Road Trip Time

We're headed out on our first big road trip with the twins next week. So far the longest trip we've taken is a 1 hour 45 minute drive to Lubbock and back for a shopping day. We're headed south of Denver to visit with family.

It's usually a 9 1/2 to 10 hour drive... I'm expecting it to be quite a bit longer. We were going to try to make it all in one long day, but now the weather says it might snow on our travel day. We might try to leave the night before and stop at a hotel... or drive all night. We'll just have to see how wiped Barry is after coming off his shift this weekend.

I'm so glad we have our new van. We will put the 3rd row of seats down and have lots of room to pack up the whole house... or so it seems. I'm looking forward to the trip.

Henrey the protector

Our beagle Henrey is a very good family dog. His main job is to patrol the back yard for signs of squirrels and cats, and watch our back alley for any disturbances. We have encouraged his growling and howling when there are people or cars in our alley.



So the other night when I was in the middle of Ryan's bath, I was not too surprised to hear Henrey howling outside. I wasn't going to leave Ryan's bath though because it's never anything serious, we just like that Henrey provides this service to us. As I was finishing drying Ryan off, Henrey came into the kitchen growling, so I knew I had to go check it out. With Ryan wrapped up in a towel in my arms, we headed to the back door.

Henrey stepped out his dog door, off the porch, and into the grass. There he crouched down and gave a low growl. Then I saw it... the blanket we'd been laying on that afternoon was still on the grass, and the corners had been crumpled up by the wind. As I approached the blanket and picked it up, Henrey let out a very loud howl to warn me about the danger.

I just had to laugh. Henrey had even been on that blanket with us during the day so he should have been able to tell what it was. He spent the next few minutes sniffing the ground where the blanket had been to be sure the danger was gone, and then he joined us inside as if nothing had happened.

He does his job so well...

1/2 a year

Ryan and Alyna are now 6 months old... and it's been quite an amazing adventure so far. I can't imagine my life without them, and don't want to. Barry and I both feel very blessed to have 2 healthy, beautiful children. They are both over 25 inches and close to 15 lbs. It may be small for the age, but they are growing steadily.

Ryan makes all kinds of faces and sound effects while playing.

Alyna is very sociable and would much rather play with someone than play by herself.

We've had several good nights in a row. Bedtime is between 7:15 and 7:30, the dream feed is at around 10:15, and they don't need to eat again until between 6 and 7 am. One or both of them usually needs calming down again around 4 or 5 am, but we haven't been changing their diapers. We do give Ryan his pacifier when he can't settle down, but he has been much better about not needing it all the time. We don't give it to him when he just wants to play with it.

They are starting to like some of the 6 month plus toys that they got for Christmas, especially the jungle toy with balls. We still have to hold them next to it because they can't sit balanced on their own for very long, and definitely topple over when they reach for things. They love to be held standing in front of the monkey to play with it's arms. You balance balls in both its hands, and if you remove the ball in his right hand the other ball falls off, rolls down a ramp, and plays loud songs that get easily stuck in your head. They know how it works and never have reached for the ball that is supposed to fall off.

They are working very hard on learning to crawl. They are very good at spinning circles on their belly, and can usually work their way toward a toy they want. The problem is that they get frustrated doing it for too long especially close to nap time. One of these days they'll figure out how to pick their belly off the floor and then they will be into everything. I think it's time to baby proof the house.

Alyna is doing much better eating solid food. Last night she ate her whole container of applesauce that Aunt Jess was feeding her, and then she finished Ryan's container of carrots. Mommy didn't even think she liked carrots. So now she eats bananas, peaches, apples, pears, and carrots.

Ryan has loved everything we've tried with him except squash, but we'll try it again some day. He eats a whole container at every meal except when he's not feeling well (like last night).

Our dog Henrey is really good with Ryan and Alyna and lets them pet him until they start pulling his ears. He never nips or licks them, he will just walk away if they start annoying him. Ryan and Alyna both love it when Henrey comes up to them. They smile and reach out for him all the time.

Uncle Joel and Aunt Jess came here to visit for a couple days this week. They brought their springer spaniel puppy Emma with them, and she and Henrey wore each other out playing. I now think we could manage having 2 dogs around as long as it wasn't a puppy I have to train. Emma still nips a little too much to be safe around the babies.

Am I who I was?

According to the state of New Mexico, there is only a 16% chance that I am the same person I was 2 1/2 years ago.

We had to go to the DMV to register our new van, so we finally got new driver's lisences with our current home address. We had already updated our DMV records, we just hadn't gottennew photo ids. They use a facial recognition software on your digital picture in an attempt to prevent id theft and fraud.

The woman at the desk had to call a state office for confirmation that she could issue my lisence because the software wasn't sure I was really me.

At the time I found it funny, but as I started to think more about it I realized that I'm not the same person I was. I'm a Mom now, and my perspective on many things has changed. I'm more cautious while driving to protect my children, but also to protect myself because they are dependent on me. I worry more about illness and cleanliness in people around us. I think that staying out past 7:30 is a bad idea because missing bedtime will mess up tomorrow's routine.

In general, I am the same woman with a different outlook on life. I love being a new me.

Rough night

The twins have been doing really well at night lately. I usually wake them to feed at 11 pm, and then they will usually sleep until around 5 am before waking up. I'll change their diapers and coax them back to sleep. They'll make it until between 6:30 and 7:30 before waking up hungry for their morning bottle.

Alyna slept very peacefully all night. I woke her up for the dream feed, she went back to sleep easily, and I didn't hear anything from her until 7:12 this morning.

But last night was still rough on Mommy...

Ryan is teething and had a snotty nose so he couldn't manage to sleep for more than 2 hours without waking up. I'm not sure whether the snotty nose and watering eyes are due to the teething or to all the other snotty nosed kids in the cradle roll class last Sunday morning. Either way, he had trouble breathing laying down. He also had a rough day of fussiness and not eating very much.

He went to bed fairly easily at 7:20 pm, but woke at 8:45 crying. He hasn't been needing his pacifier much, but I've given it to him several times recently when I can tell he doesn't feel well. It soothes him to suck on something. He awoke again at 9:30, and I put the pacifier back in his mouth. I could hear him having trouble breathing while sucking on it, so I got him up, and sucked the junk out of his nose with the aspirator. Of course, this induced more crying which didn't stop until after I changed his diaper and picked him back up. He seemed to go to sleep easily when I laid him back down. But 25 minutes later he was crying again because he kept choking on the mucus draining down his throat. So I took him into the guest room where I have one of the swings. He slept much better in the swing because it is sitting up slightly.

I got him out at 11 for the feed, and put him back in the crib to sleep. He woke again at 1:25, and I could see that it just wasn't working for him to lie flat so he went back in the swing. He woke about every hour and a half in the swing and I would go in and put the pacifier in his mouth again. That's the game we're trying not to play with him, but when he's not feeling well it is hard to deny him something that helps.

Hopefully the tooth/teeth will come in soon and this will pass.

These precious moments

I was reminded in a friend's blog not to take any moments with my precious babies for granted. They will not be this little for long, and every smile is very precious to me.

Alyna has found her voice again. It is an answer to a prayer in our life group a few weeks ago. In the middle of January, Alyna got very hoarse sounding from her acid reflux. We put her back on the medicine she had taken a few months before, but the hoarseness continued to worry us. Just in the last few weeks her voice has started to sound normal again. Yesterday I think she figured out that it didn't hurt to make noise anymore. (I'm not really sure it hurt her before.) When Barry got home from work and started to play with her, she started making all kinds of loud sounds like we heard her make when she was 2 months old. It put a smile on our faces to know she didn't have any permanent damage to her vocal chords.


Ryan loves to stand up. I've been playing a game with him for about a month now where I sit him in front of me and he just has my fingers in his hands. I say "stand up," and pull him forward a little. He uses his own leg power to push to a standing position, and he balances very well holding just my fingers. Then I say "Sit down," and he leans back, bends his knees, and plants his bottom on the ground. He's not even 6 months old yet... he's a very smart boy.


We had a wonderful visit over the weekend from my sister Krista from Boston, and from my brother Daniel and his wife Katelyn from Searcy, AR. They all helped a lot with the babies, and Uncle Daniel even learned how to change diapers. Ryan and Alyna really enjoyed having more people to play with them and hold them.

New Stuff

We've bought lots of new items recently. It was a combination of getting a huge tax refund from having 2 babies in one year, and also from Barry's year end bonus that didn't come until the end of February.

The biggest purchase was an '08 Toyota Sienna (mini-van). It is a golden beige color with tan interior, has leather seats for 8 passengers, sliding doors on both sides, a power sliding door on the passenger side, and an aftermarket DVD player. Of course, the DVD player doesn't do us any good this year while the babies are in rear facing car seats. We comfortably rode to church Sunday morning with 5 adults and 2 car seats in the van. The car seats actually fit next to each other across the middle seats when access to the back seat is needed. The only drawback we've found is that there's only about 1 inch clearance on each of the side mirrors when you pull into our garage, but we'll just be really careful.

The next item I'm very excited to have is a side by side double stroller for the twins. They sit up in it, and it has a 5 point harness so they don't flop around even though they are still wobbly when they sit up. The seats recline fully, and the canopies extend to a large range to block the sun. It is easy to steer, and fits through most standard doors. I already took it to church and it fit through the door nicely, and on our walk it handled the bumps and corners very well. My thanks to my cousin Lana for the recommendation of the Combi brand stroller. I love it.

We also purchased a Bright Stars "Fun Around We Go" as a second toy for them to stand up in. It is a small round table with lots of toys and noisy buttons on it with a seat attached to the base that they can walk in a 360 degree circle around the table. When they learn to walk, we can remove the seat and still have the table as a toy for a couple years.

The other playtime purchase was a floor mat of 12 colorful foam squares that piece together. Each square is 2 sq. feet, so it covers 48 sq. feet of our living room. We want an area rug to go there, but this was much less expensive for that large an area, and we haven't found a rug we like yet.

We also went to the store closing sale of a local furniture store. We purchased a 2 end tables and a coffee table for the living room, and a bedroom furniture set for half the already marked down prices. We don't actually need the coffee table, but it only came as a set. We were looking to replace our current end tables that are just 3 leg tables with table cloths on them. They aren't very baby-proof. Getting the bedroom furniture will put off our getting a new computer for a while, but we've been putting off getting the furniture for 5 years. We decided it was a sacrifice we were willing to make.

Food glorious food...

{Note: I did a post last night that's a little different, so don't forget to read it if you haven't already.}

Ryan loves eating real food, and Alyna's acquiring a taste for it.

Today Ryan got his first taste of carrots, and loved them. He ate half a container, about 1 1/4 oz. That is after eating a whole container (2.5 oz) of applesauce for breakfast. He's been eating a whole container of applesauce, and a whole container of pears for most of this last week.

Alyna still sometimes makes a sour face, but is doing very well opening her mouth to eat most of the time. When she's done, you know it because she shakes her head and will not open her mouth again. She usually eats half a container at each meal now.

A long line of love...

Our life group has been watching a video series on marriage called "Lord of the Rings", and it has been a great experience. We watched the final video today, and even though Barry was at work, I took away something special from it.

I come from a long line of love. Neither my parents nor my grandparents were divorced. They were committed to each other throughout their lives even when times were difficult.

I specifically thought of my Dad's mom, Nanny. She cared for her husband for many years after he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. I always thought of it as just Nanny refusing help from others once again, but today I thought about what a labor of love it must have been. Day after day, as his memory faded, and his physical strength diminished she carried him through. She fed him, cleaned him, and was his companion to the end.

I would like to say thank you to all the people in my family who have shown me what a Christian marriage should be. It's never perfect, and it's never easy. It is full of love, and full of God.

It is my goal that my grandchildren would also be from a long line of love. I want them to say, "My grandparents still love each other." I want them to have the legacy that teaches them what a Christian marriage is. I pray that Barry and I can give them that.