Spring has Sprung in Nashville

It is a GORGEOUS day here in Nashville today. The temperature is in the upper 70's and the girls and I have spent most of the morning in our yard - playing baseball (new t-ball set given to them by Nana), helping mommy rake old leaves and get the patio ready for cookouts, playing basketball and just running around. We've had a BUSY morning. Here's a picture of the A's playing around one of our trees.



So we just finished lunch and are getting ready to take a nap. We plan on heading back outside after. Who knows what we'll get into. Hope everyone has a great day.

So much for being on top of things....

I can't believe it was February when I last posted on here!!!! I HAVE to get better at this, but - in my defense - we've had a crazy March. The first week was spent working on the massive consignment sale my twin/triplet group has each year. I not only sold in the sale, but am also the Treasurer of the group so I have a lot of responsibilities during that time. I also had three projects I was working on for my two part-time gigs that were all due within that next week.

Then - the fun part of the month - we went on a cruise!!! Ah yes - one of the wonderful benefits of being a "certified travel manager" is that I can get some KILLER deals on cruises. We sailed on Royal Caribbean's Jewel of the Seas to San Juan, St. Thomas, Antigua, St. Maartin and the Bahamas. It was a hard decision to make as we had not been away from the girls for that that long, but the timing was perfect and we haven't had a chance to get away for a husband/wife vacation for a VERY long time. We met some wonderful people on the cruise and had a relaxing time - it was great. And I actually have a bit of tan - not transparent anymore. Here's a picture:



The girls had a great time at Nana's (Chris' mom) while we were gone and didn't seem to mind us being away at all. One of my rationales about leaving the girls was remembering that I used to spend a week with each of my grandparents (Cincinnati and Jackson, Mississippi) during the summers and I had a BALL. I used to think that those weeks were something special my parents did for me. Now I'm starting to realize that maybe they just needed a break....hmmm....genious!

Now I have to insert a picture of the girls here as my family will revolt if I don't. Plus, that's what makes this website so cute. This one was taken by my Dad when he was staying with us before heading down to the Mississippi coast for Disaster Relief. See - they really do love each other. Anna is on the left/Ashlyn on the right.

It's been too long.

Has it really been that long since my last post? Crazy how time flies. Not necessarily when you are having fun, but having twins can have the same effect - ha!

Anyway, our girls looked so cute going to church this morning that we had to take a picture. They don't get to wear these beautiful coats their Nana gave them very often as it is not always that cold in Nashville, but we've had snow and temperatures below 32 degrees so the snow is sticking and Jack Frost has definitely been nipping at our noses.

This is Daddy with the girls. Ashlyn is on the left and Anna is on the right.

Enjoy and I promise to post again soon.

Birthday Bash

I can't believe our babies are 3 years old! My how time flies.

We had a big party last Saturday (January 28th) to celebrate the girls' 3rd birthday and fun was had by all (well - at least I think it was had by all - I didn't actually take a poll). All the grandparents were there as well as some friends - including another set of twins and our future son-in-law (children of a friend of mine from POTATO - Parents of Twins and Triplets Organization).

We had a Diego/Dora jungle/beach cake and I made individual cupcakes for the girls as Anna wanted a Diego cake and Ashlyn wanted a Baby Jaguar cake. I will have to say that they turned out pretty good considering I am no Martha Stewart.

Ashlyn is the top picture with the purple bow and Anna is the lower picture with the green bow.

Help - I'm trapped with two potty training toddlers!

This has been quite a week. Last week the decision was made to dedicate this week to potty training the girls - no short trips to the store, no story time at the library, basically no leaving the house. We were going to dedicate all our time to potty training - period!

It is always good to have dreams.....

The week started off as I had anticipated - lots of messes and much fussing about the messes, but the girls were thrilled with the fact that they could earn stickers for their Potty Posters. Anna actually went in the potty twice and Ashlyn went once. Well - that was the beginning of the end.

Ashlyn decided she wanted NO part of the potty and started "holding it" for several hours which brought back horrible memories of all the issues we had with her and her surgery in May. After the second day of her screaming at me because she was holding it and would not get near a potty I decided to call her pediatric urologist and our pediatrician. Anna was also holding it, but not for near as long and she was not as traumatized by the whole experience as Ashlyn was. I was basically insane after the end of the second day and there were many moments where I found my head in my oven, but after my husband drug me out of there I was fine (kinda).

The urologist and our pediatrician called back with the same advice - don't push Ashlyn any more, but continue with Anna as maybe that would make Ashlyn want to do it more (nothing like peer pressure). So that is what we have been doing. We introduced M & M's to the mix on the second day and that has been a REAL motivator. Since Anna gets one if she sits on the potty for 5 minutes (and she does a great job at sitting for LONG periods of time) then Ashlyn has been more willing to try out the potty sitting process. They get 5 M&M's if they use the bathroom on the potty and a huge parade occurs. Yes - I'm sure many of you are laughing at the thought of us marching around our house singing "Pee Pee" songs at the top of our lungs. I can live with that.

So we are now on day five of potty training boot camp and things are going okay - Anna is still doing a great job and we aren't pushing Ashlyn, but she is coming around. Wish us luck!

Tons of presents, but the styrofoam "bubbles" are the winner...

I have many more pictures to post, but I wanted to get something on the website since I haven't had a chance to lately. We all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year's. As you can see in this picture, we think the girls (Ashlyn in pink & Anna in blue) liked the little styrafoam packing bubbles better than the presents they got - isn't that always the way.....

We spent Christmas Eve with Papaw (Chris' Dad)& Mamaw Riggs, Uncle Travis and Jamie in McMinnville. We had a great time and the girls were on their best behavior. They must have known Santa was watching closely.

Christmas morning was spent at our house with Grandpa & Grandma Cook (my parents). That is when this picture was taken. They must have played with this stuff for about 15 minutes before we got them to move on with other presents - hysterical.

Nana (Chris' Mom), Pappy, Uncle Spencer and Grammy (Pappy's mom) came over later in the afternoon and we had our Christmas with them. We then ate a big meal and spent most of the time playing with the girls. Actually, Uncle Spencer spent most of the time teaching his brother Chris how to play with his new XBOX - not a small task.

The girls and I went to Pearl, Mississippi (near Jackson) the week after Christmas to spend time with my mother's parents (Mimi & Grandpa Ray to the girls) and my Uncle Steven & Aunt Teresa. That was a great trip as well and I will tell more about that in another post.

I plan on getting many more pictures on here as soon as I get them edited. I'm just glad I was able to finally download them all.

Happy New Year to everyone and God Bless!

At first I was afraid.....I was petrified.....

This post is all about me, but I am putting a picture of the girls on this one just to appease the grandparents (hee hee - Ashlyn is on the left and Anna is on the right - they wanted to take a walk a few weeks ago so I bundled them up and away we went). Anyway, about a week before Thanksgiving my twins & triplets organization (POTATO) had a special shopping event at the Toys R Us. The sale was just for us and there were discounts available and door prizes given away. I even sang Jingle Bells over the intercom system to get a $10 gift card (I have no shame). We had a good time and got some good deals.

Well, I received a call this past Sunday from the manager of the store. She said I had won a doorprize, but had not been back to pick it up. She said someone had tried to call but there was no answer. I told her we had an answering machine and she said whoever called must have dialed the wrong number. So I asked what I had won thinking it would be some sort of small toy as that was what I had seen given out that evening to others. She said, "No - this is a big one - you won a karaoke machine". I said, "wow - you mean one of the ones for the kids?" because I think those are great and I think the girls would enjoy it a little later on once they can read. She said, "No - this is one of the adult version - it is worth over $160.' I about flipped my lid! I was soooooo excited! I LOVE karaoke!!!! I just hope there are some great songs that come with it, like that classic karaoke song - I Will Survive! And all those those enter our house should expect to have to sing a song - get your vocal chords ready!

The Best Laid Plans

So my POTATO group (Parents of Twins & Triplets Organization) had "Breakfast with Santa" yesterday. We were so excited! This would actually be the girls' first encounter with "Santa" so we practiced during the week what we would do when we got to see Santa and sit on his lap. The practice sessions went VERY well - however - when the big day arrived Ashlyn wanted absolutely NOTHING to do with Santa. In fact, when they did the big announcement that Santa was coming into the building I had the camera all ready to capture their expressions when they saw him walk in. Well - Anna was thrilled to see him and waved at Santa with a big grin on her face. Ashlyn looked up from her breakfast plate, gave a very bored look in Santa's direction then went right back to eating. Hmmmm - not quite the reaction we were hoping for.

I got in line to see Santa and when it was close to our turn Anna came right to me all excited. Ashlyn had to be carried to me by Chris where she proceeded to have a hissy fit over the fact that she was going to have to see Santa. We didn't think that would end up being the best picture of Ashlyn (nor did we want her to inflict bodily harm on Santa) so we let her get back to her breakfast with Daddy and Anna and I waited our turn. As you can see in this picture, Anna did a fantastic job with Santa and was such a big girl.

Now if you just close your eyes for a second and then look at the picture again, you can pretend that it is Ashlyn too. I'm seriously thinking about delving deeper into my expertise at PhotoShop and seeing if I can just superimpose Ashlyn onto Santa's lap using her image from another picture....hmmmmm....we'll see.

Photo Shoot - Take One

Well - I don't want to give too much away regarding the girls' Christmas card pictures, but we had a first photo shoot this morning as they were in a pretty good mood and mommy thought it was worth a shot. We realize it will probably take MANY shots to get the one we want so we are trying to start early.

Anyway, they didn't do too bad other than wanting to see each and every picture on our digital camera after I took it, and there was one shot I thought I would go ahead and put on here as it was so sweet. Ashlyn is on the left and Anna is on the right. They can fight like cats and dogs one minute and then tell each other they love each other the next. Never a dull moment!

Where have all the days gone.....

I can't believe I haven't posted anything for so long. I'm so bad - and I was doing SO well there for a while. Anyway, let me catch you up on things.

The girls have been doing well until this week. We were supposed to travel to Maysville for Thanksgiving, but Ashlyn has caught a mild virus which prevented us from going. I'm actually typing this post on Thanksgiving day while Chris and Anna are at their Nana & Pappy's (Chris' mom and step-dad) house for Thanksgiving dinner (they live about an hour away) while me and Ashlyn are hanging out at our house waiting on leftovers - YUM! It is a bummer that we couldn't all travel together, but that's the way the ball bounces sometimes.

One exciting thing that happened recently was that my wonderful husband kidnapped me for my birthday last weekend and took me to Chattanooga. We dropped the girls off at Nana's and spent a fantastic weekend away from home which included a massage, pedicure and manicure for me - yeah! We came back on Saturday and Chris took me to see the new Harry Potter movie at the IMAX (yes - I'm a nerd and proud of it). Chris is not as big of a fan as I am (actually he could care less about Harry), so it was quite the sacrifice for him to take me.

We put up our Christmas decorations last weekend thinking we wouldn't be home this weekend to do so, but we are glad it is done. Now I just need to finish shopping and wrap the packages.

I've attached a cute picture of the girls playing in our back yard with their Pappy a couple weekends ago. Anna is in purple/Ashlyn is in pink.



Hope everyone has a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Halloween Pictures

Sorry for the delay...our computer likes to act crazy sometimes when it comes to downloading our pictures - darn that technology.

Anyway, here are our darling daughters as "pretty, pretty princesses". Anna is on the left and Ashlyn is on the right. They are actually Snow White dresses, but there was NO WAY they were going to let us put black wigs and tiara's on them. They had a ball trick-or-treating other than the first two houses had dogs which completely freaked them out (that's another topic for another day). We live in a pretty big subdivision so it was fun going to all the houses and seeing all the other costumes out there. Plus, our neighbors are Halloween freaks and they make a haunted yard out of their front yard. It is great to just sit in our front yard and watch the kids run out of there screaming their heads off. They are very respectful of those will real little kids which is good.

As a side note, Halloween is the anniversary of mine and Chris' first date - awwwwww - how sweet. We celebrated by picking through the girls' candy for our favorites - hee hee.

Visit to the North

This past week the girls and I have been in Northern Kentucky/Southern Ohio visiting friends and family. We had a wonderful time, but are glad to be home. Unfortunately Chris couldn't come with us as he couldn't take off that many days from work, but the girls are making up for lost time right now as I type this. They have talked non-stop to Daddy ever since he walked in the door today from work. They just can't get enough of him.

We didn't do anything real adventurous while we were gone other than going to the Cincinnati Zoo. Chris and I have fond childhood memories of the Zoo, so I was excited to get them there. We had a good time and my parents and I met my aunt, Sylvia, and cousin, Teresa, there. Unfortunately, the girls got tired a little sooner than we had hoped, but it was a good day none-the-less. Below is a picture of the girls in front of the elephant "house". They REALLY enjoyed the elephants, the Cat House (where the called ALL the cats "Baby Jaguar" from Dora/Diego), the lions, the bats and the giraffe.

Who Dey!

Yes - the beloved Cincinnati Bengals beat the Tennessee Titans today and we were at the game. In fact, it was a bit of a family affair. Papaw & Mamaw Riggs (Gary & Shirley) and Uncle Travis (Chris' brother) & his girlfriend Jamie were there too. Unfortunately (for them - ha ha) we didn't sit together - Chris and I were able to sit in his company's private box - yoo hoo! We were livin' large! Anyway, our friends watched the girls for us and when we got back we all ate Famous Dave's BBQ with the entire crew. Here are a few pictures....

Papaw Riggs with Ashlyn

Mamaw Riggs with Anna

The weather was FANTASTIC for the game - couldn't have asked for anything better. Now if those Bengals can just beat Pittsburgh! And Chris and I play each other in Fantasy Football so it could be an ugly weekend in the Riggs' household...

Our little bakers

This past weekend (after the pumpkin farm) we were going to have a few friends over to watch the Ohio State game. We were just going to have snack food and I had a brownie mix in the pantry, so decided to add that to our nutritious list of yummies. The girls have recently shown quite a bit of interest in helping mommy cook so I thought this might be the perfect time to get them more involved.

Well, as you can tell from the photo on the left, the girls LOVED helping mommy and were big fans of the brownie mix. It was quite comical. Anna (on the right) actually looks drunk from all the chocolate. They actually did pretty well and weren't too messy (of course, their daddy would say they were WAY messier than he would have liked - he's a bit of a neat freak). So we all had a good time and the brownies turned out great. They were even able to taste their creation. They got a big kick out of that.

Watch out Emeril! Here come the Riggs girls!

In Search of the Great Pumpkin

Yesterday (Saturday) we went to Gentry's Pumpkin Farm in Franklin, TN with our friends Amy & Nathan Abbott. This is our second visit to Gentry's as we went last year and had a great time. We went through a corn maze, fed goats (yes, our children who are afraid of a fly and dogs the size of rats were willing to feed goats), saw rabbits, chickens and turkeys, swung on a tire swing (pictured), slid down three different slides (multiple times) and tried to pick out a pumpkin. I write "tried" because they wanted to play with the little pumpkins, but kept wanting to put them back in the crates with the other pumpkins. They had no interest in bringing any of them home with us - hysterical. In all, it was a great day and they fell asleep about 5 minutes after we got back in the van.

Next weekend we get to go to a different pumpkin farm closer to our house. This one is for our POTATO group (Parents of Twins and Triplets Organization) so we will be sure to cause a raucous there.

Football Mania

Football is a word used daily at the Riggs household. This isn't really a shocker as I grew up with a football coach as a Dad and Chris has been a tried and true Bengals fan (Who Dey!) forever. So it is safe to assume that the entire Riggs family enjoys watching (and playing) football. Little did we know how much our girls would love the sport. They don't just like watching it - they want to play football - LOTS. In fact, we have just recently taught them how to recover a fumble - "Jump on it". It is a riot and quite the party trick. Anyway, this last Sunday the girls got into our Titans jerseys and put them on. Chris already had his new Bengals jersey on so we thought this would be a perfect photo moment. They are making their scary faces (like you couldn't tell).



Ashlyn is in the red Titans jersey and Anna is in the blue. What I find amusing is the fact that Anna still has her "Jesus loves me" stickers from church that morning on her hands while making that scary face....."Jesus loves me, but we're gonna kick your team's tail!"

If we ran the zoo....

The girls and I went to the Nashville Zoo for the first time yesterday. We met a couple other POTATO (Parents of Twins and Triplets) Moms there and had a great time. I wasn't able to take many pictures of the girls as it is hard to take pictures while chasing them down (they weren't too thrilled with the idea of being rolled around in the stroller), but I did get a couple. The first one is of the girls looking at the elephants. The elephants and the monkeys were the hit of the day for them. Ashlyn is looking at the camera and Anna is looking at the elephants. I still can't believe it was cool enough for them to wear jackets. It was a high of 68 degrees yesterday.



This picture below is after we had lunch. We were sitting in front of the monkey exhibit (Gibbons to be exact) so we could get a last look at the monkeys before we left. Anna is in the green shirt and Ashlyn is in the pink.



All-in-all it was a pretty good day. Amazing since all three of us had been up since 3:30am. No reason to be up at that hour - they just wanted to play - crazy! They took a quick power nap before we got to the zoo which helped, but I was dragging pretty hard by the time we left. We all took a good nap when we got home.

Sometimes you gotta laugh....

There are many things that the girls have done to make me shake my head and I can't think of them all right now, but one happened just about an hour ago that I had to share. We have been battling over naps lately. The girls are at that age when they really still need a nap, but don't want to take one. This causes the turmoil. Most of the time we put them in their room and they play - which is fine until the fighting starts which leads to crying which leads to more chaos at naptime. They'll actually stay in their room for over an hour at naptime without setting foot in the beds unless I come in to break them up. That's pretty funny too because the minute I open the door they bolt for the beds. They do the same thing at night.

Anyway - they were in their room for about 30 minutes this afternoon and I heard lots of laughing (very normal during this time and - hey - anything but crying is good at this point). We have a video monitor given to us when the girls were born that is wonderful, so I turned it on and saw what they were doing. Then I went in to take pictures.....Anna is in the green shirt and Ashlyn is in the pink one....


Yes - my lovely darlings had taken all their clothes out of the hamper and out of their drawers and were rolling around in them laughing their heads off. The photos don't actually do the room justice as there were stacks of clothes in the corners as well. This is one of those moments as a parent that you REALLY shouldn't laugh and try to have that stoic look on your face that shows disapproval, but I just smiled and told them they needed to help Mommy put everything away. They were good girls and helped me, but weren't too happy about it. Not too long after they finally went to sleep and I now have the opportunity to post this story and the pictures.

Sending out our Blog Site to everyone we know

Today we have sent out our blog site address to almost everyone in our address book. I'm excited to see what you all think. This site is SO much easier to update than the other site I had for the girls which makes me hope that I can keep it current better than I did before ( Let's face it - I was bad at updating that site). Anyway, we don't have a ton of pictures on here yet, but for now I thought I would attach a couple of the girls in July. These were before church so they weren't too dirty yet - ha. Anna is the picture on top in the lighter blue and Ashlyn is the picture on the bottom in the darker blue. I still can't believe how big they are getting!

The Resiliance of Children

Most of you know that Ashlyn had to have surgery last May. She had a megaureter which basically means the tube connecting the right kidney to the bladder was WAY too big. This caused a back-up of urine which resulted in REALLY bad urinary tract infections. So we decided on the surgery to fix this so she wouldn't continue to have these problems. Ashlyn had to have a few invasive procedures before the surgery and - due to complications with a stint - she had to endure multiple ER visits with even more invasive procedures. Our hearts literally ache for her, but now all is good. Today we had to take her in for what we hoped would be her last procedure involving catheterization. It was to make sure the new and improved ureter was working as it should. It was awful. She was petrified and all I could do was hold her hands, put my face against hers, repeat the Brown Bear, Brown Bear book and pray. I prayed it wouldn't be so scary for her. I prayed that it would be over quickly. I prayed that this whole experience wouldn't scar her for life. I prayed that her ureter was working as it should. I prayed for the strength to hold her hands and tell her it was going to be okay. She cried - I cried - and it was over within 20 minutes. The longest 20 minutes I've experienced for a while.

But all is good - very good. The results were positive - her new and improved ureter was working perfectly and she will soon be off the daily dose of antibiotics she's been taking. YEAH!

What's even more amazing is the fact that as soon as the procedure was over she was ready to go back into the waiting room and go play with her sister. She ran and jumped and sang and danced and caused havoc with her sister just like she had never had to undergo the procedure she just went through.

Amazing! God definitely works wonders. The picture is of Ashlyn this afternoon - the procedure was at 9:30am.