And the verdict is...

I guess it is kind of fitting that this being our 100th post we get to announce that we are going to be having another boy. We had an ultrasound this afternoon and as soon as the technician got a good view of the baby I looked and said "that there, that means it is a boy, right?" She said "yes, it looks that way." He was definitely not shy, and we got a great video of him taking some nice big gulps of the amniotic fluid, the technician kept saying "yum, yum." And then we got a view of him with the umbilical cord in his mouth. I guess he is practicing for eating on the outside.

Anyway, we are excited for this little one to come.

JUMP!

As you can see we have been celebrating around here. Alan finished another semester and we are excited for his last semester of school (cross your fingers).



The boys had a great preschool activity last week and got to dress as pirates and go look for the true meaning of Christmas. They had a blast.

We set up our Christmas tree.
And believe it or not, it snowed here for about 30 minutes one day and here are the boys enjoying the little snow that fell. If you look closely at the second picture you can see a little snow piled up against the fence.

We took a ride on Cinderella's carriage as we celebrated with the season at a Baylor tree lighting ceremony where no trees were actually lit.

You May Have Noticed

That we changed the title of our blog page. Before it just said Alan, Minda, Samuel, and Jacob. Not only was this a really boring name it was also a bit inaccurate. We are adding another member to our family sometime in the end of May. Yes, that means we are pregnant. Almost 15 weeks now.

Many of you may already know this but we thought we would let the rest of you in on the little secret. For those of you who would like to tease us about having another set of twins let me put your minds to ease, it is only one this time around (I made the ultrasound technician check multiple times to make sure.)

We are extremely excited about the baby and maybe a little nervous about the timing. Alan graduates from school in the middle of May and the baby's due date is May 28th so it cuts things awful close. But we are looking forward to the adventure.

The boys are very excited and love to talk to the baby, it is very sweet. We will see how sweet they are when they realize what it means to bring a new baby home.

The new name I picked for our blog is not really all that exciting either so if any of you have any really great ideas for a new name leave me a comment on what you think it should be.

Silly Pictures and Heritage Family Farm

The boys are so ready for Christmas. They have been asking when Christmas will be here since before Halloween. We decorated for Christmas while Alan was out finding deals early on black Friday. The boys found these hats and have been walking around only answering to the name Santa Claus and they love it.
The other day Sam was having a hard time napping and he decided he would sit by his door against his dresser and wait until I let him come out of his room. Well I guess he fell asleep there as he waited because when I went to get him he was really out of it. I picked him up and carried him to the couch and he fell asleep on the couch. I came back a little while later to check on him and I found him totally asleep standing like this against the couch. We have never really ever had a good sleeping picture of the boys so this was a first for us.

Alan got out some old rubber boots he has so he could have dry feet as he went out to do field work. The boys thought they were really cool and have been wearing them all around the house. Here is Jacob sporting the boots.So our boys are deathly afraid of dogs but we took them to the Heritage Family Farm last Friday and they fell in love with this puppy (thanks to Hallie for the help with the puppy.) The farm was a lot of fun we got to see how to make yarn and fabric, we learned about making cheese, saw a demonstration on how to make cider, saw how to do some blacksmithing etc. The boys really loved the petting zoo the best though. Sam was so cute he kept kissing the dogs nose. (This dog was so sleepy it almost looked dead but it was breathing so we knew it wasn't.)
Sam sitting on a bale of hay.
Jacob and Daddy on a bale of hay.

Making Spirits Bright

My kids surprise me everyday with something they pick up from who knows where. The other day I was utterly confused though when Jacob came to me and said "Mom what are spirits?" I thought wow that is a hard one to explain. And so I tried to explain to him in the most simplest terms what I thought to be an acceptable answer. He looked very confused and looked at me like I was from outer space. I wondered where he had learned that word and I asked him and he said. "Mom spirits are bright." I was really confused about how he would have come up with that on his own. So I asked him what he meant. He said "Jingle Bells, making spirits bright."

When I realized what he was talking about I just had to laugh at myself for confusing him so much. It was a pretty simple question actually that he had asked. Oh well I guess I better learn to do some investigating as to what he is really asking next time.

New Couches

We got a call earlier this week from a family in our ward who were getting new couches and wanted to know if we wanted their old couches. Since our couches didn't match and the "new" couches were in much better shape then our own we took them up on their offer.
There are a lot of pillows and the boys have discovered how much they love playing and hiding in all the pillows. Here is a picture of them playing in the "forest"(that is what they call the pillow fortress they make for themselves.)

I thought this was a funny way to watch tv, but they love to sit here and watch tv like this.

Pumpkins and Halloween

Alan, Jacob and Samuel worked on our Jack O'Lantern this year. Dad Cut the top and the boys helped scoop out the guts. They did not really like that very much because it was so messy but they had fun watching dad. They told us they wanted a happy pumpkin so Alan worked on that for them.





I love this funny picture, Sam is pointing to the pumpkin while Alan has this cheesy smile and Jacob just looks confused.
Halloween night, the boys with mom and all their loot. I made them monkey costumes but everyone thought they were bears or dogs until they saw their tails.
Trunk or Treating, the boys in their costumes and their bananas.
These last two pictures were just some cute pictures of the boys that I thought I would throw in.
The boys in new jammies wrestling with Dad

The Pumpkin Patch and the Zoo

Yesterday Alan took the day off of school and we went to a "Pumpkin Patch" about a 30 minute drive away. When we got there we realized it wasn't really just a Pumpkin Patch (this was all they had for a pumpkin patch) but it was a lot of little activities for the kids.
(Believe it or not this was the best picture of the boys I could get with the pumpkins)

They had a cow ride, the boys rode all by themselves and loved it. Afterward Jacob informed me that he was very proud of himself, maybe that isn't the best thing to teach him.

They had a golfing area, but the boys are still not very good at that, and also this duck race area. The boys loved this. They raced their ducks using the pumps and Jacob again was very proud of himself, clapping and shouting when the duck got to the other end.

Sam struggling with the whole race concept.
Jacob intently focusing on the race.
They had a hayride and we had fun with our friends that were also there at the farm.

A couple of days ago the boys and I went to the zoo. I realized it had been a while since we had taken pictures of them at the zoo, so I brought the camera along with me. The boys with Nemo, although Nemo seems to be missing in action.
This is the boys at the new exhibit at the zoo. We got new orangutans and a kamodo dragon at the zoo and they have statues of each.
Here are the boys on the Chinese horses they have to go along with the whole Asian theme of the exhibit.

These are the kids we went with minus Brody. I love this action shot of Brylie and Atticus, it was the only shot I got with all four of them.

McKinney Home

So my wonderful Aunt Glenda and Uncle Tracy are trying to sell their home in McKinney Texas (just north of Dallas) and so I am posting their homes blog in case you know of anyone in the market for a wonderful historic home in North Dallas. Even if you don't know anyone looking, her house is amazing and they did a lot of the work themselves, it is gorgeous, so check it out.
www.northbradleystreet.blogspot.com

Fire Trucks

We have been trapped inside a lot lately because of so much rain so it was nice today to get. We went to the library for story time and today they were talking about Fire Men and Fire Trucks and afterward the Hewitt Fire Department brought over a truck and a rescue vehicle for the kids to check out. Sam was a little hesitant because he thought he would have to ride on it and he didn't want to. Jacob was so excited the whole library time and when it was time to go he started clapping, it was really cute.


Jacob and Sam with their new fire hats.
Jacob liked how big the tires were on the truck so I took his picture next to one.

The boys watching the Fire Men talk about the hoses.
When they got home they found our garden hose and pretended to be fire fighters, Jacob told me he wants to be a Police Officer, a Fire Truck Man, and a Doctor (that's a tall order.) Sam told me he wanted to be a big, big, big Fire Chief.
Funny Boys!

Clothing Bandits Strike Again

So you may recall that a few weeks ago Samuel and Jacob got a little wild when we had people at our house for visiting teaching. They removed all the clothing from their dresser and then started tearing their playroom apart including tearing up some of their books. Well yesterday I was watching my friends two little boys. My boys and her boys were having a great time watching Bob the Builder and playing with their cars and trains. Then I suggested that the boys all go play in the playroom while I got some things ready for dinner. I checked on them just to make sure we didn't have a repeat of a couple of weeks ago. But apparently I wasn't quite on top of things as I thought I was because when I went into their bedroom this is what I found. Every article of their clothing strewn throughout their room. Now I beg you what is a mother to do? I am totally out of ideas as to how to get them to stop taking their clothes out of their dresser, so if any of you have any good ideas please share.

A better Picture of Alan with his poster

AAPG Student Expo Houston

Alan has been spending a lot of time working on this poster about his research project to present it at the AAPG Student Expo in Houston. And when I say he spent a lot of time I mean he hardly slept last week because he was working on this poster. But it all paid off because out of the 95 people who presented he won first place! Congratulations Alan!

Not so cute

There are days when I think that these two little guys are just so dang cute (for those of you without kids, when you have kids you will think the same thing about your kids I promise you.) But today was not one of those days.

I knew my visiting teachers were coming today and I knew they would bring their children and so I intentionally didn't clean up the playroom (it wasn't too messy anyway) because I knew it would just get messy again. I put the boys table in front of their bookshelf so that my sweet innocent little boys would not be tempted to pull all of the books off of the shelf (this is something they have done a couple of times before.) But I was going to outsmart them this time. I also shut their bedroom door thinking that they would contain all of the mess in just the play room.

Well, the visiting teachers came and their children were very sweet and nice, my boys kept bothering me and finally when I went into their room like they asked me I saw every article of clothing that they own strewn all around the room. I got upset, but because the VTers were there I contained my anger and told them to put everything back (yeah right like that was going to happen.) Then finally when the visit was over I went into their room to help them pick up their clothes, I asked them why they had done it and they said that they wanted to show their friends their clothes. After this fun adventure I then went to assess the damage in the playroom.

The room was in shambles (I would have taken a picture but I was too livid). I expected it to be messy, but this. This had Samuel and Jacob at their worst written all over it. All the books were
off of the shelf and scattered around the room, some in pieces now. Every toy was off of the toy shelf and all over the room. I asked the boys who pulled the books off, they said that they did, I asked them who removed all of the toys from the shelf they said that they had done it.

To say I was upset would be an understatement. It took an hour and a half to clean up the room, I made them help and that is probably why it took so long. Needless to say reading books will now be a privilege and not a right in our home.

These cute little boys I am sure will do it again in the future, although they repeatedly were telling me they would never do it again.

Anyway, I am sure I am not the first or the last parent to have a child act out like this it is just frustrating when it is your kid doing it.

Just a little venting

Ok, so I know this blog is dedicated to keeping people up on what our family has been up to but I hope you will excuse me a moment to just vent a little. (Warning: If you don't want to hear the venting skip this entry.)

I just want to preface this entry by saying I do not mean to offend anyone who has been in the opposite position of me in this next story.

So it has been very rainy here for the past couple of days and going places has been a challenge with two little boys but they have taken it in stride and wear their new jackets with their hoods up and really don't complain too much.

Today we were out and about and I realized that I needed something from the grocery store. I usually avoid the grocery store on a Saturday because it is usually a nightmare but today I decided to brave it. With the rain it was even more difficult but I thought they have been so good with the rain why not.

We get in the store and the only real problem is this woman who is basically shouting orders to her poor husband. They have all three of their young children, one in a cart (even though it holds 2) a stroller with a child in it who probably could fit in the cart, and another child walking around. They have the whole aisle blocked up and this poor man is just trying his best to keep up with his wife.

I didn't think much about it until I went to leave. I pulled out to go to the exit and a minivan was in front of me and suddenly stopped popped its trunk and lo and behold there was the husband hopping out to load up his family and groceries in the car. Normally I would think it quite chivalrous of a man to go out in the rain and pull a car around. But by him doing that it cut off a man pushing carts from the parking lot to the store, another car who couldn't go by because the man pushing the carts was cut off, and me who was now stuck behind him. I looked over to the woman and her kids none of them were wearing anything other than t-shirts and shorts so I didn't see why if the rest of us had to brave the rain why did this woman feel she had the right to be treated differently? Here I was with my children going to the store without a husband and was able to make it to my car with my kids in the rain, why couldn't she do the same?

Now I know that I may be alone in this opinion but I was thoroughly annoyed, what do you think? Do you think it was ok for her to do that? Do you think it was as rude as I did?

Autumn is Coming

Earlier this week I was walking with a friend and she noticed that the trees were starting to change. It may be in the 90's still but autumn is coming. And what goes better with Autumn time than caramel apples. So I decided to make some for the boys. Samuel loved his but Jacob didn't have the patience for it (surprise, surprise.)
Here is Jacob, I had to help him a bit to start the apple.

Here is Sam with his apple. I know he is dressed the same as Jacob, it was the day of the BYU game against Oklahoma and so we had to show our school pride. Alan got to go to the game which was at the new Cowboys stadium in Arlington TX. BYU beat Oklahoma in a big upset, be we were so excited that they won. Go Cougars!




This week was a milestone for our boys. It was the first day of preschool. We are participating in a home preschool with two other moms and their 3 year olds. This week it was at our house and I got to teach. The boys were excited to bring their show and tell items and to put their new crayons, scissors, and glue in their backpacks. They had a lesson on their name, their age and the primary colors. We are excited for them and they are excited to be going to school like Daddy.
Our boys have some wierd obsession with diving. Ever since the Summer Olympics 2008 and we watched the divers the boys have loved diving all of their toys and building diving boards to dive their animals off of them. We recently have been swimming a lot and so Alan bought them some goggles and now they think they can dive off of the furniture and swim around the house in their goggles. It has been really funny watching them "swim" all around.
This week I also decided it was time to get pictures taken again. It has been since they were about 20 months since I have attempted to get pictures taken at a studio. But this time I had a plan. Because the only picture studio that I know of that I can afford is in Walmart I decided the boys could pick a treat of their choice if they took good pictures. So here are the boys with their candy dressed in their little outfits for the picture. (I know Jacob looks a little wierd in this picture, we are still trying to figure out this camera and it sometimes casts wierd shadows.)
Sam with a gummy worm mustache.

We have also been launching more rockets. This time our friends the Gunnells came with us. Yes they too have the same last name, and yes we probably are related somehow. We like to joke about us being family. Anyway they too are fans of rocket launches so they invited us to launch rockets together. We went to a park to launch the rockets. Here are our kids playing with their kids on the merry go round.
Sam, with Cassidy and Brody in the background.
Jacob alone on the merry go round.
Jacob, Brylie, and Sam.


First they had a successful launch and recovery then we launched ours and it landed in a pond (we think) or maybe a cow ate it, we aren't sure, at any rate we no longer have a rocket. Alan is in search of finding a new one and the boys ask about buying a new one almost daily. Anyway, we had fun launching them anyway, maybe next time Alan will use a smaller engine. Thanks for thinking of us Brad and Cassidy.

Funny Faces

I noticed the boys were making this funny face when we were at the zoo and looking at the fish in the big tanks. I think they got this from the movie Finding Nemo when Darla looks into the tank, but I am not sure. It is funny though that they have all of a sudden started making this face and they now do it all the time.
Samuel learned how to be a "wheelbarrow" this week.
The boys looked so darn cute on Sunday that I had to snap a picture.
Jacob announced this past week that he wanted to go camping, so we pulled out their little indoor tent and got out their new sleeping bags and had a camping experience, we ate marshmallows by a little candle that we used as our bonfire and the boys read each other stories in their tent, it was really cute.

Family Visit

As you can see the boys were very excited to have their grandparents (Grandma Jane and Boppus) and aunts (Sarah and Audrey) come and visit.

(by the way thank you Aunt Marisa for the cute birthday shirts!)
I realized that we didn't take a whole lot of pictures of the family on our camera, but here are some that we snapped. Here is Sam traipsing about in the water, we went to Lake Waco and hung out at the beach.
Jacob making sandcastles.
A sandcastle that he didn't make, I think Alan built this beauty.
We did snap this great shot of us in bathing suits. We had a blast.
Here are Audrey and Sarah in their suits. (You will notice there are no shots of Grandma Jane posted this was upon request.)
Here is Boppus reading to the boys, there was a lot of reading done by both grandparents and both aunts.


We took everyone to the local museum, showed them around Baylor, saw the Baylor Bear, showed them the suspension bridge downtown and hung out a lot at home.
Here are Sarah, Sam, and Audrey by the bull near the suspension bridge. We also took the girls to Six Flags where I decided that I am not as young as I once was.

Thanks for coming to visit, we had a great time. If anyone else wants to come our way you are welcome we'll fix up the extra room for you!


Here is a little treat from yesterday, I was outside putting some laundry on the line and when I returned this is what I found. This is every shoe that was in our front closet lined up in a perfect order. Apparently our shoes are now snowmobiles and every toy needs a snowmobile to ride around in. They crack me up.

Sammy and Jakie are 3

Yesterday was a big day in our household. Samuel and Jacob woke up excited to open presents. Here are some pictures of them ready to open some presents from Grandma Jane and Boppus.
Here they are exploring some gifts from Moma and Papa.


Here they are with their loot.They played all morning with their toys while I frosted cakes.
Here are the requested dinosaur cakes. As you can see we are not expert at making cakes but the boys loved them and that is really all that matters. Green for Sam and Blue for Jacob of course.

We went out to lunch and swimming in the afternoon and after dinner we had some friends over for cake and ice cream. Thanks to all the parents and kids who came to support our boys. They were so excited to have friends over and to eat cake of course.

Here is Jacob actually getting to blow out his own candles. (Last year Sam blew them out for him, but he didn't seem to mind.)
Sam in mid-blow, the cake was a hit and the boys are now 3. It makes me a little sad to know they aren't little babies anymore, but I am happy they are growing and learning. We love you boys!

Four years and Counting

Happy Anniversary Alan!
It seems like it has gone by so fast, and now two kids later,
Here we are. I love you!

Pioneer Day at the Water Park

The 24th of July Celebration was at the Waco Water Park. The ward reserved the place for the evening and it was a lot of fun. It also gave us the opportunity to try out the water feature of the camera.

Samuel splashing into the water in the kids area. They went down this slide countless times.

Samuel at the slide again.

Jacob trying to escape the pool.

Minda with a beautiful pose.

Alan holding his breath.


Jacob acting like dad and wearing his shirt.

Rocketeers

Here is a picture of my rocketeers. I love this picture of Alan and the boys, they all look so darn cute. This week Alan thought it would be a good idea to do a project with the boys. He bought a rocket and the boys were so excited. He put it together (the boys really weren't much help) and was finally ready to go.
Here is the rocket right before lift-off.
Here are the boys watching Daddy get the rocket ready.
The boys were so enthralled with the whole thing. We had a bit of a failure at first, but we eventually were successful. It went up very high, Alan was excited, the boys didn't really know what had happened. We watched it land in a neighborhood, which we were a little bummed about but we eventually found the rocket in someones backyard. Next time we will launch it from a different place so it won't land in the neighborhood. It was a lot of fun and Samuel kept asking us to go do it again for the rest of the night, so I guess it was a hit.

The Only Way to Eat an Oreo

Yesterday Alan decided to teach the boys the proper way to eat an Oreo. Here he is demonstrating for you all and the boys of course too.


Step 1: Take your Oreo and dip it in milk.Step 2: Let it sit there for a minute.
Step 3: Take it out.
Step 4: Consume.
Jacob didn't really pay too much attention to the lesson, he was to busy with step number four.
Sam was just excited to be eating a treat.

Inquiring Minds Want to Know

About a month or so ago our boys were screaming at me to make the car move at a stoplight, so I took the opportunity to teach them that the red light means stop and the green light means go and that I can't move the car when it is red. They really haven't talked about it all that much since. But today we were driving and Jacob said, "Mom the red light means stop." And I said "Yes Jacob that's right." Then he said "and the green light means go." And I said "Yes." And then he said "What does the Yellow light mean?" I was taken a back a bit because I didn't think an almost three year old could pick up on that. We had never talked about the yellow light and he had obviously noticed it and wanted to understand what it meant. It is neat to know that their little minds are working even when I am not teaching them. I am so amazed by them.

Also recently they have been learning their to count with their fingers and they are always holding up their fingers and announcing how many fingers they are holding up. They think they are so cool when they do it too, it's funny.

They are really excited for their birthday in a couple of weeks. Every time we go to walmart or our grocery store they want to look at the toy section so they can see what they want for their birthday. I hope this phase passes after their birthday, but I am afraid it won't.

Here is a picture of our family on the suspension bridge in downtown Waco on the fourth of July. We watched the fireworks that were on the river with some friends. It was a lot of fun.

More pictures of our trip to Utah

I got to spend some time with my dear friend Elizabeth who I have been friends with since birth. We went to a park and let the kids play and run around while we got caught up. She is moving to New York City and I will miss visiting her when I come to Provo.

They boys had fun playing on Grandma Jane's slip and slide and in the little pool.

Here we are on a "hay ride" minus the hay at Thanksgiving Point. It is so hard to get a family picture where all of us are looking and no one is making a funny face. Hopefully we can achieve that someday.
The boys loved spending time with their cousin Gavin they were so cute all holding hands and running around Thanksgiving Point together.

Daddy and the boys fed the animals at the petting zoo, Mom was not interested in feeding anything. The boys were excited to see Dad feed the animals but were not interested in doing it themselves. But they did enjoy throwing the food at the animals and putting the food on the outside of the gate so the animals could still eat it without any actual contact with them.We also went to Discovery Park with Grandma Jane, Aunt Sarah, Aunt Karen and Uncle Chris and Gavin and Caleb. The boys all had fun running around the "Castle" and making their parents run in circles trying to follow them.

We were also able to attend the Redd Family Reunion in Pocatello, Idaho. We had a blast going down the big slide at the Steadman Farm and jumping on the trampoline. Grandma Jane did a great job putting the reunion together and we all had such a fun time with so many things to do.
It was a lot of fun but it is nice to be home now.

Happy, Happy Birthday Alan Dear

The big 27, man you're old.

I hope you had a wonderful day, I love you!

Fun Times in Utah

No, we have not fallen off the face of the earth, Samuel Jacob and Minda have been visiting Minda's parents in Utah while Alan was off gallivanting in the Gulf of Mexico doing his grad work on a boat. But now we are all together again and visiting more family. We had a lot of fun with Moma and Papa in Pleasant View and visiting with Grandma Montierth and Grandma and Grandpa Fisher, and Richard and Courtney and crew. And now we are enjoying time with Boppus, Grandma Jane, Sarah, Karen and Chris and their boys.
Some things we have been able to do are:
1. Go to the Train museum
Jacob, Samuel, Papa, Afton
Jacob, Samuel, Afton
Samuel, Afton, Jacob

2. Visit the Airplane museum
Jacob was a little weary wearing an outfit, but we did get him to wear the helmet.
Sam and Afton loved to dress up like astronauts
Jacob riding on the little airplane
Sam riding on the little airplane
Samuel and Jacob by a big helicopter, they were really excited to see so many planes and helicopters


3. Visit family and friends
Sam and Grandma Montierth
Jacob and Grandma Montierth, they are finally warming up to her.
Jacob, Grandma Fisher, Grandpa Fisher, and Samuel at the Fishers
Aunt Karen and Caleb

Moma and Samuel in Oxford Idaho for the Fishers 80th Birthday party reunionOur good friends the Robinsons had us over, here is Ashley and Broden
We got to see Kim and Kaleb too, what fun!
Here are the Robinsons and our boys, Clay, Jacob, Samuel, and Broden




4. Hang out with Cousins
Sam, Mei Mei, Afton and Jacob with Moma seeing the chickens and goats at Moma and Papa's neighbors
Mei Mei, Jacob, Afton and Samuel playing with bubbles at Moma and Papa's
Samuel, Afton and Jacob feeding the ducks with Papa
Gavin, Caleb, Jacob, and Samuel pose for a quadruplet shot
Another shot in matching attire

The boy cousins hanging out

5. Go to the dinosaur museum
Samuel and Jacob digging for bones

Samuel and Jacob hanging out on a dinosaurGavin, Jacob and Samuel in the dirt, they loved this
The boys and mom looking at a diarama of some dinos

Not Much Goin' On

It has been a really nice and relaxing week. We haven't been in a hurry to do much of anything and we've loved spending some time with Dad. I took these pictures of the boys watching Bob the Builder which they got from the library. They love Bob. "Can we fix it...Yes we can."

Alan has been finishing up some school work and getting ready to go on his big boat trip and I have just been getting things going for the Enrichment Activity I am in charge of. The boys, well this has been a fun week for them. They have played, played, played.

We are excited to go to Utah for the next month and see family.

Sea World San Antonio

We have been talking to the boys about going to Sea World for a couple of months now and we finally got the opportunity to go. We told them about the whales, penguins, and sharks they would get to see and they talked about it every day last week. So they were really excited to be there. Here are my boys Samuel, Jacob and Alan in front of the penguins. For some reason the boys were having a hard time focusing on taking pictures so I didn't get many with them smiling and looking at the camera at the same time.

We were a little disappointed that the water park part of Sea World was closed because the temperature was in the 90's and we were very hot. But there was a spray park open that we were able to play in, the boys loved it. Jacob got knocked over by some bigger kid and here he is with Dad a little upset about it. Sam is below running in the water, he had a blast.
Here we are waiting to see the Shamu show. This is the one thing Alan and I enjoyed the most. It is amazing to see those animals so close.
The boys weren't sure about riding the kid roller coaster at first. But Sam went on it twice and Jacob three times. They have been talking about that roller coaster since. Dad and Jacob
Samuel and Mom.
Here are the boys when we first got to Sea World and we were waiting to see the Sea Lions. They just kept asking where the Sea Lions were and then when they came out they liked them for about 10 minutes and then they were done. Funny boys.

New Car

So we finally did it. We are a two car family now. Here are some pictures of the boys with the car. It is a light green but I just realized looking at the pictures that it looks silver in them.
The boys really love the trunk.

Our Budding Artists

This last week was kind of a crazy week. Alan has been working on a big project for school pretty much 24/7. And the boys were getting a little antsy not being able to go anywhere (since Alan had the car) and they were also missing their daddy. So we did this project one day. Some old crafting paint I had and some Q-tips, tissue paper, stickers and googly eyes and the boys made these...
Wonderful collages.

Yesterday Alan finally finished up his project so the boys and I hung outside on the patio playing with our hose and eating popsicles so that daddy could sleep.

Jacob aslo got a hold of the camera and this was the result!

Easter Outfits and Silly Boys

We bought the boys some new Easter Outfits and here the boys are looking mighty cute if you ask me. Below is a picture of the boys last year in their Easter outfits, they have grown up so much in this last year.

Jakie and Sammy love snacks. In fact that is all they ever want to eat are snacks. Last October when my Uncle and Aunt from Dallas came to visit us they brought some Nutra-grain bars with them, my uncle is the king of the coupon and I am sure got some slammin deal on them. Anyway, after that experience the boys decided that "fruit bars" were their new favorite thing. That is all they ever seem to want to eat now. Of course we only buy them sometimes, but here the boys are sharing a treat while sharing a chair.

When I lived in Egypt I bought this little outfit and it finally fits our boys.
Sam thought it was fun to wear.
Jacob not so much.

But here are some pictures of Jacob acting very silly.
Gangsta' Jakie
Playdough face Jakie.
Jakie in the dryer. Alan helped in with this one, I think he was mored excited about this than I was. Notice Jacobs crazy hair, that is why they just got haircuts.

Easter Morning and Egg Hunts

Happy Easter!

Jacob and Samuel with all their loot from the Easter Bunny. They were so excited to have the Easter Bunny come they were up early and I could hear them talking about him in their little cute voices. They got way too much candy and are currently still on the sugar rush.
Jacob finding the eggs we dyed that the Easter Bunny hid for them to find.

Samuel with the egg he found.

Jacob and Samuel at an Egg hunt we had with some families in the ward. They loved finding the eggs on the ground, but they especially loved all the candy they could eat before we finally took it away from them.

A family picture. Typical, Samuel and Jacob are not looking and Alan and I are looking right at the sun. I don't think as a family we are very photogenic.

Jacob finding candy-filled eggs.

Sam excited to have found all his eggs.

We had a great Easter, we hope you all had a great holiday too!

Blue Bells

Spring in Texas apparently means Blue Bell season. Everyone seems to be taking pictures by the Blue Bells which are mostly in patches along the freeway but also can be found in random fields. So we decided to do the Texas thing and take pictures of the boys in the Blue Bells.

Samuel

Samuel and Jacob

Jacob

Go Spartans!

Let's face it, this blog is really all about Samuel and Jacob. A way for our family and friends to keep up with our little family. But today I just had to add a blog entry about March Madness. Every year Alan gets a little crazy about March Madness. He fills out his bracket with his friends and then faithfully follows every game to see if he wins. Unfortunately for Alan he tends to pick teams that might have a shot (and apparently this is what most guys do too, the underdog you know.) So usually his brackets don't end up looking too pretty, because who can really pick the underdog, that is why they call it the underdog, right? Well this year I decided to join the madness and fill out my own bracket. I put the winner as Michigan State, being from Michigan and seeing that it was a top 2 school in its category I decided it had a shot, maybe an underdog but a good choice. Alan laughed at me, my brother Robert laughed at me for putting Michigan State so far ahead in the competition, and the fact that it could actually win, no way, at least not in their opinion. So I know I shouldn't brag, but I never am right about sports related things so this time I am going to. Michigan State is going up against UNC and a lot of people think that they will win (not just me this time.) So although I have never been a huge fan of Michigan State ( I am more of a Wolverines fan) I really hope they can pull it out and win. Go Spartans!

The Itsy Ditsy Spider

Jacob insists that the song Itsy Bitsy Spider is actually the Itsy Ditsy Spider. I tried to tell him that it wasn't he started to cry because he "knew" he was right. What a funny boy!

Family Home Evening and pictures

So for FHE this week the boys learned about the armor of God. We talked about the different things we were to protect ourselves and how these relate to things Heavenly Father gives us to protect us spiritually. I am sure a lot of it went over the kids heads but they sure liked to "play sword fight" after the lesson.
I hardly ever get pictures of the boys when they are laughing, they always cheese it up when I whip out the camera, so here are some of the boys actually smiling and not fake smiling.
Sam showing off his brace for his sprained elbow. He finally got it off today, he was pretty sad to see it go.
He loves his new bear he got from the ER, it goes with him everywhere.

Spills and Chills

So this week has been one heck of a week. I didn't think anything could top my wonderful day that I had Tuesday, well I was wrong. Wednesday went well, false hope. On Thursday Samuel ignored the numerous warnings we have given him to not jump off the couch and decided to jump off landing on his arm and leaving him in a lot of pain. Nothing seemed broken so I just watched him all morning and put him down for a nap. After his nap it became evident that he wasn't ok. Alan took Sam to the emergency room and after a long time they came home. Sam got a new teddy bear, a coloring book with crayons and a brace for his arm. It seems that he has sprained his elbow, or so they think. We have to go the doctor this week to check him out again. The funniest thing was when Sam came home and Jacob saw him with his brace (it looks a bit like a cast with an ace bandage on it) and he gave Sam the funniest face I have ever seen him give anyone. He didn't quite know what to do with Sam wearing it on his arm. After a minute or two he finally was able to hug Sam. Even though it was only a few hours they were seperated Jacob really missed Sam. It was really cute. (Sorry I don't have any more pictures, our camera's batteries ran out and I couldn't find the charger, so I will post some more pictures soon, but here is one of Sam waiting in the hospital Alan took with his phone.)



Well on Friday we decided to brave the cold weather and go camping with our ward. There were only 6 families who showed up. And it was cold. The kids did remarkably well and we all were fairly warm except for the insane wind that blew right through the tent. On the way to the campground Jacob decided to sing some songs. He likes the show Bob the Builder and they sing a song with the words "Bob the Builder" and then they say "Can We Fix it Yes We Can!" very enthusiastically. Jacob decided to sing this over and over again, Alan and I were getting a bit annoyed with it (it was going on for about 5 minutes straight with him repeating these phrases over and over again.) But then Samuel said "Jacob quite singing that song. No Jacob he can't fix it. No, no, Jakie Bob can't fix it." He was even more annoyed than us. Jacob just thought it was funny and kept singing. Alan and I tried so hard not to cry laughing because it was so funny to hear them discussing and fighting about the song.

On another note tonight at Dinner Sam made us crack up because I was telling Jacob and Sam that they were cute. Sam looked at me and said, "I'm not cute, I'm handsome." He sure told me. And you are both handsome and cute Sammy we love our boys.

Just one of those days!

As a mother there are days when I just feel inadequate and at the end of my rope. I don't always have enough patience to deal with the things that come my way. Today was one of those days when I felt a little overwhelmed with my children. It actually started out as a pretty good morning, I slept just fine, no birds chirping, yeah! I was relatively happy to be up with my kids early. I looked out the window and I was glad I could go on a walk because it wasn't raining, yet. I got the kids ready to go and then it started to rain just a mist at first and then more and more, so we went home. It was alright, I decided to do a workout video instead and Alan was nice enough to help the kids stay off of my while I did the exercises. Then Alan left and all hell broke loose. I gave the kids a bath and Samuel dumped water onto bathroom floor, a lot of water! After bathtime Samuel and Jacob fought for probably two straight hours over toys and other things we tried to do. I acted as referee to this and was just trying to appease everyone. It didn't work. Jacob stole Samuel's favorite toy and purposely broke the wheels off of it, this after I asked him to return it to Sam. After screaming and yelling from both sides the boys finally calmed down laid on their beds and then they had lunch at 11:30. I was just counting the moments until nap time (12:30). Alan called and as I was talking to him Jacob and Samuel started up fighting again. Then Jacob screamed that he had peed his pants, all over the couch. YEAH! I hung up the phone and dealt with that, luckily we have covers on our cushions. Finally it was nap time (it may have come a bit early due to the pee incident). Anyway the nap was about an hour, usually it last 2, so I kept telling them to lay down and rest, they screamed, kicked the door threw things etc. I ignored it until I was ready to deal with them. My friend wanted to walk down the street to a new store that is on the corner and we had planned on going if it wasn't raining. It wasn't so we soon got ready and waited outside for our other friend to join us, of course it started to sprinkle, just a little, then a lot, then a little again. We decided to risk it and go anyway, about 200 yards into our walk we were completely soaking. We turned around and walked back then it stopped raining right by our houses. So we turned around and walked to the store. It was actually a fairly nice outing the boys didn't touch too many things (that's rare) and then we walked back and I let the boys play in the front of our houses while we talked the boys played in the dirt covering their hands in dirt. So we went home the boys cleaned up a bit and then I let them play on the patio. I didn't know that the bin that usually contains their basketballs and soccer balls was full of water, dirty nasty looking water. Otherwise I would have not been looking up the recipe for dinner I would have just ushered them back inside. They had undressed and stuck all their clothes (including underwear) into the water to wash it. Jacob came streaking into the house so excited saying "Mommy I'm washing my clothes."
So, now I have changed them more times than I can count today and I just looked while writing this and they are wet again all over their bums because they sat in a puddle outside together, they thought it was pretty funny. I guess I am just done with being upset today, I have had it with trying to have patience. They will just have to sit in their wet clothes in the kitchen because I don't want an even wetter couch. I am just glad daddy will be home soon and will put them to bed tonight.

2:41 AM

So this morning at 2:41 a.m. I was awakened by birds chirping outside my window. Can anyone tell me why a bird would feel the need to be chirping so late at night?

Pictures and Update

So the boys have had to stay indoors a lot recently because of sickness and most recently bad weather so we have been playing a lot of games, the boys especially love hide and go seek. Here the boys are just hanging out on the couch playing with each other.
Cute Sam!
Cute Jacob!
On a nice day the boys helped me wash some windows. They thought this was so cool, I just hope the same enthusiasm is there when I ask them to do chores when they are older.
They also love to wash the mirrors in the bathrooms, they beg me to let them help whenever I pull out the blue bottle of windex.
It seems our boys are budding artists, they discovered how much they love coloring the patio with chalk, on this day they got covered head to toe in chalk, luckily it was bath night.
Sam, check out those pants.
Jacob also had a great time.
When the boys were potty training we had many incentives for them. One incentive that we had to pull out to keep things going were these Lightning McQueen slippers (for those of you who don't watch Disney shows that much, he is a character from the movie Cars.) These slippers their cousin has and at Christmas they always wanted to wear them and so when they saw that they could have them they were super excited. Here is Jacob who earned his a couple of days before Sam.
Sam looking extremely happy to finally wear his new slippers.
I always try to buy clothes after the season for the next year, sometimes when I get bored with what they are wearing I will pull out a new shirt and make a big deal about it to get the boys to feel like something cool is happening. Here are the boys with their new shirts waiting to go on a walk.
Jacob has always loved books, and so has Sam, but recently Jacob has been "reading" to Sam a lot. Here they are after a bath. Jacob will tell the story with what he remembers from us reading to him and will act like he is reading, it's pretty cute.
Alan had spring break last week and so we went to the museum, we seem to go there a lot. They were having a special group of activities for spring break, so we got to catch a session of a laser light show. Here the boys are sporting their holographic diffraction grating glasses they used for the show. This one is Sam.
And Jacob.
And here are some cute pictures of the boys cheesing it up. They always say cheese when we pull the camera out.
Jacob
Sam

And that is what we have been doing. We are just glad to have Alan back from his geology student expo in Norman Oklahoma, the boys missed him a ton although he was only gone for 3 days. We are getting excited for Minda's brother to visit with his family from Nebraska.

Kids Say the Darndest Things

Here are a couple of conversations we have had with Samuel and Jacob recently.


Samuel: Mommy I am going to take a break (he says leaning back in his chair and chomping on a donut)
Minda: Sammy you make me laugh!
Samuel: Mommy I make myself laugh.


Minda: Jacob do you want to learn some Finnish?
Jacob: Sure Mommy!
Minda: Say oon poika. (translation: I am a boy)
Jacob: Oo poooka.
Minda: Try again, oon poika. (Jacob gets a screwed up look on his face and laughs a little)
Jacob: I can go to Ikea mommy. ( I guess he figured that Ikea was enough foreign language for him.)
Minda: Well that's a start Jakie.


Jacob had been jumping on Sam and Sam just wanted to lay on the couch because he was tired after church. Jacob kept jumping and Sam kept telling him to stop. I finally had to remove Jacob from the situation, then he went and got his blanket and joined Sam on the couch. At first I just thought Sam was tired but then I thought he looked a little sick.
Minda: Sammy are you sick?
Sammy: Yes mommy I am sick.
Minda: Why are you sick?
Sammy: Jakie

Why I love having twins!

I recently read a blog entry from a twin mommy blog with this title. It really made me start to think about my boys and what advantages there are for our family because we have twins. Today I decided to make a list of all the good. (This is probably due to the fact that I have been focusing a lot on the whining and fighting that seems to emanate from these 2 1/2 year olds and decided to refocus my attention to the positive instead of the negative.)

Twin Top Ten List

10. I love to hear the boys talking to each other. My favorite thing to do is to stand next to their bedroom door and listen to their conversations before I get them out of their bed in the morning.
9. They love to give each other hugs. Usually this ends in a wrestling match between them and then a lot of laughing. They really do love each other.
8. They love to do the same things, which makes it easy when deciding what to play every day.

7. They always have a friend their age to do whatever they want with and usually that friend is willing to help with whatever the game.

6. Getting dressed in the morning is easy because their outfits usually are coordinating.
5. When one is sick, hurt, or sad the other feels a lot of compassion for his brother. They are always willing to do whatever they need to in order to cheer up their brother.

4. Usually there is always one happy child.3. One is always willing to eat the others food. It seems that they like different things, Sam is always willing to eat Jacob's vegetables and Fruit, and Jacob will always eat Sam's noodles.

2. Two boys make life more interesting. Somehow they seem to find things they aren't supposed to get into easier, it might be a little annoying, but it sure is entertaining. Especially when you find your boys on the patio covered head to toe in soot from the grill. Or find your boys sitting in the sink with their toothbrushes.
1. The number one top reason is: whenever we have the next one it will seem like a breeze. If I can survive Sammy and Jakie, I think I could survive anything. Well maybe not anything, but it hopefully will give me some advantage.

Success!

Some of you may think we had fallen off the face of the earth, but alas, no we are still around we've just been busy potty training, and I am happy to say things have been pretty successful so far. We have had our ups and downs, but the boys pulled through and are successfully potty training. YEAH! For those of you who have never potty trained you may be thinking, what's the big deal, well it is a big deal, trust me.

Anyway, enough about all that. We have been trying to keep busy in this wonderful weather we have been having (except for today's torrential downpour). Here are some pictures of the boys enjoying the weather, picnics outside, tricycle rides, what more could a 2 1/2 year old love more.

The boys have been trying to be big helpers too. They love, love, love to help with the dishes, don't you love their organizational skills (check out the drawer.)

Jacob loves his daddy. The other day he put on one of Alan's old hats and his slippers and announced with a huge grin that he was daddy. I am glad that Alan is such a good example for them!

Silly Boys

So, I haven't posted in a while because nothing too interesting has happened. So, I looked at the pictures we have taken over the last two weeks, all of them were funny pictures of the boys being silly.

Here the boys are doing something they have come to love, pulling their shirts over their heads and running around the house. Richard and Robert you might recall doing this when you were kids too, remember Aladdin?
The boys have also learned to love oranges thanks to papa. And Dad has been teaching them how to eat them like a soccer player. Jacob hasn't quite caught on yet though.


Right after Christmas we decided to eat the gingerbread houses we made for family home evening with the missionaries before Christmas. Afterward we played Candyland and the boys loved it, I think that is going to be a new tradition in our family.

New Phone Numbers

We are changing our phone numbers and so our old one won't work after the 16th of January. If you don't have our new number and would like it please contact us on our old number before the 16th so we can give it to you. You may also post your request via the blog if that is easier.

Christmas and our time in Utah

Sammy and Jakie had a great Christmas. Here they are showing off their new Christmas "Thomas the Tank Engine" jammies. They must have been good this year because they got a ton of stuff from Santa and our families. Some highlights were new tricycles, a wooden train set, new homemade comforters, new clothes, books, music, etc. We enjoyed Christmas Eve here in Waco with our little family and friends we have made here, it was a great time. Christmas day we spent in Waco as well, that is, until we realized that we might have hit a storm if we left for Utah when we planned. So, we left at six o'clock in the evening Christmas Day. We drove all night and missed some of the storm but still hit it a little before Gallup New Mexico. After more than 23 hours we surprised Alan's family by showing up unannouced. It was fun to surprise them. We then headed to Minda's parents house where we surprised them as well.

We had a great time visiting family, here are the boys bowling with Minda's family. We were able to see three of the four of Minda's brothers and their families.

We were able to visit all of Alan's family before his sister left for her first semester at BYU-I. Here are the boys with their cousin Gavin.
The boys with Grandpa Boppus.
Playing games!

Alan's Mom wanted to take the boys to the Monte. L Bean Science museum, they loved seeing the animals, as long as they didn't move.
Unfortunately we all got sick while we were in Utah. Alan mended pretty quickly, but the rest of us were sick most of our time there. Minda got three different sicknesses so she was down and out for a lot of the time. But, after being cooped up for days and days the boys were done being in the house. So, we took them to the Kangaroo Zoo, a place with a lot of bouncy toys. They loved it, especially the slides. They quickly learned to climb the ladders and slide down, they were quite agile.



We wanted to thank our families for taking such good care of us during our stays with them, and we were sorry we didn't get to see everyone we wanted to. We are finally mostly over the sickness and are happy to be home and sleeping in our own beds after sleeping very little on our car ride.

Something Funny

So a week or two ago Alan found Jacob and Samuel in the bathroom brushing their teeth in the sink. It was just too quiet and I knew something was up.

The boys have also enjoyed copying the things we do. For instance they like to take turns putting my purse on and going to the door and saying "See ya later, Gotta go, Bye Bye." It is pretty funny, but I don't think Alan likes the fact that they are carrying around a purse.

Another funny thing that Jacob has done recently happened first a couple of weeks ago. We were at Alan's school and Jacob kept saying crocodile, I want to go to the crocodile. We didn't understand him, we just couldn't figure it out. Then we asked him if he wanted to go with us on the elevator. And then he got really excited and kept saying alligator. And then it dawned on us. He pronounced elevator as alligator, but he was confused and called it a crocodile instead. It was really cute!

All Aboard

I know we have blogged about our children's museum before, but we love it. There is tons for the kids to do and inevitably the kids will ask to go there at least ten times a week. Right now there is a Christmas train exhibit at the museum. We have been twice now. Here are the boys enjoying their time looking at the trains.


The boys really like the music room in the museum too. There is a giant piano and this giant cello. Jacob calls it his "mootar" we don't know where he got this from, but we assume it is his attempt at saying guitar. They are always coming up with the most random stuff.Sam enjoying a quiet moment with Mom. Recently he has been hugging us around our necks and saying Mommy/Daddy I love you so much. It melts are hearts to him every time. How can you get upset with a kid who is doing that?

Deck the Halls and Noodles

For family home evening this week we decorated our Christmas tree. The boys were so excited!
Jacob and the tree
Mommy and the boys decorating the tree
We also gave the boys Ramen noodles for the first time. When I was a kid my mom would bribe us to be good with what she called Crazy Noodles. She would only let us eat these when we were really good. I didn't know until later that her Crazy noodles were really Ramen noodles and that other people complain about having to eat them. Aw the innocence of childhood. Our boys loved to play with them, they didn't eat too many of them, but they did enjoy them overall.