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.