It's Been a Big Week

This has been a big week for us! Yesterday we accepted an offer on our Louisville house, which freed us up to sign a contract on our new house here in Memphis. The girls started pulling up this week, and today they're 10 months old (10-month post to come soon - haven't been able to take pictures of them today, and now they're both napping!)! Also, Chris's family was in town this weekend - the first time all four siblings have been reunited since we were in the hospital and the twins were in the NICU! It has just been nonstop excitement around here, so I'm gonna get straight to the pictures today....

A Pamper's box = the girls' new favorite toy

This thing provides hours - HOURS - of entertainment!

Tamsie pulled up to her knees early this week and kept doing so for a few days, while Evie showed no interest in pulling up whatsoever. Then, out of the clear blue, Evie started pulling all the way up and standing! This, as you may recall, is pretty typical of how the two of them reach milestones. Here, she's the one standing, and Tamsie is on her knees.

The box has given them a good place to practice their crazy new pulling-up skillz.

It's also given them new ways to annoy each other.

But in general, they have LOTS of fun with the box! They've even been known to smile at the babies on the box and pat their faces!

It even comes with built-in doors to swing open. The possibilities are endless, y'all. Endless.

By the way, E is in yellow and T is in green.

It's their lemon-and-lime look.

It's always duck season around here, at least as far as Wubbanubs are concerned. And what is a Shelbified blog post without a few randomly wonkified sideways pics? 

Tamsie particularly enjoys pulling up on her gate (which is apparently pretty tasty, as demonstrated here), but when she gets to this position, she kind of freaks out because she doesn't know how to get down from here by herself. She does this at night, too, when we put her in her crib, until she finally wears herself out - which fortunately never takes too long. 

Who says girls can't wrestle?

Evie has had enough!

YaYa and Tamsie

More fun with the box, this time with their Daddy too

Evie's on the left, and Tamsie's on the right, probably beating on the box with her hand. They love beating on everything they can beat on these days.

And E's up!

Look out, world!

E climbs on top of the box...

She stands up with a little help from her dad... sounds suspiciously like a Beatles song...

Evie models a face of pride, accomplishment, exhaustion and silliness upon grabbing onto her gate!

Tamsie is now queen of the play yard...

... and Evie isn't happy about it!

"What now?"

We could only stay in the corporate apartment for two months, and now our time is up - so we're back at my parents' house until we can close on our new house! My parents have set up a room for the girls, which has turned into their makeshift nursery for now, featuring quilts from my college era, plus original artwork by yours truly. Teddy, who was my very favorite toy when I was little, lives on this bed. Evie has taken a special liking to old Teddy.

My parents bought this rocking chair to rock me in back in my baby days. That's an old picture of me on the wall, and that little ballerina doll was my sweet Grandma's back when she was little. The lovely Babies 'R' Us bag is one of the many we're living out of until we can finally bring this nomadic era of ours to a close.

Here's the other bed and a bear named Curly that Chris gave me back in our dating days. I love this room, because everything in it is meaningful. The beds are antiques from Gigi's family. My grandma painted the picture above the headboard a long time ago, and I drew that hand picture using my grandma's hand as a model back in college (I think it was in college anyway!). The crib is here until it can be moved into our new house. We have an extra baby mattress on this bed, because it is serving as our temporary changing table... that's why there's so much baby paraphernalia all over the place.

Pack 'n' play with a paci inside for Miss Evie to sleep in until her crib arrives from Louisville... this is what our life looks like right now!

Here's the picture my grandma painted while she was waiting on my mom to be born. It was in my mom's room when she was growing up.

And here is the hands picture I did that my Grandma modeled for.
("Have you ever done any hand modeling?" 10 points if you can name that TV show!)

Unclefest 2012 with the girls and Uncles Noah and Alex

These uncles are determined to spoil these girls rotten! 

Of course the girls are also crazy about their uncles!

Tamsie is potentially following in her grandpa's footsteps in the recording studio...

... but she's keeping her options open. She's also interested in playing piano like her mama!

It's a sibling spectacular: three bros and two sisses!

After a fun night with Carissa, Roy and Cliff, Evie made herself maximally comfy in her car seat for the ride home!

It's been a good week all around for us, and we are so happy to know that the girls will be able to celebrate their birthday in their new home!

SAHM Fashion and T&E's Latest Adventures

When I was in 6th grade and pitifully self-conscious, I broke my hand. Besides having to wear a cast and missing out on much of practice season leading up to piano competitions, perhaps the worst aspect of it all was that I had to shop at Target (horrors!) for a whole new wardrobe of button-up shirts that would fit over my enormous cast. This all went down in January, so any kind of normal shirt like a short-sleeve shirt or a sleeveless was out of the question. Fortunately for all, I had a few Limited Too button-up shirts in my wardrobe (because no matter how dorky it was, if it was from Ltd Too, it HAD to earn you some 6th-grade cool points, right? :), but everything else had to come straight from Target. To add insult to injury (literally), I had to wear button-up shirt after button-up shirt, day in and day out, until I was cast-free or the spring came. This was a big social setback in the mind of an already-awkward 6th grader. But thankfully, the sun had yet to set on the '90s grunge era (at least in Bartlett, TN), so button-up flannel shirts were shockingly considered semi-stylish at the time... but STILL. Every day. Yuck. Target. Double yuck!

Well, folks, I'm sure you all know that these days there's no shame in shopping at Target. Besides having such crazily popular partnerships with the likes of Missoni, they just have some good all-around stuff on occasion - particularly in their loungewear line, which has sort of become the staple of my SAHM wardrobe these days. What I'm wearing has to meet several criteria at the moment, ideally including the following:

- easily washable, because let's be honest - my clothes are constantly having close encounters with spit-up and baby food

- cute, because I don't want to feel like a complete bum

- totally comfortable, because I'm on the floor with babies so much of the time

- affordable, because I'd rather spend my little allotment of the clothes budget on cute stuff to wear out of the house

This may sound strange, but I didn't have many clothes that met this criteria when I started out my new SAHM career. I was coming from working all the time, and call me crazy, but for some reason I just don't want to hang out with T & E while donning a dress and heels. So Le Target has been coming in handy over the course of the past 8 months or so - particularly the clearance racks in the lounge wear department, where they put the stuff that was recently retired. You may have to look high and low, but you will probably find something worthwhile there for $8 or so! For example, I just found some fabulous yoga pants there with a foldover waist with a heart design on clearance. The next time I was at Target I found the exact same yoga pants, but this time with chevrons instead of hearts and at full price. I'm guessing they just got the memo that everything MUST HAVE CHEVRONS right now in order to be cool or sell or something, so they put the heart pants on clearance... which was fabulous for me, as I could take or leave chevrons! :)

Now if Target is just not posh enough for you, I'll have you know that I've also scored a fabulous top from Anthropologie (thank you, Big Mama Fashion Friday posts - I'd be lying if I said that's the only piece I've scored that I've discovered from her marvelous posts) that has met all of my criteria for SAHM-wear. I also have it on good authority that Lululemon is awesome.

On to hair. Babies LOVE to pull it. Especially T & E. Mom and I have decided that E in particular actually goes on expeditions to find pieces of hair specifically to pull. HARD. So if you're a SAHM of babies looking for some nice things to do with your hair, you're gonna need a whole arsenal of updos. And while the lovely hairstyle that I have long termed my "house hair" was actually a runway favorite last fall, if you're looking for something somewhat more outside-world-worthy, this is my new favorite (thank you Pinterest).

Shoes? Comfy socks mostly do, but if you're looking for something splurge-worthy that will actually support your feet while you're toting babies all over the house, I can't say enough amazing things about Acorn. And if you don't want to splurge, they have some impressive sales. But I don't think you really want to hear me gush about house shoes, so on to today's iPhone pics!

Shopaholics and stylistas-in-training Evie and Tamsie after a Babies 'R' Us trip, which is, without a doubt, one of their favorite kinds of trips to take

Evie must have been having one serious dream!

Check-up with the pediatrician, who declared that they're perfect! :) Praise the Lord! Notice that Mom is in tow again to help me shuttle them around. And that is the Anthro top I'm wearing, by the way, not that you can see much of it!

E: "What's so funny, Tams?"
By the way, two days after their pediatrician appointment, they went to see the pediatric ophthalmologist for a check-up (since they're preemies and all, in case you forgot - ha!), where they once again received a good report! We are so thankful to the Lord for protecting these little babes from so many things they could have easily had to deal with!

I was eating breakfast Saturday morning, and Tamsie was playing in her little play area. Somehow she burrowed her way under her Boppy and emerged with a huge grin.

Saturday night we went to visit our friends Kimberly and Justin, who are expecting TRIPLETS - three little boys!!!!! Kim is absolutely glowing, despite the fact that she's 21 weeks and homebound... and has been for three weeks now! By the way, those white pants? NOT a good idea to wear when playing with babies! They are currently coated in Shout and ready for some serious baby stains to be removed from them! In fact, I think my hand is where it is to cover up a huge baby stain they had just received!

After church on Sunday, Tamsie had fun hanging out with her Great-Grandma, who also thoroughly enjoyed some Tamsie time! I just love watching my Grandma with my T and E!

Meanwhile, at my Grandma's house, Evangelyn was enjoying some quality Grandpa time!

Whenever either of them sit up, they make their famous "turtle face." I was telling my buddy Jennifer about it while we were talking on the phone last night, and she asked for a picture. You would not believe how hard it is to capture a photo of the turtle face, but this was my best attempt! 

After resisting naptime all afternoon, the girls finally crashed at Target (ahhh, Target) last night, of all places... and in the midst of tax-free-weekend intensity, at that!

Evie fell asleep just a few minutes before Tamsie did.

We had a feeling that might happen - which is why we didn't put them in their stroller. We always make quite the spectacle going around stores like this. I mean it really is hilarious when I stop and think about it!

My dad took this photo of Evie while she was catching up on her reading at dinner last night! :)

Argh, another long post. Guess I shouldn't wait so long between them! Have a wonderful Monday, y'all! OH - and if you have any more SAHM fashion-related recommendations, please do share!