrs to ourselves. bad.

both N & i are kind of foodies, but since i left chicago & the big money, we don't get to eat out like we used to & this was really a treat. we had kobe beef for the 1st time, & while i never previously really understood the fuss, HOLY CRAP, do i get it now! it was simply the most delicious thing i have ever tasted. if you aren't familiar with kobe, it's this fancy japanese beef, they're "special" cows, who get massages & lots of beer & a special diet, operating on the theory that a happy cow is a tasty cow. & man, those were some happy cows! it actually melted it your mouth. YUM!

the night didn't end exactly as i'd hoped, since i fell asleep waiting for N to get off the phone with his folks, but it was nice none-the-less. sometimes you just need a reminder that you're a grown-up, with grown-up tastes. today, however, i'm back to hanging with my babies & snacking on baby food :)

the boys are in the midst of dropping off to lala land, & N is out hunting bambi's dad, so for the moment it's just me. (Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.)

& i've cracked into our halloween candy. i always buy good candy, in case we get stuck with leftovers, & this year the kids are in danger of not having any chocolate left by tomorrow night. :)

oh, & i've been wearing maternity pants. sigh. the bella band still works right now too, but since i can't even zip my jeans a little bit, i have to be extra careful with it or i put on an inadvertant show. i can't believe i'm in maternity clothes at 8(ish) weeks with a singleton. yeah, it's technically my 4th pregnancy (only the boys went to term), but GEEZ. N pointed out to me last night that i've reached the "gee, she looks like she might be pregnant, but i better not congratulate her in case she's just fat" stage. isn't my hubby a sweetie? :P sigh.... i need to start taking belly pics, although i was anticipating this belly being so much smaller than the twin belly. that may not be the case in fact tho. i'm either growing a monster or plain old getting fat. which is what it is- i'll lose it eventually.
i just want to hold out another 4 or 5 weeks to break the news & face the storm. why do people have to be so judgy? oh well, i'm going to go have an almond joy. or maybe a cupcake. :)

Bad Names, Good Laughs

I just read that tito ortiz & jenna jameson named their twins boys "jesse jameson" & "journey jett" (after the bands).

seriously. N & i have been cracking up. what are they thinking? granted, i think being named after your mom's porn name & the band jett would be pretty bad even if they were singletons, but it made us start re-hashing all the awful twin names we've heard. it's like people go a little nuts (or stupid) when they find out they're having 2 & try to name them as a "set", (just come up with really awful names). allow me to provide some examples from our own personal experience.

from a set of twins in the NICU with the dudes (boys) : cash & change

twins girls (told to us by the NICU nurses, although we did not meet them): boy & man (yup, they were girls. apparently the mom wanted boys.)

twins boys: tyrod (pronounced tie-rod, as in the car part) & axel

identical twin girls i once knew: elise & elisa (in & of themselves the names are fine, but come one, they're already identical!)

i realize naming your kids is pretty personal, & most people put alot of thought into it. i just think sometimes people get a little carried away. afterall, the kids have to live with these names for the rest of their lives (or until they're old enough to change them. & if i were named man, i'd be counting the days!!)

any ridiculous names, twin or otherwise, that you guys have to share?

Phew...

Val is doing better. we're doing the breathing treatments & steroids thru the end of the week, but he seems to be on the mend!
i hate watching him not being able to get his breath. i don't know that there's much scarier than watching your child struggle to breathe. my little brother had terrible asthma as a child, & the nebulizer brings back all kinds of awful memories of R being rushed to the hospital not able to breathe bc his airways just closed up. sigh... all i can do is hope that we aren't headed the same route, & be thankful that our little dude is breathing easier.

in other news, we got our proofs from the boys photo shoot this morning!! they came out soooooo cute :) we're placing an order ASAP so we can get our prints in time for christmas presents for the granparents. (our photographer is a one woman operation & does everything old school, 35mil film, by hand, so it takes a while, but they come out absolutely amazing-- well worth the wait!) i'll post pics when i get a chance. :)

at the doc's office this morning, they basically put the fear of God in me about getting the H1N1 shot for the boys now.... i think i'll have to stake out some clinics next week in hopes of getting it for them. with N coming into contact with so much of the public, & val having breathing issues, they pretty much told me to do whatever i could to get it for them, since they have no idea when they'll have it at the pedi's office 9the county public health dept is in charge of distributing, & if you ask me, they're doing a really crap job.) where we live they're even rationing the seasonal vaccine (which thankfully the boys DO qualify for, so we're getting it nov.14, the earliest they offer it.) this just sucks. apparently the only reason i was able to get it is bc pregnant women are considered super high risk, so they got the vaccines out to the hospital OBs. i just wish i could find it for my guys. we've had enough sicky scares the past couple weeks to last this flu season.

at least its not flu...

so val has asthmatic bronchitis. which means he has bronchitis + asthma symptoms, so his airways are closing up, explaining the wheezing & coughing. (he's coughing so hard he's puking.)

so we now have an at home nebulizer, & the kid is getting around the clock breathing treatments every 4 hrs until tomorrow morning, when we go back into the doc. please keep your fingers crossed that it's not getting any worse, & this isn't real asthma, just a very nasty case of bronchitis. my poor baby.....

back to the doctor....

val is still puking, & his cough has turned into a really nasty, near constant bark, so in we go.

N & i still have plans for our anniversary dinner tonight, with gram babysitting, so we'll see what the doc has to say.

thsi is a really boring post, isn't it? i'll try to be more interesting later...

questions about baby appetites?

its 11am, we've been awake for 4 hrs & we've already played with all our favorite toys, had a snack & a bottle, & taken a nap. now, bc both dudes are cutting a new tooth (they seem to think they have to do everything at the same time), we are chewing furiously on our froggies. (conrad has a wooden frog he likes to rub against his gums, & val has a weird round circular frog-thing that squeeks when they bite it. good times.)

a question: when the dudes were super pukey, we weren't giving them any solids (obviously). they aren't totally themselves, they're still coughing & full of boogers, so their appetites aren't totally back yet, but they seem alot less interested in solids now. conrad especially. sound normal? it seems odd to me, since they so love to eat, but it's also the first time they've been really sick, so maybe this is just par for the course & i don't know it yet. they are eating less overall now too, so maybe it is just that they're still sick. thoughts?

EDIT: nevermind. we are clearly still sick. val just had a major "puke on my brother" episode, & while giving them both baths, con just ralphed up a bunch of snot. its the first time they've barfed in a couple days, but i'm pretty sure this explains the lack of appetite. still, if you guys have any thoughts, feel free to weigh in. just thought i'd update.