Happy 5 Month Birthday!

Since last month, we:

-had play dates with Alexa and Sadie

-took lots of naps, especially with Daddy

-watched playoff hockey...sadly the Canucks beat the Kings

-watched less TV and read more books

-graduated to 9 month clothes (and some 12 month pants for Alex's thighs)

-continued working on rolling over (Tony) - close but no cigar...now he rolls both ways instead of just to the left

-continued sticking everything into our mouths...particularly our left (Tony) and right (Alex) hands

-took lots of walks with BOB, and used every single stroller we have

-introduced "lovies" - Ellie the Elephant and Jerry the Giraffe

-celebrated Pickle's, Lil Dahl's, and Kyle's birthdays/birth day

-found the fun in shredding paper napkins (Alex)

-increased our production of drool...seriously, out of control!

-became bigger fans of both the Exersaucer and Jumper

-survived surgery (Tony)

-officially became Bumbo sitters

-went on our first vacation/road trip to Lake Tahoe/Reno with Grandma, Oma and Opa

-became really good at sitting and standing with little assistance (Alex)...and decided that if Alex could do it, he could too (Tony)

-laugh, a lot. It makes everyone happy.

-learned a new activity - picking our legs up in the crib and then dropping them to make a noise (Alex). Striker loves when Alex does this at 2 AM.

-got really good at snuggling with Mommy. The best part of this month!

This is definitely my favorite age so far...they do stuff, but still stay where I put them ;)

Lake Tahoe Vacation - Day 7

On the road again...We left at 3:45 AM and got home at 1:15 PM. We stopped in Mammoth, Inyokern, Kramer Junction, and Adelanto. It was freezing (or below freezing in places) when we started our drive, and I was wearing flip flops. When we got home, it was 80 something :)

I highly recommend leaving that early when driving with infants. They slept most of the way which saved us all from hours of my singing. They even took turns driving ;)

We were all very happy to be home lying on our bed watching the ceiling fan. Even more happy to be sleeping in our own bed/crib.

Lake Tahoe Vacation - Day 6

Thursday, for some reason, the boys were dressed alike all day.

Take-out breakfast from IHOP...mmmm mmmm good! Striker had Chocolate Chip Pancakes which disturb me because the texture is all wrong. My mom and I split Strawberry and Banana Pancakes, only it wasn't until after we were done that I realized we'd ordered Strawberry and Banana French Toast. Clearly that change didn't bother us.

Our outing for the day was lunch at Fire & Ice. This place has become a Lake Tahoe tradition for us, though we learned that there is one that opened in Anaheim late last year. Highly recommend this place!

I spent the afternoon repacking the Pilot for our ride home. After the boys were asleep, Grandma stayed with them so Striker and I could go to the hot tub one more time.

Our planned departure time was set for 2 AM.

Lake Tahoe Vacation - Day 5

After a night of very little sleep for me (and only slightly more for Striker and Grandma), I declared Wednesday a do nothing day.

I am so in love with this picture of the double tongues! One of very few pictures taken today, and it's one of my favorites.

We sent Striker off to the ER to make sure he had bronchitis and not pneumonia, and to get some meds to clear him up. He was in and out in 45 minutes! Aside from his really annoying cough, he'll live. ;)

Lake Tahoe Vacation - Day 4

After a good night's sleep (thank you Alex and Tony) we hung out and did a load of laundry while Striker bowled and drove back from Reno.

We walked to a little row of shops next to our resort and had lunch. The weather was much warmer today - just a t-shirt, jeans and flip flops for me. Yay!

We stopped at the Tot Lot on the way back and Alex and Tony got to go down their first slide with Grandma and Opa.

We hung out the rest of the afternoon and I got to watch last night's episode of 24 with some ice cream, while the boys played with Striker and Grandma.

I find I am spending far too much time on controlling the room temperature. I need to add the person that invented the thermostats with climate control to my list of great inventors (the guys that invented infant swings, the Snoopy mobile, and the ceiling fan are already on there).

Unfamiliar Activity?

Logging in from a computer in the United States. Could this be more general? Is this a sign that I am mobiley 95% of the time? Why does Facebook monitor the IP address that I log in from? Has anyone else had this message pop up?

Lake Tahoe Vacation - Day 3

So yeah, Grandma Barbie and I didn't get much sleep. But we still made it down to Reno to watch Striker bowl at the National Bowling Stadium.

Striker bowled ok in the team event and stayed over night in Reno for Doubles and Singles Tuesday morning. The stadium is pretty impressive and had decent snack bar food...which I promptly inhaled after feeding, changing and settling the boys in with Oma and Opa to watch Striker bowl. I vaguely recall eating a hamburger and cheese fries...I think.

Grandma drove Oma, Opa, the boys and I back just in time for bedtime. Grandma and I passed out shortly thereafter by 9:15 or so.