Summer

I know it's been a long while since I've written anything.  I've been meaning too, but I just haven't sat down to do it.  My mom asked me the other day if I was doing my blog anymore.  I said that I hadn't been, but I intended to get back to it, so here I am.

Jayna is pretty much three and a half now and the twins are almost 20 months old.  When people ask me how old they are, I am made to realize that they will be two in a couple of months.  I cannot believe that.

It was two years ago on July 14th that we found out the life altering news that we were expecting twins.  At that point, we were overwhelmed with the possible complications with twins, let along surviving the first two years!  I am very happy to say that we have almost made it.

It's been an interesting summer.  Jayna was in daycare full time (but I would keep her home regularly when we would do fun things) and the twins only went to daycare once a week.  Needless to say, I was reminded of the fact that I'm not cut out to be a stay at home mother.  Having said that, we have had a lot of fun this summer and spent a lot of time at playgrounds and at the zoo.  Many people have complained about the lack of heat, but it's been great for us.  I can't get to the beach or pool by myself with the three little ones, but I can take them to the park by myself so we've been happy.

We also took our first trip as a family of 5.  It was only a couple of days in Grand Forks, but we made it through with only one melt down in Gordman's with the two girls (really, that was the first tantrum in a store ever for our kids).  We did some shopping and the kids loved the water park so it was a definite success.  I wanted to camp this year, but Derrick was very reluctant.  His reason was that there would be some crazy moments.  My response was that there are crazy moments at home and if we were camping, at least we'd be making memories, despite the crazy moments.  I didn't push the issue this year, but next year we are definitely camping.  We did stay in a tent at a family function in Stonewall last weekend and it was a success, so that was promising and we are off to a friend's cabin for the long weekend, so that should be fun.

Jayna is becoming more and more independent every day.  She's an amazing big sister and usually a great helper around the house.  Obviously she has her moments, but for the most part, she's a really good kid who's always smiling and a lot of fun to be around.  She's also at the stage where she comes out with a lot of funny things.

Mara and Davin are busy, busy, busy.  I often find myself saying that they are crazy.  They are really well behaved (most of the time.....just like any child) and have pretty good manners, but they are at the stage where they scream because they can't communicate everything they would like to.  Davin is talking quite a bit and Mara is catching up.  Mara has recently discovered how to take dresses and shirts off, so that poses an interesting problem.  It's a lot of fun to watch them play together and on their own at this stage.  As I write this, Mara is being her little mom self, playing with a couple of dolls and stuffed animals and Davin is building with Mega Blocks, which he has recently discovered.  They do fight regularly throughout the day, but keep in mind that they are almost always together.  They also do really cute things like hold hands in the van and hug and kiss each other.  Those moments are unbelievably precious and make all of the yelling and screaming forgotten.

Here are some recent pictures.