Family Home Evening

We've been having so much fun with our Family Home Evenings around here lately.  Granted our little lessons last all of 3 minutes max, but it's so cute and fun to see them learning and remembering the things we are teaching them.  They talk about whatever we learn that week for the next few days.  And many times as we eat dinner they proudly announce that it's Family Night (which right now they would like if we had it every night...I'll remember that when they're teenagers and don't want to come at all.)

Here are some of the lessons we've had lately.

We had a lesson on the Sacrament.  We taught them that they should think of Jesus when we take the bread and water.  Now whenever we talk about it or go to Sacrament, they call it 'Sacra-minute'  I never want to correct them...ever.

We taught them about Prophets and that the prophets name today is President Monson, they now know his face and it's so cute to hear them say 'Presden Monson'  We also taught them the song 'Follow the Prophet' and it's now in their list of songs we have to sing to them every night (they have 4 we have to sing every night, I am a Child of God, I Love to see the Temple, Follow the Prophet, and I belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and they both know every word to each of these songs.)

I bought them each their very own Book of Mormon and we learned the song Scripture Power, which apparently they already knew from Nursery cuz when the chorus started they pumped their scriptures into the air like they've sang the song a hundred times.

We had a lesson on missionaries, since we were having the missionaries over for dinner the next day.  We sang 'I hope they call me on a mission' and learned how to shake hands.  When the elders showed up the next day, it took a little convincing but they did shake their hands.

Then tonight we went and walked around the temple.  They are obsessed with the temple, especially since they see the temple every time we drive out of our driveway.  'Hi temple, see you soon temple.'  They know the angel on top is Angel Moroni and so they were pretty excited to go walk around now that the weather is so nice.  They were pretty hyper but it was a fun evening.

Happiness Book 2014

Our yearly Happiness Books we gave to Grandma Goold and Grandma Glover for Mother's Day.  In no particular order...

Happiness is being born 

Happiness is feeling the ocean for the first time 

Happiness is holding Minnie's hand 

Happiness is reading with Grandma 

Happiness is my blessing day 

Happiness is jumping everywhere 

Happiness is being potty trained 

Happiness is Mr. Owl turning green 

Happiness is a little brother to hold 

Happiness is getting ready for bed 

Happiness is riding the magic stairs 

Happiness is a swaddle and a binky 

Happiness is my first hair cut 

Happiness is taking a bath 

Happiness is meeting our favorite friends

Temple Square

A few weeks ago, most my family decided to meet up at Temple Square for the morning.  We all wanted to see the Art exhibit Aaron, my brother in law had designed at the Church History Museum so we made a morning of it.  The church history museum has such a fun kids area.  We all loved it and we all could have stayed there a lot longer playing.  Its just like a little mini childrens museum but with church related stuff and it's free.  I want to go back.  And it was right next to the exhibit so we took turns walking through the exhibit while the kids played.  We then walked through temple square which is so pretty this time of year and then headed over to the food court and ate lunch...which was sooo crowded by the way.  It was such a fun day!

Easter 2014

Easter was so fun this year.  This is the first holiday the girls have really anticipated and kept asking each day if it was Easter.  They would wake up and Aria would say 'Bunny Easter come?'  It was cute to see they remembered that candy was to be found in the Easter Eggs, and they even knew that Easter was remembering Jesus.  So I would say it was a great holiday, but let's recap.

Saturday we had our annual neighborhood Easter egg hunt.  Last year I said there were over 1,000 eggs. Well this year the organizer told us there are actually over 5000 eggs.  So to say there are a lot of eggs, is an understatement.  We invited Jeff, Whitney, Max and Owen to come over and hunt eggs with us.  Afterwards they serve lunch and ice cream.  It was a hit.

That afternoon we dyed Easter eggs.  I'm pretty sure the girls thought it was the coolest magic trick they had ever seen and were pretty excited to see eggs turn colors.

We even found some Robin candy eggs that come with a coloring markers that are safe to eat.  So they girls had fun coloring some of those eggs as well for a little present to their Dad.

That night as we were getting ready for bed, I said "Guess who is coming tonight?" Thinking for sure they would be so excited for the Easter bunny to come.  Aria quickly replied 'Jeffer!!' (meaning their Aunt Jennifer)  I had to just reply 'No sorry, just the Easter bunny.'  lol.  They sure do love their Aunt Jennifer.

Sunday morning they were so excited that the Easter bunny not only gave them a few presents but also hid all their eggs.  Jaron got one egg to shake, a tshirt, book and truck.  The girls got new PJs, books, a church picture book, sidewalk chalk and bubbles.  And of course candy!

We went to church and had a good day at church learning about the true meaning of Easter and then headed off to Grandma and Grandpa's for yet another egg hunt and dinner.

And now 2 weeks later, the girls still ask about if the bunny Easter is coming and every night Siena says good night to Mr. Owl (he's practically a member of our family these days) she says "good night Mr. Owl, Happy Easter."  I would say Easter was a hit!

Jaron - 9 Months

Another month has gone by already!  Jaron is 9 months old.

We had a 9 month check up, no shots this time...yay!
Weight - 19 lbs 11 oz - 50%
Height - 29 1/2 inches - 90%
Head - 75%

Right when Jaron turned 8 months, he started scooting forward on his tummy.  All month he has just gotten faster and faster.  He goes from room to room and he does this cute little rowing motion from side to side. So he pushes with his right hand back and then switches to his left, back and forth.  It's so funny to watch. Whenever he's on the move it's usually to come find me, then as soon as he sees me he cries the rest of the way until he reaches me.  A few times he would get there and just lay his head down on my feet, it was so funny.  He's a mama's boy which I love most the time.  He started getting stuck as he crawls through things but has been doing better at that lately as well.

He started pulling up to his knees pretty fast and just before he turned 9 months last week he pulled up to a stand for the first time.  His all time favorite thing to do and has been for more then a month now is to stand up against the couch. Hence his 9 month picture I had to take in that position.

Much to his sisters dismay he can now play with all their toys, and he's so excited to finally explore all these things he's seen for 8 months.  The screeching has increased and now he can't even look in their direction even across the entire room and they are yelling at him not to get their toys. I can't tell you how many times I've come into a room to see their strollers up on the couch or their table.  ha ha.  But they also think now he's old enough to do whatever they want with them.  So all of the sudden they have started being a lot more rough, wrestling, laying on top of him, which he doesn't really appreciate either. Siblings I tell ya...

He got the pincer grasp down this month and is in love with feeding himself.  We've given him lots of puffs, he's tried a few strawberries and some bread this month.

Sleeping at night is still great...naps are still hit and miss around here.  I don't know if he'll ever really nap consistently good.  My sister says it will come, I'm not convinced.

Baby proofing take 2 has commenced!

I did it...I potty trained twins!

I did it and I'm actually kind of proud of myself.  I think I dreaded this stage the most when I found out I was having twins, that and doing 2 girls hair every morning (I'm not good at doing hair.)  Anyways, I potty trained twins!!!  Can you believe it???  I still can't.

Let's not act all happy and rosy about the whole thing, because I'm not going to lie, it was HARD.  I prepared a lot and it was still just as hard as I imagined.  I read up on potty training, potty training twins, checked out a book for me, checked out DVD's and books for them, bought treats, presents, etc. etc.  So let's just give a quick run down of how it all happened.

We waited until after our trip to Disneyland.  We had been talking about it for a while and had them practicing sitting on the toilet.  I sat them straight on the toilet cuz I didn't want to clean out 2 little potties.  It worked for them and I'm glad.  I knew they were ready and I also knew Siena was a little more ready than Aria.  'They' tell you train one at a time but how are you supposed to reward one of them when you haven't even given the opportunity to the other one to earn the same reward?  A constant struggle in my life, trying to be fair.  I know life isn't fair but I still try to give them the same opportunities when I can.  ugh...so we started with both of them and I was happy when only after 2 hours Aria wanted her diaper back on.  Great.  So we concentrated on Siena and there were a lot of tears from Aria when she didn't get a treat, but she still refused to try.  But then something great happened on day 2. Siena started sharing her treats with Aria.  It was so cute to watch.  I would give the treat to Siena, they would run to their play house where Siena would pass out the candy to each other.  This kept up for 3 weeks (well I didn't pass out treats for 3 weeks, although we do need a major candy detox in this house right now.)  But Aria had zero interest in wearing panties for 3 weeks.  She would cheer her sister on like no other cheerleader you've seen but could have cared less about herself.

 Then one day, she wanted panties, and just like that I had 2-2 1/2 year olds needing to use the potty.  Siena actually regressed a little I think because for a week she had to go potty whenever Aria went, no matter if she really had to go or not or had just gone 10 minutes before that.  Thankfully we have 2 bathrooms on the main floor because we use both of them at the same time A LOT right now.

So here we are, they both have accidents here and there.  As of this point Siena has gone 9 days and Aria has gone 5 without an accident so I'm feeling like we're doing really good.  Here's after a bad day.

Hardest parts of potty training...1 - when they have to go poop and try to use the potty every 10 minutes for hours until they actually poop.  It makes feel claustrophobic to sit in the bathroom that much and I'm not claustrophobic at all.  2 - Teaching them to wash their hands...why has no one ever told me it's almost as hard to teach them to wash their hands as it is the teach them to go potty? Oh my patience wears thin at this subject.  I'm holding strong though and they're getting it, all of it.

And then just like that they started waking up dry every morning so we do no pull ups, no diapers, we're just in panties around here.  Although let the record show there have been several times I have begged them to put on a pull up or diaper and they flat out refused.

We talk about the potty a lot around here, there is no shortage of praise or cheers from us or each other. The still cheer and clap for each other every day like it's the first time they've done it.  It's the cutest thing there is about potty training twins, if there is such a thing.  So 5 weeks in and we have more good days then bad, but we still have some tough times.  But we move on and cheer each other on and when they get a treat, so do I!

Jaron - 8 Months

Didn’t I just write his 7 month post?  Here we are at 8 months.

A couple major milestones this month.  One, he is now officially unswaddled.  Hallelujah.  Right after 7 months I decided to try unswaddling him for nighttime.  Everywhere I read said to start with naps and work up to the nighttime.  For Jaron, is was exact opposite he did great at night.  He would fall right asleep and didn’t seem bothered at all by not being swaddled.  However, for naps he still needed to be swaddled, but I started unswaddling him little by little, if he didn’t fall asleep then I would swaddle him and try again the next day.  It only took about 5 days and we haven’t swaddled him since.  Yay.  Doesn't he look so happy to be free?

The other major milestone is that he started rolling all over the place and also turning in circles. He's scooting backwards a little but as of his 8 month mark is not moving forward.

Other than that he’s had a long month of being more ignored then usual since I was potty training his sisters. I have been feeling guilty about that but I know it won’t always be like that.

I’m in love with his 8 month picture and want to get it framed.  We put this tie on him for the first time for church last Sunday and I don’t think there’s a cuter 8 month old around.  Such a handsome boy, even if I’m the biased mom.  I love him to pieces!