Spring Pictures

Daddy time:




They love to play in the back yard. Ryan carries handfuls of rose petals everywhere.





The water table is one of their favorite things. We just have to wait for days that are warm enough and not too windy. I'm sure it will be a daily activity this summer.

Preferences

It should come as no surprise to anyone that Alyna now wants to pick which shoes she wears when we go somewhere. She also wants to feed herself most of the time, and is doing a very good job. Sometimes we have to help her get the food on the spoon/fork, but then she very carefully gets it to her mouth.

She is very much left handed. She tries things right-handed, but always goes back to the left after a couple times.

At McDonald's the other day the twins wanted to play at the air hockey table after watching the bigger kids do it. Miss Karen held Ryan up, and I held Alyna. I put her hand onto the stick (or whatever it's called) and we hit the puck. She then pulled her hand away and reached out to grab the stick with her LEFT hand. Oops, I forgot.

Barry read an article that said it is highly common in twins for one to be right handed and the other left. I guess Grandma or Uncle Matt will have to teach her to tie her shoes.

Alyna also usually wants to choose what she has for afternoon snack. I've started to pull out 2 boxes of things and let her choose.

I know it won't be long before her personal preferneces spread to her clothes and hairstyles.

Baby Girl's Name

Our baby girl's name is:

Kellyn Brooke Love

Kellyn is a combination of Kelly Lynn. We saw it on a baby names website under the Scottish heritage names. Barry and I both really liked it the first time we saw it, and it stuck. Since Alyna also has the "lyn" part, it seems fitting for our next little girl.

We had a list of about 10 middle names that sounded good to us, so that part was harder. We kept going back to Brooke because it sounds really pretty and isn't a mouthful. ...And we all know how important it is that the first and middle name flow well together off Mom's toungue.

When one door closes...

...I pray that there are no little fingers in the way.

Ryan can know turn the knob and open the doors on the bedrooms and bathrooms. Alyna thinks it's great because she loves to shut the doors, and then Ryan can open them again... repeatedly.

We have 2 safety door stoppers, and today I ordered 4 more. I'll just have to leave all the doors open from now on to avoid finger injuries.

We also have to quickly do something about the garage door and front door before he gets strong enough to open them. He can already turn the deadbolts on both doors because they are actually below the doorknob for some reason.

The excitement never ends...

spring reorganization

I don't feel like spring cleaning is the term to use because we haven't even been keeping up with the regular cleaning lately. We have been reorganizing though.

While Grandma was visiting we moved all the towels and linens out of the hall closet to use it as storage for the many buckets of toys the twins have. We were trying to use the rack for the buckets, but they just dump everything out and climb on the rack. So the closet at least keeps more of the toys out of site and we can rotate them better.

The towels and linens are now in our hallway bathroom closet that had a bunch of empty space... I still need to finish throwing out lots of almost empty shampoo and lotion bottles in there.

Barry built himself a workbench in the garage to hold his tools and project supplies. The bench part with lower shelving is finished, but he still has to attach the upper shelf and pegboard for hanging the tools. On Monday, he also cleaned out the garage of a couple month's worth of cardboard boxes and project waste.

I've finally managed to go through the twins clothes and box up everything that's too small or long sleeved.

We found bedding to use for the twins room when they move into the guest room this summer. Ryan's bedding is brown stripes, and Alyna's is a cream color with brown flowers and some turquoise accents. (And they feel a lot nicer than the Wal-Mart sheets that were on the beds.) The walls are already a rich brown color, so we haven't decided whether to repaint the room or leave it as it is.

Side Note: As I'm typing, a bird just landed on the new bird feeder we attached to the picture window the other day... wish the kids were awake to see it...

We still have a long way to go cleaning everything out of the guest room to turn it into the twins room this summer. The nursery will stay the way it is and be the new baby's room. We also need to go through the storage room in the garage and decide what can be sold or thrown away. Barry has agreed to sell/donate all of our many boxes of books... except those with sentimental value or that are classics.

It feels good to start putting things in order for the arrival of the new addition...

Easter Weekend Pictures

On Easter Sunday, Alyna wore her foofiest, prettiest dress... bought by Nana Love a while back. She wasn't too sure about all the lacy layers at first, but seemed fine after about 10 minutes in it.

Grandma (my mom) was here for that week...





Here are some other cute pictures from Grandma's visit...

It's A Girl!

I'm now 20 weeks pregnant with a baby girl!!!

We've always said that we didn't care which gender this baby was, but that since Alyna is so social and always wants someone to play with her, it would be nice for her to have a sister.

And she already plays peek-a-boo just like Alyna...




We don't have a girl name picked yet, but we have a short list... so we'll figure that out soon. Everything is going well so far, and we just pray continued blessings for our baby girl.

Grandma's visit

Grandma (my mom) arrived last night. The twins watched the movie "Cars" on the van's DVD player, and it was on the credits just as I pulled into the airport parking lot. It actually wasn't a bad soundtrack to drive to, though I do look forward to the day when they can use the headphones with it. After we found Grandma, we ate dinner and did some shopping before heading home just after their normal bed time. They slept the whole way home and the transition to the cribs was easy once we were home.

They were tired and fussy this morning... I think they though Mommy was leaving because Grandma was here. We've had fun playing and taking a walk. Grandma is busy at the sewing machine making some denim and kahki play pants and shorts. Ryan's waist is so small it's hard to find pants that fit him.

We've got a busy week ahead, and are really glad she's here.