Carolyn

We had a really great family vacation to Cape Cod week before last. I posted the photos to our family photo site: http://thehealdfamily.shutterfly.com

I have a new location for my family photos:

http://thehealdfamily.site.shutterfly.com/

I'll put a note here when I update the site with new photos. There are three albums there now - the March for Babies, a March 2008 visit to Kent's Dad, and Memorial Day weekend.

A couple of weeks ago Kent and I took the kids to the park and put them on the swings for the first time. They loved it!





Auntie Margaret - Note the hats they are wearing!

Kent, William, Bridget and I will be marching in this year's March of Dimes March for Babies. An important part of the March of Dimes mission is to prevent premature birth and to help improve the outcomes of babies who are born early. This work is very important to us as the parents of 31-weekers. We are beyond lucky with how well things went for William and Bridget - so much could have gone wrong. Looking back, it is just amazing that they have come so far.

A donation would be appreciated, though I certainly recognize that we all receive numerous requests for donations and it isn't possible to give to everything, so no worries if this won't fit into your budget! Thank you!

The twins turned 1 last Tuesday! Hard to believe that a year has gone by. They had a ball at their party. This year it was just a small gathering since we are limiting their exposure to people this winter, but next year we'll have to do something bigger.

Hannah and the twins:



Bridget enjoying her ice cream cake:



William likes ice cream cake too!

I listened to this on NPR on the way to work this morning. Very funny!

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18526207

10 things that recently made me happy (Thanks for including me, dana325!)

1. Colts are out of the play-offs!
2. 17-0!!
3. Coming home to wonderful meals cooked by my husband, as a result of...
4. My husband now being a stay-at-home Dad!
5. Bridget picking up her sock and clapping when I said, "Bridget, you took off your sock!"
6. William looking so cute in his new Adidas track suit.
7. Nice hugs from my babies
8. Nice hugs from my hubby
9. Coming home to piles of clean, folded laundry (see #4).
10. Going on a nice walk around the neighborhood yesterday with Kent and the twins.

With both kids feeling better and the weather being warm, we decided to visit a few neighbors for Halloween. Here they are:



Here are the four of us:



And here they are earlier in the day (yes, Mom had something to do with getting them in this position...):

Such a lovely young lady....



...with such questionable table manners...

You are sitting in your driveway in your minivan because the kids are asleep. Thank goodness I have wireless and have my laptop with me. If only I had a cocktail I'd be all set...

I'm not totally sure, but William might have kissed me tonight. I've been trying to show both of them how to kiss. Well, when I picked him up off the changing table tonight and was heading over to his crib and saying goodnight, be grabbed the back of my head and smooshed his mouth onto my cheek. He was either trying to give me a kiss or eat my face. Come to think of it, he has been trying to eat everything he can get his hands on, including Mitchell's XO laptop, so I guess it is more likely that he was hungry.

Speaking of the XO, Bridget seems to totally get that if she presses on the keypad things will happen. I'm not sure when the last time was that she got to play with the laptop, but tonight when Mitchell put it in front of her she immediately started to press on the keypad while looking at the screen. Here's an early photo of her using the XO - her technique has improved since this was taken (in mid August):




William, on the other hand, was much more interested in getting the laptop into his mouth. He did figure out how to turn the screen around.

The kids seem to be having their first cold. When I picked them up last night at my aunt's they both had runny noses. They were running clear though, so I think that is an indication that they don't have any kind of bad infection. Plus, their appetites and dispositions seemed pretty good. Their noses are still running today and they are sneezing and coughing a bit. We've been lucky that we've gotten this far (almost 8 months) without any infections, especially considering that they are preemies.

Speaking of preemies, I am bummed that Preemie magazine has folded. It was such a great source of info and very nice to read while the kids were in the NICU.

I took the kids to my parents' house after work tonight. Despite the runny noses it seemed like they would be up for it. Hannah was there for a sleep-over so I didn't want to miss an opportunity to see her. She is crazy about the twins. We'll all be going away together in February to my parents' condo in NH and she is so excited. It will be great to have a whole week with her.

I figure that the time will come faster than I want it to when the kids will not let me dress them the same, so I am enjoying being able to do it now!

Here they are in their Rainforest Cafe shirts:




And here they are sporting their game-day colors:




Bridget has a tooth! Just a little of it is sticking through the gum, but it is clearly there! They have both been drooling like crazy for weeks now and chew on anything that goes near their mouths so we have been expecting this. It is pretty exciting!

The kids were both whacky today. They wouldn't sleep much, Bridget was difficult to feed a bottle to (maybe related to gum pain??? She ate her solids just fine) and William spent the better part of the day practicing a high-pitched bizzare jungle wail, which seemed to be a happy, if not disturbing, sound. They didn't allow us to really watch the game, but at least they looked cute in their Pat's gear.

Kent's cousin came by today to help him with stuff around the house. They took out the air conditioners (though from the forecast it looks like we might want them this week!)and removed the table from the sun room so we could set up the play pen in here. I didn't like where it was in the corner of the living room, though I will miss having a table here in the sun room. Well, it was going to have to go at some point as this room has to become the playroom.

I'm so behind on sharing pictures of the kids. This picture is a pretty good look at what things are like here, so this kind of explains why I don't have much time to post...




The kids had their first hotel experience in August. It went okay - they wouldn't sleep in their port-a-cribs but we had a king size bed so there was room for all of us there. Here they are enjoying some freedom after their 6 hour car ride...

Your results:
You are Beverly Crusher

Beverly Crusher 60% Chekov 55% Uhura 50% Jean-Luc Picard 50% Geordi LaForge 50% Will Riker 50% James T. Kirk (Captain) 35% Mr. Scott 35% Data 35% Deanna Troi 35% Spock 32% An Expendable Character (Redshirt) 30% Worf 15% Leonard McCoy (Bones) 5% Mr. Sulu 5%

A good physician and a caring parent. You are devoted to your children and to your occupation.

Click here to take the Star Trek Personality Quiz

Here it is, my first journal entry. It is MLK Day, so I have the day off from work. I spent the morning sleeping and surfing, but now must get myself into the right frame of mind to actually do some work, despite being a day off. Emma is doing her best to make it difficult for me to type, so this will be challenging.