A Trip, a Tooth and a (S)Torm

If you could only here the flack I take when I don't blog enough. I hear it from everyone -- even my own family.

But that's okay, because sometimes I need a little "nudge" to get my rear in gear. I hope that this is the one and only time I'll let nearly a month go by without posting.

Where to start...where to start...

New Year's. Oh boy...

We had a party for our neighbors and close friends on New Year's Eve. Everyone brought some food and some beverages and the fun started around 8:00. We even set up our garage with food and drinks for the kiddos, in the hopes that they'd leave us alone. No such luck, but it was still fun. The kids in our neighborhood are every bit a part of our parties, so it actually would have seemed weird without them.

Before the party, Todd and I stood in the kitchen talking and I said, "I really can't afford to get drunk this year. I've got three kids who need me and it would be unfair for me to be hung over tomorrow."

Later, I ate my words. And then threw them up.

It seemed that my intentions were good, but my methods were bad. In my haste to get the party started and get everything out of the oven on time, I failed to eat dinner. So when I started on that first glass of Shiraz, my body was not equipped to deal with the onslaught of alcohol. A glass and a half later and I was feeling no pain. Add in one of neighbor Susan's Malibu Rum punches and I was three sheets to the wind. At some point, I actually just slipped upstairs and fell into bed. I think it was around 11:00. Happy New Year!

But it was not meant to be. The aforementioned neighbor, Susan, decided that it was not acceptable that I go to bed so early, so she, in her very drunken state, climbed the stairs to my room, barged in and got in bed with me, all the while smacking me on the bottom and yelling at me to "Wake up! Wake up!" Todd got it on film. I will not be sharing.

Needless to say, the next day wasn't pretty for me, despite my intentions to feel fine on January 1. Oh well ... next time I'll need to eat. Shouldn't be a problem for me. Never is. :)

Since then, we've just being getting back into the swing of things. We take trips to the mall to break up any monotony and play outside when it's nice.

The girls are providing us with a lot of entertainment these days, too, as they both sit up independently and love to be with one another. They just sit and laugh and coo at each other. I think their "twin talk" has already started. They seem to communicate while the rest of us can't understand a word they're saying.

But I think they're also saying English words, too. I'm pretty sure they're both saying, "Hi!" Yesterday, I picked Gracie up from her crib and I said, "Hi!" to her when I picked her up. She responded with the like. It was hysterical.

They also proclaim their two word greeting whenever a cat walks into the room. It's as clear as day, "Hi!" Adorable.

Last night we discovered that Grace has a tooth. It's just this little white nub on her bottom gum and while it's too small to even feel it's certainly visible. She hasn't done much complaining, either, so it was a big surprise. What fun!

And crawling -- we're almost there. On the 4th, Faith popped herself up on all fours and started rocking back and forth. She's still doing it now, but is figuring out that if she moves her hands forward, her whole body moves too. As soon as she coordinates her legs in there, she'll be off like a shot. And I'll be drinking heavily.

Grace doesn't seem to have as much interest in crawling. Instead, she just wants to skip it all and go straight to standing. She cannot handle being seated in my lap -- she must be standing. And if you hold her hands while she's sitting on the floor in front of you, she'll pull herself up. Luckily, she hasn't figured out pulling up on furniture yet, but I'm sure that's not far behind. Again, break out the alcohol. I'm gonna need it.

This week has been particularly exciting in that San Antonio got the biggest ice storm its seen in 20 years. The storm rolled in on Monday afternoon and by Monday night, it was sleeting hard. Tuesday morning brought a sheet of ice on everything and the neighborhood kids had a great time using their boogie boards to slide down the hill in our front yard. It sleeted all day long and covered everything in sight with at least 1/2" to 3/4" of ice. We stayed inside and kept a fire burning all day long.

Wednesday was more of the same -- sleet and rain and lots and lots of ice. It started to not be fun anymore. The kids were out of school for the third straight day (Monday was the MLK Holiday) and all of the parents around here were pulling their hair out, ready to send their kids packing back to school.

By Wendesday afternoon, though, the storm had let up and I was able to make it over to ZZ's house for some much-needed interaction for the kids. It was the first time I had left the house since Monday morning. I needed OUT!

Unfortunately, though, the storm did more than just dump a bunch of ice on us. It also screwed up our much-anticipated DisneyWorld trip...again.

Two years ago, ZZ and I decided we would take a trip -- just the two of us -- to DisneyWorld for our 30th and 35th birthdays. We booked it in June of 2005 and were set to go in January of 2006.

But November hit and there I was, unexpectedly pregnant with twins. We were devastated, but we rebooked the trip for January 17-21, 2007 and began planning.

We've been so excited as the week has approached, but our excitement turned to horror as we watched all flights out of San Antonio become cancelled. Sure enough, ours was one of them.

Fortunately, because we know our luck, we purchased travel insurance and it payed off -- AGAIN -- when we called Disney, pleaded our case and rebooked the trip to leave tomorrow, January 19 (Happy Birthday, Bridget!) and return on Tuesday, January 23. Essentially, the whole trip just got pushed back 48 hours.

But it was not without incident. We lost our reservation at Cinderella's Royal Table. Dinner at the Castle books very quickly and while we made our reservation months ago, it was for tonight when we, obviously, won't be there. When we tried to rebook, it was completely full the entire time we will be there.

I guess that just means that we'll have to go back. :)

So that's about it for me. I have lots of pictures, but someone is crying from the other room and I need to go see why naptime was only 40 minutes long. I'll post some soon, but probably not until after my return.

Thanks for bearing with me.

Me