Lots of Photos

As the title suggests, there are a lot of pictures! Pictures and little factoids about the kids and our life.

 

 



To start us off, here are the twins! They bring us so much joy!

These way adorable outfits are from Bruce and Diane Halle (founder of Discount Tire Company).

 





Bethany has been rolling over from belly to back for awhile, but is just now becoming proficient at it. Gideon is most happy when he is in the sitting position (accept when sleeping).

 

 



Just today they both made cute baby giggles, get this...AT THE SAME TIME!! Someday we will have this laughing business on video, but today I decided to just enjoy the moment! I LOVE baby laughs!!!!

 

 



AHHHH!! Just look at these chubby cuties!

 

This little peanut is a thumb sucker for realz now! She will not take a plug anymore! It is super cute, though it may not be so cute in a couple years. :)

 

 

And this little/big man sucks his fingers just like his mama used to. He also rejects his plug these days. He has a little blanket that he loves to have in his hands while he sucks his fingers.

 A few weeks ago our family spent an afternoon and evening at Bricktown in OKC.

We had a family deal for Sonic and a Redhawks game. It was a gorgeous day!

 

 





The evening was kind of cold and they lost really bad, but we had so much fun!

 

Jason LOVED it! He really gets into the game and the music and the clapping and the dancing.

 

They were worn out after the game.

Aaron turned 30! We went with his entire family to a Rangers game to celebrate his birthday. 

So much fun! And not nearly as cold as the Redhawks game, and the Rangers won!

 

 



Jason BEFORE he had his cupcake with blue frosting. What was I thinking with blue frosting and kids??? I'll tell you what I was thinking, I was thinking that white frosting is boring, and I didn't have any sprinkles on hand, so I made blue frosting.

 

I love my family! What you don't see in this picture is Bethany's Rangers onsie, Jason's Rangers shirt, and Aaron's (dare I say it??...ugly) blue jacket. We are definitely fans!

 

We spent an afternoon at Aaron's parents where the kids played in the dirt and they loved it. Jason will be able to say one day... "back in my day we didn't have...(whatever the newest thing will be when he is 30), we played in the dirt." :)  

Cousin time

 

We stayed at my brother Nate's house in Texas. He is such a great host. We were watching Madagascar 2 here.

 Gloria: So you must be Moto Moto.

Moto Moto: The name so nice when you say it twice

[Shows three fingers]

 

 

 

This is a little of the fun we have been having. 

 

How I Do It

Besides getting asked if they are twins, or if they are identical (yes, we get that ALL THE TIME), one of the most frequent questions I am asked is "how do you do it?" My immediate answer is, I just do. I don't have another option, so I just do it. Some days even I don't understand how things got done. Here's the deal though, I am not doing this on my own. Everything I have has been given to me by God. My family, our home, our possessions, EVERYTHING. God has also given me the ability to lean on Him each and every day. He provides me the time, the strength, the courage and abundant grace and mercy to get through each day. Without His help, I would be a mess (and I am pretty sure my house and children would be as well.) Multiple times each day I find myself calling out to God to help me be patient, to help me show His love even in the tough moments. I flat out admit I can't do it on my own, I need His help, His grace, mercy and forgiveness.

On that note...I LOVE my job! I love being a wife and a mama! I love caring for my husband, our children and our home. Call me crazy, but I truly love what I do!! Some days around here are straight up crazy, and I fail over and over, but I still go to bed at night thankful for my life.

One of my techniques (for lack of a better word) for getting through a daunting task (like potty training, or loading all 3 kids up to head to Walmart, or cloth diapering to name a few) is to be READY. Ready to say, okay, I am doing this, and it needs done, and I am sticking to it no matter what. When I started cloth diapering at 2 months, I was NOT ready. I had set a time frame of starting at 2 months, and when the babies were 2 months, I was just not ready. I tried, and I failed. For some reason 2 weeks ago, I decided I was in a good place to start cloth diapering again, I was ready, and I was not turning back. I am now a cloth diapering mama (more on that another time). When I need to get something at Walmart, and I really don't want to spend another evening away from home (because time with my husband is precious), I take all 3 kids. It might take us 2 hours to get out the door by the time everyone wakes up, is changed and gone potty, and in a good enough mood, but if that is what I need to do, I do it. Do things always work out the way I plan??, ABSOLUTELY NOT! This is why I have to rely on God's help and strength.

Another thing I keep in mind every day is that I can't do it all. I just can't! I have a very active 2 year old, PLUS 2 infants. So I try very hard not to set my expectations of what I can accomplish to high. I try to make a reasonable list to accomplish each day, and even then I can't always accomplish that list. I usually include the normal things like laundry, dishes, keeping the kids alive and spend quality time with them, and cook dinner. On top of those things I try to clean one area of the house, I try to do one organizing project, and if I can, I try to do something crafty (because I enjoy crafting.) I attempt to leave the evenings after Aaron is home free of things to do. We get precious little time with him on the days he works, so the time we do get I want to use it wisely. That being said, since the babies arrived, some things have to happen after he gets home (like bath time). Our evenings are pretty relaxing after dinner and baths are out of the way.

So far I have been referring to times when I am home alone with all 3 kids. Another HUGE help is of course my sweet husband. Aaron is the BEST! He is a HUGE encouragement to me when he is home and when he is gone at work, and he is just the best husband and papa we could ever have around here! We LOVE him!! I couldn't do it without him! He is the bomb-diggity as I affectionately refer to him from time to time. He works so hard to provide for us, and his love for each of us is obvious.

 Being a mama of twins is a stretching (literally and in more ways than one) experience! I have learned how to feed both babies at the same time. Sometimes this looks like one bottle being held with my jaw and another with my foot, I mean hand. ;) Jason almost always has to go potty right when I sit down to feed them. You would think I would learn to take him first. So I set the babies down and take him to avoid accidents (because who has time for those?? :)).  Meanwhile the babies cry until I come back. We have learned how to hold two babies at the same time. We have learned how to get around the store and various public places with 3 little ones. We do what we have to each day, and at the end, we thank God for seeing us through!

So that friends, is how I/we do it!

Nope, not identical! :) I must say though, they are really cute!

Decisions, decisions

Such cuteness!

We knew the day would come eventually when these two sweeties would need to be  in their own cribs, we just didn't know when. The day has come and gone! They are now in their own separate cribs. So far (two nights now) they have done great being apart.

From the day we found out we were having twins we talked about them sleeping together or not. We went ahead and bought a second crib knowing if we did have them sleep together, at some point they would need separated. There is so much to consider, and so much you can't possibly know until you meet your babies and get to know their personalities. We thought about them disturbing one another if they slept in the same bed. We thought about how being close together is all they have ever known. We thought about if we had them sleep together, would they separate easily down the road? Well, obviously we made the decision to have them co-sleep. When we were in the hospital there were two baby cribs in my room, but when the nurse put them in the same crib after asking us, we were in love with the cuteness of it all! Not to mention, you could tell they loved being close. It was in that moment that we decided they would share a bed for awhile. So when we arrived home we set up the pack n play in our room, and that is where they spent the first two weeks sleeping. Then we decided to keep them together when we moved them to their room. Up until this week we debated about when we should separate them. I was worried they would miss each other (especially Gideon, he loves snuggling up to Bethany). Bethany is such a squirmy little thing, and Gideon is a big little man, and we decided that it was time before they cause harm to one another on accident. SO...they are in their own cribs, and they are doing well. I am doing MUCH better with it now than I was the other night. I think it was more traumatic for me than for them. I was literally crying, and I kept checking to make sure they were going to be okay (they were asleep in a matter of minutes both nights!). I miss going in and finding their little heads together, but I have lots of sweet pictures to remember the precious moments they had. They do this grunting/cooing thing when they go to bed while they are scooching close to each other and falling asleep. They were still doing that even without being together, so incredibly sweet!

 Sweet Big Boy!

 

In other news...Jason is potty trained!! He has been almost completely accident free from day one. He still occasionally wets at night. He was so easy to potty train (Praise the Lord!!). Makes me wonder how the twins will do?? The biggest "problem" we were having was getting him to tell us when he needed to go. Unless we reminded him, he just held it! Crazy boy! I sought some advice, and as of this week he tells us "I need to go potty". I still ask him from time to time throughout the day if I feel it has been a long time since he went last, and he will either answer yes or no. If he says no, I just wait for him to tell me when he needs to go. I am just so thankful it has gone so well. It is really nice to not need diapers for him anymore (he is wearing a cloth diaper to bed until he is consistently dry each morning.) I am so proud of my big boy!