Avery and Pete's Birthday Party

This year I hemmed and hawed for ever trying to think of a good theme for A & P's birthday party. Twin parties can be tricky - they need to be individualistic but still go together and make sense. I was almost set on doing a Dora and Diego party when I came across the idea of a favorite COLOR party! DING! We have a winner! A & P are all about their "favorites" right now - favorite color, favorite stuffed animal, favorite blanket, ect. that I thought this would be perfect!



So the pink and green party was born! Invitiations were pink and green dots with tulle tying them all together. Pink and green plates, balloons - you name it, it was probably pink or green! I even asked the guests to wear pink or green to the party which many people did!





We did two cakes this year - first time for that! It worked out really well, and hope to continue doing that. I mean you had your own birthday cake, right?? Why shouldn't twins too! Avery had a beautiful butterfly and flowers in PINK (all favorites of hers). Pete had a dinosaur in GREEN, which is a total fascination of his right now too!



We rented a huge truck bounce house that was a hit! Amazingly, December isn't a big renting time of year so they let us keep it ALL DAY Saturday and Sunday! Totally made it worth it! We bounced, bounced and bounced some more . . . what else could a 3 year old want!!!




This was by far our BEST kiddo party yet! The weather was absolutely gorgeous and warm so we just left the door open and people mingled inside and out giving everyone plently of room! Plus we had a fantastic group of people who all came because they truly love our kiddos. Many of A & P's friends from school came to make te birthday kiddos day.

Thanksgiving 2010

We spent Thanksgiving Day at Grandma and Grandpa's. The kiddos had a blast playing with their cousins and seeing all of their family. Lil Pete had started out the week with a cold and it really started to act up towards the end of Thanksgiving. He did well, but started getting the grouchies.

By Friday morning, he was really out of sorts and the girls were starting their tour with the lovely cold, so we had to miss going to Nana and Papa's. Luckily we got together towards the end of the weekend to celebrate Thanksgiving.

For all my "photog" friends - the pic of my parents standing in the street with the kiddos is my best edit yet!! I'm still so new and not near where all you all, BUT I"m really happy with it! I took out a WHOLE stop sign!! :)

New company Family Holiday Party

Vegas here we come . . .just kidding (I wish!)

Pete started working at a new company a few months ago and they had their holiday family party this weekend. It was fun to meet alot of his co workers and they had it at a fantastic place: Dave and Busters! Now, the older kids seemed to be having a lot of fun, but our kids were pretty mesmerized - they had never seen anything like that! The company gave us FIVE play cards with pretty much unlimited tokens on them. We very quickly got alot of tickets, which enabled the kiddos to pick out something from the "toy store" that they probably wouldn't have been able to get had we been paying to play the games!!

Disney on Ice

Grandma was nice enough to treat all of us to a day of fun at Disney on Ice Friday. I (very smartly) decided that it would be much easier if Hailey went and had fun somewhere else, and boy, was I glad I did that! She had a blast at her friend Luke's house while Avery and Pete had fun at the Ice Capades!!


Avery and Pete were a great audience. This was definitely the longest sitting time that we have ever done (2 hours!), but they were mesmerized. They became a little ansy towards the end, but I was so proud of my little ones!

My sister-in-law Jamie and her children, Avalynn and Kylynn also joined in on the fun! Grandma got to spend some good quality time with the grandkids!

My toothless wonder

You may remember not too long ago, A,P, & H went to the dentist and we got the news that Pete's front tooth was going to have to come out.

I have really been so upset by this, isn't that silly? Here are a couple of the irrational reasons:

1) I didn't want him to have to go through it. I didn't want it to hurt him or "terrorize" him by scaring him from going to the dentist anymore.

2) I really didn't want my cute little baby faced precious boy to be a "toothless wonder" - I know, so superficial, but, hey, I'm not perfect.

3) I started getting scared by talking with people and hearing how missing teeth can cause speech delays. (I mean you would have thought I should have called my SPEECH PATHOLOGIST sister to find out the true story, but once again - I am not perfect.)

4) I really didn't want to pay for it. Yet again, not a very good reason, but we already have medical bills coming out the wazoo from PREVIOUS injuries - I really hate to add to an already daunting pile.

So I kept putting it off. I made appointments, spoke with the nurses and then canceled the appointment (um, that happened twice - don't you know they just LOVED me). Well, finally the decision was made for me - I happened to look at Pete's tooth and saw the tell-tale puss that I had been told to watch for - infected tooth. It had to come out, funny how God makes a decision for you sometimes, isn't it?

Long story short, my little baby was totally unphased by the whole procedure. The dentist (very nicely) told me that I was overreacting, my sister assured me that the chance of speech delays from 1 loose tooth is pretty minimal, my kid got nitrous oxide gased up, his mommy held his hand - and he lost his front tooth.

Say hello to our little toothless wonder . . .don't tell anyone, but I think he might even be cuter now! :)

Happy Halloween!!

It's a bird, it's a plane . . . it's our little superheros!!!









Avery, Pete, and Hailey flew around in their Halloween superhero costumes and were just as cute as they could be! My mom and I spent alot of time perfecting my creation and I couldn't have been happier with how the costumes turned out. I wanted something that would not only be great for Halloween but also great for dress up time throughout the year. Thank you Mom for all your help!








Our trick or treating experience started out a bit tense as BOTH of our cameras were out of batteries. I FLEW (yes, pun intended) to our neighbors who graciously let me borrow their camera. Thank goodness! At every moment, someone had some piece of their costume off, but we all still had fun walking around and seeing our neighbors.




Our fabulous neighbor Russ also surprised the kiddos with a "Halloween Hunt". He put treat filled black and orange eggs in our yard, gave the kids flashlights and the hunt began! They LOVED it, and I think that might have to become a yearly tradition! A few of our neighbors had special treat bags for our kiddos, they are truly loved and well taken care of around here!!!

Country time

We spent another enjoyable weekend in the country at my parent's place. I had so many pictures that truly captured the essence of our family's happiness while we were there.


One of our early morning playtimes! Love the light in these pictures and that it is completely natural,straight out of the camera shots!

Last time there were only two rocking chairs, but lo and behold, Nana and Papa decided to get another one. Imagine that . . .



After looking up what kind of bugs these were we found out they were mayflies (never heard of them - Daddy Pete actually gets the award for knowing that piece of bug trivia). The kiddos created a game of gathering as many mayflies as they could and creating little collections. Poor bugs.

Beautiful foggy morning sunrise - the weather was fantastic.


Papa walking the kiddos to the pier for a fishing lesson.

Pete's first fish! It was amazing - we dropped the lure and bait in the water and it got grabbed immediately! Talk about the right kind of fishing for 2.5 year olds!


Avery's first fish! Her's took a little longer than Pete's but still successful!

Now does this show little Miss A's personality or what. I have about 20 shots of her prancing around with her fishing pole. Such a ham!

We went into town because they were offering horse and carriage rides and we thought the kids would love it. I guess they loved it, they just kinda sat there in awe. I guess they were thinking "Why are we in a car behind a horse?" :)

First Dentist Visit

I have been putting it off and putting it off because I could envision our first dental visit: screaming, crying, yelling and otherwise plain mayhem!



Was I ever wrong! I had prepped our visit very carefully explaining what was going to happen and talking about how fun it was going to be. Our dentist even had take home books that I picked up before hand to read with the kiddos. Needless to say, they were pumped (as pumped as 2 year olds and 1 year olds can be!)



To my amazement everyone did a really great job getting their teeth looked at and cleaned. Hailey was our only screamer, but I don't think she really "got" what was going on. It helped that every single person we passed commented on how super cute the kiddos are (I mean who doesn't like compliments).





Lil Pete even had to get X-rays, which I thought "Oh here it comes", but he did fantastic! But with the X-rays came the bad news: Pete's front tooth needs to come out. About a year ago, Pete pulled a cabinet down on top of himself, loosening that tooth. Well, it re-attached, but now there is an abscess behind it meaning that we will have a toothless wonder on our hands very soon. He is going to have a little bridge with a fake tooth put on to keep the space. And guess what - insurance doesn't cover it (surprise, surprise!) I'm going to try to fight it, but you don't EVEN want to know how much this is going to cost! ugghh!!

EVERYONE goes to school!!

That is right . . . all 3 kiddos are in preschool this year! I felt a little skip in my step as I prepared everyone to go to school the first day (which preparing 3 children is a monumental task!!!)

I found a preschool that I really like at a church that is fairly near to us. It is amazing the difference between a liscensed preschool and a MDO. I get all kinds of reports, notes, artwork, feedback! The kids really do terrific projects and are thriving! They go to school two days a week, for 4 hours each day.

Avery and Pete are experienced pros at this whole school thing. They happily give me a kiss and skip along on their way. Now Hailey, she's a little more attached to her mommy. She has a bit of a tough time watching me leave, but as soon as I'm out the door she calms down. I drop Hailey off first, so after dropping off A & P, I can swing back by Hailey's room to make sure she has calmed down - which she always has.


I guess Avery equates Hailey being around with MOMMA being around. The first day that Avery and Hailey passed in the hall it seems Avery just lost it. She was screaming for her "MOMMMY!!!". I guess she saw Hailey and thought I must be somewhere around hiding from her! But, the funny thing is once I talked to Avery about how I would always come back for her, it just "clicked". We haven't had the passing in the hall problem since. Every once in awhile Avery will ask me, "Momma, you always come back for me???" and I say "Yes baby . . .always and forever!" And then Avery happily skips off singing "Always and forever, always and forever".

Have I mentioned that kids are precious???