About me...

First of all ... blog changes ahead ... click here for details. I need emails from anyone wishing to still read along ... (this will be at the top of all new posts until the change goes into effect)

So, since a lot of new people are dropping by due to NaComLeavMon, I stole this idea from KimboSue. Just a little bit about me ...

A - Attached or Single: Attached
B - Best Friend(s): My husband, Chrissy
C - Cake or Pie: Cake
D - Day of Choice: Saturday
E - Essential Item: Laptop
F - Favorite Color(s): Purple
G - Gummy Bears or Worms: Bears, yum!
H - Hometown: Berkeley Heights, NJ (Where I grew up, not where I currently live)
I - Indulgence(s): come on, I'm a girl, SHOES!
J - January or July: July
K - Kids: 2, Miss Boots and Mr Butters (aka Little Miss Trouble and Mr Silly)
L - Life is incomplete without: my family
M - Marriage Date: 12/5/2003
N - Number of Siblings: 1 older sister, 1 younger bro
O - Oranges or Apples: Oranges
P - Phobias or Fears: Claustrophobia
Q - Quote: "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." – Bertrand Russell
R - Ring size: 8
S - Season: Fall
T - Tag 3 Friends: No
U - Unknown fact about me: If I tell you, it won't be unknown ...
V - Very favorite stores: Babies R Us, Old Navy, Amazon.com
W - Worst Habit: Reality TV!
X-ray or Ultrasound: I guess Ultrasound? I had a billion of them during pregnancy
Y - Your Favorite Food(s): Italian, Sushi, Mexican
Z - Zodiac: Pisces

Enjoy,
Caba

Hmmm... Blog changes ahead ...

I'm sure you can already see this ... as I changed the name of the blog. I think it's kinda stupid of me to have our full names on my blog. I mean, this is the big bad internet, and it's probably a little foolish. So I think I am going to take our names off ...

Problem is, our name is in the URL. I can change it, but you all are going to lose your bookmarks. So, here is what you have to do. Send me an email: caba.mom@gmail.com if you want to continue to read this blog. I will then send out a mass email with the new url. It is still going to be public, but I'm just getting less comfortable with our name out there.

I'm going to give my change to Mel, so hopefully she will put it in the Lost and Found in case you lose me. I probably won't do it for another week or so, to give people the time to email me ... Plus, I'll keep my blogroll, and continue commenting on all your blogs, so you'll eventually find a link back.

I know it's a bit annoying, but thanks for making the transition with us!

And I'm going to start using my nickname that was given to me a LONG time ago ... Caba.

So enjoy the changes,
Caba

NaComLeavMo and the Holiday Weekend

NaComLeavMo!! This stands for National Comment Leaving Month! It started over the holiday weekend, and it's just loads of fun! Bottom line is, blogging is fun, but getting comments is funner! From May 25th - June 25th I have to leave 5 comments a day on blogs that I do not usually read ... There is a list of blogs involved if you click the link above. I also have to return one comment a day to a new person that comments on my blog! Loads of fun I tell you! And even more interesting is that non-IF blogs are involved, so it's a way to start reading about some stuff that isn't all infertilty and pregnancy and babies.

At the same time, this a call to yell at you lurkers. Come say hi! All you need to do is click on the comments link below and let me know you are reading. I KNOW my family is out there reading and not even saying hi. You don't even need an account or anything!

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Ok, now on to what's been going on ... I'm much better after my surgery, thank you for all the well wishes. Sadly, I only have 4 percocet left, and I am saving them. For what, I have no idea. But they are like little pills of wonderfulness, and I am sure one day I will have back pain that will warrant their use.

So I have multiple weekends to cover! Last weekend we went down to Eric's sister's house to celebrate both his mom and his sister's birthdays. She has two kids, Brandon and Allie, and the twins had a blast with them! They loved to follow them around and attempt to do things that they did.

Hailey is currently in this stage where she wants to sit on EVERYTHING! She is constantly walking backwards and trying to sit on anything ... people, toys, even soccer balls! She's such a goof ...


Here's Jake playing in Lori's backyard ... He looks like he is very annoyed by us ...


And since I mentioned Hailey's desire to sit on EVERYTHING, my sister bought the twins chairs. They are too cute! Hailey's is purple and has a Dora the Explorer picture on it ... Jake's is green and is the Backyardigans. They just LOVE them ... they'll be running around the room, and suddenly just go over to their chairs and sit in them and take a break. Look how cute!



Oh and want to hear also how wonderful Aunt Chrissy is?? She bought them this adorable wagon for their birthday! We finally got them to the park this beautiful Memorial Day weekend, and they loved being pulled around in it! We put them in the wagon at opposite ends with some toys between them ...

but Hailey didn't like being that far from her brother ... so she ended up like this ...


Then Eric took these beautiful pictures of the twins at the park ... I just love them ... I think my kids are just beyond beautiful.



And on one final happy note (dripping with sarcasm), the twins have ear infections. They've both been sniffly and coughing all weekend, and had slight fevers, which I thought was due to all the teeth coming in. We ended up taking them to the doctor tonight, since they both had slight fevers at daycare today. Hailey's got a double ear infection, Jake has a single. At least they got started on their meds.

That's all for tonight. I have so much to type, but I'll save it for another day.

Oh, and LEAVE A COMMENT!!!

Enjoy,
Erica

Ain't no stopping us now, we're on the MOVE!

First, I have to say, I got the best husband around. Thanks babe. Love you!

So, we were watching American Idol the other night, and the final three contestants were singing that song "Ain't no stoppin' us now, we're on the move!" and I just looked at Eric and said "I think this is Jake and Hailey's theme song!". hehe. These kids are running us ragged!

Let's catch up. Last weekend was busy. Saturday my friend Michele's little boy Michael turned 1! Michele and I have navigated this whole new motherhood thing together, so it was really nice to celebrate with them! And I think Michael and Hailey were flirting! I told Michele she needs to keep her son in line, he tried to grab Hailey's hand! He's a bit forward!

Here's a pic of the adorable birthday boy eating his cake!


The twins looked super cute dressed for Michael's party. They look just so GROWN UP to me ... Don't you agree?



Then Sunday was Mother's Day. We had such a lovely Mother's Day! Eric bought me a gift certificate for a massage to the spa I go to. And the kids bought me an FM Transmittor so I can listen to my IPod in my car. How did they know I wanted that?? Smart, aren't they? After getting my gifts, my wonderful husband showed me my last Mother's Day gift, the beautiful post he wrote! Boy did that make me cry! Then the four of us went to the diner for breakfast. It was really nice to get out just with my family. After breakfast we put the twins down for their nap while I relaxed, and then we all went to my mom's house for dinner. My mom made yummy meatballs and sausage and pasta and we ate like kings. And really, can we have an italian meal without me including pictures? Certainly not!


Grandma also got a very cool horsey that the kids LOVE for a steal at a garage sale! Let's just say, it's a big hit!


So what else? Oh yeah, I had surgery on Monday. Nothing too serious ... just a diagnostic laparoscopy for my surgeon to go in and look around and make sure nothing was going on in there. I've been having some bizarre stomach pains, even all through my pregnancy, and since we did a million tests to rule out everything else, the surgeon wanted to go in and see what was up. Being that I had gastric bypass, they worry about hernias, as well as these pockets that can form that your intestines can get twisted in. Crazy stuff. Either way, he did find some tiny pockets and closed them up, but otherwise all looked good! So yeah for that!

I have been enjoying my percocet, but it's been a tough week. I've been in a decent amount of pain, and I haven't been allowed to pick up the kids, so my wonderful husband has really really picked up the slack around the house. Well, picked up the slack doesn't make sense, he's pretty much done EVERYTHING! I am so thankful for him! I've been home from work all week just lounging around and resting, so that's been fun, but it's also why I have been a bit of a slacker posting and commenting. I do want to say Happy Belated Birthday to Kai, the son of our best friends Chris and Megan, who turned 1 on May 14th. Also Happy Birthday to Hannah, my blogger friend Aimee's daugther, who also turned 1 the same day!

I guess that's it for now!
Enjoy,
Erica

Happy Mother's Day

The husband speaks (types)! Long live the mighty husband! I want to start out by wishing a Happy Mother’s Day to all of you Moms out there. Take a day off, you deserve it. I’m actually massaging my wife’s feet as I type this. It is a tough combo to pull off, but any husband of level 5 quality or higher (I’m currently at level 20, which is unattainable to most normal human men) should be able to manage. Look for my book “Husband Rating System for Dummies” this fall. So don’t be shy, ask for what you want, you’ve earned it.

I played Mr. Mom last December and took the whole month off to stay home with the kids before daycare started. It was such a great month. Don’t get me wrong, it was a ton of work, but work with great reward. I was secretly hoping it would be a little unbearable so I would actually look forward to going back to work. No such luck; I was incredibly depressed to go back. I got to see Hailey learn how to crawl. I taught Jake how much fun “peekaboo” is. In general, I just got to stay in my pajamas with the kids and roll them around and have fun while we waited for Mama to bring home the bacon! So now I’m back at work, just one of a billion working people, while our kids are in daycare.

I wanted to also take this space to discuss nicknames. I realized the other day that besides “Jake” and “Hailey”, our kids have at least 20 other names. It must be confusing to them during their formative years. I’m sure they will find a way to use this to blame us for something when they are in their teens. “Well Dad, I got a nose ring because I had 20 names when I was one year old! Do you know how confusing that was?!?” Here now, without further delay, is our list of nicknames for our kids, which is constantly growing:

Jake
--Jakey
--Jakers
--Bubba
--Buddy Boy
--JJ
--J-Bone
--Dude
--Mister Dude
--Number One Dude
--Little Buddy
--Mr. Hairdo
--Doctor Teeth
--Clumsy Jones
--Stinky Jones
--Big Man
--Mister Man
--Butters
--Mister McButters
--Mister Magoop
--Mister Magump
--Moop
--Jake Christopher (when he's in trouble)

Hailey
--Boots
--The Boot
--That Boot
--Dat Boot
--La Boot
--Lady McBoots
--Bootsy McGillicutty
--Bootsy McGee
--Bootsy Malloy
--Little Lady Boots
--BooBoo
--Peanut
--Sweet Pea
--Sweet Feet
--Little Lady
--Hailey Rose (when she's in trouble)
--Little Miss Rose
--Little Missy
--HR (Hailey Rose for short)

As for my wife, I thought I would say a little something about her since she has been such a positive force in my life, and really my exact equal in life and partnership. Erica is known around our house as “Mama”. The kids can kind of say it, but they definitely know who their Mama is. No matter what they are doing, or what mood they are in, as soon as they hear her voice, they turn their heads to the door waiting for her to walk in. Once she appears in the door, they break into huge smiles and even start laughing sometimes just before they are barraged with hugs and kisses. They are lucky, and they know it, because no kids on earth could have gotten a better Mama than our kids have. She sings to them all the time, and it always calms them down or makes them smile. When they are cranky (and yes, they are cranky quite a bit) she always knows just what to do to make them happy again. It has been such a pleasure for me to watch her in her role and how easily she has handled it. I already knew what a great person and what a great wife she was, and I knew she would be a great mother too; it’s just nice to actually see it on a daily basis. I said above that our kids are lucky to have her as their Mama, but I’m even luckier to have her as my wife. I always tell her she’s my favorite, and she is. She always will be.

Happy Mother’s Day, Erica. I Love You.

Have I lost my mind?

Wanna hear something crazy I said the other day? I was talking to a friend who asked if I was considering ever having any more kids. And ya know what I said?? I said I would LOVE more kids ... but more specifically, I would LOVE another set of twins. Am I nuts? I just might be... Now, this was all prefaced by saying that I would need to suddenly be a millionaire. Because I can't afford to have another set of twins. Daycare would KILL us! And since I couldn't afford to stay at home with them, there really would be no way. But let's PRETEND that we did hit the lottery ...

I wouldn't want just 1 more. I love the connection that I see growing between Jake and Hailey. The way I find them giggling and holding hands over their cribs in the morning. That's just the coolest thing. And I would hate to have one more, that maybe felt a little bit left out, because their older siblings are twins. That's why I think it would be so awesome to have another set! I know we could handle it, we definitely have the room for it. But we just don't have the finances for it. And that kinda stinks. I hate the thought of my family size being dictated by the amount of money I have. So blech to that!

How is the family, you ask? Healthy. Woo hoo! Love healthy kids! They've been in spectacular spirits, and that makes for a good time for all. And they are crazy walkers now. Hailey prefers to walk, she rarely crawls anymore at all. And Jake is right behind her ... he is walking so much better these days! I love it. It's amazing how they went from teeny tiny babies, to these little people!

I'm tired, and I don't have a lot to say. I think I might try doing one of those "100 interesting facts about me" group of posts. We'll see if I get my sh*t together and do it.

Anyway, my sister told me that she dislikes when I put up posts without baby pictures, so because we NEVER want to annoy Aunt Chrissy, here ya go!

I am obsessed with baby feet. Whenever Jake eats in his high chair, he crosses his feet really cute. So here's a pic of that!


Jake has the cutest curls! I had them as a baby, so did my brother. We don't still have curly hair, just for a little bit as babies, and then it never grew back after our first hair cut. So although tons of people think I should cut Jake's hair, I just can't do it! I'm afraid that once I do, he'll look like a little boy. And I'm just not ready for that! Look at these cute curls!


Aunt Carol and Uncle Mike gave the twins an adorable table and chair set for their birtheday. They look so cute at it! We always sit them there for snack time and they eat their milk and crackers. Here is a pick of them playing at their table.


The kids love Italian food, which my mom loves (being that she is Italian). But Hailey has started doing this thing where she eats her food, but then rubs her hands all over her face and hair while eating Italian food. This is the end result. It's not pretty! Suffice it to say, we only serve Italian food on bath night!


And last, but not least, I bought Hailey a tutu. It's the cutest thing. She is going to be a prima ballerina one day!! She loves to dance when the music is on. Can't wait till I can get her into dance class!


Enjoy,
Erica