Puking, Coughing, Sneezing, and Bouncing

We have begun instilling lifelong values in our children early. The first I learned from Barney. Sharing means caring. Mamma Smith has been generous enough to teach us this lesson by sharing her cold with the whole family. Riley and I were the first to share in the fun, now Sanna appears to be joining in. Our days have included a lot more fussiness, puking, coughing, sneezing, and fun. The one bright spot is that the girls can now reach the floor while using the bouncy chair. Riley's weight helps her get a little lower, so she can bouncy like a crazy person. She always gets a smile on her face when the bouncing gets started. The only annoying thing is the music that comes out of that thing. It kind of restarts every time she bounces. Anyways, enjoy the pics and video of the fun.

Favorite Things

Our ladies have progressed to a point where they now have items that they like. So, far each of them has one favorite thing to play with. For our chunky monkey Riley, its a toy duck that she mostly likes to try to shove in her mouth. For Sanna, its the mirror on the Pineault Playcenter. What does this say about our ladies? Discuss? The video of Sanna with the mirror is not her best work. She normally angles it so she can see herself and talks to it. That girl wont shut up lately. She has my gift of gab. She either sleeping, talking, or whining these days.

More Fun with Interesting Characters

Well, not having a license for 9 months almost came back to bite me this week. I need to pick up my new company car, and the dealership asked me to bring my license. I told them I didnt have it, and complained about the lengthy process required to replace lost social security cards and drivers licenses. It turns out that it doesnt take that long. As long as you dont go to the downtown social security office things arent that bad. The short time (about 45 minutes) that I spent in the office was quite eventful. I sat down across from two conversing friends and one their daughters (she was probably 10 and apparently home schooled). The two women talked with the daughter in the middle. I tried to record the conversation on my blackberry, but it was too far away. I could barely hear them, but highlights includes "I ate lunch with her at noon and she killed herself by 4", "the whole family and their dog were living in the hotel until the kids got taken away", "I found her sleeping in the car at 4Am", and many more. Down the way from me was an interesting man sitting with his wife/girlfriend and daughter. He has some very long fingernails used for who knows what and was covered in freemasons rings (ear and finger). He was very anxious and eventually noticed a sign on the wall that asked people to turn off their cell phones. It was a friendly request which I later realized was because everyone and their brother had a phone going off and would talk at various volumes. That would probably lead to people missing their numbers being called which would cause major anger. Anyway, he saw the sign and flew into a mini fit of rage and cursed at the sign. "F#$% that" he said. "They cant tell me to turn off my phone". "If they want me to turn off my phone, then they can pay my bill". That last line caused serious confusion in the logic center of my brain. Finally, a woman with a behind any rapper would admire strolled in with jeans that must have taken all morning to get on. She was young, and sat down asking a questions about collecting benefits based upon a recent death. Her line was "he isnt even in the ground yet". I thought she was referring to her husband, but then a guy came in and sat down next to her. She seemed pretty upbeat. Anyway, that is my best recollection of the fun. I really thought about taking pictures with my phone, but it makes a sound when you take a picture and the freemason guy might have killed me. The ret of the day included driving all over town trying to find an open license branch. 3 tries, no luck. Very annoying. I will get my license tomorrrow. Fun times.

Presidential Poll

People, do you understand that the poll is anonymous?  Lame.  If we can establish that our readership mirrors that of the overall electorate we will be polled for all upcoming elections.  

Sunday Conversation

Biggest Losers?

We visited the doctor for their 3 month checkup today.  They are actually 15 weeks, but whatever.  Over the past month, Riley went from 11lbs 5oz to 13lbs 13oz.  Sanna went from 10lbs 14oz to 13lbs 1 oz.  So, Riley outgrew Sanna by 5 ounces.  When the ladies were 1 month old, they were beneath the 25h percentile in height and weight (not head size though :)).  Now Sanna is above the 60th percentile in everything, and Riley is in the 75th percentile in everything.   With this current trajectory, they will be in the 150th percentile in a few months.  I know that doesnt exist, but it helps to illustrate my point.  Ladies be growin.  I heard a rumor that they were going to extend the Biggest Loser brand to include an series for toddlers.  I guess they want to promote good health and exercise from a young age.  I know our girls could work hard and drop the pounds with the proper reward.  I think we are going to allow them to keep beefin up so they can be on the show (it is going to shoot in a couple years I guess).   When they drop the pounds we'll be rich.  At least one of them will win.  Riley will have more to lose most likely.   Anyway, look for us on NBC in the coming years.  

We Voted!!!!

Laurin and I got up bright and early to get to the polls at 6AM.  I am leaving at 9 for a business trip, so time was of the essence.  When we got there, the line was quite long and we were worried. With both babies in tow we didnt have forever, and it wasnt all that warm.  To our delight, the line moved quite fast once the polls opened.  There was probably 300 people in front of us at 6AM!, but we still were out of there in an hour.  As we left, there was hardly a line.  Everyone must have had the same idea about getting there early.  The ladies were a hit, and hopefully did not catch anything as a result of their contact with people today.  Anyway, see the attached pics of our fun.

How do you politely ask the homeless to stop touching your babies?

Thanks to the wonderful people at Baby Bjorn, Laurin and I have been taking the ladies for a lot of walks lately.   It was really nice out yesterday, so we hardly had to bundle them up.  While walking is fun for the whole family, having two amazingly cute babies strapped to you makes you very popular with all kinds of people.  It seemed like everyone was out and about yesterday, and they all love babies (especially twins).   Our most exciting encounter came when we came across two colorful characters enjoying some time out on a nice day.  As we walked up, the man was putting his forty of Cobra back in his windbreaker, and the woman must have just finished putting bright red lipstick all over her face and teeth.  It seems like the twins thing really intrigues people.  We almost made it past them, then I hear "TWINS?!?!?".   Not wanting to be total elitists we were forced to stop and acknowledge them.  What ensued was a 10 minute session of confusing conversation and fear of hepatitis.   The guy focused on me, telling me the story of his son, who is apparently an extra in movies (he was one of the cops that found Jimmy Hoffa's body in Bruce Almighty he said).   He also rambled about how great our girls will be and how they need to know their real father, the Lord.   Laurin's conversation was apparenly about the fact that the woman had 6 kids.  Where they were was anybody's guess.  One was 3 months old.   She showed Laurin a photo on her camera, then took a photo of Riley.  There was some awkward touching and at one point the woman put Riley's pacifier in her mouth.  Im not sure if they make water hot enough to clean it, so I think we retired that one.   I tried multiple times to end the conversation, but apparently they didnt major in getting hints.   Finally we used their impending hunger as a reason to move along.  Fun times.  I actually found the guys son online.  He seems pretty successful and together.  

Viva La Revolucion!

I want to thank all you pessimists for trying to scare us about our future lack of sleep.  I am happy to announce that both of our ladies successfully completed 8 hour sleeping sessions over the past weekend.  While I am not yet prepared to call this a trend, Ill take it.  Our ladies were well behaved all weekend as the rest of the Smiths came to visit.  Also, we had a dinner party with all kinds of crazy fun.  The ladies were perfect guests as they were licked by a wild animal and serenaded to the tune of "pool party".   We look forward to many more nights of solid sleep.

More Halloween Fun...

The ladies had quite a good time in their first Halloween costumes. We might actually make Riley wear hers every day. She sat quietly (not asleep) all night and didnt fuss a bit. Sanna wanted to be held, but when she was there was no issue. We had plenty of visitors. Costumes ranged from the good (most of the little kids in their superhero or princess costumes) to the bad (a very young mother in no costume smoking a cigarette who asked us if we had any soft candy, which I think she wanted for her new born. She couldnt have been more than 18). Anyway, Laurin and I got drunk on the porch while handing out the candy and talking to the neighbors. Melissa and Cynthia came over for pizza and wings after the trick-or-treating, so it was basically my perfect night. Beer, wings, babies.

*we didnt really get drunk for all you who are still trying to grasp sarcasm
**I would like to print a retraction on a previously posted statement. Grandma Nancy is a wonderful Grandma and didnt really cause Sanna to freak out while I was gone. I was given that piece of information from Laurin, but it was mostly to represent how she was the 'new' person who was around at the time. It just helped to illustrate the point.