Catch Up....

I apologize for the length of time that has passed since the last post. It's been exciting here. I flew with Pepe and Tico to California to drop them off to live with my dad and Stepmother, and by the end of that week, Pepe had worn out his welcome. Luckily, my awesome cousin Tricia snatched him up right away, and after flying all the way across the country again, he has now found permanent residence in Sarasota Florida with an incredible mom and doggie sister Emma. Life is good for Pepe these days. I guess Tico behaved himself because he's staying in California, and slowly warming up to his new peeps. I miss them a lot, but am excited that they both have homes with relatives, so I know we'll see them again. Cole, on the other hand is "glad" they're gone, because in his own words, "they bothered me with their bodies" WTF???

We had a nice round of H1N1 virus sweep through our house quickly followed by a nasty little stomach bug. That was a fun few weeks. We had all been healthy up until this week when poor little Henry came down with a nasty chest infection / probably RSV and pink-eye in both eyes. Little smooshy.

Probably the most excitement we had was driving cross country (to Phoenix). My sister meg came with us for the drive on the way out, and John joined us out there two weeks later after he was done with a business trip. He was lucky enough to be able to accompany us on the return trip. I have to say that overall, the boys were very well behaved in the car. There was some arguing over books and toys, but mainly they just accepted their fate and made do. I will spare you all the blow by blow and simply pass on some pearls of wisdom that I learned on our journey:

1) If you have 2 kids, buy 2 of everything. Exactly the same.

2) Don't stop in Gallup New Mexico. For anything. Just don't.

3) When eating lunch at a concrete table with concrete benches, help your toddler down. Otherwise, stitches will result.

4) Don't ever tell your 3 year old that you'll be staying in a hotel that night then decide to drive on through to just get home (and tell him the hotel was sold out). They like hotels. This will devastate them and cause you to make fake phone calls to the "hotel man" to make SURE they're really completely sold out of rooms. You will have to listen to "but I really really wanted to go to the hotel" over and over for hours.

5)Your kids will surprise you. They're a lot more adaptable than you think.



Finally, here are some pictures from the past 5 months:








Halloween. I made the costumes. They were very into trick-or-treating!

Henry on Christmas. He really likes presents.

At the Phoenix Zoo on our last day.






There was something in the water at the zoo..............





The boys being awesome in the car on the long drive home.