A Few Funny Frames

Luke and Zach (and the rest of us) finally made it to six months! I can't believe it. There were many, many, many times I didn't think this would ever happen. For now, they are still in the same crib, but so much for the pillow that keeps them on "their" side of the bed! They also just had their six month check up. Luke is a hefty 18lbs 1 oz and Zach came in at 16lbs 5 oz, so they are still just about two pounds apart; they are both 28 1/4 inches long.

For the most part, we are all surviving, although everybody but me has had the flu in the last two weeks. Other bits of news include Luke and Zach's first "meal" consisting of homemade rice cereal and bananas. Ymmm.

Luke loves to be on his tummy and I love the way he rests his head like this when he gets tired of holding it up. It is so adorable!

This was just funny because Brooke loved her balloon so much she couldn't bear the thought of not sleeping with it.

And lastly, this was one of the funnest days on record. Josh is out in the hail, and although you can't see her in this picture, Brooke was out playing in it too. This was such a crazy weather day because it was sunny, rainy and then it hailed and then it was sunny again. The kids had so much fun getting their rain gear on and playing in the hail, and of course for anyone who knows Brooke, she had to eat it too.

Shoe Tied?

She did it, all by herself! About a week ago Brooke came up to me and asked me how to tie her shoes. So I showed her . . . once . . . and then she did it! It was amazing!

Here is the finished product. It looks so good!

Josh thought it was so cool that I have now been demoted and Brooke has been promoted to the only acceptable shoe tie-er in the house (not that I mind),

and yet again, she did a terrific job.

Costumes

These are my little candy corns. Although they are happy in the picture, Zach HATED his hat. I'm still amazed that we got even one good picture with it on!

Luke is above and Zach below.

Brooke, who always a ham for the camera now days, is Tinkerbell ( her wings aren't on yet), and Josh is a dragon. Sadly though, Josh had a pretty high fever on Halloween, so he only went to a few houses, and then we called it a night for him. However, the nice thing about young children is that Brooke felt so bad for him, she gave him well over half of her stash. It melted my heart to see her be so loving, generous and sensitive to her brother's feelings!

Jack-o-lanterns

The Pumkin Patch

I did it! I managed, with the help of a friend, to get all of the kids to the pumpkin patch this year. Brooke and Josh were going for their preschool, and the wanted the parents there as well. I can only imagine what it would have been like for the teacher if it was just her and both of her classes at the pumpkin patch, all by herself . . . a total nightmare! So I loaded us all up and off we went. Brooke and Josh had a blast. Can you see the pathetic pumpkin they give out!?! It was more of a hassle to hang on to than it was worth!

Brooke picked the pumpkin without a stem, she seemed to think that made it cuter!

Here are the boys just hanging out. They really did very well. The ended up staying awake almost an hour longer than they normally prefer, but since there was so much going on, they didn't seem to mind, and handled themselves quite nicely.

This is both classes. A class for four year olds, and one for three year olds.

Oh the humor of it

I just finished reading Oliver, and so I borrowed the musical from the library, and it has the greatest line. Fagin is singing and thinking about his situation in life when he says,

Can a villian be a villian all his life?
All the trials and tribulations,
Better settle down and get myself a wife.

Good thinking right? Well then he says,

And a wife would cook and sew for me
and come for me and go for me
And go for me and nag at me
the fingers she would wag at me
The money she would take from me
a misery she'd make of me . . . .
I think I'd better think it out again!

I just had to laugh. I think it's one of the funniest lines in the whole movie. I had to watch it and rewatch it a dozen times; I couldn't get enough. Clearly he doesn't have a gospel perspective!

They are GROWING!!

I really can't believe it, mostly because I never thought I would survive, but my boys are 4 1/2 months old!, and since they haven't been in many of the posts lately, I thought it was about time. Can you tell which one is which? To me there are a couple of things that make it obvious, but I'll let ya'll guess and then fill you in. However, this next little update should also help immensely. Luke and Zach had their 4 month check up and Luke is coming in at 17lbs. 4oz., and Zach is 15lbs. 1oz. I still can't believe that all of that growing has been solely produced by me because as of yet neither has had even a drop of formula (although they have both tasted ice cream . . . don't tell the dr.!)
Both boys are still doing great and on average I get 6 hours of solid sleep every night, which is amazing, when it use to be 2 1/2 MAX! They go down between 7:30 and 8:30, wake up to feed once and wake up in the morning between 6:30 and 7:30. Not to shabby, although I long to sleep through the whole night. The last little note here is that both boys can also roll over. Luke from his back to his belly and Zach from his belly to his back. Really, they are the cutest things ever and I love being their mom!

This is the Same Girl

To get this out of the way first, here is a picture of the kitchen table. Not to shabby for $150.

This is the reason for the post. I'm not sure if you remember, but a few months back Brooke found my wedding dress and put it on, and like every other girl, dreams of her wedding, being a princess and loves everything pink! Ya, and then she shows up with this in her hand. Although she didn't actually catch it, her friend Coby did, she did play with it. . .

love it, and want to bring it to bed with her (until I told her she couldn't) all night long! I'm just amazed that these two girls exist inside the same girl. I guess I just always thought you were either one or the other, not both. You either dressed up and played princess or you ran around with the boys and played baseball. Apparently not. I think this is just one the many times in my life that my children will amaze me and prove me wrong.

This I just had to throw in because he made such a mess!

A Day of Firsts

Yesterday was a day of firsts at our house. The first thing that happened was Ruston caught his first Salmon! We are so blessed to live about 10 minutes away from the Puyallup River where about a million salmon head up river from August through September. Ruston left at noon and was home by 3:00 with 4 very large Salmon. Now for those of you in the know, he caught pinks. Because the twins were born this year, I knew it would be almost impossible for me to get out and catch anything, so Ruston made it part of birthday present to catch a salmon. This makes my birthday the best birthday ever!

The picture above shows the largest one that Ruston came home with. In the bottom right corner you can see Brooke's hands around another one (she's next to the neighbor boy).

Here's Ruston with all four Salmon and all of the neighbor kids standing around in awe.

Another first for the day was that I have officially started running again. I did go on one run a while back, but decided I wasn't ready yet. So yesterday was my official first run after having twins. I ran 2 miles, but I'm not going to mention how long it took me to accomplish this. All I'm going to say is that I only had to walk once for about 20 yards.

The last first for the day was that we bought our first real kitchen table. For the last 8 1/2 years we have either not had one, or used the most midget table you've ever seen that we bought in college for $40. When the twins were born and we had someone with us for about 3 months and there was no room at the table, not to mention one of the chairs didn't have a back, we decided it was time to do something about our pathetic table. Unfortunately at that time, we didn't have the time to do anything about it. This weekend we had the time, and the right thing came up on craig'slist for the right price and we bought it. We now have a nice dark brown, oak table with six very solid, very nice chairs. We've officially grown up!

First Day of Preschool

Brooke and especially Josh have been so excited all summer long for preschool to start, and on Tuesday it finally did! They both go once a week and then come home with an extended learning packet for me to do with them. It is more work for me, but I enjoy the chance to sit down with them one and one. There are very few moments in my life that get to be spent with just one child and I treasure the opportunity.Josh and his Thomas the Train backpack . . . his pride and joy.

Brooke picked her outfit out all by herself. I have to admit, the girl's got style (today!).

Our Summer Adventures

This is in no particular order, so we'll start with our trip to the beach. We were supposed to meet the youth in our ward who were going to be at the beach all day, but due to bad weather and a wedding that night that the Bishop had to officiate, they left just as we got there. So instead of having all these young women to help me with the boys, it was just our family. A note here, the REAL beach is a two and a half hour drive from Seattle, so we weren't just going to turn around and go home. Instead we drove our car out onto the beach (like everyone else), except that we got STUCK! Fortunately, the nice people there helped us get unstuck. Then Ruston went off with Brooke and Josh to fly a kite and I stayed back to put the boys to sleep and then scour the beach for leftover firewood that we could reuse to cook our hot dogs. I did eventually get enough for a fire, but just as I was getting it started it started to drizzle the typical Pacific Northwest drizzle. Nothing to drench you right off, but after 45min. in it you are surprisingly soaked! At this point the boys woke up, so I took them to the car to feed them and Ruston started cooking the hot dogs with the kids. The hot dogs turned out great, except that I unknowingly bought the hot and spicy ones. So the kids took one bite, and were desperate for water! This is where I threw in the towel. Now we are all soaked, covered in sand and hungry, so we cleaned up as best we could, went to McDonalds, and went home! We'll try the beach again another time.

This is my birthday, my last good birthday as I am now officially 29!, and will be for the rest of my life. What made this day interesting was that Ruston tried so hard to do a lot of cool things that flopped. For one, he tried to come home early, and would have until he took the wrong bus after getting off the train and headed to Tacoma instead of home. He did get me sushi, but due to the bus thing by the time he got back into Bonney Lake, it had been sitting for over an hour. And lastly, we ran out of cake mixes at the last minute, so although he wanted to make a cake, when there aren't any mixes around, you're late getting home from work and you have four kids four and under, there's really only so much you can do about it. All in all though, it was a fun day and I appreciated all the effort Ruston put into it.

This pic is from the ZOO. Yes, with the help of my mother and neighbor, I took the family to the zoo. Brooke loved the petting zoo, Josh on other hand thought the animals were going to eat him, and would NOT feed them!

Lastly, for this post, Ruston took the kids salmon fishing. As part of my birthday present, since I don't really have time to go fishing right now, he is going to catch me a salmon. Josh had a ton of fun casting out and reeling in, as did Brooke. However, all they managed to catch was Ruston in the rear end! Fortunately, it didn't take long to untangle that and no one got hurt. I'll have to admit that I think it is so fabulous that we can drive ten minutes from our house and go salmon fishing, it has to be one of the greatest things about living in Seattle.

Luke Laughing

I hope this worked. Luke can laugh now and it's the cutest thing ever! Zach wants to, but hasn't quite figured it out all the way. He just opens his mouth all the way and ends up smiling for a long time instead of laughing.

It's nice to find some joy in all of this work!