HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DADDY!!!

Happy 29th Birthday to the best, most wonderful, most fun, most entertaining, funniest, most awesome, coolest, most rockin' DAD in the whole wide world!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WE LOVE YOU THE MOST, DADDY!!! (And Mommy loves you a whole bunch too!)

Baby in the Box

The Faces of Mealtime

Yeah, um...this one is pretty self-explanatory. I was feeding them my special oatmeal for breakfast before we were to leave Nanny's house on Sunday. Usually, they gulp it down, but you know how it is when you are actually trying to be on time or go somewhere...it takes forever for them to eat! Alec was especially dramatic that day!

Nanny's 84th Birthday Party

We took a little trip to Enid last weekend, to go see my folks and to celebrate my Nana's 84th birthday. Her actual bday was the 19th, but we usually go the weekend between her bday and Aaron's (the 27th) so that we can celebrate both. Here is a picture of her with the cake. Isn't she cute? My grandma is originally from Kent, England. She married my late Grandpa Marvin when she was 19, I believe. They met during WWII, when he was serving over there, and were married in England. He came back to the states, and she had to wait almost a year for all of the paperwork and red tape to be able to join him here in the USA. It took her something like two months to make the actual trip...again, due to all of the paperwork. Can you imagine doing all of those things at that age? Nanny has lived through a lot. She has been the only grandma that I've ever really known. My dad's mother died when I was 10mos. old, and my dad's father died when I was around 10. My mom's dad was killed by a drunk driver the year before I was born. Nanny took care of me, when my mom worked and we lived in Enid until we moved to TX. Every year after that, she would spend about 6mos out of the year with us in TX. So, we are very close. Every day with her is a gift, and she is really precious to us! Umm...we didn't have a "4" to go with the "8" to make 84 on the cake...so my mom put an 8 and a 3+1...she didn't turn 831. Geez! Just so you know!

A Visit from Auntie Charlotte!

A few weekends back, my dear friend, Charlotte, from OU, came to visit us. She had just finished teaching at a workshop in Springfield, MO, and drove through NW Ark on her way down to Norman. She is going back to OU for grad school. Charlotte had never met the babies until that weekend. We had a great time catching up, eating some good food, shopping, and just being together. We really miss each other and are glad that we're only 4 hours away now...as opposed to however many it is from here to Utah! We are planning a visit to Norman for Labor Day weekend, if we can find subs for our Kids' Church class that Sunday! Here are pictures of Charlotte entertaining the kids at what looks to be snacktime. She had Emma in stitches, and Alec was enjoying her too! Somehow, I managed to NOT get any pictures of the two of us together. But hopefully, we'll get some good ones when we make our Norman trip!

Silly Kids!

Here are a few pics from Monday, when the kids were wearing the outfits that their Abuelita Tica (Costa Rican G'ma) sent them. She was our house mom when we went on our mission trip in 2006, and she still writes to us and sends Alec and Emma gifts. We love you, Miriam!

A Wish That Came True

Often I have joked that it would be nice to have a little housecleaning gnome or laundry fairy to do those tasks. I think God has a great sense of humor! :-) ~Voila~

15 Month Photos

By now, Alec and Emma are 16 months old, but we did have a photo shoot out in Blowing Springs Park in Bella Vista for them in July. Here is the public link to the facebook album. I know that some of you have been unable to access this because your employer thinks that it's probably not the best use of your time to have access to facebook and other social networking sites. I have tried to upload these pictures to Shutterfly and also to mail some out with hotmail...but my computer/the internet has been stupid during these attempts. Tonia...I'll try to mail you some when the computer is cooperative!!!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=96634&id=543072123&l=7bacabdb58

A Fun Summer Day!

A few weeks ago, a good friend of ours from church, Jessica (same Jessica whose husband, Will, is our consultant for the Leak) told me that she was going to have to use several vacation days in a row, and that basically she would have a whole week off here at home, a staycation if you will. She said that she wanted to spend a day with me and the twins, so that we could go do something fun...something that I can't normally do with the two of them by myself. It wasn't hard to decide what to do. I said "lets go swimming!"

As you can imagine, one mom vs. two toddlers at the pool just doesn't fly, so we only do water activities on the weekends with Daddy. We've been talking about checking out the Springdale Aquatic Center for a long time, but just haven't done it yet. Actually, I wanted us to take the kids last Saturday, but it was overcast and rainy...so that didn't happen. We've taken them to the free splash park in Rogers several times, but just not the local pool.

So, Jess came over after lunch yesterday, and we bathed in sunscreen, and hit the road. Okay, I don't know what kind of pools you guys frequented as kids, but the Aquatic Center is pretty amazing. I mean, it puts Sun Valley (for the Victoria folk) to shame. This place has something for everyone. There is the "normal" olympic size swimming pool with two slides and two diving boards. There are two giant waterslides (think like a water park) in another area. There are two separate little kid areas. One is for older toddlers with a wading pool and cushy animal slides and dragon and mushroom fountains. One is a fenced in splash pad for small tots with sprinklers, misters, and a very shallow wading pool for babies. And its even shaded, since babies really shouldn't be exposed to that much sun. It's like they thought of everything. There is a first aid, info and rental station for life jackets and swim diapers and such.

Oh, as an aside here, I have been a little surprised by this seemingly new rule that inflatable floatation devices are no longer allowed in many pools. We have baby floats for Alec and Emma that they sit in, and those were not allowed because they aren't Coast Guard approved. So, if we wanted to take them in the big pool, we just had to hold them. Ummm...much easier to let a squirmy toddler float and splash in a floaty. Anyways, I guess we could've rented the baby life jackets, but they wanted to run around, so we spent the most time at the splash pad part and in the wading pool.

This facility also has lockers, concessions, and plenty of lounge chairs. The only thing that bugs me about the place is that you can't buy a membership, or at least I didn't see that option there or on the website. You have to pay everytime you go. You can buy a bulk ticket pack for 20% off, so I guess that's almost like prepaying a membership. It doesn't really matter now, because summer is almost over, and we can only hit the pool on the weekends when Aaron is off. But I know that as the kids get older they are going to want to "live" there in the summertime. It really is an awesome place, like a mini-waterpark!

So, we had a fantastic time. The kids got good and worn out from playing in the water in the hot sun! We went and got frozen yogurt afterward and after the kids had their snack, they went down for a nice long nap, and Jess and I watched the Food Network for a while before she had to get back home to start some dinner for her honey. We had a wonderful day, and I was so grateful to have a good friend willing to spend her day with us to help us do something that we wouldn't normally be able to do on a weekday. I know she had a lot of fun, but I'm also pretty sure she got a good workout running after babies with me. ;-)

I'm sorry that there are no pictures of this adventure. There was really no way to keep a camera or phone from getting wet or dropped as we ran around after Alec and Emma. You'll just have to imagine how cute we all were playing in the water! ;-)