the races

So Justin was working on a patient who gave him some tickets to the Sprint Cup race at Texas Motor Speedway.  There was only two tickets, so Brody was the lucky one to accompany Justin.  While discussing the upcoming races, Brody started reciting driver's names and car numbers.  Baffled, we asked how he knew so much info (clearly not from us!)  he responded "My teacher at school has a nascar book in class, and I read it one day."  After fact checking online, we realized that Brody had correctly identified various drivers and numbers.  At least one of these guys was prepared for the race!

 Brody was super excited to have some one on one time with Dad!  They got some head phones that allowed you to listen in on the drivers and pit crews.  Kinda like overhearing what doc's saying to McQueen during his final race of the movie Cars (at least that's how I understood it.)

They had a great night out and Justin said after taking in the crowd: "There were tons of potential patients out there!"  Now that's exactly what I expected to hear!

Straight to Vegas

In honor of SYTYCD, which started this week, I thought I'd show you some of Brody's sweet dance moves, this is his moonwalk:

forget choreography, that deserves a ticket straight to Vegas.

best buds

crew and kade call each other best bud.  i absolutely love it!!  so instead of "go get your brother!"  we say "go get best bud" and they know exactly who your talking about. it's heart melting.  i don't think i've ever once come off like i think twins are a piece of cake, or super manageable, or that i'm some kind of twin expert.  but i do know the major blessing of twins is to watch the amazing bond these two have.  their whole world is each other.  it's one of those things that can't properly be caught on film, but it's the snippets of conversation or play that i get to see or overhear throughout the day.  i love it!  i took the pics of the boys playing the other day and i love this little sequence of crewkade.  

 they've been in separate classes in preschool this year, which has had it's ups and downs, but it's made them miss each other during the day and they enjoy playing with each other so much more now.  i love these two to absolute pieces and feel so blessed to be able to watch them grow together!

lovely

Last month we recieved a letter home from Brody's school saying he had been chosen as student of the month!  I was excited about that, but then I noticed that each month has a theme, and Brody was selected for the theme "caring and respect" and that made me super proud!!  He got to design a poster about himself that was displayed at school:

and he received a ribbon at the PTA meeting

shortly after that high, he got sick which eventually led to an ear infection.  then about a week later crew got sick, and a couple days later kade was under the weather too, lovely.  crewkade both had ear infections that required drops so a couple times a day they looked like this:

so cute, but so sad!  all the boys were troopers and completed the rounds of antibiotics.  (and as a side note, can i just quickly mention how irritating it is when you bring your kid into the doctor and they have a "bulging" ear infection and the doctor talks to you like you're the worst mother on the planet because you didn't know your child had an ear infection.  i mean hello!  it's not like i have one of those ear-looky-into tool things at home!  i'm still bringing them in aren't i?  ok, rant over.)

In other news, my little crewser has developed a sneaky strategy to gain one-on-one time with mom.  he wakes up 45 minutes early from his nap, and ever so quietly comes downstairs so he won't wake kade. this is how he looks during our "secret" time together:

I'll ask him if we should go wake kade up to play too, and he always replies "no, kade need to sleep."  it is nice to have a little cozy time without it being a battle of shared space.  (and on another side note, it's amazing how well behaved kids can be one-on-one.  if i ever wanted to have a perfectly proven research project it would be titled "the perfect behavior of a singled out child vs. the monstrous behavior of a sibling child.")

valentines day came and the boys handed out these gems:

brody loved the glasses card, and we made a double batch of love bug valentines for the twins classes.  the bug cards seemed to be a success, hence the post preschool loot:

and as you can see brody was extra excited to get candy that was "just for me- no sharing."  his school decorates boxes for valentines day and apparently it's a pretty big deal- i didn't know, i still remember sponge painting hearts on our white lunch sacks in elementary school.  anyway justin helped him make this:

a giant lego!  the day it was due he carried it into school and these gigantic 4th graders stopped him to inspect his lego.  and apparently the vice principal stopped him in the halls to tell him how much he liked his valentines day box.  apparently an oversized lego catch the eyes of both boys and men.  so that's a wrap up of the past little while here, we hope you have a lovely valentines day too!

christmas

the night before chrismas the boys sprinkled some reindeer food on the grass

left some cookies and gogurt out for santa

said a very quick goodbye to stoic

and headed to bed, excited to see what christmas would hold!

they woke up, and for once they didn't demand breakfast first thing in the morning!  apparently breakfast hunger vanishes on christmas!

here's the opening:

kade (he's opening a tube of fake bugs)

crewser proudly showing off his new book "i stink" (don't worry, it's about a garbage truck)

justin, excited about the new watch he got

here's what brody was hoping for

here's the twins big gift

it snowed that night and all morning long, so by afternoon, our house looked liked this:

 the boys were so excited (we were too!)

crew and brody did a little white christmas trampoline jumping:

kade stayed inside, a much warmer decision!  

with all the snow outside, crew and kade needed somewhere to ride their ride their new bikes, so we had a little bit of this going on inside:

later that afternoon we went to rob and jana's for dinner.  the boys had fun opening their gifts, we feel so blessed that santa took such good care of our family this year!  

withdrawls

we finally got access to season one of downton abbey, and powered through both seasons in two weeks, finishing the night before the season three premiere.  of course now i'm like everyone else, waiting seven whole days between episodes.  i'm in definite withdrawals.

might i add that i would love to spend hours leisurely going through downton- it's amazing gorgeous!  additionally i'd like to add that when i first saw pictures of the show, and just how many characters there were, i thought it was absurd! i mean how do you keep up with everyone's story?  but it's fabulous and i thoroughly enjoy each character!!

christmas eve

 ten years ago justin and i had our first date!!  it was christmas eve so he picked me up for a lunch date. we ate at in n out and then followed up with some christmas shopping at the mall (he still had gifts to buy!)  so we've tried to make it a tradition to always have burgers on christmas eve, i love it!  and now that in n out is in texas, we made it pretty official!  funny how it was just the two of us back then, i almost can't even imagine/remember what that was like!  now we celebrate with the boys!

justin, crew and kade

me and brody

this year justin tried to tell the boys our story, which was a valiant effort, but wasn't regarded very highly!  brody seemed to remember some parts, but seemed a little confused that there was a part of our lives where we weren't married.  funny, that seems a little weird to me now too.  i'm sure thankful i've got justin and that we had such a fun first date ten years ago!