Twinserkins

Halloween 2011

2011-11-01T18:11:00.000-07:00

I wasn't really feeling creative this year for Halloween and I had a hard time getting "in the spirit." We didn't want to spend any money so we wanted to use what we had or could borrow. I usually like to make the kids' costumes and have them coordinating but I just wasn't feeling it. Finally a week before Halloween I decided I had to make some decisions. The girls would tell me something different every day, so they really weren't much help. My friend and neighbor Ginny offered her princess costumes to us so we took a look and we had a winner. Madylin loved the Cinderella costume she offered so I got out a Princess Aurora costume I had bought at a garage sale and was saving for Christmas and Morgan decided she loved it. We were set for the girls and we already had a Batman costume in the dress-up bin that was just Nathan's size.

We tried to make everything very authentic for the girls to make it more fun and I think they looked just like there princess counterparts, if I do say so myself.

Beware: these princesses have some attitude.

I know I am biased but I though Nathan was the cutest Batman I ever saw.

Our Pathetic Oak Glen Trip

2011-11-01T17:51:00.000-07:00

So there is this cute little town about 15 minutes away from us called Oak Glen known for their you-pick apple orchards. I've heard so many great things about it ever since I moved to the IE for college 8 years ago because everyone in this area seems to go there at least once a year. Somehow I had never gone. Until last week, that is. We met my cousin Justus and his wife and 2 kids up there on a Monday afternoon and planned to look around at the orchards and petting zoos and kids trails and little shops. We met up at 4:30pm. Apparently everything closes at 5pm. We drove around the mountain and could not find anything open- not even for dinner! The pumpkin patch appeared to be open so we drove up and started to walk around and it was like a ghost town. No one was in sight- not even the owners. We just wandered around the land on our own which was a little eerie. And apparently there aren't many you-pick orchards this year because the trees didn't fair so well this winter. So anyways I may have to wait until next Fall to understand why everyone loves this place so much, but I did get a couple of cute pictures of my brood anyhow . . .

So when IS the best time to go?

Pumpkin Patch 2011

2011-11-01T17:31:00.000-07:00

We took our preschool field trip to the Live Oak Pumpkin Patch and enjoyed looking around there. It was so HOT though the week before Halloween! It didn't feel like we should be doing Fall activities.

Madylin

Morgan

"The boy"

Here are some of the kids looking at a friendly pony

The giant haystack is always a favorite of the kids.

And before leaving we carted the kids out to the field to roam around the pumpkin field and see how they grow. Yay for Fall!

Preschool Pictures!

2011-11-01T17:29:00.000-07:00

We started our new preschool co-op in September and, lucky us, one of the moms does photography on the side! She took some great pictures of the kids on the first day of preschool.

Here's the whole class being silly.

One of my favorite pictures ever of Madylin!

Thank you Darcy! Love the pictures

L.A. County Fair

2011-11-01T16:44:00.000-07:00

Okay if I want to post about Halloween (which I do) then I told myself I have to catch up first!

In September we were able to go to the L.A. County Fair on a weekday for free thanks to my friend Katrina and the unofficial preschool field trips she frequently puts together. My mom came too, and we packed lunches and had a fun day without spending a dime.

Of course the kids loved the animals, especially Nathan. He liked the chickens and roosters and kept saying "cock-a-doodle-doo"

They spent a lot of time playing on this crocodile

I think this one of Nathan is my favorite picture from the day. He seems like he is sacrificing himself or something.

They had this really great area for kids to dress up as princesses and knights and just play pretend.

The girls of course LOVED it.

There was a lot to see there and the kids really enjoyed seeing animals they've never seen before (they've never been to a zoo or The Wild Animal Park, poor deprived kids). I love this picture of them trying to act like scary lions.

We didn't get a picture of the whole group but here we are without Russell. I'm so glad we had the opportunity to do something like this without spending money. We were so grateful.

Nathan Turns 2!

2011-07-28T21:28:00.000-07:00

My baby boy turned 2 on Saturday the 23rd of July. We spent the most of the day at home and then headed to Russell's cousin's wedding in Redlands. My mom was the florist for the wedding so after the ceremony, she took the kids home and Russell and I stayed at the reception sans kids, which was kind of nice. Anyway, we didn't really celebrate Nathan's birthday that day because of the wedding.

On Sunday we had our families over for dinner and cake and ice cream and had a nice time. We had an "UP"-themed party because Nathan is obsessed with that movie and asks to watch it the second he wakes up every morning. I kid you not- as soon as you walk into his room every morning he says "watch doggie movie!"

The invites I made on the computer and just e-mailed to the family. I thought they turned out cute.

We just decorated with bunches of helium balloons and pictures from the movie that I printed out. I was trying to make it fun, but very low-key.

I didn't take pictures of the decor really, but Russell did take this one.

I stressed over the "UP" cake for a few days and decided to just do something yummy and not stress so much over the look like I usually do. I made a strawberry cake with homemade strawberry filling and buttercream which I though tasted really good. I changed my mind on how to do this cake a dozen times and eventually just decided that since it was only for a few people and a 2 year old, I would take the easy route and just do balloons and use a printable 3d house that I found online at the bottom of the cake. Simple and cute.

He was spoiled with clothes, puzzles, books, and lots of sports equipment! He opened this soccer ball from Grandpa and Grandma Kinser first and was ready to call it quits and start playing

I had to throw it in the other room to get him to open the rest of the gifts. He also got a baseball glove and tee ball set and a soft ball and bat. He is definitely ALL boy!

About Nathan at 2:

Favorite phrases: "I do it" (Mr. Independent)

(often followed by) "I did it!"

"follow me, Mama"

"don't let the bed bugs bite"

"good nap!" (when he wakes up after nap)

"no spankin'" (after hitting his sisters)

"watch a movie"

"beep the horn" (whenever we are under a bridge or tunnel)

Favorite movies: "Up" and "Cars"

Songs: "Popcorn Popping" "Wheels on the Bus" "Twinkle Twinkle"

He can: Sing the ABCs

Count to 12

Serve a volleyball pretty well

Climb out of his crib

Get away with just about anything ;)

Watch Out . . .

2011-07-22T07:19:00.000-07:00

for the new members of the Justice League!

Impressive muscles, no?

Kinser Family Update

2011-07-18T13:42:00.000-07:00

And baby makes 6!

(coming Jan 2012)

July 4th, 2011!

2011-07-12T11:23:00.000-07:00

I love the 4th of July! It's become one of my favorite holidays. This year we spent it with Russell's extended family. We went to Aunt Vickie's for swimming and a potluck dinner.

Madylin relaxing in the pool

Morgan enjoying the sun

Nathan aka "The Fish" He loooves to swim and isn't afraid at all!

After dinner we headed to Aunt Lynne and Uncle Max's house for homemade ice cream and fireworks.

Here is our patriotic brood. . .

(Great thing about girls- some cute leggings and last year's dresses can be used again!)

Madylin is staring at her pretty toes that cousin Crystina had just painted for her. It took several shots to get one where she'd look up!

2 years ago this was me and 3 cousins on the 4th of July

Here are 3 of the 4 little patriotic boys from those bellies . . . (Cody Bogh had not arrived with his parents yet unfortunately, and we didn't get another one once he had)

Braden Fisher, Luke Fisher, Nathan

We watched the fireworks from lawn chairs near the street so we could see the show at the University of Redlands. During the show Nathan kept saying "cooool" and "spockly" (sparkly). He loved it.

My ALL-TIME favorite picture from the 4th is this from the ride home after fireworks:

He would not put this flag down. He kept calling it his "own flag," as in when it dropped he'd say "uh-oh! Drop own flag! Drop own flag!"

Here is my favorite with some editing:

We Graduate!

2011-07-11T09:47:00.000-07:00

Besides enjoying the sun, the month of June was also about Commencement ceremonies in this house. Russell and I both finished requirements for our bachelor's degrees in March and we both got to "walk" in June.

Russell graduated from the University of Phoenix on June 4th with a BS in Business Administration.

There were a TON of graduates, but the UoP officiators really knew what they were doing (although they started like 40 min late). They were very efficient and very fast and the whole ceremony only lasted about 2 hours once it started even though there were over 1,000 graduates. Russell's parents and I were in attendance.

I graduated (with honors! - just like to throw that in to bug Russell) from California State University, San Bernardino on June 19th with a BA in Human Development

There were less graduates, but it was soooo long because the University president, Dr. Karnig likes to talk to each of the graduates for a second as he shakes their hand. Here he is shaking my hand and he asked me what I was going to do with a degree in Human Development. I told him that for now I would be at home taking care of 3 little ones and he said, very sincerely, "Well, that is a great thing to be able to do." President Karnig used to be at all the volleyball games and he even had the volleyball team to his house once for a dinner. Such a great man and I was happy he was the one to shake my hand.

It was also really great to be in the beautiful arena where I spent some of the best days of my life playing volleyball. I love that place and as I sat and listened to speeches I got to look around at all the volleyball banners for conference and regional championships that I was a part of earning and just reflect on memories and think about what a great college experience I was able to have.

My parents, Russell, and my brother Steven were all in attendance at my ceremony.

Thanks to our families for supporting us and thanks to our kids for putting up with Dad's busy nights doing homework on the computer and Mom's dropping them off with babysitters multiple times each week from November to March. Thanks to our families for helping watch the kids while I finished school this Winter (especially Jessica and Mitch!) We couldn't have done it without help and we are so excited to be finished!

Enjoying June

2011-07-05T10:12:00.000-07:00

Russell has been home for most of June and we have been having some fun in the sun:

In our little pool in the backyard

Enjoying some post-swimming fruit snacks

Nathan just being adorable while swimming at Aunt Kami and Uncle Mark's

We went to the beach in Carlsbad and although the air was a little chilly- the kids loved it this year!

Sporting their new sunglasses while snacking at the beach

First Haircut!

2011-07-05T09:42:00.000-07:00

We decided to cut Morgan and Madylin's hair for Summer. It was beautiful long, but they hated when I had to brush it out and they hated having me wash their hair. Shorter hair has been soooo nice for all 3 of us! The girls love it.

Madylin before and after her first haircut

Morgan before and after first haircut.

I do miss their long hair a bit- I won't keep it this short, but it is nice for Summer when we are swimming a lot and sweating in the heat!

The Twins' Rainbow Birthday Party

2011-06-06T20:19:00.000-07:00

The girls and I decided to have a rainbow-theme birthday party this year. Now, I love throwing parties and showers with themes that I can incorporate into everything and I went crazy and thoroughly enjoyed doing every last detail of this party. My good friend Jessica took some amazing photos of those details so here are a TON of pictures!

First of all here is the invitation:

And here is the view when you walked into the party

I sewed strips of colored paper together to make the hanging garlands and made tons of paper pinwheels to put everywhere. My mom did most the work sewing together that AMAZING tablecloth using plastic tablecloths from the dollar store and sewing them to an old sheet.

I used paint samples and favorite pictures of the girls to add some more color and personal touches to the decor.

Sweets Table

Instead of doing a meal I really wanted to have a sweet/dessert table and make everything really bright and colorful and fun. On this table we had:

Rainbow layered jell-o

I covered oreos in white chocolate and then used colored glace icing and colored sprinkles to pretty them up. They were sooo good.

Sour rainbow-striped airheads rolled and stuck with a toothpick for easy grabbing

One of my favorite treats- jell-o coated popcorn. I made 6 different flavors

Easy chocolate and sprinkle- covered pretzel rods

Twizzlers with their label on a colored popsicle stick easel

Chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting and fun toppers

The kids stayed outside mostly, playing on the swingset, making rainbow crafts, playing in the mini bounce-house, or playing with the bean-bag toss.

Madylin, Morgan & Nathan. My parents made this for a bean bag toss game and for photo ops.

Morgan colors her rainbow with markers

Madylin gluing dyed pasta to her rainbow template. I dyed flower shaped pasta in 6 colors and they turned out sooo pretty and bright!

The cake had 6 layers- one of each color of the rainbow we were using. I made a simple pennant bunting by gluing colored felt to twine and lined the bottom of the cake with chewy lemonheads in rainbow order.

Blowing out the candles on their six-tier cake

I wish I could plan a party like this every year for each of my kids- but I don't think my husband would allow that! This was so much fun!

The Twins Turn 4!

2011-05-13T22:31:00.000-07:00

The morning of the twins' 4th birthday we woke up at my parents house in San Diego. We had been there for the weekend because I had a volleyball tournament there. The girls got to open their first present from Russell and I- dresses and stick on earrings (I know . . . I'm going to enjoy it while I can because I know the days of wishing for i-pods and cell phones will be here all too quickly). I braided their hair and they were looking beautiful (and too old!) and ready for the day.

Madylin chose pink heart earrings (she LOVES pink)

This one always has her hands on her hips for pictures. Makes sense- she's got some serious attitude though you wouldn't think it based on this sweet picture.

We had a picnic lunch with Granna and the 2 boys she babysits and enjoyed the gorgeous weather.

We left San Diego and came back home after lunch. We took the girls to the movies for the first time. Thanks to our friends Ginny & Steve for watching the boy so we could just take the birthday girls!

Here they are using their birthday money from Grandma Hatch to buy their movie tickets.

and buy some candy, of course

Then we sat and got ready for "Rio." Cute movie, but I'm glad the girls were still too young to understand a lot of the adult humor in that movie.

After the movie we went to dinner at La Casita

and then headed home for cupcakes. The girls each got a plate of frosted cupcakes to decorate. They love to put sprinkles on anything they can

Nathan thoroughly enjoyed this activity as well

We sang Madylin "Happy Birthday"

and then Morgan (she's younger by 2 min ;)

And the girls opened up one last present

I love this age when they are so easy to please!!

Can't believe they are 4!

Easter 2011

2011-05-13T21:26:00.000-07:00

Easter Sunday is swiftly becoming my favorite holiday. Probably because I get to host and have both my family and Russell's family all together under OUR roof. This year the Easter Bunny was kind enough to come during church instead of before because 9 am church comes too early to fuss over egg hunts and baskets as well as get myself and my brood looking extra special in time.

Here are the kids before church. Of course the picture is blurry- I hate my camera (but don't tell my husband I said this because he hates it when I complain about it and threatens to go spend money we don't have to buy a new one ;)

And the next one is magically clear

After church we admired our baskets from the Easter Bunny and also saw the dammage he'd done. The girls thought it was hilarious that the naughty bunny came and hid eggs all over our house! Unfortunately, it was kind of a dreary, drizzly day so the hunt had to take place indoors.

Nathan had some help from Granna on the high ones

Here are the kids with their loot!

For dinner I made Ham, crescent rolls, green beans with bacon, and deviled eggs. My mom made potato salad and my mother-in-law made a delicious fruit salad. For dessert I made carrot cake and strawberry short cake. We had my mother and father-in-law and Travis, as well as my parents, brother Steven, and my brother Matt with my nephew Kaleb. Great food and great company.

One more attempt at a family picture outdoors:

The girls were complaining that it was cold and Nathan was sucking on an egg, but that's how family pictures often go and so I have to get over it!

Nathan in Scouting

2011-05-13T20:40:00.000-07:00

I am the Bear Den Leader in our church Cub Scout program. One night I brought Russell and the kids so that Russell could help me teach the boys how to tie some knots. Nathan was so adorable. He sat on the table with some rope and tried to tie knots with the boys.

Look at this concentration!

Such a ham

Hemet Children's Museum and Cousins!

2011-05-13T20:28:00.000-07:00

We don't get to see my oldest brother and his family much, but they were visiting grandparents in March for a bit and we made plans to go to my parents' house to see them. Unfortunately, my little nephew got sick and plans changed. My parents brought the older kids and met us in Hemet to go to the Fingerprints Museum so the older kids could still see each other. It was a really cute museum and my girls are STILL talking about it.

They had a cute kitchen area that Morgan, Madylin, and Aubrey had some fun in. Aubrey is 11 months older than the twins.

There was also a cute little dress up room. I don't know why Madylin had to mess up her cute outfit with the creepy scarf and strange expression.

The favorite part for all the girls was the "Wal-Mart" They had a conveyer belt and dozens of empty boxes and cartons and bottles on the shelves for the kids to put into their mini shopping carts. The girls took turns being the "payer" (which you would think means the shopper who pays, but no, they meant the person who takes the money- the checker).

How cute is this boy?? (notice the cart- takes after his dad)

Madylin in one of the tractors

Morgan strapping Granna into the ambulance.

There were lots of things to do. They had a pit for the kids to dig bones out of and motorcycles and a doctor's office and a bank and a climbing wall among other things.

Here are the kids and Uncle Steven after lunch. Really fun day and a cute museum that I would recommend to all my local friends.

Fire Station Field Trip

2011-03-22T10:05:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago we went to one of the fire stations around here with our preschool group. The kids really enjoyed it and the firemen were so nice and really great with the kids. They all got turns sitting in the fire truck

And they got to wear some of the equipment

But the best part was when they got to spray the hose!

Here is our preschool group

So grateful for firefighters and all they do and for their willingness to teach little preschool groups like ours about fire safety!

Valentine's Festivities

2011-02-18T15:37:00.000-08:00

Look at that- only 4 days after Valentine's Day and I'm already posting about it! I'm trying to get better. This year I wanted to have fun with the girls and get them excited for Valentine's Day. We made some cute Valentine's for the grandparents and we decorated cookies to start.

Madylin and her masterpieces

Morgan

We also made these cute candy cane heart "lollypops"

I gave them to my volleyball team (14 year-old girls) and they loved them!

On Valentine's Day I started the day by making pink heart-shaped pancakes for the kids for breakfast. That was a hit. We then got ready to go to a little Valentine's Day party with friends. I got to see some of my old friend's from singles ward, and the kids got to run around and make hats and decorate boxes and cookies. We had a good time. We ate lunch, which included heart-shaped jello jigglers and a heart-shaped sandwhich.

Here are all of the kids' boxes

Morgan and Madylin love to decorate (and eat!) cookies, but really what kid doesn't!

And this is what Nathan did during cookie making. He loves PB&J

After all the festivities I had to go to class and volleyball practice and Russell had the kids for the night. I convinced him to make Shepherd's Pie for Dinner and to dye the mashed potatoes pink. He did it and the girls LOVED that. It looked pretty funny, but tasted yummy.

(poor quality-picture taken w/ Russell's phone)

When I got home around 9:30 I had a paper to write, so I hardly saw Russell that day, but each of us had a good time with our little mini-Valentine's. Hope you all had a fun day, too!

Cutest. Thing. Ever

2011-02-15T19:31:00.000-08:00

I have to interrupt regular planned posts to bring you this . . .

My 18-Month old saying the prayer for dinner tonight.

Kinser Christmas 2010

2011-02-03T17:26:00.001-08:00

We spent Christmas with my family this year because Russell's family was all in Utah. On Christmas Eve we did the usual program with my family beginning with playing Christmas carols on the chimes

The nativity scene included Joseph, Mary with baby Jesus, an Angel, and a Shepherd with her sheep that wouldn't keep on his wool coat.

Such a sweet angel (that night anyways)

Christmas morning was so fun! Santa brought the girls what they had asked for- BIKES! (of course Santa didn't realize how big the girls had gotten, so he had to take the bikes back and exchange them for bigger bikes. He's only human, after all)

Nathan had a ball and was spoiled with LOTS of cars and trucks and other boy toys.

Morgan picked this toy camera to give to her brother and I just love this picture.

No Christmas album is complete without a picture of the kids in their Christmas church clothes (and yes, those are the same dresses from last year ;)

Getting Ready for Christmas

2011-02-03T17:26:00.000-08:00

We were so excited for Christmas this year. Christmas is so much fun with a 3 year old, and double that of course with 2 of them! We always start getting into the spirit by "decking the halls" so here is Morgan with her "Baby's 1st Christmas" ornament

and Madylin with hers.

All the kids were so excited to see Santa this year. Nathan would see pictures of Santa and say "ho ho ho" really slowly and with his "deep voice." It was priceless.

I heard about this website from a friend where you could personalize a message from Santa to your child so I prepared one for each of the girls. Santa said their names and had pictures of them and talked about things they'd done that year. He also told each of them something he wanted them to work on. Morgan was told to try hard to listen to her parents, and Madylin was told to try to eat everything off of her plate (Santa really knew what they struggled with :). Let me just tell you the message was awesome and well received and it worked!! The girls were always talking about what Santa told them to do and tried really hard to do it.

Here is a picture of part of Madylin's message.

and Morgan watching her message from Santa.

And just cause it's cute and he's wearing Christmas pajamas, here's a picture of my little fire fighter.

Are we a "Desert Family?"

2010-12-08T10:40:00.000-08:00

Well the jury is still out on that, but we did go to Glamis with Russell's parents over Veteran's day weekend and we did have a pretty good time. Morgan and Madylin were scared of the quads at first, but Madylin warmed up when she got to go on a little ride with daddy.

Morgan still refused to go on the quad until about half-way through the day after Madylin rode this

Then Morgan decided she was brave enough to try. Here she is with Russell holding a leash to stop her if needed (which it was. Often) It's only an 11 second video, but I think it's funny to see Morgan give herself whiplash and Russell running behind her to keep up.

Note to self: don't dress the twins alike when we are riding. I'm not sure who's who in all my pictures when they are on the bike with the helmet on!
There were several other people in our camp (most of them I was only vaguely familiar with) and they were all so kind to share their toys with everyone. The Burgesons let us take out their razor and the kids all loved it. Nathan even fell asleep going around all those dunes with the roar of the engine. Here is Grandpa Kinser, Me with Nathan asleep on my lap, Morgan and Madylin.

Even more than the razor, the girls loved riding in the rhino with Sammy Stuart.

Sammy was sweet enough to let the girls tag along with her everywhere. They were always in her trailer or in her rhino and if they weren't, they were asking to go play with Sammy.

Nathan was obsessed! He learned a new word: quad. He would cry if he was inside the trailer, pointing outside saying "quad quad quad" over and over until Grandpa took him outside and then he HAD to be sitting on one. Whenever he would get to go out in the rhino or the razor, or when Russell just took him around the camp on the quad he would cry as soon as you came to a stop and turned off the engine. It was funny, but made things kind of miserable because he was only happy when he was riding on something! When Russell and his dad were out on rides, Grandma and I had to deal with the unhappy kids.

The worst part was actually the night. We were perfectly comfortable in the trailer with Russell's parents, but the noise was so annoying. Can't there be a curfew in Glamis!?? I felt like I didn't even sleep because every 10 minutes someone would ride right by our trailer with their noisy toy and wake me up ALL night long. Sorry to complain, but those are the things that would keep me from becoming a "desert family."

Russell and I went on a couple of rides as well and that was kinda fun. I learned how to use a clutch!

And I only fell off once and it was actually kind of fun. I was following Russell up a razorback and I didn't get both the back tires on the right side of the dune, so I got stuck and then kinda got bucked off. But I pushed off so that I'd land far away from the bike and landed in the soft soft sand. Didn't hurt ONE bit and I thought that was pretty cool! (I did break something very minor on the bike though, sorry Travis) I got pretty good by the last day I think. And I even got a good jump and got all 4 tires off the ground (on purpose, this time).

At night we hung out around the camp fire and the crazy other parents let their teenagers have roman candle wars (shooting them at each other from like 30 ft away, Civil War style!) Sorry I don't think I'm that much of a prude, but if that's what our kids are supposed to be doing in the desert when they are teenagers, our days as a "desert family" will be short-lived. There were some really great families out with us, but those parents were seriously unhinged in my opinion! Russell's says I need to relax. Here's what my cuties were doing instead.

Just hanging around the campfire making s'mores. So I'm sure we'll be going out again this season, but I don't know if I'm ready to call us a real "desert family" just yet.

He Amazes Me

2010-11-03T19:27:00.000-07:00

So I don't usually do posts bragging about my kids, but I am just so amazed by Nathan! He is SUCH a talker!! He has a new word like every week and is only 15 months! I'm sorry, but I'm impressed. These are the words he says

up (first one I pushed because I was tired of the screaming when he wanted to be held)
Mamma and Dadda
ball
nana (for banana- he practically sing/screams this one out of excitement when he gets one)
hot dog (this one shocked my when he started saying it at about 13 months. It sounds like "hot gog." Should I be ashamed that one of his first food words was hot dog??)
hi (constantly- even if he's just gone upstairs for 30 seconds he comes down with a "hi" that sounds like he is in awe and soooo happy to see you again)
drink ("dink" technically)
help
doggie (always followed by an enthusiastic "woof woof woof")
goat
Granna (my mom's title)
Poppa (my dad's title)
Jesus (points at pictures all the time at church and in our home)
cheeeeeese (when playing with the girl's play camera)
shoe (sounds more like "sue")
bye (just that. Not "buh-bye" like most babies say, which I find interesting)
pretzel (sounds like "petzel"- no "r")
nose
button (when referring to his belly button)
baby (while holding the twins' dolls- and then he gives them hugs)
quack quack (in the bath playing with the rubber duckies)
car (complete with the "vroom vroom")
apple
cracker
cookie
bite (over and over again, especially if you're eating something he wants)
mine (not so much said as it is screamed, unfortunately. Thank you sisters)
no
ticka ticka ticka (when he is being tickled or trying to tickle)
sissy
horsey
boo!
hot (usually in the form of a question, as in he'll walk up to the oven and ask me "hot?")
night night (more like "nye nye"- it's so cute he actually begs for this when he's tired. He loves his sleep)
Nathan (okay slight exaggeration, but he does try when you ask him to and he always says "Nay Nay")

A 50s Halloween

2010-11-01T08:54:00.000-07:00

We have a couple of Russell's cousins and their families who are in our ward and that we love to hang out with. I had the idea this year to have all of us dress from the 50s for Halloween. All the girls wore poodle skirts and all the guys were greasers. I had not dressed up for Halloween in I think 11 years and I had SO much fun. We went to our church "trunk-or-treat" the day before Halloween where all the kids go from car to car to trick or treat. Here is our family all dressed up.

And the girls giving some attitude

Nathan being cute with his hair all slicked back

Here are the 3 little girls (Madylin, Riley, and Morgan)

Best picture I go of my 3. Nathan would NOT hold still

What made the night really fun was that we decorated the truck with a diner theme and the 3 of us mommies served root beer floats to the trick-or-treaters. We spent several hours the night before on this juke box that hardly got noticed (but hey- the 3 of us girls had a ball making it with lots of good-natured criticism, sarcasm, and laughs into the wee hours of the night) and we played a cd through the car of 50s music that I put together with lots of great songs like Yakety Yak and Hound Dog, and Rockin' Robin to a name a few. We were singing along while scooping ice cream and having a ball even though we were too busy to even look up at to who we were serving.

Here are the 3 ladies that put it together with our precious juke box.

We changed the names of the songs on the box to incorporate our kids' names.

We had:

Rockin' Riley

Nathan Angel

Braden B. Goode

Wake Up Little Mady

Morgan Sue

Luke Potion No. 9

And here's the whole gang with our ribbon we won for our "trunk." Time to start planning for next year!

Pumpkin Patch 2010

2010-11-01T08:06:00.000-07:00

I am involved in a preschool co-op with some friends and the first 7 weeks I have been teaching. The last day of my unit we took our first class field trip down to Yucaipa to the Live Oak Pumpkin Path. We had a good time and the weather was beautiful!

Madylin

Morgan

Nathan

The only other groups there were big school groups, but all the rides were closed. The John Deere quads were just sitting there unused so the kids had fun sitting on those pretending to drive.

Madylin and Casey

See that flag rope behind the kids? Yeah we weren't supposed to go past that, but we honestly didn't even think about it. Everything was closed so we just let the kids sit on the rides and didn't even think twice about it, but we got in trouble for that. Sheesh such bad examples for our children.

Here's the whole class. (Madylin, Morgan, Riley, Casey, and Caiden)

This was their favorite part. Christy and I carted the group out to the pumpkin fields in these wagons.

All the kids including the younger siblings. Aren't they cute?

Photo Shoot Part 2

2010-10-08T17:58:00.000-07:00

Here are the fabulous shots of just the kids. Seriously there are so many that I love it is hard to choose a few!

Family Photo Shoot

2010-10-05T23:18:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago my old college roommate/teammate who is a wonderful friend and a fabulous photographer took family pictures for us. She took over 500 photos!! And then I went through and narrowed it down to my favorites. Um . . . yeah . . . I still have 157 favorites!! Okay but here are some of my very very favorites of the whole family and me and Russell with the kids (the kids individual and group pictures will come in another post because this is too long already!)

Labor Day Weekend

2010-09-23T09:08:00.000-07:00

Labor Day weekend we went to visit my parents in San Diego and we planned to make our one and only trip of the Summer to the beach. Wouldn't you know it? The marine layer was really thick when we got there at 10am and did NOT wear off AT ALL. So it was pretty cold, but at least it wasn't crowded! Russell spent a lot of time with the girls walking into the water

and promptly running back out with the tide

Nathan also spent some time running away from the water. But he was very cool and collected about it and seemed to be showing everyone that he wasn't really afraid of the water, he just would rather stay dry.

The girls had SOOOO much fun it made me wish we had taken them more this Summer.

Nathan spent most of the time with me . . . up on the blanket. . . out of the cold. I was trying to protect him from the cold water and it had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I was feverishly reading The Hunger Games

Nathan thought he was a big help when the girls decided to start collecting rocks. I thought it was pretty cute.

We had a good time. Well, at least THEY did. These faces say it all . . .

After lunch and naps the kids had some fun in the pool with their cousins Sara and Kaleb and their Uncle Matt

A Bit of Summer

2010-09-22T09:06:00.000-07:00

I have so much catching up to do to finish posting about our Summer.

We didn't do much swimming this year, but we did hang out with cousins and their water toys. On this particular day Jessica called and invited us over to play with the slip 'n slide and kiddie pool. It was bright and sunny out with clouds far off in the distance when I accepted the invitation, but by the time we got ready it looked like this

And then the thunder and lightning started. We sat out in our lawn chairs with our kids in their bathing suits playing in the water and watched the lightning in the distance (don't worry it was pretty far away). It was actually pretty fun and we even got sprinkled on a bit, but it was so warm that the kids sure didn't mind. Nathan and Braden had a ball crawling around on the slip 'n slide

Morgan and Madylin played in the wagon a lot with Riley and they all took turns pulling each other around

This summer we've also been working on our back yard. We got a whole lot a dirt dumped on our driveway which we then had to transfer to the back yard. The girls were a BIG help, as you can see.

Kinser Family Reunion!

2010-08-25T11:04:00.000-07:00

At the beginning of August we got to welcome home Russell's brother Travis from a 2 year mission to New Mexico. Russell's whole family was together for the first time in a long time and we had some good times together.

We were all able to be there to pick up Travis from the airport and we were all excited to see him . . . well almost all . . .

Every night since the twins started saying their own prayers they've been saying "bless Uncle Travis on his mission helping Jesus" so we thought they would get really excited when we told them he was coming home. Well they did get excited and they said they were going to give him big hugs when they saw him, but SHOCKER, my shy little girls didn't. They wouldn't go near him until a couple of days later. Look at Madylin in both pictures giving him the weary eye.

At least Nathan thought he was trustworthy.

While everyone was still around we also went to "Mormon Night" at the 66ers. It was pretty fun and very family friendly. They sold quesadillas and hot dogs for .50 cents each which the kids enjoyed.

Here is Nathan eating his hot dog next to Grandpa

And Morgan and Madylin taking in the atmosphere.

It was of course time to get a new family photo (There have been 4 grandchildren born since the last one). Brandon wasn't able to be there because he was playing in the pony league world series, so his cousin sat in for him and then Brandon's face was photo-shopped in. The whole situation was pretty comical, but I think it turned out pretty good in the end.

And here are the 10 little ones. I LOVE this picture.

(l-r: Stefani, Nathan, Madylin, Austin, Staci, Ryan, Isaac, Morgan, Cameron, Jeremy)

Nathan's Birthday Celebration (finally)

2010-08-12T15:48:00.000-07:00

Nathan's birthday evening was spent celebrating with our families. Granna, Poppa, Uncle Matt, Aunt Jessica and Sara and Kaleb came from Escondido and Grandma and Grandpa, Uncle Aaron, Aunt Jensine, Isaac, Austin, and Cameron came from San Bernardino. We also had Russell's 2 cousins and their wives come who live here by us since they are practically aunts and uncles to our kiddos. I like to do the 1st birthday with just close family and it turned out to be a very sweet and special evening for us celebrating this very sweet and special boy.

We had a mexican feast of 3 different mexican casseroles, chips and dip, and fruit and I think everyone enjoyed the food and company. The Boy sure did (We refer to him as "The Boy" in this home constantly) I made him a "1" shirt with the material I used for the curtains, quilt, and teddy bear bow tie in his room (see above photo) and thought he looked so cute in it.

He got lots of nice gifts from his family, including lots of bouncing balls (which he LOVES right now)

This picture cracks me up. His sisters' hands are all over his new toy and he's thinking "hey I thought that was for ME"

I had lots of fun making this cake and thought it turned out cute.

I guess he was having a hard time picking up the cake 'cause he just decided to skip the hands all together.

He made a grand mess like every 1-year-old should

And heeeeeeeeeerrrre is the end result!

My Sunshine

2010-07-23T10:09:00.000-07:00

Lately, this little guy is my sunshine and my joy. Guess what? He is 1 today! Makes me sad. I wish he could stay at this age at this stage for another year because he is just so happy and content and easy!

I love him so much!! Don't get me wrong, I LOVED having twins and would do it again in a heartbeat, but it does feel a little different to focus all my love and motherly doting on 1 baby at a time this time around. I feel so close to him and feel like I know him so well. I'm not saying I love him more than I loved the girls at this age, it just feels a bit different and it's nice.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NATHAN!!!

You are such a joy to your family!

Our 4th of July

2010-07-19T12:30:00.000-07:00

Since the 4th was on a Sunday this year I picked up these dresses at Kohls a few weeks before for the girls to wear to church and I LOVED them! Nathan already had lots of patriotic clothes to wear. I had the kids all done up for church and had french braided the girls hair and was about to take pictures when Morgan came running down the hall, tripped on her shoes and went head first right into the corner of the door jam. She had a huge egg on her forehead and took a good 20 minutes to console, making us late for church and I wasn't able to take any pictures. After church we went to Russell's Aunt Lynne's house to have homemade ice cream and watch the University of Redlands fireworks show from her front lawn. I was able to take a few shots of the kids, but they were uninterested and messy by that point. Oh well, this is what we got . . .

We had just gotten home from our trip to Arizona the night before and I got food poisoning on the way home (thought I was gonna die in Blythe!!) so when we got home we pretty much just went to bed with no thought of the next day. In the morning I remembered that Morgan had grown out of all her church shoes (again!) so all the girls could wear to church was their cheap white flip-flops. So Russell washed them up for me and I tied on a bunch of patriotic ribbons and I think they turned out super cute!

Nathan wasn't keen on taking any more pictures at this point, so here is the boy in another patriotic outfit, just to be fair

The girls watched the fireworks with Grandpa and Grandma Kinser

And the tired boy hung out with Mom and Dad and kept trying to reach out and touch the fireworks.

Love the 4th of July, love my family, and love this country!

Phoenix Children's Museum

2010-07-15T11:43:00.000-07:00

We were in Phoenix a couple of weeks ago because I was coaching my club team in the Volleyball Festival. We were there for one very long HOT week and were looking for something that we could do with the kids indoors on my day off. We discovered the Phoenix Children's Museum downtown and the kids loved it! When you first walk in there is this huge jungle gym. Russell took the girls up and they spent a good 20 minutes climbing around in that thing

You can't tell from the picture, but they were like 50 feet up when they finally reached the top

The hard part for Russell was coming down. The workers didn't thing he'd make it. There were a lot of tight spaces the way he chose to come down, but he did emerge (only a little battered and bruised!)

This table was really neat. It was lit from below and had fine sand on top that the kids could draw in and just feel and squish to their heart's content.

The girls really liked this "noodle jungle." They took off in it a couple of times and we had to chase them down in that crazy maze. They had a ball.

Just outside the jungle was a table with different kinds of rocks that the kids could paint with water and brushes. We kept running into this other set of twin girls that are 1 year younger than mine and I had a nice time talking to their mom.

There was a little grocery store with shopping carts and bags and checkout stands and Madylin went to town (Pay no attention to the tea that my daughter is stuffing into her bag- we're trying to kick the habit ; )

Hands down the favorite part of the whole museum was the kitchen area. The girls spent at least a half an hour in here making pizzas and salads and whatever else they wanted to make!

Morgan is such a little homemaker.

Madylin spent most her time making pizza in the brick oven with Granna.

and then watching her enjoy the fruits of their labor.

Nathan loved the "Ballroom" where he just threw balls and chased them or played catch with his daddy.

If you're ever in Phoenix with your kids, I'd recommend the place. There were always areas for little babies to play and lots of comfy places for parents to sit and watch!

Summatime!

2010-06-25T09:09:00.000-07:00

Loving Summer already. I have so much more energy and I have time to do stuff with my family at night like walk to the park because it stays light out for so long. We've already been swimming at my parents house a couple of times in San Diego and a couple of times we've gone to the Fisher's house for some fun on their huge blow up water slide.

Nathan LOVES the water! I'm so excited to have a water baby because the girls were never that way!

Madylin is the only one that likes to climb up to the top of the slide and go down (with someone to catch her at the bottom of course). Most the other kids are a little scared to do it, but Madylin is a little daredevil. This is the same kid that tries to walk down slides instead of slide on her bum like a regular kid.

We may or may not have forced Morgan to go down a couple of times. Hey it's good for her! She's got to toughen up! And after a couple of times she started smiling at the bottom instead of crying.

We were at my parents a couple of weeks ago and went swimming in their pool for the first time. Nathan's first swim!

And he loved it, of course, even though it was freezing!

Madylin and Morgan mostly hung out on the steps shooting people in the face with water guns

or hanging out with the adults, like Uncle Matt.

The point is . . . we LOVE Summer!

This face: "Mom, seriously, why have we never done this before? And I hate when you do my hair like this"

Nathan, Meet Mason

2010-06-15T09:42:00.000-07:00

This is my best friend Melody. This picture was taken when we were just barely 18 (our birthdays are 3 days apart) at a young women's retreat in Big Bear in front of the fireplace. One of my favorite pics of us.

And here we are in front of my parents' fireplace 7 years, 2 weddings, and 4 kids later. She looks the same (brat). I look significantly more tired. And pale. And round. But mostly just tired.

She now lives in Fresno and I very rarely see her. Anyways, the really cool thing is that we had baby boys 3 weeks apart (If Nathan wasn't in such a big hurry to come out they could have had the same birthday, because Mason was born on Nathan's due date). Mel was in San Diego for her sister's wedding a couple of weeks ago so we decided we had to go stay at my parents house so we could see her and her family. It had been about 2.5 years since we'd seen them!

Here are our little guys getting to know each other. Nathan was a bit of a bully and kept taking the toys away from Mason and poor Mason just let him.

Hopefully someday we will live close enough to Melody that Nathan and Mason can become best friends like their mommies.

Lately . . .

2010-06-09T10:49:00.000-07:00

Well since slacker mama hasn't blogged in a while, we thought we'd catch you up on what's been going on around here lately . . .

There has been a lot of "dress-up" happening of late.

Especially when cousin Riley comes to visit. A favorite lately is dressing up as "hallerinas!"

Aren't we so cute with our little "hallerina buns?"

Nathan's getting so big and now likes doing whatever we do. We can make him laugh whenever we want! He likes to head upstairs when mom's not looking to play in our kitchen with us. (He's figured out how to get through the barrier she puts up at the bottom of the stairs- isn't that so funny?!) Here we are eating our cereal together one morning at our table.

We've been able to spend some time with mommy's very good friends Brie and Cat lately! They came and spent a whole day with us- reading us books and playing "Ring Around the Rosie"

We slept REALLY good that night! Mommy says they need to come more often to "wear us out" or something like that.

You know what's really cool? We have 3 birds nests with babies in them just outside our back door!

We love to watch the mommy bird come feed these babies. There are 4 of them in this nest!

We wish mommy would get closer to take better pictures, but she doesn't like birds. We don't understand what she's talking about, but she uses the words "swoop," "attack," and "Hitchcock" a lot. Mommy's kind of a 'fraidy cat, but don't tell her we told you.

We've been having so much fun together lately and we love being twins and always having someone to play with (mommy likes that part too). One morning we sat and watched some Mickey Mouse Clubhouse like this . . .

We keep ourselves busy all day making messes together so mommy has something to do. We spend a lot of time lately caring for our babies together. We each have babies named "Tigger" and "Boy" and we have to put them on time out a lot. We are also working on potty training them in the big toilet (but only when mommy's not looking)

Well now you know what we've been up to lately. Mommy should be back to blog about some adventures later this week!

-Madylin & Morgan

My Girls are 3!!

2010-05-18T09:51:00.000-07:00

The morning after the party was the girls' actual birthday. Their main presents from Russell and I were the Disneyland trip and the party, but we did have one small thing for them to open that we got back in December when we got them their play kitchen for Christmas.

It's a play stand mixer & cookie making set! I got a KitchenAid stand mixer for my birthday/Mother's Day/every other special occasion of 2010, so the girls have seen me use it lots of times and knew what to do!

Time to take the cookies out of the oven!

Madylin and her first batch of cookies.

Morgan was savvy enough to use the hot pads to take the cookies out.

The 1st sunday of every month we get together with my mother-in-law's extended family to have dinner and celebrate the month's birthdays. The girls' birthday just happened to fall on that day, so they got to have the whole family sing to them and blow out more candles. Here is Morgan sitting on Grandpa's lap. This picture cracks me up because of Aunt Paula on the left. She is making this face because Morgan was spitting on the cake a bit as she blew out her candles.

Madylin started out singing happy birthday to herself with everyone, but when she realized she wasn't supposed to she just made shy-eyes at everyone while they sang- so cute!

Can't believe that 3 years ago they were in the hospital and we were not sure if they were both going to thrive or even survive.

We are so blessed to have them! Happy 3rd Birthday Madylin and Morgan!

M&M's 3rd Birthday Party!

2010-05-17T08:49:00.000-07:00

The day before the twins' 3rd birthday we had a little birthday party with some of their cousins and friends that are their age. It was a lot of fun. We had mini pizzas and mini pigs-in-a-blanket with pasta salad, grape salad and carrots with dip. Outside we had bubbles and my cousin Jessica was nice enough to bring over Riley's mini bounce house for the kids to play in, too.

(Madylin, Riley, Morgan, Scarlett, and Luke in the bounce house)

Inside the kids played with toys and homemade play-dough. I LOVE this stuff. It is so easy to make and it has a great texture. You dye it with kool-aid so it smells fruity.

(Christy, Bayer, and Riley)

We did a Cinderella pinata (indoors because by this time it had gotten cold outside). I have lots of not-so-great photos of all the kids taking a wack at Cinderella with my rolling pin, but this one is the funniest. This is Russell's nephew, Isaac. He took at the pinata tomahawk-style and almost knocked into some kids behind him with his back swing, so you can see someone had to grab the pin behind him to stop him from hitting anyone. The pinata was fun, but of course the kids needed a LOT of help to break it open. I was worried my girls would be traumatized by all the people beating up Cinderella, but they didn't care one bit. When it broke open the kids didn't quite know what to do. They all just looked at the candy and some of them picked up a piece or two. It wasn't until the parents started yelling "hurry get as much as you can" and making requests for which candy they wanted their kids to load up on (Uncle Aaron was telling his boys to grab all the airheads haha) that the kids started to get excited and pick it all up.

The girls got to open presents from their generous friends and family. They got bathing suits and clothes, princess jammies, a small curling iron for their hair, crowns and dress up shoes, necklaces and princess figures. Thank you everyone!

My mom was here the day before the party and helped me make the birthday cakes. I decided to do 2 butterfly cakes with different colors for each one. Here is Madylin with her cake.

Morgan with her cake.

It was such a fun little party and I think all of Morgan and Madylin's little friends had a good time, too.

I was a little anxious about the whole day so I was so relieved it went over smoothly.

Our Trip to the Happiest Place on Earth

2010-05-10T13:03:00.000-07:00

On April 29th we decided to take the family to Disneyland! I hadn't been in over 6 years, which means I'd never been with Russell. We wanted to take the girls before they turned 3 so that we didn't have to pay for them because we are cheap smart like that. Their birthday was 3 days later so we really waited to the very last minute and made it a birthday trip. We had fun- but it wasn't what I expected. I remember feeling the same way about our trips to Sea World last year- we had fun, but I expected my kids to be over-the-moon excited about everything and just run around with smiles on their faces. I'm learning that my kids just aren't that way. They are pretty subdued when there are lots of people around (don't have any idea where they got that from ; ) and they just don't have the huge overblown reactions that Russell and I would love to see when we do something really exciting. Combine that with the fact that they are HORRIBLE about taking pictures (although Morgan is getting MUCH better) and I was just slightly disappointed when I got home and looked through our pictures. I just wanted to have a bunch of pictures of the happiest children on the planet just crazy with excitement. Oh well . . .

We started on the carousel and then the Dumbo ride and the girls liked those just fine.

We stopped in the Mad Hatter to try on some hats. We were hoping to get them each one with their names on them to wear around, but of course they would NOT wear them for more than a few seconds (Madylin wouldn't even look at the camera or smile) so we had to scratch that idea.

(By the way in all the pictures Morgan is in the green shirt and Madylin in the blue)

Then we went and waited 45 minutes in the "meet the princesses" line which I didn't think was going to be worth it because I figured the girls wouldn't even talk to or take pictures with the princesses. I was wrong, Russell was right (yes I said it). The girls loved it and talked to the princesses and even sorta smiled for pictures!

We then took Nathan on his first ride- It's a Small World. We have no pictures of it because it was the perfect opportunity for me to nurse him! The ride is nice and long and dark so I just enjoyed it with Nathan nursing under a cover!

We headed over to Toon Town and Russell and I took the girls on a really fun roller coaster. It was kinda fast and loud and we were nervous they would scream and cry, but they just grimaced the whole time and then told us afterwards that they didn't want to do it again. I'll take that over wailing!

Here we are in front of the roller coaster. (can't remember what it's called)

In Toon Town we also got to meet Mickey Mouse!

Before leaving we decided to go on the carousel again with Nathan and my mom, too.

Nathan almost fell asleep on this ride.

We also decided to go on the teacups one last time. I'm SOO glad we did because it made the trip worth it. The first time we didn't spin it at all, but the second time Russell decided he could handle the spinning and he helped the girls spin the teacups really fast and they LOVED it. They were laughing and screaming- all the things I wanted them to be doing all day!

All in all a great day and I'm so glad my mom could come with us and help with Nathan while we took the girls on some rides. (and help take the girls on some rides while I fed Nathan as well!)

Here's our little family trying to take a good picture.

Here's one with the girls actually looking at the camera

I wonder where they get the fake smiles from- I mean Russell and I look totally natural!

(and yes those are braces on my husband's teeth- he got them on the day before we went)

April Randoms

2010-05-03T15:02:00.000-07:00

Haven't had much to blog about lately, but before I start on the twins' 3rd birthday, here is some randomness from the last few weeks. . .

We had the Fishers over one night and the 3 girls were playing upstairs in the bedroom quietly. After a while Russell and Jessica went up to check on them and this is what they found.

I guess I never thought to tell the girls that climbing on top of the kitchen was NOT allowed!

Another day while the girls were playing with Riley, the 3 girls decided to dress up like princesses and actually wanted me to take their picture. That never happens! Don't they look so beautiful?

LOVE this blue-eyed boy.

I attempted to get a cute picture before church one sunday, but this is as good as I got! I just thought Nathan looked so handsome!

Disneyland and birthday stuff to come later this week!

Easter 2010

2010-04-13T14:53:00.000-07:00

This year we were able to enjoy our second Easter in this house. We decided to host again and invited both our families. My mom and dad and brother came up and spent the day with us on Saturday and my mom helped me and the girls color eggs. The girls did a really good job with this and didn't make as big a mess as I'd anticipated.

Sunday morning we had an easter egg hunt in the house and watched as the girls ran around finding all the eggs and shaking them to see how much candy was in the plastic ones.

Here they are with all their loot!

We had a yummy breakfast complete with orange rolls (a conference sunday tradition) and watched both sessions of conference while I put together dinner and dessert.

After conference my brothers Jacob and Matt came with Matt's wife and my niece and nephew.

Russell's brother Aaron came with his wife and their 2 sons so we had a full house, mixing both families as we did last year. Dinner was much more pleasant this year, due to the fact that I didn't have to go clean up Madylin's sick as I did last year in the middle of dinner! We had ham and potato salad, rolls, green beans, and fried apples. It was great!

For dessert we had carrot cake and fruit pizza. The pizza turned out so pretty I had to take a picture- this stuff is SOOO amazingly good.

After dinner we had another egg hunt in the back yard because Aaron's boys hadn't had one yet. It was fun to have young cousins together to do a hunt

(Madylin, Isaac, Austin, Morgan)

(Madylin, Kaleb, Nathan, Sara, Morgan)

My mom bought this outfit for Nathan to go with the girls' outfits, but sadly this is the only picture I got of the 3 of them. The girls let go of Nathan after this picture was taken and my mom barely caught his face before it hit the ground 4 steps below! I was a little traumatized after that (so was he) and never got around to another photo shoot.

( I don't know why he's showing the international sign for "I'm gonna be sick!")

All together a really great Easter once again- I have to admit that I love hosting!

Trying a New 'Do

2010-04-07T08:48:00.000-07:00

My little Nathan's got hair that grows straight up out of his head like a Chia Head.

It's very cute, but his hair is getting long and I'm not ready to cut it, so I've been experimenting with some hair product to try and tame his crazy fuzz-head.

(He is eating a biter biscuit here- those things make such a mess!)

So what do you think? Which is better?

Wanna See Something Funny?

2010-03-14T20:23:00.000-07:00

If you tell Morgan "do your eyebrows" she does this . . .

Madylin can't quite do it, but don't tell her that!

If you ask Madylin the same thing, this is what she does . . .

A Trip to Utah

2010-03-10T09:56:00.000-08:00

In February we decided to take a trip to Utah to visit Russell's sister Jennifer and her family. We were hoping to play in some snow and spend some quality time with family and just relax. Well two out of three ain't bad. The only time it snowed was early friday morning just before we woke up. We hadn't got in until about 3 in the morning so we weren't feeling like dressing the kids and running around in the snow. We figured we'd get our chance later, but the snow melted in a couple of hours and there was no more while we were there. The kids had fun playing together though, and we had lots of time to just relax and visit.

Nathan's cousin Ryan is only 2 weeks younger than he. Love these handsome blue-eyed boys.

Nathan took advantage of the fact that Ryan was pretty much stationary and used him to stand up on all weekend. Ryan did not care one bit- it was pretty funny.

You remember this picture last Christmas?

Well, here are their offspring ( ;

Take a second to compare their size. Especially thighs!! Ryan is a chunk, but a very cute and HAPPY chunk!

We were there for Valentine's day and Jennifer did the girls' hair so cute for church.

And we made and decorated sugar cookies. Oh and ate them, of course

Madylin went a little overboard with the sprinkles

The girls had fun playing in the garage with Stefani's bicycle and skates.

It was their first experience with both.

We had such a great time. Jennifer and Mark were great hosts as always. Each night Jennifer's 3 oldest kids and the twins had a little slumber party in the loft. It took them at least an hour to go to sleep each night because they were having so much fun and giggling with each other. We let it slide just this once ( ;

I'm so grateful to have family close enough to visit and that the kids have cousins their age that they love to play with.

Strollin' to the Park

2010-03-03T22:08:00.000-08:00

Been meaning to post these pictures forever! A few weeks ago I woke up with a lot of energy (soooo rare) and decided that we would walk to the park that day. Not only did I take the kids to the park down the street, but I let the girls bring their babies and their strollers. Now they only get to play with these strollers when they go potty, so this was a real treat. They looked so cute strolling along the sidewalk with their little pink strollers!

And of course, once we got to the park, they insisted on taking their babies on the slides.

And this little one was content to hang out in his stroller, playing with his blanket.

Another Milestone for the Little Man

2010-02-23T10:36:00.000-08:00

Just a little update before I really catch up on all I have to blog about . . .

Last week Nathan did this for the first time all by himself

and he hasn't stopped since!!

He's not even 7 months yet!! Next step- walking! AAAH!

He is doing much better with solids now and has 4 teeth on the bottom and 2 teeth on the top. (time to switch to a bottle maybe?- yikes!)

He got his wish . . .

2010-02-02T12:40:00.000-08:00

Nathan's 6 month check- up was last week. He was 16 pounds 13 ounces and 28 inches long. That puts him somewhere around the 20th percentile for weight and the 90th for length. So we got a long skinny one here. But he's definitely strong! He started crawling all over the place this weekend.

He's very happy and mellow and he's a terrible eater when it comes to solids. He acts like he is gagging on everything we put in his mouth. It's very frustrating and we have practically given up for the time being. I guess he will just be nursed FOREVER!

Snow- Cal

2010-01-22T15:03:00.000-08:00

At 6:30 this morning Russell woke me up from a deep slumber to show me this site from our balcony

Breathtaking to a So-Cal girl who has only ever seen snow a handful of times in her life. I went downstairs and outside with Russell to look around. The neighbor kids were out writing their names in the snow and this is what my car looked like.

And our house

I had offered earlier in the week to take breakfast and dinner this morning to a man from my church who just had surgery. I have already reaped the blessings as it forced me to venture out of the house this morning when I normally would have stayed inside all day. I got to behold the beauty that comes with fresh fallen snow. I drove in the snow for the 1st time (not that it was snowing very hard) and after dropping off the meals, the kids and I headed to Cousin Jessica's house to play with Riley and the other Fishers. We let the girls get out and play and they had a good time. They helped build a tiny little snowman.

A patriotic snowman

After that I started a mild little snowball fight by tossing a snowball at Morgan's belly which actually landed right on her neck. Oops. Jessica said it was a "mother of the year" moment. Yes I felt bad- just look at the face she made after I quickly brushed it off.

She got over it pretty quickly and everyone joined in the fun.

Madylin and Riley really loved it, but Morgan was complaining about her hands being cold or some nonsense like that

It's been snowing and then sprinkling off and on all day. I hope we get some more snow soon! This is great! I am loving where I live right now.

Animal Adventures

2010-01-19T23:30:00.000-08:00

While we were at my parents around Christmas we had a couple of little animal encounters. We try to take advantage of these to help the girls get over their fears.

My brother Matt and his wife got some sort of lizard as their family Christmas present. (yeah they are strange) I was shocked that the girls each took a turn having it on their laps and touching it even!

Baby steps!

We took the girls to Bates Nut Farm- a place I grew up going to for field trips and family outings. In the fall it has pumpkins galore and is crazy crowded, but the day before Christmas it was pretty much empty! We went with my mom, my brother Steven, and my brother Matt and his family. We tried to convince the girls that the goats were harmless and that it would just tickle a little as they ate the corn out of their hands . . .

But honestly, imagine you are 2- would you want to feed these creepy guys?!

Nathan was in his usual throne with Daddy just loving being outdoors and snuggled.

The girls would only throw the food at the animals, but would NOT touch them under any circumstances

Someone started picking leaves up off the ground and feeding it to the goats and the girls liked that idea so they followed suit.

They were so excited that they could feed the animals without touching them!

I don't know if goats are supposed to eat leaves, so if the animals at "Nate's But Farm" as my dad calls it are sick or dead- it wasn't us!!

I Think Somebody Wants to Crawl

2010-01-13T08:00:00.000-08:00

Nathan started getting up on his hands and knees at about 4 months and started rocking about 2 weeks later. It's been a month since the rocking began and he has since done away with it and moved on to yoga and push ups and elephant walking!

"Are you watching?"

He does a better "downward dog" yoga pose than I do! (huh, Christy)

Maybe he'll skip crawling and go straight to elephant walking

Better push up position than I can do too!

He's very pleased with himself

It's a new experience for me to have a singleton- so much is different. The twins were a little behind developmentally for the first year because they were premature and because well, they are twins, so everything Nathan does seems so early to me. The twins didn't get any teeth until like 8 months and he had 2 teeth by 4 months. The girls also didn't start crawling until after 9 months so Nathan is just freakishly strong to me!

Here he is at 5 months- rocking away . . .

A Post for the Little Man

2010-01-11T10:54:00.000-08:00

Look at this face! Nathan has turned out to be just what this family needed. So sweet and such a good boy. He really just fits right in and causes so much joy. Such a mellow, easy-going, happy little guy. He is 5 1/2 months now and has his 2 bottom teeth (boy do they hurt when he gets hold of your finger!) He is almost crawling and is so funny about it- but that is for another post I'm working on for later this week.

Here he is- the "little brother"

Last night I was doing something in the kitchen and Russell was doing homework and Nathan started fussing while he was sitting up in the corner of the couch. Madylin was "reading" next to him and so I laid his head in her lap and she put the pacifier in and he just laid there for a few minutes and stopped fussing so I could finish what I was doing.

It was so sweet and Madylin just kept petting him and talking to him "It's alright, Bud," she'd say and he'd just stare at her.

His hair grown straight up just like his daddy (also not unlike a Chia Head, if you're familiar :) It looks like duck fuzz and is sorta red-brown. I LOVE it!

I was giving him a bath and thought he looked so adorable so I had Russell bring up the camera to take a picture and as soon as Russell put up the camera to take a picture, Nathan covered his . . . ahem . . . you know. We were cracking up! Such a modest boy- he'd be mortified if he knew I was putting this picture up for all to see ( ;

We started him on solids a few weeks ago and he is doing okay, but he always tries to grab the spoon . . . so this is how Russell decided to feed him. Notice his arms are strapped down.

Now what do you think he is thinking in this picture? Maybe "Mommy! Save me from Daddy's torturous device!" or perhaps, "I promise I'll never wake you up in the dead of night again!" But, I think he's thinking "No! Don't take a picture of me in this girly pink bib!"

Here he is playing "peek-a-boo" with his Daddy and laughing and squealing. So fun!

Christmas 2009

2010-01-08T11:59:00.000-08:00

Okay enough procrastinating, I guess I am finally ready to post Christmas pictures- it just takes so much time to go through all the pictures I took and try to narrow it down! So, believe it or not, this is the condensed version . . .

Here are the kiddos on Christmas Sunday all dressed for church. I found the girls' Christmas dresses like in September, but LOVED them and couldn't pass them up!

We spent a couple of days at my parents' house in Escondido, including Christmas Eve. It's become a tradition in my family to do Gingerbread (or really graham cracker) houses and this year the girls got to be a part of the fun.

Russell worked with Morgan and Uncle Steven worked with Madylin. The girls really loved putting the candy on the houses themselves (although they put their fair share in their mouths as well)

Here is Morgan with her finished product

And Madylin with her masterpiece.

Of course it's not Christmas Eve in the Hatch house without the chimes. Dad pointed to the notes on the easel, and the rest of us hit the chimes on cue (sometimes) using spoons to play songs like "Jingle Bells" and "Stars Were Gleaming." We let the kids help a lot this year, so the songs didn't sound entirely recognizable, but that doesn't matter.

Morgan with Granna

See even Nathan joined in the fun

Here are the kids on Christmas Eve all hopped up on sugar and ready for Santa Claus to come.

Christmas morning was a blur. It started off slow and we let the girls open their stockings. They loved everything. It was great and we were cracking up because they got so excited for things like chapstick and stickers. They also got Dora panties (I think Santa is trying to tell them something) and Ponies. Morgan proceeded to try and ride hers.

Nathan just sat back with Daddy while the girls opened their stockings. We really didn't feel the need to fill a stocking for Nathan. Next year.

I LOVE this picture of my boys.

The girls got horses that they could ride as well as the little ponies. They loved the stick horses that Santa brought them. After they had opened stockings and their horses my brother got there with his kids and the madness began. The main present from us was at our house still, so I didn't know about anything the girls were going to be opening and wanted to see them open everything, but everyone just kept throwing more presents at the girls and I was trying to watch them and still watch others and open my own gifts. I didn't really get to see anyone open the gifts that we had gotten them and I don't know who gave the girls what, but they had a ball and so did we.

Again, we didn't really worry about Nathan this year. It seems like he just had a baby shower and he really doesn't need anything right now, so he enjoyed this hooded towel that Great Grandma Hatch bought for him.

After we finished opening presents we loaded up the car and headed to Russell's parents' house in San Bernardino to spend the rest of the day with them. We opened some presents with them and relaxed for a while until it was time to go over to Russell's Aunt Jolene's house for the BIG family dinner (and that "BIG" refers to the dinner AND the family!). After that we finally returned to our own home where the girls got to open their main present from us and my mom. This is it . . .

They LOVE it and so do we. I am so happy with it. Grandma Kinser got them some play food and dishes and they have been having a blast. It is supposed to go in their bedroom eventually (the final piece of their room before it is completely finished and decorated) but we like watching them play with it for now and they like to use it while I am cooking dinner and copy me.

2 happy little chefs!

So there you have it, one really LONG post about one really GREAT Christmas!

'Tis the Season . . .

2009-12-21T11:12:00.000-08:00

. . . for picking out Christmas trees as a family,

and taking pictures in the evergreens.

For bundling up in the cold night air,

and climbing around in Santa's sleigh. (What, you don't do that?)

For trimming the tree while nostalgia fills the air,

(this ornament was given to me by my mom the Christmas that I was pregnant with the twins- it's one red and one green jingle bell, each with an angel attached. This is the first year that the girls could put it on the tree themselves- very special)

And for staring longingly at your parents . . .

while they force you to sit on the lap of a strange old man dressed in red.

Hope you all are enjoying the season!

It's All About Family

2009-12-15T09:17:00.000-08:00

Wow I've never neglected the blog for this long! I've got some catching up to do. We've been able to spend time with both of our immediate families in the last few weeks and it's been great!

We took family pictures with my family while my brother and his family were visiting from Arizona to have their daughter's baptism. (That was neat seeing the first grandchild born into my family being baptized!) Then we celebrated Thanksgiving the day before Thanksgiving with my family in San Diego where I got to help my mom a lot with the meal. I made several pies and 3 pumpkin cheesecakes (1 for Russell's family and 1 for his partner at work) and I made the rolls. It was fun being a big part of the cooking this year. But like I said, we took family pictures

Here is the Hatch family picture 2009

Nathan got to meet his cousin Tyson who is exactly 3 months older then him (Nathan was trying to impress him by putting his whole fist in his mouth- Tyson doesn't look too impressed)

The girls loved playing with their cousins and here they all are.

(grandchildren from l-r: Nathan, Kaleb, Aubrey, Tyson, Madylin, Brandon, Emily, Morgan, Sara) What's kind of funny about the grandkids in my family is that you can totally tell which kids go together by hair and eye color. The 2 brown eyed, brown-haired kids are Matt's, the 4 light-blue eyed, blond kids are Spencer's, and the 3 blue-eyed, auburn-haired kids are mine! (You can also tell my kids by their inability to look at the camera for a picture, let alone smile! Grrr)

We were able to spend Thankgiving with Russell's immediate family which was a lot of fun. Ironically, Russell's sister Jennifer and her family were visiting from Utah to have their oldest son baptized and their youngest blessed in front of all the family.

Here is the Kinser Family Picture 2009 (minus Travis who is on a mission in New Mexico)

Nathan got to meet his cousin Ryan who is less than 2 weeks younger than him

The girls loved playing with yet more cousins (Jennifer has a way of getting the twins to look at the camera for pictures, and sometimes even have some semblance of a smile!)

Here are all the Kinser grandchildren

from l-r: Isaac, Austin, Madylin, Jeremy, Nathan, Stefani, Staci, Ryan, Morgan

We celebrated Jeremy's 8th birthday. Here is Morgan eating cake with Jeremy.

(Why does she look so OLD in this picture?!)

We also had the cousins exchange gifts, because Jennifer's family won't be back for Christmas.

They each got a pair of wings . . .

and a pair of dress-up shoes from Staci and Stefani (they LOVE them!)

It's been a great few weeks, which makes the time FLY by! I can't believe Christmas is NEXT week!!! The best part about having a husband who works for the school district . . . 2 weeks off!! So we'll be enjoying even more family time starting this weekend and I can't wait!

My Beauties

2009-11-09T14:14:00.000-08:00

Just some random pictures of my beauties . . .

Christy watched the girls for me for a bit and she always likes to play with their hair. She took the 3-barrel to Morgan and the curling iron to Madylin. They looked so pretty!

He is finally starting to like his chair. Yay!

A Dr. Seuss Halloween

2009-11-02T10:07:00.000-08:00

The girls are really into books lately and they love their Dr. Seuss books. I was trying to think of a cute idea for the twins for Halloween and this just came to me!

Thing 1 and Thing 2

with Nathan starring as the Cat in the Hat

It frustrates me to no end that I didn't get a decent picture of all 3 of them!

I made the bow tie and the hat and just sewed together 2 white felt ovals and pinned them to a black onesie and black pants for his belly. He has a black boa for a tail.

Nathan and cousin Luke

Cutest Cat in the Hat you ever saw- holding his own tail.

Thing 1 and Thing 2!

The girls costumes were super simple. Just bought the red pants and turtle necks from Wal-Mart and sewed together 2 white felt circles. I used iron-on adhesive to adhere them to the shirts and wrote "Thing 1" and "Thing 2" on each one with black puffy paint and voila! They loved that they got to have blue hair. All together I spent less than $25 on all 3 costumes and the pants the girls can wear all winter!

I hate that they refuse to smile for pictures

Here is some more Halloween fun-

The girls with their little pumpkins after Daddy finished carving them

Russell's pumpkin is evil looking- but he was proud of it.

The Pumpkin Patch 2009

2009-10-30T14:44:00.000-07:00

LOVE the pumpkin Patch. Who doesn't love Fall? and the Fall isn't complete without a trip to a pumpkin patch, for me.

Our trip made me feel nostalgic. Just LOOK at last year's pictures on the hay!!! I was seriously close to tears going through the pictures from last year. They used to be so cute and little and baby-faced and now they look like beautiful young ladies!

Just look at my little chunker, Morgan compared to last year. She's finally grown into her chub and I think she's going to be a real beauty one day.

Madylin is the little "firecracker" as we call her. Still stubborn and temperamental and goofy as can be!

Nathan did NOT want to be put down in the pumpkins!

Love this picture!

It's rare that we get a picture of the 2 of us- so I took advantage of the chance. I love the contrast of our eyes- so far all of our kids have his blue eyes, but I hope someday we have a kid with my green eyes!

His shirt says "Baby's 1st BOO!"

Nathan spent most the time walking around with Daddy, as usual (he has a better back!)

Morgan said she was "makin a tower" with the pumpkins.

I love her sweet face in this picture.

They LOVE to hold their brother and include him in everything. They picked this tiny pumpkin for him

The twins blatantly REFUSE to smile for pictures. We stand in front of them waving our arms and making silly faces and sounds and they usually just look away. Madylin is the WORST! She is rarely even looking at the camera and if she is, it's 'cause we caught her for that brief second she wanted to see what silly thing Daddy is doing to try and make her smile.

Wordless Wednesday

2009-10-21T16:38:00.000-07:00

Nathan's Blessing Day

2009-10-12T14:20:00.000-07:00

Nathan had is baby blessing on September 27th.

The outfit he wore was my brother, Steven's and I just loved it. I am a dummy and didn't take many pictures that day of all the family and friends that came to see the blessing and celebrate with us afterwards. I just got this one of the men who were in the blessing circle, minus Josh Fisher. From left to right: Ben Fisher, Russell with Nathan, Aaron Kinser, Dad Hatch, Dad Kinser, Steven Hatch, and Justin Alfrey with Tessa.

At least I got his pictures taken the day before in the outfit! p.s. Olan Mills let's you post your photos, but they have that ugly "print me" button on them . . . sorry

He was soooo tired when we got there, so every time I put him down he would cry. The photographer was laughing though because he would stop crying the second I picked him up. That's my Nathan- just wants to be held close all the time and he's happy.

After a while, we got a couple of him sleeping before he woke up crying

We finally laid him down, and after a few snapshots of him sleeping, he started to wake up with all the flashing lights

Love the yawns!

All in all- I'm very happy with them

2009-10-08T11:54:00.001-07:00

My sis-in-law Lisa did one of these and I had to copy because it was

just hilarious!

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

One Last Summer Adventure

2009-10-07T13:18:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to catch up on all that's happened in the last month and it's tough. I think this is the last of the summer activities and then I can post about Nathan's baby blessing.

We went to the L.A. County Fair with Russell's cousin Ben and his wife Lisa and their baby, Luke, as well as Lisa's parents.

The girls loved looking at the animals. This goat got a little too close though.

This made me a bit nervous (some of you know how I feel about birds)

Ever seen a 2-headed mermaid? Now you have!

I don't know why, but I just love this picture of them talking to each other.

The girls had a ball playing with these big styrofoam blocks. Ben and Russell kept building them up, and then they would knock them down before the boys were finished.

Meanwhile, Luke and Nathan kept warm in the stroller

The acrobat show was pretty dang impressive.

And Madylin was captivated by the dog show where they jumped into a pool

Running through the maze of hay

So hard to bother with a family photo when there is so much to do and see.

Here's our little group, minus the Thompsons. A very fun trip and one we'll have to make every summer.

A Friend in Need

2009-09-30T08:28:00.000-07:00

An old roommate/teammate and good friend of mine is going through a really tough trial right now. Jessica had twin girls in May and Kaitlyn passed away a couple of days later. Samantha seemed to be very healthy and happy, but unexpectedly passed away of uncertain causes last thursday at 4 and a half months old. This family is also dealing with Child Protection Services at the moment because of the unknown nature of her death, and had to hire a lawyer to keep custody of their 2 year old, Haley. The Williams family now must pay for legal expenses on top of all the medical expenses (including an emergency life flight), as well as funeral arrangements for another sweet baby. This is a very special and loving family and what they are going through is enough to test anyone's faith. Please checkout supportthewilliamsfamily.blogspot.com and support in anyway you can. Please spread the word

Fun with Dry Ice!

2009-09-28T17:03:00.000-07:00

One last thing from our trip to San Diego. My dad made homemade root beer and the girls thought that the dry ice was the greatest thing ever

Where did your hand go, Madylin?

They liked to blow on it and make all the steam(?) go in their faces.

It was good root beer, too!

Beach Trip '09

2009-09-28T16:34:00.000-07:00

Sadly, beach trips have become a once-a-year thing since having children. It's hard for me to get used to the fact that I don't live 20 minutes from the beach anymore- it's more like an hour and a half. We did manage to go to the beach while we were in San Diego for Kevin's wedding a couple of weeks ago and here is the proof . . .

The girls were more interested in the sand than the water, but I think that's normal at their age.

When they did venture into the water- it was COLD!

(Madylin with Uncle Matt)

And when Daddy went in the water without the daddy's girl (a.k.a. Morgan), the world was over!

Ahhhh that's better

and I hung out with my little man.

Nathan's Smiles

2009-09-23T08:48:00.000-07:00

Nathan started smiling a couple of weeks ago and I've since been working on capturing a good smile.

It's so cute when babies start smiling. Usually the face gets all twisted up in the process.

And as they are learning to smile you usually see a lot of this

and this.

Sometimes you aren't sure if they are trying to smile or not.

Sometimes the smile starts our timid and unsure

And sometimes the smile just explodes onto their face

And once they learn to control that smile, it's a really BEAUTIFUL thing.

(favorite)

Sea World Trip #2

2009-09-18T12:56:00.000-07:00

When we went to Sea World back in May we bought the "fun pass" so that we could go pack as many times as we wanted through the end of the year for free. While we were in San Diego last weekend for a friend's wedding, we decided to go again.

Here's the whole family at the start of the day (I've learned to take pictures like this at the start of an activity when dealing with toddlers- not the end). Nathan spent the first couple of hours in the Moby wrap with me. (Thanks for the recommendation, Nicole- I LOVE this wrap)

Here are the girls outside of the shark tank.

Nathan also spent some time in the Snugli with Russell and later with my mom. He was a happy camper because he got to be held close the whole day

We took the girls on the gondola ride. They weren't scared at all as you can see. They were sticking their heads out of the bars and looking straight down. The view of the bay was beautiful.

They LOVED the dolphins

My brother and his wife and 2 kids met us at Sea World halfway through the day. The girls love playing with them. Morgan has a special bond with Matthew and both girls just love my niece Sara. Here they are holding starfish.

We got to take the girls on their first rides in the Sesame Street play area. They really liked this one. Here's me and Madylin.

And Russell and Morgan

This ride is like the tea cups at Disneyland. From left to right there is Matt, Morgan, Sara, Madylin, and me. Morgan actually threw a huge tantrum because she didn't want to get off.

She didn't get over it easily, but Matt coaxed her into having some fun playing in the water. That's my SIL Jessica holding Madylin and my nephew Kaleb behind her.

The girls seemed to have a little more fun this time around and we look forward to taking them again soon. Nathan will be happy too if it means he gets to be held all day!

Labor Day '09

2009-09-14T15:13:00.000-07:00

We celebrated Labor Day at Russell's Aunt Vickie's house with his family. The girls had a great time in the pool.

I love this picture of Morgan and Ben (Russell's cousin) laughing together

She'll play with others for a bit, but she is the ULTIMATE daddy's girl

Madylin enjoyed being pulled around in circles by Ben in this star

And being squirted by water guns

Nathan spent his time meeting the family and being passed around while he slept, which I'm sure he LOVED because he is such a cuddle bug. He's happy as long as he's being held and Russell is happy to oblige . . .

At Home "Photo Shoots"

2009-08-27T15:13:00.000-07:00

Just some pictures of the kids I've taken in the last couple of weeks.

Future Best Buds

2009-08-25T15:33:00.000-07:00

It's like baby central around here lately. We've met so many new babies in the last couple of months! What's especially neat is that Russell's best friend and my best friend were due to have their 1st babies around the same time we were due to have Nathan. My best friend Melody had her baby on my due date, August 14th (which I never reached). Russell's best friend is his cousin Ben and his baby was due 3 weeks before ours but, as it turns out, came 3 days later than ours.

Unfortunately for me, Melody lives in Fresno and I only get to see her about once a year. Ben, however, lives down the street practically now and so these proud dads get to raise their strapping boys together.

Here are Lucas and Nathan meeting for the first time.

Luke is only I think 2 days old here and Nathan is 5, but Luke is quite a bit bigger than Nathan.

Here they are hanging out taking a nap last week

We hope they grow up to be not only cousins, but good buddies like their dads.

"Big Girl" Room

2009-08-21T17:53:00.000-07:00

Before the baby came we were working on getting the girls in their "big girl" beds and painting their rooms. We didn't get it all finished until after the baby came since he was early, but we have managed to get most of it done now. I'll take pictures of the complete room when I'm all finished (it looks so cute!) but here is a little preview and the beds.

We let the girls "help" a little bit. They each got to roll on just a little bit of paint before we kicked them out of the room. They loved it. Now when they show people their room they say "pink room- I help paint"

Madylin is in the white and Morgan is in the pink shirt.

While Russell and I were painting the baseboards we let the girls have one last "hurrah" in their cribs. This would be the last time they would be leaning over their cribs talking to and giggling with each other like this and it makes me kind of emotional thinking about that fact.

As soon as we put their mattresses in their little toddler beds they jumped in and wanted to be covered. They talked about these beds for days before and after they finally got to sleep in them.

And here they are- their first night sleeping in their big girl beds.

For the first week they never got out of bed once we put them in them until they woke up. They have since learned how fun it is to have the freedom to get up once they've been put in bed for nap times. That's been a little difficult, but I think most kids do it so we'll just deal.

Isn't He Cute?!

2009-08-05T22:01:00.000-07:00

I know at least 2 people who think so!

They won't stop kissing him!

Nathan- The "play-by-play"

2009-07-26T10:50:00.000-07:00

Nathan Welling Kinser

8 pounds 9 ounces

19.5 inches

He has conjunctivitis like the girls did so that is why his eye looks kinda gross. Hopefully it doesn't last long!

Warning- this post is VERY long AND detailed- which is so unlike me, but I want the record of how everything went down!

So I think my children had a plan that they talked about before coming to life on this earth regarding getting Nathan here. Nathan arrived on Thursday July 23, 3 weeks and 1 day early and I'm sure that my girls had something to do with it. On Wednesday night Madylin was sitting on my lap (well, what was left of my lap) before bedtime and she said, talking to my belly, "Nathan come out." My mom was here for my baby shower which was scheduled for that night and had come a couple of days early to help me with some sewing and decorating projects. She was taking a shower and I was getting the girls dressed so we could take another trip to JoAnn's for some material. I had already gotten Madylin dressed and was working on Morgan who was throwing a tantrum about putting on some shorts. It was about 9:30 and I was sitting in a chair and bending over trying to control her kicking feet when I felt a strange disconnecting feeling from sorta behind my belly button. It kinda felt like a pop and it hurt a little. When I got up I started to leak a little bit of fluid and when my mom got out of the shower I asked her if she thought I might have just lost my mucous plug. She said it was possible but I was nervous because I had never heard of anyone feeling a "pop" like that. I thought maybe something had gotten dislodged or disconnected and I was nervous. I was in tears a little bit because I was panicking. I kept going into the bathroom and feeling more and more leaking out so I tried to call my dr.'s office and the phone just kept ringing and ringing with no message or anything. So I called the hospital and they told me that if I thought my water had broken I needed to come in. I nervously decided that mom better just take me to the hospital to check. As we were getting ready to go the contractions started. I was in total denial, but luckily my mom wasn't because she got some overnight stuff together for the girls quickly and we left. On the 30 minute drive to St. Bernardine my contractions were getting a little stronger and were about 4 minutes apart. I thought "this can't be happening- that's way too close together!" I called Russell at work and finally got ahold of him through his cousin Spencer who he was working with that day. Russell was up on a roof (he works for a steel company during Summer) and I heard Spencer yell up to him "hey your wife's in labor!" I was still in denial about the labor thing and was still trying to call my doctor. Finally I got through and the nurse told me that the power had gone out in the office and the phones had been down all morning. Of course they were! She told me Dr. Yang was already at the hospital (thank goodness) and to get there ASAP. My mother-in-law was able to leave work to meet us at the hospital and take the girls so that my mom could stay with me since it would be a little bit before Russell could get there. After I got checked in at about 11:30, Russell was able to get there and the nurse told me that I definitely had ruptured (I actually asked if that meant the baby was coming. Like I said- in denial) Dr. Yang came to check my progress (quite possibly one of the most uncomfortable things ever- it felt like he had to reach to my tonsils to tell me where the baby was). Anyhow I was only 1 cm and 90% effaced and that baby was still at -2 (it has to get to +2 before you start pushing). Dr. Yang thought at the rate I was going I would probably deliver sometime around midnight. Because I was attempting a VBAC (vaginal birth after ceserean) my Dr. required me to have an epidural which he wanted me to have at this point. So from about 12:30 on I was having contractions about every 2 minutes and not feeling a thing. I was checked again at about 5pm and found out that I was almost at 4 cm and the baby was at a 0. At 6:30 I was checked again and was at 9cm and +1! So in an hour and a half I had gone from 3 cm to 9 cm and was about ready. At this point I found out that Dr. Yang had gone to L.A. to visit his brother who had just had brain surgery and thought he'd be back around 9 or 10, in time to deliver. Well that was not going to happen so I was told that the on-call doctor would be delivering. I was a little upset at that point, but not too much. As long as I was going to be allowed to try vaginal, I didn't care who delivered that baby! So at this point I started to feel the pressure. It was mounting and mounting and I told the nurse it was just about to that point where I felt I had to push. And then she let me do a practice push which went fine. Then another nurse told me I had to stop pushing because the Dr. was not there yet. WHAT?! So for the worst 45 minutes of my life I had to not push! (It's much harder than it sounds, if you've never been in labor!) I didn't think I was going to be able to do it, but somehow got through those awful 45 minutes and when Dr. Udeh finally came in and was getting the gloves on he said, pointing to my "baby passageway"- "let's go- the baby is right there" Yeah I know!! Can I push him out already!! (He seemed to take forever to put on his gloves and get into catching position) So after pushing 4 times through 4 contractions- Nathan was out. Now why couldn't I have been allowed to do that 45 minutes ago!! The nurse told me that because I waited so long without pushing, it just meant less work and less pushing for me so she said I should be glad because that is why I only had to push for about 10 minutes (um okay if you say so). So anyhow that's the play by play. Nathan was born at 7:29 pm, only 10 hours after my water broke at home. I am very grateful that it went so quickly and extremely grateful that my children knew better than I did that Nathan needed to come out the day that he did. He was 8 pounds 9 ounces at 3 weeks early. The nurses said that if I had gone full term, I wouldn't have been able to deliver him vaginally because he would have been too big and it would have been too risky to try. So my 3 kids worked together, led by Madylin (the oldest) telling him to come out and helped by Morgan's tantrum that caused me to over-exert and brake my water! Thanks to the 3 of them I was able to have a healthy baby boy without another c-section. I am so grateful (though during delivery I though I was crazy!) to have been able to have this experience and that I can walk around and help Russell take care of the girls at this point instead of being laid up in bed. Thanks to all those who were helping with my baby shower and I'm so sorry all your work was wasted!! I was really looking forward to it, too.

Guilty Faces

2009-07-14T08:57:00.000-07:00

They got into my make-up and after they were reprimanded by Daddy, they got ahold of a couple of pens and markers. Let me just say that this happened while I was at practice and Russell was "watching" them.

Notice their pants . . .I know you can't see their hands and arms very well.