so long summer

the days go by so slow but the months go by too fast! here are just some of the happenings.....

Travis graduated from Kindergarten! I thought it was so funny that they had a graduation ceremony, but cute too. Travis was so proud and we were too!

The babies turned one! We survived the first year...barely. 

I was at a store or something and a lady looked at me, smiled and said, "honey, I had twins and don't worry it gets better....when they're about three." I went home and cried.

Cody is still working on sleeping through the night. 

He loves to get into everything!! 

And apparently loves dogs, as long as they aren't real and stay three feet away from him.

Amy loves to be the center of attention. 

She makes more noise then the three boys combined!

We are still working on her hair and have made some progress, thanks to pinterest!

I've learned that putting away groceries, cleaning anything, unloading the dishwasher, or cooking dinner is nearly impossible with the two of them awake. I'm constantly reminded of a quote that hung in my mom's laundry room...."Cleaning your house while your children are in it is like shoveling snow while it's still snowing."

Cody great achievement so far this year was learning how to put olives on his fingers. And yes, he figured it out all on his own.

At the beginning of the summer we made a teeter totter. Amy is the one that actually uses it the most but it does get used everyday!

I guess the biggest change this year was our house. We sold it! And in 17 days too! We found a rental house...just three days before we had to be out of our house too. Stressful does not even begin to explain how the last few month have been. We are building a house in the town Joe grew up in and is teaching at. It's only about 15 minutes away and that's where Travis has also been attending school.

This is the house that Joe grew up in. His mom still lives there.

We tore it down (don't worry we moved Joe's mom out first) and are going to build our new house with a mother-in-law's addition in back for Joe's mom. 

The property is just under an acre and a half and is going to be quite the change for me having grown up in L.A. I thought that we were going to grass everything, then Joe said he wanted to leave the "back pasture" so that we could get a pig, cow, goats or other animals. I was in shock for quite some time. The town has a population of about 3,200 and majority are farmers. There are NO stop lights and the nearest grocery store is a 15 minute drive away on the highway. I've never lived that far from a store in my life! We haven't started the building process just yet. We're hoping in the next few weeks we'll start.     

Joe and I LOVE old beater trucks and Joe said that if we're going to live in Burtucky (that's what I like to call it) we'll need a truck. The boys have named her Brown Betty, yes we name our cars...we already have large Marg and Gina.

Tyler started pre-school this year. I tried to get him into the same one as Travis but had no luck. So we are doing a co-op with 4 other kids in the ward. He so happy that he can talk "school stuff" with Travis now.

Travis started first grade but is bigger then most second graders. He loves school and is learning so fast.

I thought this picture was funny because of Tyler. He cracks me up! 

hopefully next time I post it will be construction pictures of our new place!

still here

where does time go, and where can I get some more? So much has happened in the last few months yet so little has happened also...like the cleaning of my house. Here is just a little update.
Travis is reading! He loves to read, gets that from Joe. It's a good thing too because when Joe isn't at home at night guess who reads while I put the babies down. I went to say good night to them earlier his week and Travis was trying to teach Tyler to read. Travis is loving school and I think that he will go through withdrawals once summer hits.

Tyler is surviving with me. For some reason he hasn't figured out how to play by himself. So all day long he is either right next to me talking away or walking around the house asking when Travis will be home. He has one more year and then he starts school. It's going to be one long year I'll tell you that much.

The babies really aren't babies anymore. How or when that happened I don't know. Cody has been crawling for a few months now and Amy is finally ok with crawling. It's not that she didn't know how it's just that she thought that she was above that. Yes Amy is bigger then Cody but just by a pound. Cody is longer and his head is bigger but Amy is....we like to call it plump. I didn't figure out until he was 6 months that he has reflux so that might have something to do with it. He still has issues though. He doesn't like people food and is really picking with what baby food he'll eat. And no he doesn't sleep through the night yet. The longest he'll go is 5 hours, I'll take what I can get.

This picture explains a lot. Cody can do, or does a lot more then Amy. He is very curious and will try anything. Amy doesn't do anything until she knows it's safe and she's good at it. Cody gives her that look a lot too, the, "why don't you just do it and stop crying" look.

Can you tell who had a bad (hair)day? I don't know what to do about her hair. Im guessing it's just going to look ugly until it grows longer? I try to keep it combed down but it just has a mind of it's own...just like amy I guess.

Yesterday I asked Travis to watch them while I went to change the laundry and I came out to this. They both crawl really fast and get into everything so he thought that this would be a good idea. It was until we all walked away and they both started crying because they were stuck.

until next time....

surviving

Yes we are still here! No one tells you when you have twins that it just gets more stressful as they get older. They are constantly changing and in different ways so when you figure something out with one the other changes and then something else happens or one of the older kids changes. constant change and adjusting!

It's funny all the questions I get. The one I don't understand why people ask is, "are they identical?" really! think about it before you ask. I've learn to just smile and say no they aren't. Then there's the feeding question. "do you feed them at the same time?" I do what ever they need, so yes if they need to be feed at the same time then I figure out how to stick and hold a bottle in their mouth. One thing with twins is you learn how to adapt and fast! It is not always perfect but you figure it out.
Travis started kindergarten this year. He is twice as big as some of the kids in his class. He even got a big kid desk brought into the classroom for him. He loves school and I miss him at home.
Since the babies were born my boys have had some time to do things that normally they wouldn't get away with doing. Majority of the time as long as they are safe I just smile and say have fun.
Tyler is finally ok with having a sister. With Travis gone at school he has really become a big brother. You can really tell in this picture how much they have grown. They are both about 11 pounds. Amy looks bigger but that's because all of Cody's weight is in his head... literally. I think that he'll be big like Travis.

In this picture you can tell that they really do look alike. Amy smiles and "talks" a lot more then Cody.






We blessed them earlier this month.

Hopefully it won't be months before I post again.

20 fingers and 20 toes

They are here!! I'll spare you all the details and give you a the rough story. I started to go into labor the evening of the 13th. We went into the hospital and then my water broke....so much for stopping the labor. There was already someone in the surgery room so I was next in line. Half an hour later they pulled them out. Since they were born at 34 weeks they showed them to me and then they went into the NICU until thursday and then transferred to the pediatrics floor. They has no breathing issues, just some jaundice and they had a hard time learning how to eat. They finally let them go home a week later. Here are some picture...
Amy Marie 5 lbs 4 oz and Cody Joseph 4 lbs 9 oz

they had to go under some lights so they got to wear some cool shades.
Cody looks just like Travis when he was born and Amy looks just like Tyler when he was born too.
They both lost some weight and I was just glad the let us take them home. They had to do a car seat check and they barely made it. They don't look all that small in these pictures but they are tiny things.
The boys were able to see them and hold them in the hospital a lot and when we finally got home they were so excited. Yes Tyler does hold Amy too.
Travis is great with them! He loves to help and is really curious.

My mom has been here to help and Joe Finished teaching school earlier in June so it's been really nice to have the help around here. But that will soon come to an end. My mom leaves soon and Joe starts his summer job shortly after that. We will see just how much I'm able to handle.

just a little early

I am one of those people that never thinks "it can happen to them". For example, twins. I also thought that I would have no problem keeping them in. Travis was late and we finally had to cut him out and Tyler was perfectly fine staying inside too. But I guess these kids think that there's way too much more fun to be had out in the world then inside. They decided that 28 weeks was a good time to try to come out in the world. Luckily after multiple meds and a week in the hospital they stayed put....for now. I am now on "bed rest" which worked out fine because my mom was here for 2 weeks (yes she survived). It's been one week since she left and although my house doesn't look like it usually does and my kids don't look or smell like they usually do we are surviving. Joe is taking care of everything and majority of the time I love watching it. If everything goes well then my doctor says that we will have the babies the last week in June. right now each baby is four pounds and I'm measuring at 40 weeks. I still have four more weeks to go and I'm wondering how much more my skin can stretch.