diapers

back when i was pregnant with these boys, there was a diaper shower thrown for me. It was generous and a fun celebration...We received tons of diapers. The babies turn 5 months today and we haven't bought a diaper yet!! I am so thankful for all the generosity our family and friends showed us...what a treat to be provided for until this point!

dinner plates

they shall remain nameless...



But it's funny. We had 6 plates. It wasn't the number we wanted, but it got us through visitors and daily meals. I had broken two others from our original set of 8. Then another got broken. It's funny how all of the sudden 5 plates isn't quite enough. It's funny that every time I open the door and there are no plates I think of one nameless person. It brings a smile to my face.



So we took out the back up stack in our hutch, and actually I like it a lot. We were given the set we're using from good friend's of ours for our wedding. the Butler's were SO thoughtful and got a replacement set of dishes that we used in our home, but my parents gave to them after one of our moves. So now we're using the set rather then pulling it out on nice occasions, and I like that.



I am just amazed that 5 plates couldn't cut it on a daily basis anymore for two adults and one child (he doesn't even use the china plates!).

The Blog World

Right before Aldan and Theron were born I had read on another Bloggers blog that she was coming to DC.

We only came on her randomly through my sister Kik. I don't know her, other then her blog. But all my sisters (and me) and mom read and comment on her blog and we had a blogger friendship with her. She has the funniest stories, and writes pretty down to earth. She's a mom to three kids lives in the midwest, and shares about their travels, her children, her faith and just life in general. After my grandmother died we wrote her and asked her to keep us in her prayers. So this was someone who we all were comfortable with and she was comfortable with us, through this electronic world.

When I read she would be here shortly after the babies birth and my mom would be here. My sister had met bloggy friends before- so I suggested my mom try to meet her. I wasn't sure how it was going to work- I had newborns...but we worked it out, and her and her son came for a visit. Jon was a little skeptical about inviting a blog friend (how did we know she wasn't really a random truck driver coming after his family?) but I was pretty confident we'd have a good time. We did!

Picture above is my mom with Logziella*.

*not her real name

Summer

My sister did this from another blogger, So i thought it was fun to think about...

Favorite Summer Movie: This year...i liked Slumdog Millionaire which we just saw- good underdog story..which I didn't know before watching..i could watch it a few more times...not about summer, but nice happy story.

Favorite Summer Cocktail: wish i had one....LI Wine (sally what was the name of that white wine we liked from peconic vineyards?)

Favorite Summer Song: This year I am loving that song from the movie Fireproof...John Waller "While I am waiting" but I love all sorts of songs (my husband loaded some Micheal Jackson in the car, and Caed loves to play the songs with "the drums" and that's been fun)

Favorite Summer Meal: Grilled Fish/ Shrimp (we've been doing that a lot lately), corn on the cob, salad and ice cream

Favorite Summer Outfit: At this point, anything that fits! (just being real here)

Favorite Summer Reading: ohh, bad confession, Shopaholic books- will read something with more value soon.

Favorite Summer Moment: Hmm, from this year...going out later then normal to take Caed to watch the fireworks with the babies and having a nice family evening, never imagined possible while pregnant with the twins...

Our Family from 4th of July to watch fireworks

(bad picture from 4th of July, but that happens when the entire human population doesn't know how to take a picture from the view finder of an SLR camera, instead of the back screen)

Living la vida loca..

I wanted this to be part of a private e-mail to my roommates from my Liberty Days, but I couldn't find all their e-mail addresses in one spot, so I am making this public...and I thought it was funny enough..(maybe I'm wrong)

My roommates, all of them, no matter how long it's been since talking can pick right back up with our closeness...they rejoice with me and pray for me. I feel their friendship even though my daily life is spent with different people and no longer them. We are spread along the east coast- and soon to be around the country! This picture doesn't need any explanation to them.

Back at Liberty I loved Ricky. I even had this one dream with him in it (he came to visit me and any other details are lost, but it was clean!) and I really felt like I had met him. The dream was so realistic to me, I remember. So for one birthday my roommates left me a really nice gift from Ricky....although the gift wasn't as clean as my dream, those silly girls (I was really embarrassed and I think I have a picture of me blushing opening the gift)! They were really funny and it made me crack up.

So I saw today that Ricky is celebrating his own fraternal twins- he released a couple pictures of him with them...so what's the coincidence that we both have twins? And one seems to be blond, and the other dark...just like mine? I think it's a further bond (don't tell Jon, or the rest of my family! hehehe) between us.

Ladies, I can't believe you didn't see it before me!

Dress Up

Caed has a mild interest in dressing up. So when he wants to, I like to help him really do it up! This particular morning was so funny, I had to get a picture! But it is hard to get a picture like this because Caed is really sensitive to someone possibly laughing at him. I told him I'd take his picture so he could see what he looked like, and that seemed to work. The outfit and tying the blanket was his idea....my little superhero!

our first overnight not at home

I had been wondering how hard a night someplace else would be. Jon was going to be gone all day and night this one Wednesday, so I arranged to go to my sisters up in PA. I only went for one night, so that however it turned out, I wasn't gone for long. On the way up things went well. I got all the way there without a stop. While up there we did well too! The babies were a little fussy to put down, but they slept through the night- the only thing I wanted to see if they did. But on top of that, we had a great time! Caed loves his cousins. And C and O did so well with the babies. The way home was another story. I had bad timing. And the babies started crying and they wouldn't nod off to sleep. So I had to stop and nurse them both! Do you know how that goes when you have to feed 2, separately? Burp two, change two diapers...and make sure you feed them both enough? I was thinking I was going to stretch the diaper situation and not change them, but then they both had poop diapers!! It was hysterical. (not really, I was mad at myself for the bad timing.)

Here are some pics of the cuties:

4 months

Not sure what's going on with the formatting here, but I am just going to write and post. It's kind of funky in the compose view.

The babies are now almost 5 months old, but this shall serve as their 4 month photo anyway... such cuties and everyday I look at Jon amazed we've got these three. I'm still kind of blown away that we had twins. Ah, I needed to be stretched this way.

Recently there has been a topic on a twins discussion board that I am part of about other's saying to families when they see the twins or multiples "you've got your hands full!". I've thought it was an interesting discussion and how if affects the older kids and the family when people say that- as if it's a 'burden' or it's nothing more then a blessing to have multiples- some have said that they say to people who say that "and we plan to have more!" or "what a blessing it is!". I love that. I do have my hands full of blessings, and it's tiring and takes extra thought on how to face certain situations (and a little more patience) but these little kids are so much fun. Starting to laugh at their big brother when he runs around acting crazy, and singing at the top of his lungs...trying to enjoy the days we're in and not waiting for the future...

Okay, stats. These babies come from families that don't have smallness in their genes.

Aldan 16 pds 8 oz. 27"

Theron 17 pds 11 oz. 27"

Yup, Theron (pronounced Theer-in, I do this because it looks like it should be pronounced with the 'o', but it's not) passed Aldan in weight. Theron is a little Caed...

(excuse anything that doesn't make sense, don't have time to read over, babies crying and C has a bug bite on his foot that apparently is chewing off his foot.)

Co

my mom's younger sister, our "other mother", Auntie Co came to help me for the last week of official help.

I lined up 3 months of help after the twins were born. The first three months after Caed was born was the hardest for me. Mentally my world was changing. I was no longer only responsible for myself. I couldn't just head out to dinner with a friend. Jon and I had to plan when we wanted to go out.....all the things that changed kind of took adjustment for me. I don't think I was depressed, but I was certainly unsure of myself and the decision to bring children into the world after that. Luckily, three months went by and life started sinking in and melding together. Adding Caed had given our family a great new dynamic. Well I was worried about what bringing in twins was going to do, so when it was recommended to get help, i quickly tried to line it up. Oh it was so good to have the help- someone to help do laundry, cook, empty the dishwasher and keep the days from feeling so lonely. The help initially was survival. Do you know that statistically parents of multiples have a higher divorce rate? That sits at the back of my mind during our more stressful times. It's important for Jon and I to keep communicating. Do you know how hard it is to communicate with newborns- let alone twin newborns? Man, it's hard! Anyway- we were given such a gift to keep a lot of stresses low for us the first three months for the most part. The yard and home were kept running, as well as keeping the schedule. The middle of the nights were kept stress free too. We were thankful!

So Auntie Co came the last week...and we had FUN! Trips to Trader Joe's, IKEA (while she fed one of the boys a bottle!!), the zoo, and an amazing afternoon out just the two of us. Jon came home early and I got to go get my haircut!! Woo-Hoo!! I didn't get anything drastic done like I was thinking about, but it was so nice to get a mini break and get a little pampered. Jon did a feeding here at home (see he never backs down from a challenge!) and while Co was getting her hair finished up, I got to go to the bookstore and have a coffee and read parts of books (about parenting twins, of course!). It was such a nice time. We really had a blast together. She played with caed, setting up a mini construction site, read stories to him and helped keep him in line too. I was so thankful to have co here. She is a special part of our life and she is missed!

A lot of people ask Co and my mom if they are twins they are together...seriously, a lot. I've been there when they are and it's so funny. But my mom and her sister, when they are together are a lot of fun!! They make you laugh your head off- tell the funniest stories and are up for whatever adventure lays ahead. And I know that Co took the week with us as an adventure. She walked everywhere with us, and we had lots of fun treats. My sister Heather even came for the day and hung out when Co was here, what fun to have us altogether! We met up with AJ on her lunch break too. Everyone loves to be around when Co's there! We love you Auntie Co!

photos...

I love photography. I have loved photos for a LONG time. I have a friend that I have known since the 4th grade. Debbie liked taking photos too. Early- and they were of everything, because as a kid you like to take pictures of your pool, your room and your cats, not necessarily things that you would put up in an art gallery. But I loved the idea of documenting life. I loved back then the anticipation of getting the images back on paper and looking through her photos. You remember you'd have to drop off your film and get them back 3-7 days later? I loved looking at pictures of our friends and the other random things she'd take pictures of. My older (not oldest) sister is 5 years older then me. When she was in High School she took a photography class and was able to develop her own black and white pictures. I remember this one cool picture that she took through the planks of our deck. The grain in the wood was so cool, and it just sticks out in my mind. When I got to High School, I took all the photography classes I could. I spent a lot of time in the dark room, developing my own pictures. I loved taking the film, loading it onto the reels- seeing the negatives develop and then loading them into negative sleeves and looking at them all, deciding what images might have turned out best. I loved buying the photo paper- and going into photo stores and trying different kinds of papers, and different sizes. Watching the images appear in the chemicals was magical. I created it. I could alter it. I LOVED it. I still miss that part of photography. If I could, I'd set up a darkroom in my house. We even have a boatload of darkroom supplies packed in boxes in my basement. If I could have it the way i want I'd go for it, but I have a family and put that on hold until it works. And for now I've been enjoying digital photography- but I was reluctant to use it. We went to France about 5 years ago and we took both my Minolta film camera, and the brand new Digital SLR we bought, because I couldn't imagine taking the photos completely on digital and not have negatives. enough about me.

Okay, all that to say. I wanted to contemplate taking my own photos of the boys for the announcement. I did. But I have a very talented friend, Jan, who offered to take her time to do it instead. Jan is professionally trained, so when she offered, I felt blessed. It's been so cool to see Jan's work develop since I've known her. She used to work on Capitol Hill and left her job to pursue her passion for photography full time. She's learned and developed so much- she does beautiful work. You can see blog here: http://www.janmichele.blogspot.com/ we spent two different attempts to get the photos, and it was stressful!! We used photos from when caed was 2-3 months old for his announcements so I was excited to get those newborn photos...but it was hard! We didn't get very many photos of just Aldan....he wouldn't sleep! When they are sleeping, you are supposed to be able to get them all pose-able...but that didn't happen...anyway- here are photos we didn't use for the announcement, I'll let her talent speak for itself...

Breaking the Law...

So today I took Caed (and Rado) to the playground after my "workout". (Long walk, that I did pick up a little speed on twice) and he wanted to play on the bouncy spring-y motorcycle thing. You know that you can rock back in forth in? anyway, he wanted me to be included in this playtime by talking to me on the phone. He found a phone (small stick) for me and then told me to hold on. He got up on his motorcycle and starting "going" and then picked up his "phone" (toy fighter jet). rocking back and forth "hi mommy" "oh hi caed" realizing he's acting out what he sees "you know you shouldn't be driving while holding on to the phone, the police could pull you over. You see mom do that sometimes too, huh?" Quiet. "well mommy better work on that, but we can continue to pretend" DC has a hand free law and well I guess I better start obeying the law. So I am sorry to all of you who call me on my cell and I answer with my blue tooth that no one can hear me on. It's safer for me and the three kids too.


how adorable are two happy babies sitting in bumbo seats looking and "talking" to each other? VERY! Loving watching them interact and amuse each other for 2 seconds that I don't need to. I have a friend who uses this quote and I think about it ALL the time these days. "the years are short but the days are long". So true. They are 4 months old!