Snow and Strollers

 We got our biggest snow storm over the weekend, and the boys were able to play in it a bit after the wind died down. It has already melted quite a bit, which is nice for walking to school.

One project that I have wanted to do was make new seats for the stroller.  The ones that it came with were soft like batting material.  I wanted to make some out of foam so it would be stiffer and not move around so much when the girls kicked.  I think they turned out great. 

A day in the life...

So we are changing schedules a bit and I wanted to write down what I have been doing for the last 3 months or so, just for my records, times are approximate:

This is what a typical day would be like:

6:15 - wake up, shower
6:45 - feed the girls
7:10 - finish getting ready, hair, make-up
7:30 - feed the boys / morning devotional
8:15 - put the girls down for a nap
8:30 - pump
8:45 - walk Damon to school
9:00 - morning stuff - dishes, clean up breakfast etc
9:30 - feed the girls breakfast, cereal, yogurt
10:00 - 11:30 - This is my time to do stuff - go to the store, run errands, play with boys, clean, etc.
11:30 - lunch
12:00 - 12:45 - The following have to get done in these 45 minutes: Read Chris a story and put him down for his nap, put the girls down for their naps, pump and have Tyler read for 15 minutes.  Tyler is frequently reading to me while I pump, or reading to the girls while I put Chris down.  It's all about the multitasking.  Oh, I am frequently eating my lunch while pumping as well. 
12:50 - Walk Tyler to school
1:05 - my moment of peace
1:30/2:00 - feel the girls when they wake up
2:30 - another chance to work on things while the girls are happy - sometimes getting dinner ready
3:00 - snack time, Chris will play and then sleep until 3 sometimes, but it is slowly getting shorter.  He watches a bit of Cars or Toy Story to help him wake up.
3:30 - pump
3:50 - boys home from school: help with homework, daily chores, after school craziness etc.
4:00 - boys are playing the wii, put the girls down for a nap, make dinner
5:00 - dinner
5:30 - feed the girls dinner - baby food and half a bottle
5:45 - clean up, dishes
6:00 - Doug home, help him get food
6:30 - baths (on a bath night), family time or whatever
7:30 - milk and cracker with the boys, while reading scriptures
7:40 - brush teeth, prayers, story, bed - Doug does this while I am with the girls and pumping
8:00 - Doug listens to Damon read his 15 minutes (or he read to me while I pumped), I am feeding the girls and putting them to bed.  Sometimes if the girls are up later Doug and I will feed them together after Damon is in bed.
8:30/9:00 - all the kids are in bed and Doug and I catch up with each other, clean up the house, wash bottles, wash dishes, and do any of the other stuff that needs to get done.
10:00 - read scriptures together and pray, I usually pump while we read
10:30 - bed (on a good night, if Doug and I want to spend more time together or get more stuff done, then I don't make it to bed until 11-11:30, and Doug usually takes a nap while I finish pumping and then he stays up until 12 or 1:00 doing work).

And then we do it all over again :)

I get a lot of stuff done while pumping - I usually check my email, then play Words with Friends, then I look at Facebook sometimes, then I look online at Craigslist.  We found Damon's bedroom set, a TV entertainment stand, some book shelves, a car seat, and a balance bike from there.  Grateful for the iPad.

Life is crazy, but some changes for the good are happening.  The girls are now eating 3 solid meals a day, and then having half bottles as snacks - this is actually more feedings, but they seem to need more food.  But it is less milk, so I am only pumping 4 times a day instead of 5.  Also the girls are now shifting to only 2 naps a day, and on a good day the second nap is a bit longer - so that is good.  Chris however is rarely napping and not staying in quiet time as much, so I think I will be putting him down later, the same time as the girls go down, to still try and have a moment to myself in the afternoon.  Doug and I are also trying to go to bed earlier, but getting up earlier to get stuff done and I want to exercise - we have only done this starting this week, so we will see how it goes.

 And every post needs a picture so here you go:

Legos, Hair do's, and Pride Awards

 This is a cool ship that Damon made for Tyler.

 We had to document the girl's first hair do's.  Hopefully my salon skills will improve.  The girls sure didn't like it though. 

 Damon and Tyler both received Pride Eagle Awards for this trimester.  These are awards for showing good attitudes, behaviors, and academic achievements.  Way to go boys!  They were presented at an assembly for the whole school. 

Spice Rack

 So this has been a project that I have wanted to do for a long time.  My spices have been such a mess, and they didn't fit in this kitchen as well as in my Vernal one.  So I came up with a new way to organize them.

Before:

 After:

I don't know how well you can see, but I just put some dowels through some cardboard sheets and voile, a new spice rack.  I love that I can see all my spices and reach them all easily. Yeah!

Fort Fun in Fort Collins

 So back on March 9th we took a family day and explored some of the areas nearby.  We drove up to Loveland and checked out the outlet stores up there (I wanted to go to Carter's).  We tried to find a park with a playground, but it was snowy anyway, so we found some cement picnic tables to have our lunch.  It was warm enough, but the wind made it a bit chilly. 

 Then we drove to Fort Collins and went to a place called Fort Fun.  They have a lot of activities there, but we just let the kids play on the arcades.  They had a lot of fun.  Doug and I even played a few.  The learning experience was to work on our communication.  I was playing a game and Doug had placed the diaper bag with all our tickets near me on the floor - without telling me and I didn't notice.  So then when I was done and Doug was playing a game I was pushing the girls in the stroller to another area and glanced back at my game and noticed that our diaper bag was sitting there.  So I grabbed the bag.  Then Doug asked where the tickets were.  I didn't know - so obviously someone had taken all of our tickets that had been on our bag - at least they didn't take my wallet that was in there or anything else.  We had been playing for quite awhile and were almost done, so there were a lot of tickets there.  The boys were bummed- but pretty good about it.  Mostly because I don't think they understood how much they lost. Damon probably understood the most - but we tried to turn it into a learning experience.  We ended up with a few tickets that we earned and some that had fallen below the diaper bag- so we all got some tootsie rolls.  The guy even gave us some extras which was nice.  So now we know to communicate and hold onto our tickets better in the future. But we still had a fun time.

Sunny Day

 We went to the park awhile ago, I used our other camera - since it is smaller and I just barely uploaded the pictures.  So here are some fun shots from the park.  We do like to enjoy the nice weather.  There is a foot of snow outside today - so we will have to wait awhile before another trip to the park.

10 Months

 Wow! 10 months old.  My girls are growing up.  And I have to say they are pretty cute.

 Here are the car seat comparisons, they have come a long way:

10 months

6 months

4 months

3 weeks

  I didn't weigh them this month - but I bet they are between 17-18 pounds.  Jenna has figured out how to scoot backwards and will run into things and get stuck sometimes.  Kaylee is getting stronger and started to put more weight on her hands to lean forward to grab things. 

backed up under the chair

They are eating well, still baby food but we have added yogurt and they are good at picking up puffs and making it to their mouths.  Kaylee's second tooth came in last week (March 3) Jenna's will probably come in soon.  Here is an attempt to capture their first ones:

Jenna

Kaylee

We hung our twin swing in the basement yesterday.  They girls liked it, even though we had to keep them going very slow - Chris wanted to swing them higher.  Doug let the boys climb in (one at a time) and they had fun pretending to surf.

Chris and the girls have colds again, so the nights have been interrupted a bit, but overall everything is going well.  We just keep plugging along day after day.  I had to run a lot of errands this last week- I really don't like going to the store with 4 kids, so hopefully this week will be a little less crazy.  I am looking forward to our Spring Break - we are going on a quick trip to Estes Park and visiting the Denver Zoo, I'm excited.  

Boys Update

 Hey, I got around to Blogging today, so here's a quick update on what's been going on.  Not much really, just the normal school and everyday stuff. The boys are getting so big.  Tyler and Chris sometimes play so nicely, other times they both want to be in charge.  I get tired of being the referee a lot, but we are slowly making progress I think.

We got out the watercolor paints the other day though and the boys had fun.

Chris

Tyler painted Kai's Fire Dragon- note the flaming tail

Damon painted Lloyd's Golden Dragon

 Tyler and Chris really like to play with Play Doh, and ours was getting dry, so it was time to make a new batch.  Tyler wanted to stir for a bit.

 Tyler made his own version of Lloyd's Gold Dragon out of Lego's.

 I love it when they fall asleep - didn't take a nap during quiet time, but fell asleep watching Cars.

 Normal activity after school: they boys come home, do their daily chore (right now Tyler puts the silverware away and Damon sweeps under their chairs), do any homework they have, then they get to play the wii.  They are good boys, I don't even have to ask them - they just know what they have to do and they do it.

 Chris came upstairs and said he was a moose.

 All of our boys still love their blankets, so we had to document them of course. 

Chris's, Damon's, Tyler's