The Ashtons

going foreign

2012-01-16T13:17:00.000-08:00

this year in preschool brody has a spanish unit once a week, and he is absolutely loving it! for some reason it's super entertaining to watch such a blonde little boy say so many words in espanol! here's some video of his counting:

here's another video of him talking about colors:

he really likes to get the pronunciation and accent just right (he'll correct you if you're off), so it seems he's really trying to go bilingual, maybe he has a desire to go foreign on his mission one day, of course he may take to spanish and then get called somewhere entirely different and need to learn two completely foreign languages- it's been known to happen before.

homemade biscuits

2012-01-16T13:16:00.000-08:00

you see these big bad boys:

they took (from scratch) 30 minutes to make!* That includes letting yeast rise, kneading, rolling into rolls, the whole thing, oh, and they were delicious!! I saw the recipe here on real mom kitchen and decided to try them. We used them for breakfast sandis (with egg, meat and hash browns), and also had them then next morning warmed with jelly, soo good! Justin says they be perfect for biscuits and gravy, but i haven't tried that yet seeing as how biscuits and gravy is usually more than just making biscuits and gravy. any who, make these for dinner and you won't be disappointed!

*30 minutes does not include baking, that's an additional 15 minutes.

family pics

2012-01-09T18:32:00.000-08:00

a couple months ago we took some family pictures, curtesy of a fun photographer in our ward. i kept meaning to post some pics from the shoot, but didn't want to "spoil" the great excitement that comes with seeing what photo was included on our christmas card. so, here's some others we liked:

and of course the family photo from our card:

i really like the family photo, it seems to just exude the "uniqueness" of our family. i can't imagine our boys sitting perfectly posed and smiling right at the camera(at least not for several more years), this is definitely more "us."we haven't has family pictures taken since the twins arrived, it always seemed like a really overwhelming idea. turns out it is a lot of work (i was literally sweating, then again, tx is hot) but i love looking at these pics! i'm sure if you make your way to texas in the next few months you'll see some of these hanging up in our home, which would be a nice change from our currently empty walls.

handsomes

2011-12-11T18:13:00.001-08:00

see these three handsomes? yup, there sporting bow ties from Plum Lovelies on etsy. I love it!!

deck the halls

2011-12-11T17:59:00.001-08:00

Once Thanksgiving was digested we decided to dive right into Christmas! On black Saturday (is that a real tittle?) we braved the cold to pick out some Christmas decor. We each picked an ornament for ourselves; Kade picked Mater, Crew picked Lightning McQueen, Brody picked a pencil, I picked a little kitchen aid and justin picked a travel suitcase. "We" also picked a star to top our tree. I say we because I had a super cute star picked out, but was unanimously outvoted 3-0 by the little guys in favor of the sparkly red glitter star instead. Here's a little tree decorating:

The boys are at wonderful Christmas ages. Everything is so exciting and they love seeing all the lights and decor where ever we go. The loved decorating the tree... and taking the ornaments off...and redecorating again...and taking everything off again. Needless to say if you dropped by our house now you'd notice our tree is only decorated on the top third of it's branches- that's for a reason, and since the redesign we haven't had a problem!

The boys have also really enjoyed doing the advent calendar, we do ours a little differently, we open the doors every three days so everyone has a turn, it's really helped to keep the holiday cheer in the home!

Celebrating Christmas with your kids really makes the season so much sweeter, it's so fun to share traditions you've loved as a kid, I'm grateful my little guys are enjoying the season!

holiday head attire

2011-11-17T17:55:00.001-08:00

I love brody's preschool! Not just because they take my child for a large chunk of the day, but they do super cute projects! Last Christmas i mentioned the brody caroler which was quite amusing, and this year, especially recently, he's come home with a slew of holiday hats. Here's what's come through our doors:

Halloween Boo

His class started discussing native americans in preperation for thanksgiving and each kid was given a native american name. If I were to choose brody's name I probably would have chosen "He-who-talks-without-stopping" but his teachers are much nicer and gave him the cute name Fire Wolf.

The day of his thanksgiving feast he came home with this pilgrim attire:

Yesterday was my favorite... gobble gobble!

So take this as inspiration and design your own holiday head attire! Make it work!

halloween

2011-11-02T08:49:00.001-07:00

i've got three young boys, so naturally when halloween rolls around i want their costumes to be fun and have a cohesive theme. the first year they were lions and tigers and bears (oh my!), last year was jedi, c3po and r2d2, this year was an astronaut, earth and the moon:

my idea came before the construction. i searched online and didn't have much luck, did you know planet costumes don't exist? apparently it's not a "popular option" for kids these days. justin and i put our heads together and with two extra large paper lanterns, white duct tape for reinforcement, spray paint and craft paint, we were finally in business!! i LOVE how it turned out! they're skinny little legs were so cute coming out from the big old planet!

halloween night we had a mini halloween party and cousin jacob came trick or treating too:

after that it was out for trick or treating! at first there was some apprehension, but crew got in the zone real quick and was pretty much on auto pilot after that!!

the night was really fun! it's always a treat to watch your kids discover holidays and traditions you remember loving as a kid!

as a funny side story, since the costumes were paper the boys didn't get to put them on until halloween night (for fear of ripping.) i put the earth on kade and the moon on crew. they both fussed, started freaking out, and began wiggling out of their costumes. i thought my dream had ended. after the costumes were off kade went to the moon and crew went to the earth and they put them on a were perfectly happy after that!! these guys are crazy sometimes, but i love em with everything i have, after all, they're my whole world!

preschool halloween

2011-11-02T08:44:00.000-07:00

the thursday before halloween were the halloween festivities at brody's preschool. the morning started off with a costume parade, which is always really interesting, it's so fun to see what all the different things kids want to be for halloween. that being said, here's our guy:

and here he is in the parade:

doesn't it seem like he's really going to go walk into a space shuttle and take off? after the parade there was the class costume pic:

i was able to find a baby sitter to go to his class halloween party, they made a hershey bar into a mummy, a classmate into a mummy:

ate some spooky snack like gummy centipedes

concocted a witches brew of swamp water (green lemonade), spiders, eyeballs, centipedes, and dragon scales:

it was such a fun day! i love being able to watch brody in a classroom setting, and his teachers seem to enjoy him. after watching his "dance moves" since the year's began, one of his teachers recommended i put him in break dance lessons so he can go on sycytd one day.... hmm, it's a good point. i guess if he doesn't pursue the whole astronaut thing he can always be a B boy.

byu v. tcu

2011-11-02T08:40:00.001-07:00

So before Justin started at his job the company didn't have any lds doctors. Since Justin started, another lds guy from SC started, and his boss (Chris) has opened a new office with an lds guy. suddenly mormons are popping up all over the company and when Chris heard how many people would be attending the byu vs. tcu game at cowboy stadium he arranged for a suite. yup, a fully catered (texas bbq), all you can drink (not really an option for most attending), with comfy leather chairs in. a. suite. to say the guys were excited is probably a really big understatement. they loved it!

ryan, rob and mike watching the game

view from the box

the boys and grandma. the boys all knew about the suite and grandma thought she was attending the game in a seat like a bunch of other fans. to say she was surprised and delighted is also an understatement!

Chris had a little "wager pool" that rewarded the person who matched the score at the end of each quarter. it wasn't actually gambling since Chris supplied everyone's money, but people still won. grandma won first, $75.

no one won the second quarter so the pot rolled over. ryan won $150 the third quarter.

Chris ended up winning the fourth quarter but said he'd rather give the money to grandma if she would "make it rain downstairs." here's the video:

she said it was one of the funnest things she's ever done! Seriously who wouldn't want to throw a bunch of money out to people?!

The boys and grandma had a great time and really enjoyed the suite, despite the loss. here's a pic with all the doctors and his boss Chris in the red Texas Rangers (ouch!) shirt.

zoo

2011-11-02T08:21:00.000-07:00

the byu v tcu game (at cowboy stadium) was last weekend so naturally we had some visitors! justin's parents, his brothers mike and ryan, and his grandma lil came to visit. we kicked off the festivities with a trip to the zoo. we figured the kids would love it and zoo animals can always provide some sort of entertainment for adult as well. speaking of kids loving it, crew kind of didn't. he was a little freaked out the whole time and seemed to come around right as we were leaving. he needed a constant comforting companion for the day, which knowing crew, shouldn't have surprised me in the least!

our resident animal lover, kade, really enjoyed the day! he was super excited to watch the turtles swim. he also tried to squeeze through the fence to go play with some baboons.

he can't read, but he seemed to know that this was the door for him:

brody enjoyed tour guiding everyone around, and learning to read the park maps. at one point we didn't want to even look at the elephants because there was a map station near by. you guessed it, his new obsession is directions (N, S, E, W), he loves the compass iphone app mike showed him. now whenever we're in the car he asks which direction were going. like every. single. turn. super fun.

the boys were able to find the strollers to take a little break in.

another highlight: riding the train. this is the best behaved i've ever seen my boys. i'm thinking of ditching our car and taking a train anywhere we need to go.

family pic

it was a busy morning but we all had fun, the weather was perfect and we really enjoyed the animals!

Primary program

2011-10-25T12:25:00.000-07:00

Earlier this month our ward had the primary program, It was really great! I was a little nervous giving Brody an open mic in front of a crowd, but he did great! I thought i'd try to video the boys saying their parts each year so I can see them grow from year to year, so here's Brody:

*That little bit about it being Sunday wasn't actually part of his part, but more the sharing of information.

Pumpkin patch

2011-10-25T12:17:00.000-07:00

Our ward's playgroup met at the pumpkin patch, so we joined in on the fun. I really like this pumpkin patch, we went a few weeks ago and had fun that time too! It's free, lots of white pumpkins (my fav) and a little farmstand with fresh veggies, jams, salsas and honeycrisp apples (by far the best type of apple ever.) I tried to get a cute little picture of the boys, and this was the result:

hmm, not so great. the older one should do better right?

I guess he thought the camera was off to the side!

Running around on the hay maze:

My favorite part of the morning was the twins on the bounce house slide, one word: hilarious!

T-swizzle

2011-10-25T12:00:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago Taylor Swift came to cowboys stadium for the final stop of her speak now tour. We bought tickets back in january so I have been waiting for quite a while for this concert! I really enjoyed the show, she has alot of creative stuff going on and she sounded a little better live than I expected. But holy cow, there certainly were A LOT of screaming bedazzled tween girls!! I started to wonder if I was way off to think I was part of a target audience, but there were two men sitting in front of us, without any girls accompaning them, so I felt a little better about being there! Here's some pics from our night:

special guest B.O.B.

justin's way to "cope" with the evening, the espn mobile app

singing a ball gown

floating over the audience

In true Taylor fashion there was a lot of hair being whipped around, and running up and down the stage, and in true aging kim fashion I was really concerned she was going to get dizzy and pass out. Turns out she's young and perfectly fine moving all around for multiple hours!! She put on a great show and was definitely worth the wait!

Have a seat

2011-10-25T11:44:00.000-07:00

You may be shocked by this, so are you sitting down? I actually got some crafts done!! The craftiness has been very few and very far between since a pair of guys showed up a few years ago, but it seems that if I plan a little better then I may actually find some opportunities to get some things done, I'm super excited! The other night I made this Halloween yarn wreath, which is definitely a simpler version than I've seen, but I figured I'd start with baby steps.

I promise the flowers are supposed to look wrinkled like that! And also, that's not my arm. Anywho, this is really, really easy to make, it just takes a really long time to wrap the yarn around the wreath, so I recommend having some good tv on to keep you going! Now sit tight, I'm already moving on to the next project...

I had seen this on eighteen25 and thought it was really cute, the letters were from hobby lobby, spray painted flat white and i modge podged paper onto the heart. I think for now I like how it turned out! It certainly helps to have a little more space to work on things! Now, hopefully the shock has worn off and next time no one will be caught off guard when I finish a project!

crewkade

2011-09-25T19:35:00.000-07:00

yup, when there's two their names blend as one, especially when they're this similar:

i love watching crew and kade do their "twin thing" together, i can't imagine how fun it would be to have your best bud with you all the time! they obviously fight a lot, but i love when they rotate play with each other, luckily i got a little on video when we were playing at the museum:

of course i save the best for last. one day at lunch we were listening to a little jack johnson and crewkade decided to work out a few moves, i love this video!

twins are crazy, but i feel so lucky to watch these two become the best of buds!

seattle

2011-09-06T11:25:00.002-07:00

i should preface the next couple days of post and say that this trip we took was AMAZING!! i think we all have a "travel bucket list" and this trip crossed a few of those goals off my list! i'm so grateful for justin's grandma who arranged for this family reunion, and for clarke and diane for making sure we had an amazing time in seattle! and i am especially grateful for my parents who braved the trenches with our little guys and truly learned first hand all the joys and choas brody, crew and kade are, seriously, thank you!! so... here's the trip:

we started out in seattle for a couple days and i LOVED downtown seattle, yes there's a LOT of bums, but the city is really fun, and it's beautiful!! here's some of our highlights, believe me, it's picture overload:
we stayed next to pike place market, lots of shops/restaurants/attractions, lots to walk around and see.

heading down to the market

so this is famous fish throwing market, very entertaining!

the gum wall, not surprisingly, totally grossed me out!!

we took a ferry boat ride to Bainbridge island, and everything about puget sound is gorgeous! the islands are covered in trees with houses popping out, and of course seattle's skyline is really pretty!

justin with a view of the seattle seahawk's stadium and the mariner's field.

view of space needle, i hope you enjoy my true windblown look!

did you get the sunglasses memo?

view of Bainbridge island

after the ferry ride we went to Experience Music Project museum, which was really interesting! justin by the cyclone of guitars, this thing was two stories tall!

the museum had a hall of historic guitars, a Jimi Hendrix feature and a Nirvana feature, which caught our attention. they had lots of memorabilia, smashed guiters and historical progress of the band, it was amazing! recognize kurt's sweater??

after the museum we crossed the way to the space needle, and up we went!

view from the top!

city view on one side

ocean view on the other!

out to dinner at ruth's chris, yum! seattle has delicious crab cakes, soo good!!

pretty much i LOVED seattle, it's beautiful, there's tons to do, and people were really friendly! we boarded the ship in seattle and to be honest i was sad to leave the downtown! it was gorgeous to watch seattle and all the other island go by, such a pretty place!

some skyline and mt. Rainier, i so underestimated the size of my Rainier, it's HUGE!! most of the time the peak's covered with clouds, and flying in our plane was flying about at the height of the top of the mountain, truly majestic!!

enjoying the view

sailing away, and excited for our next stops!!

juneau

2011-09-06T11:25:00.001-07:00

i've fared pretty well on previous cruises, but the chilly choppy water off Canada and Alaska really got to me, and the majority of passengers on board! after a few bumpy sea days, we were all very relieved to be on land, and better yet, in Juneau Alaska! we took a view off the balcony and were blown away by how gorgeous and green it was! the mountains had this misty fog swirling around creating such a cool atmosphere! so we bundled up and stepped off ship!
view into Juneau:

the highlight of Juneau is Mendenhall glacier, which is really amazing, we took a little walk through the rainforest of Juneau and it must be the texas summer we just left or something, but we loved the green, the chilly air and the never ending drizzle!

there's a lot of bear activity near the glacier, what with all the alaskan salmon swimming around and everything, so the walks were not guided but more "walk at your own risk, you've been warned." we didn't linger around too long, but i did love the sign that warned against dogs, looks like Juneau's my kind of town!

Juneau rainforest

view of the glacier, and all the flooding that's slowly inching up the trees!

so Mendenhall glacier is blue, the ice is so thick it absorbs all the colors of the rainbow, except blue, which it reflects. interesting right? i tell ya, you learn something new every day!

a little breakage action

the glacier comes from the Juneau icefield and is about 12 miles long. scratch that, i learned more than one thing new!

our excursion for Juneau was to walk on the top of the glacier. you've probably wondering how that was going to happen because lets face it- i don't hike. enter our ride:

yup, we helicoptered to the top, can you tell how excited we are?!

helicopters are so fun! they go straight up or down, side to side and they just hover, it was great! some views of Juneau's city

water views out the other side

above the glacier

the little orange specks are the guides we're going to meet up with

arriving in style:

glacier pics

view from the top

the 350 ft of packed ice we walked around on. they gave us these glacier boots to use, they reminded me of track spikes, so we wouldn't slip around.

a little glacier stream they let us taste, so clean, pure, and freezing cold!! while our guide was letting us drink the water some other guides were playing around testing the ice and one girl fell in up to her waste! she obviously had water proof stuff on, but it was chilly to see!

this crevice was super deep, it made me a little nervous!

to the side of the glacier was a little waterfall, quite picturesque!

grandma lil braving the glacier with her escorts mike and clarke.

so on cruises people always take really cheesy pics where the guy holds the girl, but usually they're on a strip of beach in board shorts and a teeny tiny bathing suit, so here's our shot- Juneau style!

our glacier trekking group (me, justin, jana, rob, clarke, alyssa, shauna, ryan, mike, diane and grandma lil.)

after we got back to the "airport" we took a quick pic by a bear, stuffed of course!

Juneau was amazing, so pretty and green! visiting Mendenhall glacier with everyone was really cool, and we loved the helicopter rides!!

sitka

2011-09-06T11:24:00.003-07:00

so the day after juneau we were scheduled to stop in Hubbard glacier bay, but thanks (well really no thanks) to high winds and large chunks of ice in the water, we weren't able to go in the bay!! we were soo bummed! this was as close as we got (outside of the bay obviously) to the giant wall of ice 6 miles wide. bummer.

as close as we could get:

to make up for the disappointment the captains got us into our remaining ports early, which was a kind gesture- can you tell i'm still bummed? so the next day we arrived early to Sitka, which was my favorite destination of the trip, it was the epitome of alaskan beauty!! green rainy, fresh and dewey, it was perfection! here's a pic of humpback bay, which sadly i saw no humpbacks, but it was still beautiful!

we decided to tag along with grandma lil, clarke, diane, shauna and alyssa and go to the Fortress of the Bear. it was awesome!! there's a law in alaska that says they can euthanize bear cubs if the mother bear is already dead, but this group takes in the cubs, which are usually malnourished, and rehabilitates them. it was so cool to see these bears up close, they're huge!!

a 1000 pound bear standing tall

some video of the brown bears

a helpful sign for guests:

these three black bears are siblings and they reminded me so much of our boys and they way they "play" together.

After the bears we took a bus back to town and explored a bit, we learned that groceries are superbly overpriced so a box of frosted mini wheats costs $6.85, i kid you not! we also learned that sitka get 13 feet of rain a year and their local pub, victorias, has the BEST halibut fish and chips, seriously, it makes my mouth water to think of the lunch we savored there!! after lunch justin's family, all 21 of us, went on a kayaking excursion together, it was incredible! here's some of us getting ready to paddle away:

out at sea:

we kayaked out in the ocean past the cruise ships, around some little islands, caught up with a huge sea lion and went by this cute lighthouse.

i feel like our kayaking trip was this like unreal experience, everything seemed so perfect, it was so pretty and you're just out in the ocean looking around and feeling so amazed and grateful that you get to be somewhere so breathtaking. here's a little family pic after kayaking:

ketchikan and victoria

2011-09-06T11:24:00.001-07:00

the morning after Sitka we arrived in Ketchikan, and when i say morning i mean off the boat by 7! thank goodness the cruise makes breakfast for you! room service anyone?

this was our shortest dock so we really wanted to plan something fun for the morning. we wanted to see a little of the town and go some where with great views, so we harnessed up:

and went zip lining! i want to tell you how amazingly fun it was, but i was super nervous in the beginning. we started several hundred feet up in the mountains and went through the 8 zipline and 3 suspension bridge course, by the second zipline i was super excited, it was so fun! the suspension bridges were a little nerve-wracking, but we made it through!

here's a little video, watch the the center of the screen for the appearance!

afterwards we got our medals of accomplishment and took a pic with our guides, they were really great and super funny!

ketchikan has lots of totem poles to see, so of course we took a picture. it's interesting that each pole tells a story and that there's history carved into these totem poles.

the next night, and last night of the cruise, we arrived in victoria in british colombia. this was our first visit to canada! eh!

we took a taxi to the parliament building, which was really cool!

we walked around the harbor, and around the empress hotel, which is really old and really intricate, it has some pretty gardens and even a spot inside for "tea time" which we didn't participate in, it still looked pretty though!

a funny canadian story: about an hour before we docked at victoria i started sneezing a lot, which is unusual. we got off the boat and i kept sneezing the entire night we walked around victoria and by the time we got back to the boat i was starting to feel pretty lousy. the sneezing continued until i went to bed, but i was completely fine the next morning. my conclusion in all this? i'm allergic to canada!

seattle part II

2011-09-06T11:16:00.000-07:00

the last day of our trip was another early morning, we express checked our bags to the airport, but then had to exit the boat super early. all in all it was a great plan since we could hang around seattle without our baggage! we went back to downtown for breakfast and shopped around. i had to go back to this little place called chocolate box, it was pure heaven!! i was absolutely in love!! i only tried the cookies (a chocolate chunk the first time around and a chocolate truffle the second) and i seriously can't get them off my mind!!

we wanted to do something in the afternoon, so we hopped into the original, first ever starbucks

to see if the seahawks had a preseason game (they did... in denver) or if the mariners had a game (they did... during our flight home) and finally checked to see if the sounders had a game, they did and it was at home!! we went over to the field at game time only to find out only one ticket booth window (for the whole stadium) was selling tickets. the line was long and i swear we never moved! some guy walked up to us and asked if we were going to buy tickets, we said yes and he said "my friends didn't show so here's two free ones, i think they're pretty good, so today's your lucky day!" we were soo excited!! we walked in and here were our seats:

yup, that would be the second row from the field, corner flag! the same corner that the teams run in and out of for the beginning, halftime and end of game! we were soo completely blown away! the game, a complete blow out, was awesome!! this was totally the perfect afternoon!

after the game we left for the airport more that blown away at the awesome week and half we had just spent!! i LOVED seattle and LOVED alaska! i know i sound so repetitive when i say how beautiful washington, alaska and british columbia are, but i seriously felt in awe of the majestic beauty we got to see and experience! do i recommend this trip? i can't say yes fast enough!!

first day of school

2011-09-02T19:02:00.001-07:00

brody started preschool this week!

he's now got a week of school under his belt and is asking for more, thank goodness the boy LOVES school!

finally four!

2011-07-21T14:13:00.001-07:00

so brody has finally turned four!! i'm so excited! i feel like people are always doubting me when i'd say he's 3, but hello, obviously i know how old my own kid is. and now i can finally say 4, no one's asked his age in the past week, bummer. brody's an awesome kid, he's so full or energy and has been since day one! he's like this ball of energy and activity that's bouncing off anything and everyone. he loves hanging out with adults, jumping off things, swimming, his brothers and all things sweet. did i mention he likes letters, numbers and digital clocks? probably not, that kind of falls in to his "obsessed with" column. he's been so entertaining to watch grow, not to mention he's SO funny, what he says and the way he says it, just makes us laugh! plus he has a following, yup, crew is determined to be just like brody- it's almost a little scary. so cue the brody pics cause we love our biggest little guy!

3 months old

1 yr old, first day at the beach

2nd birthday

first kind-of big kid bike

3 yrs old

couple months ago

photos from the party:

planets cookies cake

yup, we love this guy!

um, there's a game going on

2011-07-21T14:07:00.000-07:00

we were looking for a spot to start brody in for summer, and once we realized that soccer was held inside an air-conditioned building, we jumped to sign him up. i want to preface this post by saying i absolutely LOVE brody! he's hilarious, energetic and a little smarty pants to boot. however, he's one of the most easily distracted kids i know, and that's just brody being brody. well its no different on the soccer field, there's a lot of distractions: walls to run into, scoreboards that count down, a coach to chat it up with, not to mention all the grass to run around on. it's entertaining, and he's three so i'm not to concerned about it, but it does make for great video!

at least he's not one of the two girls that run around the field holding hands... that'd be awkward.

seven years

2011-07-21T13:49:00.001-07:00

2004 doesn't really seem that long ago, but seven years have passed since justin and i tied the knot and sometimes i'm amazed how much has happened in 7 short years! open the time capsule, here we go:

we lived in provo for our first two years, finishing up at BYU. justin studied biology, worked at the mtc and translated for conference. i studied human development and worked as a ta.

finally graduation!

moved back to cali, and i started teaching preschool

justin's white coat ceremony at USC for the start of dental school

a year into dental school brody made his arrival!

and less than two years after that the twins debuted.

justin graduates from dental school!

we packed up and moved to texas!

we recently bought our first house and love it!

sometimes justin and i joke that school being over/kids/owning a house all seemed to happen in a blink of an eye, seriously, time can fly by! i'm so grateful i've got justin to share this ride with, he's the best dad for these boys and the best husband for me, i love him! happy 7th my sweet!

naughty and nice

2011-07-21T13:34:00.001-07:00

my boys are crazy work, but like every mom they have the moments that make me feel so lucky to be the mom of these three little guys, they can be so sweet! a lot of people know that the twins went through a pretty long biting stage, apparently it's common for twins and stressful for moms. the biting has FINALLY subsided and now crew and kade feel the need to always sleep near each other, it's so cute. they's take all the pillows and blankets off their beds, pile them together and have a little overnight right next to each other, case in point:

now if you're observant or care about equality among children, you'll notice one boy (crew) has all four blankets and the other is bare (kade). that's just typical crew/kade behavior, i can't even begin to describe it.

another pic, crew loves to snuggle lately (it was a short lived phase) and since i was making dinner he opted to snuggle with brody, who graciously let him. crew was so excited.

a popular spot to eat in our dining area is on the window sill, i don't get it, but the boys love it! occasionally they'll all squeeze in and eat together. no fighting, pushing, or yelling- i love it!

again, the observant among you will notice the title is naughty and nice, so where's the naughty? i mentioned that the nice comes in little moments, that's because the majority of our day is things like this:

swim lessons 2.0

2011-07-21T13:20:00.000-07:00

last year brody took swim lessons and it was a total bust. needless to say i was really hoping he might take to lessons a bit better this year- and seriously i was shocked! he totally loves it! every morning is a count down to swimming day! it's so fun to watch him learn something he's so excited about! here's some action shots:

under water swimming? no prob!

so excited to be there, i love it!

no hesitation to jump off and swim on his own (ok, that's kind of a pro and a con.)

proud of his work!

as a side story- at the end of each class the teacher has the students show what they worked on that day and tells the parent what they learned/need to work on. the first couple of weeks she kept mentioning things for brody like: "easily distracted," or "needs to focus a little more" and "gets excited and looses focus." as his mom i thought it was hilarious, i kept thinking distracted? loss of focus? oh yes, you must have met brody! so funny! she's since realized that's just how brody rolls and now she works with it, it's great. she a really good teacher and i'm so glad brody's loving his swim days! there's no stopping this little fish!

4th of july

2011-07-21T13:10:00.000-07:00

our fourth of july was really fun this year! we kicked off the morning at our ward's breakfast which was quite tasty! they held a bike parade and we thought the boys would love it... they didn't, at least initially. after a bit brody jumped in and started along the parade route. kade had totally ditched his rocket- now occupied by some other kid. and crew? well after scouring the crowd for him, there was crew making little parade laps on his bike, so cute!! soon after brody experienced his first high speed crash, it was a little too jr x-games for me, but luckily he was okay. after a little rest at home we headed to the pools with the prices and had some great bbq for dinner. here's some pics from the breakfast and a video of our parade stars:

"rolling" up to the breakfast.

kade's more comfortable spot for the bike parade.

and for the video:

miracles

2011-05-29T20:29:00.000-07:00

i've been thinking a lot about miracles lately. i think it's easy to think you've never had a true miracle occur in your life, and sometimes i feel the same way too, but lately i can't help but think of crew and kade as my miracles. i remember when we felt like we should have another baby after brody. our prompting and directions we received were really specific and we followed them, but were so surprised to learn that we were expecting twins (seriously, twins!) we didn't know how we'd do it, and how we'd do it while justin was still in school. but our miracles had already started, the twins were healthy and looked great in every ultrasound, the preterm labor in the 31st week was able to reversed and the medication kept those boys right where they should be. we made it to 36 weeks and had two perfectly healthy babies that never needed the nicu and were able to come right home with us. i'm amazed how smoothly everything was just to simply have those guys arrive healthy! we've learned that we had the twins while justin was in school because we had family to help, we could not have done it alone! with grandmas, grandpas, aunts, uncles and cousins we made it through the first year, and justin through school. with help we afforded all the diapers, formula (thank you wic!) and clothes we needed. i look back and realize that i've been lucky enough to have two miracles and have been able to watch these two guys grow together which has been incredible, i love watching them develop their special friendship and concern for one another. i feel amazed and blessed to have crew and kade and know they're our miracles. we love these two!!

two turn two!!

2011-05-29T20:05:00.001-07:00

this past weekend we celebrated crew and kade turning two!! we decided to make it the ultimate toddler day and filled the schedule with fun and festivities! we went to a couple of the pools at our new housing community; brody loved it, the twins were definitely "suspicious" until they found some parts they liked. for instance crew walked away from me to go past three pools, and up a flight of stairs to wait in line for another trip down the water slide, and yes, i was right behind him. the pools were great, we're so excited to cool off here this summer. here's some pics of the day:
the birthday boys: (crew, kade)

me and kade:

justin and crew:

brody lovin the water!

the water games continued after naps as the broke in their new water table. hey texas is HOT, we gotta stay as cool as possible!

kade enjoying the table:

brody, probably caught in the act:

crew:

before dinner we opened presents, which brody loved. the twins? well, they liked the gifts once they were opened!

kade:

the boys ready to play:

after dinner we celebrated with cookies, the twins don't really like cake, i wonder where they get that from (guilty cough.) they don't say many words, but one word they picked up very quickly was cookie!

kade:

crew:

funny story: we were getting ready to clean up to have dessert and none of the boys were helping so we said "let's clean up to have cookies." crew chucked his toys down and made a beeline to start cleaning while chanting "cookies, cookies." it was hilarious. we love our boys are were so excited to celebrate today!

spring program

2011-05-29T20:01:00.000-07:00

brody's preschool put on a spring america themed singing program and open house a few weeks ago, and here's one of his songs (he's in the front at the end on the right):

we think he did great, as for the other songs, we only heard them from the halls with the twins. oh well, it sounded great!

easter

2011-05-29T19:42:00.000-07:00

it seems like we celebrated easter a few times this year! first i was able to help in brody's class for their easter party, which was really entertaining. it's funny to watch brody attempt to follow directions, sometimes he's so excited he can't wait for his turn, or other times he's distracted and jumping around while he's supposed to be waiting in line. like i said, it's entertaining.

here's a little video of his relay game:

like i said, he has a hard time waiting for his turn!

eggs from the hunt:

a pic with mom. i hadn't told him i was coming to help, since i wasn't able to find anyone to watch the twins, but justin got off work super early, so i surprised brody, i loved seeing his sweet excited smile to see me there, so cute!

on sunday we celebrated easter at church and had dinner with rob and jana, and on monday for fhe we had our baskets and egg hunt, which worked out really well. the boys were really excited to see what was in there baskets and they loved the easter hunt. this was the twins first egg hunt and they were so cute and excited when they'd find an egg. of course, you should have seen how excited they were to learn that the eggs were filled with treats!

boy, do our boys love curious george!

crew and kade love the cute books by sandra boynton, they each got one.

it was really neat to talk to brody about the true meaning of easter this year after heling him distinguish between christmas (the birth) and easter (the resurrection), the little message we tried to teach him was: "Jesus isn't dead, he's alive!" it was really cool to be able to teach his such a simple yet beautiful gospel message!

with out further adieu

2011-05-03T12:03:00.000-07:00

last week we bought this:

i love it! more pics to come when more boxes are unpacked.

double take

2011-04-20T21:04:00.000-07:00

recognize this guy:

yup, someone got a haircut. texas heat + lots of curls = hot sweaty head. so we did haircuts all around and obviously it's the most noticeable on brody.

here's how the other guys made out:

this is so close to being a cute picture, kade's looking sharp (far left), brody's not ready, and crew clearly does not want to be hugged so tightly (well not by anyone but me.) so close!

you workout?

2011-03-27T19:25:00.000-07:00

the twins take a LONG time to get to sleep at nap time. their usually playing together or creating piles of stuff in their room. the other day i walked in to find them "rearranging" their room. now they do it all the time, it's like a weight lifting workout. i finally got it on video, hey, at least they're having fun right?

oh, and enjoy the twinspeak jibber jabber.

the raptors

2011-03-27T19:03:00.001-07:00

so the blessed day of november 28th finally rolled around and the twins were officially in nursery! did you know there's classes for adults the other two hours of church? i had completely forgotten! so with some apprehension for the nursery leaders we dropped of the twins and pretty much bolted from the room. they escaped the first day and were soon labeled "the climbing monkeys." it's been four months and the cute nicknames has been changed, crew and kade are now called "the raptors." you know those velociraptors in jurassic park- the ones who solely focus on destroying? Turn up your sound because the narrative is classic!

yup, thats what are boys are named after. or maybe it's because they double team against the leaders to create mischief. either way the leaders are requesting the twins be separated into different nurseries. i'm a little torn on the matter, i kinda feel validated on the fact that my kids are crazy, but sad that the crew and kade will be separated from one another (and especially sad for the one who has to go in a new nursery all alone.) im also concerned if my kids are the one's putting the leaders over the edge of sanity in a two-hour time period. so in a couple weeks the test run will begin, but till then i kind of dread the day of separating these two little guys.

is the thought of separating them not sad? i mean look how they sleep!

his favorite girl

2011-03-23T19:32:00.001-07:00

they say you should love your kids equally, but he might have just nudged ahead.

clean up on aisle one

2011-03-23T19:13:00.002-07:00

i think i should clean my kitchen:

because if you look hard enough you'll find this amongst the chaos:

he should nap more, preferably in his own bed.

foiled again

2011-03-23T19:13:00.001-07:00

i kind of feel like a fool. remember this post? well as luck would have it we might not be the only ones out there with crazy kids because amazon sells magnetic locks that we promptly purchased and installed on crew and kade's dresser drawers. things have done a complete 180!! no more clothes pick up, i love it!!! let me guess, you're waiting for the foolish part? oh yes, i was foolish enough to think the messes would stop. the drawers are locked, yes; the bedding, sheets, blankets, pillows and toys are not, hence coming in their room and finding this:

they were supposed to be sleeping. oh as a side note, we now have to dress the twins in sleepers for bed or else we'll walk in to find them butt-naked. sorry for the graphic term, but i think you get the picture we're seeing!

zoo day

2011-03-07T07:01:00.000-08:00

last weekend we ventured out to the fort worth zoo a little apprehensive since you never know how wild the boys could get in the, well..., wild. but actually the outing was a HUGE success!! we didn't loose anyone, no one threw a tantrum, and crew and kade sat really well in the stroller the first part of the day. the only hiccup? crew blocking walkers on a bridge to stop and make gorilla noises, refusing to move. and no, we were no where near the gorillas anymore. luckily the people laughed and he's still light enough to scoop up and move out of the way. here's some pics:

justin and the boys at the gorillas, seriously, these guys (the monkeys) are huge!

crew, kade and me by the parrots, which are soo pretty! i didn't realize quite how brightly colored parrots are! i would actually consider owning one -but only if they didn't repeat back the things you say, it seems incriminating.

kade and crew loved the penguins! the little guys would swim and hover underwater right next to the glass, they thought it was so cool!

justin snapped this pic of the lion, so cute!

at the end of the trip we rode the little train back to the entrance to leave, and that ride may have been the highlight of brody's week! as a side story, i ran into a grandma (ok, she tracked me down) who's daughter just had twins and she asked when it starts getting easier. "three months? six months? seven? when does it get easier?" the look of panic in her eyes was priceless as justin turned to me and said "i don't know hon, has it started getting easier yet?" so funny! but really, i was one proud mama leaving the zoo, the boys had fun, they were happy and our family outing was great!

warm it up

2011-02-27T21:14:00.000-08:00

february has been a bit of a mixed bag of weather here, first we had the crazy snow days and now we're having some fabulous weather, cool in the mornings and warm in the afternoons. so on this february afternoon the boys did a little of this:

oh yes, the summer water sink came out early this year! ok, so it never really got put away from last summer, but you get the idea.

see what a good listener crew is (above) i kept telling them not to drink the water, and of course, he drinks the water.

kade, just lovin the sun and water!

i promise they're laughing in this picture but in posting it looks like they might not be! i hope this is what spring in texas is like, cause i'm definitely a fan!

in just a second

2011-02-21T17:28:00.000-08:00

i was getting the boys ready for a bath the other night, and undressed crew and was ready to take his diaper off and after turning my back for seriously like one second (ok, so maybe like three) i turn around to find this:

oh yes, that's kade. he's fully clothed, shirt, shorts, diaper and socks. usually he screams the first few minutes of bath time, except for this night. does this mean i'm just supposed to start putting him in fully clothed to limit the screaming each night? bummer. i was kinda hoping for a, "dry until appropriately ready for bathing", option.

fact or fortune?

2011-02-20T17:24:00.001-08:00

a couple nights ago we had some chinese food which the twins actually ate!! since brody refused to eat both rice and chow mien, both fortune cookies went to the twins. i opened kade's fortune cookie first which read:

"you have a friendly heart and are well-admired."

i laughed since it totally suits kade as the only sweetie in the house. then i opened crew's cookie which read:

"you will win success in whatever you adopt."

then i really laughed since this one is crew to a T! crew is so focused and driven until he gets whatever or whoever he wants! these accurate fortunes really made me wonder, what would my fortune say? probably something like "wow. you sure have your hands full!" that's only the phrase i hear almost every time i go out. this phrase immediately prompts a classic kim eyeroll followed by an irritated "smile." i think i should probably just play it safe and leave the fortune cookies to the boys!

snow day -er, week

2011-02-07T10:31:00.000-08:00

wow, i totally underestimated mother nature! or maybe i overestimated the dfw's snow removal tactics. either way i really didn't believe anyone who told me that dfw can literally shut down from a snow storm. no seriously, totally shuts down!! snow is apparently a rarity so they streets aren't salted, there's no snow plows for roads, and i really wouldn't even know where to buy a window scrapper for my car. we were trapped -oops! i mean "home bound" for four days. luckily justin's work was closed (along with everything else!) so i didn't have to go it alone! with so many people heating their homes they did rolling blackouts, which were super great and even fried our verizon equipment so we had no phone, cable or internet during the whole four days!! sucks? most definitely! this picture was taken friday, but we had been snowed in since tuesday. the roads were complete ice, until this powdery snow came down friday and was followed by sunshine drenching the whole metroplex from melted snow. oh, and the whole play in the snow with your kids thing? um, not if you're from cali and your kids don't own snow clothes, let alone a pair of mittens. i feel like such an unprepared mother! despite the ice rink roads we tried to take a little drive each day to just get out of that dang house! who knew the grocery store with three kids could be so exciting, but after two full days at home, it's like a mini disneyland. for now the snow is gone and completely melted, with a possibility for more this week. another snow day ahead? a day is fine, but a week, no thank you!

two cute

2011-01-30T20:15:00.000-08:00

can be cute:

can be crazy:

thats pretty much the twins in a nutshell.

haircuts cubed

2011-01-30T20:05:00.000-08:00

we finally cut the boys hair, it seriously needed taming and i think the twins were growing mini mullets. here's the before and afters:

crew before, yes he looks confused, it's been a while since they've got hair cut!

crew after, dressed and ready for church:

kade before:

kade after, love those cheeks!

brody before (well, a couple weeks ago)

and after:

all in all we think it's an improvement, at least they look maintained now! it's possible that someone might think kade and crew recently enlisted in the military, but i'm hoping their age will prove otherwise.

you lose some, you lose some

2011-01-30T19:52:00.000-08:00

so i'd prefer the phrase "you win some, you lose some" so i'd at least get to win some of the time, but not in this situation. this is the dresser we bought when brody was a baby, as you can see that ikea craftsmanship has held up impeccably!

i hated that dresser! it only had one drawer that properly worked which we tried to keep all the twins clothes in (thankfully it was the biggest drawer.) but more often than not we had to put clothes in the broken drawers, which lead to things like this happening during nap time:

so now instead of just hating the dresser, i then started hating all the clothes i would have to clean up during the course of a day. i finally decided on a dresser to buy the boys, and here she is:

we haven't put the hardware on yet, and we tied hemp cord around the drawers to keep them closed. but wait, didn't i say this was a lose/lose post? oh right, thats cause of this:

worse than before. and they can climb on top of the dresser for a nice place to sit and look out over their room. big. fat. fail. twins- 2, mom-0.

showing some skin

2011-01-30T19:34:00.000-08:00

so i've posted about the twins wake-up apparel before, but here's crew's latest morning fad:

what? you think this is weird? well maybe he's wearing the sleeper correctly and your kids are actually wearing theirs incorrectly, good luck with that.

men at work

2011-01-30T19:31:00.000-08:00

this is one of the reasons that i love having boys, because if something heavy gets delivered i don't have to worry about moving it, i've got four tough guys that will move it for me.

ok, so three guys are moving it and kade's just posing but i still love it.

high maintenance to what maintenance?

2011-01-18T17:18:00.000-08:00

you know how it goes with your first kid, you're on top of every runny nose, hand sanitizer for after park play, washing the pacifier off whenever it falls, never forgetting to wipe the highchair tray so baby food won't set hard on. yeah totally, me too. in a phrase i was a total high maintenance mom. people say it changes the more you have, holy cow! poor kade and crew! i get tired of wiping every run of snot, i was super relieved they never took pacifiers cause it would be one less thing for me to disinfect, and certainly can't control every little piece of food that drips, drops, or is grinded into their clothes. the thing is people still think i'm pretty uptight when it comes to my boys, but sometimes i wonder if i've totally fallen off the maintenance boat! sure, you'll be nice and say i'm doing fine, but seriously, my kids look like this:

good luck first time moms, but i strongly believe your maintenance goes out the window with subsequent children, well so does your sanity for that matter.

at a loss

2011-01-09T20:01:00.002-08:00

i straighten my hair every single day. i don't care if i plan on wearing it in a ponytail all day long, i'll straighten it before hand. naturally it's kind of wavy on top and kind of curly under neath, sounds like that would be so fun and versatile, but really, not so much (or at all.) it's a nightmare. it never occurred to me that i would pass this on to one of my kids, one of my boys. but you've all seen brody's hair. it's beyond something else. i don't really have words for it. it's so unruly (kind of fits the kid eh?) we've decided to let it grow because it's really hard to style. alyssa did a great job styling it over christmas, but i believed she used gel, hairspray, a hair dryer and a whole "technique", more than my day allots. all i know is it needs to be quick and the pomade we use doesn't hold, i don't know how to tame it from this point. but i love it, it's kind of his trademark, and i'd never cut it off. let's just agree now that if you see brody and his fro seems a little unkempt, just roll with it because this hair has me at a loss!

table for five

2011-01-09T20:01:00.001-08:00

well the time has finally arrived, and naturally, it was months before it should have occurred. the twins are finally at the table to eat. as i'm sure you'd assume, the restraints on their little highchairs weren't really restraining them anymore (if you catch my drift.) so now we're working on both how to sit in a chair and eat, and how to eat with a utensil. although it's requiring more patience than i actually have, it's so fun to have our whole family at the table for a meal. and the twins LOVE being able to sit in the big chairs!

i also figure that this is a good time to try to reinforce the lesson to brody that we need to stay in our seat during a meal, so far that's yielding terrible results. since when does "brody come back to the table and finish your dinner" translate to "hey buddy, why don't you run off to play in the toy room, play with some noisy toy and ignore your mom?" apparently it does.

normally i try to space them out in their own seats, but when we're all home for dinner the little guys get the bench. and for some meals they all like to sit on brody's chair.

bon appetite!

any requests?

2011-01-09T19:37:00.000-08:00

justin got a guitar for christmas, so of course his biggest fan, brody, had to ask for one too. luckily grandpa clarke bought brody his very first guitar and over the christmas visit he gave brody his very first lesson. it was so cute, and definitely merited a photo session.

learning to strum with a pick.

singing for the crowd.

brody loves his guitar and loves that he has another hobby to do with his dad. i love when he'll randomly yell out "i just need to go play my guitar!" who knows clarke, maybe E Ticket the next, next generation will live on.

2010 wrap up

2011-01-02T20:47:00.000-08:00

whew, what a year! ok, so doesn't everyone say that near the end of december? but seriously, i look back at this year and think that at this point in 2009 justin and i really didn't have a clear plan for the whole "life after dental school" thing. i would have rolled my eyes (a kim classic) had someone even suggested that we'd be living in dallas six months later. anywho, we are and we LOVE it! so here's some of our highlights of 2010:

in the beginning of 2010 kade and crew starting crawling! it was great to have them start moving, and coming close to entertaining themselves!

brody, justin, clarke and ryan went to the monster truck show, thus beginning brody's love of monster trucks. (have you seen mater's tall tales on dvd, brody's in heaven on the monster truck story.)

we took a trip to texas for interviews, justin got the job we were hoping for and later came out again to find a place to live. talk about some whirlwind trips!

we unfortunately learned that the twins can climb really well.

this guy's finally legal -to practice dentistry that is.

we celebrated by going to a concert, 30 seconds to mars. it rocked.

we finally got the twins to graduate from the wic food, finally no more formula!! oh, that's all the free stuff for the twins that we got each month. too bad it only would last us three weeks.

crew and kade turned one!! we survived the first year!

we packed up and moved to tx!

we now have a yard to play in!! the boys love it!

shortly after we got here the twins learned to walk! also, apparently some time after we moved here they grew hair. i thought they always had hair, but looking back they're as bald as a couple of RM's at byu!

this big little guy turned 3!

these "trash trucks" are practically a daily staple in our home.

justin and i got to take an overnight trip to ok city to see muse. they also rock. like super hard.

after a last minute idea, the boys had a star wars halloween r2d2, jedi luke and c3po.

the twins are finally in nursery!! i could shout it from the roof tops! brody also had his last year of nursery, as of now he's officially a primary stud, i mean kid.

the closest thing we can get to a christmas pic.

the end of the year, so much has happened in such a short time, this was a huge year for our family and it's brought us all a lot closer. i love my guys!

oops

2011-01-02T20:23:00.001-08:00

i did brody's hair for school with an emphasis on how high i could get his mohawk up. no biggie right? oh, except for that tiny little school wide christmas singing program i forgot about at his preschool. so when i dropped him off some boys were in little suit coats (no joke) and little girls in their sunday christmas dresses, one little girl was even dressed like santa. and here's how i sent my kid:

oh well. sweet hair though.

life size christmas

2010-12-20T11:22:00.000-08:00

the other day brody came home with this christmas decoration:

yup, a life sized caroling brody. we've had it up for almost a week now and i still have a hard time stifling a laugh while looking at it.

wake up

2010-12-20T11:19:00.000-08:00

i swear i put full jammies on the twins each night before bed, but when we open the door in the morning we sometimes get this:

sleeves and pants are way too overrated anyway.

decor-recor-ration

2010-12-10T18:55:00.000-08:00

for some reason brody calls decorations "decor-recor-rations." but i can't really blame him because it is fun to say. so here's how brody decor-recor-rates a christmas tree.

He likes to put his legos together and throw his masterpiece into the tree and say, "I decorated!"

science and history museum

2010-12-10T18:40:00.000-08:00

we recently got some passes to the science and history museum, which would rightly baffle most people. i should probably mention that it also has a dino exhibit and children's museum. there's some really cool energy and light rooms, but we spent most of our time in the children play part. here's some pics from our first visit:

our boys LOVE blocks, so here's crew starting his tower.

they have a really fun outdoor water area, which the boys really enjoyed, despite the chilly weather. note to self : i need to teach kade that he really shouldn't drink just any old pool of water he comes across.

good thing this is an ambulance, since someone's probably going to need to help the kid splattered across the front of the vehicle. note to self again: delay the date of brody's drivers license.

more outdoor fun with soft blocks.

a pic of me and brody at the entrance of the childrens museum part. he only wanted to run through the dragon's mouth, he thought if he stopped for a picture the dragon would close his mouth and eat him, we luckily made it out ok.

babyproof

2010-12-10T18:08:00.000-08:00

recently we've had almost all our visitors comment on our unique style of baby-proofing our house. sure the big baby stores out there have lots of solutions to common baby proof problems, but, of course, our boys are not the norm. so these are the creative solutions we've invented to try to limit the trouble these boys get into:

first off baby gates, a classic staple. however, the boys can scale and climb everything in existence, so we had to go with mesh gates that don't allow any scaling, imagine that, a gate that keeps kids out. no more coming into the room and finding a toddler on top of the kitchen counter, emptying the cabinets by blindly tossing things over their shoulders (yes, this included things like salt canisters and glasses.)

this twine attached to an old stroller buckle finally keeps our chairs pushed in, and the boys off the table. the rope goes around three sides of the table. it's a great conversation starter.

the fourth side of the table is our bench which has to put down sideways and is tied back with a lower rope so the boys don't slide the bench out to climb on.

the tv, my favorite and most creative solution to date. we bought this little entertainment that someone here said would "definitely keep the boys away from the tv." um, it totally doesn't. they push all the buttons on the side changing channels or the input while watching a show (so irritating), so i used cleaned milk carton tops to go over the buttons and used duct tape to keep them in place. i can finally watch a whole show now! (oh, and side note, i wasn't the one thought the tv unit would work, i don't want to name names, but his name rhymes with mustin and he's a dentist, i hope that doesn't point a finger.)

the fireplace, justin's genius solution. particle board attached by magnets to the fireplace. insanely genius solution. the boys no longer try to climb in the fireplace and rock the grate.

and finally, the simple cost effective solution of limited decorating. and for those who visit here, yes, i know that table's empty. i've simply had too many crushed decorating dreams, not to mention and 16x20 picture tossed off the wall to shatter into pieces. i didn't think they could climb on the table, foolish, i know.

so there you have it, i guess i should probably submit my portfolio to babies r us for a career in baby proofing, but really, how can one really creatively market (and mark the cost up) on some milk carton tops and duct tape? maybe i'll keep my day job.

straight into my hopper

2010-11-21T19:22:00.000-08:00

remember this post about brody's trash trucks? well it's not just brody. it turns out that while brody's gone the twins will make them on their own, multiple times a day. anyway, justin finally had a saturday off so we spent the day playing in the trash truck.

Oh, and if you've ever read the book, or seen the video of I Stink by Kate and Jim McMullan, you'll understand the trash truck craze that permanently resides in our home.

yup, that's the one.

halloween night

2010-11-01T18:44:00.000-07:00

somehow halloween kind of crept up on us this year. before we knew it we needed costumes! i came across an R2D2 costume and justin went from there! he explained to me that R2D2 and C3PO are robot friends, perfect for the twins, and that they were built by luke skywalker, perfect for brody. it's not that i've never seen the movies, but they didn't really "take off" in our house full of girls. thank goodness for husbands! *on a side note, justin read this post and later told me that the robots are actually called droids and C3PO was built by anakin, not luke. yup, that's my husband, nerdy but lovable!

R2D2- kade, jedi luke skywalker- brody, and C3PO- crew

some pics from the ward trunk-or-treat:

R2D2 and C3PO

the jedi luke skywalker

me and kade

here's some pics from halloween night:

brody

crew

kade

the two buds concocting an escape plan (foiled by mom)

we had a fun halloween, rob, jana and baby jacob came down for the night. jacob made a perfect young obe wan kenobi! i think jacob sat the best for the pictures! dinner, a little trick-or-treating and some candy eating made for a great halloween!

halloween parade

2010-11-01T18:27:00.000-07:00

brody's preschool had quite the halloween festivities! first there was a halloween parade in the morning and then a class party in the afternoon. the parade was a little comical. brody was second in the line, but you know brody, he's easily distracted, so other things would catch his eye and soon enough there'd be a 20 ft gap between him and the line leader. classic brody. despite the distractions he's probably my favorite jedi ever!
"leading" the pack. obviously the girl way ahead isn't in the picture.

the jedi master himself

of course these guys were on hand for the parade, in matching monster shirts, appropriate no?

i was able to come for the halloween party, which was fun. first they decorated pumpkins. don't you like the up close detail he's showing me?

decorating halloween sugar cookies.

lining up to play halloween games

we made a wall in the house dedicated to brody's spooky art work, he's very proud of his wall!

the spider web design (top right) is his absolute favorite. when asked if he wanted to fold it up to put in his backpack, he said he'll just "carefully carry it home." he's super protective of his masterpiece!

halloween hunt

2010-11-01T18:22:00.000-07:00

the past few weeks we've had our halloween decorations up and brody loves going on halloween hunts to see what spooky things he can spy in the house. here's some things he likes to find:

a lantern of skulls

haunting ghosts

eyeballs on a wreath.

So, what would we find at your house?

pumpkin patch

2010-10-18T13:48:00.000-07:00

while the ashton's were visiting we went to a pumpkin patch to get into the spirit of halloween. we went to a really cute pumpkin patch close to rob and jana's. there was tons to do, like:

haystacks to jump off of

a little jail to play in (he looks like he looking for the quickest escape route!)

rows and rows of pumpkins to be chased through

and of course lots of those heavy orange things to pick up.

we took some family pictures:

i know what you're thinking: wow, what a nice, calm, fun, little family! um, that's what a good photo can do for you. in reality our photo attempts are like this:

lost one

squirmy little guys

eyes closed, heads turned other directions

oops! lost one again!

Oh well, at least we had fun and got a single decent picture!

byu game

2010-10-18T13:29:00.001-07:00

well some ashton cougar fans came to visit for the byu/tcu game last weekend. it was a boys only activity (thankfully) but i did keep the twins with me. clarke, rob, justin, mike and brody kicked the festivities off with the byu tailgate party and then hit the game at tcu, which happens to be pretty close by. afterwards, they all came back to have pizza and watch more football. sometimes i'm amazed at the pure dedication men can have to not only sit in the stadium through a three hour plus game, but to then want to come home and watch hours more on tv. seriously, pure dedication.

daddy and brody

brody and grandpa

brody and mike just taking it easy away from the crowds

i love this pic of brody. he loves athletic events!! he was so pumped when he found out he was going to a football game. he was a little bummed it wasn't a usc game, but loved that he got to go to a byu game with all the big boys!

the little things

2010-10-18T13:22:00.000-07:00

kids can be chaotic work- at least that's totally how it is at our house! but somewhere during the loss of sanity, my boys do things that quite literally brings tears to my eyes because i feel so overwhelmingly grateful that these three boys are mine. this is why i choose to be a stay at home mom, for the little things that make the all the poopy diapers, whining and temper tantrums worth it. here's pics of some of the things that make me sigh with happiness:

i love this face brody makes when he tells me all about his school day.

i love that the twins have to have their hair styled whenever brody does.

i love going in to wake up the twins and seeing a little face so peaceful like this.

i love how brody is so excited to make a tower taller than he is.

i love when crew lays on the ground to play cars because brody is too.

i love how brody's such an sc fan, he asks to listen to the usc fight song when we go on drives.

i love when these guys are buddies, sitting together, playing together and giving hugs.

i love, love the rare times we drive home from visiting family, the boys are worn out from playing non-stop, baths have already been given and they actually fall asleep on the way home. i simply love it!

and those are some of the little reasons i love my boys!

new school year

2010-10-18T13:16:00.001-07:00

well after much searching and some recommendations, i enrolled brody in a preschool that he absolutely loves!! he now goes 3xs a week and is so excited about all the work and projects he does in class. i wanted to get some pictures on the first day, but he wasn't really in the "smiling mood." so now, a couple weeks in, i can finally get some pictures of his teachers with a smiling brody.

here's a pic with brody and ms. crane who has he twice a week.

and here he is with ms. langston who he has once a week.

here he is with his girlfriend, charlie.

and this is what his teachers say they do all. day. long.

trash truck

2010-10-07T22:28:00.001-07:00

So right now trash trucks are all the rage at our house. we take them however we can get them: coming down the street monday mornings, the tonka version pushed across floor, and then these cushion creations from brody which somehow represent a trash truck to him- i must not have an interpretive eye to "see" the trash truck amongst the cushions. however the boys LOVE them so here's the action:

brody catching some sweet air on his way into the truck:

all the boys in on the fun:

if you're worried that brody's too rough on the twins, believe me, i know!

so, are you going to make a trash truck at your house?

bucket heads

2010-10-07T22:09:00.000-07:00

I'm trying harder to capture the boys' "in the now" interests. lately, for the twins, they have this bucket head jabber that they do. they seem to think it's pretty entertaining, and no one usually gets hurt, so it's always encouraged! here's some video of their fun, i especially love the end with crew!

feeling squished?

2010-09-12T19:45:00.001-07:00

some one should help this guy:

dental treatment

2010-09-12T19:39:00.000-07:00

i don't know if you've ever wished you'd married a dentist since it would save you on dental treatments, but i highly doubt a kid would wish his dad was a dentist since things like this might happen at home:

just a little hygiene cleaning after hours, dental instruments and all.

i don't lie

2010-09-12T19:03:00.000-07:00

i don't lie when i say my boys are climbers. i don't exaggerate their "talents" and i don't keep track of the number of times someone tells me "wow, you've got a climber on your hands" i mean seriously, i already know. besides, anyone who spends time with these guys will learn that they love to climb everything. case in point, crew's busy work:

i don't want to have to say i told you so.

park time

2010-09-12T19:00:00.001-07:00

so our neighbors asked us if we like how much it's cooled off lately, which is funny since i've lately asked myself "is it ever going to cool off?" well it's slightly cooler so we headed out to the park to let the boys get outside for a bit. here's our night out:

brody loved this big swing

kade also loved the swinging

crew was determined to climb up the slide

making their way across the bouncy bridge.

a spoonful of sugar

2010-09-12T17:08:00.001-07:00

i think when heavenly father made kade he put in an extra scoop of sugar because kade is such a sweetie! he's the one who likes to cuddle (but only a little bit) and LOVES to be tickled. He already likes to share (maybe he doesn't have a choice) and sometimes when crew's crying while his diaper's getting changed, kade will bring him a toy to help calm him down, he tries to hug his brothers even when they're walking away from him and when brody's having a time out in his room, kade will cry for him outside his door until he can come out. he's just such a sweetie, i think he's what makes all our little guys manageable! lately i've just felt so grateful to have such a thoughtful and loving little guy that i had to share it. i love this little guy!

swim lessons

2010-08-04T09:18:00.001-07:00

We signed brody up for swim lessons at the y, since he LOVES to play in the pool. He's definitely been known to run and jump into an open area of water, so we figured the lessons couldn't hurt. Now I'm not expecting michael phelps results or anything, he is three after all, but i wasn't really expecting him to turn to dead weight in the water. He didn't really kick or try to paddle, just took in the sights while being "taken around" in the water, it was kind of funny. His teacher still seemed to enjoy him, but was a little bummed he didn't talk more (seriously?) I'm sure next summer he'll be ready for his eight olympic medals.

Working on kicking, kind of.

A little distracted.

Working on floating.

He loved looking back and waving during class.

Running out after jumping in.

Going down the slide on the last day.

Brody and his teacher miss leah.

a nursery?

2010-08-04T09:02:00.000-07:00

When we first had the twins they shared our room with us in pack n plays, then they were "upgraded" to cribs in a room with brody, and now in our new place, they finally are in a room together. I guess this is their first true "nursery" for them, which seems so irrelevant since they don't really seem like babies to me any more. Anywho, I wanted to decorate a little, so here's some progress I've made. I originally wanted wood letters, but they we're out of R in both fonts, and came across these chipboard letters which were half the price -R included, so i went with it. I used craft paint and an ink pad to distress. The and is in vinyl that I printed with the cricut. It's not perfect, but I'm about 80% okay with how it turned out. I also did kade's name first even though he's younger, I figure it's nice to get some perks every now and then. Hopefully the rest of the "nursery" will be done soon!

a whole new world

2010-07-25T21:31:00.000-07:00

When we looked for a place to rent we wanted a place with a little backyard. The boys L O V E having such easy access to a backyard, it's like a whole new world to them. They don't care how hot it is (and it is hot) they'll play outside until we bring them in (then upset because we've disrupted their fun.) We already had a little water sink, so we picked up a baby pool to encourage more splashing! Here's some pics of how we're enjoying the new backyard:

Kade, excited to be getting wet.

All the boys in on the action.

Brody and Crew are really into the whole "drinking from the spout" thing. And yes, this goes on in the bath too.

Splashin' it up!

Crew, enjoying his own pool (for now.)

brody's clock

2010-07-25T21:22:00.000-07:00

So the boys LOVE to play in brody's room, it's like the cool hang out. But sometimes i need to check the time and in that (maybe) 12 seconds i leave the room, I ALWAYS seem to come back to an injury!! So I decided brody's room needed a clock! Well i picked up a cheap $3 clock at target:

And put it on a collision course with some scrapbook paper and cricut cut letters. The result?

A clock much more suited for brody's room that will hopefully also act as a deterrent for violence among young boys.

3 years old!

2010-07-20T14:09:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we celebrated Brody's 3rd birthday! I feel like he's been 2 forever, so i'm very happy to finally tell people i have twins and a 3yr old (telling people i have twin 1 yr olds and a 2 year old really seemed to startle people!) Brody had been sick with a fever the whole week leading up to his birthday but luckily he felt well enough once his "party" started. Rob and Jana came to celebrate with us, and their break dancing sure livened up the party! I can't believe how much Brody's had to experience in the past year, two new brothers, starting preschool, making the step to undies, moving, starting a new preschool and nursery, whew! He's definitely one for adventure so luckily he's adjusted to things fairly well. He's very outgoing and LOVES action! Running,jumping, climbing he's your guy! Outdoor adventure, parks and swimming, sign him up! He loves going on drives and lately thinks it's fun to visit model homes (can't complain against that one!) He LOVES cars, trucks, trash trucks, and garages. He's a boy's boy all the way! Oh, and he's freakin hilarious too! Thanks to Jana we have some great pics from his party:

The birthday boy

Brody finally got his own bike this year! He's dreamed and drooled over big kid bikes for years (literally). He was really excited to get it, and yellow is his favorite color, so it's perfect! It's a little big right now, but he'll grow into it.

Excited for the first ride. I'm sure in a few years those pegs will have a younger brother on them.

Getting ready to blow the candles out on his dump truck cake. (i am NOT a professional people!)

Happy birthday Brody, we love you!!

grandpa hatter

2010-07-20T13:53:00.000-07:00

A little over a week ago my grandpa passed away. It's been sad as i come to realize that for a while i won't be able to see his smiling face, laugh at one of his jokes, or give him a hug. I am so grateful to have been able to grow up living so close to my grandparents. I always loved going to their house, I always felt that I smiled the whole time I was there. My grandpa was really funny, quite the jokester, he's a lot like my dad!! I miss my grandpa, but feel so much comfort knowing that he's with other passed family members now, that he's eternally married to my grandma (they're seriously the cutest couple!), and that one day I'll see him again!

Here's a pic from his wedding day, they look so happy and in love!

we've got walkers on our hands

2010-07-20T12:43:00.000-07:00

In June Kade started walking! He was taking a few steps right before we moved out here, and once we got here the extra space really accelerated his progress. Now he walks pretty swiftly and it even trying to figure out how to go even faster. Crew started walking this month, he was a little later, i think he realized he could crawl faster than walk, so it took a little longer to make the adjustment. Now their walking every where, and that's just how i like it! Here's a little video of their new skills:

This other video is of Kade and Crew playing with the dishwasher knob, they seem to love starting the dishwasher! Luckily the knob detaches, which saves us a lot of unnecessary dishwasher cycles. As a caution, this video might seem to get a little violent at the end, but to be honest, it goes on any second i look away! Those boys are too quick for their own good!

decor on a bargain

2010-06-22T20:36:00.000-07:00

Well we finally all made it to dallas, and so far things are settling down and falling into place, so we're really enjoying it! We're renting a house and it's much more space then we had before, now Brody actually has his own room! With more space I needed to find some inexpensive decor ideas to spruce the place up, and luckily the boys gave me some inspiration!

Drab entryway?

A sofa table can put some warmth into your entryway, especially when adorned with inviting pieces to create a welcoming feeling!

Boring windows?

Use that window sill as a ledge to climb on -whoops! i mean a place to display charming pieces to show neighbors what fun maybe going on inside!
(and yes crew's pushing kade's head into the wall, that's all part of my day folks!)

Toys everywhere?

Don't hide them... display them! Let others know what fun things might jump out at them to play with!

So that's our current decor... perhaps one day i'll actually have pieces you can buy at the store too!

1 year!

2010-05-31T09:15:00.001-07:00

Last weekend we celebrated the twins first birthday! This past year has gone by so fast!! Kade and Crew are such a huge part of our family that it seems unreal to think we ever had a time without them.

Brody was very eager to "help" unwrap the presents, everyday he talks about "his" new toys, apparently since he opened them, they're his!

Here's some pics from a year ago, they were soo little! I can't believe how big our little guys are getting!

Just a year ago we were so overwhelmed and not sure of how everything would work out, it seems like so long ago!

I love the twins so much! Maybe because I've had to put so much constant energy into these guys! Even though they're twins they have their own personalities.

Crew is so smiley, loves to babble, and is soo mechanical and focused. Sometimes his determination to do or get something amazes me! He's super quick to pick up on things like word meanings, routines and how toys work. He loves to manipulate anything with multiple parts! But man, can he have an attitude! I guess thats where my genes come in! He definitely loves his mom!

Kade is much more easy going, definitely the "big teddy bear" kind of guy. He loves large motor activities, and is probably a better climber than Brody (scary thought I know). He's one of those kids that just wakes up and decides to master a skill. Crew will take weeks working on a skill and Kade just picks it up in a day. He loves to just hang out, likes to snuggle, be tickled and roll around.

This climbing is what goes on ALL DAY LONG! They love to be busy.

Just out for a joy ride.

We love our little guys and are relieved to have survived the first year! Happy bday Crew and Kade!

graduation day!

2010-05-18T15:29:00.000-07:00

Friday was Justin's graduation!! He's officially Dr. Ashton! It's so unreal! We're been in school since we started dating, and now, almost 8 years later, it seems weird to think it's finally done! I'm so proud of Justin and all his hard work and "long suffering" through the years! He's such a dedicated hard worker! I felt like my heart was beaming all day long, from his name call in the graduation, to the doctoral hooding, the photos and through all the celebrating! I'm so wildly excited for him to finally get out of the clinic and into a practice! I know, from experience, that he'll be a great dentist! Congrats Dr. Ashton, I love you!

nap time

2010-05-05T17:01:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I gave the twins their bottle for nap time and went to help Brody in another room. I came back to find this:

They looked so cute cozied up to each other while they fall asleep I couldn't resist the pic!

deja vu

2010-04-18T21:00:00.000-07:00

So you think I wouldn't be surprised since I feel I've been here before, remember this post? Brody was a little bit older than Kade is in these pics, but it started just the same. It's a little worrisome what my little guy can do all by himself!

Clearly I should have restocked my wipes shelf and not left this box out!

Kade will do pretty much anything with Brody "encouragement", how scary is that?

I had this wagon turned on it's side which Kade was climbing on top of, so I turned it the normal way, and a moment later Kade climbed in, ready to play!

Apparently Kade wants to be the one changing the channels.

brody's primary song

2010-04-15T21:00:00.000-07:00

So I love hearing Brody sing primary songs around the house, it always makes my day better! The other day during dinner he was singing "I am a child of God" and i was really enjoying it until he sang this phrase:

"...has given me an earthly home
with parents kind of dear"

Um, kind of dear? What's that supposed to mean? well good or bad, Justin and i had quite the laugh over it and are looking forward to hearing more of his songs!

2010-04-12T21:23:00.000-07:00

And you thought only teen aged boys sagged their pants.

Harv

2010-04-12T21:12:00.000-07:00

The other day Brody informed me that he wanted us to call him Harv. If you've seen CARS, then you'll know that Harv is Lightning McQueen's agent. As for the picture? That's not a picture of my kid, no no, that's just some crazy haired kid named Harv, who went into the bathroom unsupervised and put a bunch of gel in his hair.

brody babble

2010-04-03T22:34:00.000-07:00

Even though we prep Brody on what to say in his prayers he always says the funniest stuff. It's hilarious! Here's what happened tonight:
Justin: we love our family
Brody: we love our family
Justin: we're sorry for our faults
Brody: we're sorry for our farts.

At the end of the day, Brody never fails to give us a good laugh!

trip to dallas

2010-03-15T21:48:00.001-07:00

For years we've been wondering what we should do after dental school, should we stay local, try some place new, or try to work it in with a dentist we already know? About six months ago a company in texas sent a letter of interest to Justin, and since his brother lives in dallas, we decided to look into the opportunity. We planned a trip to dallas and Justin sent out some resumes. Soon he had five interviews lined up for the weekend we were coming to town. Out of the five, two are at the top of the list. We tried to scour the areas to see if we'd like it, and we did! We have a couple areas we really liked that would work for different offices. The cost of living is unbelievable: one area had brand new homes (and gorgeous homes at that, i LOVED them) for like 325, and another place further out from dallas had lakefront properties starting at the 240's!! Seriously, unreal!! Anywho, we'd just rent for a while until we save some money and find the best area for us. But we had a great trip and are starting to look forward to our summer move to the big D!

relaxing, texas style.

we went to this texas bbq for dinner, you buy your bbq meat by the pound! sounds overwhelmingly heavy, but it was really good!

of course it's fake, did you really have question it?

So longhorn statues are EVERYWHERE and this painted one was hilarious, so I had to get a pic!

new tricks

2010-02-19T10:29:00.001-08:00

Everyone told me my life would be chaotic once the twins started crawling, but I love that they can get around on their own! The real tricky part is that now they pull up on everything, even each other. They love to stand, but they're still a little wobbly, so they fall a lot. Kade's even taken some brave steps from a toy to the couch, while holding on of course! He reminds me so much of what Brody was like at this age! Crew, while a very hard worker, is a couple weeks behind Kade, but he's finally on the move now too (hopefully videos to come).

btw, Crew looks so much like a little Brody in this pic (he's the one being pulled)

the twins are also big fans of project runway, I never knew a tape measure could be so exciting, make it work! Oh, and I hope you like their super hero dino jammies,I love them!

monster jam

2010-02-19T10:10:00.000-08:00

When justin heard a commercial for monster jam, he said he needed to take brody. Soon enough a boys night was planned and brody, justin, ryan and clarke drove to angels stadium for the show. At first brody was unsure of the whole thing:

But then the monster trucks started doing this:

And he was glued! Hence these smiles:

Now at least once a day I hear about gravedigger:

But I mean come on, look what he can do:

Now brody lines up his hotwheels to drive over, and takes his trucks off jumps around the house. Not to mention he now has his very own gravedigger truck! thanks diane!

of course not

2010-02-07T21:12:00.000-08:00

Oh no, I never mix these guys up...

There's a reason I don't match their clothes!

sittin' around

2010-01-13T21:52:00.001-08:00

Well the twins have reached another milestone, they can now sit on their own!! I'm so excited! Now it's a lot easier for them to play on the floor, as long as they're surrounded by lots of toys. They're also trying to hold their bottles on their own, Crew's pretty much gotten the hang of it, and Kade's still practicing. They've also started teething (with LOTS of drool), Kade was first to have a little tooth break the surface, then Crew got his first tooth, and now Kade has a second one coming in too! These little guys are growing soo fast! I can't believe we've only had our buddies for a little over 7 months, these boys just fit so perfectly into our family. Up next: hopefully crawling!

I had to include this pic, Kade's laughing so hard I thought he was going to fall over backwards! Love these guys!

fanatic

2010-01-13T21:41:00.000-08:00

Brody is a total CARS fanatic. First it was hot wheels, followed by trucks, and then one day we had the brilliant idea to show him the movie CARS. Needless to say, it's the only time I see him sit still for more than five minutes. He's glued to the whole movie. Now all he talks about is Lightning McQueen and Mater. And I must say, it's a pretty funny movie, once you've seen it 20 or more times!

christmas in bulk

2010-01-13T15:06:00.000-08:00

It seems like this year Christmas was celebrated a bunch of times! For the actual holiday, we drove up to Utah to meet the rest of my family to celebrate together. But before we left we celebrated with part of Justin's family at home. Clarke and Diane got Justin and me a cannon slr camera, which Justin might love as much as the boys (I'm still trying to figure it out). I love how much better our pictures turn out! So, if you can believe it, we actually did pack in the boys to drive to vegas and then to provo with lots of crying and screaming. It's clear that Crew does not enjoy long rides in his car seat, nor is it a good sleeping place for him either. But at last we made it and we were ready to spend time with family. Mike was nice enough to let us stay at his place in provo, i think we might have over whelmed him with all our stuff, but he never complained, thanks mike! Also a big thanks to Wendy and Jeremy who hosted everyone for dinner on Christmas Eve and Christmas day, everything was super yummy! Also big thanks for my parents, Katelin and Kris for being apart of baby hold 2009! So, without further adu, here's the photos:

When we came back we celebrated Christmas with the Ashton's extended family, which is always lots of fun! Diane got Clarke Beatles rock band for Christmas, so it was pretty much a week long jam session, so it was pretty fun! Justin's brothers stayed a few more days so there was lots of time to hang out with everyone. This was definitely our busiest Christmas, but we enjoyed seeing lots of family and hope everyone else had a wonderful Christmas too!

semester break

2010-01-13T14:41:00.000-08:00

Well Justin's semester break started a week before Christmas, so we thought it would be a perfect time to get out and do some things as a family, we had a really fun week! Here's a few highlights:

We went to the natural history museum. We thought Brody would love it since he has a new interest in dinosaurs, however he quickly got bored and wanted to leave. After talking with him we realized he thought we were going to see actual dinosaurs at the museum, not just bones. When you think of it like that then the museum is sort of a bummer.

Justin and I went on a date to Santa Monica. We finished up our Christmas shopping (for each other) along 3rd Street and then walked along the pier and rode the ferris wheel, which has amazing views! It was such a relaxing afternoon!

Brody loves to eat other people's food. Even if we're having something he won't like he'll at least pretend he's going to eat it. This pic of him trying to eat sushi with chopsticks was too good to pass up.

I asked Justin to get the boys dressed, and tossed some clothes downstairs for the three of them. Next thing I noticed he was zipping up and buttoning Brody into his denim capris. WAIT, what?? No, those are actually Crew and Kade's 9 month sized jeans he's wearing! After realizing the mix up, Justin put Brody's own jeans on him.

The twins have been busy playing and trying to crawl, no success at this point, but check back for later posts!

good things come to those who wait

2010-01-12T15:25:00.000-08:00

One December I snooped in my parents room to see if I could find what I was going to get for Christmas. I was super excited when I spotted the Teen Jazzie Barbie! Not only was she Barbie's pop star cousin, but she came with a mix and match of 15 different outfits, i mean what wasn't there to love! I of course told all my friends about my super cool gift. Christmas morning came and my sister opened her Barbie first, I was pretty confused when she opened teen jazzie. I mean why would my parents buy two? I then opened my barbie sized package to see that I had gotten beach barbie who only came with a bikini. What?! I was totally devastated! This Christmas Justin said he had a surprise for me, and you can only imagine my shock to open my gift and see teen jazzie! It's little things like this that help me realize what a total sweetie Justin is! I'm so lucky to have such a wonderful husband, and not to mention a super cool barbie!

sleepy play

2009-12-07T22:51:00.000-08:00

We got a second entertainer toy for the twins, but this one also doubles as a jumper. Crew absolutely loves the jumper and constantly has a bounce going whenever he's playing. This video is of Crew and shows just how dedicated he is to jumping, tired or not!