Cuteness Alert and Bye Bye Binkies

Thats Aubrey at one, oh how she loved her binky. Truthfully I loved it too. It made life so much easier. But alas all good things must come to an end.Approahing age 3 there are certain things that are no longer acceptable by society standards. Like using a diaper, sucking on binkies, and sleeping in bed with your parents. This week I tackled the binky.

The ones they had were getting really gross, like chewed on full of spit you get the idea. So on a whim I cut the ends off all of them and threw them in the garbage with Aubrey at my side all the while explaining they were now too yucky so we needed to throw them away.

As a result we are on day 4 of being binky free and the girls have handled it like champs. Sure they occasionally go to the garbage and gaze longingly at the last known binky spotting. Aubrey will even ask at bedtime only to be reminded they are gone and gross. To which she replies I chewed it, it yucky. So I'm feeling pretty good about my success I may even try potty training...maybe.

Happy Friday, have a great weekend everybody!!!!!!!!

Camping

Nate took the big kids camping this last weekend. I still wasn't feeling quite like myself so I opted to stay home with the girls. They ended up finding a great place at Clear Lake. Noah has become the expert Marshmellow roaster. He even made smores for the single nice guy next to them who was trying to get over his divorce by chopping tons pf wood and giving it out to fellow campers.Thats the Lake in the background, they got this beautiful spot and had a great time hiking and fishing.
What? Thats me? At the Lake? Thats right I got up Saturday morning intending on spending a couple hours with the fam and ended up staying until dark. It was so peaceful and so beautiful and we had so much fun together I couldn't drag myself away. Sorry BFF for missing the baptism and sorry YW pres for missing the auction (:

The girls were so excited to run around the campground, watch the geese in the water and play in the tent. It'd been way too long since the whole fam spent the day together. I just noticed in the angle of that picture above my arm looks so huge!

There's the crew, the girls are getting so big. I think camping with them might be easier this year. ? Sunday the kids saw a bullhead snake, Nate said he'd never seen them so excited. They came home with pink cheeks, smelling like campfire, and wiped out. I talked Nate into coming home Sunday afternoon, although I know he wanted to stay.

For those who are testing their twin ID Aubrey's in the middle with the big smile (typical).

Explanation

For whatever reason I feel like I need to explain why I haveen't been blogging.
I'm kinda dealing with a thing...I don't wanna use labels but my BFF may call it a Funk.

It began last weekend at the end of another 4 day hunting trip from my sweet husband. It's like I hit my limit, after being on overtime.

So the first part of the week I had to resist the urge to go back to bed and I felt a bad feeling closing in on me.

Luckily I was able to thwart it with my number one medication...exercise.
For some reason it does the trick. Usually.

Yesterday however I gave in to the urge and it has turned out to be a turning point. All I wanna do is sleep and eat. Not Good. I don't feel like doing anything else. Like really don't wanna do anything else.

I am not one to just sit around and feel sorry for myself so heres my theories as to why I feel so crummy!
1. Lack of quality sleep, i.e. twins in bed on a consistent basis for going on 3 years
2. Uncertainty in the future, where we'll be living, my calling, Nate's job (I'm not good with change)
3. Lack of much needed exteneded mommy break leading to feelings of inadequacy and being overwhelmed.
4. Not much to look forward to...?
5. Grandma taking a turn for the worse and will probably pass on soon.

Its probably a combination. I hesitate sharing because I don't want you to feel sorry for me. I'm really ok, usually I just wake up one day and feel better. Until then I'll fake it till I make. I'm good at that, aren't we all?

The End of an Era

Happy Aubrey takin a bath. These pictures were takin awhile ago but last night I started filling the bath water for Noah who was as usual overdo for a scrubbin. Before he even had a chance to get in the girls insisted on climbing in.By the time Noah was ready to join them there was simply no room. The kids bath is not large so between two growing girls and way too many toys there was no room. So I filled up the other tub for Noah.
There was a time when we would split up the twins putting one in one tub with Kelsey and one in the other tub with Noah. It was great because it enabled Nate and I to do somthing other than supervise little girls in the tub. But recently Kelsey's grown out of baths to showers and is too self concious for group bathing. Which is fine because she's 10, but it's still kinda sad because they always had so much fun together.

The last time Noah bathed with the girls Aubrey proceeded to push Noah down on his back into the water. She then climbed on top in attempt at some sort of water wrestle move. I happen to be sitting right there and laughed so hard and loud Nate came to see what was going on. It was not lost on me the inappropriateness of this, Noah being a 7 year old boy and all.

It became clear that he too should be done bathing with the girls. Don't worry the twins will still be taking baths together for years to come but appears their older siblings will not be joining them any time soon. Lets face it my kids will have enough to talk about in therapy lets not add to the trama.

Have a great Sunny Weekend everybody!

The Party

This is from the day of Kelsey's birthday. She had a great day. We spoiled her!The cake turned out good, and was so easy to make considering the past years have included, a care bear, franklin the turtle, a barbie and an alligator just to name a few.
Here's the girls at Skateworld. Two couldn't come and that was ok. Kelsey's known Karman (the one with long hair and pink shirt) since they were like 2 I think thats awsome. I hope they all had fun, no broken bones thats a success in my book!

This ones for you Liz. Yes, I'm skating even though you can't see my skates. Kelsey thought I was really weird that she had to take a picture of me. I figured it was good exercise and I was trying to help Noah who went for the first time. One minute he was," no don't help me!" so I'd leave, the next thing I knew he was screaming for me to come help. That boy exhausts me.

All in all it went pretty well, for me it was a pretty low key party and thats just the way I like it!

Happy Birthday Kelsey

Sadly we have no baby pictures on our computer of Kelsey, so you'll just have to take my word for it when I tell you she was a beautiful baby! I just love Noah's face in this picture! Look at those cheeks!She was around four in this one and it definetely shows her personality. As a baby she had these big blue eyes and no hair until she was 2. When it did grow in , it was these adorable little ringlets and she was always so happy.
She's my buddy and she turns 10 today. I'm so proud of her, she's grown into a wonderful girl. She has an awesome testimony, she's a great student, she's helpful, and thoughful.

I brought her home from the hospital on mothers day. I can't believe I have a 10 year old. It doesn't make me feel old I just can't believe everything thats happened in a decade.

I made her favorite crepes for breakfast, I'm taking subway for her lunch (favorite) and we're going to Sharis for dinner so she can get her favorite cinna-station. She had her birthday outfit picked out in the beginning of the week and was up early this morning.

Saturday I take her and a bunch of her friends to skateworld to party hardy. I hope she has a great day, she is such a blessing to our family and I feel so lucky to have her!

Cuteness Alert

If looking at these pictures doesn't put a smile on your face...nothing will.Aubrey is laying in her toy box on top of all her dress up clothes. Her sister was in doll bed so why shouldn't she join in and lay in her own bed. This is at "naptime" by the way.

Sydney started it when she took all her babies out and proceeded to climb in, I don't know how she doesn't get a leg stuck but as you can see, she's thrilled. They only did this a couple times, I'm sure the novelty wore off when she discovered how uncomfortable it is.

This is me going nigh-night and closing the door, knowing full well they will not nap, but not caring as long as I get an hour of peace to eat lunch, catch my breath and rest my eyes. They in turn will destroy their room piece by piece but once again its worth it and frankly they're to the point where if they nap they won't go to bed, so for now it works (sometimes).

On our Own

For those of you who don't remember here's the definition of Shed Hunting. Why do you care? Well you don't except Nate went again for four days and took the camera, so thats what my pictures are...Eastern Oregon at its finest.

So the kids and I do pretty good. We were pretty busy with shopping and birthday parties. That was probably a good thing, because those evenings after the kids go to bed get long and lonley. Kelsey and I were also very busy working on her Oregon Trail Projects which are never-ending and ridiculously time consuming.

Nate went to a kind of huge reserve for deer and elf, so naturally he saw alot. No matter how many he sees it never ceases to amaze him, hence the pictures. Apparently theres bears and cougars there too and they saw quite a few cougar kills. He even took a picture of one that he just HAD to show me because of the baby that had been ripped out when the cougar ripped the deer into pieces. I won't show you that picture, you can thank me later, me on the other hand will NEVER get that image out of my head!

He can't actually shoot these guys because its the wrong time of year so why go? Well, I think I've finally figured it out. My husband is a really mysterious. I have my things shopping, out to dinner, movies, bookclub, scrapbooking, etc. This is his thing, camping, hiking, whatever.
Nate's been really great about me being gone ALOT lately including chuch stuff so in turn I was ok about hime being gone 4 DAYS (maybe not totally ok).

Here Nate's buddy actually finding a shed. Exciting right? Wow, it looks really hard to find these things no wonder it takes 4 days. And no Nate didn't find one, do you see how hard they are to spot? (: Nate rarely finds one and he never seems to care. Which leads me to question the purpose of these trips. To get a break from me and the kids? Not the kids he kept saying how much he missed them. Hmmmm?

The kids and I thought this was funny, see the hunter barbie holding the shed. Those guys are just wild and crazy? Have a Great Week Everybody!