It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

I've been getting subtle (ok, not so subtle) hints that my blog needs to be updated, so here it is, finally :-) We've been keeping ourselves busy since Halloween just going about day to day life and watching the moments fly by. Jeremy is truly enjoying his new job at Kennesaw State, and this week he got the official word that he won the "best presentation" award at the conference he went to in September. What a smart, talented husband I have if I do say so myself! ;-) Sarah is really enjoying preschool at Acworth UMC, and we enjoyed going to her Thanksgiving and Christmas programs (cute videos to come one day). Having her school so close to our house has really been a blessing, although it still seems to be quite the ordeal some days to get Daniel and Lauren loaded in the car and get over to the church to pick her up on time. Daniel and Lauren are almost 4 months old now, and their personalities are really showing now. They both smile frequently, and I don't think Jeremy or I will ever get tired of watching them smile. Our most recent entertainment has been watching them smile and "talk" to each other. It's addictive! I'm still gung ho about getting them on a "schedule," and Jeremy is still convinced that will never happen :-) Can't hurt to try, right?

We're enjoying the Christmas season in our new house. We actually managed to get the decorations out the weekend after Thanksgiving! The Christmas tree fits in the house (I told you so Jeremy!), and so far we have only had a few minor ornament breakages. Although Sarah is still very interested in what is "breakable" and "not breakable," she continues to play with the "breakable" ornaments as if they were any other plastic toy. Oh, well!

We have seen Santa three times now, and each time Sarah has more or less asked him for the same thing---more fairy wings :-) She has also asked, for Daniel and Lauren, for pacifiers and bottles. Our first Santa visit was in downtown Acworth on a cold, COLD, Friday night. We made a fun family memory by getting all bundled up and going out in the cold, but I'm not sure we'll try that again next year. Next, I took the kids to explore the mall last week and we couldn't pass up seeing Santa there. Then, just yesterday, the man in red happened to be hanging out in a shopping center near our house with his horses! (I thought he had reindeer, but I guess Santa likes horses, too). Sarah got to have a quick pony ride and yet another visit with Santa. Sarah has kept me laughing through all of these visits, because she keeps thinking that when we see Santa we're actually in the North Pole. She talks all the time about going to the North Pole (but she just calls it "The North"), and she says things like, "Are we going to the North tomorrow?" and "When we go to the North, we'll be really cold!"

Although we've tried to scale back our holiday events this year to save our sanity and to protect the twins' (nonexistent) schedule, we've still managed to do quite a few fun activities. Aside from looking for Santa anywhere and everywhere, we've done some visiting with family and friends. Last Saturday, we had a family adventure road trip to Charlotte and back, all in the same day. That was an adventure to say the least, and Sarah's temper tantrums on the way home kept us entertained---or NOT! Needless to say, by the time we got home around midnight on Saturday, we were all ready for a vacation from the vacation :-) It was really nice to visit with Jeremy's family, though, and I hope they enjoyed meeting Daniel and Lauren for the first time. We're looking forward to our annual Christmas Eve lunch with my side of the family in Atlanta, and then we're heading straight to Greenville to have Christmas with the Gulleys. It should be a busy, loud, and fun-filled weekend, and I sure hope Santa has no trouble making his way to Mimi and PawPaw's house (hopefully with fairy wings, or we will have a very disappointed Sarah...).

I hope you enjoyed all of the pictures from November and December, and check back soon for some cute video clips!

November Already?

Yesterday, Daniel and Lauren turned 2 months old! I can't believe how fast the time is going by and that we are already to November! Even more so, I can't believe that when Sarah was a baby, by this time I was preparing to go back to work in 2 weeks! I am SO glad that I am fortunate enough at this point to stay out a little while, because I can't even imagine packing up this crew at 6:30 each morning and going to work all day (although it would be nice to have an "8 hour break" every day--I guess if I didn't have to actually "work" at work, I could handle it.....). We had a little scheduling mix up with the pediatrician, so Daniel and Lauren are not actually going for their 2 month check up until they are almost 3 months, but as far as we know, all is well with them. They are eating like champs and growing like weeds.

At 2 months, Daniel....

- is almost 2 pounds bigger than his "baby sister" Lauren, and is probably around 11 1/2 pounds
- puts himself to sleep in his crib with almost no assistance from mommy or daddy--hallelujah!
- cries when he is hungry, poopy, or tired
- is almost always hungry when he wakes up from a nap, no matter how long or short the nap was
- can roll over from his stomach to his back, although we have only seen him do it twice
-smiles, but only when he wants to, like when he hears Lauren cry
-is going to bed around 6:30 p.m. and doing his longest sleep stretch of the day until about midnight
-doesn't particularly care for his pacifier, but sometimes he won't let it go
-wears a size 0-3 month clothes, but will probably move up to 3-6 months before long!

At 2 months, Lauren...

- is almost 2 pounds smaller than her "big brother" Daniel, and is probably around 9 1/2 pounds
-is starting to put herself to sleep IN HER BOUNCY SEAT in her crib with only some assistance from mommy or daddy, sometimes. Other times, she needs LOTS of soothing to fall asleep.
-cries when she is hungry, poopy, tired, bored, lonely, gassy, cold, hot, you name it :-)
-loves to be on her side and does not like being flat on her back to sleep
-smiles often, with a beautiful toothless grin that melts my heart everytime I see it
-looks and behaves very much like Sarah did at her age
-is going to bed around 6:30 p.m. and doing her longest sleep stretch of the day until about 10:30 p.m.---on a good night.
-likes to cuddle her new lamb lovey and watching her hold it is just about the cutest thing you've ever seen
-is addicted to her pacifier and never leaves home without it :-)
-wears a size 0-3 month clothes

At 3 years, 4 months, Sarah...

- is the best big sister ever and is SO sweet to the babies
- loves to play with the baby toys and claims them all as "hers." I guess she's technically right- they were all hers at one point.
- is going to preschool 3 days a week and is learning a lot about letters and reading
- tries to sound out almost all words
- is very preoccupied with whether something is "breakable" or not
- is not sure what the word "chapel" means. Today, I asked her if she had chapel at school today, and her response was, "No, I didn't have apples...." Hmmm....
- is very clumsy and gets boo-boos multiple times daily, especially if she goes outside to play
- has a new "best friend" named Jonathan who lives across the street
- has made tons of new friends in our could-de-sac and is always watching to see when someone goes outside to play
- wears a size 3T clothes

We had a fun Halloween here- we decided to do a costume theme this year. Lauren was a mermaid (Sarah's old costume), Daniel was a fish, and Sarah was a "homemade" snorkeler put together at the last minute, whose costume looked fabulous if I do say so myself. Sarah even won second place in the costume contest at the carnival we attended! She got a $10 gift card which went toward the purchase of a Big Wheel so she can speed around the could-de-sac with her new friends.

Happy Fall!

We saw camels and zebras on the hayride---so strange!

Daniel's and Lauren's first hayride

Cute as a pumpkin

Cute as a pumpkin #2

Cute as a pumpkin #3 and #4 :-)

Fall family photo

Sarah and her two favorite babies

Sarah, going on her very first pony ride

Feeding the goats

We decided that instead of sitting at the house stressing over all there is to do that it would be better to take a family mini trip to the pumpkin patch. We looked online and found a neat place in Catersville called Pettit Creek Farms and off we went. Enjoy the pics!

Home Sweet Home

We are finally moved into our new house, and we're trying our best to get settled in. There's not much time to settle, though, with trying to keep up with three children all day! It's been fun not knowing how to find anything around the house--which box did I pack that in? Where are the bowls? Where are the fingernail clippers??? Jeremy and I are loving our new house, and Jeremy is loving his new 15 minute (max) commute even more. As we sort through our boxes and start unpacking things and putting them away here, we have realized that the new house does in fact have significantly more space than our old house, which is super! I've been having a grand old time picking out several "small" items that were missing when we moved in (toilet paper holders, a light fixture, etc.) and making the house really feel like "our new house." Jeremy probably wishes I would stop spending money though!

Sarah, the babies, and I are having lots of fun exploring Acworth, too. We've been to Wal-Mart once and Target several times. SuperTarget, along with lots of other stores and way more yummy restaurants, is literally 3 minutes away, so I am probably going to have to work really, really hard to limit my trips there or else I will go broke and then have a heart attack from eating too much grease. I realized that Target has a buggy big enough for all three children and even some groceries, too, and that has perhaps been one of the most exciting things I've realized lately ;-) We've been to three different playgrounds and Sarah is trying to decide which one is her favorite. Today we found one with a spot in the shade, and we took a picnic blanket and spread out on the grass and had a nice little lunch time, babies and all. Too bad they slept the whole time and didn't really get to enjoy it!

I think we'll like living here and I am hopeful that Sarah especially will make lots of new friends in the neighborhood. We seem to have moved onto the "kid street" and there are LOTS of kids who play outside a lot just outside of our house, so I think she will have a great time. Maybe Jeremy and I will even make some new friends as well! We will surely miss living in Bethlehem and near all of our other friends and family, though! That's definitely going to be the hardest part of this move! We miss you already and come visit us soon!

Double Trouble=Double Blessings

Our twins are 2 weeks old today! Daniel Briggs Gulley and Lauren Elizabeth Gulley were born on August 31, 2010, and we are having SO much fun getting to know their little personalities. At two weeks, it is amazing to see how different they already are from each other. For example, Daniel is quite mellow and enjoys being left alone sometimes, while Lauren wishes NEVER to be alone or out of someone's arms. Lauren loves her paci, while Daniel usually can't stand it. The one thing they do seem to have in common is that they both have their days and nights confused :-) This makes for long, sleepless nights for Jeremy and me, but on the flip side, the daytime is pretty mellow if they happen to be sleeping at the same time (although that hasn't been happening too much this week). We are grateful to our huge family for being so helpful with sending food, holding babies, shuttling Sarah back and forth to daycare, and sharing in the sleepless nights. We couldn't do it without you!

Enjoy the pictures. I'll post more later, but we're about to have a busy busy end-of-the-week. Our house closings are on Thursday followed by moving day on Friday and then finishing up getting the last things out of our "old" house on Saturday. Then the unpacking process will begin at the new house, although I foresee that project taking months and months to complete :-)