My WIFEY!!!

So today is my 8th Anniversary and I thought I had better give a bit of much deserved praise to my wife.

I can't believe it has already been 8 years...though they have been the best of my life. My wife is my best friend. She is very outgoing, adventurous, patient(you'd have to be to live with me!). I am always amazed at the lengths she will go to to entertain my crazy ideas. Recently leaving UT, where she was born and raised (never living more than 100mi from home) to venture to the east coast...for my career. She has adopted so many of my hobbies, I believe against her mother's will, she rock climbs with me, mountain bikes, skis, and paintballs, it would seem anything I want her to! She fortunately for me, is very fit and athletic and therefore has done very well at conquering all of this....except maybe her first Downhill Mountain bike trip on Squaw Peak...hehehe! (she went over the handle bars at least 15-20 times and kept riding...no exaggeration!)

Along with her sense of adventure she is the best mother I could ask for! Our kids adore her. She has the skill of some how juggling three very young children and managing to keep them all very healthy and happy! A feat I have yet to perfect. She is incredibly selfless and becomes more so everyday. Her welfare and needs you can plainly see are always 2nd to that of mine and our kids! She is great homemaker, though I am not sure where she finds the time and energy,...since she is regularly up numerous times in the night!

Lastly as a wife, she is great! She is very understanding of me, patient with my crazy quirks, sarcasm,"humor", ideas, races, and hobbies. I know I don't always tell her enough, but I want her to know how grateful I am to have a wife as amazing as she is! I think there are very few others like her...try living with me for a week and you will see!!

Thanks for a great life honey! I love you!

Dave

Family Time

We have had so much fun spending time together as a family and we have had a chance to do some fun things. I forget to take pictures of some things we do and other times I forget to post about them. I just wanted to post a few picture of those good times.

Dave and Taylor got to go to a Mets vs Dodgers came at CitiField. Dave won 4 tickets at work and they took Mike and Bentely. They had a really great time.

While my parents were here we went to the Statue of Liberty. Thanks to Great-Grandma Lee and Grandma for helping with the kids, we really slowed down the sight seeing but had so much fun. We were sad that Grandpa couldn't come but he was really sick. Taylor really enjoyed seeing the big statue.

Last week we walked through downtown New Milford. We enjoyed the Farmers Market, the tank and the great little shops.

Over Memorial Day weekend we pulled out the slip and slide and had a blast. Good thing Dave and Mike are so willing to have fun with their kids.

Candlewood Lake is 5 minutes away and they have a city park with a great beach. We got a season pass and hope to use it often. The kids enjoy it a lot. Drew and Lana love to eat the sand and rocks.

The Party

We had a wonderful birthday party for the twins. We are so happy that Mike, Alison, Isabel, Cecily, Bentley, Lydia, and Grandpa Bramhall could come. We missed all other family. Our friends Ryan, Lua, Ali and Lexi joined us for the party as well. THANKS to everyone for the gifts and the great time.

Drew-B is ONE!

Today the twins are ONE, crazy. Make sure to read the post on Lana. For their birthday Drew is unfortunately sick with a high fever and not happy at all. Lana also has a fever but not to high and not too upset. We tried to enjoy the 90 degree weather with a pool party but the twins weren't to happy as you can see.

Our Drew lights up the room and very easy going but also very aggressive. He loves to steal every toy from Lana and he didn't stop there. He trys to take toys out of Taylor's hands and he does not let go. When he wants something, he wants it and he will scream at you until you let go.

Drew is also our sick child. Luckily nothing serious but he always gets sick first, he has had 4 earaches, eczema all over his body, and now is wearing a helmet. With all these things, he never complains much. He will whine here or there but nothing to crazy.

Drew loves to eat dirt, sand, rocks, etc. He will crawl over to the dirt or sand and stuff handfuls in his mouth. Then looks at me with pouty eyes that say "I need a drink."

When Drew is hungry watch out. He will do anything to get his hands on food and when he gets it, he will stuff it in his face. I don't think he chews. I think he just swallows.

He is a very busy boy with physical therapy and doctor appointments but always willing to go. He is such a sweety and will go to anyone and sleep anywhere, I love that. He is cruising around furniture but not sure he wants to walk without support. He has always been the cautious child and is a little shaky if I try to get him to stand by himself. He will get there soon though. He says "Dada," "mum, mum" for food and "hi." He loves to copy everything we do and he is really good at figuring out how toys or anything works. He loves to study a toy and figure it out by himself. When he concentrates hard he gets a really good drool going.

I can not believe he is one. There has been so much change, there has been so much in his life and ours.

Lana Lou is ONE!

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Lana is our girl and that is for sure. She loves to watch everyone and she loves to jabber. She will repeat a lot of what I say but in her own language. If I say "One, Two, Three" she will repeat "Uh, Uwe, E." It is so cute! The second she see a phone she comes after it.

She loves her dad and always says "Dada" the second he walks through the door. She will have him wrapped around her finger in no time.

She loves to do things she shouldn't. She will check to see if I am watching her and then take off for the bathroom (she loves toilets). When she gets close to the bathroom she will check to make sure I see her and then she will crawl as fast as she can to the toilet. When she goes for the stairs she will be quiet getting to the stairs but just before she heads up she will laugh an evil/hahaha laugh and take off up. She just loves the attention she gets when she does things she knows she shouldn't.

She puts everything in her mouth and I mean everything. It grosses me out. She has had dog food, dirt, and the worst she almost put a blood filled tick in her mouth (Mom caught her before this happened).

She loves to torture Drew and will grab his helmet when she gets mad at him or wants to stop him from doing something. She can also con Drew out of toys. She will have a toy and Drew will steal it, she will then go get another toy and Drew will come get that one and leave the first behind, she will then go back to the first toy with a smile on her face. She got the real toy she wanted.

She loves to lay on me when she is tired. She will crawl over and lay her head down on my lap. It is so cute. She is a mama's girl. She does not like to go with others which is a challenge sometimes but it also makes me feel wanted and loved.

She loves water and she can whistle. She has no interest in walking but can balance if we trick her into standing by herself. She is a tippy-toer when she stands or while walking. She has a dramatic scream when she gets mad and has the cutest laugh. Taylor loves and adores her and she loves Taylor. He can always get her laughing no matter what. We love you Lana..

Gramercy Street Festival

We needed to get out of town and decided to head to NYC for a street festival. We found parking for $11 for 10 hours (that is a great deal) and it wasn't far from the festival. There were a lot of booths selling hats, sunglasses, ethnic food, scarves, purses, ethnic decor, herbs, breads, etc. We had a lot of fun just walking up and down Broadway, watching people and having some treats.

One of our favorite things about the festival was when a lady came up to us and asked where we bought Drew's helmet. She thought it looked like a cool fashion statement and wanted to jump on it. When I told her it came from the doctor she was a little embarrassed and walked away. But she didn't leave without getting Drew on film in his stylin' hat (helmet) she wanted to make sure to get one for her little boy. You go lady! We had a good laugh about that.

Taylor's favorite part was the park at Union Square and the ice cream from Mr. Softie. Oh he also loved the water fountain we stopped at so mommy could feed the twins. The lion waterfall was pretty cool but I was pretty sure many people and urinated all over it. It stunck. Welcome to NYC! One more thing-I forgot him and daddy road the Subway while mommy walked around. Taylor really wanted to ride the train so they went down for a ride, I wasn't so sure I wanted to take the twins, and the stroller, to much hassle. I didn't mind just walking around downtown NY, there is so much to see.

Twins-the good and bad!

I haven't talked much about the twins as far as the craziness of having two babies at once so I thought I would post for all to read and for me to remember.

When people found out I was having twins the comments where either "YEAH" or "You poor thing." Everyone talked about how hard it would be, etc, etc, etc... No one talked about how great it was. When the twins arrived things seemed to go smoothly until I realized I don't remember the first month because it was such of blur of feeding and changing diapers and putting to sleep. I did get out (I have a very good husband that helps with that) and I had a lot of support of family and friends. But I didn't take many pictures or video tape because I was always stressed about taking care of a child.

I laugh as I look back at my middle of the night feeding (I tried my best to not wake Dave). Of course I had to feed them at the same time so I would pick one up put them on the footstool of my chair, reach over and grab the other while I made sure the first didn't fall off the footstool. Then I would sit in the chair holding one and get the feeding pillow situated while still making sure number one was still on footstool. I would then get both babies on pillow, feed them, and then start to carefully put them back. One went to the footstool, I held the other while taking off pillow. I would then stand put the one I was holding back in the crib, still making sure the one on the footstool was okay. Then pick up the one on footstool and take them to changing table and change them, usually baby in crib is crying the whole time. Finish with first diaper change and put that baby in crib. Pick up other baby and do diaper change. Then go over rap up baby in blanket and sing it a song to calm them back to sleep. Lay that baby down and rap up the other crying baby and sing a song to calm them back to sleep. Then quietly walk out the door, crossing my fingers the would go to sleep. What a circus! I honestly do not know how mothers of triples, quadruples, etc do it.

The worst part about having two babies at once is when they cry you can not comfort both and that was so difficult to me. I hated leaving one behind, when I knew they needed to be loved and held just as much as the other. I hated deciding on who needed to be held first and who had to stay behind and cry. On the other side of hating it, it has taught me to tolerate crying (it is sad but most of the time it doesn't bother me when they cry, well unless it is a serious cry, there is a difference) which has in return helped the twins learn to soothe themselves or work out the problem.

The fun part is they always have someone to play with, to watch, to tease, to laugh at and to just be around. They have so much fun together and I love to watch them. Drew is the dominant one and will take everything from Lana and crawl over top of her. He is a boy through and through. He loves trucks, wheels, balls, and putting things together and taking them apart. He loves food and loves to spit and drool. Lana is definitely a girl because he loves to talk, to watch other people and read books. She has finally decided she can stand up to Drew and not let go of her toys when he tries to steal them which makes Drew so mad. Their personalities are so different and it is fun to watch them grow up together.

We are so close to being out of a very difficult stage of life with the twins. I can not wait for them to walk. They are getting so heavy and my back has been bothering me from carrying them both around the house, up and down stairs and in and out of the car. Drew is really thinking about walking, Lana doesn't have much of an interest and is a tippy toer. I just can not wait because they are just so hard to lug around.

There are so many other things to tell but that will end it for today. I just have to say one last thing. As difficult as it may be sometimes it is all worth it and I do not think it is as bad as others said it would be. It has drastically changed our life but I wouldn't want it any other way.

Lana is awake--got to go!