My girls are beautiful!

Aunt Becky, those "cutest kids ever" on your MySpace account have some serious competition here...




Ella and Anna are doing great! Nana finally retired and spent her first week babysitting the two lucky girls. I guess Nana is doing a good job because Ella cries every time she leaves now. Thanks Nana and Papaw!!

Also, Ella and Anna got wonderful Christmas presents from their Uncle Jay and Aunt Becky! They both love the gifts. Here's proof:




Anna went for her 4 month check-up with our regular pediatrician who finally came back from maternity leave. She had a little boy just one week after Anna was born! Anna is doing well. She weighs 13 lbs and is 25 inches long, so she is growing perfectly. Also, Anna got her first two teeth on Monday and Tuesday of this week! She was just 3 days past 4 months old.

Just in case you want to hear about Mommy and Daddy, we are doing just fine, too. We both started back to work recently and it didn't take long to feel like we never even went on vacation. Unfortunately, Chuck had to have a root canal yesterday, and I decided taking 3 classes at UL while taking care of 2 babies and doing the KTIP program was too much for me. So, Chuck feels much better now that he is on some good pain killers after the root canal, and I feel much better now that I dropped one of my most challenging classes. :)

Ella and Anna raked in the goods for Christmas! They both had a great time at our family gatherings and of course enjoyed their new toys and clothes! These girls are hopelessly spoiled.

Ella loves the kitchen, food, and dishes she got for Christmas. Every time you ask her what she is cooking, she says, "Bies!" (Fries!)

Mommy and Ella.

I love this picture!

Sweet smiley girl!

The family Christmas picture.

This picture made me laugh out loud. Ella loves hugging her baby sister, and Anna looks absolutely terrified!

Here is a sweeter picture of the two girlies.

Anna laughed for the first time last night! I bounced her on my knee until she was giggling and it was very cute. She laughed again today when I tickled her neck. This girlie is so smiley, I suspect she will be much more social than her big sister!

Speaking of her big sis, Ella has a new favorite place to go - the playground at the Towne Mall. She played and played this afternoon (and several other times). She wasn't even bothered by the dozens of ill-behaved boys running around and nearly plowing her down. She like to kid-watch and climb around on all the fun stuff there. We will be making more frequent trips to the playground.

Here are some pictures from November. Enjoy!

Ella and Anna watching Spongebob together.
Ella's second favorite kitty - Rudy (oo-wee).

Ooh, an acorn!

A beautiful little girl on a beautiful fall day.

Halloween with Ella!

Ella and Daddy trick-or-treating at Towne Mall.


Ella and Mommy


I just hold out my bag and people put in CANDY!! Check out all my loot!


Trick-or-treating is fun!


Well, gotta go get a sugar high!


Happy Halloween!!

Hi to all the Pres Girls! Thanks for visiting my blog!

I was very happy to see Anna B., Cece, Kathriena, and Ringo when I was in the hospital!

It also brightened my day when Cece, Ringo, Lisa, and Sydney came to visit my new school - Thanks girls!

Also thanks to Cece and Jessica C. for emailing me to keep in touch. :)

What a cutie!!


Cutie again!


Ella's hair really gets out of control sometimes...


But she really loves her baby sister!

My mommy finally found a paci I like! Thank goodness!!

My first big smile!! Actually caught on camera!


A little fuzzy, but still a cute smile!



Nana and Anna (Anna modeling the dress mommy wore home from the hospital 28 years ago!)

Anna's heart is almost all better! She has a murmur that is abnormal, but it is not a problem. Her atrial septal defect (the hole between the upper chambers of her heart) has turned into a patent foramen ovale, which means the hole is extremely tiny and no problem. She still has the ventricular septal defect, but it is also smaller and will likely not cause any problems. Basically, all that means that she is fine!! Yeah!!

We went to the zoo. Ella loved the animals. The real ones - the fake ones were a little scary (as shown by her expression in the picture). Her favorite were the naked mole rat babies.

Ella learns the value of breastfeeding. (She did this on her own - we didn't tell her to do it!)

Anna's umbilical cord came off last Wednesday (10/3), so yesterday she had her first real tub bath!

Naptime for silly girls:

Ella wants to be just like her mommy!!


She loves her new bath paints! She also apparently likes looking like she is stoned...

Doctor Visits!

Ella and Anna went to the doctor yesterday for regular checkups. Here are their stats:

Ella - 28 lbs, 35 inches tall. She is doing great!

Anna - 8lbs 9oz, 20 inches tall. I tried to get advice about Anna's gas problems and the nurse practitioner basically said to burp her more and give her gas drops. Wow...that's helpful. However, after searching the internet, I found info about hyperactive letdown and gas issues. I think this is what is causing Anna's pain. So, I'll try some things that deal with the hyperactive letdown. If that doesn't work, I think we'll unfortunately try breast milk from a bottle (or formula) to see if that makes a difference.

Because of Anna's gas troubles, I've barely been able to get 2-3 hours of consecutive sleep at night. Needless to say, I'm tired, cranky, and going a little crazy. Add a needy two year old to the mix and I feel like a zombie just trying to keep everyone happy.

After the birthday party, Ella needed to rock out a little.