9-Month Birthday

Happy 9-Month Birthday, Piper and Fletch. Another month has flown by, and the babies are doing great. This past month has brought lots of changes. Both babies are finally sitting unassisted and love sitting on the floor playing with their blocks and other toys. Also, in just a few short days, Piper has gone from barely sitting to crawling and getting herself seated on her own. She's also babbling a lot more, and I even heard a few "ma-ma-ma's" this weekend. Fletch is almost crawling but not quite. I think he gets really frustrated when he sees Piper moving around, but he can't, so he's working hard at it. We tried to take cute 9-month/Memorial Day shots of the babies but they just wouldn't hold still, so these are all the shots we were able to get.

Here are the photos from their 9-month photo shoot.

Over the long weekend, we finally were able to get to the new spray park, and it was awesome. We took the babies over on Monday after their morning nap. Piper loved it, and Fletch seemed to like it but was a bit more apprehensive. The spray park is zero depth so the babies could sit in the sprinklers and just play around. It also kept Eric and I cool. After about an hour in the water, we had a picnic at the park, and then head home for afternoon naps. It was a great way to spend the afternoon. Here are some pics:

We have their 9-month dr's appointment tomorrow, so I'll report out on there stats after that. It will be fun to see how much they've grown in the past few months.

On The Move

We have a crawler! Piper started really crawling this morning, as you can kind of see in this quick video that Eric shot. Bar the doors and keep everything above waist-height because this girl is going to be a dare-devil and explorer. The fun begins...

Remember

With Father’s Day in a few weeks and with yesterday being the sixth anniversary of the day that Dad died, I want to make sure the babies know their grandfather, who I still miss every day. Of course, we will tell them stories, but since I plan to print this blog for them to keep, I wanted it to include something about their Grandpa to look back on and get to know him. I’ve decided to do this by featuring the speech I gave about Dad at his funeral because it really gets at who Dad was and what they missed. Here it is….

Ten Things You Didn’t Know About Dad/Grandpa/Al Funderburg

While today is one of the hardest days of my life, I’ve come up here to give a tribute to my dad, and one of the most precious thing he gave me…his sense of humor. So, while most of you know dad was funny, always the first to crack a joke (most of them not very good) or try to make you laugh, here are the top ten things you didn’t know about Dad:

10. Dad was the New Kids on the Block biggest fan. I mean, c’mon, who else spends their Saturday mornings carting their daughter and her friends around Dorchester and Jamaica Plain looking for them or buys these great shades at a New Kids on the Block concert.

9. Dad may have been tough, but a simple amusement park ride could take him down. I’ve never seen him greener than the day he stepped off the tilt-a-whirl at a carnival and vowed he’d never ride another one again.

8. Dad loved the nerfuls. Who are the nerfuls you ask? They are these little toys. For Christmas one year, I begged and begged for one. He gave me the entire set. I think he always secretly wanted to play with them.

7. Dad was a member of the PGA…or was it the mini golf-PGA. I can’t remember, but what I do know is that every summer Dad and I went on the tour of the greatest golf courses in New England. From Hago Harrington’s in Stoneham to Pirate’s Cove on the Cape.

6. Dad was royalty. Well, at least from the sounds of the way he used to rule Somerville and Moore Street with his friends, he must have been a king or something. I wasn’t there, of course, but I’m sure many of you have your own memories.

5. Dad was a judge in the diving competition at the 1988 Olympics and I was the gold winner. Those Olympics were held in New Hampshire weren’t they? Dad would spend hours sitting by the side of hotel swimming pools, scoring every dive I did into the pool. At the end of every competition, he always made me feel like the winner.

4. Dad swore he would never see the Red Sox win the World Series in his life, and that I probably wouldn’t either. Thank you, Red Sox, for giving that to all of us. Dad was the first person I called that wonderful night.

3. Dad was a pinball wizard. I’ve never known anyone that loved to play pinball more than Dad. His initials are memorialized on pinball games in arcades throughout New England. Next time you’re at Canobie Lake Park (does that even exist anymore?), be sure to look for his initials.

2. Dad loved high-class culture and taught me about only about the finer things in life. You know, like how to appreciate a fight during a Bruins’ game or how to make that pop noise with your mouth (I still can’t do it).

1. Dad loved all of us, his family, friends, and me. And, I know we’ll miss him dearly, every single day. But the next time you find yourself telling a bad joke or making a sarcastic but funny remark, try to remember Dad. That’s the way he’d want to be remembered. Smiling and laughing. Mom and I wish you precious cargo on your trip. We’ll miss you.

Piper and Fletch, your grandfather would have loved so much, and he’s watching over you every day.

Time to Think

When you’re on bedrest you have lots of time to sleep, read, and become hooked on quality shows like this and this (I was seriously obsessed with MvF. I have no idea why b/c now it grosses me out. Maybe I thought I could out-eat him at that time). Mostly though, you have time to think, and a lot of those thoughts are devoted to what life will be like with the babies. This weekend, we were so blessed to have a weekend where all those thoughts came to life. It was just wonderful to be home with the babies and spend so much time together as a family.

On Saturday, the weather was glorious. Unfortunately, our health wasn’t, as the babies and I all had colds. So, we stayed home in the morning except for a long walk around the neighborhood. After naps, we walked across our neighborhood to the new spray park to check it out and have a picnic. The babies loved being outdoors and rolling around on the sheet. After coming back home for naps (yes, our whole life revolves around their naps), we broke out the wading pool and bathing suits, and the babies had a great time splashing around. I think it even helped them forget about their colds. After all that fun, the babies went to sleep while Eric and I enjoyed our latest obsession: Battlestar Gallactica (yes, we’re nerdy) and pizza. A perfect day and night.

On Sunday, I was feeling better, so I took the babies for a run in our hilly neighborhood. I may have missed our long run with ARRC, but pushing nearly 40 pounds of babies up and down some of the biggest hills in Fairfax County definitely made up for that. We all came home for naps and relaxing before heading out for a farewell lunch for our friend Steve Moore. The babies did a great job with all the people at the lunch that wanted to see them, putting on quite the show of smiling, giggling, grunting, and babbling. After getting home from that, we just relaxed the rest of the day and prepared ourselves for the week. I couldn’t have asked for a better weekend.

In between all this fun, we had some minor milestones. Piper finally decided she would stop trying to crawl long enough to learn to sit unassisted. Yay! This morning, I even found her sitting in her crib. She’s also started babbling more with consonant sounds. Fletch is still making mainly yelps and grunts but you can tell he’s on the verge of telling us something.

P.S. I realize with this post that I’ve become a once-a-week blogger who only does weekend reviews. I’m going to try to get a more frequent routine down soon.

Disregard

Disregard the state of the blog. I'm trying to re-design it to make it cleaner, and it's still a work in progress. I'm hoping to have it updated by the end of the week. For now, I'm hoping to distract you with this cute picture of Piper in our new duck tub.

Weekend in Review

We had a great weekend here, although as always, it was too short and not enough time with the kiddos (that's not to say we weren't exhausted by the time they went to bed on Sunday night). Here's the recap:

Saturday: We got up early and took the Piper and Fletch to our long run with Arlington Road Runners Club. It was rainy and gray out, but the babies didn't seem to mind. After coming home just in time for naps, we went back out to ToysRUs in the afternoon to make a few purchases because frankly, I was tired of playing with the same stuff all the time. When we got back, we just sat around and played with our new things the rest of the afternoon.

Sunday: Fletch, unfortunately, woke up on the wrong side of the crib and was fussy and under the weather. He did perk up a bit for the dog blessing at National City Christian Church, but he spent most of the day crying. Piper, on the other hand, was her usual smiley self and tried to cheer Fletch up. We hung out the rest of the day after the dog blessing and even broke out the new wading pool and gave it a try. The babies seemed to like it, and none of the neighbors seemed to care that there was skinny dipping going on in the front ayrd. :) Next time I'll have to get pictures.

Not much else happened. Everyone is still working on crawling. Piper has cut second tooth. And, I think we're on a good streak with naps and sleep (but I don't want to post to much about it for fear of jinxing us).

Mother's Day Milestones

I want to start by saying Happy (Belated) Mother’s Day to my wonderful Mom. I wouldn’t be half the person I am today without her love and caring.

My first mom’s day was terrific. The babies are finally starting to sleep better at night, which meant that I was well-rested and able to get up early to do a quick run on the treadmill. We followed that with a trip downtown to Eric’s office to pick up some stuff and then an attempt to walk around the Reflecting Pool with the hopes of seeing baby ducks. Unfortunately and despite this week’s news, the terrorists won and instead of ducks, we saw a drained Reflecting Pool and the steel columns they’re installing to prevent bad things from happening. But, because the weather was nice, it was still a good walk.

After that, we went home where Piper and Fletch dazzled us with some new milestones. Fletch is FINALLY sitting unassisted, and Piper has learned to get up on all fours. She’s so close to crawling that we may have to bar the front door this week. That girl is on the move! (She has no interest in learning how to sit unassisted). I loved seeing them make so much progress. It was a wonderful Mother’s Day gift (along with the bottle of SkinnyGirl margarita. TYVM to my sweet husband for hiking to five liquor stores to find it.). Later in the day, we Skype’d with my mom, and then Eric’s parents came over, where we had fun playing inside and then eating outside (and drinking my margarita). It was a great day!

Spring Saturday

This was supposed to be the post where I took pictures of the babies in their new car seats and compared it to them in their old car seats when they came home from the hospital. But, those pictures didn’t happen this weekend.

Instead, this is the post where I talk about what a wonderful Saturday we had. We started the day by bringing the babies to our running group for the second week in a row. Eric played the part of SuperDad and ran pushing the babies in the BOB, including up and down the very steep hill on Wisconsin Ave. For those of you who don’t know, Eric and I met in this running group (ok, a different group but same people for those who remember), so it is extra special to bring the babies with us on Saturdays.

After the run, we spent most of the day back at home just hanging out. The babies treated us to an early Mother’s Day gift by taking great naps, which gave Eric and I time to put in their new convertible seats. Changing the seats not only mean our tiny babies are growing up (gah! too fast!) but we also have to say goodbye to our trusty Double Snap and Go stroller. I love that thing despite the fact that it doesn’t steer for s&*t. I don’t know what I’m having more trouble with—the babies getting older or retiring DSNG. Anyway….Saturday was a nice, relaxing day. I also made a Craiglist purchase and got a baby storage facility (i.e., playyard) to help keep the Piper and Fletch contained. You’ll see pics in my Sunday post.