10 Month Pics

My mom noticed this before I did....I called to let her know I updated the pictures on our Picasa site last night to include the beach photos, but it also included Anna's 10 month picture.  She sent me an email today telling me to look at the two girls' 10 month pictures because they practically have the exact same facial expression.  Take a look for yourself:

Um, yikes?

Hilton Head!!

So I am FINALLY getting around to writing about our very first family vacation.....a whopping thirty minutes away from the house :)  Seriously, I think that was probably a good starter vacation for us.  I have zero clue how our friends Anne & Ryan did it with two children in tow, one being brand new.  They came all the way from TN!!

At any rate, we started off on Monday morning attempting to get 4 adults, 4 children and 1 dog out the door.  I think we started doing this around 7am when our two munchkins got up....and I think we were all 8 successfully at the beach house around 2pm.  Sad, I know.  It's utterly ridiculous just how much STUFF you "need" for a week at the beach. 

Once we were finally there, though, we had a great time!  It was nice that Carrie and Cora had each other to play with...until they both thought it would be great fun to bolt from the tent to the water without any warning.  Good times.  Seriously though, those two girls had so much fun in the water.  Later in the week Jerry got a boogie board for Carrie and she was riding waves by the end of the week!  She was such the little surfer girl, carrying around her boogie board with the leash attached to her wrist. 

Anna loved the beach and the water too.  She'd just crawl all around, eat a fistful of sand, and keep going.  She loved playing right at the edge of the waves and wasn't shy about letting you know how she felt about you picking her up out of the water. 

Lizzy came with us to the beach - thank goodness!!  That meant that we actually got to sneak in a few minutes here and there of actually being able to enjoy the beach.  And she babysat for Carrie, Cora & Anna one night so the adults and Greta went out to eat.  It was so nice to get some adult time with our friends without having to explain for the 5,000th time why someone couldn't go in the water alone :) 

All in all I think it was a great first attempt at a family vacation.  Perhaps next year we'll be a little more adventurous and go somewhere that takes a bit more planning....and perhaps not!!  I will post pictures to Picasa soon!

Family Photos!

I will soon blog about the adventure that was the Reeves Family Vacation 2010 to Hilton Head, but I had to go ahead and link over to Kate Carmack's website.  Her family lives near Jerry's parents and during the summer between her junior and senior year she babysat for us on a number of occasions for Carrie.  Unbeknownst to me, she took pictures of Carrie to practice what she loved - photography.  AMAZING pictures of Carrie.  When I saw them I immediately had her take some 2 year old pics of Carrie last year, and now she's taken more.  So far only Anna's pictures are up, but they are just so good....if I can say that about pictures of my own daughter.  I can't rave enough about Kate; she has clearly chosen a field that she loves and is great at. 

So take a peek and enjoy!! 

Reeves Family Dance Party

This is a new tradition in the Reeves' household, as in just started in the past week or so.  If I am recalling correctly it started when one night when Jerry was desperate to entertain Anna while I was bathing Carrie.  I come out of Carrie's room and hear Black Eyed Peas "Boom Boom Pow" blaring and my 9 month old be-bopping on Jerry's lap.  The kid was having such a great time.  So now it's been a nightly ritual:

Last night was no different.  Jerry was entertaining both girls while I was doing laundry or cleaning up or something....I went over to the kitchen table to see what they were listening to, and this is what I found:

Too much party for the littlest Reeves

Truly ridiculous...

I don't usually write about non-family stuff on here that often, but here goes....

I consider myself a fairly intelligent person.  Hell, Georgia Tech let me earn two degrees from there so I can't be half bad, can I?  I am also not a true tree hugger in every sense of the phrase. I do my part by recycling, being cognizant of electricity/water use, etc.....but I'm also the first to admit I refuse to switch to cloth diapers or the more environmentally friendly disposable ones because let's be honest here - my time can currently be better spent in ways other than washing out and sanitizing cloth diapers or cleaning up the messes that the environmentally friendly diapers can't contain.

So what is it about the oil spill and BP not being able to get it under control that I don't understand?  

I don't even live there and this is just pissing me off more and more every day.  I mean, it seems to me that prior to drilling for oil a mile below the ocean surface that they should have had a plan in place in case something like this happened.  And from my limited knowledge of the situation I understand that there was a part that was supposed to kick in and turn it off - but that malfunctioned?!  Where's the redundancy?  Then I got even more mad when I saw a link yesterday and one Jerry forwarded to me today that shows freaking video feed of the oil just gushing right out into the ocean.  If they can get live video feed why can't the fix the stupid leak? 

I am sure there's a reason that it's taking this long.  Probably not a good reason, but a reason nonetheless.  And I'm also sure there's tons of science to be considered when attempting to fix this without causing even more damage to the environment.  BUT COME ON PEOPLE. 

Of course, Jerry's using this as the perfect excuse to lobby for a Tesla...

Sibling Rivalry

I knew it was coming but I guess I didn't anticipate it to rear its ugly head so soon!  The interactions between Anna and Carrie are truly hilarious for the most part.  I am always catching Carrie saying stuff to Anna that we've said to her.  For example the other day she was pitching a toddler fit to end all toddler fits, so Jerry calmly removed her from the family room and put her in her room and told her that when she's ready to listen she can come out....well, the other day I'm cooking dinner and the girls were playing in Anna's room and I hear "You aren't listening to me!" from Carrie, then the door shuts.  Five seconds of silence then "Are you ready to listen now?"  I thought I was going to pee in my pants....

All of these funnies seem to happen when I'm trying to cook dinner.  I suppose that's a function of me having to turn my back for 2.8 seconds to do something.  Last night Carrie and Anna were playing in the kitchen with stuff while I was cooking, and Carrie happened to have some paper and crayons and was sitting in the floor happily writing letters and drawing bugs.  Anna was playing with some books but decided Carrie's paper looked way more entertaining so she crawled over and started yanking up pages.  Carrie didn't take kindly to this at all - "ANNA!  Stop messing up my paper!!"  She'd get up and relocate herself and start coloring again, only to have Anna keep following her to various parts of the kitchen and continue to screw with her stack of papers.  Anna was laughing the entire time, and Carrie was very obviously getting pissed.  "ANNA!  STOP FOLLOWING ME AND LEAVE MY PAPER ALONE!" 

I didn't have the heart to tell her that she'd better get used to this cause she's got a life full of this coming, and it's only just begun. 

And am I a bad mommy for thinking this was hilarious?

Bittersweet....

I am having a tough time with the idea that Carrie and Anna are so "grown up"....keep in mind they are only 3 and 9 months, people!!  I don't know what I'm going to do when they actually do hit some major milestones like graduation, wedding, etc....ugh. 

Carrie had her spring pictures made at school and they are ADORABLE.  They are also proof positive that she is no longer a baby....she's definitely a little girl.  I already knew this - heck, you should hear some of the conversations we have.  They are a riot and she makes me laugh every single day.  And she has opinions on EVERYTHING.  I even got an eye roll the other day - she asked me what we were having for dinner and when I said pork tenderloin she definitely rolled her eyes at me.  I suppose the eye rolling thing is genetic cause I'm pretty sure I shot my mother more than my fair share growing up (although not about what she was making for dinner - sorry Mom, I had to!)

Then there's Anna.  Ugh.  I feel like every day when I get home she's grown more and more.  She pulls up on everything in sight and refuses to sit still other than to eat, and even that's hit and miss sometimes.  I really think she'll be walking before she's one.  She does the whole "Mamamamamama" and "Dadadadadada" thing although I highly doubt she knows what that means.  My goal with her was to at least make it to 6 months with just breastmilk and I've far surpassed that.  I really didn't think I'd be able to given that I'm working outside the house 5 days a week this time around instead of 3 days a week like I did with Carrie, but amazingly enough I've been able to keep up with my little piglet.  Jerry said one day to me "You're almost to a year then you can stop!"  That's going to be a sad day for me....yes I'll be glad to get some more sleep in the mornings since I get up at 5am to pump before going to work, and I won't have to lug the pump to work with me anymore, but still.....

I think it's just getting to me because I'm 99.9% positive that we're done with the babies thing.  When you are a teenager you think life moves at a snail's pace and you just live to get to the next milestone.  Then when you have kids you start looking for the pause button and it's nowhere to be found. 

And now I think I'll step away from the computer since I have tears in my eyes while sitting at my desk during lunch :)