We're alive

We are tired but still pushing through one day at a time. Will is loving school and telling us all about it. The girls are eating more food every day, but no less mama milk, so Patti isn't getting much of a break.

Here's the five of us when no one was crying (a rarity).

Here's Maggie and Stella enjoying some floor time with Patrick after work this week. It still boggles us when people ask if they're identical...

The girls are loving Will's old exersaucer and the one Patti bought from a multiples group. All of the extra stimulation is doing them well. Will, of course, wants to play with everything too - particularly the extra noisy pieces.

Maggie digs this one too.


Will inherited Patrick's love of Doritos. He definitely doesn't get them often so he treats them like a big deal. He even spontaneously thanked Patrick for giving some of them to him.

Watch what you say/do

Adding to our proof that we have to REALLY watch what we say and do around Will, Will tried to breast-feed his twin baby dolls this morning. Exactly like Patti. He sort of used the feeding pillow. Exactly like Patti.

Then he burped them both. Exactly like Patti.

Maggie and Stella thought the whole thing was pretty funny.

When Patrick got home from work, Will showed him all of the costumes in the magazine we received today. Driving the point home, Will repeated every description that Patti told him earlier in the day. Patrick's favorite is Will's description of a Ghost Buster's costume: "Dis guy help ghosts go away." Watch out...

Misery loves company

This weekend was a mess. Will caught a cold from a classmate at school (he's only been in school for four hours) and then he gave it to Patrick and Patti. Will was recovering by Friday and good by Saturday but Patrick and Patti were in bad shape by Friday afternoon and feverish by Saturday.

Topping it all off, Maggie and Stella had their 6-month shots on Friday morning (four shots each). Here's the before shot - one of Patti's coworkers made the sweaters for the girls.

Here's the after shot- eight band-aids between them. Stella had a bad reaction to the shots and had a fever of 102 by late Friday night. Maggie was wiped out on Saturday and both were hot, clammy unhappy girls all Saturday. Right when mommy and daddy were feeling lousy too. All the girls did was eat, want to eat, or want to be held.

Will, of course, was better by Saturday and enjoying cookies. The little guy is old enough to understand that we were all sick and I think he took it easy on us for a change.

Will's first day of school!

Today was Will's first day of nursery school - can you believe it? He talked all about it last night and he and Patrick went for the big day. It was a low-key, one-hour play session with some singing, reading, hand-washing and snacks. He even learned how to sign a new word - friends.

Patti got Will a monogrammed backpack, which he proudly wore to school today. He even wanted to wear it in his car seat.

Will enjoyed a snack of avocado, peaches and crackers. He learned how to say "all done" and push his plate and glass to the center of the table when he was finished.

Will's favorite activity today was playing with water. He got to scoop, pour and catch water and explore how it flows down and through things. Patrick had to literally pull Will away from this to head home.

Mush, trim and a shed

It rained all last week and the girls seemed to have cried through all but a few hours of it. They gave us a brief reprieve on Thursday night, though, when they tried their first mushy food. Check out video of it under their video link to the left.

Will and Patrick went to get Will's hair cut for his first day of nursery school and Will sat in the chair by himself and he didn't even cry. What a big boy! He usually freaks out and has to sit on Patrick's lap so this was a special day.

Later this afternoon, Patrick and one of his co-workers enjoyed a few beers and put most of the shed together. Rather than napping, Will darted out of the house and into Patrick's arms begging to help. It was pretty heartwarming. Will helped by putting all of Patrick's sockets into his dump trucks and rolling them around the yard and by burying many of Patrick's screwdrivers hilt-deep in the ground. Ask him if he helped though, and he'll smile the biggest smile and say "Uh huh!"

Kiddies in CT

Patti, her parents, and the kids drove up to Connecticut on Wednesday and it could have gone better. Maggie cried through the entirety of New Jersey and she and Stella were just pretty miserable. To avoid this for the return, we left after midnight and drove through the night while everyone was sleeping...

Will had a blast at Mimi and Pop's house. He dug in the yard, he played on the slide, he had his share of pizza and ice cream. The girls enjoyed all of the attention. We enjoyed all of the extra hands that were willing to hold the girls.

Stella with cousin Ashley.

Maggie with cousin Emma.

Will with cousins Emma and Noah.