Last week of March

 Not much happened this week.  I went to the Zoo on Wednesday with Chris and the girls.  I went with a friend and we realized that it was spring break for the Denver school districts.  It was crazy.  We got there right as the zoo opened and the parking lot was already full and most of the side streets.  I ended up parking about a mile away in the city park.  We still had a fun time, the zoo didn't feel as crowded as it looked.  This was the first time going since the girls have gotten good at walking - so of course they wanted to walk around.  I was glad that my friend's mom came.  She pushed my stroller while I chased the girls.  Jenna is pretty good to hold my hand and stay close, Kaylee is too independent and adventurous for her own good.  We ate lunch and then quickly saw the other half of the zoo, everyone was getting tired.  The girls fell asleep as we walked to the van but then were awake for the drive home.  Thankfully they did go down for a nap when we got home, though it did take Kaylee awhile to fall asleep.

Doug and I went out to dinner on Friday, we don't get a babysitter very often so it was nice to have a couple of hours alone.  We ate at a Mexican restaurant called Santiago's and then went to TCBY.

Saturday Doug went to a convert baptism and then took Damon and Tyler to the Harlem Globetrotter's.  They had a fun time and I was glad they got to spend some time with their dad.  I did the normal Saturday cleaning, read a book (Divergent), fixed some flat tires on the boys' bikes, and then went to the Women's Conference and enjoyed visiting afterwards with the ladies in the Stake.

This was the first time I tried putting their hair in full pig tails.  They didn't stay in very long in the back, but it was fun.

 Damon's version of a Vulture Droid.

Sick, Sick, Bleh!

Wow, we have never had a bout of sickness like this one before!  Here's a brief timeline and I'll spare you the worst details:

Monday night: Kaylee gets sick (nursery?) and throws up every 10-15 minutes from 9:30 p.m. - 2:30 a.m. I "slept" with her down on the couch until 3:00 a.m. then Doug took a turn.

We have a brief break and get a good night's sleep Tuesday, all to prepare us for horrible Wednesday...

Wednesday morning: I feel sick and throw up twice during the day.  Doug came home at 1:00 to help out and just in time to receive a phone call from the school.

Wednesday afternoon: Damon came home sick from school (he made it to the trash can they said), Jenna starts throwing up around 3:00 and continues every 10-15 minutes until 8:00 p.m.  I just held her for those 5 hours and we both felt miserable together.

Wednesday evening: Tyler starts throwing up and Chris joins him after he went to bed around 9:30 p.m. I help until around 11:00 and after that Doug stays with the boys to help them get to a bucket or the bathroom during the night.  Doug was a hero and cleaned up all the messes and was amazingly the only one who didn't get sick!  He basically bobbed and weaved from sick person to sick person for 24 hours straight.

Thursday was a Redbox day and we got "Frozen" in our life.  Great story and good songs!  I even went and bought the movie yesterday.

The sickness was relatively quick and everyone was feeling better by Friday, but that one day and night was pretty crazy - actually absolutely HORRIBLE.  I guess it was good to get through everyone at the same time, but I don't really want to do that again anytime soon.  I felt so bad for Jenna and Kaylee - they had no idea what their body was doing.  The boys never went through anything like that so young.  We had one night in Vernal that was bad for Tyler but that's about it.

But hey, glad that's over and now we have one more week until April and spring break.  We aren't doing anything, but hopefully the weather will be warmer and we can play outside or go to the park.

Tyler's 1st grade program

Tyler's first grade put on their program this past Tuesday.  They did an "Underwater" theme and sang songs like: Baby Beluga, Down By the Bay, Row Row Row Your Boat etc.  Tyler did a great job and knew all of the songs, and noticeably helped those near him who didn't know their part. :)  For each song a few students would get to come down and sing in front of the microphones.  Tyler also got to do a small dance for another song.  It was cute and the kids did a good job.  I was glad that Doug stayed home with the girls and Chris, Damon was good to come and support his brother.  

Tyler is almost below the right cloud in the lighter shirt. 

 Row Row Row Your Boat - sung in a round. Tyler at the mic!

 Good friend Jacob

 Dancing!

22 Months

 A quick update on the girls, they are talk, talk, talking.  I love to hear their short phrases: "Where'd she go?" "There she is!" "Come here," "Come on."  They will talk to each other and look for each other.  A funny thing right now is they keep getting confused who is who.  Jenna will call Kaylee "Jenna" and Kaylee for the most part has is straight, but sometimes calls herself Jenna - probably because Jenna does.  They can say Damon, Tyler, and Chris now and they get excited when they see their brothers and call to them.  Jenna also says in her cute voice, "hold you! hold you!" when she wants to be held.  They are at that stage where they will just call out whatever they see: door, shoe, car, etc.  Their vocabulary is growing and it is so fun to hear what they have to say.

They have been watching these preschool DVDs that I bought for Chris and they are learning their letters pretty well from them.  I was working on my Primary lesson yesterday and Jenna came up and was pointing to the letters on my binder that said "Primary."  I then pointed at P and worked my way through the word asking her what the letters were.  She got most of them right, I think she said X instead of Y and her R's weren't too clear.  I did the same thing with Kaylee, she didn't do as well or she would make the letter sound instead of naming it.  But they are definitely learning.

They are eating relatively well now...when they want...and like having a bowl of cereal in the morning.  They like PB&J sandwiches and Mac and Cheese.  They love fruit of course and also enjoy their desserts.

They run everywhere and love being outside.  Now that it is getting warmer we walk to pick the boys up from school.  Jenna prefers to hold my hand but Kaylee screams when we cross the street.  Kaylee likes the slides at the park and is more fearless, she will go down without me being there to catch her.  Jenna will walk up the stairs then turn around and walk back down.  They like the animals (our parks have a bear, horse, and ladybug) that you can sit on and rock back and forth on.  I am excited for summer and more visits to the park.

Jenna always pulls out her hair-do, so she usually has a 'fro by the end of the day.  Kaylee is usually better at keeping her hair in place.  I love my girls so much, they are so much fun right now.  They laugh and giggle and love to make faces at us and each other.  They still love Ring Around the Rosies and singing Once there was a Snowman.  Now they sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star too. They still don't play with toys much and are constantly under my feet when I am trying to make dinner, but they are great little girls.

Kaylee

Kaylee & Jenna

Jenna

Jenna & Kaylee

Tyler's 5th Lost Tooth

Friday night (March 14th) Tyler pulled out his front tooth at scripture time.  He had asked Doug to do it and we just said give it a good pull and it came right out.  This is Tyler's first tooth that he has lost on top, he has lost his bottom 4, but those were awhile ago.  His other top one is wiggly too, so maybe he will have his two front teeth gone soon - just 9 months too soon. :)

Damon's First Pinewood Derby

 Damon had a lot of fun at the Pinewood Derby for Cub Scouts.  Doug helped him of course make his car.  Damon painted it silver and Doug helped with the black windows and I helped with the white on the wheels.
The track was done electronically and there weren't too many technical errors, but some heats had to race a couple of times due to computer malfunctions.  There were 20 cars and they all raced 4 times, one in each track.  The times were recorded and the car with the lowest time won.  They divided it into dens and then overall as well.

Damon won 2nd place in the Wolf Den - out of 7 cars, and he won 3rd place overall - out of 20 cars.  He was pretty excited.

 Getting his 3rd place medal.

 They did individual awards as well, Damon got the 'Stingray' award.  I guess there is a Corvette called a Stingray and they thought his car was like that.

 Damon won all of his 4 races so it was fun to watch - this was his look after he won his second race.

Girls Getaway

 So for a couple of years I have wanted to go on a girls getaway trip and I finally made it happen this past weekend.  It was quite the process of getting things scheduled but it was well worth it.

Four of my friends and myself went up to Estes Park and stayed at the World Mark resort there.  We left around 4:00 and had to drive through some slushy snow, but the roads weren't too bad.  We had some great conversations on the way up and learned about everyone's marriage story and a little bit more about themselves.  We arrived around 6:30 and got our Papa Murphy's pizzas in the oven first thing.  We discovered that their oven seemed to be on the warm side and had our crusts a little too dark, but they still tasted good.

Alayna Ashby, Me, Kara Parnell, Michelle Weingardt, Kim Dixon

That evening we played Bang, ping pong, billiards, Spot it, Guesstures, and watched Austenland.  The movie got over around 1:00 am.  We had a blast playing all of the games and enjoying each other's company.  I didn't sleep the greatest on the couch, but it is always hard in a new place.

We had cream cheese and raspberry french toast for breakfast and enjoyed eating in a quiet atmosphere.  Then we played a bit of Balderdash then took a walk around the property to get some fresh air.  It was such a beautiful day, we didn't even need out coats later.  The perfect winter wonderland.

 Then we finished packing up and drove down town around 12:00.  Looking online I saw that there was an ice skating rink nearby and we had a great time even though it was pretty small and a little slushy in the warmer weather.  It had been way too long since I last skated, I need to go more often because it is so much fun.

Then we walked by the tourist shops on Main St.  There were so many icecream/fudge/candy shops; we wondered how they all managed to compete with each other.  We bought some candy sticks for our kids and some locally made taffy for our husbands. Watching the taffy get cut and wrapped was pretty cool. 

The place we bought the candy sticks, the door was on an angle- you could barely get it in. 

Then we went to a local place for lunch and I had an awesome Philly Cheese steak sandwich.  I usually don't take pictures of what I eat, but this deserved to be documented.  

 By this time is was about 2:00 pm so it was time to go home.  I was glad for the warmer weather to drive home in.  We had to go on a slightly longer route both ways due to construction.  They are fixing the main road from the destruction from the flood last September.

I had so much fun.  It was a great break to have from the kids and just have a chance to play and be with my friends.  Thanks everyone who came and for the husbands for watching the kids at home.  Poor Doug had a long night with the girls and he had an emergency conference call he had to take while feeding the kids breakfast.  Thanks for letting me go Doug, you'll get your break soon.

Sick Kids

We all know that having sick kids is so much fun, and it's twice as 'fun' with twins.  All week I have been holding crying girls and trying to teach them that they have to 'share' mommy.  They will push each other and scream as they fight over who gets to sit in my lap.  Sometimes one will be more needy than the other so that is nice when I only have to hold one at a time.  They have had fevers all week and haven't napped well.  At least they have slept through the nights pretty well.  Chris also had a fever and now Tyler, Doug and I are getting colds.  Damon had a sore throat for a bit, but seems to be doing ok now.  I can't complain too much since we have been relatively healthy all winter, but it still makes the days hard to have so much crying going on.

So now we move onto March and hope for spring weather even though it snowed yesterday.  I haven't taken many pictures so this is what you get.

Chris has liked to dress up as Spider-man this week.

 Tyler makes these 'fort's in the corner of our living room and everyone fights over who gets to play in them.  On day we might be able to calmly talk about our wants and learn to take turns.  :)

I am getting excited for this weekend.  I am going on a girls getaway to Estes Park with some friends.  It will be so much fun and a needed break for me.

Actually I did have a fun night this past Thursday.  We had book club for the book Austenland and then we stayed and watched the movie.  It was so much fun.  We all laughed at the silliness of everything, but you still wanted the romantic stuff.  It was a great night.  And our hostess Sarah made the most fantastic desserts.  A fabulous chocolate cake with custard and strawberries inside, some custard tarts and some lemon shortbread cookies.  She made everything look fancy to mirror the Austenland feel.  She is amazing.