Checking In!

Well hello there!  Fancy meeting you here!

It is late (which tells you how well I'm doing with the 11:00 bedtime, lol)...but I wanted to write a quick little accountability note & update on the week.

As far as my goals go, some are going great. 

I've been most diligent about doing the nightly kitchen cleaning, and I must say that I absolutely love it.  It is SO nice to wake up to a clean kitchen and to not feel like I'm behind already.  It hasn't always been easy.  The other night I had to wake Chick up at 11:00 to unload the dishwasher (her chore) because she hadn't done it and I needed to load it!

I've also done well with my morning scripture reading now that I don't keep my phone in the bedroom when I sleep.

I only jogged twice.  Maybe I should be happy that I jogged twice, since that is twice more than I would have otherwise done...but I worry that it will fall off my radar if I don't do it a bit more consistently.  The weather and kids haven't been especially helpful on this one, but those are just excuses.

Ok, those are the ones that I most wanted to write about.  Now for the update.

This week  was re-entry.  And it was rough.  We'd had two blissful weeks of sleeping in, staying up later than usual, and not having to run here and there for appointments and such.  I loved the vacation.  And then school started back up.  And with it came PTO meetings/responsibilities, and homework, and choir practice, and picking people up at certain times.  And I dragged myself through the week.  It really was hard.  I hope this week will be easier.  Especially since I wasn't the only one dragging, and there was one night when almost all of the kids completely melted down and ended up going to bed quite early.  Which was sooooo needed.

The good news: I enjoyed the PTO board meeting.  We have some fun stuff coming up!!  The things that I'm most excited about (that I'm in charge of) are an Arts and Music Festival at the end of March, and teacher appreciation week at the start of May: "Best teachers in the world" theme!!!  Super fun.  I love themed events.

Owl and Otter took their first ballet class on Saturday.  It was all very blush pink and cute.  They both participated, which is great (sometimes Owl will decided to be shy and just shuts down and goes into statue mode). 

Santa brought "experiences" for everyone this Christmas.  Horseback riding for the older girls, hockey for Moose, and ballet for the younger girls.

Mr. Fox was busy this week with his scoutsing.  They were picking up Christmas trees.  I think he really enjoys his scoutsing.

Lastly, I bought some artificial flowers.  I know that's not super exciting, and I don't even have any pictures because I don't have the right vase yet.  But I'm working on redecorating my living room, and I think these are really quite lovely.  I read articles about how to make fake flowers work.  While I agreed with the tips in the articles, in the end flowers that I got won't follow the rules.  They won't pass as real flowers.  But they aren't even trying.  They have a certain artistic flair to them that I think makes them more of an art piece and therefore are exempt from needing to look real.  What do you think?  What rules do you follow when using fake flowers (or do you NOT use artificial?).  I hope to find a vase this week.  And sew a table runner.  And get some pictures framed.  And FINALLY have the living room book table nicely arranged!  I'll post pictures when it's done.

Ok, that's all.  I need to get to bed.  g'night.

Last Weekend's Adventure

Chick

Last weekend there was a free Ice Skating event.  Monkey and I got home from our photoshoot date just in time to get everyone dressed for the ice, and we headed out the door!

None of the kids had ever skated before.  Honestly, I thought it would be a half hour before we heard the chorus of "I'm Cold!" "I'm Tired!"  "I don't want to skate anymore."  And then we'd come home.

Moose

I was COMPLETELY wrong.  They all loved it, and didn't want to leave...even when the rink was closed and everyone got kicked off the ice.

Chick, Monkey, and Moose all did well on their own.  They preferred using the supports...but all three could skate without them by the time we went home.


Owl and Monkey

 

Owl liked skating the least... which is what I'd expect from a toddler.  She did like it ok, she just was the least.

Otter!

Otter was the one that surprised us all.  She LOVED it.  If I stopped to talk to one of the other kids for too long, then she'd start going without me.  She never wanted to be stopped, and just went around and around and around.  She seemed to feel encumbered by pushing the support thing, and would sometimes start skating off without it (though she wasn't quite skilled enough to do that for too far).  At one point she took a break on the side with Mr. Fox...when I started taking her back out onto the ice she actually squealed with excitement! 
It's rare to see someone take to something so much...it was so much fun to see.  We're probably going to get her lessons for her birthday (They don't start until age 3 anyhow).

Otter (again)

A great time was had by all.  Even Fox and I, going slow and helping kids, had a fantastic time.  I think it was one of those special outings that we'll remember fondly forever.  And hopefully we can get back out on the ice soon.

Fox and Owl at closing time

Monkey and Me

Let them eat Cake

Owl and Otter loved their little cakes (and their first real taste of sugar).

Owl was hesitant at first, but Otter jumped right in. 

After a while, though, Owl decided that it was good, and decided that she needed to eat it faster...

so she picked up the whole cake and started eating it like that.

Both girls finished the whole 4" cake and were both totally messy in the end!

 

Owl and Otter throw a party

Well, my baby girls are one year old.

Of course a lot has happened in that year, and so much has changed.  In their eleventh month they started sleeping through the night (both of them!  Consistently! All night!).  They started playing happily a lot during the day.

At their one year check-up they were finally on the growth charts!  Otter was up to 15 pounds and 27.5 inches.  Owl was 15#7oz and 27.5 inches.  So they were both right around 3rd percentile for weight, and 10th for length.  It was a great gain since their last check.  Good enough, in fact, that they've started growing out of clothes that they've worn for quite a long time!!  So exciting!  We've never had any big growth spurt that required a big closet clean-out...until now.

I threw a family party for them.  The theme was pinwheels, using a vintage-y color palette.

I think I over-booked myself with party preparations, though, and was feeling the lack of sleep at the party.  I usually feel like parties are something that I can do to show love to my kids, but this time I think it would have been better to have spent time WITH them rather than FOR them...but it's done, and I think it was fun in the end. 

Plus I had been so busy with preparations that I didn't have time to take pictures of decorations beforehand, or guests during the party.  Which is sad, since I enjoy taking pictures of party stuff.  My brother was nice and took pictures for me.  Some are a little goofy, though I'm only putting the BEST of the goofy pictures on here : )  (Thanks, Ev.)

Anyhow, here's the invitation:

The bulk of our prep time was spent trying to clear out and fix up the back yard a little, which probably wasn't even noticeable (really, our yard still isn't as nice as the average yard). 
Aside from the yard stuff, the rest of the time was spent painting crates and canning jars, making pinwheels, and cleaning the labels off of Frappuccino bottles.  I watched Psych a lot while I worked on party stuff.

Here's the table before the food was all brought out.

I bought a cool water dispenser that looked like a giant canning jar.  I love it.  Word to the wise, though: don't serve cucumber water.  I like it, but it was quite poorly received, was cited as the cause of someone feeling sick, and has been the subject of continued teasing from my oldest brother.  It did LOOK pretty, though...see how it matches the tablecloth?

 

My AMAZING visiting teachers, Heidi & Jen, came over the night before the party and frosted cupcakes.  They also made all of the mini pinwheels that are on the cupcakes...super cute! 
The babies got individual 4" vanilla cakes.
I'll have a separate post with pictures of them eating their cakes...
I've heard that it was the most entertaining and fascinating part of the whole party.

 

This picture shows the lights the best--they were swaggy and had fabric scraps tied on. 
I was happy with how cute they looked.  There were also lights with scraps out on the deck railing.
This picture also shows the table with all of the food on it. 
Pink lemonade, chocolate milk, fruit salad, pizza, decorated apple slices, roll ups, veggies with dip, and of course the cakes.

Thank you, Jude, for preparing the apple slices!



 The favors were baby food jars with painted lids and custom hangtags. 

They had Jelly Bellies and yogurt-covered raisins. 
The jars all came from the twins' food in the past few months.
















The cake!  Neapolitan layers with Swiss meringue buttercream frosting that was tinted pink at the bottom and graduated to white at the top.  Chocolate sprinkles on top, and there were pinwheels sticking out as well.  It was pretty in a very understated way.  I felt that it was just "ok" tasting...the frosting wasn't sweet enough, in my opinion.

Cupcakes were the three cake flavors, but one flavor per cupcake.

 

 

 The babies were both very cute: they were so happy!  I think they knew that the party was their special time.  They got passed around and held without being fussy about wanting me or Dave, and were generally charming  : )

Grandma N with a happy Owl.
Grandma was probably sleep deprived also...she took the older three kids for the couple of days before the party so that I could get some less-interrupted work done.  Thank you, Grandma & Grandpa!

I'm so grateful for everyone that was able to come celebrate with us!



And of course...presents.  We designated Chick and Moose as the present openers (Monkey was off playing with her cousin).

Moose took his job very seriously and showed us every card.

Otter pop.

They loved their presents : )

Owlie.

All in all, a fun time celebrating two special girls!  They are so sweet (and tolerant), and are a great addition to our family.  And hooray!  We made it through the first year!

Baby update and Other Kid randomness

Ok, I keep hearing that once I exit "twins as babies" land I will not remember any of it.  So here are some stats to help me...

Otter began rolling over within days of her 5 month birthday, Owl was the week after her. They both started batting at toys at around that same time.

Otter pop.

 

At their 6 month checkup we discovered that they've barely grown since their 4 month checkup.  Otter had gained 1/2 pound and 1 inch, and Owl gained just a couple of ounces and 1/2 inch.  So now I'm pumping a little, taking fenugreek, drinking herbal tea, drinking more water, and trying to be more generally healthy (it's appalling how my habits have digressed since the babies were born!).  I supplement with formula a little, and I feed them more often.  I notice the extra feedings most during the night-- they were sleeping through the night except for one (sometimes two) feeding... now when they wake up I don't just give them a chupa (pacifier) and let them go back to sleep, but instead I feed them.  It seems that they wake up a lot more now.  : (  For now I'm ok with it, since it'll help get my milk supply up as well as help the babies get some extra milk in...but I hope that it won't be too permanent.

 

Though the babies are quite skinny and small, they are very strong and generally happy.  They are strong enough that Otter threw herself out of her carseat (not buckled) at the dr's office when we were busy paying attention to giving Monkey her shot.  Those baby seats are rather bucket-like and reclined, so it took some good muscle for her to do it.

 

They love to stand and play in the exersaucer, and they have started to like the bumbo seats well enough.  They like tummy time a lot more now that they can roll over and hold themselves up better.  They are just starting to try out getting on hands and knees.  We're trying to give them lots of opportunities to practice sitting up to build their core strength and balance.  I think they'll be sitting and close to crawling by a month from now.

Otter is a prolific smiler, and likes to talk the most of the two of them.  She gets really loud...probably to be louder than her siblings.  Otter also screams sometimes when she cries.  Owl, on the other hand, has an harsh throaty thing that she does.  Thankfully the throaty thing and the screaming are both extremes...not their regular cries.

Mr. Fox doesn't like this picture of Otter, but I love it. 
I don't usually see resemblances between the twins and Chick, but in this picture I totally do. 
The heavy lids and occasional indent under the cheekbones are just like Chick.

 

Chick thinks we should rename Otter "Sadie" because she has so much to SAY.  She's called  her Sadie all day today.

The kids are helpful by degrees. 
Chick can reliably pick the babies up, walk around with them, and has changed diapers (though not often).  She is comfortable and big enough that she can soothe a crying baby, and I think they trust her.  She's matured a LOT since they were born, and though she will always be strong-willed, she has taken the initiative to help without being asked and is responsible and able to be reasoned with.  One of her favorite pasttimes lately is writing notes and lists.  She'll write a list of who has been good and who hasn't (ie, who she is upset with and not), or write a note telling her teacher something. 

About a month ago we noticed that she had two new teeth growing in behind her baby teeth on the bottom.  After asking on Facebook it sounded like it wasn't completely uncommon and the best thing to do would be to *encourage* the baby teeth to get out.  Chick doesn't like pain of any kind, though, so she didn't wiggle the tooth much.  It wasn't until a couple of days ago that the tooth finally came out.  The one next to it is now quite wiggly without the stability of its neighbor...the tooth fairy might need to come make another stop soon.

You can still see her tears in this picture.  I don't think the pain of the tooth coming out was as bad as the sight of blood...but she was fine after it stopped bleeding and I reminded her about the tooth fairy coming.  The tooth fairy brought her "Seven."  seven coins.  Monetary value didn't mean as much as monetary quantity...I'll just enjoy that now while it lasts!!  But the value was 48c... put into the piggy bank, and Chick is making plans to squander all of her piggy bank money at the store soon.

Monkey can pick the babies up and hold them.  Sometimes she walks with them, but that is discouraged.  She doesn't hold them for long before she is done, and she can't get them to stop crying so she only likes to help when they are happy.  She sees Chick getting attention for helpfulness (with babies and also with housework) and she wants that too, so she's learning to do things, and she likes getting to be a "big girl" too.  She's inbetween, though...sometimes she follows Chick's example, and sometimes she reverts down to Moose's level.  She's still very creative.  Here's a picture of her holding some toilet paper.  She'd gone to the bathroom and then came out with this toilet paper saying, "this looks like a truck."  Sure does...I would never have noticed.



Moose.  Oh dear Moose.  What a two-year old he is.  He loves loves loves his babies.  I commented to Fox last night that I wish I could hear Owl and Otter's blood pressure readings continuously...specifically when they see Moose come into the room and come over the pay attention to them!  He just doesn't know how to be gentle enough with such little people.  But he does as well as any toddler.  He can hold them when supervised, and gets in trouble if he's not supervised.  He wants to help, though, so if a baby is crying he'll give her a chupa or bring her to me...which of course is not safe or approved.

Having twins wouldn't be too much of a challenge if it weren't for Moose in the mix. 

Yet, he is so so so SO sweet.  I hate to think of my family without him.  He's going to be such a blessing to me personally, when all of the girls are teenagers!  He almost never refuses a hug, or denies a kiss, and he calms right down if you offer to scratch his back or cuddle with him.  And it's super fun now that he's expressing bigger thoughts with his bigger vocabulary.  Most of the time I don't know what to do with him, but I wouldn't want to do without him.

Today as we were leaving for church the older girls noticed (for the first time, really?!) that there was a "pirate ship" on our front door.  Monkey thought we should paint it brown.  I said no.  Chick thought we should paint the house, and I agreed and said that I've wanted to paint the house since we moved in.  Then I thought (somewhat bitterly) that we've lived here for five years this month and still haven't painted the house...but then I realized that we've had four kids in those five years.  So I guess we've kept busy enough.

Fox and I are tired and happy with our quiver full.  The house will get painted eventually. : )

Baby Bling

Ok, so when I last left off on our narrative, I was about to tell you about the ear piercing.

I put in a lot of thought and asking around before deciding on where to get the babies' ears pierced.  I heard conflicting opinions about what was best when it came to infant piercing, so I followed my Mom's advice and trusted my instincts.

Which led to needle piercing at Enemy Tattoo. 

The piercer looks a little rough, but he was really nice.  He talked a lot about his own new baby.
I was very impressed with the sanitary procedures. 
The babies didn't like being held still, so they started crying even before being poked, and of course didn't like the actual piercing...but they calmed down quickly afterwards.

(It was a little nerve-wracking there...we'd taken the whole family, thinking that it'd be a fun Family Home Evening and that Monkey would get pierced too.  She backed out,  though, and after getting there we learned that they don't allow kids and were not happy to see ours.  Oops.  After a few stressful minutes in the waiting area they let the kids go back to a little break room that had cartoons.  Much better.)

I paid quite a bit more for the tattoo parlor piercings, rather than going to someplace at the mall ($150 vs as little as $30).  In my pre-piercing decision-making my Mom gave me two pieces of advice.  The first I've mentioned: just trust what I felt was the best choice.  The second was that it seems like such a trivial thing, but it will actually last them for their whole life (hopefully), so a little more money paid now is not going to matter for such a long-term result. 

And I really appreciated the knowledge of the piercer when I talked to him on the phone.  I preferred the idea of needle rather than piercing-gun, and I wanted to be careful of the type of metal.  All reasons pointing to Enemy Tattoo (I just like saying the parlor name...sounds so sinister!!)

I began to doubt my decision, though, when in the first day or two we woke up to see Owl's earring OUT of her ear and laying on the bedsheet.  I freaked out about it, but in the end I was able to just put it back in with no problems whatsoever.  Then later in that first week Otter lost a back to one of hers, and we couldn't find it.  The earring came out a couple of times since there was no back to keep it on, and I finally had to admit defeat and go to the mall, spend $50 more for a whole new pair of earrings.  However, the earrings are better for the long run, because her original ones were actually aqua colored, and I needed emerald.

Diamonds for Baby D,

Emeralds for Baby E.

Or, for those of you who follow the blog and don't know the girls in person:

Diamonds are a land gem, like OWL is a land animal.

Emerald water, for swimming OTTER.

Since then we haven't had any problems with either pair of earrings (never did find the missing back), and both babies seem pretty well healed up.

And I do not regret a penny of the money spent.  It truly is priceless to have people come pick up a baby, look at her earrings and say, "Well hello, ____(insert correct name here)___."  It makes me very happy.

Plus, though I've never been a baby earring fan, they do look incredibly cute, and dainty, and feminine.

This is actually the best picture that I have of both babies showing their earrings.  They were in their cute matchy-match Christmas dresses.  Sometimes twins are so much fun : )

Double the Blessings

(the coordinated pacifiers were just a happy coincidence)

Owl and Otter were blessed at the end of September.

 

To be honest, I was pretty stressed leading up to it, because I'd procrastinated making the dresses mostly.  I also had planned to have a housecleaning service come clean the house for me, and then wasn't able to get them scheduled in time.  Also I got sick the week before.

 

All that said, I think that it was the nicest blessing day of all of the kids.  The stress continued up until we got to church ...late... and they had to switch around the meeting to do the blessing after the passing of the sacrament rather than before (with all of our visiting family looking around anxiously..."where are they?!"). 

 

But then the blessings were beautiful, and after that I enjoyed everything.

 

A funny thing about the blessings.  First of all, I can hardly remember any of either one...trying to remember one blessing is sometimes hard enough...two is too much for my tired brain!  But I had my sister tape it for me (hopefully she hasn't taped over it, since I haven't gotten it from her yet).  I know some feel that taping a blessing is taboo, but I'm ok with it in this situation.  Anyhow, the funny thing is that during Owl's blessing Fox called her Julia.  It's her middle name, but there's never been any discussion about CALLING her that, and he's never called her that before or since.  He denied it and says he doesn't remember calling her that...I think he just likes to give people something to wonder about ; )

When Mr. Fox saw this he said that he looks old and tired. 
I will admit that these few months have helped us both to FEEL old and tired,
but I still think he's a handsome devil.

Anyhow, then we finished out the meetings and everyone headed to our house for a luncheon.  There were Grandma and Grandpa J, Grandma and Grandpa N, my sister Laura, Fox's uncle Mark, and my sister Judy + family.  It was a much smaller group than for the others, but the food was delicious, the conversation interesting, and the happiness abundant (at least for me).

LOVE this picture of Owl with my goofy nephew Ben : )

Grandpa and Grandma N

Grandpa and Grandma J

Anyhow, the dresses.  I completely revised my plans for the dresses, because I'd procrastinated sewing them.  I decided to go with a simple shirred-top dress style.  I didn't use a pattern, and I made the dresses from an eyelet bedskirt that I'd bought at a yard sale for $1.  I love repurposing : )  Anyhow, I am happy with how they turned out, though they weren't as quick and easy as I'd expected.  And they aren't even the same, because I did one and then tried to improve upon it for the second.  There are things that I like better in one, and things that I like better in the other.  But I am happy with how both turned out.

Dresses with matching headbands and booties.

matching booties that didn't stay on well,
but were super adorable anyhow.

I know this isn't the best picture, but it shows Otter in her dress.
I love the sweet, innocent feel of white eyelet.

A note about the colors for the dresses:  I love both colors.  I kind of felt like the peachy color was more "Otter" and the bluer one was more "Owl"...but I don't want to type cast the babies before they've even had a chance to say what they like...so when it was time to get them dressed I just grabbed a baby without looking to see who it was, and I grabbed a dress, and that was that.  But it was contrary to how I had originally thought to do it...so I was confused for a lot of the day trying to remember.

 

It's enough to have to identify someone based on their clothing, but to have to go through the thought process of "that one is wearing peach, which I had in mind for Otter but today they are switched, so that is Owl" ...well, it's exhausting.  And I'd stayed up late making baby booties and headbands, and was recovering from being sick, so my thought process was a bit sluggish anyhow!  Long story short, I need to hurry up and get the babies' ears pierced, and when I do it, I need to make sure the earrings are what I really think fits that baby and not worry about it! sheesh.

I suppose it fits that Otter had the more watery color
and Owl had the more tree-ish color.  Right?
How much can I read into things?
wanna come over-analyse things with me?

 

Anyhow,  lunch was very nice and low-key, and then it was over and everyone left and I got to take a nap : )  and we ate leftovers for dinner.

the end.

Otter Pop.

Owly.