Back to Life

After having some serious downtime for more reasons that I care to discuss, the site has been brought back from the dead. So I'll see if I can fill in some of the highlights from the past 2 years over the next few weeks.

Stay tuned

Class of 1988 - CSHS 20 Year Reunion

For those looking for the reunion pics that we took, you can check back here after I get them loaded to flickr. I’ll post a link. Hopefully this weekend I can get them uploaded.

Getting better at going out

Well the girls are getting better at going to Mother’s Morning out. This is a very good thing. We didn’t think they would ever be comfortable with it. So if they keep this up, then when we move to a 2 or 3 day session, then maybe it won’t be too bad.

Swim Time

Well it’s that time of the year again when all the kiddies hit the pool, and like all other kids ours wanted to hit the pool too. Granted the pool is at grandma’s house, so a little travel is involved. 

Well going into this year, Harlan was the pool junkie and Lanier could take it or leave it. So like everything else they have done so far in their lives, the roles have switched. Although this time we know why. 

About 2 weeks into the summer, Harlan took a plunge and her head went under. Mom was right there so no harm and it didn’t impact her. Well about a week later, she did it again and this time it took an extra second to get to her and now she won’t go near the water. At this point, we are still trying to convince her the water is not going to hurt her and it’s ok to splash around. We are hoping that she’ll start to forget her traumas from earlier this summer. 

Lanier on the other hand, would only stand on the sundeck and splash around, now she is all about the pool. When we are not at the pool, she’s in the bathtub, splashing around. We are hoping that Harlan takes a cue from her younger sister and gets back into the groove.

No More Diapers ??

Well we have reached a milestone in the development of our girls, potty training. Yes, I know that all parents reach this point, but as a parents of twins, this is an especially happy time for us. See when you have to buy diapers for twins, the expense adds up quickly. 

Our potty training success came in two phases, Lanier then Harlan. We tried several methods to encourage the use of the potty, but for each child, we had to use a different tactic. 

For Lanier, we tried, bribes of candy, praise, you name it we tried it. Finally the method that worked for her was the threat of a bath every time she did not use the potty and made a mess in her panties. Yes this seems mean, but it only took 3 or 4 times before she understood the situation. During this time, we did give lots and lots of praise for when she did use the potty. Now, we did not use this method for nighttime accidents, as that, in and of itself can take much longer to master. More on that further down in this post. So for now, we are 2-3 weeks into panties every day, with only the occasional accident, which was more a result of a stomach bug than not using the potty.

For Harlan, we tried the same methods and none worked. What seemed to do the trick was the praise we were giving to Lanier, because after about a week, she started waiting to use the potty and wanted to wear panties. She too has now gone about 1-2 weeks with only a couple of accidents, mainly at the beginning. 

For both girls, we have moved to no diapers at night as well. Bother have taken to this very well with only a handful of accidents. When they do have a nighttime accident, we let them know its OK and that it happens to everyone when they are learning. 

For both girls they are getting the hang of peeing and pooping in the potty, so if they continue down this road we may not have to buy any more diapers.

Twitter for the Girls

Well they can’t type yet, but I wanted to secure their twitter names. That’s not to say in 5 years that twitter will be gone and replaced by something else. But since the girls are advanced enough to work an iPod touch, that they will be tweeting before too long. 

But in the mean time I may try to post every once and a while to their accounts on twitter. I’ll also have any tweets up on the Girls Tweets Page.

Lanier - lanierashley

Harlan - harlanashley

Video Uploads - Finally

Well I have put it off long enough. If it waited much longer we would have missed an entire years worth of videos. So now that I have a good reason to edit some video (new iMovie) I have finally started cutting it up.

Since the hard part is done (uploading to the computer), I can finally start the fun stuff. I always enjoy going over the old video of the girls. Its amazing how much they change in a short period of time. This time I’m going back to May 2008, not too bad, but still behind.

The method to my madness on editing is two fold, 1) edit for the year end DVD, this is for family and 2) YouTube clips of the highlights for family and friends. This time around I’m going to “jazz up” the youtube edits using some of the new features in iMovie ’09. Now I’m not the greatest editor in the world, but I do what I can and people seem to enjoy them. Well enjoy them as much as they can in watching other peoples kids running around.

So you can find the new ones on my youtube channel, our me channel or under the movie link above, which will direct you to youtube. 

So over the next couple of days, new videos will be showing up. Enjoy.

In Memory of our beloved cat, Baby

On New Years Day, 2009, we our loving cat baby passed away. She was a great pet and family member to us and to our twins. Of our four cats, she was the one that played with and allowed the twins to play with her.

It was hard to see her go as it happened so fast, Christmas she was fine and then the she started having issues jumping onto the bed and getting around our baby gates. Then on New Years Eve, we noticed that she was not eating or drinking. We tried to feed her, but she would not take it. By New Year’s Day, she was not wanting to move and was having trouble breathing. We debated taking her to the vet, but decided the trauma of the car ride and the strange doctors would cause her more pain. So we held her and left her in peace until she went to sleep just after midnight 1/2/2009.

Baby had been with Dana for over 15 years, moving from Georgia to Tennessee and back, with several moves in between. She was Dana’s friend and companion during this time away from family and friends. Once we married she became my cat as well and would sleep with us on most nights, even nipping at our toes if we moved them under the sheets.

During the day, she would come into my home-office and sleep on our router, she would love the heat from it, to the point where we had to replace the router, because she over heated it. If she was not there, she was in her bed under my office window. She never got too far away from us.

After we had the twins, she was the only cat that would tolerate the kids. In turn the girls loved her for it and she got all the loving her could handle from an infant. In some cases too much loving. Now that she is gone, both girls are having a hard time understanding where she has gone. They are sad that they don’t get to pet the nice kitty.

Some of the nice stories that we could tell about her:

1. 
   
   •She loved to play with craft balls. You could hear her carrying it around making the oddest sounds.
   
   
   
   
2. 
   
   •She would nip at your toes if you moved them under the sheets at night. This was quite the surprise the first time she did it to me, even after being warned.
   
   
   
   
3. 
   
   •She loved being with our girls and would even try to sleep with them.
   
   
   
   
4. 
   
   •We loved how she would “go in heat” even though she was fixed, all because she saw the loving the other cats got when they went in heat. Hers would start about a week afterwards.
   
   
   
   
5. 
   
   •Regardless of what you were doing, she had to be in your lap, she never missed an opportunity to get some loving.
   
   
   
   
6. 
   
   •She would play fetch with her craft ball, just like a dog. She would want to play longer than we could.
   
   
   
   
7. 
   
   •For me, I can remember her as my comfort during the time when I had Kidney Stones. She would let me hold her and carry her around, while I was in pain. This was a great comfort to me, as she knew something was wrong.
   
   
   
   
8. 
   
   I could go on and on about her and what fun things she would do.
   
   
   
   

Now that she is in Kitty Heaven, and it hasn’t even been a day since she passed, we miss her terribly, but know she is in a better place. But I know I will always see her sitting on our router in my office or wanting under the covers of our bed at night. Of note, she made a great heater in the winter for warming the cold toes.

We will miss our Baby, but we know she lived a great life, and that she will not be forgotten.

3rd Birthday

Well yesterday the girls turned 3. Hard to believe it has been 3 years. So to celebrate, we went to the Georgia Aquarium and then to the grandparents house.

At the aquarium, the girls seemed to have a good time, especially Harlan. She even walked up to Santa and started talking to him. This was not in her nature to do such a thing. Lanier, I believe, was a bit scared if you can call it that of the whole situation.

Afterwards, we headed to Athens and the grandparents for dinner and some cake and presents.

More later, when I can add some photos

Sorry for the lack of posts

Just noticed that I haven’t updated in a while, sorry about that. We have been rather busy around the Ashley house the last few months. Mainly with Dana’s surgery and my work. But I’ll sum it up as best I can.

1. 1. Halloween is coming up, so that should be fun
   

2. 2.The girls are 28lbs (Harlan) and 29lbs(Lanier) when they went in to the doctor the other day.
   

3. 3.The girls have spent a lot of time at the grandparents house due to Dana’s surgery.
   

4. 4.Girls are both having some allergy issues, so this should be a fun time of year, unless they grow out of it.
   

I’ll try to do better in updating, but work gets in the way a lot.

Also watching our gallery (iPhone) for some quick pix that we put up that came from our phones.

Quick Baby Weigh-In

Dana had the girls weighed today. I knew they were getting heavy because when we play, I really get a work out.

Approx

Harlan - 28lbs 6ozs

Lanier - 29lbs 3ozs

Attack of the cantaloupe

As a work from home dad, I don’t go into the office that often. Well on Thursday was one of those days where I needed to go in. Well wouldn’t you know it, I would miss all the excitement.

Apparently Harlan was having some fruit for her morning snack, yes I said fruit, cantaloupe, and was eating it at a pretty good clip. Well Dana was in the next room, when Harlan comes running up pointing to her mouth. She does this sometimes to show us and other times to say she doesn’t want to eat it anymore. Well this was a new point at the mouth message.

Apparently she had started choking on one of the bigger pieces. Dana tried the Heimlich, to no avail. Harlan was even trying to put Dana’s fingers into her mouth to get it out. Well after a few attempts and different approaches to getting it out, it finally came out. It upset both mom and babe.

Dana said she was seconds from calling 911. Of note, Harlan is not turned off of cantaloupe.

Rough Days

Well over the last several weeks, Harlan has been a handful. When she is not sleeping (rare that she sleeps), not eating (eats all the time) she is having a fit about something. Doesn’t want to go out, doesn’t want to stay in, doesn’t want to play, doesn’t what to go to the basement to play and so on. After a few hours of this a day, she crashes out for a nap. Only to wake up wanting to eat again.

Repeat cycle

Be glad when the terrible two’s are gone.

Lanier has her moments, but are easier to deal with since they only happen rarely.

IMPORTED COMMENTS

looking forward to the 3's

Hate to tell you. None of my kids had the T  2"s its the 3's.  A few months before turning 3 and through out the third year is the Terrible 2's

Thursday, August 14, 2008 - 09:06 AM

New Pics, Vids on the way + Misc stuff

I’m close to being able to load some more videos and pictures of the girls. Hopefully if the weekend is slow I can bust some of them out.

In the mean time,

1. •The girls have been going to MMO (Mother’s Morning Out). they seem to be having a good time, but odd thing is they switch personalities when they get there. Very odd.
   
2. •Both are getting the hang of the potty, but we still have some issues with it. The stickers they get as a reward seem to be helping.
   
3. •Harlan is trying to eat us out of house and home. I swear see puts away as much as I do and she doesn’t get big, she just burns it off. Granted that’s easy when you go at 100 mph all the time. Just need to get her to eat more veggies. Lanier loves her veggies, Harlan tolerates them, sometimes.
   
4. •The twitter updates seem to be working, when twitter is working.
   
5. •If we had more folks that viewed video on the web, I would set up a Stickam page and then the girls can get on the air live. If this is something that would be interesting, post a comment and I can set something up. This would be private, so you would need to sigh  up for a free account.
   

New Movies Posted

Was finally able to get back to editing some movies from the girls. I have posted 3 little clips, you can find them on the movie page above. These are from the Feb-March 2008 time frame, so I’m a little behind. Enjoy

Twitter and the girls

Well I have found that it is rather difficult to come and update this blog on a regular basis. Especially since so much stuff is happening with the girls. So I thought I would try something new. There is a service called twitter that is like little blogs. I have created a page that shows those updates. So now when something interesting is happening I can update it there.

I still plan on updating the blog section with more detailed events, since twitter only allows 140 characters or less.

The new page is listed across the top and its called girls tweets. Enjoy.

If you want to follow the girls tweets on your own drop me an email and I will send you there tweet name.

Go Fly a Kite

Well we had a nice windy day and we decided to see if the girls would get how to fly a kite. We only got dollar store kites, so they weren’t the best for staying up in the air but they did OK.

At first they really didn’t get the need to run with the kite and to move around, but after a bit they seemed to better understand it.

Harlan got the running down, but didn’t really get the kite in the air thing. Lanier on the other hand got the kite in the air part, but would stop and look at it.

So on the next windy day we’ll try it again and see if we can get some video and pictures.

Mommy’s Morning Out

Well we decided that it was time for the girls to spend some time with some little ones their size without spending a fortune doing so. So we found a Mommy’s Morning Out down at the local Methodist Church. It was for 3 hours each Wednesday.

The girls had a bit of trouble being left, but by the time we made it to the car, one of the ladies came out and said they were doing great. When we picked them up, they were ready to go and apparently had a good time. So we’ll do it again next week. Well worth the ten buck for 2 kids.

While there they got to play outside, had a snack and did good overall. Harlan did sneeze a lot, but we think this is an allergy thing.

IMPORTED COMMENTS

I.C. Jackson

That's a good idea - I didn't know that local churches and orgs sponsored things like that.

And for only $10 for 2 kids?

Where do I sign up! LOL

Saturday, May 17, 2008 - 12:54 AM

More Pictures on the way

I should have some more pictures to post in a little bit. Still going through all the photos from steve and jean’s wedding and rehearsal dinner. So far we have some nice looking one. I will be posting them to the web and to flickr.

The Harlan and the Thorn

Not quite the story of the Lion and the thorn, but the Harlan and the thorn comes close. Some how Harlan had gotten a massive splitter in her heel. Needless to say she was not happy. After some pin moves (pinning Harlan not the thorn), we were able to get it out. She was not happy about that, but she felt better afterwards.