How Sweet It Is....

...to have walking kids! I just absolutely love it! Granted the twins are stuck in the stroller still when we go places, but they can now get out and explore with the big kids and are loving the fact that they can see more of the world at their own pace and level. (Side note, these two are climbers!) I love it too since I don't feel as tied down to sit in one place anymore all the time. Ah it's nice to stretch ones legs. Consequently, I am just now starting to feel as though I am getting some sort of a life back, and I'm ready to go! I no longer only feed and diaper kids every half hour all day long which is great. But on the down side I still hold on to some of my previous "make it to another month" mentality. When I should be enjoying a moment, I'm thinking way too far into the future when my kids will be old enough to do... blah blah blah. I'm working on toning that down but if anyone has any suggestions for new winter related activities to do with kids that are just barely walking that would be nice. :)

Okay enough of this journal type stuff. Let's put up some pictures in the most random order and see if you can make it through the rest of the post.

So this is the age where things like trying on bracelets and hats and necklaces is super fun and exciting. Okay some people still find that fun, but this is the age where it all starts; one year old. One of Kate's favorite things to do is walk around with anklets. She and her sister love their feet. They ask to put their shoes on at least once a day when we we're not going out. The other day they were piling pebbles into their shoes. Aren't shoes fun?

You can't really tell, but this is a ball pit full of balls. Well you know full of kids. It was one of the girls' birthday presents. (Kate is standing).

 Here was another birthday present. Yah I know I got great expressions here. This was first thing that they played with out of Grandma Heits box. Sorry I didn't get a picture of Grandma Morses' gift since the kids picked out their favorite snack treats and have eaten through it already. Thanks for the presents guys!

I made a cake and cupcakes for the twins' first birthday. The kids had the cupcakes and Chris Man and I had the cake. It was a wonderful idea!

Here is a shot of the girls in their new birthday/Sunday dresses. They had white tights on before church, but alas this is an after church after nap shot. (Kairi, Wesley, Katelyn).

Look everyone I kept a hair tie in for a few hours! Too bad ties and clips get yanked out. Kate's hair is always in her face. She doesn't seem to mind so much anymore, but it bugs me.

For their birthday party we went to the Madison Children's Museum. This is a section there were you can build really big things like our brand new home! (Kairi is in the front).

Here is Wesley and Kate at the museum enjoying a block, truck, car town world.

 We've had one big-ish snow fall this year and since Wesley likes the Dinosaur Train all the kids made a snow dinosaur!

Here we are trying to have fun with the snow. Wesley is bored because he's ready to go, but he was the one who had the most fun in the end. (Kate in gray, Kairi in black putting on shoes.)

Wesley made this all by himself! It's an airplane that seats three. He's quite the builder for a two year old. Okay he's almost three now huh?

Here's a video of a birthday celebration for those of you who are into those kinds of things.

Here is a good movie showing what the twins can do these days. They both can climb up onto Wesley's riding toy. They do sit forwards too, and when they do Kairi can walk herself around forwards and backwards. In this video Kate pushes Kairi. Be prepared it is awefully exciting stuff.

Christmas Time

We thought we'd destroy the competition by being the first to post this year. Take that guys!


Early in the month the Canadian Pacific Holiday Train was cruising through the country, and we couldn't pass up that opportunity. Wesley loved it after we were back in the warm van watching videos of it coming up. It was cold that day even though the rest of the month was like summer. It also passed through Minot.


Legos are a very popular toy around this place. Sometimes one of the kids disappears during the day, which is suspicious since they are usually climbing and clinging all over her and whining. This is where Amanda finds them when they sneak off, where they can pull off all the hats and hair.


Amanda found a neato use for the boxes our Christmas presents came in.


It must get boring sitting around the house all day long all week long.


Wesley is very good at making faces.


There was some thingie where a couple dudes with model trains set them up at the garden so they could charge kids to watch them drive around. Wesley loved that too, if you can believe it.


Amanda organized a big gingerbread house extravaganza and even made the houses herself. It was lots of work and then only one person showed up. Oh well. Wesley said he had fun.


Here are the stockings all ready for Christmas courtesy of Grandma Heit.


This is how we spent Christmas Eve: at the office! How sad is that?


We also smidged over to the lights in the park. Wesley spotted this one before we were even in the park.


Christmas morning after Santa's visit! Too bad everyone was sick so they just sat there until 3 PM. That's even later than when we were growing up and our parents just hid in their bedroom for ages.


Eventually some stockings got opened. Look at all the Christmas excitement going on.


Mommy got lots of presents! She wasn't very excited either. In fact, she didn't even seem to have a clue what her presents were until after nearly all of them were opened. She still managed to build it all by herself though, so now she's excited. One of the first things going on was Railworks 3, courtesy of Uncle Randy. It's the best game ever!


Here is something for Reed to watch.


Wesley got a train table just like at the library! Hi wow and sto mon hun!


This picture pretty much sums up the Christmas prezzies. Be grateful kids because you're not getting another one like this, heh heh heh.


Too flesh out our Lego city, Amanda made a McDonald's.


And a library. Isn't it awesome?


This is what things quickly devolved to.


Here's Kate showing off her Christmas present for Mommy. Kairi can do it too but only Kate prefers it over crawling these days.

The End

Fall Funness

I was surprised that we didn't have this picture up here yet. This is the harvest of the carrots that we grew at our Epic garden this year. Sadly they only lasted about a month or so with our kiddos eating them up the way they did.

Right before our trip out to Minot, ND we went raspberry picking. Here is Wesley getting some goods. He really enjoyed this so much that he insisted we go back a second time and bring some along for the Minot grandparents.

This is near the start of our hunt for the juicy ones.

Kairi was starting to get grumpy since she couldn't pick any raspberries herself. This was our final product of our first trip. Chris turned the berries into a delicious pie for all of us.



Enjoy some raspberry picking fun!

See I told you we went to Minot. We got to do loads of things like visit relatives and parks and clean houses etc. Here you can see Wesley and Brie getting ready for a family reunion picnic lunch.

I bet you can't guess where this picture was taken! If I am correct it was at the Scandinavian Heritage park. We are standing under a giant painted horse. I am holding Katelyn. Kairi is on the stroller and Wesley is flying.

Speaking of Wesley the boy is absolutely obsessed with trains. They are his best friends, so we engaged in a train hunt with him in Minot. Here is a good shot of the girls and him and dad on a train bridge just before we caught a train passing underneath it. Let me tell you moving trains are some cool things.

As part of our vacation in Minot, Chris and I escaped one night on a date. We ate at Royal Fork, and went mini-golfing at some peoples backyard. That was one hard course! Then we went bowling and then came back in time to still put the girls to bed. Grandma seemed a little surprised, but I guess we are just fast at playing games and stuff.

Here are some goofs riding on a banana at the new office building section at that one work place.

Can you find the sleeping bear in this picture? This is at the Milwaukee Zoo. We really came here for the train ride, but the animals are cool too.

The train ride! Wesley says boom and wow, if you can't tell. I love the little jump.

Um. This is a picture of me. I may have finished writing a story that I started back in high school and published it. However, me being me, I still don't know if I like it. I go back and forth most of the time trying to decide if it's good or not. Chris says it's good. I do like the cover though. I took that picture myself!

Wesley insited on me making him a castle for his trains one day. He kept telling me that I hadn't made it for him yet until I finally got around to it. Here is what I made. Half the things I do with art projects are made out of our many diaper boxes. Ah. Diapers. Enjoy the classic Wesley smile.

Kate on the left and Kairi on the right are holding up their heads and almost crawling! So exciting, except that now it is a little old news. They are getting everywhere these days and it's tricky to keep them out of Wesley's legos (pictured somewhere below). They love walking and are getting close to doing that on their own. My fingers are crossed. Perhaps Santa will have them walking for Christmas then I wouldn't have to get climbed on so much. :)

All aboard! And tickets please. Three kids get a custom homemade train ride (practically every day) in diaper boxes.

Here we go! This has spurred Wesley's lego making creativity. One day he grabbed the bucket of legos which he used to only use for the cars we'd made him and started tinkering. For hours I heard that kid telling me "I'm making toodles!" Here is the finished product. He had to show "toodles" off for a few days afterwards.

Here are some of his recent makings. You can see on the left a train station with train tracks in the front. There are two trains and a hopper car and a windmill and a smoke stack...

Kairi here is giving you all a musical concert.

For our Halloween fun this year we went back to the pumpkin patch and rode the barrel train ride.

We played in a hay maze. Wesley loved that part.

And we floated some ducks down the ramps. This was another favorite.

You've got to love this smile face he puts on. :) Here he is playing in some corn kernels at the back of the maze.

This year he did such a good job of picking a pumpkin that did not have a pokey stem.

I signed Chris up to make a pie for our ward Fall Festival. He made a cool banana cream pie. It was the best decorated one out there. Sadly it did not win first place although I don't know why. It was tasty!

Ta Dah! People have been asking me for a picture of our halloween costumes. I sewed up some towel ducks for the twins to match one that Wesley already had and boom; instant costume. It was a little hard to keep the hoods on the girls head though. Oh and before anyone asks, Chris always does something random to his face around this time of year.
In my spare time, ha ha, in the time I took to be spare time, I made some office decorations for Chris since his place had only white walls. They're a little random and all of them feature hidden diaper boxes. Well except for the toilet paper roll flowers. :)

The End! I hope you enjoyed the quick post for our last two months of living.