Lunch & A Much Needed Pedicure

On Friday, the boys and I went to lunch with Taryn, Ian, Kelley and Emery at Paradise Bakery. If there is a Paradise Bakery in Spokane, I have yet to find it. There were quite a few AZ restaurants not available in Spokane I wanted to eat and this was one of them. Even though I missed a couple of the restaurants, the ones I did get to were so yummy!

Afterwards the girls went to the nail salon. Seriously, the last pedicure I had was the day before the boys were born. I was sick of being pregnant and wanted a foot massage. I'll never know if that contributed to me going into labor, but either way it was nice. Now I have cute feet again. I am not sure what I am going to do now that we are back in Spokane and all the partying is done.

Tempe Beach Park

When we left Spokane it was rainy and the high teperature was about 60 degrees. There was no way we were doing any swimming! The whole week in Arizona had high temps around 100 degrees. Perfect weather for getting wet. I had been wanting to go to the Tempe Beach Park for a while and so we invited all the family to come with us and play in the water. These suits are size 6-12 months and are a bit big on the boys! I love how they look in their long swim suits. Luckily they had a cinch waist and didn't fall right off.


Elliot seemed okay with the idea of being in the water. Not thrilled, but not upset either. He has such a "whatever you say mom" kind of an attitude.


Landon on the other hand did not like the water at all. He loves bathtime, but I guess this was a little too cold for him. His bottom lip would quiver and then he would start crying every time we tried to get him wet.

With the Peterson cousins

With the Crandell cousins

Landon with Tatay - He liked watching just not participating.

Dallin and Steven loved the water! I think it was their first time at any public swimming/water park. Heidi will have to take them again.

Landon was exhausted by the time we left. Papa held him and walked around with him for a while to try and keep him happy. I think the heat was a little too much for him. Poor guy!

Quick Trip to Heidi's

The boys and I headed out to Heidi's house one morning to say hi. We didn't stay long, but it was good to be back out that way. Since we left, Gary road has finally been paved the entire way out to our house. Just in time for us to leave. Where was all that pavement the past four years? We could have avoided some crazy car repair bills if that dirt road would have been paved sooner! It was really weird to drive by our house and see someone else living there. In an ideal world, I could have just walked over to my house, but I am pretty sure the renters wouldn't have enjoyed me barging in. Dallin usually doesn't like posing for the camera, but he did good today with Elliot and Landon. What cute boys!

One of these days, they will be the same size. Landon is catching up pretty quick!

Look at those teeth!

Trip to Arizona

After Nanay's trip was over here, I was able to fly back to Arizona with her and the boys to visit family. Mom, Dad, Amerae and Chereese were supposed to come here to visit in October, but had a change in schedule and asked if they could help us get to Arizona to visit instead. I am so grateful they did! It was such a fun trip. I took all sorts of pictures and we did lots of fun stuff, so it may take a little while to get caught up on all of the happenings.

The boys did great on the plane. They had moments of fussiness, but I can't complain. Landon slept in Nanay's arms for part of the plane ride.

I know it's not Halloween yet, but I had to bring their costumes to show off. Hopefully they still fit at Halloween. I bought 0-3 month costumes because they were a great deal and they matched. I'm crossing my fingers.

Elliot and Landon both have stuffed animals that they love to hold. Here's Elliot with his bunny! Look at those sweet little eyes!

Here's a recap of our first few days there:

Monday: Our plane landed that evening around 5:30. Tannis and Dave picked us up and then we went over to the Crandell's to visit for a bit. The boys got dressed up in their costumes and of course had a bunch of pictures taken. Taryn and Ian came over too. It was fun to visit and see everyone. Then I drove the boys and myself to my parents house. Heidi came over for a while that evening and we got to visit. The boys were handing out smiles like crazy! After visiting and keeping the boys up way past their bedtime, we finally got to bed and they slept horribly.

Tuesday: Heidi and her boys, mom, Amerae, Landon, Elliot and I went shopping at Arizona Mills. This was a little complicated with so many kids, but still fun. Dallin was pretty excited to see me and it is so great to feel loved. He recognized the boys right away. I love how he says their names! After a long day of shopping, I went back to the Crandells to hang out. Chereese made the soccer team which was the big news for the day.

Wednesday: Nothing to eventful. I think we just stayed home most of the day. That evening Heidi, Mark, Dallin and Steven came over for dinner. We had fajitas and peach pie. Swimming was on the list of things to do, but dinner took too long and it didn't happen.

Sick, Sick, Sick

Wow! That is all I have to say about having sick children. Luckily, in the four months since the boys were born, they did not get sick once. Last week, Landon came down with what I thought was a cold, but actually turned out to be bronchiolitis. He was absolutely miserable! It was so sad to hear him whine and just make "I'm hurting, why can't you fix this mom?" noises all day. What was almost as bad was feeling like I was neglecting Elliot all day to take care of Landon. He had a pretty high fever of 102.9 Wednesday night, but then it dropped fairly quickly after getting some Tylenol. I was pretty close to a trip to the hospital that night. He would not sleep anywhere but in my arms and even that wasn't great. I got almost no sleep. On Thursday, Brooks stayed home in the morning to help becasue I was a little overwhelmed. It was so nice to have him home even just for a few hours to help. Landon got sick on a Tuesday night and by Friday was feeling much better. He was better just in time for Elliot to get sick. Elliot didn't get it nearly as bad as Landon and never had as high of a fever. I was so exhausted by the time Elliot got sick, and was relieved that he didn't get the full brunt of the illness like his brother. After Landon spent a night or two sleeping in my arms, now it was Elliot's turn. They are both feeling much better now. Brooks said the new rule in our house is that no one is allowed to get sick.

Hike with Brooks

Brooks and I were able to do the hike in Liberty Lake with no kids last weekend. It is a 3 mile hike to the waterfall, a portion of which is switchbacks. The view at the top of the switchbacks looked out over Liberty Lake. I really enjoyed going to hang out with Brooks. He took a break from studying and we ventured off without the boys. The waterfall was nothing spectacular, but still a fun hike. Spokane has more pine trees and has more forest area than I expected.

Not sure why they needed to label the waterfall. I guess it was pretty small. You might miss it if you didn't know what it was. In the spring I am sure it is much more extravagant with all the snow runoff.

Some of the leaves are already starting to change. I am excited for my first real fall with changing leaves and all.

A Couple of Trips without the Kids

On Thursday evening, Nanay came to visit. The next day I was able to go somewhere by myself with no car seats, no diaper bag and no babies. Unfortunately, I ended up going to wait in line to get my driver's license, but hey, it needed to be done. It was weird to be by myself! Later that evening, Brooks and I went out to dinner. We haven't done that by ourselves in a while. Then, on Saturday, Brooks and I did the same hike we did with our kids a couple of weeks ago, only this time we went all the way to the waterfall and left the boys with Nanay.

Somehow Susie was able to take this picture of herself while holding Landon and feeding Elliot. Amazing!

On Sunday, we drove to Manito Park. There are some great gardens there that Brooks and Susie had not seen. Before we know it, it will be covered with snow, but for now it is great.

Besides taking off without the kids, we did some fun things while Nanay was here. On Saturday, we went to a twin garage sale and found some great things: clothes, a stroller, hiking backpacks to carry kids in, and LOTS of toys! I think I will save most of it for Christmas.

Lunch with Brooks

Earlier this week, the boys and I headed down to the law school to eat lunch with Brooks. I picked up Zips on the way and headed to the school. We sat at a table with a couple of other law students that Brooks has class with and chatted with them. It was neat for me to listen to them talk about various cases they had discussed that day and see Brooks in law school mode. Usually when he gets home from school, he is on law school overload and I don't get too much info about his day. I pry sometimes, but don't want to overdo it.

4 months

This morning we headed out to a park in the area for a twin play group. I wanted to get signed up for the club in order to shop early at their twin sale this weekend. I met a few people, but of course most of the kids at the park were older. One thing that bugged me a bit was that a couple of the women kept trying to sell me products. It was driving me crazy. I didn't go to the park to buy Baby Butter and I don't want to have parties or sell it. Give me a break. I just wanted some conversation. I did meet a really nice mom with 3 yr old twin boys. Anyways, when we got home the boys were a little bored and we went outside to play and take a few pictures. My intention was to get a picture of Landon sitting up by himself. He can do it for about 10 seconds or so on his own, but the timing has to be perfect and he wasn't in the mood. I ended up with some cute shots even without the sitting up thing. Sorry about the scratches on their face. I cut their nails this morning, but the damage had already been done.

Landon and Elliot just passed their four month mark of living in this world. In some ways it has flown by and in other ways it seems like years ago that they were born. We are loving this stage they are in. They are both doing pretty well about sleeping at night. They go to bed between 7-8 pm and the first time I have to feed someone (Landon) is around 4:00 am. Elliot is usually up between 5-7 am to eat. On bad nights, they wake up more often, but overall they are doing great. On nights when they are both screaming at 4:00 in the morning, I have to take a deep breath and assess who needs what and how quickly. It is definitely an adventure. They both have exceptionally long eyelashes. In fact, it is almost always one of the first things out anyones mouth when they see them. "Wow, he has long eyelashes!" I can't count how many times I've heard it.

Landon is really good at rolling from his back to side or tummy, but has only rolled from tummy to back a couple of times. He is sleeping so much better especially during the day. His naps are usually fairly long and he is becoming such a happier baby. At any random moment, he just breaks out in a big grin and he smiles with his whole body. He does lots of little giggles. Landon is happiest right after he eats. He is a solid little guy. Lately, he has been wanting to stand up and use his legs while being held. When Landon sleeps he likes to move. His sleeping position could change 3 times over the course of an hour. It is funny to check on him and see which direction he facing now.

Elliot is improving on his rolling over. Brooks finally saw Elliot roll over a few days ago. He has only done it a few times. He as well enjoys using his little legs to stand up. He does not like being laid down on the blanket to play, but would rather be sitting up. Elliot has decided that he doesn't like nap time as much as he used to. His naps are shorter, but he sleeps great at night. Elliot stays in the same position all night. No moving around like his brother. He has such a cute open mouth smile. I just love it when he lights up and grins.