Friday, February 8, 2013

A Day at the Farm

October started here in Kansas with the most beautiful weather.  Katy and Ava Marie and I took advantage of that by going on a lot of homeschool field trips.  One of our favorites is always going to Deanna Rose Children's Farmstead.


This is a beautiful piece of property in the middle of Johnson County Kansas which the city built in honor of one of their fallen police women, Deanna Rose.  It is full of fun exhibits that expose children and just about anyone else to life on a farm and more importantly life in Kansas during the pioneers times.  There is a one room schoolhouse, an old fashioned general store, 2 very realistic Native American dwellings including a teepee, a pond to fish in, ponies to ride, ducks and chickens to feed and even cows to milk!


The girls liked playing checkers in the General Store.


Can you see the chickens in the background?  They are in the middle of the store!


We love to feed the goats.  These are the little ones, there are some as tall as Katy!


Don't say G-R-A-V-Y!


Hudson slept through the whole day there.


So did Beckham!


Ava Marie loves posing in the Children's Garden.



Both girls love to do the chores they read about in the Little House books.


Such a fun day, and it is only 20 minutes from our home.  We went in the morning and then went home for lunch and to finish our schoolwork.  Thank you Lord for enabling us to homeschool!

Mackenzie's 10th Birthday

On October 29th Mackenzie turned 10 years old!  We had decided earlier in the year that she could get her ears pierced for this birthday.  She was so excited and of course, all sisters were there to help make it go smoothly!


We started the day off by sending her to school for a half day.  She took donuts with her to share with her class and some special teachers.  Then I picked her up and we went to lunch, just the two of us, to Panera Bread.  Mackenzie felt very special as we shared some thoughts about her day and what she dreamed of in her future.

Then we went back home and waited for Madyson to get home from school.  Then we all headed for the big mall!



We decided to get her ears pierced at Claire's because they charge just one price and it includes the earrings and also the cleaner for your ears.  Also they give you a cute little instruction kit and a place for Mackenzie to write down each time she cleaned her ears.  She loved this whole set!


She decided to have them do both sides at the same time.  I am so glad because she has a very low pain tolerance and I think if she had them do one ear at a time she would only have one ear done to this day!  Katy is standing in front of her holding her hands.  I, of course, am taking pictures!

 Moment of impact!

Yea!  Looks great!

Thanks for holding my hands Katy!


My beautiful girl!  10 years old and beautiful!  She was so proud of herself and has continued to take very good care of her ears.  Happy Birthday my sweet, but fiery red-headed princess!

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Back to September 2012

Like I said, I am going to keep going back to last year to get caught up on all of our 2012 happenings.  And I will continue to post about 2013, so it will be like a bad movie where you keep having to suffer through flash backs!  But if you are reading this and have been reading my blog for any time at all, then you must want to see all of this and I really need to get it all down!  My big goal is to have everything documented on the blog and then to get the blog printed in one of those cute blog books!

We left North Carolina, our new little family of 7, (Randy was still in KC of course.) and headed back the way we had come.  The plan was to drive to Paducah, Kentucky and stay the night then go on straight to home.  We probably would have mead Paducah by 5pm, but somewhere on the north of Nashville I missed a turn off and didn't realize it until we were about 100 miles out of our way!

It wasn't a big tragedy, but it did make for a very long night.  By the time I realized my mistake, we were far enough out of the way that it just didn't make sense to turn back.  (That was a wrong asumption, and my instincts told me to turn back, but I was already very tired and I wasn't thinking really well.)  So we continued traveling North and ended up in Louisville, Kentucky.  I was interested in stopping for the night, it was around 7pm and I had planned on stopping that night at 5pm, so I was already 2 hours over when I thought I should rest.  But when I travel I like to stop on the other side of a big city.  So if I am traveling east to west, I go through the city and stay on the west side for the night.  Then when we get up in the morning to leave, we do not have to travel all the way through the city in morning traffic.  This plan usually works out perfect, but not that night!  We saw many hotels on the east side of the city, but when we got to the west side, well, lets just say we did not see anything suitable and we did not feel safe stopping.

And then it was just so dark!  By the time we got out of Louisville it was approaching 8pm, and as I continued to drive west I just couldn't seem to find anything.  There were lots of signs for motels, but nothing you could see from the highway and I didn't want to stop until I knew for sure that we would find a nice place.  We were looking for a Hampton or a Drury Inn, or even a Holiday Inn.  You know, some place you could identify with a good reputation.

At 8:30pm we stopped at a small area that had a Drury Inn and a Wendy's.  We went first to the Wendy's as the kids and I were starving!  While the kids ate I called the Drury to see if they had any vacancies, which they did, and a pool that was open until 10pm.  We were set to stay there!  Yay!  Then we walked out of the Wendy's to get into the car.  There was a shouting match in the parking lot between some people in some cars just about 20 feet away from us.  We got into our van quickly, locked the doors and drove across the street so I could fill the gas tank up.  During the time we were at the gas station, we witnessed some other things that made me decide that this area was not a good idea to stay in either.  By now it was 9pm and I can tell you I was really getting worried.  I knew that I could not keep driving and we were still about 5 hours away from Kansas City.  (Though were now in Illinois.)

I ended up driving another hour west to Evansville, Illinois.  I really felt like I could keep driving, but then all of a sudden I needed to turn off.  There were about 7 motels to choose from and we ended up at the Holiday Express.  We checked in right after a nice large homeschool family and the man at the front desk was an adoptive father!  We knew we were in the right place.  Felt totally safe all night and had a delicious breakfast in the morning.  Also had a lot of fun talking to the other family about homeschooling and adoption.

We left around 9 am and were able to drive straight home by 2pm.  You know we have to stop a lot to feed and hold babies!  But the boys did great throughout our trip.  Unfortunately I got absolutely no pictures of that driving day.  I was too upset by my mistake and then too tired to even think about it.

But here are some pictures of all the people who came over the next few weeks to visit and cuddle our little darlings!

 Of course this is just sissy loving on her sweet baby brother, Beckham!


Aunt Tina came over to hold her baby Hudson.


Aunt Lorraine came bearing such wonderful gifts!  The "baby" on the left is a receiving blanket, a onesie, a baby hat, a pacifier (with a mustache sewn on!) and baby mitts all stuffed with rolled baby diapers!  It was so unique.  Lorraine made two of these and I just love them!  Of course we had to take them apart so we could use all the beautiful items!

When the boys went in to Olathe Medical to have their circumsicions, the doctor asked us to pack pacifiers for them so they would not be fussy.  I packed the ones Aunt Lorraine had...embellished...you should have heard the laughter coming from inside the room when the nurse pulled them out of the diaper bag and plopped them into the boys mouths!  She hadn't noticed the little mustaches until she and the doctor were standing over the boys to "get to work"!  She said it was "classic"!!


Lorraine's daughter Olivia thought the babies were precious!  Big sister Ava Marie loves to show the right way to hold a baby.



Katy's friends Eryn and Chandler Patrick, also twins, came over to hold the boys.  They each thought their twin was the cutest!

  Besides all of the visitors, the boys spent a lot of time together.  They slept together and ate at mostly the same time.  The girls helped out during the day, when they were home, but I was still doing all of the night time feedings.  These days are just a blur to me now.  Beckham started sleeping through the night just before he turned 3 months!  That was awesome!


Hudson looks so tiny against this big boppy!


Here's Mommy trying to feed both babies at the same time.  Yeah, no, this did not last!  I like to hold and cuddle babies while they are eating, Just needed to get the sisters involved.

Monday, February 4, 2013

5 Months old!

Hudson and Beckham turned 5 months old on February 2nd!  I am so amazed at how much love and joy these two little guys have brought into our home.  They are such a joy to hold and cuddle and we have so much fun watching them interact and smile and coo.



Right now they are both sleeping through the night.  Beckham likes to go to bed around 7 pm and sleeps until 7 am, right straight through.  He rolls himself over from his stomach to his back, so in the morning I always find him on his back looking around the room and smiling.  He does not cry when he wakes up, he just lays there softly talking to himself and looking at everything.

Hudson is our little night owl!  He is usually up until 9 or 10 pm and sleeps until 5:30 or 6 am.  He cries really loud the moment he wakes up and continues to cry until you give him his bottle!  He seems to be very hungry all of the time!



We started solid foods last week.  It usually takes about 3-4 tries to get a baby to understand what they are eating and to like it, and also to stop pushing the food out with their tongue, but Hudson got the idea by the 3rd spoonful!!  He ate 3 tablespoons full on his first day!  I used rice cereal with a little of his soy formula.


Beckham on the other hand, not so excited!  He kept making faces and turning his head away.  It will take a few more tries to get this little guy interested in solid food.  In fact Sunday I added bananas to the ceral and both boys were much happier with the taste!  Beck ate several tablespoons full and Hudson ate almost half the banana!


I love this picture of the two of them....it looks like Hudson caught something!

And they just love to look at each other and coo and giggle, I am so excited for them to have a close relationship.  I know they will probably get into mischief together, but they are just so cute!  I am so glad God gave me twins, it is such a special relationship and I am so grateful to be a part of it.


They love their bouncy seats and will talk to the little turtles and frogs like they are little friends.


I think they are finally the same size now.  Beckham was about an inch longer, but it seems they have evened out.  Mommy loves her big boys!