I have accumulated much blog material as I realize that is has been almost two months since I last posted a darn thing. Much has happened in that time, as I am sure you can imagine when there is an almost two-year old growing up like a weed in front of my very eyes. Scary almost! So I will have to give you a rather condensed version of the events:

First off, Lilli turns two next month. Crazy! Bob and I need to do a better job of documenting this time that we realize we will only too quickly forget. But we have had a lot on our minds. . .

We have had a terrible run of bad luck. Our car had to have two sets of repairs. Among the things that needed replacement or overhaul: the transmission, the rear brakes, the windshield, sparkplugs, battery, passenger door lock, rear taillights, transmission fluid clamps, etc. PLUS we had to do much routine maintenance. This was a different car than the one that was recently stolen and replaced by a Nissan. The Nissan had to have its windshield fixed too. Our stupid dog had yet another surgery after getting into it with the Rottweiler next door. This involved a drain in his flank that dripped blood and pus all over our house for a week. Our computer broke and was out for a week. We all got the stomach flu. Right after having respiratory colds.

And did I mention I'm pregnant with twins?! Which leads me to my next subject: how darn tiring it is to be pregnant with twins and have a toddler at the same time. I'm currently 23 weeks pregnant but equivalent to the size of a seven month singleton pregnancy. Which means I still have FIFTEEN weeks to go, and I'm only going to get bigger as time goes on. I wonder how it is going to be physically possible. I feel just as big now as I ever was with Lilli. All this makes me really admire those women who manage to carry triplets, and even more dear Lord! Oh, but in exciting news, we found out we are having a boy and a girl which is nice. That way, we have a nice gender ratio but I get to reuse all those frilly girl clothes I splurged on with Lilli. Shopping guilt be gone!

Also, as I've blogged before, I tend to be somewhat of a worrier. This means I am worrying about the pregnancy constantly and generally being a little stress monkey about all the things we have to get done before the babies get here and THEN what the heck are we going to do? Of course, I worry about how this is all going to affect Lilli as well (scarred for life!?) but I was slightly reassured when the other family babies came up a few weeks ago for a visit and Lilli really enjoyed having them around. (See pictures below.) She gave Yoha lots of hugs and loved to sit next to Eloise and just look at her. Her verdict? "I like Eloise." Hurrah!

Of course I've saved the best for last: the evolution of Lilli's cuteness. When she was just a little larva I dreamed about what it would be like when she could walk and talk and would have a little personality. Well, I've gotten just what I wished for. She has personality in ABUNDANCE and I really can't get her to stop talking. It's so much fun to have a conversation with her. She makes sense most of the time even and has been using really good full sentences for the last month or so. She is also very bossy. Every morning she wakes up, comes to my bed and tells me, "mama! get up! change my diaper! There's a poopy in there! And eat lunch! Eat lunch NOW!"

Her favorite question these days is "What's that, Mama?" as she wants to know the name for EVERYTHING. This is cute but can get wearing. Sometimes I don't know the name for a particular thing. Sometimes the things she remembers makes me laugh really hard. She has an animal magazine with lots of exotic animals. She always wants to know their names. I taught her "Tasmanian Devil" and then she scared me when I heard her yelling from the other room "the devil! the devil!" Of course, there she was, cute as can be, reading that magazine on the couch.

And she loves to sing songs. The ABC's are almost complete now and she can sing parts of a bunch of songs she likes, especially those of a Wiggle nature. She also knows a couple of Japanese songs, and I was particularly amused one morning when, with her hand down my shirt, she changed "hachi ga tobu" which means "the bee is flying" to "I touchee mama's boob." Genius!

I could probably go on and on but I will HONESTLY try to update more often so that I don't have so much material saved up to bore you with. I realize that this entry has also been rather disconnected, but again, hopefully less information will lead to more cohesion in future entries. Thanks for caring enough to read this far! And Happy Halloween!