Catching up

We are spending today doing a little bit of catch up!  The last two weeks of school are brutal and it's all about survival to the end so I didn't get to blog as much as I wanted to.  So we are going to back up to three weekends ago and I'll share what we did the weekend of June 12th.


To start, the 12th was the girls' four month birthday!  Crazy how they are already that big!  School was really fun that day because 1) we were camping! and 2) the Zoo Mobile came!  In my school, first grade "goes camping" the last week of school.  Basically we move all the desks and chairs to the side and set up our room to look like a campground.  We pitch a tent, make camping murals, and the kids bring in sleeping bags to use on the floor.  We also get flashlights and they read by flashlight which is the best!  Don't worry, no overnights!

 

Welcome to Camp Alvarez!  I thought I had more camping pictures but I think they are on my school computer.

We also had a rescheduled assembly that day.  The Baltimore Zoo Mobile was supposed to come in April but was cancelled due to the Baltimore riots and was rescheduled for the end of the year.  I was actually excited to have it rescheduled because I was still on leave when it was first supposed to come.  The teachers selected the Habitat Happenings program and the presenters discussed different habitats and animals that may live in those habitats.  Then they brought out an animal for each habitat!

 

Two Panamanian Golden Frogs

 

A gecko named Blink

 

A Laughing Kookaburra named Rascal

 

And Tails the Penguin!

 

The kids loved the animals, especially the kookaburra and penguin!

Saturday was a really busy day for us.  I went to a bridal shower for my friend, Dana, who is getting married in September.  Dana and I were randomly paired freshman year at UMD and even though we only lived together that one year, we always kept in touch (thank you Facebook!) and she came to my wedding so I'm excited to go to hers!

 

Beautiful bride-to-be!

 

I had to leave the shower a little early to come home in time to leave again for our Rascal Flatts concert!  Ben gave me tickets for Mother's Day and Rascal Flatts is my absolute favorite band!  I have seen them at least a dozen times over the past ten years and I was so excited to see them again.  Ben's parents kindly watched the girls for us.  We had a great time together but it was 1am when we got home and we were exhausted! We're so old now haha!

 

The first opening act was Ashley Monroe.  It was supposed to be Raelynn, an contestant from The Voice but she wasn't there for some reason.  Ashely was really good though and I knew a few of her songs.

 

Second up was Scotty McCreery!  He won American Idol a few years back and he was awesome.  He has one of those really deep voices that sounds sooooo good!

 

And my favorite guys, Rascal Flatts!  Ben got us amazing seats, the closest I've ever been to them!  This is still with some zoom on my camera but I got such great pictures!

 

All three members of Rascal Flatts are Christians and there was a part of there show where Gary (lead singer) talked about how we all have dark places we've been and there's only one person who can get us out, God.  He basically shared the Gospel in a song version!  Another reason why they are so great :)

 

Sunday wasn't quite as busy but I spent a lot of time on the road.  My best friend, Hannah lives in Texas and was here with her husband and daughters visiting their families.  She hadn't met the girls in person yet so I got up Sunday morning and the girls and I drove to the Eastern Shore to see them for a few hours.  

 

Best friends for over 13 years!

Then we stopped by my parents house (if I'm ten minutes away, I should probably say hi, haha) and then hit the road to come home.  Traffic was A-W-F-U-L because of the beachgoers and it took us 3 hours to get home (normally it's an hour and 15 minutes).  Thankfully the girls slept the whole time but it was a long drive to end a busy weekend.

And I'll leave you with a few random pictures.

 

I don't normally dress the girls the same and in this case Noelle peed through her pjs in the middle of the night so I just grabbed whatever pjs were in the top of the drawer.  And when I woke up the next morning, I had two identical babies!  Thank goodness we still keep their toes painted!

 

Grammy gave the girls a Jolly Jumper and they love it!  This is Noelle taking it for a spin.

 

Gotta have your sunnies in the summer!

 

A New Venture

So this really won't matter if you're not a teacher but I decided to open up a shop on Teachers Pay Teachers!  TpT is a website where teachers can have shops and sell things they create, like lesson plans, clipart, games, etc.  I figured that if I'm making them for myself, maybe someone would want them too and be willing to pay a few bucks for them.  I only have a few things up right now since it is a process to put things on there and I'm doing it in between taking care of two babies but I'm hoing to get more on there in the coming weeks.   So if you feel like checking it out, you can see my shop here!

With opening my shop, I also started another blog as a way to share my products.  It will focus on education and teaching products but if you want to check it out too, you can find me at The Terrapin Teacher!

As always, thanks for stopping by!  We are off to get our 4 month pictures taken...I can't wait to see them and am praying the girls do well!  Have a great Monday!

We survived...

Our first night in the cribs/their own bedroom!  I was happy and sad to have them move to their own room...they have been so close to me for a year now, 8 of those months literally a part of me and then only 2 feet away from me for the last 4 months, to now 20 feet away at night.  Yeah, yeah, not that far!  It also makes them seem so big!  I tell them all the time they're not allowed to grow anymore but does anyone listen to Mommy? Noooooo....But we are happy to get our room back and to give them more space to stretch and sleep...the rock n plays were starting to get too small for them.  Plus, we needed to make the transition so they would be ready for some upcoming trips!


They fussed/cried for about 30 minutes when they first went in and I would go up every 10 minutes to replace the pacifier but that was it. No eye contact, no holding, nothing...they won't remember this, right? Tough love is hard!  Then they finally fell asleep but were up on and off throughout the night.  They would be awake when I would go in to put the pacifier back in but as soon as they had their pacy, they went right back to sleep....they must've worn themselves out because they slept in for an hour this morning!  They both love to sleep on their sides, which freaks me out!  Every time I went in I had to make sure they were breathing, haha.  So I thought in honor of our milestone, I would write a top 5 list.

The Top Five Things I Learned When Putting My Babies in Their Cribs

1.  Even with the monitor right next to his head, Ben can still sleep through anything (I'm a little worried about a fire happening while I'm gone...he'd wake up for that, right?!)
2. Even though I have a doctor's note saying I have a significant hearing loss, I can still manage to hear every little sound they make from down the hall 20 feet away.  Even without the monitor.  Take that Doctor.
3. Video monitors are awesome!  I can look in and see if they are screaming their heads off or just fussing for effect.  It is also fun to watch Ben go up there and take care of them.
4. I am as stealthy as a ninja...I can sneak in, put my hand on both girls to make sure they're breathing, and sneak out without anyone waking up.  Clearly I have ninja skills.
5. I can still function on a few hours of sleep, like a new mom...I still got it!

 

We made it!  Cheers to night two being even better!

4 Months!!

So, technically they are 4.5 months old but I had ZERO time the last week of school to take their pictures and then I was just a few days from their 4 month check up so I waited till after that so I could have their weights and heights.  Noelle outweighed Natalie by one ounce and they were the same height at 23 inches.  So HAPPY FOUR MONTHS BABY GIRLS!!!

 

Based on their corrected age (which is 3.5 months and goes by their due date), Noelle is in the 6th percentile for weight, 13th percentile for height, and the 78th percentile for head circumference! (It's that big brain, right?!)

 

Natalie is in the 5th percentile for weight, 13th percentile for height, and the 65th percentile for head circumference...I'm going to have some smart babies! I am actually having to move them up to 3-6mo clothes just because their heads don't fit through the 0-3mo clothes anymore, haha!

 

Ben's grandmother had surgery recently so we thought we would take a picture to send her!  (Judy, I'll be sending you the file shortly if you would be so kind as to share it with her!)

Happy Friday!