The boys loved having Aunt Tee read them their bedtime stories tonight. In fact, I think they liked her interpretation better. Hmm. She may be one of my best friends, but I don’t think I’m going to be inviting her over at bedtime any time soon.

(Kidding!)

(Mostly!)

(Unless she wants to change some diapers!)

Yes, it’s RETURN OF THE BATH PICTURES! Finally got a cute one of Miles. Well, I got a few, but this one’s my favorite.

The boys were napping in the car, and they woke up when I was parked outside the pub, waiting for George to bring me a diet coke. We got the boys up, but I don’t think they were *quite* awake yet.

Was going to try to learn to crochet, but decided to have a beer instead.

2 years and 9 months old! A departure from the usual sofa-bound monthly picture, but I’m happy with the way this one came out. Really happy.

A boy and his bug.

{Hey, I’m dropping like a brick in the rankings…gimme a click, will ya? It only takes a second!}

Every once in a while, I like to reminisce. I am kind of a digital packrat and love to go back and look at old pictures. (Okay, I’m a packrat in real life too. I’ll admit it.)

We’ll start off with October 2005 (Don’t have many pictures from September, as it was all Katrina evacuation time.) Here’s one of my goofier bridal portraits. Not the one hanging in my living room.

Now let’s go back to…September 2006! Oh, here’s a picture of my mom and my adorable, sweet niece, Ellie. Can you believe she just started kindergarten? Yeah, me neither.

September 2007…I was 20 weeks pregnant with the triplets, and I bought some of my first baby clothes. I didn’t know we were having boys, but I think maybe deep down I did know. These aren’t exactly girly…

Okay, now we’re getting into the more fun times..September 2008. The boys are nine months old. Okay, technically this is August 31. The boys are playing at my mom’s house with our friend Liam. What you can’t tell here is that the power is out. We had evacuated right into Hurricane Gustav’s path. Back at home, our power never even went out. Sigh.

Oh, this is fun! Last year at this time, I was with Miles in Virginia visiting my sister and my best friend. Here’s Miles holding a package of girl’s Yo Gabba Gabba underpants that I was suckered into buying. Because, well, it was kind of cute how fixated on them he was. My goodness, I can’t believe how young he looks!

And now September 2010. Oliver!

They had a sale, buy one get two free.

Well, today we had the second audition and I wasn’t hugely optimistic when we left. But when I saw an ad on Craigslist and Facebook, posted two hours after I left, looking for “16-24 month boy. Should be outgoing, friendly, trusting of others, enjoy meeting new people, good listener, slender build,” I knew it must not have gone well.

(I wish them all the best finding a kid that age who fits all those criteria. Why do I suspect these casting people do not have children of their own?)

Anyway, it was a fun experience. Maybe next time we’ll have more luck!

Miles gives them “the look”:

The boys made their first trip to the library tonight. Let’s just say they haven’t learned how to use their “inside voices” just yet. Thankfully, it was pretty empty so we didn’t get too many dirty looks.

We had the sofa bed pulled out in the playroom, and the boys had fun reading their Curious George books on it.

I just got a call from the casting company, wanting the boys to come back tomorrow morning for a second audition. Eeep! Apparently they’re auditioning little girls for the role of the big sister, and I suppose they want to see how the kids get along? Who knows, just wish us luck!

Oh, Linus did something really sweet yesterday. Miles was sitting in the middle row, and Linus was directly behind him. As we drove away from George’s parents’ house, Linus started freaking out, screaming and crying. (I know, real cute, eh?) When he finally calmed down enough to hear what he was saying, I realized he thought we left Miles back at Granny and Grandpa’s house. When we had Miles raise his hand so Linus could see it, he immediately calmed down.

Is that not the sweetest thing ever? Heart…melt.

Linus and Miles were trying on potential Halloween costumes here. Only problem is, there isn’t a great third costume for Oliver! Ah well, we have time.

Anyway, I like this picture because it looks like they’re having a conference.

I am entering the weekly I Heart Faces challenge again. This week the subject is Photojournalism. I’d say the story behind this picture is only known to the three goofballs in the chair, giggling over who-knows-what.

I cleaned up and organized the playroom this weekend, and the boys rediscovered some old puzzles. I put literally 75% of their toys in bins in the closet, and now they have just enough to play and not have every surface of the house covered in toys and pieces of toys. Ahhhhh….

George and the boys after the audition. We were waiting for the rain to slack off a bit so I could go get the van.

Okay, so perhaps the boys weren’t quite cut out to be models…so maybe movie stardom is their fate instead?

Yesterday was their first audition, for the film adaptation of On the Road. They’d be playing a little boy named Ray, son of the character Marylou, played by everyone’s favorite vampire-lover, Kristen Stewart.

So in spite of the day’s rain, we got to the casting office with a little time to spare. Tee, George and I read them their dinosaur books while other sets of twins hung out with their parents.

There was a set that looked about a year old, and a set that looked maybe the same age as the boys, and another set somewhere in between. It’s possible that I’m a tiny bit biased, but I think our boys were the cutest.  (But I suppose the other moms were thinking the same about their kids. I hope!) Also, we were the only ones who didn’t dress their kids exactly alike. The boys were wearing the same outfits, but in different colors. I wanted the casting people to be able to tell them apart, but then again, maybe they don’t want to be able to? Hmm. But I think I made the right decision, because they asked me which boy was which and I was able to tell them by color. What would the other parents have told them? “Oh, Bobby is the one with the slightly fuller cheeks”?

They were being a bit clingy, which worried me, but to my delight, when we were called into the audition room, they went willingly. George, Tee, and I had to wait outside of the actual filming room while the boys auditioned.

One of the casting people explained that in the scene they were casting, the little boy would be asleep on his Daddy’s chest, and then Mommy would pick him up and transfer him to his bed. Still sleeping. Still pretending to be asleep. Call me crazy, but they wanted one year olds to do this? The ad I responded to was looking for one year old twins, but I cannot imagine one year olds knowing how to pretend to be asleep. So I’m thinking their age will be an advantage here.

I know they were taking pictures of the boys, and getting them on film. I could hear them saying things like “hug your brother” and then a lot of “good job!”s, which is promising. I was so happy that no one cried or whined or anything. I was truly shocked that they willingly went into the room with the cameras, without me and George. Clearly, they are naturals. Heh.

After about ten minutes, the boys came out, and then one at a time, they went back into the room. I guess to see how they were on their own. Again, no tears or anything. Oliver did bust in while Linus was in the room, though. There might be a touch of codependency going on, but I thought it was kind of sweet.

And that was it, really. They said they’d know something by the end of the week, so now we just cross our fingers and hope for the best!

(And I do realize that if they don’t get it, it’s no big deal. It would just be fun if they did.)

"Look Mom, here’s how you set the DVR to record Backyardigans."

Linus being a stereotypical guy.

You know, I kind of feel like a fraud for posting about Katrina. We didn’t lose much, our house was mostly fine, and our lives pretty much got back to normal pretty quickly. But it’s hard to avoid thinking about it, so I may as well post something.

Let’s see. Five years ago, I was up to my eyeballs in wedding planning. Our wedding was scheduled for November 12, 2005.  I had my very first dress fitting scheduled for Saturday, August 27. I was insanely excited about it. I adored my wedding dress, and when George said I might need to reconsider driving an hour north to the dress shop when we should be getting ready to evacuate…well, I declined.

The thing is, on Friday night, no one thought much of Katrina. But there was a Saints game that night, so no one was watching the weather. No one except George (who hates football.) So he got up bright and early on Saturday to board up the windows, and I headed to my dress fitting. People were walking by the house as George nailed up the plywood, looking at him like he was nuts.

My plan was to go directly to my mom’s after that (an hour west of the dress fitting) for my sister’s friend’s baby shower. I loaded up the car with enough clothes for the weekend, and George was going to meet me at my mom’s later that day, after he was done with the house stuff.

By Saturday afternoon, people were starting to realize this was going to be a big deal. George barely managed to get Stinky (the cat) into her carrier, and thank god he did. We still thought we’d be home by Tuesday, so he considered just leaving her at the house with a ton of food and water.

To make a potentially very long story short, thirteen people, two dogs, a cat and a bird ended up staying at my mom’s house to ride out the storm. One friend didn’t know where her husband was. No one knew if their houses were flooded or destroyed. We ended up staying at my mom’s house for a few weeks, then we drove up to Washington DC to get away from it all for a while. Upon returning, George was all set to go back to our house, when Hurricane Rita hit, and the city was once again closed.

It was a frustrating time. Too many people in a house not meant to hold that many. Too many people in a city (Baton Rouge) not meant to hold that many. But we were so lucky. We did have to move our wedding from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, but no matter. It was beautiful and our friends and family were there. We went on an awesome honeymoon in England and Wales.

Anyway. Sorry for the nonsensical post.

Five years. Woo hoo.

I figured out how to get good, happy pictures of the boys. Tell them they can look at the picture of themselves on the back of the camera and then they’ll be all "CHEEEEEEESE!"

(This is Oliver, by the way.)