We've Made it to FIVE - Happy Birthday Willard and Joselyn!!

Here they are the Sunday before they were born in my HUGE belly!

Here they are weighing in at 6 lbs 6 oz, and 6 lbs 8 oz at 37 weeks of pregnancy... ok, I know, I have big babies!!

I think this has got to be a huge milestone! I cannot believe it has already been five years since these two were born!

They were such good babies (thank you Aunt Chloe for the great advice on raising twins!! and thank you to all who helped us out the first year so we could remain sane... Dej, I am speaking to you!!), they would sleep and eat at the same time, and if one woke up, we woke the other one up to keep them on the same schedule.

It is funny how even with their different personalities, they still love to play with each other. I remember when they were little, we would get two of everything from friends or family, but usually one of them got lost, and it was ok because they learned at a young age to share and trade and play together.

One of my favorite memories of them as babies was when I had them snuggled on my bed laying on a pillow and they were drifting off to sleep, but Willard had his arm around Joë and she was already asleep and he looked at me like, "This is my job, Mom, to keep her safe!"

 

Here we are as a family about four weeks old!!

Here is Will in YANKEES... Can you tell we LOVE BASEBALL??

They slept in the same crib for a while, until Will was strong enough to lift his legs up with the braces and would turn and accidentally hit her... then we had to separate them. He wore those after the casts, for the first six months and then only at night until he was three. We had to resort to duct taping the ties at night because even if we did quadruple knots, by morning he would have them off and smiling in his bed! When he turned three he told us, "No more braces!!" I still worry if we stopped using them too soon. We go in once a year to talk to the orthopedic surgeon, and really, until puberty they wouldn't do anything to loosen the tendons again because they will tighten up at puberty. But it looks like we will be doing stretching casts later in the summer to help get those legs to stretch...

Here they are on there blessing day! It was so much fun and they were so good!

I am going to get it!!

No, I AM!!

Just after their first birthday, Joë got RSV and had to come home with oxygen. Things were pretty uneventful, until their 3 1/2 yr old brother Ben decided to squeeze the liquid on the oxygen tank that sent water through the hose and shooting into Joë's nose. Thankfully I was right there and we were able to get it all fixed. I think Ben got the riot act too... I am so grateful that my young children won't remember some of my not so great moments. I think I have cooled considerable, but I still have tough moments that I always regret as soon as I burst.

After their second birthday we went camping with the Aunts and Dejah. It was so much fun because we had a trickling stream behind us and I had brought paints and buckets and shovels. They would play in the dirt, then go wash off by playing in the stream, and then paint rocks, and then go wash off in the stream. They would follow the dogs around everywhere they went and try to feed them all their food. Really, they were good and really easy going. 

Ephraim was born when they were a couple months shy of three. This is when things got really tricky. Many times did I catch them getting into things while I was nursing. Two funny stories (I can say they are funny now because I am not cleaning it up now!) Once, I just finished with Eph and went down to the living room to find all the other three kids with the 5 lb bag of shredded cheese on the couch. It was everywhere. They had wanted a snack and decided to have cheese. Thankfully, shredded cheese is vacuumable!! They next time they went for the 5 dozen eggs. I had eggs on the cubboards, on the counters, all over my new laminate floor, and then they grabbed the baking soda from the fridge and were sprinkling it over the egg mess and dancing in it. I only knew something was up because I heard an enormous amount of giggling. I HATE touching eggs. After I crack them (I can do more than one at a time) but I have to wash my hands. So think of poor me cleaning up FIVE DOZEN!!! It was torture. I hadn't even finished feeding Eph, so he was upstairs just wailing. I picked up each child and put them in the tub and told them to stay, and then took my time cleaning up all the eggs off the entire kitchen! After it was spotless (a good spring cleaning) I gave the kids a bath and then finally went back to poor Ephraim who had cried himself to sleep.  Just thinking of those eggs creeps me out. 

I also had been trying to do preschool with Ben and a few neighborhood kids, and of course, the twins wanted to participate.  It was fun watching them coloring and trying to use scissors like the "big kids" and they loved making things to hang up in the house. Oh wait, THEY STILL LOVE TO. After they color something, or do homework, or we make a craft, they grab the tape and hang it up in their room above their beds. Especially now since they have been doing preschool! They love to do homework and color pictures for friends or family, of which I always forget to mail (sorry) and in the car they yell out all the letters they know when they see them on signs. It is so different having two because you assume that they are the same, all the time, when really they are so individual, just like any two children.

Willard likes to play motorcycle games, well actually any video game and will go to great lengths to add more time to his limit. He wakes, makes his bed, cleans his room, gets dressed, has breakfast and brushed his teeth so he can play for ten minutes. When time is up, he will BEG for chores so he can play longer...  I could pretty much ask him to do anything!! He also loves to draw, but gets frustrated if it isn't just right, and so he will ask for someone else to draw something, usually a jet or tank or car, and then color it. He loves taking videos of himself and watching them over and over! One of his favorite movies is a Baja 1000 race of motorcycles, cars, 4x4's and it is more of a documentary, but he will watch it over and over and over until he has us all running from the room if it is his turn to pick a movie! He loves Iron Man, and will sing over and over, "I Am Iron Man... du da du da du da du du da!" He really loves singing, in the car, at church at home, and loves to learn new songs to sing.

Joselyn is a very athletic girl. She loves to run, jump, roll, dive, somersault, do push ups or pull ups or sit ups. She loves soccer, baseball, volleyball or basketball or all of them at the same time! Her joy in life is her speed, which on short sprints is very close to Ben's. She loves to color pictures and then cut them out and hang them for you. She doesn't want me to do her hair, but tolerates it if I let her do her nails in the process. She loves manicures and mommy time. She also has these favorite books, The Alphapet Series, which I mind a little because they are so long, and she wants to read five of them at a time, but I love that she loves to read with me. She is also the Big Sister, and loves to baby Ephraim. She will change his clothes (thankfully not his diaper....yet) and help him bathe and read him stories and share her treats. If he is sad, she will run right over and snuggle him. She told me she wanted to have a million babies, and that she would name them all after Willard and that she would live next door to Willard and Ashlyn (her best friend who is marrying Will...) when she grows up.

I love this age. I love that they are so excited about things like outings with Dad or shopping for the new baby or getting ready for school. I love when they tell you things about when they grow up, and then it changes into something else the very next day.

Willard and Joselyn, I love you and hope you have had a wonderful Birthday!!!

Good, Funny Book to Read...

I just finished this book and through it I was shocked, I laughed a lot, was shocked some more and cried a lot... I think I used a half of bag of wipes there, but at least I didn't have any more mascara on my face because I was able to wipe it all away! :)  Here is the synopsis:

A very different kind of fantasy from New York Times bestselling author Shannon Hale. What if you were to meet the number-one person on your laminated list—you know, that list you joke about with your significant other about which five celebrities you’d be allowed to run off with if ever given the chance? And of course since it’ll never happen it doesn’t matter… Mormon housewife Becky Jack is seven months pregnant with her fourth child when she meets celebrity heartthrob Felix Callahan. Twelve hours, one elevator ride, and one alcohol-free dinner later, something has happened…though nothing has happened. It isn’t sexual. It isn’t even quite love. But a month later Felix shows up in Salt Lake City to visit and before they know what’s hit them, Felix and Becky are best friends. Really. Becky’s husband is pretty cool about it. Her children roll their eyes. Her neighbors gossip endlessly. But Felix and Becky have something special…something unusual, something completely impossible to sustain. Or is it? A magical story, The Actor and the Housewife explores what could happen when your not-so-secret celebrity crush walks right into real life and changes everything. 

I really enjoyed it and thought maybe you might too!