More Spring Fun

Enjoy some new videos of Hope and Grace this spring!

May 2009

The girls continue to grow and amaze us each and every day. Aside from a couple of colds and ear infections here and there, the girls have remained healthy and happy throughout the month of May. Right now they are crawling rapidly and enjoy pulling themselves up on everything they can (stable or not!)

Enjoy their springy pics!















Our first bike ride with Mommy!















Hope enjoying playing catch with Daddy and her giant baseball. Hmmm... does the crystal ball foresee softball pitcher in the future????















Gracie enjoying playing with her "Little People School House" toy. She loves her "little people."















The Piper Girls enjoy some Memorial Day weekend fun helping Mommy plant the flowers in the front yard.

Fun Spring Pics

Hope stands in her "Pack 'N Play"

Hope sports a mowhawk in her new 'big girl' tub.

Gracie is relaxin' in the 'big girl tub.'

Gracie stands at her piano... future keyboardest/piano player in the making.

The Hopester is coming to get you!!!

Hope and Grace's Big Birthday Weekend and More!

Hope and Grace are decked out in their Brewers garb with their daddy, as he gets ready to attend the Brewers home opener (4/10/09).

It's cake eating time! (4/11/09)

Hope enjoys her cupcake. Gracie fell asleep eating hers.

Gracie enjoyed playing with her new friends in her pretty party dress.

Gracie also looks stylish in her new shades she got as a present.

Easter Sunday @ St. C's (4/12/09)

Hope in purple and Gracie in orange after Easter brunch.

Easter basket time!

Gracie enjoys shaking her egg with a "Little Person" in it.

Hope tries to eat her plastic egg (right now everything is 'tasty' for the Hopester.

Gracie shows off her new skills, pulling up at Granny and Grandad's house.

Daddy's Spring Break

We love sitting together and playing with our plush blocks


Hope is aspiring to be an indie rock star (or so her daddy thinks) as she plays her piano in her "Decemberists onesie" (her first "concert t-shirt")


Mommy loves reading to her girls. They enjoy this evening's tale, Horton Hears A Who


Gracie Girl loves crawling around and is happy to smile for the camera.


I have been blessed to be on spring break over the past two weeks and have been enjoying "Daddy Leave Version 2.0" with the girls. This has been a more exhausting version of "Daddy Leave" as the girls are much more active than they were in November/December and currently enjoy spending most of their day being "busy." They like to crawl around (which they both improve on a little bit each day), bounce in their "Exercauser" and "Jumparoo," play with their toys, and eat what seems to be copious amounts of solid foods (they are now nursing twice a day, taking one 8 oz. bottle, and eating three meals of solid foods, which consists of cereal mixed with fruit, meat, and/or veggies and is consumed at rapid speeds by our daughters). "The cold-that-never-ends" (which began at the beginning of February) still lingers, but the positives of the girls being "up and at 'em" far outweigh the morning congestion, fights betweent he girls and the infamous "booger snatcher," and the nebulizer treatments the girls receive daily. All in all, our girls seem to be doing very well and are right on track developmentally for their adjusted age.

The truth be told, however, Jeni and I cannot help but feel a bit anxious and overwhelemed as we look back on where we were a year ago. In fact, it was exactly one year ago today that Jeni entered in-patient care in the antepartum unit at St. Joe's. What a scary, worrisome time that was for us, our extended families and friends. A year later, we watched with joy as Grace and Hope crawled around on their mat and tried to pull themselves up on their drums and bouncy seats. It is amazing what happens what seems like so little time!

We are looking forward to the girls turing one in just a few short weeks. What a year this has been to say the least!

March Madness 2009

It is hard to believe that it was just a year ago when Jeni and I sat in our basement watching college basketball games as a distraction to her going into the hospital. Fast forward to now, and we have so much to be thankful for.

Our girls have been battling a couple of colds and an ear infection (for Hope). It has been a series of several long days and nights over the past six weeks, but, the girls seems to be rebounding as best as they can, and developmentally seem on track for their adjusted age. Grace and Hope love to try to crawl. Truth be told, they are maybe able to make two or three steps forward in a row these days, but our positive enouragement eggs them on and they continue to amaze us with their cheerful demmeanor and silly banter. Hope, in particular, seems to be the talkative one, babbling to me, Jeni, and anyone else she happens to encounter throughtout the day. Enjoy the pictures of the girls getting older.


Hope begins to pull up!

We love practicing crawling!

Remembering a Year Ago...

Hope and Grace on New Year's Eve in their "party dresses."

The girls LOVE their Taggie Blankets .


"Smile, Laugh, & Dream All Day"

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you probably have noticed that the writing/content posting has fallen off a bit... ok, A LOT! To be completely honest, as the girls have gotten older, we spend more time with them, and often times after they go down to sleep at night, our collective creative energy is sapped out of us, or is devoted to other areas like school. I also will admit, (I'm blushing as I write this) that I fell victim to another Web 2.0 tool called "Facebook" and have been caught up in the web of reconnecting with former high school and college friends and laughing at silly stuff on there (at times to my wife's chagrin).

Today, however, made me really think about a lot of things, as it was exactly one year ago today that the brilliant perinatologist with the personality of a two-year-old-stale Twinkie, said to Jeni, in his monotone voice, "there is a 50/50 chance that you'll deliver these babies." That image in my mind is contrasted with the images from this evening of Hope and Grace emitting huge belly laughs as Jeni engaged them in "tickle time," Hope sitting on her own for about a minute (granted she doesn't pull herself up quite yet, but is close) and me, here, writing this blog with my dress shirt covered with remnants of bananas, pears, sweet potatoes and rice cereal that were flung at me as the girls tried to grab their own spoons during their evening feeding of solids. So much happens in a year!

The girls also weathered their first cold this week. Both of them were congested and had drippy noses, but smiled and laughed their way through it anyway. Granted, they gave their beloved mommy their cold in the process, but the good news is that they have immune systems that work and that a little cold does not necessarily translate to a plethora of doctor visits and a return to the hospital.

All on all, it's been a roller coaster of a year... a year that I will never forget and a year that has left certain scars in its wake. There are certain things I still haven't been able to do... like read the story, "Goodnight Moon" or finish writing the girls' birth story (although I hope to accomplish this task by April). But there are other worries that I've had that have gone away, almost completely. The girls are currently in Daycare at my school and I get to visit them during my prep period every day. Their caregivers are wonderful and the girls are doing great. A little sniffle and a need to get out the bulb syringe (aka "The Booger Snatcher") is not a cause of great concern. The girls went back to St. Joe's for their "Stepping Stones" follow up appointment and we were told they are right on target given their adjusted birth age. They are small in size, but as my favorite Star Wars character, Yoda, taught us, "size matters not." The good news is they are growing at a good rate and are acting like healthy babies.

All and all, this past year has taught me an invaluable lesson, that Love triumphs over Fear and that we all need Hope and Grace in our lives. Our girls are certainly living up to their names!