Our Families 2011

 This past year has been a year of many many changes in our little family. Jam packed of fun, smiles, hardly any time, and new adventures. Here are some of the biggest things that happened in our family this year. Since our girls were born at the end of November in 2010, the end of 2010 was relatively mild compared to 2011. Our girls have done most of their growing in 2011 and let me tell you, they have learned a lot! Trevor also switched professions and is now working for the City of Henderson. We bought our first home and we are still trying to settle in (a.k.a put things away.)

 Here are some picture highlights.

      For New Years 2011 we headed up to Salt Lake, in attempts to see the lights at Temple Square. This attempt failed miserably because the storms were too bad and we didn't want to take out little babies out in the bitter cold. Although, it was still their first road trip!!!

This thing they call Motherhood

While talking with my mother this morning we briefly talked about how hard it can be to be a mother.  To feel like all you do is care for your children and love them through everything and do your best by them and it feels like it never gets easier, just harder. I so understand that feeling. Some days I feel like my days are just go, go, go, go and I have almost nothing to show for it at the end of the day. For instance, there are days when I feel like I just tend to children every minute of the day and then I look around and my house is a mess and I think "what have I done with this day?" Sometimes the answer is clear........ I was a Mom ALL DAY! Other times I just feel like a failure. The scary truth of motherhood is that it is hard work and sometimes it doesn't feel like anything is working out.

Day 3:

This is again being posted a day late but better late than never. I am grateful for these two smiling faces

I know........ how cute are they? I love these girls more than anything in the world! They are beautiful and sweet and surprise me everyday and are constantly teaching me new things!!!

Corn Maze

This last weekend Trevor and I headed up to St. George for a few different reasons but mostly because I just love St. George! We spent total about a day up there, we got up there on Friday afternoon and stayed the night with my grandparents and left town Saturday afternoon. While we were up there we went to the Staheli Farm, there is a corn maze and a petting zoo and a pumpkin patch. My girls were particularly fond of the animals and I was particularly fond of the entire experience. 

 

     Our little family, Audrey is in purple and Riley is in blue

Fall Catus'

      I know what you are thinking, since when have cactus' ever been associated to fall? Well to that I answer.......... Welcome to Southern Nevada!!! We are not within the lucky other parts of the world that are graced with beautiful autumn colored leaves that cover the ground. Instead we are forced to decorate what we have, cactus'! So on Thursday, Trevor (who got off work surprisingly early, YAY), the girls, and I met up with their Aunts and cousins at the Ethel M's Chocolate Factory and Cactus Garden! I had heard of this place before but had never visited it. It was a lot of fun, we got to try  some chocolate, which was wonderful, and then we took a little walk through the garden. I pretty much forgot to take pictures till the very end so here are some photos!

I am related to someone talented

In reality I am related to many talented people, I am actually one of least talented people I know!!! Hahahaha. No seriously though, I am one of those people that really has no specific talent I just enjoy lots of different things. For instance, I like to craft and sew when the mood strikes me, I enjoying doing hair most days, I love blogging but I am obviously inconsistent, and I sing all the time but most people never know that! So see talentless, although mother lovingly teases me but I think she may really believe that I only have a talent for producing twins!

new tricks

I feel like babies are constantly learning new tricks, and it's kinda fun to watch!!! I love to watch the little wheels turning in their heads when you know they are trying to figure how to do new fun things, it is just adorable. Here are some new tricks from my little nuggets.

 

Here is Audrey! And yes, sometimes I do let my kids run around in just diapers!

A quick update on toothpaste

If you are a previous reader of our unspoken war   I just thought you may be interested in how it all panned out. I, personally thought it was an interesting, yet victorious ending myself. I continued to use trial sized toothpastes until the end of the week and Trevor continued to "squeeze" out the toothpaste from the completely empty tube. After a few days of thinking there was no way he couldn't possibly be getting anything out of that tube I finally threw it away, thinking I was finally victorious because he would HAVE to get out a new tube or go rampaging through things to find the trial sized ones.

Our unspoken war

Well for starters ever since we got married Trevor has made it pretty clear that he disliked my nonchalant attitude about where to squeeze the toothpaste out of. He has always liked to squeeze the toothpaste from the bottom and I just don"t care. Anyways on with the real story! When we were first married I, trying to be the thoughtful caring wife I am, would replace the empty toothpaste tube with another one of the many we have under our sink. (Now you know how easy it is to replace!)

what my girls are doing now

I have not updated on my girls in a while so here are a few pics and maybe some videos too!!! I'll explain as we go.............

The girls just LOVE sesame street now!

I believe this is Riley in the video........ yep, it is! 

Oh and just as a side note this is often how messy my house gets after two little girls have their fun in it........ how embarrassing!!!

Welcome home Brother!

My brother in law Paul Just got home from his mission in Chihuahua, Mexico on August 3rd! It's been so exciting to have him back!!! The last time I saw him I was just about to marry his brother and I was definitely not a mother of the cutest twin girls ever! We all greeted him as he arrived off of the plane! Cindy and I even made all the kiddos t-shirts for the occasion, since the only two that were even born were Emjae and Julieand even then Emjae was 1 and Julie was like 7 days. So basically he was coming home to 2 new nieces and one new nephew but 5 total kiddos that didn't have a clue who he was!!! So Emjae's shirt said "Are you my uncle Trevor?" and Julie's shirt said " Are you my uncle Erik?" and then Erick, Audrey, and Riley's shirts said "Are you my uncle?" It was pretty fun, not to mention Cindy and I learned a few things about iron ons!!! Paul, of course, loved them............. right Paul!!!

   

The quaint little town of Keystone

      When we went to South Dakota we stayed in a little town called Keystone, which is the home town of my Great Grandpa! I love this little town, there are so many memories of my own childhood here, from the times when I would come to visit! 

Vintage!!!

     If you know this inside joke you can imagine how I am saying "Vintage." It makes me laugh just thinking about it! So funny. Anyway on to the actual purpose of the post! This is the Keystone house where my Great Grandpa Clifford grew up and he and my Grandma Carolyn bought it and restored it. I wish I had the before pictures because they really did a great job from how bad of condition it was in. Most of the cut little vintage furniture is from my great great Aunt Margret!

South Dakota

       Through the 4th of July my family was in South Dakota. South Dakota? I know what you are thinking. What a random vacation spot! Well, it is the home to my Great Grandpa Clifford and my Grandma Carolyn. They are the two people in the metal chairs in the picture below. The 5th of July was my Great Grandpa's 90th birthday so the majority of our small family came out to celebrate with us! The only ones really missing were my cousin Jaymi and her husband Eric and their two kids Max and Will. 

       Just a little background on my Great Grandpa. He was the youngest man to work on Mt. Rushmore at the age of 17 and he is now the last living man that ever worked on it. Since he still lives near Mt. Rushmore he is basically a local celebrity! It was so fun to have the girls up there to be with their GREAT GREAT grandpa! As many of you already know I just love when my girls get attention, it makes me feel like a proud momma. So when I got attention for them in South Dakota I proudly shared that they were not only adorable twin girls but in fact the adorable twin great great granddaughters of the last living man that worked on the monument they were visiting! It was a pretty special experience!

 

Family Pictures

My friend Jen who runs a little photography business that just moved to Phoenix, Arizona was kind enough to take some family photo's for us in the beginning of June. I just love them all. Just for all of your readers information, Audrey is in the blue bow and Riley was in the ponytail with the white bow!!! Hope you all enjoy looking at my sweet little babies as much as I do!

 

my weird kids

I am not too sure why but my kids just seems to be naturally goofy! These are a few pictures of the weird things my girls do!

I call this one Creepy Hand. One night before Trevor and I headed off to bed we checked in on the girls and found this hanging out of Riley;s crib! She was cuddled up to her bumper, this new little trick kinda freaks us out but she just loves having something on her face when she is sleeping! Even if she wakes up and there is nothing on her face, she looks for something to to put there so she can fall back asleep! Audrey does this sometimes too, but Riley is religious about it!

Fathers day weekend!!!

 This weekend most of Trevor's family were in town with the exception of Paul. So we had a fun little family filled weekend! Saturday the boys went shooting and when they got back all of us girls (that met the age and height requirement) took off to run some errands! Later that night some of us attended the Stake Patriotic Night, which my husband was singing in. It was really nice, although I usually feel VERY patriotic at events like this, this time felt different. Almost like the country I am living in is different to me somehow. Don't get me wrong I still love the United States of America and I appreciate all of the freedoms I enjoy but this year has just been different to me somehow!

Summer time

 This weekend Trevor's Aunt Brenda had a BBQ / swim party. It was fun getting the girls in the pool again! We even bought these fun little floaties that had shade over them! I loved them and so did the girls, until their father started doing jumps off the diving board and making BIG splashes! haha

cute outfit! Maybe the ones for our family pictures!

 It kinda hard to tell how cute these little outfits are when they are not being held up or sitting but they are super cute!!! I'm thinking these maybe the ones we will use for family pictures but we shall see what happens between now and then. I have a tendency to change my mind a lot!

 Audrey on the left Ri on the right!!!

First Swim

We took the girls  swimming for the first time yesterday. It was pretty fun to see them splash around in the pool. Of course, they didn't really like the pool water since it is still pretty cold so we warmed up the jacuzzi just a little so it would be warm enough for them to enjoy.

  Me and Audrey.