Where Oh Where Can Our Daddy Be?

If you didn't already know, Kyle is 3000 miles away. For 3 months. Life is crazy right now.

Last year he applied to attend the FBI National Acadamy in Quantico, Virginia. (Kyle is not planning on going into the FBI, its just supplemental training that will help him on his way up.) The National Academy is a graduate program (he gets credit toward his Masters Degree) for police administrators and is pretty prestigious; only 250 people nationwide each year attend. Since Kyle applied in 2010, he was accepted for the 2011 course, which goes from Oct 1 - Dec 15. When he found out he was accepted, he had serious thoughts of withdrawing his name and not going, mainly because he'd be leaving me home with toddler twins. We talked about it and decided that things were only going to get more hectic in the future when (possibly) more children came along. So, off he went. The day before he left we went on a long, good four wheeler ride to Browse, and then out to eat.



Dinner at Texas Roadhouse the night before Kyle left



Sharing an apple w Jocy at Browse



Daddy & Girls



Browse Ranger Station



Jocy figures out acorns



Ivy with the pretty leaves

Its only been a few weeks since he left but its been pretty hard to adjust. The girls miss him a lot; Ivy walks into our closet and points at his uniform shirts. Jocelyn carries the laptop around the house (the one we Skype on) saying "Daddy, daddy." She also sometimes runs to the door that goes out to the garage and points at it and says "Daddy?," since thats the door she last saw him exit.

Skyping Daddy - the screen has lots of kiss marks on it!

And I miss him too. I knew he did a lot to help out when he was here but I didn't realize how much MORE work I'd have after he left. I start running the second the girls are up in the morning and I don't stop until wayyy after bedtime each night. I don't just miss him helping with housework though, I miss my best friend. The house gets lonely and quiet. 

I've discovered that I'm not a very good stay-at-home Mom. I get antsy, restless, and grumpy when I spend too many days alone with the girls. It does me a whole bunch of good to get away and do things for ME. Yes, its a bit selfish but I'm a much more energetic, creative Mom when I do something that refreshes my mind. Finding time to get away is a chore in itself. Sometimes just going to work helps. I'm still doing 1-2 shifts per week. Last week I hired a babysitter FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER, so that I could go with Trenton and the Division of Natural Resources to stock Woundfin (endangered native fish) into the Virgin River. It was a very refreshing change of scenery. I've also been hiking a couple of times (always after they've gone to bed at night and Trent is home to listen for them).

Something else I've been doing to keep sane is running. I decided to have a go at the St George Marathon next year so I'm starting training now. I run 15-18 miles a week and it helps a lot with my energy level. As much as I'd like to run outside in the fresh air, I can't really leave the girls at home so I use their naptime to run. Sometimes they give me 45 min, sometimes longer. I've also picked up the guitar again and am working on some new songs.

I think the girls get sick of me too sometimes. So I've been trying to come up with some new activities for them. Last week we did bathtub painting (with colored shaving cream), and a glow-stick night bath.

Ivy dipping  in and Jocy painting her tummy (self-expression already?! Oh boy...)

Ivys masterpiece

Glowstick Night bath

This week I made them a drop-box and they've been playing with for a couple of hours each day. I just used a cardboard box, cut some holes/shapes into it, and give them a different assortment of items to fit into the holes and listen/watch the things fall. Yesterday it was pencils and chapsticks that they were dropping, and today I gave them a dish of pompoms and pipe cleaners.

We make cookies and lick the beaters.

There is always dandelion hunting.

One day we played in the rain.

Petco is still a favorite.

One afternoon I had the bright idea of hauling them down to the river (just a short distance from our house) to see if they'd like playing in it. I just forgot that I'd have to carry two 25 lbs babies, their water cups, towels, and snacks across deep sand and through tumbleweeds and tamarisks. Well I forgot until I was about halfway there. 

They didn't enjoy it, didn't like the sun, the rocks, or the bugs. So I hauled them back up the hill and almost had a heart attack. We'll wait until they're a bit older to try that one again! ha!

Thats it for now. This is more of a journal entry for me ;) but thanks for reading if you did!

Ideas for The Dog Days

Things sometimes get a little boring around our house during these dog days of summer. Ok, maybe a lot boring. The girls are so done with their toys. TV is a no-go for us. We've danced to music, blown bubbles, colored with crayons, read books, and played in the kiddie pool. Then we did it again. I feel bored right along with them, so (thank-the-man-that-invented-Google) I've started searching for some new activities that toddlers could do.

Here's what we've come up with and have been playing over the past couple of weeks:

• Discovering the Produce Drawer - touch and describe the veggies/fruits, their colors, names, etc
• Paper Airplanes - show them folding the paper and then throwing the airplane
• Ice Kitchen - (thank you Rachel!) fill a mixing bowl with ice and give them a random utinsel to stir with
• Pull them around on a blanket - lots of giggles and bumped heads!
• Bucket of Water - sometimes I turn the back porch faucet on drip, put a bucket underneath, hand them a cup, and let them play (supervised of course).
• Domino Tip - they like "helping" me set them up and "oooo" when we knock them down
• Make Jello - I sat on the floor with my ingredients and let them help me mix it. Once it set up in the fridge, I let em go at it with their hands.
• Couch Cushion Bounce - take all the cushions off the couch and put them in the middle of the floor, then let them go crazy
• Head Shoulders Knees and Toes - they think this one is a crack-up. I have a video for another day :)
• Playdough - just make sure they don't eat it. I'm always catching Jocelyn nibbling on the brown playdough, I think she thinks its an Oreo.
• Petco - can't go wrong with taking them to the pet store. We shriek at the mice, and then the birds, and then the fish. I think the employees there are starting to remember us.
• Construction Paper Painting - let them "paint" with water onto construction paper. It shows up darker and it doesn't make a mess like paint would! I got a cute video of them "painting" the other day. They're probably just as interested as dipping the brush in the water as painting. :)

Books still have to be our main source of entertainment though, so I'm constantly looking for new ones. I use ListMania on Amazon all the time to find new favorite toys, books, and kitchen stuff. It's nice to see others favorites, what they've tried, liked, and hated, and I've found some really great things from browsing around.  I've made a couple of book lists in the past detailing the girls favorite books at certain ages The most recent one is "Favorite Books at 18 Months Old". So if you're in the market for books in that age category, feel free to click-the-pic and check out what we've liked!

 And if you have any other good, in-house ideas for toddlers (its too hard for me to go out in 109 degree weather with them), PLEASE share them!!! I'd be SO grateful!

Fluffy Bums

Before the girls were born, I had planned on cloth diapering them. I'd bought a bunch of BumGenius and Thirsties and stashed them in the diaper drawer all ready to put on their bums the day we arrived home. But guess what happened? A big, capital-F, FAIL! Between nursing one preemie and spending hours a day trying to teach the other to nurse via SNS tube (and pumping  like crazy when she wouldn't), coupled with my own recovery, I didn't have even have time for sleep, showering, or my own laundry let alone cloth diaper laundry. So they sat, all pretty and new, at the back of the diaper drawer until the girls finally outgrew them, and I sold them on Craigslist and forgot all about cloth diapering. Last month though, after a diaper run to Costco, I started thinking about cloth diapers again and I realized that... hey! I actually think I have the time now to cloth diaper! I'm fairly environmentally conscious and I've always felt kind of bad about going the disposable route. Then I thought...gosh, would it even be worth it now that the girls are getting so close to potty training? We spend about $80.00 a month on diapers for the both of them. If they were potty trained a year from now (2 1/2 years old), that'd be $960.00 worth of diapers I'd be buying between now and next year. Even if we were able to get them potty trained by 2 years old, that'd still be $480.00. Sick! So I (oops I mean WE ;) decided to make the switcheroo.


Since they're the cheapest, I went with the prefolds (fancy word for a big white square of layered cotton fabric that you fold around their bums and pin Snappi), and the waterproof covers that go over them. I bought a dozen prefolds and 4 covers and spent $68.00. When I got them, I was sooo excited! I pretty much sat in front of the washer while I was prepping them for their first use because I wanted to see them shrink down and get all quilty and soft. See how excited I am? :)

I won't lie and say cloth-diapering is pretty. It takes getting used to, especially after using disposables for 18 months. I have to change them more often when they're wet. I have to dump the poop in the potty instead of just rolling up the disposable and throwing it out (no, my hands don't have to get dirty). And I have to do one load of cloth diapers laundry a night. But after about a week of practicing how to put them on right and learning the best ways to wash them (thanks to THIS cloth-diapering momma to twin girls for answering my silly wash questions), I think I'm sort of... kind of... used to it. We still use disposables when we go out and at night. But we aren't flying through the disposables like we were before. Here's a few shots of the girls in their new dipes:

Cute bums!

Can Not Wait

For my new little nephew to arrive! Tia is due here in just two weeks and I'm so excited to have a newborn to cuddle again (that I don't have to get up with in the middle of the night)! Tia makes a beautiful pregnant lady and she has NOT stopped doing what she loves to do (which is the best way to stay sane both while pregnant and afterward in my opinion). Tia's husband, David, is like a little kid excited. He's always touching her tummy or hugging her. They're going to make such great parents. Their kids are going to be quite the adventurers, just like them I think. Me and Rachelle did the shower, oh..., weeks ago and it turned our reeeeally cute! Tia was definately showered with love from lots of her family and friends!

Me and Rachelle did the shower and it was the first I've planned but lots of fun to see it come together! Lots of papercrafts for decorations (3D clouds, hot air balloons), and I made Tia a couple of pieces of art for little Cruz's room (The sky is the limit, Life is either...print, and the yellow framed kite).

XOXO Tia!

Me Oh My!

Where is July?! Did it really happen? I remember bits and pieces of something like July. There was watermelon...

Sucking on ice to keep cool while waiting for the ice cream to freeze up...

And barbequed hamburgers.



Thanks for the bite Uncle David!



There was a bit of fun at the ol' Vernon Worthen



Look Mom, they've got Zumba!
Honey, we don't Zumba.
Mom, YOU don't Zumba



And lots of splashing. In Dixie, if you can't swim, you SPLASH!

And ohhh was there camping. Yes there was. Oodles of it. 



Ivy's flower crown





Still obsessed...



Maybe we're a bit bad for taking the girls on four-wheeler rides without helmets but I had, in fact, ordered and received two extra-small child helmets before our camping trip. They ended up being far too large for the girls heads and kept falling off their faces. We drove very slowwww and made sure we hung onto them tight. Jocy did fall out of the trailer door and scratch her head pretty good one afternoon so, you see, there is more danger from staying inside than being outside. ^_^

 They had a great time and are the dirt-lovin'est tree-huggin'est babies around!