A few firsts

I love this picture of Brandon and the girls. You can tell who's hairline they have.

The girls are 3 months old and we have had a lot of "firsts" in the past couple days. Here are some of them. (Most of the pictures don't go with the stories)

Our First Dryer Heating Element Burn Out. I guess all the extra laundry was too much for our dryer. Luckily Brandon knew what he was doing and was able to replace the heating element the same day we figured out it was broken.

Our First Illness. The girls have had coughs that resemble croup. I called the Dr's office about it, but since the girls were still alert and eating okay they told me not to worry about bringing them in. It's been sad to hear their little coughs, but we are just about through it. Lydia lost her "voice" and so for once I could tell their crying apart.

Brandon is working swing shift again so this is how we end up most mornings. All of us hanging out in bed. I love this picture because it shows why we call Charlotte "Bright Eyes."

We went to all three meeting of church. We've just been going to sacrament meeting with the girls and once a month I teach Relief Society. But with Brandon's new schedule we were able to try all three meetings. It went well. And I discovered that I can use a baby as an excuse to get up and walk around when I get bored.

Our first walk to the grocery store. In Logan we lived across the street from Smith's MarketPlace so we always walked over to do our grocery shopping. We found it helps us save money if we know we have to carry home everything we buy. When we moved to Bountiful we ended up only a few blocks away from another Smith Marketplace (We joke that we always have to live near one. Even at the hospital we were about two blocks from the avenues Smiths) We put the girls in their front carriers and headed off to the store. It was really fun. You should have seen the looks we got from people as they noticed we each had a baby under our coats.

Here are the girls in some of my favorite outfits.
The girls met their Aunt Lindsey and Cousin Rocklond for the first time. Lindsey was able to fly up from Houston unexpectedly. We were able to get together on the spur of the moment.
All three cousins had fun hanging out and getting to know each other. Rocklond was very helpful with the girls and tried to comfort them when they cried.
The girls seemed to like meeting their oldest cousin.

7th Grade - Orchestra Memories

I totally believe the theory that smell and memory are connected. The roof of my Jr High was being water proofed with tar during my first week of school. To this day if I smell tar I automatically start feeling nervous. I start remembering how I felt on the first day of Seventh Grade.

Kids from my elementary school were divided up among 3 Jr Highs. There were only about 9 students from my elementary that would go to my Jr High. Luckily my two best friends, Ashley A and Becky P were among those nine. The three of us walked to to Jr High on that first day and entered a completely new world.

I'd been to the Jr High for a Orchestra concert the year before and for back to school night a few days before so I sort of knew my way around. During that first week I went to my classes and learned how things like the cafeteria worked.

Out of all of my classes I have the strongest memories about orchestra. Orchestra was the only class that I had with 9^th graders. Those 9^th grade girls seemed so grow up to me. Kim, Pam, Krista, Liz, and Heather they all seemed to know exactly how to act. They were involved in such interesting things; cheer leading, student government, dance company, and institute. To this day I still think about those girls with awe.

At first I felt completely out of place in Orchestra. Everyone else seemed so talented. I was sure they could all tell that I had no talent at all. But gradually as I practiced and participated in class I began to feel like I was talented too.

I was able to participate in the small chamber orchestra group in the Christmas Assembly. All the performing groups of the school were part of the assembly. There was a loose plot that linked all the performances together. Two students played Hyacinth and Richard Bucket from Keeping Up Appearances. The Buckets were on a vacation and the performances by the orchestra, dance company, cheerleaders, choir, and other groups were all part of the vacation entertainment. Their tour guide was Malory H who was elected Student Body President in High school. After high school she was killed in a tragic car accident. I remember her as a 9^th grader stealing every scene with her stage presence.

At the end of the school year in May the orchestra went to the annual district festival. We had worked hard to learn our songs. We played “Arlington Sketches” and the Feather Theme from Forrest Gump. It starts out with a very strong rhythm played by the cellos and basses. We had seven cellos and one bass – me. It was probably the hardest song I had ever played up until that point, and I learned it perfectly. I remember standing on the stage performing my part exactly like I had practised it so many times. It was one of the greatest thrills of my life.

After we were done playing we went back to our seats. Dr. Frome, the man in charge of the music program for the district came over and told us how wonderful we were. He then asked, “and where is your bass player?” I raised my hand and he told me that I played fantastically. Later when I told my dad what happened he reminded me that Dr Frome was his high school orchestra teacher when he played the string bass, and that I had met Dr Frome when he conducted an orchestra where my Grandma played the violin.

When the festival was over we collected the two envelopes that had the tapes of our performance and the judges scores. We opened the envelopes on the bus. The first judge gave us a “1” which is basically a perfect score. We all freaked out and were bouncing off the walls. Our teacher, Ms Davis said that it was highly unlikely we would get two 1's. She opened up the next envelope and said, “We're going to have one heck of a party.” We screamed again and she told us that we had two 1's.

When we got back to the school we listened to the tapes of us playing. The judges made comments about out performances. One judge singled me out in particular and said that I played very well and that I added a lot of color to the orchestra. I was in a daze the rest of the day.

A few weeks after festival the chamber orchestra played a song called the Delta King at the end of the year awards assembly. I had a pretty long solo part in this song. I had a hard time playing it, but the night of the concert I played it perfectly.

I would continue playing the string bass until halfway through my Sr year of high school. I have a lot of really good memories of orchestra over the years, but 7th grade is probably my favorite. It was nice to know that even though I didn't know how to do everything I was good at one thing.

Inspiration: Hidden, untapped potential

This is from the April 2006 Conference talk by Joseph B Worthlin. A sister in our branch read this as part of her talk a couple weeks ago. I loved the story and I thought I would share it with all of you. Click here for the full talk.

Harry de Leyer was late to the auction on that snowy day in 1956, and all of the good horses had already been sold. The few that remained were old and spent and had been bought by a company that would salvage them.

Harry, the riding master at a girls’ school in New York, was about to leave when one of these horses—an uncared-for, gray gelding with ugly-looking wounds on its legs—caught his eye. The animal still bore the marks that had been made by a heavy work harness, evidence to the hard life he had led. But something about him captured Harry’s attention, so he offered $80 for him.

It was snowing when Harry’s children saw the horse for the first time, and because of the coat of snow on the horse’s back, the children named him “Snowman.”

Harry took good care of the horse, which turned out to be a gentle and reliable friend—a horse the girls liked to ride because he was steady and didn’t startle like some of the others. In fact, Snowman made such rapid improvement that a neighbor purchased him for twice what Harry had originally paid.

But Snowman kept disappearing from the neighbor’s pasture—sometimes ending up in adjoining potato fields, other times back at Harry’s. It appeared that the horse must have jumped over the fences between the properties, but that seemed impossible—Harry had never seen Snowman jump over anything much higher than a fallen log.

But eventually, the neighbor’s patience came to an end, and he insisted Harry take back the horse.

For years, Harry’s great dream had been to produce a champion jumping horse. He’d had moderate success in the past, but in order to compete at the highest levels, he knew he would have to buy a pedigreed horse that had been specifically bred to jump. And that kind of pedigree would cost far more than he could afford.

Snowman was already getting old—he was eight when Harry had purchased him—and he had been badly treated. But, apparently, Snowman wanted to jump, so Harry decided to see what the horse could do.

What Harry saw made him think that maybe his horse had a chance to compete.

In 1958, Harry entered Snowman in his first competition. Snowman stood among the beautifully bred, champion horses, looking very much out of place. Other horse breeders called Snowman a “flea-bitten gray.”

But a wonderful, unbelievable thing happened that day.

Snowman won!

Harry continued to enter Snowman in other competitions, and Snowman continued to win.

Audiences cheered every time Snowman won an event. He became a symbol of how extraordinary an ordinary horse could be. He appeared on television. Stories and books were written about him.

As Snowman continued to win, one buyer offered $100,000 for the old plow horse, but Harry would not sell. In 1958 and 1959, Snowman was named “Horse of the Year.” Eventually, the gray gelding—who had once been marked for sale to a low bidder—was inducted into the show jumping Hall of Fame.¹

For many, Snowman was much more than a horse. He became an example of the hidden, untapped potential that lies within each of us.

Bridal Fair

When I grow up I want to be a wedding planner. I love pretty things and I love to plan so it is a natural combination. As part of my preparation I like to go to bridal fairs. On Saturday my parents baby sat the girls so I could go to the bridal fair at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. I invited two friends along and we all went and had a great time.

I only took pictures of center pieces, but everything was amazing.

This was probably the 10th bridal fair I've gone to. It's about the 7th I've been to since getting married.
Over the years I've gone with my roommates, my sister in law, my sister, my friend Amy (who was a true friend and went with me even though she later told me that she hated bridal fairs) and Brandon.
This was the first time I'd been to this particular fair. It was much better than anything I'd seen in Logan.

Going to the fair brought back memories of planning my sister Emily's wedding. Click here to see the post.

Outfits

I spent most of this last week with a horrible cold. So I don't have a lot of cute pictures for the week. Still there were a couple interesting things that happened.

The girls are big enough to wear the outfits that were intended to be their "going home from the hospital" clothes. Charlotte's says "Introducing Me" and Lydia's says "It's fun to be me."

The girls also wore some other onesies. This is a big deal because usually I just keep them in sleepers all day. Up until now the girls didn't really fit any of their pants so it's been easier to keep them in sleepers. Now if they could only keep socks on their feet :)

I also discovered a way to play with the girls. They don't really interact with me yet so I was really excited to find something that they would react to (besides being fed.)

And that was basically our week!

1997 Family Vacation

1997 was the Sesquicentennial anniversary of the pioneers arriving in the Salt Lake Valley. Throughout the state there were celebrations and commemorations. My family decided that the we should spend our annual family vacation in Salt Lake as our own way to honor the pioneers. We went to places such as the Bingham Copper Mine and Ensign Peak. We spent a whole day in down town Salt Lake. On that day we toured the Beehive house, road a trolley, and went to Temple Square.

The highlight of the week was going to the Lagoon Amusement Park. We went during the “bounce back” promotion period so we were able to go to Lagoon one day and then come back the next day for a reduced price. We stayed overnight at the Lagoon campground so that we could be at the park right when it opened.

The first day of our Lagoon trip was spent entirely in Pioneer Village. I guess the logic behind this was to make sure we were remembering the point of this vacation was to honor the pioneers. We looked at the recreated buildings and shops. This took probably an hour. It quickly became apparent that Pioneer Village was not going to hold our attention for a whole day. My parents decided that the new water ride, Rattle Snake Rapids, was close enough to Pioneer Village that we could ride it.

We got in line for Rattle Snake Rapids. Somehow we ended up in two groups with quite a gap between us. I was with my Dad and some other siblings as we watched my Mom and Hillary, my 4 year old sister, go by as they road on the water ride. Hillary was pressed up against my mom and she had a look of terror on her face. It was the first intense ride she had ever gone on. (Years later her first roller coaster would be Magic Mountian's Goliath) Soon it was my group's turn to go on the ride. We boarded the boat and were launched on a river ride that got all of us soaking wet. It was so fun. Over the next two days we would ride Rattle Snake Rapids 7 times- once for each member of the family.

My parents also decided that the Log flume and the train ride around the zoo were part of Pioneer Village. We spent the remainder of the day riding Rattle Snake Rapids, the Log Flume, and the train. We also watched a performance of a play about the old west. At the end of the day we went to our campsite and ate dinner. I remember falling asleep to the sound of people screaming as they rode the Colossus roller coaster.

The next day we woke up when one of the zoo's lions roared. We ate breakfast and packed up camp. Then it was time to go back into the park. This day we were allowed to go to any part of the park we wanted. We must have split up into groups but I can't remember. I do remember riding the Colossus for the first time. I was so scared. I kept thinking I would fall out at the loop part of the track. My dad explained centrifugal force and I was brave enough to try it out. The Colossus became my new favorite roller coaster. We also went on my old favorite from when I was seven– the white roller coaster.

At one point all 4 of my siblings and I got on the little kid ride, Puff the Magic Dragon. My parents remarked to each other that this was probably the only time they would see all 5 of us on that ride together. I was 12, Lindsey was 10, Emily was 8, Billy was 6, and Hillary was 4. None of us knew it but this was also the only time all of us would go to Lagoon together. I'm glad we were able to experience the park and make such fun memories.

Inspiration: A woman's work

A few days ago I watched the Simpsons episode where Bart and Lisa take aptitude tests that tell them what their future careers should be. Lisa is told that she is best suited to be a homemaker. She exclaims, "A homemaker! I might as well be dead!" I'll admit I laughed long and hard at that statement because I've felt that way at times. I mean how can I feel like I am impacting the world when I don't even know what is going on in the world.

However, I also know that I am important and that the things I do for my family will have lasting impact. Here is a quote that reminds me how important I am. This is from the novel Caddie Woodlawn about a young girl growing up during the Civil war. Her father gives her this advise towards the end of the book.

"It's a strange thing but somehow we expect more of girls than of boys. It is the sisters and wives and mothers who keep the world sweet and beautiful. What a rough world it would be if there were only men and boys in it, doing things in their rough way! A woman's task is to teach them gentleness and courtesy and love and kindness. And it is a big task, too-- harder than cutting trees or building mills or damming rivers. It takes nerve and courage and patience, but good women have those things. They have them just as much as the men who build bridges and carve roads through the wilderness. A woman's work is something fine and noble to grow up to, and it is just as important as a man's. But no man could ever do it so well.

I don't want you to be the silly, affected person with fine clothes and manners whom folks sometimes call a lady. No that is not what I want for you, my little girl. I want you to be a woman with a wise and understanding heart, healthy in body and honest in mind. Do you think you would like to be growing up into that woman now?"

Caddie Woodlawn Page 216

So even though I still have some self esteem issues do to the fact that my title has changed from Internal Auditor/Billing Manager to Homemaker - I know that what I do as a mother will last much longer than what I did as an auditor.

Here is a link to a review of Caddie Woodlawn.

Mormon.org

I've been sick this week so I haven't done anything crafty. I really haven't done anything besides feed the girls and read. I was thinking that I wouldn't have anything to post about this week but then I read the January Ensign.

There is a special insert in the January Ensign that talks about Mormon.org. Specifically it talks about the profiles that you can create about yourself that explain why you are a member of the church. People interested in the church can read the profiles and learn about the types of people who are LDS. It sounded easy enough so I decided to create my own.

I just barely created my profile. It's not great yet - I want to add a lot more detail. But I am proud that I did it.

Create your own profile by clicking here or going to Mormon.org and clicking on "create a profile." It will ask you to sign in. If you don't have an account already set up then you will need your member number (it's on your temple recommend) and your birthday (You have to be over 18). Then you just answer a couple questions and fill in a few text boxes. The site prompts you on the type of things you should say. Go try it out.

We went on a walk

We bought the girls baby backpack carriers for Christmas this year. We tried them out last Thursday.

We just went on a walk around the neighborhood. But it was so nice to get out!
I haven't been on a walk since the day before the girls were born.
The girls enjoyed the carriers and were asleep the whole time. Next time we use them I hope it will be for a hike.
On Saturday we went to the baby shower for my sister in law. My niece really wanted to hold the girls. I figured it was better to let her hold them for a few minutes than to have her hovering for several hours. So I had her use hand sanitizer and sit on the couch. She loved holding Lydia.
Later she held Charlotte. Both girls loved meeting their only (for now) girl cousin.
Later in the day one of my nephews came into the living room. He put on hand sanitizer like he had seen his cousin do. Then he came over and looked at me as if to say, "I ready to hold the baby." It was so cute how he knew what he needed to do to hold the baby. So I let him hold Charlotte for a second.
Here is a movie of the girls being super cute. I wish they were always like this.

First Year of Girls Camp

Note: I wrote most of this when I was 14. I'm glad I did because I don't remember all the specifics of what happened - especially in regards to the cow.

The highlight of the summer when I was 12 was Rough Camp. It was held the week of July 22-25 at the Pine Valley Campground in the Uinta Mountains. We started Tuesday at 7:30 in the morning. We all met at Valerie M's house and got our stuff loaded up. Then we chose what car we would ride in. I was in Sharon N's van. We were the last to leave and we had to go back for Valerie's coat. Despite that we made it to the campsite first. We were greeted by the 4th year girls who had spent the night up at the site as part of a certification requirement. They told us that they froze.

We unpacked and set up camp. My ward was assigned a site at the bottom of three slopes. It was basically in a small valley. Harmony S, Rachel J, and I were the "camp babies" of our ward. We were given bottles and binkies to show that it was our first year of camp. That night we were taken along with the other first year girls in the stake on a Snipe Hunt. I knew that there were no such things as snipes, and I though the whole thing was pretty pointless. But there were some girls who believed the whole thing.

On Wednesday we were all late for flag ceremony, but Sharron took the blame. She had to carry a rock with a snail painted on it named "Snail Burtha" around everywhere to show that she was late for flag ceremony.

At lunch it started to rain so we broke the rules and started to eat in our tents. I had to go to the bathroom so Lessie K went with me. While we were in the bathroom it started to rain extra hard. We ran back to the tents, and tried to wait out the storm. We heard loud cries from the other tents. Lessie went out to check on what was happening. She told us girls to stay in the tent. I looked outside and saw all the water from the rain flowing down the the steepest of the three hills and flowing straight for us. The tent I was in was on an incline so no water stayed under my tent. However, the other two tents had lakes starting to form under them. Water was rising up and starting to go into the tents!

Amy R wouldn't let us out of our tent so we worked on saving our own stuff. Teresa P was an excellent leader and helped us get calm. We could hear the other girls in our ward singing and dancing in the rain so we pushed Amy aside and ran our into the rain. The girls were digging a river to try to get the water out from under their tents. We joined in. Harmony had a scuba fin and used it to push the water out of the lake and into the river. All this time we were singing a new version of "The Noah Song" it when like this.

Oh the lord said to Susan (the stake camp director)

There is gonna be a floody floody

Get those girls out of the muddy muddy

Children of the lord (clap clap clap)

Somebody was taping us and the other wards were taking pictures and laughing at us. (By the way I have no pictures from this year of camp, so if anyone reading this has pictures I would LOVE copies.) We finally go rid of most of the water and got cleaned up, but we were faced with the problem of where to sleep. Our tents were too wet. Some of the other wards were able to offer us two extra tents that were on opposite sides of the camp ground and we were grateful for them.

It was guest night. My parents came up since my dad was the bishop. They ate dinner and stayed for a while, but there was nothing they could do since camp hadn't been canceled. They did take home Jenny B because she wasn't feeling well and had planned on going home that night anyway. That night I slept in a tent that had a door that didn't shut. I also had a damp blanket. I froze! It was the first of several cold nights I have spent in the Uintas.

I got out of bed on Thursday because I figured it was warmer outside than in. I was right. We packed lunches for the hike. We went on a hike to nowhere in particular, but it was a pretty hike and very fun. The group split up and some people went back to camp, but I was in the group that kept on going. My group hiked for a while and then ate lunch and played in a stream. After that we turned around and headed back to the road. Then we split up again. Most of the people stayed and waited for cars to come pick them up, but I was with the group that decided to walk back to camp. I figured it was July 24, 1997 and the pioneers had walked into the valley 150 years ago today. The least I could do was walk back to camp.

The group consisted of Lynn A, Jenifer, and me. We walked for a long time along a trail. Eventually we heard the girls laughing and we followed the sound right into camp. Something was different - we now had a large canopy over our picnic benches.

This is the story of how my ward got the canopy: The girls in my ward were too hot to go into their tents so they decided to go get the stake's canopy. They went up to Susan J and asked, "Can we borrow a Can-o-Peas?" Susan said she didn't have a can of peas, but that the 11th ward might. My ward went down to the 11th ward area and recruited them to help. They went back to the Stake area, picked up the canopy poles, and carried the canopy back to the 5th ward area. That was when my little group walked into camp.

We sat down and started painting our nails with the other girls. The J.C's came down and told us that it was time for camp pictures. We knew what they were really trying to do because we could see other girls waiting in the trees to get the canopy back. We went up to the stake area anyway because we knew we could always get the canopy back again.

The J.C's ended up taking our cow Bessie. Bessie was our life size wooden mascot. We gave back the canopy, but they wouldn't give back Bessie. Sharon went down to her van to have a meeting to plan what to do next. She ended up finding Bessie under her van. She had parked so far down the road the kidnappers hadn't realized the van was one of ours. We brought Bessie back to camp, but the stake stole her again.

Sharron had brought up face crayons so she drew war paint designs on our faces. We attacked the Stake leaders. We tried to tie Susan up but it was no use. We retreated and decided to declare peace. We went back up to the Stake area and declared peace, but they still didn't give Bessie back. We gave up and went back to painting our nails. Later the entire Stake camp down with our cow. They had put hearts on her that said "heart attack." Then they gave us a lesson on what sounds each of the animals make because Hope A had accidentally yelled, "Give us our pig back." They left us with our dead cow and we made plans for that night.

At flag ceremony we were purposely late. We ran Bessie in on a cot that looked like a stretcher. We hooked Styrofoam cups up to Sharon's overall suspenders. Then we rubbed them together, yelled clear, and pretended to defibrillate Bessie. We even made her look like she jumped by putting our feet under the cot and kicking at the appropriate time. We all cheered that she was alive.

Later it was testimony meeting. We were late so we had to sit the furthest away from the fire. I got up to bear my testimony so I could be by the fire and get warm. That meeting lasted until 11:00 pm. Then it was time for the ward testimony meeting. We went into the woods and bore our testimonies, we also talked about positive things we saw in each other. We started making too much noise so the Stake sent someone out to tell us to be quite. It was around 1:00 am at this point. We went back to our area and decided to all sleep in the bigger of the two tents that were provided for us by the other wards. We fit 18 girls into a tent that was supposed to fit 10.

We realized we lost Bessie so we went out looking for her. We finally found her in the boy's bathroom. We decided to do something in return to the Stake leaders. We first put Bessie on top of Susan's car, but then we got a better idea. We got the guards to let us take the canopy again and we put it over the door to Susan's tent. Then we got rope and tied it around the posts to made a corral. Then we put Bessie into the corral. We finally made it to bed around 3:30 am.

We got up around 7:00 am. The Stake leaders had already moved the canopy back over their tables. We found Bessie hanging from the flag pole. We got her down and then we packed up. We drove home half asleep and then we still had to clean and dry our soaking tents. I finally got home in the afternoon. I had never had such a fun filled week in my life. I couldn't wait for the next year and the adventures that it would contain.

Inspiration: Know your limits

Here is a funny example of what happens when you don't know what you are volunteering yourself for. I love this comic and I cut it out of the paper 6 years ago to remind me why it is important to know your limitations.

I try operate within my limits. For example I didn't work during the last 4 months of my pregnancy. I didn't work because I knew by the time I found a new job and was trained I would probably be on bed rest. However, I couldn't help feel guilty about not working - especially when I wasn't on bed rest yet. In October I was listening to conference and heard the talk by Elder Uchtdorf. Among other things he said:

"Have you ever been in an airplane and experienced turbulence? The most common cause of turbulence is a sudden change in air movement causing the aircraft to pitch, yaw, and roll. While planes are built to withstand far greater turbulence than anything you would encounter on a regular flight, it still may be disconcerting to passengers.

What do you suppose pilots do when they encounter turbulence? A student pilot may think that increasing speed is a good strategy because it will get them through the turbulence faster. But that may be the wrong thing to do. Professional pilots understand that there is an optimum turbulence penetration speed that will minimize the negative effects of turbulence. And most of the time that would mean to reduce your speed. The same principle applies also to speed bumps on a road.

Therefore, it is good advice to slow down a little, steady the course, and focus on the essentials when experiencing adverse conditions.

This is a simple but critical lesson to learn. It may seem logical when put in terms of trees or turbulence, but it’s surprising how easy it is to ignore this lesson when it comes to applying these principles in our own daily lives. When stress levels rise, when distress appears, when tragedy strikes, too often we attempt to keep up the same frantic pace or even accelerate, thinking somehow that the more rushed our pace, the better off we will be.

From this talk I learned that it is okay to slow down and take things easy sometimes. It reminded me that I was doing something far more important that working and earning money - I was helping our twins to grow. I'm certain that the girls would have been born a lot earlier if I had been dealing with the stresses from a job (especially the one I quit).

To read all of Elder Uchtdorf's talk click here. To see the website where I found the comic click here.

Valentine's Day Decorations

I'm always sad when we take down the Christmas decorations. To make up for the sudden lack of color I always decorate for Valentines Day. It's my favorite holiday so it makes sense that I would decorate for it a month in advance.

This year I wanted to use all my glass vases that will probably start disappearing over the next few months as I start baby proofing. So I put every vase I owned on top of the TV stand and filled them up with ribbon in Valentine's Day colors. The overall effect is awesome and I love looking at it while I nurse.

The top shelve of our bookcase has an aviation theme. The plaque says, “That’s all very fine and good, but what does it have to do with flying an airplane?" From Elder Uchtdorf's talk last October.
One top of the book cases I arranged some of the other things that will disappear into boxes once the baby proofing begins.

Smiles!

Brandon just barely recorded and sent this to me with his phone.

As big as (some) newborns

I'm often asked, "how big are the girls now?" For the past month I haven't had an accurate answer because we haven't had a dr's appointment. I was glad not to know because it meant the girls were healthy.

Well on Thursday they had their 2 month check up and so we found out how much they weigh. Here are the stats. The percents are calculated based off of babies that are one month old because the girls were 4 weeks early.

Charlotte

Height: 20 3/4 inches 45%

Weight: 7 lbs 3 oz 10%

Head: 35.5 cm 45%
Lydia

Height: 20 1/4 inches 20%

Weight: 6 lbs 7 oz 3% (Yes Lydia is bigger than only 3% of 1 month olds)

Head: 35 cm 10%

So my girls are long and skinny. I was a little concerned about their weight percents until the Dr reminded me that they are twins. (Somehow I forgot) And so it was okay for them to be smaller than single babies. Still it's funny to think that both girls are smaller than their Dad was at birth (7 lbs 11 oz) and Lydia is smaller than I was when I was born (6 lbs 13 oz). I like that they are small because it means I can carry them both around easily.

Our next Dr's appt isn't until April. That means we have a glorious two months without any checkups. Do you know how long it has been since I have been able to go two months without seeing a Doctor? It's been since May of last year. I'm going to love the freedom! Hopefully the girls stay healthy so we don't have to go in for anything in the meantime.

In other news, the girls are starting to sleep through the night, or at least close enough to it. Here is how I am faking a full nights sleep. After I feed the girls around 8:00 PM I let them have tummy time for about 2 hours. They grunt and cry and squirm for about an hour until they are worn out and they settle down. Then at 11:00 Brandon and I feed them, change their diapers, wrap them up tight, stick them in their cradle, give them binkies, sing to them, have family prayer, and then shut the door and let them cry.

We get ready for bed, say our prayers, and read scriptures. Then if the girls are still crying we go back into their room and give them their binkies one last time. After that they are on their own. And usually they are done crying within 5 to 10 minutes. The apartment is usually silent after midnight. The girls will usually sleep until 5:30 or 6:00. (Though there is an occasional 3:30 AM feeding) We feed the girls and then go back to sleep until about 8:30 when Brandon goes to work and the girls usually wake up again. After that feeding I can sometimes get them back to sleep, but usually one or the other wants to stay awake which means I'm awake too.

The girls are getting more alert and expressive each day. Lydia even smiled while she was awake yesterday. She also went cross-eyed right after that so I'm not sure how in control of her face she was, but it's a start. Charlotte loves to look at things. We've discovered that she LOVES to look at our green bookcases. If she is crying we take her over to look at them and she usually calms right down.

Brandon is very cute with the girls. Last week I came home from blogging to find one baby asleep on the couch and the other in the little baby chair. The baby chair vibrates if it has batteries, but we didn't have any extra batteries. That didn't stop Brandon, he rigged it up to his wall adapter thingy and it ran off the AC current from the electrical outlet.

I think I'm adjusted to this parenting thing. For a while there I thought I didn't need naps anymore, but then I realized I still did. So around 3:00 everyday I make sure I lay down and sleep for a little bit.

I'm starting to get more done around the house again. I'm able to get dinner ready before Brandon gets home now. I even dusted the other day! And I vacuumed the living room for the first time since before the girls were born. Every day I usually have one big goal like do laundry or file bills or something like that. If I get the big goal done it is a successful day. Anything else I get done is just bonus. I make sure I'm dressed everyday too because that makes me feel more like doing things. Overall I am loving being a Stay at Home Mom (even if I hate that title).

Sixth Grade

I started sixth grade pretty ticked off at the world. My parents had just ruined my life. They were responsible for me big in the wrong school class. My elementary school had a system of placing students of similar reading abilities and aptitude test scores together. I'd been with the exact same group of kids since 4th grade. I'd been with some of the kids since 2nd grade when my family moved to Kearns. We were called the "Access" class. Everyone from the principle to the teachers to the other students knew that the access class was made up of the smartest children in the grade. Thanks to a good memory and test taking skills I was considered one of the "smartest" in my class- and I knew it.

My sisters were not in the access class of their grades. This just illustrates how much elementary test scores don't show. Both sisters would graduate high school with higher GPA's than me. But we didn't know that back in 1996. For some reason this caste system mentality affected our home life. My parents decided that in order to have peace and harmony at home they would need to have all of there children in the same school class level. And so the Friday before school started I stared in horror at the class list that contained the names of all my friends, but not my name. My name was on the list with all the regular kids. I started crying and pretty much cried until school started on Monday.

School was painful at first. None of the kids could figure out what had happened to me. The access kids treated me differently because I was now in the regular class. My best friends, who were access kids, tried to be friendly but it was hard because we were in different classes. The kids in my class didn't accept me. And I didn't know how to treat anyone in return.

There was one small consolation prize. I had the good teacher. All my friends were were in the class with a teacher who was new to the school. My teacher was Mr. B. who had a reputation for being fun and caring. And fun was what I needed. I was so worried about always appearing smart that I had a hard time relaxing. Also I was incredible book smart, but I was embarrassingly remedial in everything else. I could hardly do my own hair, and I had no fashion sense. I'm ashamed to say that I wore a jump suit on the first day of school and a pinafore (yes a pinafore at age 11!) on picture day. (Hence the lack of pictures in this post, some things just shouldn't be seen.)

Gradually things began to change. First I made friends with people who were similarly ostracized. One of my neighbors was an autistic boy who was a year younger than me. We had always got along well at home. His 5th grade class shared shared a lunch table with my class so I started eating with him. I also made friends with a girl who spoke a limited amount of English. I began to like my classmates and they began to accept me as well. A pivotal day occurred when they elected me to a monthly leadership position within our class.

I learned how to relax and have fun. Mr. B. let us have pizza parties just about every Friday. We also had an exceptional amount of extra recesses. On hot days he let us play in the water from the sprinklers - we just couldn't play with the sprinkler heads. I have lots of memories of relaxing by doing water coloring during free time. This was the most artistic I had been in years.

By the end of the school year I was happy with how things had turned out. I still had my best friends from the access class and I had friends in my regular class. I'd learned how to do my own hair by watching the regular girls. I wasn't dressing great yet, but at least I knew not to wear everything that my mom told me was cute. Most of all I had learned not to be stuck up about how smart I was. I'd learned that there were a lot more important things to life than just getting a high score on a test.

Inspiration: Don't Give Up

Sometimes I feel like Brandon and I are the only people who have struggles and fears. That we are the only people in the world who don't have everything we want. Back when Brandon was still in school we read a story that inspired us to not give up- that good things would come. This is from Elder Jeffrey R Holland's Conference talk in October 1999. Here is the part of the talk that I like. The part in bold hangs above Brandon's desk.

Forgive me for a personal conclusion, which does not represent the terrible burdens so many of you carry but it is meant to be encouraging. Thirty years ago last month, a little family set out to cross the United States to attend graduate school—no money, an old car, every earthly possession they owned packed into less than half the space of the smallest U-Haul trailer available. Bidding their apprehensive parents farewell, they drove exactly 34 miles up the highway, at which point their beleaguered car erupted.

Pulling off the freeway onto a frontage road, the young father surveyed the steam, matched it with his own, then left his trusting wife and two innocent children—the youngest just three months old—to wait in the car while he walked the three miles or so to the southern Utah metropolis of Kanarraville, population then, I suppose, 65. Some water was secured at the edge of town, and a very kind citizen offered a drive back to the stranded family. The car was attended to and slowly—very slowly—driven back to St. George for inspection—U-Haul trailer and all.

After more than two hours of checking and rechecking, no immediate problem could be detected, so once again the journey was begun. In exactly the same amount of elapsed time at exactly the same location on that highway with exactly the same pyrotechnics from under the hood, the car exploded again. It could not have been 15 feet from the earlier collapse, probably not 5 feet from it! Obviously the most precise laws of automotive physics were at work.

Now feeling more foolish than angry, the chagrined young father once more left his trusting loved ones and started the long walk for help once again. This time the man providing the water said, “Either you or that fellow who looks just like you ought to get a new radiator for that car.” For the second time a kind neighbor offered a lift back to the same automobile and its anxious little occupants. He didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry at the plight of this young family.

“How far have you come?” he said. “Thirty-four miles,” I answered. “How much farther do you have to go?” “Twenty-six hundred miles,” I said. “Well, you might make that trip, and your wife and those two little kiddies might make that trip, but none of you are going to make it in that car.” He proved to be prophetic on all counts.

Just two weeks ago this weekend, I drove by that exact spot where the freeway turnoff leads to a frontage road, just three miles or so west of Kanarraville, Utah. That same beautiful and loyal wife, my dearest friend and greatest supporter for all these years, was curled up asleep in the seat beside me. The two children in the story, and the little brother who later joined them, have long since grown up and served missions, married perfectly, and are now raising children of their own. The automobile we were driving this time was modest but very pleasant and very safe. In fact, except for me and my lovely Pat situated so peacefully at my side, nothing of that moment two weeks ago was even remotely like the distressing circumstances of three decades earlier.

Yet in my mind’s eye, for just an instant, I thought perhaps I saw on that side road an old car with a devoted young wife and two little children making the best of a bad situation there. Just ahead of them I imagined that I saw a young fellow walking toward Kanarraville, with plenty of distance still ahead of him. His shoulders seemed to be slumping a little, the weight of a young father’s fear evident in his pace. In the scriptural phrase his hands did seem to “hang down.” In that imaginary instant, I couldn’t help calling out to him: “Don’t give up, boy. Don’t you quit. You keep walking. You keep trying. There is help and happiness ahead—a lot of it—30 years of it now, and still counting. You keep your chin up. It will be all right in the end. Trust God and believe in good things to come.”

I often think about this story when I get discouraged. It reminds me that even apostles in the church struggled at times. It reminds me that there are good things coming in life. Since I first read this story in 2009 several good things have come into my life. Brandon graduated, we moved out of Logan, and we had the girls. I look forward to other good things that will certainly come.

You can read the whole talk by clicking here. And you can read the story that the picture goes with by clicking here.

Licking

The girls have started licking a lot lately. They lick whenever their binkies fall out. They usually lick their blankets, but they also will lick each other. It's pretty cute. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of it yet. So here is one where they both have their binkies.

Changes to this blog

These days I have a lot of time to think. Nursing isn't the most thrilling thing to do in the world. To take my mind off the tedium I usually read. If I'm not reading, I'm thinking. And I'm usually thinking about things I can write about. Lately I've started writing while I nurse. I'm going to start putting a lot of my thoughts on this blog. Here are some of the subjects and the day you can expect to see them appear.

Sunday: A post on something that has been uplifting for me.

Monday: Memories from girls camp, youth conference, and school.

Wednesday: An update on what we have done during the week.

Friday: Any crafts or other hobbies that I have done.

A lot of these posts are probably going to be interesting only to me, but hopefully some of you will benefit from them as well.

Bottles

Here is a movie of the process I go through to get bottles ready for whichever twin is eating by bottle. It's an involved process but it is still easier than nursing two babies every day.

Bath Time

I decided to film how to give a swaddle bath. This movie is a little long (5 min), but the girls were so cute I couldn't cut some of the moments out.

New Years

Brandon and I usually pick out a movie trilogy and watch all three movies on New Years Eve. This year we decided to watch the first three Terminator movies. Several years ago I saw the last 45 minutes of third movie and I've always wondered what happened to lead up to what I saw. Brandon also saw the end of the 3rd movie. Right as the atomic bombs fell his brother accidentally lit off a fire ball in the kitchen - talk about interactive media.

We really got curious about the movie after watching the Terminator/Back the the Future Spoof on How it should have ended.com (Click here to watch the clip, and then take a minute and look around the site for more hilarious spoofs.)

Anyway so we rented all three movies and had a Terminator marathon. It was kind of like a history of cinima class. Each movie came out in a different decade so it was interesting to see what action movies were like in the 80's, 90's and 00's. The first one was the goriest. The second showed off it's state of the art special effects. The third movie was my favorite because it combined humor, action, and drama really well. The beginning chase sequence probably cost the same amount as the budget for the first movie.

At midnight we toasted the new year with an Apple/Cranberry Juice combo. We talked about what a year 2010 was and what we would like to do in 2011. Then we went to bed.

Brandon had to work on New Years Day so I took him to work and headed out to my parents house. Later that day I went to my Grandma's 70th birthday party. Here she is holding her first and second great granddaughters. It was a great way to start the new year.