Cubbies Awards Night

This year was Ethan's first year in a program called Cubbies. Cubbies is part of the Awana (Approved Workmen Are Not Ashamed and comes from the Bible verse 2 Timothy 2:15) program. Cubbies is a fun introduction to God's word for preschoolers. It encourages little ones to make scripture part of their lives through parent-child activities.

Ethan really loved his Cubbies class this year and he will attend again next year! Last night was the awards ceremony for all of the kids. Being his first year, Ethan was a little shy and didn't know all of the songs, but he put forth a great effort! What a little sweetheart!! These things always get me teary eyed. Good thing I'm not pregnant anymore... I cried all during Ethan's Christmas program at preschool. HORMONES!! I'll have to post that video as well.

Here are a few pictures/videos from lasst night.


Ethan with all of the Awana groups getting ready to sing.


Ethan receiving his award of recognition for dedication to Cubbies.


Ethan with some of his other Cubbie friends.


Afterward they had cake and lemonade outside the church and the kids all ran around and played. This is cutie pie Ryan!

Ethan was so cute in his effort to do the gestures to the song. The teachers were in front of them showing them. Ethan didn't know whether to look at us or his teacher.

My heart swells with pride for my little guy!!

Misc Pictures

Silly Ryan wearing Daddy's pants!


McKenna & Aaron's first time outside on a blanket.

Baby Talk

TGFI . . .

THANK GOD FOR INSURANCE!!!

We received the insurance coverage for my hospital stay while having the twins. We paid $90 to the hospital. Following is what the insurance paid:

3 Days in a Private Room . . . $3828.00
Drugs . . . $864.38
Laboratory . . . $4252.20
Operating Room . . . $2519.00
Anesthesia . . . $362.00
Recovery Room (I spent one hour in here after the c-section) . . . $570.00

For a grand total of $12,395.58.

Of course, this doesn't include the fees from my OB, of which we paid $15 and the rest was covered by insurance. Or the fee from the pediatrician to be in the OR with us and then all of the check-ups while in the hospital, of which we didn't pay anything and insurance covered 100%.

I'll say it again . . . Thank God For Insurance!! Especially the great coverage we have!!!

One more farm picture...

Grandma and Ryan petting the horse.

Fun Pictures

I'm happy to report that it is 3:45 and the babies have been napping since 1:00 this afternoon!! Princess McKenna has been in her crib the entire time. Mr. Aaron, on the other hand, only lasted in his crib for about and hour and a half and he has been in the swing ever since. I think we might be on the road to more sleep soon!!! On Wednesday night they ate at 9:30 and then slept until 3:00!!! It was heaven. Last night did not go as well. However I attribute that to Ethan having trouble sleeping. He had gotten over tired yesterday and therefore didn't sleep good last night. He tends to dream a lot when he is over tired and then cries a lot in his sleep. Yesterday was bring your child to work day so Ethan went to Intel with Matt for a few hours in the afternoon. He had a great time. Next year, both boys should be able to attend!

Anyway, here are a few recent pictures and videos:


The girls and I had a dinner get together on Wednesday night with our babies. Starting from the top left corner and going counter clockwise is Addison, McKenna, Aaron, Garrett and Anderson. Addie was born in November, Garrett in February and McKenna, Aaron and Anders were all born in March. It's so fun when we all get together and I'm sure will be even more fun once they become mobile!


Ryan helps with McKenna's bath and washes her feet.


Daddy and the boys giving McKenna a bath!


Aaron & McKenna... sweet babies.


Awwww... my children just melt my heart!


Such little sweethearts!


Gerber babies!!!

Ethan rocking Aaron in his rocking chair.

McKenna's turn!

We start 'em young around here!!!

A visit with Austin & Dominic

Austin & Dominic were in town this week from Dallas. It was so great to see them as we miss them all so much!! Monday night, Matt, the babies and I went out with Austin and some of her other friends. It was fun to see people we hadn't seen in a long time. On Wednesday we took the kids to the farm and had a good time watching the kids see the animals and interact with each other. I can't believe how much Dominic has grown. I remember the cookie exchange when Austin announced she was pregnant with him. Then when he was born, we went to visit and I left the hospital saying I wanted another baby... nine months later Ryan was born... HAHA!!

A few pictures...


Ethan & Dominic posing with the horse.


Dominic checks out the donkey.


Dominic, Ethan and Ryan checking out the horses.


Ethan and Ryan


Dominic and Ethan

I've been tagged...

I've been tagged by Debbie, a fellow twin mom whose b/g twins are 13 days older than ours. I started reading her blog after reading about her on Jenny Scott's webpage. I've been following Jenny since 2004 when her daughter, Allie, was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia, which she later passed away from. Allie was just 13 days older than Ethan.

It's been fun following Debbie's blog and reading about her family. We seem to have a lot in common as she also has two older children. I especially loved reading her recent post about twin comments she hears when going out. It is so funny because we always feel like a side show when we are out with twins. We always get stopped at least once, and much more when we have all four of them with us!!! What a special blessing we have to be Mom's of twins!!

The rules:

A. Link to the tagger and post these rules on your blog.
B. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some weird, some random.
C. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs. Lastly, let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog. I will be skipping this part because other than Jenny and Debbie, I don't read any other blogs and don't know of any of my friends that have them. However, I thought it would be fun to do anyway!

1. I have a friendship daisy tattooed on my foot in the exact same spot as one of my friend's from college. We had a special bond because her name was Kelly Jo Anderson and mine was Kelly Jean Anderson. We had fun confusing our college professors.

2. I also have a bit of OCD... to the point that I once made my mom drive 20 minutes from her house to mine to make sure I had turned off the curling iron... of course I had!!

3. Our dog, Bailey, was my first baby. I threw her a birthday party on her 1st birthday. I sent out invitations, made both a human and a dog cake, bought her a shirt that said "It's my pawty and I'll bark if I want to" and had birthday hats for all of the dogs that attended. Nowdays, the dogs have lost their ranking in our family. We still love them, but they get far less attention.

4. When I do laundry, I like to make sure I have enough time to do all of the loads so that when I'm folding I only have to run around the house once to put things away. I have specific piles for things and I get frustrated when my husband puts something in the wrong pile. I prefer to fold laundry by myself and then have him put it away.

5. I graduated in 2001 with a degree in business marketing. Since then, I've worked at Barnes & Noble, been a nanny, was a billing assistant for a short period, was a substitute teacher, owned my own home daycare and now I'm a SAHM. I guess college was just for fun for me!!

6. I'm a total people pleaser and never want to rough the waters. That was a difficult thing when I had my daycare. It was hard to stand up for myself with some of the parents.

7. I was born and raised in Green Bay, WI and am a total cheesehead. How ironic that Brett Favre retired on the same day our babies were born!

Busy

Last week was a busy week so I aplogize for not updating sooner. Both babies had colds early in the week, so we hung around home so they could feel better. On Wednesday night, Ethan brought the treat for his last Cubbies class. Thursday and Friday were hectic because I had a dentist on Thursday and my 6 week follow-up appt on Friday. Trying to get everybody ready and delivered to school, babysitters and me to my 9:00 appointments on time was kind of hectic. Friday we spent the day with Jen and Ashley and all of the kids. Can I just say how much I cherish my friendship with Jen!!! Her and I have so much in common and we get along so great... don't know what I'd do without her!!!

Can you believe the babies will be 7 weeks old tomorrow!!! Where does the time go?!?! We are making some progress in the sleep department. If left to her own, I think McKenna would sleep beautifully, but Mr. Aaron doesn't like to sleep much, so he is still getting up every 3-4 hours at night. We started putting them in their own cribs last night as they are both getting somewhat mobile and scooting around the crib... Miss McKenna especially. We have started sleep training during the day and are working hard on naps. Basically, they eat, have a 1-2 hour awake period and then we put them down in their cribs for a nap. These naps are lasting anywhere from 30 minutes to 1-1/2 hours. Hopefully soon we will get on more of a schedule, but for now I can handle this. I'll keep you posted on our progress!

We are also trying out a new feeding method when I am alone.... HANDS FREE FEEDING!!! What a wonderful concept and I am hoping to keep a little more sanity this week. I was starting to get a little overwhelmed last week. We want to keep them on the same feeding schedule, so I was propping bottles with blankets and what not, and it really was NOT working. Sometimes they take forever to burp and while working with one, the other would spit up everywhere. It was not a good system! Thankfully someone invented PODEE bottles that allows for hands free feeding. The babies are doing really well with them!!


Our first try with PODEE bottles and they took right to it.


Aaron says, "Look at me, I can hold my own bottle!"


McKenna as content as can be!

Saturday we got brave and headed down to the Denver Zoo with Jen & Derek and their boys. It was a lot of work with a preschooler, two toddlers and three newborns, but we had a good time. We signed up for the family membership so we can go as often as we want in the next year. This makes it easier to go down for just a couple of hours before heading home.


Ryan & Ethan playing the drums in the monkey kingdom!


Ethan, Daddy & Ryan checking out the bears.


Ethan all tuckered out on the drive home from the zoo.


Ethan and Ryan getting ready to head into the zoo.


Cool looking Aaron gears up for his first trip to the zoo.


Pretty mcKenna in her zoo hat.


Ethan checking out the elephants.


Ryan, Derek and Broggan watching the elephant show.

MISC pictures from the week:


Aaron catching some zzz's on the couch.


Princess McKenna


Awwwwww.. how sweet!!




We had the babies on the floor while we were doing some chores. When we came out to check on them, Ethan and Ryan had given the babies their pillows and covered them up with a blanket... Such loving big brothers!!






Ryan checking out the toys.


Ethan sits next to his fort he built.

Future Firefighters?

Ethan wanted to go to the fire station and show them their new fire fighter outfits. So today the boys helped Vanessa bake chocolate chip cookies and we headed over to deliver them. As always, the boys were adorable!! Ethan asked if they had a Windsor Fire patch he could put on his "uniform", but they were all out. Instead they gave each of the boys a pencil, a tattoo and a sticker. We also took some pictures on the truck. All in all, it was a fun trip.

The rest of the pictures are misc from the weekend.


Future fire fighters!!


What a cool fire truck!


Best friends.... Aaron, McKenna & Anders


Big boys eating breakfast together at the big table.


McKenna helping Daddy put away laundry.


Silly Ryan wearing his fire hat sideways.

Updates

It's been a few days since I've been able to get on here to post updates. We've been busy. Tuesday I took Ryan and the babies to the Rec Center for their toddler open gym. I figure this is one way Ryan can get out for socialization and also have something of his own to do. It was fun and I managed to get both babies fed while we were there and even walk around with McKenna in the Bjorn and carrying Aaron on my arm. Everybody kept coming up and saying, "Oh twins, they're so cute!" At one point Jenn and I were walking around and she had Anders in her front carrier and some lady ran up to us and asked if they were triplets... haha, we got a good laugh.

Wednesday was low key in the morning. Ryan, Aaron, McKenna and I hung out at the house. After we went and got Ethan from school, we went over to Sarah's so the boys could play with Josh & Alyssa and I could chat with Sarah for awhile. It was a great time for all of us and it was nice to have the extra set of hands. I told Sarah to call me anytime she wants to hold babies!!

Today was my MOPS meeting and we had a great time as usual. Jenn and I have such an awesome group of ladies at our table, as well as the group as a whole being great this year!! After coming home from there I did some housework and laundry... will the laundry ever end?!?! When I wasn't doing that, I was feeding babies!! Thank goodness for Vanessa being here to help me!! We had dinner delivered again tonight, so it was nice to not have to worry about that. Ethan also had his class picture at school today, so I'm anxious to see how that turned out. He promised me that he smiled good, so we'll see!

I'm starting to feel the exhaustion setting in. I can't complain because I am getting some decent sleep, but I long for the nights when we will be uninterrupted. Hopefully they won't be too far off. Fortunately, we are down to one late evening (10 or 11) and one early morning (2 or 3) feeding and then we are up for the day after the 6:30ish feeding.

The boys continue to do great with their new siblings. They are always kissing and hugging on them. Ethan always makes it a point to give them kisses and hugs when he leaves for school, as do both boys when they are going to bed at night.

I'm adding some recent pictures of all the kids over the past week or so. We feel so blessed to have such adorable and sweet children!! I'm so in love with our family!!


It was nice last Saturday so the boys ate their lunch outside. Hopefully we'll be doing a lot of that this summer!!


Cutie Ryan!


A one week supply of formula... OY!!


Ethan has always had a love for fire fighters, fire trucks, etc. He has passed that love onto his brother. They have a DVD that takes place in a NY fire house and talks about the trucks, gear, clothes, a day in the life basically. They are always pretending to be fire fighters and wearing their coats and backpacks as their "gear". We had a plastic fire coat, but it had gotten ripped and it seemed like everything out their was really poor quality. I finally did a search online and found a site that is a supplier for actual fire fighters and they had these junior fire fighter outfits. We got one for each of the boys and they are awesome. They are high quality material that won't fall apart and I have to say that the boys look ADORABLE. If you have a little firefighter in your house, check out this site... http://www.thefirestore.com/store/product.cfm/pid_2296_jr_firefighter_gear_set_including_coat_pants_suspenders_helmet_black/




Aaron pondering his thoughts while he drinks his bottle!






Despite the look on his face, Ethan loves to feed the babies and always wants to help!


Awwww... sweet McKenna snuggling in to her brother!!