Birthday boys!

The day of Will and Travis' birthday was rough for us as I described in this this post. After the pediatrician visit we also had to visit North Central Baptist where they took x-rays and stuck Travis 2 additional times in order to finally get blood for the labs.
So there were not many pictures taken on their birthday but we did manage to take a few while they were opening their presents from Grandma and Grandpa Reynolds. The John Deere tractors saved the day!

Introducing....

our new additions to the ranch!

Dad bought two little calves. He was hoping to start a herd, but accidentally bought 2 males. Oops! The one on the left is Butter and the other is Honey. Yep, we named them - still gonna eat em.

He has the 2 cutest ranch hands who go every morning and evening to help him feed and water the "herd"! I need to take a picture of them in their boots out there gettin dirty!

Will and Travis - 12 month well check

The 12 month well check was pretty much a disaster. I see the blogs of my friends with these cute pictures of their children sitting on scales smiling. Uh yeah, I didn't even get to see Will and Travis being measured. With 3 of the 4 getting "well-checked" and shots and then even Maddie getting a flu shot, it was kinda crazy and full of crying children. Also, Travis was pretty sick - he and I spent the previous evening at the ER for his 105+ temp. That fever was attributed to a double ear infection and of course meant no immunizations at the well check and lots of extra poking and prodding.
I'm sure that office hopes we never come back! I definitely learned a new mommy lesson and that is no more than 2 well checks in one visit!

William
Height: 29.75" (50th)
Weight: 25 lbs 4 oz (85th)
Head circumference: 50cm (99th)

Travis
Height: 29.25" (33rd)
Weight: 20 lbs 6 oz (15th)
Head circumference: 48.5cm (95th)

Its crazy to me that my twin boys are pretty much on the exact opposite ends of the bell curve. I realize that since they are fraternal and not identical that they are really just 2 brothers born at the same time and don't necessarily have to be the same size. I try not to worry about their height but I can't help but notice that they are a little shorter than their sisters at the same age but since they were born 2 inches shorter (only 19.5" and 19" while the girls were 21.5" and 21"), I guess they are catching up. I've never researched if twins are sometimes born shorter because there just isn't enough room for them to grow as much. Yes, I have a height complex. I always wanted to be much taller and I hope for height for my kids. Notice that I married a tall man with a tall family :)
I also laughed when I heard the percentiles for their heads, even petite T has a big head. I sure hope there are some brains in there! What else could be taking up that space?

Emily - 4 year well check

Emily was so cooperative at her 4 year well check which was a relief since I had the brilliant idea of scheduling her well check at the same time as Will and Travis' check. She was helpful and talkative right up to the point where she got her 4 shots. Then it was all over. She is a great kid, usually well behaved, but she is a bit of a drama queen! Before the shots, our sweet doctor, Dr. Basey was doing her job of asking questions to make sure that Emily is meeting her milestones. I was amused when she was asking Emily to name the colors of different objects in the room. Being the proud braggart mom that I am, I bursted out "um, yesterday she wrote her name along with Will and Maddie's." I couldn't just let it go and progress naturally, geez louise, sometimes I need a sock stuffed in my mouth.

Anyhooooo, here are her stats
height 40.75" (70th)
weight: 36 lbs" (60th)

Some things we need to work on are hopping on one foot for more than a few seconds and skipping!

First harvest

When we moved to "the country" one of my visions was to have a huge vegetable garden with fruit trees and vines. I'm not a hippy or an extreme environmentalist, but it really makes me happy to grow my own food. Reality struck however, and its just not possible to spend a lot of time in the garden. I have 4 kids - 4 young kids. I spend most of my time meeting their basic needs of survival. However, Joe did manage to dig 2 beds for us - 4' by 12' or 16', I can't remember. So I've filled these beds with transplants and seeds and praying that something will survive with little maintenance. So far, the crop that's growing the best is the clover. Nope, didn't plant clover. It seems to be the weed of choice around here. But there are a few plants growing out there as evidenced by the picture of my cute husband and oldest daughter holding the radish. It was a good radish too!

As a side note for those who are interested in gardening - We have a lot to overcome here. It is extremely windy and there are no neighboring houses to shield the garden from the winds. Also, the old dude who lived here before us was a big fan of Round-Up and he used it in agricultural strength and quantities. He seriously used it as his weedeater. He would spray a foot wide section on both sides of the fences and all around the perimeter of the house. I'm a believer in soil health and that stuff is just bad. So I've been doing a few things to help heal the soil like using Garrett juice and molasses for fertilizer.

I'm hoping to get out there and take a picture of current state of the garden. Right now I have tomatoes (sickest looking plants ever!), one red bell pepper plant, zucchini, yellow squash, green beans, brussel sprouts, broccoli, red cabbage, cauliflower, swiss chard (looking good! that stuff is easy!), spinach (not doing good, must be too hot), and a few lettuces.

Joe and I recently celebrated our anniversary and on that trip we bought a few plants for our family. We bought Mom 2 blackberry vines to say thanks for watching the kids, we bought 20 strawberry plants for fun and 2 blueberry bushes for each other. The blueberry bushes are going to be an experiment as they really need acidic soil and I have no idea the pH of our soil here. We actually managed to plant the strawberry bushes and they are taking off! Its nice to see one thing doing well out here.

Anyway, thats probably way too much information, but I will enjoy going back and reading it in the years to come.

Pumpkin Patch Photos

Today we met my new MOPs group at the Ford Family Farm. We had a great (and somewhat crazy) time considering the boys weren't feeling very well. They had so many fun activities for kids. Yes, its still nearly impossible to get a good photo of the group of them.

Which one has the fake smile?
Should've realized how bad he was feeling when I saw this face

Will loved the pumpkin and Travis was terrified of it

Today's country life experience

This morning there were about 6 cows right outside my bedroom windows. All 4 kids, Mom and I stopped to watch them. There was this poor heifer in heat (is that what you call it for cows?) who was being followed and pushed around by the one full grown bull on the property. They were surrounded by 4 young male calves that were harrassing her. As she walks around our fence line trying to eat and sluff the pesky teenage boys, more keep coming!

I knew something like this was going on since more calves keep appearing, but I've never witnessed it. Oh boy. I got to show Emily the physical difference between the sexes and explained to her to stay away from those boys!!

Travis especially enjoyed being close to the cows!

Kid update

Despite all the craziness surrounding our change of address, the kids keep growing and changing. Imagine that. I need to write this stuff down before I forget it forever, because I do that. The more kids I have, the less I remember.

Emily is no longer a toddler, she's a kid. She loves to run and run and run. She can now swim fairly well and today Joe taught her how to dive. She's kinda bossy and seems to consider herself a second mommy. We've heard her telling her brothers "no ma'am, you can't do that" and Maddie informed us that Emily spanked her a few nights ago. She's always eager to help and even helped me unload a few carloads while I was getting our old house ready to rent. We were reminded that she is still quite a little kid though when she stuck a pea up her nose where it remained long enough to scare Grandma enough to consider taking her to the dr. She is finally making it through most nights with no diapers and without any accidents. She knows quite a few letter sounds and is beginning to grasp the concept of rhyming.

Maddie has her own little personality and she is choosing between being a big girl and hanging on to being a baby. She is either laughing and trying to make everyone else laugh or she is crying to be picked up. She's making jokes and using physical humor to make her brothers laugh. She communicates pretty well but makes a few of the same consonant substitutions that Emily did. She can also swim (which I think is pretty good for a 2 year old) and has no fear of the water.

Will keeps getting bigger and bigger (duh). He now weighs more than Emily did at 15 months. He's got the bruiser personality to match his thick frame. He and his brother have figured out how to knock over the superyard that I was so previously excited about. Its fun to watch them work together. Dad had the privilege of feeding him dinner the other night and found that he couldn't keep up with Will's shoveling. He usually eats as much as his sisters. I think he'll be walking soon, but we'll see. He's a sweaty boy and a drooler, but we love him anyway. So far he only has 2 teeth.

Travis seems to be the most musically inclined of our bunch so far (which may not be saying a lot). He dances to any sound that resembles music or has a beat. This week he learned how to bang the cymbals together and made his first attempts at clapping. He's walking while holding on to the furniture and is experimenting standing by himself. He has 5 teeth. He steals food from Will's tray even when his still has food on it - which is the exact opposite direction I expected the food to flow.

Well I'm too tired to write anymore. I'll probably read this later and wonder how I forgot so much and sound so boring. Ah... well... good thing my kids are cute enough to make up for my subpar writing skills. Guess I should download some pics off my camera and post them

We've Gone Country

LOOK AT THEM BOOTS!

(can you hear Alan Jackson in the background?)

ha ha, I found these cute baby boots at a resale store for a few bucks and couldn't pass them up.

BUT...

It's official! We are moving to the country! We closed late this afternoon and celebrated with a picnic dinner out at our new ranchita. (don't know what to call 12.81 acres, seems a little too small to call it a ranch) The sellers will be moving over the next few weeks, but we are looking forward to moving in mid-August. Anyone want to help?

Its been quite a roller coaster since we found this property 4 months ago. Three appraisals, two lenders, one lawyer, some easements, and many renegotiations later - its ours! Its not your typical property, some may even call it ugly, but to us its a diamond in the rough! Well its not even that rough, but there is so much potential here. More details later, but here are some pics from our evening.

Blue eyes

Look at these 3 beautiful sets of eyes! Can you guess which one of our kids this is?

I've been looking for pics of our kitchen in its original state and I'm coming across all these old pictures. I'm starting to get teary over here...

No more harvest gold!

Yep, there is not a spec left. BUT in these pictures, everything has a yellowish tinge to it. Grr, part of it is my lack of photography skills and the other is that the horrible plastic panels covering the fluorescent lights are old and yellowed.

When we first moved in, we had a harvest gold fridge, harvest gold and brown floors, and the dreaded harvest gold countertops. Click here and scroll down if you want to see old pictures. First, the harvest gold fridge died and Walter was nice enough to give us an old one he had stored in the office. We still have it, its old, but it works and its white. Then last year we replaced the floors and that was the biggest change.

Now, when we are planning on moving out in the near future - we finally get new countertops. We also got a new sink and faucet. Its great to no longer have a tiny mobile home sink (Yes our cheap a** builder actually installed one of those)! I swear I gained 5 inches of room to stack dishes in my sink - not that I would ever do that - sigh. We have a few things left to do like reinstall trim, kickboards, and new outlets. You'll notice that there are no high end choices here like granite or farmhouse sinks. It just doesn't fit the neighborhood and doesn't make sense for a rental property. And if for some reason we stay here longer, those curtains are gonna go!

Anyway, if you've ever been to our house, you'll be able to appreciate the change.

For Emily and Maddie

This post is really for the girls to see themselves with Dora, but if you are welcome to keep reading.
A kid's resale store close to the house, Once Upon a Child was having a big sale on Saturday and to lure us in, they hired Dora to come visit. Joe told the girls that Dora was at the store and we were going to see her. Emily thought Joe was playing a joke on her and kept saying "No Daddy. Dora doesn't go to the store. She's not at HEB". She was half excited and half almost-crying - like how could you tease me about something so serious Daddy?
When we walked into the store, Alvin and the Chipmunks were performing a song and the girls were mesmerized. Until our recent siting of the Chick-Fil-A cow, they really haven't had much exposure to bigger-than-life costume characters, so they weren't sure what to think, but they couldn't look away. After the show, we walked to the store and got lucky to find Dora standing there with no line. We got one pic (kinda hard to manuever in the crowded store with 2 toddlers and carrying 2 infant seats).

Mooooooooo ....... Flutter, flutter

So we are the crazy people who dress up for free food. We love Chick-fil-A and we love free food - no brainer.

We went in as cows...

And the girls left as beautiful butterflies (I was still just a cow. No, literally, I desperately needed to nurse)

Do you think she is a tad bit excited?

Cupcakes again

Once again, we needed something to pass the time and I also need to use up things in the pantry in case we ever actually move. Cupcakes are good, because they entertain before nap when you mix them up and put cupcake papers in the tins (good task for 2 year old Maddie). Then after nap you kill time by icing them and decorating them. I didn't have any butter so we tried this marshmallow-like icing recipe. I was lazy and a little rushed, so we just dipped the cupcakes in the icing instead of spreading it with a knife or piping it. We all liked the flavor but we were a little disappointed to find the icing had disappeared the next day. No daddy didn't eaten it. It was like most of it evaporated and a little bit of froth was left. The leftover icing in the fridge still looked good, so I guess I should've stuck the cupcakes in the fridge too. Who does that? Cold cupcakes - thats just wrong!

8 month pictures of W and T

Note: Post written in July, backdated - I took them only 2 days late, just didn't get them on the blog...

They had a visit to the dr around this time. Will was 20 lbs 2 oz (down to 57%). The pediatrician verified that he has not gained weight in 2 months. He's very active now and I'm trying to convince myself that's why there has been no weight gain. Travis was 17 lbs 15 oz, gaining on his bro but still only 1 lb gained in 2 months. They are only drinking breastmilk although their solid intake has really increased.

I've ramped up my milkshake consumption ;)

Happy boys!

Father's Day

We have been busy trying to buy a house and actually fix up the one we currently live in. We aren't doing much else these days, including updating the blog. But, on Father's day, we made sure to take a break for the afternoon and let Joe relax a little. I think he needs and deserves more than a few hours though.
We went over to Mom and Dad's for BBQ, swimming, and the U.S. Open. We also got to see Eric too. We made sure to get a family picture this day because the kids were dressed and their hair was combed for once.

The first attempt, fake smiles and all

This one is mostly genuine even if Maddie is lifting her dress

7 month pics of the boys

6 month pics of the boys

Well I was hoping to write a separate post for each boy, but things are just too crazy. Here are the boys on their 6 month birthday. And yes, that was back in April!

6 months came and went...

No time to post, but I did put some pics up on facebook if you would like to see the kiddos.

Here are the boys' stats from their 6 month appointment:

Will
27 in (65%) 20 lbs (85%) head circumference was off the chart

Travis
26 in (30%) 17 lbs (40%) head circumference was 80%

Stars and Snakes

Maddie uses the potty today and exclaims "Mommy, I tinkle! ...Tinkle Tinkle Little Star" and giggles. I giggled too.

A few weeks ago, she goes number #2 in the potty and yells "SNAKE!!!!" Then her sister joins in and then I had 2 little girls dancing around hysterically, yelling snake around some poop in a little potty.

These are the highlights...

New thing to worry about...

OK, maybe 2 things to worry about. The first is that Will is mobile. He will roll or scoot pretty much anywhere he wants to go. He is also getting up on his hands and knees and throwing himself forward onto his belly. Travis is more content to stay still, but he has started scooting a little bit.

This picture shows the other new thing I have to worry about. This morning is the first time this has ever happened! They just climbed right up in there while I carried Travis downstairs. (Obviously Will is pretty solid and I don't have to worry about them hurting him too much)

Spring is here!

Yep, its starting to get warm (and sometimes hot!) and the girls want to be outside all day long playing in the water! That is great except that they have fair skin and 2 baby brothers who also have fair skin and can't stay outside all day. Do you know how long it takes to put sunscreen on 4 little kiddos?? I'm tired just thinking about it!

We don't have a patio cover right now, so I had to improvise. I set up a card table on the patio and stuck the boys under it on a bouncy chair and swings. Travis says hi!

Here they are trying to entertain themselves...

Will and Travis - 6 months!

Today the boys are 6 months old! Joe and I agreed that the time flew by but it also seems like forever ago that they were born. It was our scariest delivery yet time has weathered those memories and it doesn't seem so bad now. We were so lucky to have Grandma Reynolds and Great Grandma Rech particpating in their first few weeks of life. I wish they could be here to see them grow up! Here are some photos of them together!

Here they are laying on a blanket in the front yard while the girls and I were playing outside and working in the yard. There were 2 Easter bunny windsocks dangling from the trees above them that kept them occupied for quite some time.

Emily and Maddie love to be photgraphed with their brothers. In this case, it was in Emily's bed where I placed the boys in order to clean the girls' room, which by the way was pointless.

Here they are today!

And here is the craziness surrounding these boys everyday...

Quick pic

Here are the kiddos after church today. Thought 2 of my aunts would like to see their outfits - Aunt Sherry gave the girls the dresses and Aunt Lrrie gave the boys the outfits (not that you can see them). I swear we fix Maddie's hair but it never lasts. It looks so cute with a clip in it!

Bluebonnets: Before, During, and After

Before: Setting up for the picture, I'm already posing, Emily is scared of ants (rightly so!) and Maddie is loving on Will.

During: TIMBER! The weight of 4 kids is too much for my out of shape legs. Yes, innocent bluebonnets were harmed during the making of these photos.
After: At least 1 kid is looking at the camera...

One more 5 month pic and craziness

Here is the craziness - this is my van - packed to the gills to go stay at my mom's while Joe is AZ for a certification class. Two infant carseats, two girls in their carseats in the back row and don't miss the 2 dogs stuffed in the middle!