It is a little depressing and sad that the twinzies are going on their fifth week of being sick. They started Preschool about 5.5 weeks ago and have been sick every single week since. First croup, then a cold, then a cold, double ear infections, and now some weird cough. I am so sad for them (and of course me). I keep catching their sickies which really sucks, but I’m not being very smart about taking my vitamins and staying clear of their kisses, coughs, and love.

This weekend when I was putting Shenzie down for her nap I noticed some weird red blotch on her face. As I helped her on the potty I noticed red bumps on her legs. My girlfriends boys have chicken pox right now and even though we haven’t seen them I was exposed to her and thought for sure Shenize had the pox. I was FREAKING out. I had a Maternity Session that day including a 17 month old, three newborns in the coming weeks, and numerous other family sessions scheduled. I almost cried. I called my sisters to let them know their kids had been exposed to Chicken Pox and called my client to reschedule our shoot.

I called my best friend and asked her what to do with Shenzie. I told her about the rash and she said chicken pox in no way, shape, or form look like a red rash. She then asked if Shenzie is on antibiotics. The answer is yes due to the double ear infections. She asked if it was amoxicillin, which it is, and then asked if we were on day 8 or so. I was laughing with relief and asked how in the world she knew this!?!?!?!? Turns out the rash is an amoxicillin allergy and not chicken pox, thank heavens!!

So I then (embarrassingly) call my client back to reschedule for this week since we are not all poxed up. I re-call all of my sisters back, call my girlfriend back and let her off the hook for getting us sick. =) I am praying for some healthy days around here as we all could use them!!

A few photos I snapped the other day while the twinzies were watching tv in my bed. I love them (I like the black and ones too)! My adorable little sickies. =)

Faux Hawk Edition:

Heaten’s next haircut is going to be a mo-hawk so I thought I’d test the look out before we commit.

Also, for a fun TtV you can check out my Photography Blog.

I’m peeking my head out of the sand. All I got to say is what crack was I smoking when I booked 5 sessions in one weekend?!!!?? Oh yeah, probably the same crack that just booked 4 newborns due within 1.5 weeks of each other. Hahahahah, sometimes all I can do is laugh at the crazy. Oh, and speaking of crazy I haven’t been able to tell any crazy twinzies stories lately.

So the funniest occurrence lately is “whatever Mama”. I’m famous for whatever, even though Jeff HATES it. Yeah, yeah, whatever. The other day I couldn’t understand what Heaten was telling me. Normally he would try a few times and then either fall to the ground and whine or have a mini tantrum. This time however, after trying a few times to make me understand he just looks at me and says “whatever Mama” and moves on to something else. Oh my how I laughed and laughed over this one.

And lets not forget the Shenzie Bear. She is just Mini Me and oh my heavens, two me’s is NOT pretty!!! This is how a lot of our conversations go:

Me: Shenzie, Mama doesn’t like it when you whine
S: NO MAMA, YOU WHINE!
Me: Shenzie, yelling at Mama is rude
S: NO MAMA, YOU RUDE!
Me: Shenzie, this is not how we act nice
S: YOU MEAN MAMA, YOU ACT NICE

And I’m not even joking, she is yelling this at me and my blood is just boiling inside. She really pushes my buttons and oh my heavens, do we ever butt heads. Awww, but what a cute head she has!

The Anatomy of a Kiss Edition:

Oh what a lucky Mama I am!

So Jeff has a fear of flying. No wait, let me rephrase that and say he has a HUGE PHOBIA of flying. Xanax and a triple whiskey still leave him white as a ghost, sweating, and sick. Funny thing, in the 9 years we’ve been together we’ve never flown together. I don’t love flying, but I don’t get all crazy about it. After this last trip though I might say I dislike flying much, much more. I flew to Bend, Oregon over the weekend and man, everything was just a little crazy. I had to wake at the crack of dawn to catch my flight, leaving me tired and wore out. Add to that my 40 pound backpack and small carry on and I was wiped before I even got to security. I’ve never brought a laptop when flying so I didn’t know I had to remove it from my bag, so of course I get stopped and my bags and person get searched. Luckily I left myself enough time and made it to my plane with plenty of time to spare. My plane ended up being one of those little dinky planes and the turbulence was NOT too much fun. On the way to and from Bend I had connector flights (which SUCKED), but all of the flights were like that so I had no choice when I booked it. Little did I know how much DRAMA it would turn out to be!!! So, as we arrived in Salt Lake and were just about to land the plane suddenly started climbing again. Turns out the head wind suddenly turned to tail wind and it was too dangerous to land. We circled twice and came back in for our landing. This delay left me little time to get from one side of the airport to the other for my connecting flight so I’m like those people on TV you see running thru the crowds yelling excuse me as you whiz by. I made it to the next gate and after I saw the plane (even smaller than the original one) I was a bit sketchy. It is one of those you have to walk out to the plane and climb the ramp to get on. So anyway, this flight was good and I made it safe and sound to Bend. Julie and Greg met me there and we spent an awesome weekend exploring the city, eating DELICIOUS food, and hanging out. Silly me didn’t get one photo of Julie, Greg, or her adorable little baby bump. I will rectify that when I go back this summer!!

So the flight home. Oh my heavens, it is making me crazy just thinking about it. I got to the Redmond airport (which is really nice) with plenty of time to spare so there are no worries. As I go thru security they stop me…again. Seriously, next time I need to read the rules for a refrresher in flying. This round I forgot to empty the water from my thermos and had to go back thru the airport to dump it and then thru security again. They make an announcement that the plane coming in, which is my plane out, is running about an hour late. This is not good, but I work the connector times out in my head and think I will be ok. My connector flight was in San Francisco and I had hopes of getting a yummy bread bowl with soup at their yummy food court, but with the late plane those hopes were quickly dashed. =( So, the plane finally arrives, I board getting stuck next to the rudest women EVER, and sigh with relief that we’re on our way and with dread for the flight next to the wicked witch. The captain comes on the intercom to say there will be a delay because the nose steering is broke and the mechanic is fixing it. OMG, really!??!?!??! Who wants to fly in an airplane that was fixed on the fly. Not good, not good at all. So if you’re paying attention to this LONG ASS post you’ll realize there is little chance of me catching my connector which sucks because I really miss my family and Jeff had to be to work the next day so we’re screwed. As we’re sitting there waiting for broke plane to get fixed the flight attendant gets a phone call telling her the plane is unbalanced and 4 people from the front rows need to move to the back. I’m in row 1, but there is no way in hell I’m moving and wasting time getting off the plane when we land. Mean lady next to me looks over at me, like ‘well, are you going to move or what’. I just stare back at her. She sighs heavily and moves to the back (considering she was about 3x bigger than me she was a better candidate for evening out the balance in the back. =) So, SCORE, I get the front row to myself. As we are descending into San Francisco the flight attendant announces that a few people have really tight connections to make, can the rest of the plane sit still while they exit first. Of course, Vegas was one of those connections. The minute the seat belt lights go off I grab my bags and high tale it off out of there. As I’m running I pass the information display and see that it is 8:07 and my flight is due to take off at 8:16 and is two gates over from where I’m at. I am SO tired, SO stressed, and my bags are SO freaking heavy, but here I go again, running like a loon thru the airport. This time I don’t even bother saying sorry as I whiz by, I am just running and running. I get to the gate just as they are closing the doors and as I’m huffing and puffing I ask if I’m too late. The lady looks at me like I have two heads and tells me I need to CALM DOWN. I inform crazy lady I had just run thru the entire airport to get here and I’m huffing and puffing because my lazy ass is out of shape and I’m tired. She tells me again, YOU NEED TO CALM DOWN. OMG, I could have just punched her. All I want to know is if I can get on the plane or not, seriously, I’m not hyper or crazy, just tired. So she lets me on the plane and OMG I made it!!!!! I plop down in my seat still breathing hard and realize I didn’t have time to pee in the terminal so now I’m hungry because I didn’t get my bread bowl AND I have to pee (which I HATE to pee on planes, ewwww, ewwww, ewwww), but I must suck it up and go. After we take off (YAY) they make an announcement and ask if there are any doctors or nurses on the plane. Ut oh, this is not good. Some poor dude had thrown up all over himself, due to sickness or air sickness I don’t know. All I know is THANK GOD I wasn’t sitting next to him. Those poor people around him had to suffer with his throw up and sickness the entire flight.

When we get to Vegas it is late, I’m tired, and my bags are oh so heavy, and of course I forgot where I parked. I’m walking around the garage pushing the door lock trying to hear where the horn sound is coming from. I finally find the car, drive all the way home, and crash on the couch with exhaustion. The time change is all wonky even though it is 10:30 I hear the twinzies upstairs talking so I’m able to see them before they go to sleep which was super awesome!

Whew, that was a LONG post about nothing. Hahahhah. So anyway, there you have it. The ickiest flights I’ve ever been on. Hopefully next round will be better!

The Adorable will Eat Your Heart Edition:

So forgive the lack of posts, photos, and all of the other stuff I’ve been neglecting. We are all STILL sick, I had 5 days of WPPI Photography Convention bliss/hell, a last minute newborn session and a REALLY early flight out tomorrow morning. I’m hopeful things will settle down next week and life can get back to normal.

The other day after receiving some bad news I was sitting quietly when Shenzie came over. I told her that Mama needed a minute because I was sad. She looked up at me and said “I love you Mama” and then leaned down and kissed my leg. ::Sigh:: I hope to always remember these little moments that make the sad go away and fill my heart with crazy love.

A Little Candy Bribery Goes a Long Way Edition:

My kids LOVE candy just like their Mama. Everyday they ask for some variation of candy, lolli, ice cream, etc. This candy addiction really helps me when I want to get some photos of them together. It goes something like this:

Me: Will you hold hands?
S&H: NO! Bleh!
Me: If you hold hand for two minutes and walk that way towards the candy store we’ll go inside and pick out a special candy for you.
S&H: Immediately grab each others hands and head towards the candy store.
Too bad when we got there the candy store had closed down. =( This little shopping center is SO stinking cute most of the stores have closed their doors. It is so sad.

And one of my little handsome man Heaten Bear.

So we’re still trucking along, sick as could be. I swear, the older the twinzies get, the sickies get way worse and last for way longer. I am overloaded with stress this week and just want to crawl in a hole and sleep since my night sleep is getting cut considerably with sick kids + crazy mama stress. Anyway, enough complaining [for now].

Awwww, don’t they look like BFF’s in this photo?!? So before you read the paragraph below and think I’m smoking crack, just know that little candy bribery goes a LONG way in our house when it comes to picture taking. =)

So tell me great twin Mommies - are your childrens trying to battle it out on a minute by minute basis and CONSTANTLY hitting, pushing, head butting one another or is it just mine?!?!?!? It is non stop and driving me batty. One minute they are playing and then next Heaten has Shenzie in a hair lock pulling while she is pounding him on the head like a cave woman. He head butts her, I move him away and she comes tearing over and wacks him one before I can even blink. I tried letting them just go at it in hopes they would figure it out, but they always come crying to me to kiss their ouchies better. “Nenee do it” is what I hear most of the time from Heaten. I will say Shenzie beats up Heaten far more than he does her. Hahahahah, once again I’m reminded of myself when I was little beating up my older brother Daniel. And now that I think about it I remember us battling from the time I was little until he moved out when I was 14. I remember as a teenager punching him as hard as I could in the jaw and then running like hell to get away. He broke down the door trying to get to me while I cowered in the corner crying. So I suppose this fighting is just natural sibling crap that is going to go on and on and on and on. Any tips from you seasoned pro’s on how to handle the battles. If I put them in time out every time they fought they’d never leave the corner! The fighting usually only happens at home. When we are out at a park, playdate, or preschool they aren’t fighting so maybe we should just move away from here to stop the battling. =)

And now onto the funniest thing thats happened lately. Yesterday morning before Jeff left for work he heard Heaten on the couch crying, “Its too tight, its too tight”. Upon investigation Jeff found that Heatens undies were too tight due to his morning woody and since Heaten has NO idea what was going on, only that his undies were too tight he was crying and pulling at himself. Hahahahahah, poor little dude has a life time of too tight undies to look foward too!!!!

So, we’re sick, again. Remember like 2 weeks ago when the twinzies had croup (or what seemed A LOT like it) that lasted for ohhhhhhh, two weeks. Yeah, that was certainly NOT fun. And now, well, we’re sick again. =( I first got sick, Heaten quickly followed, and now Shenzie is REALLY sick, again. We are all just miserable, and poor Jeff has spent the entire weekend cleaning, cooking, and taking care of his whining, cry baby family. Thank you sugar bear, we really appreciate you!!! I suppose this is all par for the course when starting preschool, but it still sucks monkey balls!

On a side note, is it really March?!!?!?!? Holy moly, talk about time flying and all of that!