This is for you, Amy S.!

While searching for new footie sleepers for the growing Babies, I came across a cute little number with tons of Frogs on it. (Gotta love the "Once Upon a Child" store or else I would be in the poor house buying clothing for these two munchkins ! :-)

Anyways, here are some new pics of Joel and Aron, Alyssa and Aunt Marlene H., and just Alyssa, plain and small. :-)

Figured it out...

I finally remembered what Aron's picture reminded me of. With Alyssa looking like a long-lost relative of the Delouise family, Aron appears to be a relative of Ollie Williams from "Family Guy" or the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man from "Ghostbusters." At least he has not turned into a Stewie yet....

Amypest's Pumpkin Patch

HAPPY HALLOWEEN from the Halloweenies!

It is almost Halloween, and I found a couple of pumpkins out in my yard. They are big pumpkins, weighing 13 lbs 4 oz and 12 lbs 4 oz. I have not found any rotten spots on them yet so they should be nice and orange for a long time after Halloween. :-)

I also made a startling discovery last night. Alyssa and Aron have a long lost older brother that has been recently discovered. The resemblance is quite scary and we only discovered this sibling after this revealing photo was taken.

"Keep firing...."

"I said across his nose, not up it!!"

Normally I try to put up pictures of each twin or at least one of them together but this picture was so wrong, I had to put it up separately.

This is a picture of Aron acting out a scene from "Spaceballs: The Movie." At the time we took the picture, he was slightly cross-eyed. Hence the title, "Keep firing, a&*holes!"

Two Fools...

While the kids are at rest, the mommy will play.

Here are some more pictures of the Babies. I am slowly transitioning the images from the former Amy's Baby Pest website. It will take some time but it will all get here eventually.

The Spongebob image is pasted because it was the theme of the old page, which was the entire Two Fools idea. Plus it is cute as well.

The first image is the babies stealing my seat. Go figure, as if sleep and resources was not enough, they got to take my seat as well! :-)

The second image was when I had put Aron next to Alyssa in the crib and turned away to do something. When I turned back, he had struck a pose almost exactly like Alyssa. Weird, huh?

The last image is where they are on the activity mat (Thanks Bic!) and Aron is staring off to the right side with his tongue sticking out. Apparently, this is normal that he is discovering his tongue so he will often make weird faces with his mouth. Looks weird but so funny all at the same time. :-)



Once again, I am off and running. The bosses are calling my name... (well, not really calling my name, although Alyssa's "Guh" does sound like "Muh" at times...)

More Pictures of A2!

Hello again! Momma and A2 are back and posting more stuff.

And now on with the show...

The next two pictures are from the Mount Carmel St. Ann's NICU shortly after everyone was off of monitors and placed in open-air cribs, which is a very good step in the right direction. Immediately after being placed together in a single crib, the Twins started smacking the crap out of each other. I guess they did not get to do that enough inside, or Alyssa wanted to express her displeasure about being born six weeks early. And this double-hold that you see in these pictures is somewhat impossible now. They are both over ten pounds with Aron visibly being the larger! Bricks!

The rest of these pictures are from various points in time from the past six weeks. They are in date order, and you can really see a big change from the ones above. Right now, I am only putting up three but there are more to follow.

The babies have developed fat rolls, and are even beginning to show the desire to roll over. They are awake more and beginning to smile more. Alyssa will crack a smile with little encouragement, while Aron needs some help to smile. He does smile but just not as much as sister yet. However, they both smile widley when they are doing a stinky patrol. (Just for a reference, that is actually my left hand supporting Aron's head in the first following picture. His head was so small at the time this photo was taken that it could fit in the palm of my hand.)




That is it for now. I must run and get some things done since they are both sleeping because we all know that quiet baby time is time to do other things around the house. (Like clean, shower, SLEEP!)

Hello World! Meet A2!

Joel and Amanda would like to announce the birth of...

KIDNEY BEAN (Aron James, 7/26/2005 at 648p)

and

PEANUT (Alyssa Marie, 7/26/2005 at 650p)

A little about the names:

Neither of the babies' first names were fashioned after anybody specific. The middle names are more than just coincidence. Alyssa's middle name is somewhat a family name, with her great-grandmother's first name being Marie. This name shows up in both her daughters as well as her grandchildren, and now in her great-grandchildren. I guess it is sort of a tradition in the Bammerlin line.

The middle name for Aron is indicative of something more. The spelling of Aron is to make it unique, however I found a few parents on the St. Ann's on-line nursery spelled the same way. His middle name, James, is meant to remember a very kind individual who was a very good friend of the Volk family. While it has been more than ten years, this person has been in my thoughts on many occasions (and Superbowls). To this day, I can not pass by shrimp in any form without thinking of him. He was taken from those he cared for way too early. The best way that I could honor him was to include his name in my son's. After checking with my father to make sure that this would would not offend him or the memory of Aron's namesake, Joel and I decided to name Aron's middle name after the late James Monhart. (Well, this was my reason for wanting his middle name to be James. Joel will say it was because it sounded good with Aron! :-) It is the least that I could do for one of the most wonderful teachers that I have ever had the privilege to know and a great family friend. I know that not too many people remember him nowadays, and this is the best way that I could honor him. My only regret is that he was not here to meet them. We miss you a lot, Mr. Monhart.

And now on with the real stuff...

This picture is of me at just shy of 34 weeks and three days before I delivered on 7/26/05. I had reached critical mass in both weight and girth, and had hit at least duce and a half (250 lbs). The shirt, which was 2XL and belonged to the Hubby, says, "Beer gut under construction," and I was lucky to have pants to wear as those were getting quite tight. 3x was NOT big enough for the Pesters...

I will post more pictures as I have the time. Right now, I am being paged by a little mewing sound that is Alyssa! :-)