Hurricane Recovery

The kids hardly missed a step in the days after old Hurricane Ike passed. Kate even got a little incisor tooth, which Charlie followed with his own, on exactly the opposite side! Their teeth always come in the same order, on opposite sides. Other firsts include: Charlie sat up on his own, and Kate learned to crawl. Now they're both crawling, although Kate is much more efficient -Charlie's arms tend to give out more. Kate has yet to sit up on her own. We're still working on that. Both kiddos have been seen attempting to pull up on the activity block that we bought for Brent's office and then brought home... so Brent lowered the mattresses in the cribs this weekend.
Oh yeah, they're 9 months old now, and I can't believe it!

Kate finally learned to feed herself toast!


I figured since the house was already a mess, I might as well let them feed themselves a bowl full of carrot puree.
They loved breaking the suction from the bottom of the bowl and pouring it down their onesies... super.
And Jimmy Dean had a yummy snack of carrot puree a la tile.




Everytime I turned around, the kids had extension chords wrapped around them or in their mouths! I don't miss that. Turns out that even babies miss electricity... no Sesame Street or Baby Einstein.




The babies love to play with the activity block. Kate plays peek-a-boo.




Katie crawls:


Charlie pulls up:


Kate and Jimmy take a nap.

I Don't Like Ike

So I don't really have anything to complain about, since a house didn't land on us or anything. We lost a 75 ft+ pine tree in the backyard, though. It just happened to blow down the opposite direction of the house at about 7am as the eye passed. Brent and my brother-in-law, Dennis, happened to be looking out the windows when the taproot snapped in the wind. If it had snapped before the eye passed, it would have most likely landed on the house. Instead, it fell into the crook of a Y-shaped pine, and it ended up costing us some money to get it removed. Oh well, the house was safe, and so were we. Amy, Dennis, the girls, Henry the Dog, and Salty the Cat came over to stay with us during the storm. They, too, have large trees in addition to an older home. It turned out that they had less damage and electricity sooner than we did! I ended up taking the kids to their house for a few days about a week later. The heat was just unbearable. A cold front that blew in right after the hurricane saved our behinds. We had cool weather for almost a week. Beyond that our generator was much appreciated. Do not live along the coast without one. I feel for those without. At least we had access to our dishwasher, washing machine, and most importantly, our portable a/c and fan. We missed our phones for a few days and our power until Friday, Sept 26th at 3pm. 2 weeks is a long time without power. Thank you, Centerpoint.

Waiting for the hurricane to come... it was many hours of anticipation, since Ike only traveled 8mph! The day of the hurricane was a beautiful blue-skies kind of day.


Things get just plain silly. Brent gets just plain silly.


After the Eye:










The tree looked ominous at night:


Our beloved generator and a/c vent:


Eating out of cans and bags (in the dark) gets old....