Hanging Out At the Pool

I was driving home on Saturday and passed our neighborhood pool on the way to our house. To my surprise -- the pool was hopping. And then I started thinking about how hot it was outside, and how nice it would be to go to the pool, and how there's a nice little kiddie pool next to the big pool. . . . So, this morning I ran by Wal-Mart and picked up some floats for the babies and after the noon feeding, Gary and I loaded up the babies in the stroller and walked down to the pool. Here are the babies ready to go and all decked out in their new swimwear:



We really had a great time at the pool. We were gone for a total of 2 hours. Gary and I definitely got some sun, but it doesn't look like we missed any spots with the sunscreen on the babies. We started out sitting with the babies on the steps of the big pool, then we blew up the floats and had the babies float around. Then we decided that it would be easier to have the floats in the kiddie pool and moved there for a while.

The kids were really funny. Piper was her normal wild self, and we kept a close eye on her because you could tell that she would like nothing better than to flip her float over. And -- she liked to drink the pool water, so we tried to keep that to a minimum. Henry had a good time and giggled a lot, and his favorite part was when Gary became a float for Henry. Rosemary, though, enjoys my type of pool visits -- she just laid back in her float and relaxed the whole time.

We had a great time and will definitely be doing this again soon. Here are some more pictures:

I Can Do It Myself!

I've been looking forward to the time that the babies can feed themselves. Gary and I have thought of it as a time that may never come. But now all of the sudden, the babies only want to feed themselves. Pureed foods aren't fun anymore -- they want chunky food! And, mommy giving them a spoon is no fun -- they want to put it in their own mouths.

This newfound indepdence went to a whole new level this past Saturday when I was serving the babies their dinner -- pureed top sirloin and steamed broccoli with cheese. I suppose I could have made the babies eat the food with the spoon that I put into their mouths and really avoided a huge mess, but then I really do want to encourage the babies to experiment with food and feed themselves. It will probably not surprise many of you that steamed broccoli and cheese is not an easy food for babies to feed themselves. . . .

Piper:



Henry:



And Rosemary in particular enjoyed feeding herself some broccoli, cheese, and steak:

The Hammer is Not Ready for Bed

First Road Trip!

The babies have now left the city of Birmingham once! Since RSV season is over, we packed up the babies, the cooler (of bottles), and the car and headed to north Alabama so that the babies could meet my grandmother, who can't travel to Birmingham to meet them. Here are some pictures of Grandma meeting and getting to hold her great grandbabies:






In the picture below, Grandma, me holding Henry, Papa holding Piper, Aunt Jack holding Rosemary, my brother Seth (back left), and my brother Zac (back right).



After we visited with Grandma, we went to Nana and Papa's house. While we were there, Papa (along with Gary and my brother, Seth) got to show the babies their first horses. Pretty soon, Papa is going to have the babies riding those horses!

Bathtime with a Bunny, a Lion, and a Duck

The babies really enjoy bathtime, which is every day after their 4:00 p.m. bottles and dinner. Recently, Henry reached the point where he flopped around so much in the infant bathtub that we had been using that we were afraid he'd flop right out of the bathtub. . . . So, we retired the baby bathtub and moved to the bathchair. Hopefully, soon we will just put all three of them in the tub for baths at the same time. For now, here are some pictures of the babies from this past weekend enjoying their baths (and bathtowels). You can tell by their smiles how much they like getting nice and clean!

Here is Piper (the Bunny):





Henry (the Lion):





And Rosemary (the Duck):

Happy Easter!!

The Easter Bunny made it to our house last night and left some Easter baskets and toys for the babies. . . .



Piper knew something was up and was trying to look over the side of her crib.




Henry was ready to see what the Easter Bunny brought him. . . .




Rosemary was not very happy about a big bunny coming into her room during the night. . . .




The babies were excited when they saw what was in their baskets (below Piper, then Henry, then Rosemary):





Of course, no Easter basket would be complete without a pair of bunny ears.





The babies got a lot of nice things from the Easter Bunny. Each baby got a new toy, their very own personalized basket, some plastic Easter eggs, some candy (since the babies don't eat candy yet, I'm pretty sure that the Easter Bunny brought that for Gary and me), a new teething toy, . . . and grass basket filler. By far, the babies' favorite part of the Easter basket was the grass.



All in all, the babies had a great Easter morning!



We all went to church this morning. My friend, Danielle, and Auntie Ann helped us out with the babies. The babies have now been to church twice and have behaved very well both times (with the help of some Cheerios). After church, we took a picture of the babies with Auntie Ann in our backyard:



And we also got in a family picture:



I hope you all had a Happy Easter!