Aaah Life...

Hello family and friends,

As requested by Amber I'm going to be posting this time around. Some of you may be checking out now but for those of you sticking around hope you enjoy what you read.

Its crazy to think its almost 4 months.  I know people say that a lot but truly its hard to think of what has happened since the girls arrived.  Our lives are truly different and even though we are tired at times we wouldn't change a thing.

I'm not sure if you all know this but Canadian Thanksgiving happened in October and since this house hold now has two more Canadians in it we did celebrate.  We were lucky enough to have my Aunt Karen and Uncle Sid from Blackfalds, Alberta around for supper.  They have children in Wisconsin and Michigan and were visiting them for a couple weeks.  On their way back to God's Country it worked out we could have Thanksgiving together.  I don't get to see my Uncle and Aunts often so that was truly a enjoyable time to see them and find out what's been going on in their lives as well as my cousins.

Along with that fun event its finally time to say good bye to volleyball for another season.  My sophomore team finished a week ago with a sweet record of 15-2.  I'm not sure you can call it a sophomore team since 2 of my players were sophomores (Grade 10 for Canadians) and the other were freshman (Grade 9).  My time will now be focused on our Sr. team (Varsity for Americans).  Their season is going well and if our emotional, teenage, social media addicted team can play to their potential we should do well at our final State tournament (Provincials).  Who knew I'd have to explain so much with sports between two countries.  All in all Amber is pumped to have me home more to help with the girls and to actually spend some time together and I must say so am I.

Since life has slowed down somewhat we went to a fun auction in Rock Rapids this past weekend and as Amber sang in the house today "One man's trash is another man's treasure." WOW is all I have to say. We looked at some of what was going for sale and I had my eye on a few things. Example:  Old school lawn darts, the ones with the metal ends. The ones that are pretty much unsafe but when you see them you kind of want to play so I thought, "I'll bid up to about $10 for them" well they went for $40. Then there was these cool old oil signs that would look cool in the garage. I thought "maybe $30 for them." Well one went for $250 and the other one for a hundred. I felt like American Pickers was letting me down because when you watch the show you expect to get deals and all I was getting was outbid. Then there were some other things but as explained we got out bid!!!

So that's kind of what's been going on with our lives and now I'll talk about the girls because that's why 99% of you are reading this for. The girls are growing fast, I mean crazy fast. Quinn has now figured out how to roll from her back to her stomach while Amelia is doing it every once in a while. We have hauled out our Bumbo's now and their getting better at sitting in them but they still have a bobble head kind of movement to them. Also, question to everyone out there, when was it decided to name every baby thing with a letter B. Bumbo, Boppy, Bouncer I know it maybe only three things but it gets confusing when you have 2 of everything in your living room and your talking about them. It becomes a tongue twister. The girls are sleeping well but have started to move around more in the crib. Amelia will sleep great and through the night but her sister on the other hand is quite a girl. No matter where we lay them Quinn will snuggle up to Amelia. We have watched them on the monitor move to snuggle up to each other. Its cute but getting to be a struggle since they break out of their swaddle and wake each other up. The day of using two cribs is coming soon but we are trying to hold back as much as we can. I guess that would be accepting their growing up.
Another thing we have learned is what in the world did we used to do without kids? We find our selves at night rushing around to get everything completed all while focused on the feeding schedule and making life work around that. We now sit and look at each other and ask "what did we used to do with our nights before these girls?" We have started a schedule where we take turns at night getting up with the girls. I'll tell you what, you really pay attention to that last feeding to make sure they get as many ounces down to make sure they sleep that extra hour especially if its your night!!!!

All in all we are blessed and doing well. Of course there are sleepless nights and periods of chaos in the house but overall we can't complain. There is another P.E. teacher in my school district who has twin boys who are 18 months and he told me the first year is a blur which I kind of chuckled at till my mom said this week as well that this first year will fly by. Well then I guess we have 4 months down, 8 to go! Let the good times roll.

If we don't see you all have a great Remembrance day (for the Canadians) and Veterans day ( for the Americans).

Your truly,

Kevin

P.S. Go Duke!!!!! (season starts soon for those who care)

 

Q & A hanging out together

 

 

 

Quinn was more fascinated by the camera!!

 

 

                                        Amelia loves it as you can tell by her bright eyes!!!

 

Taking a nap together!!

3 months!!!

First of all, I apologize for the large gap between my posts. Life has gotten just a tad busy! :)
Here is a little bit about what we have been up to.

Work
I am back at work full time and it is going as well as I could have hoped. I went back on Thursday, September 27 and then since I just do half days on Fridays, I had a nice short week. Then last week and this week were full weeks but they went fast. I am working on getting caught up  and working on a few new things as well.
Kevin is still busy with school and volleyball. His sophomore team is doing so well. With the help of my parents, the girls and I have made it to most of the games in town. Once his team is finished, he will help out varsity for the remainder of the season. The nice part about that is he won't have to plan his own practices which means a few more evenings will be free.

Here is a picture of the girls at daddy's volleyball game. Q happens to be outcold here while Miss A is wide awake. Usually they are pretty alert at these games as there is so much to look at! And their carseats fit perfectly between the bleachers.

 

Daycare

Daycare is going pretty well so far too. Sharla (the provider) is great with them and the girls are happy when I get there so we are glad about that. Definately a huge point of anxiety this summer that is working well. 

Sleep
For the most part we are all getting a good amount of sleep. We try to have the girls in bed around 9:30 so that we can wash dishes, get lunches ready, get the daycare bag ready, etc. for the next day and then be in bed by 10 ourselves. The girls will usually sleep until around 5 am at which point I get up and start to feed them while Kevin gets ready and eats breakfast. Once Kevin is ready, he finishes feeding the girls and gets them dressed while I shower and get ready. We feel like we have a good little stystem going. If the girls happen to wake up before 5, we take turns getting up. And if we are lucky on the weekends like we were today, the girls will sleep even longer. Today they slept until 6:45 which was perfect for us to make it to the early service at church at 8:30.

Fun
Last week Saturday my mom and I took the girls to get their 3 month pictures taken. They did so well and were awake and happy! So hard to believe they are 3 months old already! Each day we look at eachother and say we cant believe we have TWO babies. Crazy but so much fun. We are definately blessed!!!

These are the outfits they girls wore for their 3 month pictures. Pretty cute eh?!?

 

Little Husker cheerleaders!! Go Big Red!!!

 

Q-Bear's 3 month pose

 

Miss A's 3 month pose

 

 

Things went downhill from there for the group shot.

 

First time in the Bumbo seat:

 

 

 

We went to the pumpkin patch today with Heather, Elliot, and Mason. Besides a little wind, the weather was nice so we thought the girls would enjoy some fresh air.

 

 

Thanks for everyone's prayers and support as we transition back to both of us working and having two children. Our lives our definately different than at this time last year and we are so thankful!

Have a great week everyone!