Thanksgiving Workout!

I just wanted to let all of my local peeps know that I will be teaching a special Thanksgiving workout on Thanksgiving morning. It's going to be at the Provo 24 Hr. Fitness, 8:30 a.m. (I know, it's kinda early but that's so you can workout and still get home and get your Thanksgiving cooking done), we are doing Zumba, and it's FREE for anyone that wants to come. Just tell the front desk that you are there for my class.

If you've never done Zumba it is such a blast! It's a latin-based dance class but you don't have to be a dancer to do it. I've never taken a day of dance in my life (which is probably obvious when you see me dance), but it seriously is such a fun time.

Plus, after you workout you don't have to feel quite as bad about eating all of that yummy Thanksgiving goodness. I really do hope to see you there!

Halloween and New Hair

Jack asked to be a ghost for Halloween. I'm not even sure where he got the idea from but he was dead set on it.



This is Jack and Emi knocking on their first door. These two were so funny to watch trick-or-treat. They both kept getting so distracted that I think we only made it to 15 houses in about an hour-and-a-half!



You will probably think I am a lame mother but I did not dress the twins up for Halloween. Given our current economic state I could not justify the money it would cost me for two costumes that would have been worn for a total of 1 1/2 hours. So, I got them matching outfits instead. You're only seeing the onesies here. Somehow I forgot to take any pictures of the twins while we were out trick-or-treating...oh yeah, it's because they were all bundled under blankets the entire time. Another reason I could not justify costumes...no one would have even seen them!



And, I got my hair cut today. It's really short but I dig it!

October Adventures

Here are some of the things we've been up to lately.



Jack refuses to smile like a normal human being. And, we must do everything in undies only because while potty training he manages to pee on everything...shirts and pants, so I just let him run around in undies! Anyway, this is Jack helping carve our pumpkin WHICH, I'll have you know, we grew in our very own garden!




Here we are with the finished products. I carved the ghost on the right and Mike did the "Y" on the left. I must say I'm pretty impressed with Mike's "Y." He made the pattern himself!


Here are a few pictures of the twins who smile all of the time now! I love it.

Las Vegas

Last weekend we traveled down to Las Vegas for the BYU football game. We rode down with our friends Seth & Carrol Robins and met up with some of our other friends, Daniel & Katey Carlson, while we were there. Daniel's parents also came into town and went to the game with us.

While Las Vegas is not really my kind of city (I'm not really into gambling, porn, smoking, etc.) we stayed in a hotel off "the strip" and had a really great time going swimming, going to the outlet malls, having dinner at Hard Rock Cafe, and of course going to the BYU football game!

We left Jack here with his aunt & uncle (thank you Anna & Dante!), and just took the twins who were angel travelers! It was a great weekend!


The babies being happy travelers.


Carrol and I getting ready to take the babies out for a walk.



We went and walked down the strip and Max just kept looking up and smiling at me. It was so cute.


At the football game. Go COUGARS!!!





Meanwhile, this is what Anna & Dante were doing with Jack back home...

Jack Turns 3!!!

Jack celebrated his 3rd Birthday on Tuesday! I couldn't help but think about where I was exactly 3 years ago. I was so happy, anxious and excited to meet my first little baby. How could you not love this little boy?...



3 years later Jack never ceases to make me laugh and smile every single day. He is such a sweet little boy and I feel so blessed to be his Mommy. Happy Birthday Jack-Jack!


Here is Jack showing off some of his loot!



This is the cake I made for Jack. If you've been reading my blog for a long time you'll feel a little de ja vu. I attempted this cake for Jack's 1st Birthday but it was a pretty lame excuse for a frog. Jack was looking through his photo album and saw a picture of him on his 1st birthday. Ever since he has been requesting another froggy cake. So, I tried again and was much happier with this cake. Granted, it's not professional quality by any means but Jack loved it and that is all that matters.

Catching Up

I don't know why I'm even calling this post "catching up" since I don't really know what there is to catch up on. We did recently take another road trip to Oregon. The babies did quite well this time around. Granted they are almost 6 months old (I know, isn't that crazy??) so they were able to stay happy in their car seats a little longer than on our last trip. All of our pictures from Oregon are on Mike's thumb drive so I'll have to post those later.

In the meantime here are a few pics of the kids.


I had just changed every one's diapers after a day at the swimming pool and Jack asked if he could lay next to the babies. I thought it was cute to have all of my little kiddies laying there in their matching diapers. Notice that Max and Evelyn both have their ankles crossed. This is something all of my babies have done. And, I'm actually shocked that Jack's ankles aren't crossed too because to this day he still crosses his ankles all of the time.




This picture is so funny to me because if you know Evelyn she is a total toucher/grabber. Whenever she and Max are laying next to each other she inevitably ends up grabbing him or flopping her legs over on his chest or face. Max is less then fond of her touchiness and usually ends up whining or crying (depending on how hard she grabs or if she's kicking him in the jaw). It just cracks me up every time and I love the look on Max's face. It's like he's saying, "Oh man...she's got me again. This is going to hurt."



I absolutely love this picture of Max. He was in a very happy mood one morning and just kept grinning at me. I had to pull the camera out and snap a shot. What a cutie!

Rodeo

As promised, here are a couple of pictures from the Rodeo last week. We had such a great time and Jack absolutely LOVED it. He kept asking, "Mom, is it time to go yet?" I'd say, no and then he'd say, "Oh good, 'cause I want to see more horses." It was really cute.

I huge thanks to our friends Brenton and Shayla for inviting us. We had such a fun time!


This Otter Pop was literally as tall as Jack!



Mike (holding Max), Me (holding Evelyn) and Shayla.

Our Summer

I know I'm a complete blogging failure. Here is my attempt to catch up on what we've been doing this summer. It can pretty much be summed up in 1 picture...




Yup, swimming...lots and lots of swimming. That's what we've been doing. We did also go camping (forgot the camera) and to the Rodeo (pictures to come...forgot the camera but my friend had hers and she's going to put the pics. on a disc for me).

The babies also recently turned 4 months old. Here are their stats:



Max - 11 lbs. 14 oz. (5% percentile)
Evelyn - 12 lbs. (10% percentile)

I can't remember their height but they are almost exactly the same height, and who really cares about their head size? Max's head is obviously bigger than Evelyn's.

Here are just a couple more pictures for the fun of it. We were trying to get both of the babes in their cute BYU attire, but Max was not having it. Evelyn was super happy though so we took some of just her.

Question

Okay, I have a question. Oh, actually 2 questions:

1. Does the hot weather make anyone else not want to cook dinner? I feel like such a lame cook lately because I'm too hot to even feel like eating let alone cooking. What do you do on night like this?

2. Does being on facebook make anyone else a lame blogger? Since giving into pier pressure and joining facebook a few weeks ago I'm a completely non-existent blogger. What's up with that? I feel like I don't have the time (or motivation) to keep up on both.

Those are all my questions for now. On a side note, my babies are 4 months old today. Maybe I should take a picture...

Boys will be Boys

We've been trying to be really active this summer and spend most of the day out-and-about, hence the lack of blog posts lately. That and I'm usually tired by the end of the day and lack the patience for our super slow computer. You realize it takes me about 30 min. to do a post this short?! And yes, I know my husband is a computer science PhD candidate...where's my super speed computer you ask? That's my question too.

Anyway, enough whining. Here are some of the cute things I've been able to capture Jack & Max doing together.

This was on our walk home from the library the other day. Both boys must have been exhausted and zonked out on the ride home.



Here they are hangin' out in their diapers. Sometimes I think kids look so cute in just their diaper. I've noticed Jack becoming more interested in the babies lately. It's cute to see him interact with them.

3 Months

The babies are 3 months old today. It's gone by fast in some respects, but at the same time I feel like I know these babies so much better than you could possibly get to know someone in 3 short months. Here are some pics from our photo shoot this afternoon.

I Must Have Jinxed Myself...

My sister-in-law, Lindsey, mentioned that she had been looking at some old posts of ours and that I should go check out a post I did back in April 2007 entitled "Brooklyn." Click here to see the post. The pictures are not the funny part, it's what I wrote! Almost exactly two years later I had twins. Be careful what you say... Isn't that too funny?!

The Innocence of Youth

I packed all the kiddies up this morning and headed out for a nice long walk. We were up walking behind the Provo temple where there are some very large homes. During our walk Jack and I started a conversation. It went something like this:

"Mama, can I go see Jesus at his house?"
"Oh, no buddy, Jesus' house is in heaven."
"Where is that?"
"It's in the clouds."
"In the clouds? Is it in the mountains? Can I go there?"
"Well, if you're a really good boy you can go there someday and see Jesus again."
"Can I knock on his door?"
"Sure, you can knock on his door someday."
"But I want him to come down now."

Jack then looked up into the sky and yelled, "JESUS, WILL YOU COME DOWN AND SEE ME?!"

It was the cutest thing. I just love the way his little brain works.

On a side note, the babies are into smiling now. I love when babies smile. Here's one of each of them.

(I promise I don't usually pull my babies pants up to his armpits. The shorts were way too big for him so we kept having to hike them up to get them to stay on for any amount of time.)

Two Months

We just returned from 10 glorious days in Oregon because Mike's little sister, Anna, got married. It was so fun to go home and see our families and be a part of the wedding. I'll post more on the entire trip later.

Believe it or not, the twins are now just over two months. They had their 2 month check-up yesterday and both babies are doing well. Max is pretty fussy and the doctor thinks it might be because of heartburn, or an inability to digest milk protein. We're going to experiment with a few things to see if any of it will help.

Anyhoo, here are their stats and a picture of Max, Evelyn and I at the wedding.

Max - 10 lbs. 1 oz., 21 7/8 in.
Evelyn - 10 lbs. 2 oz., 22 1/2 in.



Yup, you read it right, Evelyn now weighs more and is taller than Max. However, honestly I can't tell the difference. Max still looks bigger to me, but I think it's just because his head is bigger.

We feel very blessed to have such healthy little babies. I have a number of friends who struggle with fertility and my heart aches for them. I pray and hope every day for them that they will someday be able to experience the joy of motherhood. And, I do believe they will.

Catching Up

Wow...can you say 'blogging LOSER?' It has been a long time since my last post. But to my defense I do not often have 2 free hands with which to type and I hate plunking at the keyboard with one finger. Plus, when I do have free hands I'm usually using them to either clean up, do laundry or maybe take a nap.

Anyway, enough excuses and enough words. Let's just catch up with pictures and captions, shall we?


Here we are on the babies' blessing day. It was a great day. We had both of our families in town and almost all of our siblings were there, along with Grandma & Grandpa Bell, numerous Aunts and Uncles, and some of our closest friends. My sister, Becca, even flew in from Texas as a surprise. It was awesome! I made everyone wear matching blue this day.






Here is Easter Sunday. Thank you to Bridget for taking a picture for us. Too bad it's nearly impossible to get a good one of all of us. Oh well. I made everyone wear matching purple this day. I'm a little OCD with the matching lately. It's my friend Carol's fault. She taught me how to make ties for little boys so I figured I'd make a skirt for Evelyn to match her brothers ties. Then Mike might as well wear a purple tie and I a purple shirt. What's wrong with that?





This just made me laugh. It snowed at least a foot yesterday so we were pretty much trapped inside all day. These are the things Jack found to play with. My headbands, and nursing pads. I was dying...Jack was hoping on the nursing pads like he was playing hop-scotch or something. Ha! Someday he will cringe to know he thought nursing pads were toys. He also wears them as "hats."