Joys In My Life

We've been very busy around these parts lately. In a really really good way. Work is keeping me busy as I have 4 mid-year reviews to finish writing (I finished them staying at work late tonight! Go me!), several hot projects at work going live before the end of the month and a committee to improve employee satisfaction with some deliverables needed from me over the past few weeks and will continue until the end of this week. But the great part of all this is that next week, we are taking a whole week family vacation to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I am so so so happy!!! We have not had a week off for a family vacation in about 5 years. We've had long weekends and we did have that great business trip my DH had to Disney that we tacked on three days mid-week for us and our daughter, but it's never been a whole week of us devoted to relaxing, spending time together and chilling out as a family. I CAN'T WAIT! There is lots to do in the evening then to gear up f...

I keep saying how different Liam is and it is so true! Here are some photos to illustrate Liam on the move other than his one armed commando crawl that I used to call the Quasimodo crawl (he really looked weird the way he commando crawled). Today he's going to have his first physical therapy appointment in three weeks. I can't be here as I took time yesterday to be at his first occupational therapy appointment ever, which I think we all agreed we'll have one more and if he's still doing well we can drop those. Niki will have the fun of showing Ruth all the cool things Liam can do now. I did talk to her on the phone earlier this week and she is incredulous that he's doing so much now. I wish I could see the look on her face when she sees what Liam can do now. Here's Liam with something his brother wants. Sometimes Liam will let Tommy take stuff from him and he doesn't care. When he does care, he just stays on the move and Tommy follows him. Here's...

I need to take some pics of both boys standing and cruising as well as Liam crawling on hands and knees. I can't believe how far they've come. Here's a pic of them eating watermelon on the 4th of July. Enjoy!

We've been having some really hot weather around here lately and it's created havoc with my menu planning. I could eat salad 24/7, but the boys can't live on rabbit food alone, so I bought a new cookbook, Giada at Home and I'm loving it! Tonite we're going to have "Pasta Ponza" on page 85. The boys love pasta dishes, so hopefully everyone will be happy. We'll also be having a big salad to make Mommy happy. I especially do need something to make me happy as we all drove DH to the airport last night. He's in Dallas, TX first and then Los Angeles, CA and I'll be picking him up from the airport on Thursday evening. I hate it when he's out of town. I don't sleep well and things are more hectic because he really does pull his weight around the house, straightening things up, asking if I need any help, reminding me of things I haven't added to our to-do list yet and getting Phoebe to activities. Of course I also just miss having hi...

We spend a wonderful weekend with the kids in New Jersey. It was wonderful playing with my babies again and having Phoebe sit all over my lap with her wet bony butt (it hurts after awhile!). Her butt was wet as there was a pool at our disposal, which was fantastic, as the East Coast of the US is going through a horrible heat wave. It should be over 100 degrees Farenheit today. Ugh! We spent lots of time in the pool, which the babies and Phoebe love. The boys are on their way to being fishy kids like their big sister. I wouldn't be surprised if Phoebe ended up on the swim team in high school. The hard part was we weren't at our house, which makes it difficult to figure out where to put the boys to play when there are tons of people around, which was only on the 4th itself. The other days, we could put up barriers on the deck and let them play there. Liam is catching up to his big brother in the physical skills. He's pulling himself up to stand and can do everythin...