70 degree weather in Feburary

Wow. It's kinda nice to be able to say that. The last week the weather has been spectacular. Jessica and the kids have enjoyed being able to play in the backyard and also go to the park with friends. James and Hallie are both fully walking toddlers, and Ruby continues to amaze us with her reading and comprehension skills.

Last time I said we'd have photos of the twins birthday. We've done a lot of uploading to Flickr, so you can go there for photos of their birthday, and August 2010 - January 2011 photos, grouped by month. Below are a select few photos from their 1 year photo shoot (which should hit Flickr later this week).

Teeth are coming in like crazy for James, and he drools to show you. (you see his glowing chest in one of the photos below? Yep. that's drool.) He's headed for a haircut here this month too. Looking a bit too much like a hippie I guess :) Hallie is still stuck on 4 teeth, and is slowly getting some more hair. She makes up for it by running laps around her brother through the kitchen, dining room, and living room. She's a much better walker than he is at this point.

Until next time - Jason.

Hi. My name is James. I love the camera!

Hallie is darn cute, and she knows it :)

Nekkid babies! Okay, It's just cute!!

Jessica said they never were able to get a pic
where the number 1 (James is holding it) was
stood up.

Whoops!

Sorry for the lack of activity here on the blog. I've been slacking. Wait. I should say, it's Jason here. With all three of them walking, cold and flu season, changing nursery schools, work, and life in general it's been tough getting this updated. I'll try to do better here moving forward. But recently we started a large upload of photos to the Flickr photostream that you can can find here. We will update with the twins' birthday party in the near future. Thanks for tuning in.

Ruby's New Nursery School

This week was Ruby's first week at her new nursery school. I decided to make a switch when the old nursery school made some major changes without any communication to the parents. So, I called around and the place I had originally wanted for Ruby had an opening in her age group! She is now at the Emory Valley Early Learning Center -- which is more of a school (and run by the Department of Education) -- whereas her old "school" was more of a daycare setting (and run by the Department of Human Services).

Now, my biggest complaint about the old school was the lack of communication. Well, in her first week at the ELC I have received three notes from the teacher. I get a note at the end of each day and one at the end of each week. These basically just summarize what Ruby's day was like and the weekly one tells how she did on projects and what they're learning. This week was all about penguins, which was a perfect week to start because penguins are Ruby's favorite animal!

The school is a fully inclusive environment and about 40 percent of the students have some form of handicap or disability. This means that students who need services can receive them while at school and all of the kids learn about differences. One of the benefits of a school that provides services is that all of the students get to use the therapy room. There is a Gross Motor Room where the kids have free play/recess when it's not nice enough to go outside. In this room is a ball pit, trampoline, "roller coaster," etc. It is a neat room and Ruby absolutely loves going to the "Gross Room."

Ruby acclimated to the new school very quickly. The school typically does a student evaluation after about 45 days of attendance, but since Ruby has done so well, they are going to evaluate her in the next few weeks. All this means is determining how she is doing educationally, socially and emotionally and finding out if there are any familial concerns or things that they should work more on at school or we should focus on at home.

I think this is going to be a great change for Ruby. And, one of the perks for us is that the school provides breakfast, lunch and all snacks -- this means I no longer have to pack a lunch or bring a classroom snack twice a month!

In other news we are gearing up for the twins' birthday party. Grandpa Arnold and Grandma Kimmy fly in tomorrow afternoon. Ruby is trying to decide if she wants to call Arnold "Papa" or "Grandpa-doodle." The first name came from one of her books, and I'm not sure where she got the second, but we'll see what she comes up with. She calls my father "Grumpa" (from the book Grandpa Grumpy's Family).

We are having the birthday party Sunday at Razzleberry Ice Cream Lab and have about a dozen families joining us. It should be a blast and I promise lots of pictures from that event. Sorry there are no new pictures today!

Belated Happy 2011!

We've made it to the new year and are looking forward to Jason's birthday and the twins' birthday this month. The kids are recovering from some sort of stomach bug, but other than that, everyone is doing well here. We all had a great Christmas -- Ruby was thrilled that Santa came to visit her. And she was excited that he ate her cookies and the reindeer ate her carrots. Today we are relaxing because we have a snow day! I think we have about three inches of snow and schools are canceled and even Jason's work is closed. It's days like these that I love living in Tennessee -- Iowa definitely would not close school for this!

Is it really almost Christmas??

The past month has just flown by! We have been very busy getting ready for Christmas and partaking in a bunch of holiday fun.

Ruby is asking Santa for a camera for Christmas this year. We told her that she can only ask Santa for one present -- so when she was sitting on Santa's knee and he said "what else would you like?" she was kind of taken aback and finally said "something for Hallie and James." How cute is that?

Ruby is really ready for the holiday to get here. There are presents under the tree, lights on all of the houses and we had snow on the ground, so why isn't Santa here yet??? We've been passing the days baking cookies and delivering them to our neighbors, buying and wrapping gifts for our friends, making Christmas cards, and decorating sugar cookies. It has been a lot of fun and extremely messy. Ruby seems to think the UPS man needs to come to our house every day because every time he's here there's a tasty treat to eat or gift for under the tree!

In other big, exciting news, James is walking! He took his first steps on December 5 and is getting more and more adventurous each day. He is also sporting a new black eye -- but that's what happens when you fall face first into a table. It didn't faze him a bit. I really think he is going to be a daredevil.

Hallie, on the other hand, is not making any moves toward walking. I think she sees her brother making a fool of himself and doesn't want any bit of it. I'm certain that one day she's going to just take off walking without all of the starts and stops that James has. She's watching him so she can perfect it for herself! Hallie is our big eater, just like Ruby was. I think she enjoys when the UPS man comes, too, because it means she gets to sample the treats!

Ruby is starting to read some basic words. She can identify her name and knows all of the letters and the sounds they make. Her favorite "game" lately is asking what everything starts with. And, when I turn it around on her, she is usually able to tell me what the word starts with. (Though she doesn't like the trick words, like "knock.")

Tonight some of the neighborhood girls came caroling, so we let Ruby listen to them for awhile. And then I lined them up to babysit on New Year's Eve! Enjoy the pictures from our holiday festivities ...

Riding the carousel at the Festival of Trees.

Yummy, sprinkles :)

I thought the frosting was for my face ...

Yummy sugar cookies!

Look, mom, I can decorate them too!

Making the frosting for cookies with September.

School Christmas party!

Exercising at Nursery School.

Visiting with Santa at Nursery School.

I think we got about 4 inches and Ruby loved it!

Getting ready to go out in the snow!

The family reinkitty!

Thanksgiving & Other Stuff

It has been a long two weeks since the last update!

We thought Ruby had kicked her pneumonia, but I ended up taking her back to the doctor -- she got a chest x-ray and a different antibiotic because her lungs still sounded terrible. Then, a week later she was back at the doctor again because of the same issue. Our pediatrician ended up sending us for blood work at the children's hospital and then to a pulmonologist. When we visited the pulmonologist, she got another chest x-ray which showed the pneumonia had cleared, but her oxygen level was pretty low (in the mid-80s). That doctor said she should probably be admitted to the hospital, but since it was Thanksgiving week he would try a breathing treatment first. That got her levels up to the low 90s. He said while the pneumonia was gone, she has asthma! He let us go home, but we have to go back on Tuesday for a follow up appointment.

But, we had a great Thanksgiving! I cooked up a storm and we had some friends and Grammy in town to eat it all. Ruby had a blast playing with her friend Anne, and James and Hallie thoroughly enjoyed their first Thanksgiving. Jason and I, however, failed to take any pictures of them eating that meal ... sorry!

We spent a couple of hours relaxing and then decided to venture out to Toys-R-Us for their 10 p.m. opening. We got there about 8:45 and were about number 400 in line. We did get the "ticket" for one of the kids' Christmas presents though and found a few more items while we were there. We got in the door at 10:30 and made it home about 1 a.m. It was a long day, but we had a lot of fun and it was definitely worth it.

Finally, I will post some pictures. We went to Portrait Innovations to have some Christmas pictures done and some pictures of the kids. Enjoy!

Back in Tennessee

The first weekend in November we took a trip to Arizona for my grandfather's 80th birthday celebration. Many of our friends thought we were crazy to take three kids on a plane, but it actually worked out really well and we are so happy that we made the trip! Ruby, James & Hallie got to meet a lot of family and I think everyone was very happy to see them. While we were there, we took a day to go to the Phoenix Zoo (which is amazing) and do breakfast with one of my friends from law school.

We made it back and promptly took Ruby to the doctor because she was sent home from school. I didn't think she was very sick -- I was thinking she was run down from a long weekend and couldn't get her ears to pop from the plane ride (In the waiting room, she told me that she "burped her ear" and it was all better). So, I was a little surprised when the doctor looked in her ear and found a "nasty infection" and then listened to her lungs and discovered she had pneumonia! She has been on antibiotics for about a week and seems much better.

Now we are preparing for Thanksgiving! Jason's mom and one of his co-worker's families will be joining us for dinner. So I am preparing a menu and hoping that it will all turn out well ...

Oh and we did a big Flickr update, so if you want to see all of our pictures from October, go to www.flickr.com/jasonhill1627 and click on the October 2010 set.

Here are some pictures from our Arizona trip:

Grandma and Grandpa with the babies.

James and Aunt Maggie.

Hallie and Aunt Tanja.

Having fun on the tree stump.

There's a squirrel monkey right behind us. This was a neat exhibit!

Ruby's first camel ride.

Ruby named the camel "Sally."

Standing like the flamingos.

Trying to be as tall as the giraffe.

James needed a nap.

Hallie getting her snooze on.

Eating a snow cone.

She loved checking out all of the cacti!

Ruby riding the carousel at the zoo.

My cousin, Elizabeth, seems like she'd do really well with twins ...