Day 6- Kimbre, Brenn, and Marley

I love these girls. They are my best friends, my sisters, sort of my babies in a way. We are tightly bonded through the experiences we had growing up. We are all so close and I have different wonderful relationships with each of them. I have special memories and connections one on one with them. We have had to hold to each other many times to get through things and I feel like the bond of our sisterhood has been what pulled us through those times. I know I have said this before but when the four of us are together there is a spirit, a strength that I can feel. It is almost like a "super power" that can be activated when we are all there together. It is so foreign to me when I hear people say that they are not that close with their siblings because I feel so connected to the girls. I loved growing up with them we had such a blast as kids. I love watching them turn into women and how beautiful, smart, funny etc. etc. etc. they are. I look forward to seeing them experience marriage and becoming moms and enjoying those things with them. They are so precious to me. I thank Heavenly Father for them. I love them so much.

Day 5-I love the things they make for me

I love being a recipient of my kids creativity. I love getting the handprint ornaments and cheerio necklaces from my kids. My favorite things to get from them are their own drawings or journaling about something. I always love the things they write to me. It is neat to watch their handwriting develop and improve. Figuring out the phonetic spelling at first and then watching it form into full sentences complete with appropriate punctuation. This is Hunter's first "book" to me. He asked me for a piece of paper and then started working on something at the table and told me not to look until he was finished. When he was done he brought me this book. It was called "The Pup" he had created a cover and then written a short story inside and illustrated it. Inside it says "Mom are you having a baby said the youngest pup. Yes." Then next page says "Yay!" and then has another illustration. I thought he did a good job on both writing and illustrating it. I love it and of course quickly tucked it away in his file of special things that I keep. Good job buddy keep it up :)

Day 4- the fun we have as a family

Last Sunday we were trying to figure what we wanted to do as a family. No one felt like going for a walk or playing board games or going for a drive. We all started brainstorming and came up with this fun idea:
We went out into the front yard with the kids sidewalk chalk and drew a giant gameboard that wound up and down the length of the driveway. We bundled Emma up and put her in her saucer to watch the fun. We each came up with different things to write in the different squares of the board. Some squares had a physical requirement such as: Do ten jumping jacks or Take a basketball shot. Other squares had a family members name on them like Hunter or Brenn or Grandma and if landed on would require an answer to a trivia question about that person. Other squares were random trivia such as: spelling trivia, math questions, or choose your question. The kids had fun coming up with their own square ideas. Hunter made a "SWAMP" square where you would get stuck for a turn. Avery wanted a square where if you landed on it you had to sit and make cow sounds while waiting for your turn to come again. She still loves cows by the way. Once almost every square was filled we grabbed a dice from one of our board games and started to play. The winner would get a Bahama Bucks (a yummy flavored ice treat that we all love).

We started to play taking turns rolling the dice and making our way around the game board. Hunter landed on Aunt Brenn trivia and couldn't remember her favorite vegetable when asked which if you know Brenn is very obvious :) Avery got random trivia and quickly gave the names of three Disney princesses when asked. She kept saying, "Mom this is fun, I like this game."Questions about his sister in laws kept making Deke move back a space. Deke was asked to list the middle names of all of my sisters and had to go back a space when he couldn't remember Eden's. When asked to name two extra curricular things that Brenn had done in HS he could only name one correct one. It was cracking me up. To his defense though he knows the girls really well it kinda warms my heart. I had several spelling questions and got stuck on a couple of swamp squares and had to lose a few turns. Deke got a random trivia question and Hunter volunteered to ask the question. "Dad, this is a tricky one, what is the last name of Martin Luther King?" he asked him. Deke and I looked at each other confused and he answered, "Uh Hunter you already gave us the answer buddy it's King." Hunter absolutely beaming answered, "Nope. I told you it was tricky...it's Junior." Deke and I laughed and then proceeded on with a brief discussion about prefixes and suffixes. Later in the game Deke again landed on random trivia and Hunter asked me what he should ask him. "Ask him to name five presidents in correct order" I told him. "Mom that's pretty hard I don't think he'll know that one" he said. "Why don't you ask him" I encouraged him. He turned to Deke, "Okay Dad this one is really hard I don't think you'll know this one but can you name five presidents in order?" Hunter sat there in admiration as Deke proceeded to name pretty much every U.S. President in order. It was so cute when he turned to me shocked and said, "Wow Mom, Dad knows them all." As we continued down the gameboard we laughed and laughed both trying to come up with questions and answer questions. It was great to test the kids on spelling or math and make it fun for them. It was neat to see how much we knew about our family members. What is Avery's favorite preschool song? or What is Emma's favorite food right now?

The square with physical activities were fun too and really got the kids giggling. Avery was laughing so hard when Hunter landed on a square that said, "hop on one foot until your next turn". He got tired halfway through and asked to switch feet.
Down the driveway we wound until neck and neck Hunter passed Deke to the finish and won the coveted dessert prize. It was sooooo much fun. So nice to be out in the beautiful weather, something different and silly and fun yet still learning new things and review stuff that we already know. A great way to great some energy out and just be together as a family. I love this kind of stuff. I love that we can just pick up some sidewalk chalk and create two hours of fun for our family without spending a dime. That is so special to me.

Day 3- Passing things on to my kids

I am a very sentimental person. I love the little things. I also love things handed down from family members or that belonged to someone special. Or traditions or things that they loved and now pass down or share with you. I enjoy doing this with my own kids. I can't wait until Avery and Emma and I get to restore my old three story wood dollhouse that my grandpa had made for me. To rewallpaper, paint and fill it with furniture. Recently I was able to share something with Hunter. Even though he is only in first grade he is reading far beyond his grade level and very ready for chapter books. When I was in fifth grade I loved a book called "The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle." I own a copy of it and for years have read it once a year just for fun because I like the story. I pulled it out of my nightstand a month ago and was ready to read it again and thought of Hunter. I read a summary of the book to him and asked him if he wanted to read it together. He definitely wanted to and so we started reading a chapter every couple of nights. After we had tucked the girls into bed he would come in my room and climb up on the bed with me and snuggle in. I would read aloud to him doing different voices for the characters and stopping to explain new vocabulary words as they came across. He loved it. We would finish a chapter or I would stop at a cliffhanger point and he would beg me to read on. "Captain Jaggery isn't really bad is he mom?" "Was it really a person down in the hold with Charlotte?" he would press me to tell him. "You'll have to wait and see" I would tell him. One night while walking back to his room in the dark he said, "Mom when we were walking back to my room I was just imagining that we were on the Seahawk walking to Charlotte's cabin and it is all dark and we don't have a candle." As we were reading I would stop and have him tell me what things looked like in his imagination and we would make predictions and talk about the different ship terms. We would look at the diagrams in the back of the book at all the different parts of the ship so he would be able to vizualize them as we read. Now I must say that there were parts of the story that I left out or slightly modified to adapt to a first grader instead of a fifth grader. I was so amazed at his ability to sit and just listen without pictures and be able to tell me a few days later what had last happened. Sitting there with him snuggling and reading together, I was in heaven. It was such a neat thing to get to share with him. A boy I love and a book I love what could be better. The night we read the final chapter we laid on his bed in the dark with a flashlight and finished the book. "I love this book!" he said and quickly asked me what we would be reading next. Needless to say Dad wanted to join in the fun and I believe that they are now on Chapter 3 of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

Day 2- Ethan and Dylan

90% of the time I do well. I feel happy and full and I feel like I function well. I have peace in knowing where they are and who they are with. I know that my family is eternal and that this is all part of a divine plan. The other 10% can come at any moment. Seeing a set of twins or a helicopter or hearing about someone elses loss. Something so simple can send me into a tailspin and the intensity hits me all at once and I remember that place. I feel the pain sharp and fresh as if it has just happened, the numbness, the emptiness, the heartache. My mind races with images reliving those few days and I struggle to control my thoughts. I remind myself that it does no good to relive it over and over again in my head. It is too painful. I can't believe Deke and I have lost two of our children. Have we really lived through that? Today is their birthday. Today our little guys would be 6 years old I can hardly believe that. It is weird how the last few years I have done so well and today I am struggling. This morning I felt so frusterated that I couldn't just get it together and then I realized that it was time to give myself a break. Today it is okay. Today if I need to be sort of quiet and cry all day, it's okay. If I don't feel like playing or laughing and need to just hug Hunter, Ave and Em over and over again it's okay. I am just hurting so much and love them so much. I wish I could be sitting on the grass under their tree by their gravesite with a warm blanket with Deke holding me. I can't wait to go see them. It is hard not to think about all the fun things they would be doing. They looked so much like Hunter. I look at him and imagine the three of them would have looked more like triplets being only about sixteen months apart. We talk about all the joys of getting to experience having twins, all the things they would have tried to pull on their teachers being identical. I am so happy with my life but it is hard to know that while I am on this earth until I am with them again a part of me is missing. When we are together as a family or just watching the kids play I feel it. I feel the longing for the two of them that can't be here right now. I am thinking about Deke and how he is getting through the day trying to work. I am so grateful to be their mommy. So happy that I am the mom of identical twin boys, such a neat opportunity. But how I miss them, no I ache for them in every part of my being. I love them so much I can not express it adequately. I long to hold them and kiss them and smell their baby soft skin. I know where they are and I do have peace in this. But what has happened has been hard and it hurts and today I can let down and feel what I need to feel. I feel them close with me and I know they are around us often. Happy Birthday Ethan and Dylan, Mommy and Daddy love you so much.

14 days of things I love right now...Day 1- These three

Yep. They keep me laughing, crying, smiling, exhausted, excited, and about every other emotion you can possibly think of. I love the quote: "If you think my hands are full, you should see my heart." It says it so perfectly. My hands are so full and busy right now with Hunter in first grade and the homework and friends and projects and sports, Avery in preschool and friends and getting ready to start dance class, Emma crawling and trying to learn to walk and teething and getting into everything. I love the busyness I will take it anyday over the quiet and emptiness I have known before. The busyness feels right and full and I love it. My heart feels so happy and full right now and I am enjoying my day to day so much and feel so blessed. Hunter so bright and vibrant, soaking up knowledge everywhere he goes and sharing it with everyone. Making us laugh with the things he says and making friends all around him with his great personality. Extremely responsible and very loving and sensitive. Avery so full of energy and life, so aware of who she is and confident about it. So accepting and including of everyone around her. So happy, always singing and quick to offer to help. Emma such a sweet little peacemaker. Snuggly and smiley and just a happy baby. Easy going and a major momma's girl. They are such good friends and love each other so much. They each have special relationships with each other. They are so good about helping one another and have so much fun together. Watching them together is our joy, getting to raise them is gift. We love them so much.

She loves to point

When I was pregnant with Emma she would do something inside my belly that felt like she was tapping her fingers on me as if she was waiting for something. It is funny to me that now I see her tapping her fingers all the time. It makes me smile. She is now really wanting to know what things are around her. All day long she will point at things and make a little grunt sound like she is asking what it is. The other day when we were eating lunch she saw a bird land on the fence outside the window. She excitedly pointed at it and looked at me and said uuuuuhhhh. "Bird" I told her. She smiled at me and then pointed again and made the little noise. "It's a bird" I again told her and she smiled and went back to eating. She does this all the time, pointing at everything wanting to know what it is. I love it because I know that this is the start of her language development and different vocal sounds are trying to emerge. It is always amazing to me the process of my children learning to talk and there is nothing more amazing then watching your children see things for the first time. Anyways it is a funny little quirk that cracks us up about her. The other day we were taking her on her first ride in the wagon without her carseat. She loved it and we spent most of the time saying, "Em sit down, sit on your bum." She was so excited she just wanted to stand up and look over the edge. I got some cute pictures of her showing off her pointing skills. Even the pictures crack me up it is so cute.