Cathing Up with the Pruetz Family

This week has been an exciting one in the Pruetz house. With the addition of our latest four-legged friend, we've spent a lot of time outside, teaching the canine to "do her business" in the grass instead of in our formal living room. It's a work in progress.

Tuesday the girls went back to see Dr. Trexler, since they were not able to get their one-year immunizations at their last appointment due to the double ear infections they both had.

Both girls were weighed, with Faith coming in at 17 pounds even and Grace at 17 pounds, 7 ounces. Faith is 26.5 inches and Grace is 26 inches. This marks the first time Faith is longer than Grace!

Both of the girls rank under the 5th percentile, still, when corrected back. They are continuing to gain weight at a regular rate, but Dr. T was hoping that they would have "caught up" by now. She's a little concerned about how small they still are, especially considering how much they eat! (As a side note, we went to Chuck E. Cheese with the MOMS Club on Monday and a fellow mom stopped by our table just to tell me that she'd never seen such small being eat so much food. I had to return to the salad bar three times!). We're going to keep an eye on them and have the twins weighed again in a month. Their slowed recent weight gain may be because of being sick for so long...

Tuesday was also Todd's 39th birthday. After our marathon doctor's appointment -- things take so much longer when there are two -- we came home and put the twins to bed. The combination of being up at 6:30 that morning, thanks to our barking dog, missing their morning nap, getting shots and taking Tylenol to ease the pain meant a four-and-a-half hour snooze for both girls.

During that time, Devin and I prepared for Daddy's celebration. We made a chocolate marble cake and frosted it with fudge icing. Then Devin decorated it with various colors and forms of sprinkles. He had a really good time both decorating the cake and sampling his wares.

Diabetic coma, anyone?


Strategically placed candles (the strategy is still a mystery, but apparently there was some)

Around 3:30 the girls got up from their naps and Todd's parents arrived. They just love our kids and immediately got down on the floor to play with them. Here is Dorothy, the baby whisperer, with the girls.


Grace is standing and Faith is sitting in Dorothy's lap


Grace, Dorothy and Faith

We had Todd's favorite dinner of pollo rellano, spanish rice and bean-and-corn salad with salsa dressing. We ate in the dining room on the good china and enjoyed good conversation and fun.

We opened gifts and Todd got a CD and some cash from his parents, a DVD and an iPod from me and the kids, and an iPod stereo/speaker system from ZZ. He raked it in!

We dug into the cake and ended our night. It was a fun time and I think we ushered in Todd's 40th year of life in style.

Since then, we've just been hanging around the homestead. We've been trying out some gyms around here for Devin to take gymnastics. There is one very close to our house, but it's a gym for serious gymnasts and not for little boys who need to run off some energy. If Devin wants to compete when he's older, we'll probably go to that one, but for now, we're enrolled at Flip City where Devin is learning to do handstands, back walkovers and other fundamentals of gymnastics. He's loving it and we're very happy with our new activity.

Soon he will start Vacation Bible School and then a summer program at a local church. He's very much looking forward to both.

The girls are being as cute as ever. Their latest trick is to put their hands way up above their heads when you say, "Ta da!" to them. It's hysterical and they are a hit at any gathering.

They've also discovered the stairs. They actually discovered them a long time ago, but they are just now realizing that they lead somewhere. Faith is completely attracted to them and can hardly control herself. And when Gracie sees what Faith is doing, she is always right behind.


And they're off!


Erin Pruetz: 2007 Mother of the Year
By the way, that's squished banana on Gracie's bottom. I'm not that bad of a mom! :)

And finally, today is a year since the girls came home from the hospital. I recall that day like it was yesterday -- how happy I was and how terrified I was, all at the same time. I look back on the weeks following their arrival and how difficult it was. Neither would sleep for more than a few minutes at a time, especially at night, and everwhere we went, the heartrate monitors had to go with us. They were small, frail and enough to make my head spin. We went weeks with only 90 to 120 minutes of sleep each night...total. That's not uninterrupted.

But I was so happy I couldn't stand it. My girls were safe, they were healthy and they were home. I was drunk with happiness (some of that was lack of sleep, I'm sure) and despite a very bumpy few months, I wouldn't have changed it for the world.

And now, a year later, my girls are beautiful, personality-filled angels who bring me elation every single day. They walk (well, cruise...close enough), they talk, they follow simple directions and they snuggle. They feed themselves, they are best friends and they love a good adventure. Oh the joy they bring me...

Here are some pictures from June 23, 2006.


Faith and Grace - around 5 pounds each


I need a picture of me holding both of them today. It's a much different picture!