museum.

yesterday the kids and i went to the children's museum for a little while in the morning. i have felt so bad about not doing nearly as many fun things this summer as we intended because things with the girls are so challenging and getting through each day and the daily routine is all I can handle. but the past couple of weeks I have been determined to have more fun and so we went to the mayborn museum where cole got to do some of his favorite things, such as driving vehicles, riding animals, and playing with mommy. he also likes to pretend to make me coffee and breakfast just like daddy does (he is obsessed with the eggs and coffee pot here). We had so much fun!

our weekend.

here are a few pictures from our weekend. don't worry, one of these days i will actually have time to write on my blog again and tell you about my life instead of just posting a bunch of pictures. 

 but, let's be honest, most of you only want to see my adorable children anyways.

still a little short for this jumper.  

daddy found a solution to that problem.

we showed our house for the first time!  it has been on the market for 6 weeks so we are disappointed it took this long to show but we are trusting in God's plan! 

me trying to capture a cute photo of cole holding clara.  

clearly things could have been going better.

cole was very into building towers out of things found in the pantry.  

we pulled out our rice bin and cole played happily for close to an hour in the kitchen.  3 pounds of rice ended up on the floor, but he was happy and entertained so i was a happy mama.  it let me clean and prep all my farmer's market produce in peace!

nightly bible reading.  cole is WAY into the story of shadrack, mishack, and abednigo right now.  he is seriously concentrating.

trying to get out of the door these days with the kids can be a challenge as i am trying to leave the house neat and tidy in case it needs to be shown while we are out.  taking the extra time to straighten up is hard with 3 kids.  

enter mickey the mouse.  

i am not proud of this at all, and try not to do it, but, let's be honest.  

sometimes a mama needs some help.

craftiness.

a few weeks ago I read on my friend sarah's blog a craft that she did to showcase her instagram photos. did you know there is an app to order prints of your instagram photos? they are about 3 X 3 i and are so cute! i loved sarah's idea and decided to make one of my own.  ya know, in all my spare time.

i think that it turned out awesome!  

we hung it in our dining room and i love looking at it all the time.  so does cole, as EVERY time we sit down to eat he talks about the pictures and about 'remembering' all the things that we were doing in them.  

because they are clipped onto twine with tiny clothespins, i am excited that i can keep ordering new pictures for just a few cents and change out the look whenever i want.  

for my next project, i hope to go to hobby lobby less than 5 times to get it done.  'cause hobby lobby is not as fun with a cart full of babies and a two year old running around trying to 'show me' all the breakable items that he is not supposed to touch!  

yay for being crafty!

i'm a dork, i know.

a few random pictures.

Snoozing

I snapped this photo of my dad and elise the other night when he was in town. after we went to the waterpark we ate at a local favorite, health camp, where we chowded down on their famous burgers, onion rings, and chocolate milkshakes. between the sun and the food, we looked like this by 8:00. i love how this photo captures the wrong one sleeping!

last days of summer.

waco has a new waterpark and when my dad was in town this week, we made it over there for an afternoon.  

it was a lot of fun!

poppy and clara
(note cole in the background covering his eyes as he said cheese; it was really, really bright)

this was how we had to get cole when it was time to leave 

elise practicing some of her contortionist moves

mama and her girls: tired, clean, and ready for bed.

taking 3 kids to the waterpark was exhausting!

potatoes.

for their second food, we gave the girls sweet potatoes today.

they received mixed reviews. 

elise just flat out refused to eat them after the second bite and happily switched back to cereal. 

but they look cute in orange, don't they?

6 months....seriously?

i truly cannot believe these little beauties are half a year old.  

i mean, that is crazy.  i only have 35 more half years with them before they turn 18 and go off to college!!!  that's not a lot of time....i'm not ready for college!

ok, freak out over.  

but seriously, i am amazed that we are here, surviving and a daresay thriving at times.  

there are some days when i think to myself, 'yeah, i totally got this.'  but honestly there are times when i just feel like it is too much.  

things seem to be getting harder since the girls are awake so much more than when they were little and they both want me all. the. time.  

they both want to be held by me all. the. time.

that makes doing things like, i don't know, cooking dinner, showering, going to the bathroom, really easy and fun.  

i am never without a child.

most days, we make it work and i seriously take advantage of every nap time (which is treasured since all the kids nap at the same time most days) and really plan ahead. 

and i am ssoooo thankful that brenner works from home.  he is able to come and help way more than most dads gets to during the day and those little moments of support are so helpful.  

but some days it is draining.  

i long to have an evening where brenner and i can sit down and watch an episode of psych and eat ice cream without interruption.  without holding babies, feeding babies or burping babies.  just sit there and read blogs (oh, it has been ssoooo long since i have read anyone else's blog!) and just relax.

and i know the day will come when we will have our grown up time again.  

we will get to go out on a date.  

we will eat a meal in peace without shoveling our food in our mouths like encino man or tom hanks after living on a desert island.  

i will not always be waking up at 2:00 to pump milk.

i am trying not to be selfish.

i am trying to treasure every moment.

i keep reminding myself that i don't want to just survive the first year, i want to enjoy it and treasure it and savor each baby moment.  

i truly am so thankful for these babies.  

my angels, my miracles.

and we truly are doing better than i thought we would.  

i am proud of the fact that i cook dinner most nights, that we find time each day for our family Bible reading, that i make it out of the house to run errands with the kids by myself, that i get to run each morning (and always come back :) ), that i find time to do crafts with cole and even get crafty myself sometimes. 

we are making it. and we love our little twinsies.

clara beth's 6 month stats:

12 lbs 2 oz

24 inches

no teeth

sitting by herself

mama lover

big time paci stealer

loves her cow blanket

likes to observe people

loves to belly laugh, especially at brother

loves to grab mama's face and run it up against hers

 elise's 6 month stats:

11 lb 4 oz

23 1/2 inches

sits by herself

loves her frog blanket

loves mama's hair

big smiler

biggest drooler ever

rolls everywhere

nickname: lil bit

likes to laugh at daddy

game time.

brenner and i went to the rangers baseball game last friday.  

it was date night.  

plus two babies.  

translate: not a real date.

this is just a phase of life, right?  

but we had a good time anyways and we attracted quite a bit of attention as we each carried a baby in a bjorn, which makes it slightly challenging to eat nachos.

and hot dogs.

 i may or may not have dripped relish from my hot dog down clara's head.  

new things.

this past week we started cloth diapers with the girls. we started a lot earlier than this with cole but the girls are so small that i needed to wait a lite longer in order for the diapers to fit them! i love my teeny girls!  how cute are they???  and yes, i am aware that elise (on the right) is wearing her diaper up to her nipples.  that's our lil' bit!

and today we started them on solids! (which is always a relative term when talking about baby food!) elise did really well and kept more food in her mouth than her sister. clara had a harder time keeping the food in which made her mad! she obviously really liked the taste of the oatmeal cereal and was wanting to eat more but it kept coming back out and then she would cry.  and we would laugh (bad parents, i know!)

hopefully tomorrow will go a little better.

i can't believe that we are already a the solids stage. i mean, i already nurse the girls 6 or 7 times a day and now adding solids will make 8 feedings a day on most days, and that is just for the girls.

that is a lot of time feeding babies.  

i must admit that i truly have been dreading this next phase of introducing baby food.  it is not bad when the kids eat what you eat, but when they have to eat baby food and their meal times do not coincide with ours, it is another things to schedule in the day.  isn't that so selfish?  me, complaining about feeding my children?  

don't worry friends, i will get over it and i will make them yummy, nutritious food myself just like i made cole's baby food, i promise.  i just need to complain a little, mkay?  

thanks!

here are my beauties testing out food.  

elise loving cereal!

clara liked to help hold the spoon.

family photos.

our vacation.

we had an amazing trip to new york with my family. 

it was a wonderful time of spiritual renewel and i walked away with a desire to know God deeper and to live a deeper life in Christ.  

but we also had a lot of fun!  

we went to the beach everyday and had the best weather we could have possibly asked for.  

we tried paddle boarding for the first time, which was awesome, and brenner and i were also able to go on a romantic kayak expedition (read: no kids!).  

we didn't have time to hike this year because of the babies, but i was able to get up each morning and enjoy my run in 50 degree weather while running through mountains and small towns.  

and on the day that we left, the high in our little corner of new york was 79 and low in waco was 81.

oh, back to reality.   

as always, the kids stepped up to the challenge while traveling and did amazing.  things were complicated, slow and slightly dramatic at times, but we made it there and back with no major drama.  although it is always interested to nurse not just one, but two babies on an airplane (which i had to do on every flight) since it involves shuffling babies back and forth and lots of looks.  brenner and i each agreed that it is easier at this age to change a diaper on our lap on the airplane than to actually go to the bathroom since it is so crowded and yucky.  we were never able to sit in the same row but on both of our flights coming home we were at least able to be behind one another, making it easier to pass babies over the seats, pass snacks back and forth and both discipline cole (who was trying to "fly" and go over the seats himself).  

but we truly are glad to be back home.  as great as the trip was, we were exhausted by the end of it.  all the changes in sleeping and routine and food and rushed mealtimes to accommodate the kids' schedules was a little more draining than i thought it would be.  

we are also going through sugar withdrawals since we ate our fair share of s'mores, chocolate milkshakes, coffee cake, and cinnamon rolls.  

we don't hold back on vacation.

anyway, here are some pictures of our trip.  i will post the rest tomorrow so as not to completely overwhelm you at once with my family!