The most wonderful time of the year

It's football season! Happy opening Saturday! Jake just left a little while ago to head down to Heaven, I mean Auburn, for the game tonight, thanks to a ticket from our dear friend Alex Carothers. Abby Jane commemorated her second kickoff Saturday by delighting us with a spontaneous "Waaar Eagle! Hey!" during breakfast, saying "Touchdown Auburn!", and, sadly, acquiring a black eye from running into a statue after we had Saturday bagels at Panera. This was after she fell in the driveway before getting into the car and got another bloody knee on the same poor knee that she seems to open up every day...  

Taking a break from College Gameday

Doing "Waaar Eagle" on Grammy's back porch

Trying to show you the black eye- it's her right eye, but hard to see in this picture

18 months

Abby Jane turned 18 months on the weekend we moved, bless her sweet soul, so that post is now over 3 weeks late... but it is here for our record's sake!

I'm going to try to say what she was doing right at 18 months and not over the last several weeks, because that is for another post...

Here she is helping us wash the car right after Jake arrived in GA...

-fav foods: smoothie ("seemoo"), grapes ("dape"), blueberries, ("booties"), cheese, and bites of whatever we're eating

-knows a dessert when she sees it, no matter if she's ever had it or seen it before, and calls it a "nummy" (i.e. walked in Crumbs cupcake shop for the first time, and she says "NUMMIES!!!!" and yes, yes it is)

-loves to run and announce it "Abby RUN!!" sometimes followed by "Mama RUN!" which is getting challenging...

-is getting better at going down stairs (did I mention that she fell down an entire flight of hardwood stairs in June? stairs are a priority in our learning right now!)

-puts more and more words together in two-three word sentences

-at 18 months, her average week consisted of at least 3-4 playdates a week, and either going to the pool, beach, park (her mothership), or just the courtyard area outside our CA apt every day- getting outside every single day b/c it never rains in CA (thus the fires)

-not afraid of big kids- gets pushed around by older kids at the playground who are moving faster than her and usually takes it like a champ

-has continuously scraped up knees, which I love- it's a daily sign of her adventure and fun-scraped knees under a pretty dress makes me smile, though it's sad when she gets hurt...

What we were working on (see how little this list changes for 19 months...)

-not hitting

-coming when called (I'm picturing a twin on each hip, trying to sprint after my toddler and making the come-when-called obedience a priority!)

-sharing

One good side to the hitting issue (she's not superbad about it, but it does come out when she gets frustrated sometimes) is that the kid can stand up for herself!  One of our last days in CA, we were at the Lumbar Yard (not relevant unless you're a CA friend) and she was about 30 feet away from me looking in a fish tank.  This big 3 yr. old boy comes up to her and starts making monster faces and waggling his fingers around his head, and all this is about 4 inches from her face.  She was drinking her sippy cup while he was trying to be scary to her, and after him doing this for a minute and before I could get over there, she rears back and bops him on the head with her cup.  He ran away crying and I stifled a chuckle before apologizing to the dumb mom of the mean boy who was busy looking in a store window while her son got regulated on by my little girl.  And that's my girl.

More pics to come soon...

And the girls' names are...

Joy Savannah and Blythe Annabelle!  We picked Blythe and Joy because they both have meanings to the effect of happiness, delight, exuberance, and obviously joy... which is exactly how we felt when we found out we were having the twins!  Savannah and Annabelle were chosen for their good Southern roots.  We both grew up in Georgia, have deep family ties to Georgia, and love the Low Country, thus Savannah.  We associate the name Annabelle with the antebellum period and the historical South, though the actual Hebrew meaning is grace.

We are so excited to officially announce the names!  I'm 29 weeks now, so they'll make their grand entrance in 10 weeks or less!

Disappointing people and mortification

I disappoint strangers on a daily basis.  

It is so sad to obliterate their delight and hopes that they're talking to a lady who may be going into labor at any second, an observation based on the size of my belly.  Two of my favorite lines I've heard in the last week: "Any day now, huh?"and "We'd better get you in and out of here quick!" (after I walked into a store).  Then it gets all awkward when I say, "Oh no, I'm not due until late October."  If I were really mean, I'd leave it at that and make them feel terrible.  But I always do add, "But I'm having twins, so it sure does look like I'm due tomorrow!"  I really honestly have this same conversation multiple times a day.  My mom ran errands with me this morning and witnessed the phenomenon.  She asked if I should just carry a recording to play when someone starts to get all excited.  It's pretty funny.

Now for the mortification.

So I'm new in town, right?  Sort of?  My mom and I took Abby Jane to a park on Sunday afternoon that has opened just recently, and we'd never played there before.  She was still wearing the smocked dress that she had on at church, but I didn't change her b/c swings and slides are typically not too dirty.

I didn't count on the HUGE amazing "splashground" (there are probably 7 or 8 different water elements and fountains there!) that was about 50 feet from the swings, which are of course Abby Jane's obsession.  So she starts asking for the "rain" as she call fountains, and the asking becomes more and more insistent (i.e. "I need rain!!!") until I start feeling TERRIBLE for not letting her to play in the water.  

So I do what any good mom would do and took off her pretty dress and bloomers and let her run around in a DIAPER in those fountains with the hundred other appropriately attired children.  

I have never felt so redneck in my life.  

She drew even more attention to her little naked self by her total and boisterous glee and delight to be playing in those fabulous fountains.  I was mortified, but she was happy, which is what counts, right?

I took no pictures because I didn't want the event visually recorded or her to ever say, "MOM HOW could you let me do that in front of ALL those people??"

So here are a few pictures at the same park (though few are centered- she was moving too fast!) when I took her back there yesterday.  

Clothed. 

Finishing California

Our last days in California were so bittersweet and such precious times with friends for whom we are so grateful!  Here is a brief, though not all-inclusive, summary...

Last Country Mart playdate with Nat, Josh, Les, Sammy, Jen, and Lucy (or "Yuce" as Abby Jane says)...

Big Pepperdine cookout- here are all the ladies and a few of the children... 

Went back to the fountains with the "Malibu library" crowd- here are Abby Jane and Jaxon, though Charlotte and Campbell were there too!

Last beach playdate with Jenny and Campbell, Trisha and Jaxon- how we will miss these sweet friends and amazing memories!
Sammy's 1st bday party was a puppy party (with real puppies brought in for the kids to play with!)  I don't have a great picture of the JOY this event was in Abby Jane's life, but I do believe that playing with all those puppies may be the highlight of her life so far.  OK, one of them.

Abby Jane kissing the birthday boy...
Precious Les and Sammy with us girls...  Jane asks to go to Sammy's house on a daily basis...
Sammy putting out that candle with his fingers.  What a man!
Aufhammers, DuBachs, and Hoffs...
All the kids being in the same place for a picture lasted about 10 seconds...
Sandy and Ken got there Sat. afternoon after Sammy's party and joined us in a whirlwind couple of days of packing and the aforementioned traveling craziness.  Here are the guys and Abby Jane taking a break from their hard work.  Truck is due to arrive tomorrow!

I will catch you up on our first week out here in the next couple of days, but I could not go forward until I had recorded that last week- and even that's leaving out some precious times during which my camera battery inopportunely died...

As we've said before- it's a sweet thing to be sad to leave people and a place- it would be so much worse if we were leaving nothing dear there after investing three years of our lives!  We feel blessed for sure...

Safe and Sound

Abby Jane and I are officially in Atlanta!

We were originally supposed to leave on Sunday, but as Jake's mom Sandy, Abby Jane, and I were planning to fly standby, the availability of flights pushed back that date until yesterday.

My mother-in-law did an amazing thing and listed Abby Jane with her... which meant that when Sandy (with her higher seniority with Delta due to Jake's dad) got on the first flight out that we arrived at LAX for, my daughter flew across the country with her... while I stayed at LAX until I caught a flight!

It was the kindest thing- not that it's a terrible thing to fly with a toddler, but it's BUSY and PHYSICAL, and at this stage of pregnancy, those things are not very fun or comfortable in such confined spaces.

So I actually got to write thank-you's, crack one of the twins books I've received (these kids are coming soon, so I thought I would start reading up- I hear it's a little different than one child), and watch a movie on the plane.

I know, I am SO spoiled.

But after the emotional and physical drain of the preceding days of packing and goodbyes to precious people, it was SO perfect. My sis-in-law Susan picked me up from the airport last night and when I arrived at my mom's, my daughter was already bathed, fed, tucked in bed, and reportedly happy and settled.

(She did wake once in the night and when I went in to her, she said- through her tears- "Mama... Mimi? Airplane?" as if to say, "Did you even KNOW I got on an airplane yesterday with Mimi?")

Jake and his dad are on Day 2 of their cross-country trek, with today's route scheduled to be from Albequerque to Little Rock. Jake has the laptop with him, so all our pictures and stories from the rest of our time in Malibu will wait until they arrive. It was very, very sweet, and I'll leave it at that for now.

We are so thankful for our wonderful family and all their amazing help!

Last Week Goings On

Last Sunday was our last day at our wonderful, amazing church. After the service, a huge group of us went to lunch.  The Jones family gave Abby Jane twin baby dolls who are now a staple in our lives. Here are Canon and Abby Jane discussing the twins (or the string cheese in Canon's hand)!

We had a delicious dinner with the Hoffs on Saturday night, and Abby Jane was sent home with a pair of dress-up heels that she was very attached to.  She calls them her "running shoes"- and wants to wear them everywhere (see below as we're getting ready to go to the pool!)- though we make her keep them at home!

Yes, I'm only 26 weeks along and this big already (only a few pounds less than I was when I delivered Abby Jane!)- heaven help me with three months still to go with these girls!  I had an ultrasound yesterday, and the girls are about 2 lbs each and are doing just great.

Holding onto her baby dolls in her "running shoes"...

Playing at the Country Mart with Sammy

Jake had a going-away party given for him at their new office yesterday afternoon.  It was so neat to hear Jake's wonderful boss, Doug, affirm and talk about all that Jake has done at Pepperdine and how much they'll miss him! Abby Jane was excited to go to the "pahty" and have "nummy nummies"= ice cream.  

We went on our last family beach picnic last night, and it was such a special night!