Well, another month has gone by and I have barely had a chance to BREATHE let alone sit down to write a blog post.  The last month has been a true trial of love and extreme patience.

First of all, the girls have been SICK SICK SICK.  They both had bronchiolitis, which if you remember from January, we are right back to the inhalers like we were with the RSV.  Luckily we have dodged stomach viruses (for now).  However, Emma had an ear infection 2 weeks ago, and now Janey is on the verge of one.  Oy.

We have also been trying to catch up with family and friends, as we have been literally imprisoned in our home for 2 months because of sicknesses.  Hershey was sick, I was sick, and the girls have been Sick.  Whew.  We are ready for a break.

Trying to keep the girls busy and entertained while they are sick is proving to be a challenge.  I mean, how do you explain to a one year old that they are sick and need to stay inside, warm and cozy, so that they don't get worse?  There's just no way.  So we've been using our imaginations...











As you can see by our beautiful sectional sofa behind them, Jane and Emma have started a climbing stint.  A couple of weeks ago, Jane went right over the arm of the sofa onto her head on the hard wood floor.  I think I lost a couple of years off of my life on that day, and now we have to find creative ways to keep them off of the couch.  I am now raising puppies. Hmpf.  

And just to prove that I am raising puppies, Daddy decided to keep the girls occupied one day while I was making lunch to keep them out of the oven, off of the couch, and out from under my feet.  The results were frightening...












As you can see, it all went downhill very quickly.

Last weekend, we got to see Hershey's sister and brother-in-law (the girls' godparents).  It was a much-needed visit with them, since we haven't seen them since the summer and we missed them so-so-much.  The girls have been getting quicker to warm up to people who they haven't seen in a while, so they had a great time playing with all of Hershey and Heather's old toys with their aunt and uncle and Grandma and "Papa".  Adorable.









Today and tomorrow, we have a much-needed break -- HOORAY FOR TEACHERS' CONVENTION!  Although, I don't know how much of a break it is for Hershey and I.  Hershey is sick (again), and the girls are in rare form.  This morning, we got up at 6:30, and I made them a BIG breakfast, which they proceeded to throw all over the dining room softball style.  They then fought and pushed and shoved each other for about half an hour, at which point I brought them upstairs and let them tear the bathroom apart so that I could shower.  Story hour came next, and when we got home, they fought and stood on chairs until I served them lunch, at their big girl table...

As you can tell by the fact that I'm posting a blog on a Saturday night, it's another disgusting exciting weekend here in the Groff household.  We are up to our eyeballs in snot and warm mist humidifiers.  

The good news is that the girls are still fever-free and eating everything in sight.  They are lapping up the apple juice, and learning new things in leaps in bounds.  Yesterday, I taught Janey how to say "More please" although it sounds more like "mo pa" which is fine, the message is coming across.  And today, we practiced blowing our noses!

Being a parent is hard.  Really hard.  But being a parent of multiples is impossible.  I mean for reals.

Saturday morning I woke up feeling good.  The girls slept a little (tiny) bit later than normal, and I was ready to make them a big, nummy, homemade breakfast.  I got out the eggs, broccoli, bacon, cheese, muffins, butter, milk and got to work.  And then the you-know-what hit the fan.

Jane was marching around and around in circles, throwing every toy she owns on the floor, climbing on the couch and trying to swan dive off, while Emma chased Hallie and put her in a choke hold, while screaming AHYAYAYAAAAA!  I tried to corral them as I put the bacon into the oven (on 425 degrees) and got the omelette going on the stove top.  I then chased the girls off of the couch for the 512th time and finished up with the omelette.  

This is when it got real.  As I turned to put the omelette on the counter and began cutting it up, I heard a loud CRASH and then hysterical crying.  Times two.  I fully expected to turn around to blood and burns, but instead found both girls, laying on their backs in the middle of the kitchen, with the oven door wide open.  I bent down and scooped them up to assess the damage, and looked up to see Hershey hurdling the baby gates at the bottom of the stairs to see WTF just went down.

Something that you never think of when baby-proofing a home is the handle on that useless drawer under your oven that just houses a graveyard of cookie sheets.  START THINKING ABOUT IT PEOPLE!

The girls had stepped up onto that at the same time and held on to the handle of the oven door to boost themselves up to see what was going on on the stove top.  Their combined weight brought the door crashing open, sending them sprawling to the ground.  Awesomesauce.

Hershey took both girls out of my shaking hands and I contemplated cracking a beer for the first time that day, and I looked at the clock to see it was 8:07 a.m.  Crappity.

Daddy brought the little twin tornadoes into the living room to get them out from under my feet.  They were in the living room no more than 15 seconds when I heard another BANG followed immediately by hysterics.  Hershey had turned to put Emma down on the ground and as he did that, Jane climbed onto the couch, and walked RIGHT OFF ONTO HER HEAD.  No blood, but she most def looked a little bit dazed.  In fact, I think I actually saw those little cartoon Tweety birds floating around her head.  Ugh.

The rest of the day was spent crying, not napping, and flinging toys all over the world, while pulling on our pant legs and wailing "UP! UP!" It was one for the books.

The final straw came at bed time.  I had bathed the twincesses and they were stomping back and forth between their two rooms, carrying their books around and planning their evening poop.  Emma was the first to let it fly, and as I laid on the floor in a puddle of my own drool, my beautiful little Emmy, with her little curls  bouncing, singing "uh ohhhh" in an adorable little singsong voice, sat down on the floor in front of her father and started PULLING POOP OUT OF HER DIAPER AND SMEARING IT ON THE RUG.

I freaked.

I grabbed Emma and whisked her into the bathroom, screaming at Hershey, "WHAT DO I DO WHAT DO I DO OH GOOOOOOOOODDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD?!?!?!?!??!?!"  Hershey, in turn, picked Janey up and followed us to the bathroom, where he stood in the doorway and laughed.  I sat Emma down on the counter of the sink (Why are you putting her on the sink when we have a perfectly good bathtub?) and started to run the hot water to warm it up, plunging her pudgy little feets into the water.  The water heated up too fast, and she flung her foot out, sending poop nuggets flying across the sink.  

I, in my infinite parental wisdom, just kept screaming "OH GOODDDDD OH GOOOOODDD EWWWWWWWWWW UGHHHHHHHHH BLUBRP!!!!!!!!" and poor little Emmy sat there with a horrified look on her face with her little nose crinkled up.

It was my lowest moment as a parent in the last 2 years.

The good news is, Sunday came.  And Sunday was WAY better than Saturday.  Sunday we woke up late, snuggled in bed, got dressed up for the big game, took three and a half hour naps, and were an overall pleasure to be around!

Ok, ok.  I owe you an apology.  A whole MONTH has gone by, and I haven't been able to get around to writing a blog post!  In my defense, we have friends who say that we are like skunks - disappear in the fall, all over the place all summer long - and it's totally true.  Shut your mouth about the smelly part....

This month has been pure insanity, guys, so THANK YOU, so much, to those of you who have stuck with us.  I've been trying to update Facebook and Instagram, but my cell phone keeps running out of storage and...well...life is what happens when you're out making plans.  And so it's gone.

We went back to school the first week of September, and the girls started day care at the same time.  They have been snot factories ever since, and after 2 doctor visits ($40 later), we have resigned ourselves to the fact that we will be covered in a thin film of slime from now until May, and then we'll be able to move on.



We also finished the mud room in our house.  After LOTS and lotsandlotsandlotsandlots of spackle, we painted the room and I even went a little Pinterest happy on the steps (see my love affair with home projects in my former post).  The really fun part about this project?  The part where we realized that the color that we bought was completely different than the color that we thought we were getting when we were 7/8 of the way done with the paint job.  Oy vey.  I had to hear a lot of "I TOLD YOU IT WAS PINK" talk (that's what you get when you send the color blind chick to the store, aka moi) as we re-painted and finished up with the CORRECT color.  Anything to get rid of the scratch up, nicked up, diarrhea color.

We have also had a couple of serious chatterboxes on our hands.  We are starting to have to really watch what we're saying around Jane and Emma, which, if you know teachers, is turning out to be harder than I could have ever imagined.  I swear, teachers are the biggest potty-mouths out there!  But the twincesses are repeating EVERYTHING now...









The great news about this past month was that I was able to sneak out for a little Mama's night out action with my BFF.  We went to see LUKE HOTTYPANTS BRYAN!  I'll pause to wait until you can see through the jealousy.  It was so much fun, and he was so good.  My mother-in-law came to help my hubs with the kids, and I was on the next train to the hottest cowboy around.  We met at a concert, and we haven't been to a concert together since before her daughter was born soooooo 5 years???!!!  CRAY!!!