Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Christmas Season Memories

a few things i want to remember this christmas season.
1. franklin calls all christmas lights and reindeer - "reindeer paws". think the song "up on the housetop reindeer pause" he thinks we are talking about paws.
2. their fav song is jingle bells. on repeat. in the van. loud.
3. ella loves to put snowflake stickers on her face. my face. everyone's face.
4. they say santa is not ready to come yet.
5. if i can't open it, change it, fix it, etc. immediately ella says "maybe daddy?" i love that in their mind daddy can fix everything! and i believe it:)
6. they can't say tinsel, so they call her pencil - which is our elf on the shelf's dog.
7. they ate far more candy then made it onto the gingerbread house. especially Frank!

8.  ella loved to unwrap the hershey kisses. about her favorite thing during gingerbread houses.
7.  Daddy cleaned out the playroom closets and switched things around.  They love love their new secret hideout in the long closet.  
8. they chase each other around - usually its F chasing E.  F will gently tackle E to the ground.  The other night he said "im doing it gently"
9.  F knows my first name is Emily. He says "i'm frank"  and "your name is Emily Mom" I kindly remind him I'm mommy:) 
10. Ella pulled out her easter bunny ears and wore them around one evening, kindly referring to them as bunny hoppers since they make you hop mom!

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Thankful

It's hard to believe it was August since I last wrote.

Lots of wonderful things have happened.  We got to go on a vacation to the beach, which the kids absolutely loved! We visited Chi-town over Labor Day and celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary!

The children are getting bigger day by day.  F has funny phrases that he will just bust out with like "no, no, no, I don't think so" or "ew that's gross"

Ella is so in love with babies and playing baby doll.  She takes her baby's jammies on and off and likes to feed her in the booster seat we have at the dinner table.  She is still constantly singing.

We've had our fair share of little odd colds and illnesses, but nothing we've had to go to the Dr. for which I am grateful!

C and I are on a clean eating diet, less carbs and more protein and elminating processed sugar.  Not like I let him keep cookies around anyways! :)  We've also gotten the twins rooms painted, and he did the guest room yesterday! I'm SO appreciative!

We are also hosting a bible study at our house on Tuesdays, with a meal and study after.  It's been a true blessing.

Just a little catch me up!

Tuesday, August 05, 2014

Big Beds!

After both twins literally climbed out of their cribs within a day of eachother (F first (2x) and then E at naptime) I decided it was time for big boy and girl beds. I was pretty nervous, I had no idea how they would respond.

Hubby, after naps, took the fronts of their cribs.  F was a little concerned, E was excited, happy, and generally like wow! 

They did fantastic!  We really didn't have any incidents.  It's amazing how 2 year olds can self discipline.  I also made sure to remove any tempting toys from the floor.

I'm so proud of them.  My big kids!

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Plates, Eggs, and Beep Beeps


They truly are best friends!
They decided they needed to take a bath.
 Franklin and Ella are now 22 months old.

The weather has warmed up, in fact we hit 85 this past weekend.  Our little family has been spending a TON of time outside.  The kids each have a little tikes car they can ride around in. Most of the time they prefer to push them up and down the driveway.  Thankfully they have also mastered the art of turning them around before they go into the street.  They adore being outside and LOVE the new backyard.

A few moments to capture:

- The kids aren't using high chair trays anymore but instead eating off plates! They probably could have awhile ago, but it wasn't until recently that we tried it by accident bc we left their little travel placemats at home and they did great! Funny how such an "older" kid accomplishment this feels like at the moment to me.

- We hosted our first little party at our new house.  We invited a bunch of kids and their moms over for an easter egg hunt and lunch.  It went great.  The twins had a fabulous time.

- We celebrated Aunt Lindsey and now Uncle Joe's wedding.  The twins traveled great, and stayed up till 10pm EST the evening of the wedding.  They looked adorable in their dress up clothes and thoroughly enjoyed running across the dance floor all night.

- Ella is such a snuggler lately.  She just curls right up to me.  She has also gone into a "mommy" stage and just wants momma all the time.  She has tons of words and says them all frequently! She's our little pip!

- Franklin can say I love you now.  He is getting better at using two words together and tries so hard when he is frusturated not to have a meltdown.  Instead he will close his eyes, put his chin down and take a few moments. You can almost see on his face, the "Mom I'm trying so hard, I'm a big boy"

They continue to amaze us, keep us on our toes, and add so much joy to our home.  We celebrated a friend's second birthday the other weekend, and to my surprise I sat back in a lawn chair and was able to just watch all the kids playing. It was wonderful, amazing, and such a great moment as a Momma. My kids are getting older, independent and I love seeing who they are growing into!

Thank you Lord for what you have done!

Thursday, February 27, 2014

We Moved

We moved last Friday.  From the very first house I ever bought, where we lived as newlyweds, and brought our babies home. It was tiring, sad, emotional, exciting, and crazy.

It's odd not to just put myself on auto pilot and drive back to our old house.  But now that we've had what I call semi regular nights in our new house, it's feeling more like home.  Cooking dinner, bathing the children, playing, laundry, etc. These are the things that make our new house feel like a home. Doing our normal family things. 

The kids are loving every single thing about the new house that we hoped they would.  They love their giant huge playroom, where they can roam freely with all their toys in one place, their table, and kitchen.  They love the freedom.

They love the new front yard and backyard and flatness all over, no longer struggling to climb up the mini mountain of a backyard that was our old house. They love their little cars or beep beeps as they call them running around the drive way.  They've had almost zero transition, effortlessly going to sleep and sleeping through the night in the evenings and taking fabulous naps.

It's been wonderful. I'm sure I've had more of a transition then them:) 

Needless to say, I loved being able to start up and burn a fire last night in our house. It was wonderful to sit by it, chat, and talk about how this was our new home and all the great memories we will make there.

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

February 2014

A few notes from this month

Ella is talking a TON. And I mean a TON. She tries to say everything. And now she says "love you" which sounds more like "nah nom" It's the sweetest thing ever because she answer your I love you back.

Of course with Ella talking more Franklin has decided to talk less. He leaves the end of words of so please sounds like peas.  It's pretty cute.  Occasionally we still catch him talking in his own secret language that he did when he was little the gibber jabber.  It's so innocent sounding.  He'll make himself laugh.

We have probably a 5x6 area right now of the living room sequestered with boxes.  The twins and Gibson the beagle are unsure of what is going on.  Gibson has curled up by either my side or hubby's each night bc I think he is worried during the middle night we will just pack up and leave him. It's sort of sad.

The twins are busy. They don't go down till nap till around 1:30pm - sometimes even later. They go to bed between  8 and 8:30pm.  We recently found out Ella naps much better if she has her baby - baby Clara in bed with her:) Pretty darn cute.

Other then that we are packing our lives up into boxes one day at a time. So excited to get into our new house - sometimes it still doesn't feel real.  I look through the photos over and over, how could that beautiful home really be mine?! Dream house.

God's good. Over and out.

Tuesday, January 07, 2014

2013

It's been quite a long time since I've blogged! Forgive me. Between two toddlers, balancing work, volunteering, etc. and then lots of holiday travel we just have been busy!

2013 has been an awesome year for our family.

We took our first vacation to the beach - just the four of us and found an amazing new SPOT! Folly Beach was fantastic, and we hope to spend many vacations in and near the Charleston area exploring.

Christopher accepted a new job!  He is loving learning new things, and being part of a new team. God has blessed us with this opportunity!

Emily was able to reduce her hours and is home on Fridays with the kids! I love, love, love this. Who knew that one day a week off could produce such a drastic change. I feel so blessed to be able to do this.

We've been searching for a new house, watching the market, and setting goals for our growing family.

We traveled to Chicago, out of Nashville with my mom - Emily's first time really traveling alone with the twins and it went so well!  Dad joined us later that week, and we had a fantastic Christmas eve Betz celebration.

We flew back to Nashville and headed to L'burg to celebrate with the Miller family.  Another great family Christmas.

We've decided next year we will be staying home at Christmas, as we need a break and want to start some family traditions for our own little family.  We'd like to wake up in our home on Christmas day, for the sake of the twins and create a little magic:)

We had lots of firsts with the twins - walking, words, running, sitting at a table on big kid chairs, using silverware, laughing, marching, and dancing.  Every moment's been so magical.  I've absolutely loved the 18 month age and while we have had our first tantrums we are all learning and growing so much together.

Thank you Lord for a very fruitful, healthy, and great 2013.  We are looking forward to 2014!