Microblog Monday: It's All Worth It

We've had an insane amount of vomit, snot, and poopy blowouts here recently that have made parenthood not all that glamorous the past few days.  It's moments like in this video that make it all worthwhile though!  Baby laughter is literally the best thing ever.

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10 Months!

Yesterday the babies turned 10 months old!  Only 2 more months and they will be a year!  GASP!  Changes are happening rather quickly around here now, and I'm sure that's not going to slow down anytime soon.  I've always heard people say how fast they grow up, but I never realized the truth in that statement until I became a parent myself.  I have LOTS of pictures to share, in addition to a report of what they've been up to.

Love his hand on her shoulder!

Rylee is like a whole different baby from a few months ago.  She is so HAPPY!  She's starting to be pretty ticklish.  Her laugh is adorable, but getting her deep belly laugh doesn't happen very often.  She usually just squeals.  She has a super cheesy smile that she gives us all. the. time.  It is so adorable, but super hard to catch on the camera!  Almost every time I pull the darn camera out it disappears.  Although, I have managed to catch a few good smiles from her.

The Cheese!

Happy girl!

Rylee says dada almost non stop.  Sometimes she just whispers it, like she's just trying it out on her tongue.  Other times, she gets super excited, bounces and says it loudly.  This makes Tony very happy, especially because that's what she does when he comes home!  Talk about melting Daddy's heart.  She now can easily pull herself up to stand and cruises around the furniture.  I don't think it will be long before she is completely standing on her own.  She's even started climbing up on things!

Cutest little Wrangler butt ever!

Nothing is safe anymore

We just recently moved Rylee into size 3 diapers.  She is wearing 3-6 month and some 6 month clothing.  She has her 2 bottom front teeth and is working on a top tooth, but her teeth come in very slow so it might be awhile before it actually makes an appearance.  We had a visit with her pediatric dermatologist last week to check on her hemangiomas. They are doing fantastic!  The propanol medicine is shrinking them up just like it should.  We have not had to deal with any diaper rash or ulcers for a very long time now.  They weighed and measured her while we were there.  Rylee now weighs 17 lbs, 2 oz and is 26 inches tall.

Ayden is still his charming little self.  He is so easy to smile and will flirt with anyone!  He is super ticklish all over and has an amazing belly laugh.  Ayden says momomom, but he mostly just says it when he's tired and whiny.  He also said bye bye one night as a friend was leaving, but it was the only time and we have not been able to get him to say it again.  He can pull himself to a stand at the furniture, but he is also really good at staying kneeled and sitting on his feet even without holding onto anything.  He's just started walking along the furniture, but he is still pretty unstable.  If his poor little head survives all the bumps and bruises, I will consider it a miracle.

Helping me with the laundry

Who could resist this smile?

Ayden is in size 4 diapers and wearing size 9 and 12 month clothing.  We don't have any current measurements since last month.  Our nurse that does home visits is coming next week, so we'll find out how much he weighs then.  Ayden is now officially in a big boy car seat!  It was getting more and more challenging for me to lift him in and out of the car in the infant car seat, so it was a necessity to make the change.  He has 6 teeth!  4 on top and 2 on the bottom, but he also has 2 more bottom teeth trying to make an appearance.

The tv is usually off during the day, except for about 20-30 minutes in the morning when I turn something on for the babies.  They LOVE Winnie the Pooh!  They also enjoy Color Crew from Netflix, but let's be honest.  That one gets a little old after awhile for the grown ups :)

They are enthralled by Winnie the Pooh.

Now for their 10 month pictures!

She wanted that sticker OFF!  lol

I love Ayden's face in this one!

Outtakes!

Ayden thought her sticker should come off too.

Just a little punch to the face

Going opposite directions

"Rylee, get back here!  Mom's trying to take our picture!"

*I warned you this post would be a lot of pictures!  Also, no matter what I do, I cannot get the top paragraph to align on the left side.  Blogger INSISTS it be centered.  Grrr...

MicroBlog Monday: Birthday Favorites

Saturday was my first birthday as a Mom.  Tony and the babies baked me a special cake to help me celebrate.  A cake decorator they are not, but it's the best, most favorite cake I've ever had!

They also got me a card.  The babies even "signed" it themselves!  (Based on my husband's handwriting, he should have been a doctor.  I have learned to decipher it over the years :)

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Today I am an Old Lady

Today is my 40th birthday.  Does that officially make me old?  According to my chart at the doctor's office, I was considered "advanced maternal age" as of 5 years ago.  So maybe I was already old before today, and I just didn't count it.  Or maybe I did, since that IS the name of my blog title!  I'm old!

I just Googled "at what age are you considered old?"  There were a LOT of different answers.  Most people don't think old age starts until at least 50, but many answered 60 or 70.  A lot of thoughts were along the lines of "you are only as old as you feel" and I would tend to agree with that.  In that case, I do feel old, but I most definitely wouldn't call myself elderly!  Ha!  My body just hurts a lot these days.

Any time you Google something, it also brings up a list of related searches.  One of the suggested topics was "at what age are you considered a cougar?"  The answer is (drumroll........) 40!  So while most people don't consider you OLD at the age of 40, you DO enter cougar status!  Not that I'm on the prowl or anything.

So, how am I celebrating my birthday?  Remember The Cousins?  Well, I am going to their daughter's first birthday party.  Her birthday was actually yesterday, but the party is today.  We also have a wedding that we are supposed to go to and a college softball double header that we would like to go watch.  The wedding is a softball girl that we coached a few years back, and the softball game features a few of the girls we coached that just graduated and are now playing in college.  All these things scheduled on my birthday! We decided to go to the birthday party.

Tony made me a birthday cake this morning and gave me a card with the babies "signatures."  My first birthday with babies to help me celebrate!  Nothing better.  Other than that, it will be a pretty mild day with no big fan fare except for the one year old cousin's party.

Oh, we are making a trip to Costco on our way home from the party.  Nothing more exciting than buying diapers!  Actually, it IS pretty exciting that we have to, considering all the years we did NOT have to.  :)

Selfies with my babies from this past week.  They haven't quite figured out yet that you can actually smile for a selfie, regardless of all the funny faces and noises I made trying to get them to!

You can see my grey hair in this picture.  See, I AM old!  Ugh.

Random Facts About Me

I know it's #MicroBlogMonday, but this is my 200th post, so I wanted to do something a little different to celebrate.  Here's a list of 50 random facts about me:

1.  I am 39 years old, but only for 5 more days
2. I have a Bachelor degree in Exercise and Sports Science
3. I minored in Public Health
4. I graduated from Oregon State University, but attended Western Oregon State University for 3 years before transferring
5. I was a 3 sport athlete in high school, playing volleyball, basketball, and softball
6. I played one year of softball in college
7. I started coaching softball at 19 years old
8. I coached for 20 years before retiring to have my babies
9. I was a Head Varsity Coach for 10 years
10. We made it to the state playoffs 9 out of 10 years that I was Head Coach, making it as far as the State Semi Finals twice and even won a State Championship
11. I sold PartyLite candles for 8 years.
12. I was actually pretty good at it and earned 4 all expense paid vacations to: the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas, Cancun, Hawaii, and a Caribbean Cruise to  St. Thomas, St. Lucia, Curacua, and Aruba
13. I am shy and feel awkward in most social situations
14. But somehow I am very good at giving speeches and entertaining large groups of people
15. I hate to feel dumb, but do quite often
16. I am terrible at math
17. But I am good at reading and writing
18. Tony and I have a goal of seeing all 50 states together in our lifetime. So far we have been to Oregon, Washington, California, Idaho, Texas, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, Arizona, Tennessee, Florida, and Alabama.
19.  I have no problem sharing my opinion or saying what I think about something, but I hate confrontation.
20. I like junk food WAY too much
21. I always wanted to be able to say I've done a Marathon, and 5 years ago I did complete the Portland Marathon and could cross that off my bucket list
22. I don't actually have a bucket list, other than the mental one in my head
23. I love shopping by myself, but feel awkward when others are with me
24. I was 17 when I started college because I have a late birthday
25. I met Tony during orientation week of college my freshman year
26. We were playing volleyball when we met and I thought he was nice because he talked to me
27. We dated for 5 years before we got married
28. We just celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary in September
29. It took us 14+ years of ttc before we finally got our babies
30. My sister was our egg donor
31. We have 4 nieces and 3 nephews, and my brother has another on the way
32. My sister, my brother, and Tony's brother all had children before us, even though we are the oldest grandchildren in both our families
33. I have never so much as smoked a cigarette, let alone experimented with any drugs
34. Because my mom is a (recovered) drug addict and my dad is an alcoholic, I learned early on what I did NOT want in my own life
35. You could say I'm a goody two shoes
36. Except for all the t-peeing I did in high school.  My friends and I were pros
37. I also had sex in high school, so that might knock me off the goody two shoes status
38. I hate spiders
39. The thought of my kids getting lice and having to deal with that scares me to death!
40. I had lice in the 4th grade and it scarred me for life
41. My hair is naturally curly, but strangely has two textures.  It's kinky curly and very course in the back and underneath, but the hair on top is mostly just wavy and not as course
42. I got a perm my freshman year of high school
43. My hair was so big that it did not fit in the school picture and my nickname that year was Afro
44. I don't wear make up
45. But I did go through the ugly blue and green eye shadow and mascara stage in middle school. 
    Do you remember the colored mascara???
46. I played the clarinet in middle school and started to learn the saxophone, but by high school I was too cool for that (Not!)
47. I am unfortunately just a step down from being a hoarder
48. Not really, but my spare bedroom would indicate otherwise, as well as the clutter around our house
49. I love to read. I'm a big romantic. Give me a good love story any day. But I also like to read biographies, mysteries...just about anything.  I actually haven't read a book in a very long time though, now that I have babies
50. I also love to go to the movies. There is nothing like watching a movie in the theater and being able to escape into someone else's life or story for a few hours. Sometimes when I am upset, I will go to the movies by myself just to get away. Then I hope I don't run into someone I know because I don't want them to think I'm some kind of loner going to the movies all by myself.  This is another thing I haven't done since having my babies!  Although I most definitely am not complaining.

 Well, there you go!  50 random facts about me!  Hope you still like me :)  lol

Changes are A Happening

Changes are happening almost on a daily basis now.  It's crazy how fast the babies hit new milestones and change so quickly!

Hubby left town on Thursday for a weekend training event in Texas for his job.  Fortunately, my Aunt D was able to come for a visit and help me out with the babies while he was gone.  This was a tremendous help, especially since both Ayden and Rylee had colds and weren't feeling all that great.  In addition, they also decided to become a LOT more active over the weekend.

There is nothing that Rylee doesn't try pulling herself to stand at anymore.  Her favorite thing is to stand and she has also mastered walking around the furniture.  As long as she is holding on, she is doing great.  She's also beginning to try standing on her own, without holding on to anything.  Her crawl is turning into more of a bear crawl, because she so badly wants to be on her feet!  Lord help me.  She'll be off and running before too long.

Standing in her crib, pestering her brother

One handed.  She is SO wanting to go, go, go!

Ayden is trying really hard to catch up to his sister.  He can now sit up all on his own, no more tripod sitting.  He also pulled himself up to a stand all by himself over the weekend.  He's done it a few different times now.  He's not real consistent with it yet, but he is trying.  He gets himself to his knees and at least kneels everywhere now.

Trying to climb through the kitchen chair

They love to use their car seats to stand up at.

Unloading and loading the dishwasher is no longer something we can do while the babies are under foot.  They believe the dishwasher is open for them to play in.  It is also now necessary for us to keep the doors closed down the hallway because they are getting quite adventuresome.  They love to wander into the bathroom and bedrooms and see what they can get into.  More baby proofing is now necessary and cannot be limited to the living room and kitchen anymore.

It is both exciting and scary watching the babies learn new things!  It's difficult not being a bundle of nerves watching them precariously balance while learning to stand and walk.  Their poor heads are taking a beating.  It's hard not to just snatch them up every time they stand, but I know in order for them to learn to stand/walk and get down on their own we will have to let them get a few bumps and bruises along the way.

I am so grateful that my aunt was able to come help me over the weekend.  I knew I could handle it a day or two by myself, but I wasn't so sure about 4 days!  I was exhausted enough WITH the help!  She left Sunday morning and Hubby got home Sunday afternoon.  He had a hard time being away from the babies, especially when they changed so much in just those few short days, but now we are all back to our normal routine.  Only, that new routine now means chasing after babies a lot more!

Rylee and Ayden loved play time with Aunt D.