To Plant an Orchard

Step 1. Choose the trees and, after measuring correct distances from each other, place them in the spot they'll be planted. I chose one DesertGold Peach and one Early Elberta Peach, one Gala Apple and one Granny Smith Apple, a Kieffer Pear, an All-in-One Almond, and a Tilton Apricot. I decided against and ended up taking back the Stella Cherry after reading that they survive but don't thrive in our climate.

Step 2: Dig the holes 3 times as wide as the rootball and as deep. This part sucked. I ran into a sewer line at one point, and pulled out more rock and pieces of cement slab than I did dirt, I think.

Step 3: Add 1/3 compost back into the hole with 2/3 soil, and a starter fertilizer. Make sure the base of the trunk / start of the rootball is slightly above ground. Mulch the top and build a reservoir wall around each tree.

Step 4: Water them deep the first time and keep the soil moist for a few weeks while they adjust. Oh and try and get a tan on those white legs cause swimsuit season and the beach is coming up fast!

The Aftermath



Didn't they used to make these Cozy Coupe cars bigger? I always remember me and my sister sharing a ride in one at my Grandma's house when we were young. My baby girls can barely fit in theirs together! 



Uh, Mom. I think she's done.

Kyle is such a good Daddy to these two. After he gets home from work, he takes a turn running them around the house in their car, pushing them on their lions, or playing a game of "chase crawl" while I take a break from babies. I always appreciate that 10 or 15 minutes that I can just check my email, stand on the back porch in silence, or, heck, just use the potty.  

Jocy pushing Ivy

Ok, Ivy, it's Jocy's turn!

Ivy pushing Jocy

All that early book reading that at times I felt was so pointless is starting to pay off. I often catch the girls pulling books out of the baskets and "reading" them themselves. They actually enjoy turning pages and pointing to the animals or people, even without me reading to them.

Ivy composing a piece on her little Melissa and Doug's piano she received for her birthday

What can Ivy do that Jillian Michaels can't? HUAHH! Play a song on the piano WHILE doing static squats! I'm jealous.

We read books after dinner

Sometimes letting them both sit on my lap while we read works. Most of the time they feel the other is invading their personal space and a pushing match ensues. Like this night. So then we take turns at who gets to sit on Mom's lap.

Tonight's books-of-choice include "I'm A Bunny" and "Where's Baby's Belly Button?" And it's Ivy's turn.

Oops, missed the mark.

Heehee - There I got it!

Straw sippy's are MUCH easier than having to tip one's head wayyyy back to drink, especially when the level of liquid gets low in the cup. FYI.



So if I'm out of food....

And I know that Ivy over there has some extra....



....I'll just wait until she's not looking

GO!

Tiny hands and tiny feet

I wanted to capture imprints of the girls hands and feet at one year old (before they get too big) so I stamped their hands and feet into black craft paint, onto scrapbook paper (which took several times with each limb to get a non-smeared sample - ha!) and then cut them out and modged them to wooden plaques. Hands on front, feet on back. The handwriting doesn't look so nice but since they won't be displayed and are for keepsake only, I didn't bother computer printing the names and date out. Got the idea here.

Fun Spots

Every now and then when both me and Kyle are home, we take the girls out and do something fun. It doesn't happen nearly often enough, but life just feels so happy and cozy when the four of us are out of the house together. Its like.... like we're a family! Sometimes I stop and wonder if this is really my life, my own little family. I wonder where my old life went and WHAT I did with my time before twins. It's pretty cool that we don't really need much else as long as we've all got each other. I haven't felt that way since I was around 12 years old and I had my 5 younger siblings that I was so close to. After I left home and went to college and Japan and other places, I never realized how much I missed that tight-knit family feeling. But now that it's back, I am so happy!

This last week it was fairly warm and so we packed the girls down to the river and let them play in the white sand that was cleaned and made fluffy again by the December flooding. We showed them how to take a stick and draw lines in the sand. They thought that was pretty amazing and tried it for themselves.

 We also went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner one night and, for the first time, ordered the girls their own food! They shared a kids meal and ended up with most of it on the floor but it was fun to eat out with them!

Ivy's hair is finally getting long enough I can put pigtails in it! Jocy is still as bald as they day she was born and I have to make a special effort to stick a bow on her head so that all the old people in the stores don't say "Ohhh how precious... a boy and a girl!" I pulled out my photo albums from when I was a baby to see if I was that bald at a year old and YUP. Sure enough I was hairless as well! I think she is going to have very thick hair like mine, but it's not going to start getting long right away.

The First Birthday!

We had a first birthday party last Saturday and it was great!
We both had icky colds though so we didn't have all of our little friends come over (so sad), but Grandpa and uncles and aunts did come over to eat cupcakes with us. Mom made us strawberry vanilla cakes and we enjoyed smooshing them into our mouths and squishing them in our hands. We were so happy to get some new clothes, books, sandbox toys, Leapfrog Violet dogs, shoes, a growth chart, a musical instrument set, a cozy coupe, and a small piano for our birthday! Thank you everyone!