whoa!

So, it's been two months since I last posted, and here is why: two babies who are mobile is a LOT of work! In early January, Blueberry, you started pulling up on things, then started army crawling. Apple, you started pulling up on things a couple days later, but didn't walk around them for a few weeks. You also didn't start crawling until late January. But when you did crawl, it was on your knees, and Blueberry saw that what you did was more efficient and crawling on her knees, too. I never thought I'd have kids that crawled, since Punkin didn't and none of your older cousins on my side did. You must get that from you dad's side of the family.

Also, you grew, and are still growing, a whole mess of teeth. You both got your bottom front teeth at 5 months. But you now have three bottom teeth and four top teeth. It seems like one is popping in each week! So two teething babies doesn't always make things easy, either. Your teething patterns are the same, but opposite, for every tooth and the timing. Apple will pop a tooth and a few days later, Blueberry will pop the same tooth on the opposite side.

Your favorite things to do include shredding paper, unrolling toilet paper, rifling through the cabinets, eating Bob's food and playing in his water, and generally exploring your world. You both love to talk, but are different in your talking. Blueberry, you try your best to pronounce words and sound like you are saying something. You say "Da da da da," when your daddy walks in, or "Ma ma," when you're ready to eat or sleep. Apple, you can say "dada," and "mama," but you are more concerned with voice inflection and usually sound you are singing. Right now, you're saying, "Uh oh," over and over. I think you like the sing-songiness of it.

You both need the other close to fall asleep, as evidenced by the attached picture- Apple sleeping ON TOP of Blueberry. You also take things away from and bite each other and pull each others hair. I think those things are appropriate for your age, but you get in trouble for doing them. Truth be known, I usually let you fight it out when it comes to taking things away. I think you learn to work things out on your own that way, even at this age.

Just to be fair, here is a picture of Blueberry sleeping on top of Apple! I think I'll be writing more soon, since I seem to have gotten the hang a bit more of having two mobile babies and we've been doing a lot more homeschooling that I want to write about!

Christmas 2011

Today was the twins first Christmas. Yay! We really had a whole Christmas weekend, though. Daddy couldn't work because it snowed on Thursday. So we've been celebrating for four days in a row. Tomorrow (Monday) will make it five days.

Punkin, you were in a Christmas play at church. You were the CUTEST sheep up there! You said, "We are warm and cozy. We are the sheep. Our wool makes warm blankets to help baby Jesus sleep." It was, honestly, hard to see you, mostly due to your standing directly behind one of the shepards and the sheep not being on the stage. However, once everyone started singing "Away in a manger," you climbed up on the stage to look in to the manger. You told me later that you wanted to see baby Jesus. In fact, just now, without my mentioning what I'm writing about, you spontaneously sang a song with the lyrics, "I saw baby Jesus. Hmmm hmmm hmmm hmmm. I saw baby Jesus." I think you were so excited because I told you that it was Jesus' birthday and you kept asking me if he was coming to our house for His birthday party. So now you put a name with a face, albeit not the actual face of our Lord and Saviour. It was very heartwarming to see you so involved in the real spirit of Christmas.

This morning, we opened presents. Blueberry and Apple were very excited to play with the wrapping paper. You both loved playing with the silver cups that great grandma Bonnie gave you. You are both learning to drink out of cups, so you probably thought there was a drink in them for you. But you didn't seem put off by the fact that they were empty.

Punkin was very entertained with the new vacuum cleaner's box. In fact, you took a nap in it!

I'm going to have to put away the decorations soon. I'm tempted to leave the spiral Christmas tree up in the living room. Blueberry and Apple, you both love to roll over to it and shake all of the ornaments off. The tree is anchored to the fireplace grate, so it won't fall on you, and the ornaments are plastic. So it's not dangerous in any way. However, I love watching you of you roll over to it, shake it until an ornament falls off, then play with the ornament. We'll have this tree around for a while, I think!

That's about all I can think to put here. We really had a great Christmas, with just you girls and daddy and I. It was mostly quiet, but it really was happy!

Faithfulness

Pastor Jay was talking about the faithfulness of God a couple of Sundays ago. It got me thinking about how faithful God has been to me in my life. It also made me think that I'd really like you girls to know some of those times, especially the miraculous ones. So I think I will start adding them here when I think of them. So here is the first, and probably the one that stands out the most.

When I was 8, we moved to El Paso because Grandpa found a job at the refinery there. It was a hard transition for all of us, especially because we were so far from family. When we were in Farmington and grandpa lost his job, great grandpa Clarence would bring us groceries. But when we were short on funds in El Paso, there wasn't anyone we could ask for help.

One day, we were really short on food. When I say really short, I mean it! I remember looking into the refrigerator and seeing mustard and ketchup. And that's all. Nothing else. So grandma really had absolutely nothing to make for dinner, not even beans. At dinner time, we all sat down around the table and grandpa prayed like this, "Dear heavenly Father, thank you for the food that you are about to provide for us."

About the time he finished praying, the doorbell rang. Marie, our neighbor and friend, had had friends coming for dinner who had canceled at the last minute. God had put it on her heart to bring us a lasagna, salad and bread sticks! She was a fantastic Italian cook and we all ate like kings!

This is a story that you might hear a lot or not at all. But it's one I remember distinctly. It left an indelible impression on my young mind that I never forgot. I knew, from then on, that God could be counted on, quite literally, to "supply all [my] needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19)."

Transformation and dedication

One of the things I pray for you girls every day is that you will come to know Jesus Christ.  I know this might sound uber religious, but what I really mean is that you will really know Jesus. Not attend church regularly, not learn all the bible verses in the bible, but really know Jesus in a personal way.

On your first birthday, Punkin, we dedicated you to Jesus and dedicated ourselves to helping you come to know Him. And I can proudly say that you have now met Him! Sometime in August, you and I were reading the your nighttime bible story and you asked me if Jesus died. You knew what this meant, kind of, because of my grandpa passing away a few months earlier. I said yes, that Jesus died because we were bad guys. Then, He beat death by coming back to life all by Himself. And now we can go live with Him in Heaven after we die. I told you that He'd come live in your heart and help you be a good guy, if you wanted Him to. You said yes, so we said a simple prayer asking Jesus to forgive you for when you've been bad and to let you come live with Him and great grandpa when you die. To be honest, it was kind of lackluster and I wasn't sure that you knew what was going on. But I watched for signs of you growing as a Christian. A few months later, you asked me about Jesus dying and if we were good guys now. I said yes, if you ask Jesus into your heart, you are a good guy, and I asked you if you wanted to pray. You said, "Okay! Jesus, please come in my heart and help me be a good guy. Amen. Mom, I already did that before!" OH! Excuse me! Ha! Just so you know, you'd never prayed, even repeating after me, until that first time. Then, all of a sudden, you wanted to pray and talk to Jesus all the time! Now when you pray, we all close our eyes and hold hands and you sing "Jesus loves me." It's so cute!

I became a Christian when I was 4. Well, my mom says I was 3. I don't know. I still remember it, tho. In my prayers for you girls at night, I ask God that you will come to know Him at an earlier age then I did. Well, Punkin, you were 3 years and 2 months!

So this Sunday, we're dedicating you two little ones, Apple and Blueberry. My prayer is still the same for you girls. I pray that you will begin seeking Jesus while you're still little, when the big words like sanctification and propitiation and predestination don't mean anything at all to you. All you know is "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the bible tells me so," and that is enough for you!

Halloween '11

For Halloween this year, Punkin was excited to dress up. I made the wigs for the babies out of blue boas sewed to blue beanies. I also put big flowers in the wigs to be sure everyone knew you were girls. We went to the store, to church for the jumping house, games and candy, then trick or treating to the neighbors. Everyone thought you were so cute- which I, of course, agreed with! Punkin, you didn't want to take a picture all by yourself, you always wanted your sisters with you.

catching up with Apple and Blueberry

Now on to you babies. Although you both have been growing so much, I think I can fit both of you in to the same post, since you have just about the same milestones.

1) You both talk A LOT! Apple, you do more cooing and seem to make sentences with your voice inflections. Blueberry, you make more babbling sounds, working on the mechanics of the sounds more. Both working on the same thing, in different ways, which is totally how you work!

2) While grandma was watching you girls one day, Blueberry kept giggling and keeping Punkin from taking a nap. The next day, Apple giggled and kept Punkin up! You both laugh a lot and smile almost constantly. Every stranger that walks by, it seems, remarks on how smiley you babies are.

3) When we were in Farmington for my uncle's funeral, great grandma loved playing with both of you. You'd both smile and laugh at her. She even taught Apple how to bang on the table, which she does all of the time now, not only with her hands, but with anything her hands are holding.

4) You are both rolling around on the floor all the time. You can roll from one side to the other. I thought you'd both crawl quickly because I put you on the floor so much. However, I'm beginning to think that you'll both be like your older sister and your cousins and learn how to crawl the week before you start walking. Rolling seems to work well for you girls.

5) You both eat a lot, too. We go through half a gallon of goat's milk a day, plus I try to feed you two baby food meals. You're eating apples, carrots, winter squash, bananas, rice cereal and oatmeal.

6) I bought high chairs for you and you love to sit in them scooted up next to each other. The first day I bought them, I looked up just in time to see Apple look over at Blueberry's hand, reach over and grab it with both hands, stick it in her mouth, and bite it! Since then, I've witnessed the same scenario many times over.

7) Another thing that you girls do is steal things from each other. A favorite is to take the pacifier out of your sister's mouth and put it in yours. It's super cute, but annoying to the other. Taking toys away from each other, or having a tug of war with toys, especially in the high chair, is another common occurrence.

8) We've gotten in a new routine- Blueberry (usually) wakes up around 5 am and crawls in mommy's bed. Apple sneaks in about half an hour later. Punkin is third, and usually wakes us all up. Then we all cuddle and giggle. It's a routine that I'm going to try to keep going for a long, long time!

You are both growing up so quickly! Blueberry, just seven months ago, you were the same length as Uncle Ben's arm, from his wrist to his elbow. Now, you're the length of my torso! You're both very happy babies. Even now, you both have a cold, yet you're not whiny. I couldn't have asked for happier babies!

catching up with Punkin

A lot has been going on. However, I've finished nursing school (hooray!), so it seems to be letting up a bit.
I'll start with Punkin. So much to say! Every day you come up with something new! I'll just list as many as I can think of.

1) "Dad, I want to tell you about bird poops." Totally out of nowhere as we were driving one day.
2) I don't normally post pics (maybe I'll have to change that), but how could I not post THIS?!?!?!

 Don't worry, tho. You cleaned it all up- WITH GRANDMA'S TOOTHBRUSH!!!! (I'm still cracking up!)

3) We went to Farmington for my uncle's funeral a few weeks ago. While at Grandma's, you said, "Great Grandma, where is Great Grandpa?" She said, "He went to be with Jesus." You said, "Oh. He's not dying anymore?" Oh, the wisdom of a child! No, my dear, he's not dying any more. He's doing sooooo much better!

4) Also while at great grandma's house, you decided to feed peanut butter to your twin babies that grandma gave you for Christmas. You then neatly washed their faces- and the rest of their little cloth bodies. I do, by the way, allow you to help me feed your baby sisters. You're really good at it!

5) For about a week, you had a thing about getting up in the middle of the night to do crafts, of course while everyone else was far off in the land of Nod. The first time, you decided to glue all- and I do mean ALL- of the mail together. The second time, you painted lots of things red with nail polish, including the refrigerator, my ceramic fire holder vase thing, several baby toys, bumbo seat tray, etc. The third time, you just used the markers to color a few things, although I don't remember what.

6) Last night, you said, "Daddy, want to watch me dance?" You were standing on the coffee table and looking at yourself in the dining room mirror. Of course, he said okay. You danced, then asked him the same question at least ten more times! I'll have to get a video of that!

I'm sure that I could put ten things on here every day. You're getting so big and so helpful.