i'm dreaming of a.......

...... white christmas, we had this year. what more could you wish for? well, daddy home for christmas for the short time he got to grace us with his presence, definitely was more of a blessing than the snow this year. we were so thankful for every minute of the short four days he was able to be home. he got in late on christmas eve and he most definitely was the children's best present christmas morning. kristin, larry and kash were home for the holiday's as well, so it was just wonderful spending time with family!

a christmas tea

a friend of grandma beth hosts a christmas tea for her grandchildren and close family and friends every year. she was kind enough to invite brittany for the second time and it was just fabulous as usual! she has her table's set, fit for a prince or princess....finger sandwiches and what more could you ask for.....santa!

two, two, two!

i feel like everything i do for the boys is in two's. there are two of them. i buy two shirts, two pairs of pants, two hats for them. i buy two of the same truck, car or train, so they won't fight of over one of them. i have two carseats and am always fixing two cups of milk, preparing two lunches and searching for two pairs of shoes.

now my two little babies are turning two! where has the time gone? well, i can answer that...it has to do with mass chaos but that is for another post! i just can't believe they are two years old. it is very bittersweet for us, knowing we are not planning on having any more children, so it is kind of like saying goodbye to babies for the last time. i remember when they were just so tiny and i am just not ready for them to be big yet!

i thought it only appropriate to include a few pictures of the day they were born, as we all so easily forget the first moments with our babies!

turkey day, disneyland and our favorite seabee

thanksgiving this year came with a twist. with daddy in california, and only four days. b and i decided to spend it out there. m's aunt barb was gracious enough to invite us to her home to spend thanksgiving with her and his cousin's, marcy and peter. we had a great time visiting with them. we also decided to visit disneyland once again, being it was only a few hours away from the base. we were just so happy to be able to spend this holiday with dad, we could not be thankful enough.

i never thought i could love a little vacuum so much

mealtime cleanup is about to send me to the local pschyatric ward. my boys love to mash, squeeze, dump, smear and throw their food. i have actually considered calling supernanny. but the application is too long and i don't have time to fill it out because i always seem to be either making, serving or cleaning up a meal. did i say, cleaning up a meal? eating a meal for me is almost comical as i think i get up in between every bite i take for one reason or another. usually after bite three i don't ever sit back down again. that is normally when the food starts flying. note the mess under the table; the same mess is behind me and to my left and my right, as well as the boys chairs and the top of the table. my saving grace is my cordless shark vacuum. it has been my lifesaver, i use it at least five times a day and sometimes more. it is this stage of the boys life that i wish we lived in a warm climate year round. i would literally serve breakfast, lunch and dinner outside.

babooooooo

no that is not a typo. the boys love their tractors, trucks and bulldozers. every bulldozer or tractor we see on the road is now a 'baboo'. they love to play with daddy's old baboos that are in the riding arena at grandma and grandpas. riding their very own baboo....aka gator...down to the barn is also one of their favorite things!

the boys LOVE the gator at grandma and grandpas. i mean love it. all you have to say is gator and they are in the car, ready to head over. it won't be long before b will be driving them around the ranch herself.

walk, trot, canter.....canter.......when can i canter again?

b looks foward to riding lessons every week more than anything else. she sometimes forgets it is going to take time to do jumps and showing. she was ready yesterday to do all that stuff. i can't wait to see the progress she makes this year!

two fireman and a black cat

along with birthday parties, dd is easy to please in the costume department as well. she opted to be a black cat, another costume she had from last year. she originally wanted to be lucy from narnia but, well, that is one of those costumes that you sort of have to look like the charachter, to pull it off! the boys were fireman and adorable ones at that! i thought the costumes would be way too big but they fit perfectly.....and perfect for the cool colorado halloweens we have. we got spoiled on halloween in las vegas! the boys only managed to make it around our street which was more than enough for them....and for me and grandma! b made the rounds on a few more streets with her good friend up the street. again we ended up with more candy that we bought to give out than we hoped for. halloween is just different now than when i grew up. we always used to run out and have to turn the lights out. there would be hundreds of kids out trick or treating.....nowadays you see just a handful. why is that?

daddy dolls

what a wonderful invention. a military mom started this company, www.daddydolls.com she is truly a saint. you can opt to buy a voice recorder to put inside with a message from daddy. they mean so much to the boys and b, they love these dolls daddy gave them. now daddy was not so sure about a stuffed pillow of himself but i think he is getting used to it! he left a sweet message for each one of them, he got them each, their own doll. i think it is such a blessing that they will still be able to see daddy every night before they go to sleep....of course it will not be the same as having the real one but we will take anything at this point. would it be strange if i got one for myself?? lol!

we wil miss you

i can't tell you how sad it was to watch the packing begin. we are thankful he will be in the states before he actually deploys over seas, so we will still get to see him some. it seems so surreal still, i never in my lifetime thought i would be a military wife, much less see my husband deploy. we will be praying for him every day, for his safety, well being and for him to know how very much he is loved and missed......and how PROUD we are for what he is doing for our country!

it has come too soon for me. reality has set in! i decided to suprise mark with a pre-deployment party the weekend before he left for California. I contacted a bunch of friends from high school and college. not all could come but it was still exciting to have some of them make it! i planned to have it at my inlaws as they have much more square footage and a bar, which is not always the easiest to recreate with the number of people coming.

i told mark that we were having dinner at his parents house. it was his birthday that weekend as well, so it worked out perfectly. he was hanging the rest of our crown molding until minutes before we had to leave. i had to force him to stop and put on a decent shirt but other than that, he had no idea. ( he did tell me later he suspected something when i made such a big deal about his shirt and wanting to be on time for dinner). when we pulled up to his parents house, with all the cars outside, he truly knew something was up and it was so nice to see the look on his face when we walked inside. he got to reunite with old friends, that was long overdue anyhow. we had a great time, it was a wonderful way to spend his last weekend home.

happy birthday! we love you and we will miss you!

it rained on my parade....well, ok, hayride.

dd's school has a huge haunted house and hayride, hosted by several families at the school every year. this is our first year at the school, so our first halloween party. we had been planning on going and it must have rained the entire day. oh, well we made our appearance and b got to go on the hayride.....actual clydesdales pulling a huge "cart" that seated about 20 people, around the resedential neighborhood. only daddy and christopher were brave enough to enter the haunted house, so after just missing chili by one bowl, seeing NOBODY we knew, we left, wet, cold and starving!

B the trooper

i really can't tell you how thankful i am for the age difference between b and the boys. honestly, there was a reason we were not able to have any more children for longer than originally intended. if b wasn't able to entertain herself, get a drink or snack on her own, not to mention help me with the boys, life would be miserable. if i had 3 having a meltdown at the pumpkin patch, i think i would have just had to join in. she is such a little mommy and i am so thankful for her. she loves the boys and has never once showed an ounce of jealousy. she is truly my second pair of hands when i need them. but my goodness, how the child holds the boys who are 3/4 of her weight, i will never understand!

C was not as worried about finding a pumpkin. He decided as soon as the wagon arrived, that is where he wanted to be. The meltdowns started when we took he and A of the wagon to put the pumpkins in!

the perfect pumpkin

A was determined to find and carry his own pumpkin. After we took the hayride from the entrance of the patch to the actual area where pumpkins were, we realized we really needed our wagon. We left it "parked" at the entrance. So while daddy went back to go retrieve it, we got a nice little pile of pumpkins started!

pumpkins, meltdowns and more, oh my!

the boys first trip to the pumpkin patch! b loved the hayride and helping the boys pick out a pumpkin. luckily we brought the boys wagon because it was not long before the wagon was overflowing with about 10 pumpkins. a few broken stems and a few meltdowns later, we managed to narrow it down to 4!

smile?

i love my husband. he is a wonderful husband, father.....not to mention a navy reservist who is proud to serve our country. we could not be more proud of him. but something happens to that wonderful guy when you pull the camera out. all of a sudden he looks like he is in pain...he says that he cannot smile any better than this. sigh. so the next christmas card you get from us and you wonder why he looks so happy to be there, just remember this post!

horse cake #6

that is right. b is turning 7 and she has officially had a horse cake, every year, except for the year she turned one. by HER choice. did i mention this was the fourth year she had a gymnastics party? luckily she is easy to please! we had the party at the goodson rec center. we had a party there when b turned 5 and it was a blast. we have been to at least 4 parties there that were a blast. somehow, this year, disaster struck. i guess i shouldn't say disaster, more like uncontrollable chaos and disorganization on the part of the rec center. they switched the party around to cake and presents in the party room first, THEN over to the gym. the minute kids started showing up, everyone was engaged in some game of tag and running all over the room....when they used to go to the gym first, that seemed to be a much better place to let that energy out.

i am against opening presents at parties at this age, after a few past years of doing it. but with over 30 minutes left in the party room , after cake, we had no choice but to open gifts as the chaos had started erupting again. opening presents , only escalated it and when nobody came to get us to head down to the party room, my stress level started rising. higher than it already was at this point. i lined everybody up somehow and we made it down to the opposite end of the rec center where the gym was. a young teenager proceeded to ask me if i wanted the kids to just run around the entire time or if i wanted them to do something with them. i could have smacked him. yes, lets see how much longer than can run around in a disorganized fashion. the organized party i was counting on turned into an even bigger disaster in the gym.

the pulley that they have at this gym was the ONLY reason we were here. the only reason b wanted her party here was to be hoisted up by this pulley twenty feet in the air. the true highlight that she has never forgotten. the boy told me he thought the kids were too big. i think he saw the look on my face because they included that at one of the stations they were trying to man.....poorly i might add. a few kids got hurt in the pit because nobody was really supervising it....one parent complained to the front desk....which i was grateful for as i, too, called and complained on my way home.

at the end of the day, what really mattered to me on b's special day was SHE had fun. and she did, as well as the rest of the kids. i think i and the parents there were the only ones who noticed the disorganization!

i really am praying that b has something different in mind for her 8th. i think we are done with gymnastics.

happy birthday b!

monster trucks, monster trucks!

the boys love their monster truck book. sometimes, they will actually even share it with each other! the light washes out some of this picture but it is a rare occasion i can get the two of them together, so i take what i can get!

my favorite things

the sound of music. one of my very favorite movies when i was little. i can't say or type those words without hearing the song in my head. if only i could add, crown molding, silver sage paint and old, wide planked wood floors to the verse......hey those truly are more exciting than warm, woolen mittens, right?

unexpected outings

since having twins, i have become a much more organized person. i can't say i am as organized as i would like to be, it is just that with multiples, if you are not organized, things spiral downhill before you even realize what is happening. schedules are very important to us and strict schedules at that. well with the painter at our home for the week, our daily routine has come to a screeching halt. it has been replaced with trying to spend an entire day out with twins. today, after going to the gym to pass the morning time but still part of our usual routine, i had planned with my friend kim, to spend naptime at her home while she was at work. she so graciously gave me her garage code and i picked up lunch for the boys and we headed over, right on time for lunch and nap. it was all going so smoothly! i planned ahead and ...........we hit a brick wall. kim's garage code did not work. she had been having some trouble with it and after 30 minutes of trying and the boys having a meltdown in the car, we headed over to the park in her neighborhood. after chasing them down the middle of the street, i lured them to the table with chick-fil-a. after a few bites of lunch managed to pass a little over an hour at the park. not the easiest task but plan b was to keep them up through their usual naptime and then hopefully they would sleep on the ride to b's school and all the way home. you can see the boys enjoyed swinging....and i think they actually might talk after all!

flounder

b has never been a princess girl. when grandma beth was so kind as to treat us to tickets to the prebroadway play, the little mermaid, i was not sure how excited b would be. she was happy to go but not like some little girls i know. we were looking at all the merchandise for sale prior to the play and b was simply not interested....imagine that. at intermission b could not find the boy who played flounder fast enough in the program. he made the play for her, although we all agreed the entire play was just fabulous! b talked about flounder all the way home........

walk, trot, canter.....canter.......when can i canter again?

b- my horsey girl. she has loved horses since before she could ride. she loves animals in general but horses are number one in her book. she had a horse birthday party when she was two and has had a horse cake every year since! she has always rode her horse, joey, with grandpa but started lessons when she was five. it was not quite the same in the vegas heat, when you have to take lessons at 8pm because it has "cooled down" to 98. she really has got into it this summer when we moved back to colorado and has really taken off! she is so proud of herself. we are so happy for her!

there's no place like home

we are so happy to be home, here in colorado, finally. i truly feel like our life was somewhat on hold for two years, even though it was most certainly and eventful two years! las vegas is not something i can completely forget as the boys were born there and it is a happier place because of those memories! brittany made two friends she will never forget, and thank goodness for those two sweet girls being our neighbors....it was truly a blessing while the boys were tiny.

we are just excited to get on with life, we have been looking foward to getting home for so long. however, mark has found out that he will be deployed to Iraq for 10 months in October, so that was defintiely unexpected news. we are going to try to enjoy our time, together as a family as much as possible before he goes.

ten tiney fingers, ten tiny toes and one fat cat

baby hands and feet. i can't get enough of them. where does the time go? my babies are growing up so fast, what happened to my five pound peanuts? i still find it hard to believe we have twins. we have twins....never in my life would i ever have guessed we would be so blessed to have two precious twin boys. they keep us on our toes but they are truly a blessing. i just wish i could remember every day of my children's life would be remembered and as clear as if it were yesterday. if only they could stay little forever!

popsicles

our backyard is not as big as i envisioned it being. building a house long distance is not something i would recommend to anyone nor would i do it again! we haven't even been here 2 months and there are more things i would change than i can count. isn't that always how it is? i still love our new home. the boys are enjoying their new big boy beds and daddy has been enjoying babyproofing every possible thing in our house. it doesn't seem like there are enough childproofing items out there for these two! i actually am shocked i have a picture of both of them, sitting and looking at the camera. you will notice there are not many since they have started crawling!

from sea to shining sea

happy fourth of july!

happy anniversary

we decided to spend a weekend at the hotel where we got married, the cliffhouse. it is such a peaceful place and full of such beautiful memories! we both agreed we should do this every year on our anniversary. it was so nice to have time alone and sooooo relaxing! we went out to dinner both nights but we were just happy to do absolutely nothing, sitting on the front porch of the hotel was about as much excitement as we wanted! i love you, honey!

my wonderful mothers day

wow, is it hot outside. 98 degrees and it is only mid may! a dear friend of mine sent us this fun sprinkler mat and the boys and miss b had a blast cooling off. even mom and dad got wet. i couldn't think of a better way to spend mother's day!