Your eyes aren't playing tricks on you...

...that's right, I actually updated this lonely, little blog. I really don't love blogging...which probably doesn't come as a surprise since I just took a 3 month break. I can't promise another 3 month break isn't in store after this post, but (I think) I'm going to to make a little more effort to post slightly more often. We'll see what comes of it! 

I have a million pictures of Benjamin, Oliver and Zoe sitting on my laptop, external hard drive and on my camera. There's no way I can go back over 3 months and catch up (the very thought makes me want to shut this blog down altogether) so I'm just going to pick up on life happening now. 

What did you miss in 3 months? Well, a visit from Coco and Brittni, visits from Poppa and Goon and lots of bounce house fun for Benjamin, Easter and a failed family picture (everyone was crying and looking away), a trip to San Antonio to visit the river walk and Sea World, the babies' dedication at church, Mother's Day, a day trip to a friends' parents lake house where Benjamin ate ribs for the first time (seriously that's a big event), Matt's birthday, our anniversary... I think that sums up life over the last 3 months. If you're on Facebook or Instagram, you've probably seen at least a glimpse of all of those happenings. 

A little update on the babies since I last posted:

The babies, well, they're awesome. They're 7 months old! They sleep through the night (11 hours usually) and have been since 4.5 months. They take predictable naps (usually around an hour and a half in the morning and then close to 2 hours in the afternoon) and are ready for bottles at a predictable hours. They've started eating solids and Oliver loves them while Zoe is incredibly hard to feed. 

Oliver is crawling (in his own way, but the boy is super mobile so call it what you want) and can easily move from laying down to a sitting position on his own. He has 2 bottom teeth, one top middle tooth that just came through a few days ago and another one that we can see right underneath the surface of his gums...which makes for a fussy baby unless he's being held. He is the most smiley baby I've ever come across and it is incredibly easy to make him laugh. We can't get enough of our sweet, happy baby boy. Zoe is the most laid back and content baby - at least compared to how Benjamin was as a baby and compared to Oliver now. She hardly fusses (only when she's REALLY hungry or if she falls back from a sitting position) and doesn't need to be held very often. Of course, we still pick up our little sweetie pie all the time, but she's happy either way. She's definitely a pacifier baby and has mastered putting it back into her own mouth on the rare occasion that she spits it out. She's a chubby, little thing...she's the more "petite" version of big brother Benjamin complete with the same rolls he had as a baby. She was slow to roll over and just started doing it at 6 months....but once she started, she figured it out (tummy to back and back to tummy) all within in a day. Baby girl just takes her time on everything which is fine with us... they're our last babies and we want to cherish having them at this stage! She's not yet crawling nor is she really trying to, but it doesn't worry us at all. Like everything else she's done, she'll probably just try it one day in a month or two and have it all figured out at once. Unlike Oliver, she doesn't have any teeth yet and we don't see signs of any coming either. We adore our baby girl! 

Benjamin makes us laugh pretty much all day, every day. He is shy around other people, but SUCH a little ham around us. He is still quite reserved and timid and really thinks through every move he makes. He's not flying down slides or climbing on tables like a lot of boys his age and that's something we're actually really thankful for since our hands are so full. The kid is smart! He knows the entire alphabet by sight...just the other day we were coming out of a store in the mall and he saw Foot Locker ahead of us and he read every single letter in the sign to me from left to right. Not bad for 2.5! He knows his animals too and has amazed many people when he gets beyond the basics of elephant and monkey and shouts out "orca!" or "hippopotamus" (though the pronunciation isn't correct of course) or "flamingo." 

Last week we decided to break out the finger paints. Per usual, he was a little unsure about it at first and would only dip 1-2 fingers in at a time. A few minutes later, he discovered the fun that could be had in dipping his entire hand in the paint and smearing it not only on the paper, but on his body too. That was a blast to clean up ;) 

Well, until next time! (however long that may be...)