Elsie was happy to be in the sunshine... 
Silly Cousins...
By his last day here, the sun came out and we could play outside again (that's Texas weather for ya)... 
It's always a proud day when there is enough hair up top to squeeze into a ponytail...
Elsie is emerging as a big time Daddy's girl while Ava definitely has a preference for me...E 
Elsie is cracking us up lately with her giggle. Anytime anyone else laughs (on TV, in church, or anywere) she lets out a little giggle. Ava started patting me on the back when I pick her up or hold her...it's so sweet!
I'm still trying to figure out sleep training for 2. I can't let them cry it out when they share the same room, it doesn't work (trust me, I've tried...they just end up chatting with each other, laughing, and taking turns crying). But I have to try to keep them on the same schedule or I would go totally nuts. So when one baby wakes up, I have to commit the unthinkable and wake the other one up. And when one is getting sleepy, I have to try to get the other girl to sleep. Anyway, it doesn't always work out...
We had a little incident last week after spending the day at my mom's house. Ava started screaming about 20 minutes from home and she wouldn't let up. When I finally got her out of the car, she was so swollen that she looked like Rocky Balboa after a good fight. All I could think of was that scene from the movie Hitch...
Obviously, she had some kind of allergic reaction but I had no idea what it was. I called around and found out that I could give her a really low dose of Benadryl to ease the swelling...
But the nurse did tell me that it would probably look worse in the morning before things started to look better. She was SO right... 
Poor little girl. We're thinking maybe the new puppy at Nana's house had something to do with it, but the nurse said it could've been anything really. Who knows what the next month will bring? I'm learning to expect the unexpected...x2!
I think they liked walking around and people-watching the most. There were lots of green haired horses and "colorful" people to look at too. People were coming up to a little old lady wanting to take pictures with her miniature horses, but she came up to us wanting to take a picture with "the twins" it was pretty funny...
This horse was trying to eat K's hair...
Kaydree was totally fascinated by the man walking on stilts. She just stared and stared at him and finally asked how he got so tall. I told her that he probably just has really tall parents. But Ryan ruined my fun when he explained the whole stilts thing to her (personally I think the whole "auditor" thing is getting to his head, I mean is it really necessary to expose ALL forms of fraud? Next he'll be explaining about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny - sheesh!).
Finally, we watched the parade. It was mostly longhorns and horses, but there were a few people dressed up too. Some ladies (or as Ryan called them "The Real Housewives of Fort Worth") got really into it...
After the kids and I shared some good ole Blue Bell ice cream, and Ryan downed his bottle of Dublin Dr. Pepper, we decided we might just have to make this a yearly tradition. Happy St. Patrick's Day!
I opted for a Girls Night instead. Lisa, Jeni, and I went to see some friends play in Brigadoon...
I was really excited to see this show because we did it my freshmen year in high school and I haven't seen it since. (I'll spare you the picture of that one, just imagine me draped in plaid with matching braces...yikes!). Anyway, it was a good show with lots of familiar music that I'm sure will be stuck in my head for weeks. And something about seeing grown men singing and dancing around in skirts was both entertaining and disturbing at the same time...
It reminded me of a segment I saw on The View a few weeks ago that introduced a new line of male skirts from H&M. Somehow I don't think this will take off but I could be wrong...
Then again, the Scottish do somehow mesh masculinity with skirts, exhibit A... 
Still, I don't see my husband jumping on that band wagon anytime soon. And considering that the thought of Ryan borrowing clothes from my side of the closet makes me absolutely cringe, I am counting my blessings right about now. All in all, I had a fun night out with the girls and came home with a new found appreciation for my husband's man-ness.
After getting the girls settled with Nana and Caitlin, we headed to the Grapevine Vintage Railroad where the whole place was set up sort of like a carnival. There were several different areas to visit: An imagination station with tons of trains set up to play with, a storytelling area, a Thomas bounce house, a Thomas gift shop with tons of loot, a petting zoo, a big sandbox complete with dumptrucks and toys, lots of fried food vendors (think state fair), and more. We pretty much did it all (except for the sandbox, I didn't feel like cleaning up sand for the next week).
Okay, so maybe Ryan liked watching the trains just a little bit too...
Next it was time to ride the train. Carver was really careful to hold onto his ticket while he waited for the conductor to punch it... 
It was a nice little ride that lasted around 20 minutes. When I first bought the tickets, I thought we would actually be riding on Thomas the train. A friend of mine warned me not to be disappointed, we really just rode on cars pulled by a little Thomas replica. 
Kaydree's favorite part of the day was meeting Sir Topham Hatt, she was totally convinced that he was the real deal...
Carver's favorite part of the day hands down was when we let him loose in the Thomas bounce house...
I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised when Kaydree and every other little kid went down the inflatable slide like this...
But Carver chose to go down like this...
I wasn't surprised, but it still made me laugh. We'll probably go back next year, but rather than pay for everyone to ride the train (kinda pricey) we'll probably just let Carver and Ryan ride it and the rest of us will do the free stuff...
We also had 9 month photos taken which sure enough didn't happen until about 9 1/2 months...
Elsie absolutely refused to sit still that day so while Ava's individual shot looks pretty good, Elsie decided to practice her runner's stretch...
I hope that doesn't mean that running is anywhere in the near future for E because I'm not quite sure I am ready for that just yet.
(the girls carseat covers that we are still using, loving, and getting compliments on all the time) Well, she decided to revamp her website this month and asked for a little help from my girlies and Carver. Here is a sneak peak at the photos, but to view them all I'm going to make you go to her website and search around for them (www.babycoverz.com)... 
That's right, I warned Mary Kate & Ashley to move on over and now we've had our first big break! Pretty soon we'll be making our own cheesy videos and selling cosmetics at Wal-mart (kidding, I'm only kidding...I promise you will never see me on an episode of Toddlers & Tiaras coaching my babies from the sidelines...sick!) But this turned out to be a fun little opportunity for us to get together with a couple of friends (the photographer is also a friend and his work can be found here: www.kntmendoza.net). So if you get a minute, check it out and let me know what you think. And if not...well, we'll still be here next month: same time, same channel, new update.
