A day with dad

Josh has had the last few days off and we've been really taking advantage of it. On Monday, we neglected housework and instead went to IKEA for breakfast and then to the dinosaur museum. The girls had a blast and I literally almost took 200 pictures. Here's a samplin' of them.

The girls have been asking to go back ever since we left. Good thing we bought a year pass, so we'll be going back lots and lots. Yay for getting out of the house and feeling slightly less sick!

Going on a bear hunt

Ok, not quite, but we had a neighborhood campout this past weekend (and I should say that I'm really glad we didn't see a bear. Especially since there was a grusome bear attack at the same camp ground a few years back). I was pretty hesitant to take the girls camping because every time we've tried to get them to sleep in a different environment (the cabin, Florida etc) it hasn't been super successful. I had nightmares of them screaming at 3 in the morning and waking everyone up. Luckily, that didn't really happen. They played until about 10 pm and although they took a little while to fall asleep, they mostly slept through the night. Sophie woke up a couple of times, but she was quick to go back to sleep. Overall, it was really fun and definitely better than I was anticipating. Here's a few obligatory snapshots.

and our best attempt at a family picture (aka the only one that the girls weren't screaming in and Lillian wasn't biting herself) 

 

I've camped with two year old twins. 

I feel like I can do anything now. 

Erda Days

Last weekend we headed to Erda days. I was excited because I hadn't been since Josh and I were dating (4 years ago) and I was especially excited to get the girls their first Erda shirts. We woke up early enough to catch Josh's dad ride his tractor in the parade. I was actually surprised at the little parade. They had a few different church groups decorate trucks, horses and tractors. There were little kids in decorated wagons, horses, more horses, and...more horses. About half of the people threw candy out to the kids and the girls got quite a haul. They LOVED it. 

Oh and don't mind Lillian's crazy hair. It was an apparently rough car ride from our house to Grandma's...

I know Sophie isn't in focus, but her face! She was overjoyed that more candy kept get thrown at her.

And this one makes me laugh. Lillian was definitely enjoying her taffy. 

The girl's stash

Grandpa on his tractor

We then headed over to the actual Erda Days and got the girls shirts and sat down for lunch. 

A few minutes after we got our food, it stared to down pour. People started frantically putting things away, deflating the blow up slide and bounce house and people b-lined for the parking lot. The storm was quick though and by the time we got home, it had pretty much stopped. So, the girls got to go on a ride with Grandpa.

 

 It was a really good day. And I kept thinking about Erda Days 4 years ago. It was the day I decided and realized that marrying Josh was a real possibility.

 

 Who would thought that 4 years later we'd have two kids?

Maybe next year we'll have three?

KIDDING!!!

I'm hilarious...

Today

Today was hard. It was one of those days where for a brief, selfish moment, I wished I didn't have twins. The girls were all over the place. Josh got home at 6:30 this morning and both girls were screaming. I was zonked out in bed, so who knows how long they had been up. I have never slept through their morning cries. At the first peep of a baby making noise, I pop out of bed. Not today though, I was beat. 

So I grabbed the girls, took them downstairs and tried to calm them down so Josh could go to bed. They were awful. SO riled up and none of my usual tricks were doing anything. It took almost a half hour of us (and I say 'us' because Josh stayed up to help) to get them settled down. From then, Josh went up to bed and I was left with the terrors. Over the next few hours, they knocked over a bookshelf, broke a bowl, tipped over their highchairs and Lillian was banging Sophie with one of the legs. They almost pulled down our blinds, opened a container of wipes and pulled about half of them out, grabbed poo out of diaper that should have been thrown away and so on and so on.. 

It sucked. They kicked my trash. And all while Josh was trying to sleep. I tried taking them outside, but my allergies only allowed that for about 15 minutes. I tried coloring, stickers. their favorite movies, letting them play with Tupperware that they never get to play with, etc, but they were just too much for me. By noon I decided it was time for an early nap for everyone. I gave the girls some milk, a few treats and stuck them in their cribs with a books and toys. I laid down and miraculously slept until 2! It was amazing! The rest of our afternoon was a bit better, but the girls were still giving me a run for my money. 

Anyway, I didn't intend to write that all out. I was going to stick with a "the girls were hard today" and leave it at that. Oops. Guess I needed to vent... but the real reason for this post is what I learned tonight. 

These babies have zero ability to hold a grudge. I lost my temper with them a few times today and was more harsh than I should have been. I didn't do anything over the top, but I was not patient at all. And the girls were mean to each other. Hitting, stealing toys, knocking each other over, etc. You'd think that at the end of the day, they'd be a little less inclined to run up and give me kisses. A little less likely to hold their sister's hand. Nope. That didn't happen at all. When I told them, "girls! It's time to go to sleep! Grab your blankets!" Sophie ran to grab Lillian's first. She gave her sister her blanket before she got her own. And then, they folded their arms while I was saying our prayer without being asked. And after that, they jumped up and gave each other a hug. Then they came over to me and did the same. Lillian found a binky for Sophie and tickled her toes and I laid her down in her crib. Then she waved and said, "bye!" as she shut Sophie's door. Lillian then grabbed her Elmo, threw him in her crib and patiently waited for me to stick her in. I did and as she started sucking on her blanket her cute little hand started waving. 

I love them. They are so good. They are forgiving. They are so kind. They are becoming best friends who are concerned about each other and wanting to be "ni" (nice) to their sister. They've taught me so much and it's amazing how horrible my attitude was this morning. They were pretty rotten, but they definitely made up for it. 

I'm so lucky to have them and I need to stop forgetting that. 

V-day

Putting up a post on Valentine's Day is pretty obligatory for a blogger. Pictures of adorable food, flowers, and other forms of lovey-dovey-ness also help create a stereotypical post. What I've learned over the years though, is that I'm not so stereotypical. I do not like Valentine's Day that much. I do not make cute or adorable food. I do not have that many pictures of Josh and I (although I really want to work on that one. It kind of makes me a sad.) to shower my blog with.

What I do have is 3 people in my family that I laugh with every day. Three people who love me for all my weird quirks that I have to hide from other people. Three people who think I'm their world. And three people who are my world. Valentine's Day is cliche and cheesy and all of those things I don't like, but at the end of the day, I have a lot of love in my life and for that, I am grateful.

I snapped this picture as we were literally heading out the door for church on Sunday. I had wanted to get a cute 'first day of nursery' picture and this is what I frantically got. Oh well, I think these three are the cutest.

And Valentine's Day will always remind me of a time in my life where I suspected there were two. It was about a week(ish) before my ultrasound and I knew something was different. There had to have been a reason that at 11 weeks I could no longer button my pants

And now, that little bit of intuition has turned into two crazy toddlers. What a weird world it is.

Josh bought us a Valentine's Day balloon a few days ago and the girls were obsessed. Sadly all I got was this crappy, low lit instagram picture before I accidentally popped it.

Another thing. I was looking at last year's Valentine's post where I read these prophetic words, "I'll be sure to let you all know when our new bedding is done. It might take a year, but once it is done"

Um.... That bedding is definitely nowhere near being done. I think Josh has given up hope. Lacy, we've GOT to get this thing rollin'....

So there you have it. A post for you this Valentine's Day.

Days off

I tried to upload this to facebook, but after 3 attempts, I gave up and decided to come to Blogger. The girls LOVE when Josh has days off because he is 3 million times more fun than I am. Take a look.

I love days off.

Lest you think we're dead

We are not. 

We are very much alive and the girls are getting crazier and crazier as the days go by. Take a look...

Ok, maybe it's just Sophie that's getting crazier. Lillian's getting cuter though. :)  

  

School has started and so far I'm enjoying it. I'm still just in two classes, but I have realized that it's a little harder to go to school now than when the girls were teeny tiny. They sleep a lot less, so I have to really stay on top of due dates and utilize nap time. Things are going well though and I'll eventually get that degree...

I think the girls are cutting a few new teeth. Their sleeping habits have been off, they're drooling and have been a little cranky. 

We've watched a lot of TV, stayed in our PJ's unacceptably too long, played outside,  spent time with family, and have eaten out a lot this past week and it's been beautiful. 

I actually have several posts lined up for next week, so my blog won't be so pathetic. Until then, enjoy the rest of the weekend and we'll 'see' you soon.

2011

A lot has happened this year. And although I know I should say that 2010 was my favorite year, because that's the year we had the girls, 2010 was incredibly hard. 2011 brought a few hard things, but for the most part, we've been able to sit back and realize how blessed we've been. The girls have developed the most individual and equally hysterical personalities, we've changed jobs, changed housing, made new friends, and have loved watching these girls grow and become little people. So here's to 2011. Quite possibly my favorite year of my life so far. 

January

This was the first month that the girls really started to interact with each other. They smiled, giggled and reached out to their sister. They also...tried to eat each other. 

 

February 

February is when our lives started to get a little better. Josh got a new job. A real job with a wage that would allow us to not skimp and scrape every month just to pay the bills. We finally were in a position where paying rent wasn't a huge burden and Josh started to feel like his education was paying off. We had planned to stay in our apartment for a few more years, save up, and eventually buy a house. Little did we know that this was the month that the perfect house for us was starting to be built and in just a few more months, we'd be moving. 

And in other news, Sophie learned how to pick her nose. 

March

While Josh was adjusting to waking up at 2am for work, Sophie learned to roll over in her swaddle. Because of this, we started the semi-painful process of putting the girls down unswaddled. At the end of the month, I turned 23.

 

 We also had our family pictures taken by Sharon and they turned out beautiful. 

April 

I caught Lillian's growl on video. Click here to watch it. She still does it and it's still hilarious. April also was the month that we first saw our house. We really weren't planning on buying so soon, but we just wanted to see what our options were. I fell in love with it immediately and we both felt really good about it. When we started looking at interest rates and loan options, it made absolute sense to buy. I've now come to realize that this decision was one of the best decisions we've made. We absolutely love it here. 

 

We also took the girls swinging for the first time. In my opinion, every set of twins needs a good bucket seat picture. 

May 

Our house kept getting more and more finished every time we went to look at it. It didn't seem real that it would be ours in just a month and that I would have my own beautiful kitchen that I would learn to cook in. 

And in baby news, they started to get a lot more mobile. It made my job a little more tricky, but I learned how to coop them up by using our collection of pillows. 

 June

We used our apartment's pool a grand total of one time because June wasn't as warm as we would have hoped.

The girls still only had two teeth and they turned 10 months old. 

 

June also brought our most exciting adventure: 

Home ownership!

It took a couple of days to get everything into the house, but on June 22nd we brought the cribs and our bed over to officially move in. 

July

July brought us lots and lots of unpacking (which we still haven't finished 6 months later) meeting new neighbors, becoming familiar with our new area and the 4th of July. The girls started finally sleeping through the night because they were in separate rooms. No more 2 am drives around Salt Lake! Well, I think it's happened 3 times since we've moved, but that's a lot better than 3 times every week...

August

Josh turned 29 and the babies turned 1. A whole year. That was the fastest year of my life. The first 4 months or so are a complete blur. I literally only have a handful of memories from when we lived in Logan and the girls were newborns. It makes me sad, but I was literally getting 3 hours of sleep a day. Life was crazy and I never thought we'd make it to the year mark. We did. And it was wonderful. 

We also played outside a lot. The girls demanded to play on the porch or in our neighbor's yard every day. I loved soaking up the sun and got a pretty decent farmer's tan. 

September

The sun continued to shine down on us in September and I was more than OK with that. The girls continued to play outside and we made a make-shift pool using a bucket, a hose and our neighbor's yard.   

We got another round of family pictures taken. This time by Lindsey.

We also took a trip to Josh's family cabin. The girls liked it, but it was the first time back in the same room for them, so the sleep arrangements were rather rough. I want to go back next summer and am hoping we'll get more than 5 hours of sleep. 

October

We went to the Pumpkin Walk 

And the girls were Thing 1 and Thing 2 for Halloween

November

November brought colder weather, but we still made a trip to the zoo. 

We also jump started the Holiday season with a trip to Temple Square

 

December

December was filled with finals week, Christmas shopping, cold snowless days a trip to Vegas, our 3rd wedding anniversary and a wonderful Christmas weekend.

So there you have it. That was our year. And that was the longest post I think I've ever done. I'm not quite sure when I'll be blogging again because we're getting a new internet provider and the transition between the two is going to leave us a few days without a connection. Plus, I'm kind of blogged out. 2012 will bring on a new phase for this blog. I will be blogging less, but I'll still be around, just not every other day like I have been. Between toddler twins, school and trying to upkeep this house, blogging might get put on the back burner a little bit more. 

But that's all besides the point. 2011 may have been my favorite year. It was wonderful and I'm glad I've blogged so much through it and can't wait to see what 2012 has in store for us!