The McEwans: Crazy 8's

The girls spent their first nights away from home this St. Patrick's weekend. My mom, my friend Shanyne, and myself and the girls headed down to Pauma Valley (near Temecula) to visit our family friends, The Bordens (I capitalize their name as a title because they own thousands of acres of orchards/ranches hehe). The Bordens live in the middle of nowehere so I quite literally had to bring everything but the kitchen sink. Dad stayed home so it was also a test of my ability to really do things on my own. It was a nice weekend but I came home incredibly exhausted--I give major kudos to all the single mommas because I couldn't imagine doing this job without Alex!

We also experienced our first FLU EPIDEMIC. Oddly enough, neither the girls nor my 86 year old grandmother caught it! First Grandma Sue got the stomach flu, then me, then my mom, and finally Alex. It was awful and all I kept thinking was the girls would be next but surprisingly they made it through unscathed--I'm still in shock they went untouched. Since that event I've become even more crazy about hand washing and sanitizing in this house. So if you don't mind me rudely yelling at you to wash your hands before touching my children then come on over, otherwise I would avoid this house until my memory of that awful sickness fades from my mind haha.

The girls turned 8 months recently and I started privately (ok, not so private now) freaking out about how close to 1 they are. Yes, I know, they still have 4 more months BUT we have a ton of things happening between now and July 21st so I really need to get my ducks in a row about their party. For those curious...April is full of baby showers and doctors appointments, May is full of graduations (Natalie graduates from college--when did she get old?!), June 14th my niece is due so I'm pretty much calling June moot so that we can be available hehe, and July has bridal showers right before the girls' birthday. So yes, I'm crazy and already started designing birthday invitations :-)

Over the last few weeks the girls have really become little explorers, crawling and climbing on everything they can reach. Olivia scares me to death with her bravery--she just pulls herself up and then lets herself fall backwards--we've had a number of head boo-boos and I'm surprised she's managed to not incur a single bruise (she gets that from dad as I bruise when Dozer puts his paws on me!). These girls are a perfect combination of my stubbornness and Alex's fearlessness which is frightening and exciting all at the same time! They both are also getting teeth like crazy. They were sort of late bloomers with their teeth at 8 months (Alex was 2 months! I was 4 months) but they are certainly making up for lost time which has also made for some rough nights/days. Lu loves these mesh bags we put frozen fruit in and Emma loves a wet washcloth so we are trying to take it one day at a time.