Rebecca and Emily - part 6 - THE BIRTHDAY!

The (L)ice Watch of 2009 coincided with the girls birthday.
With the schools closed for bad weather, everyone was home all day, even Daddy.
So we had lots of time to finish our cakes, watch the weather and comb lice eggs out of mommy's hair (but that may get it's own blog post).

We had great plans of sharing cupcakes and juice boxes at Sunday school and with their Kindergarten class. Neither of which happened...so 4 dozen cupcakes, 2 double layer heart cakes and a little double layer star cake later...we partied (ate) on.

You can never have too many sprinkles!
Rebecca on the left, Emily on the right - minus one front tooth and a bottom tooth that is slow to grow back in.

I actually payed money for broken doll parts !

Instead of taking the very small plastic clothes on and off of the very small Polly Pockets - someone came up with the idea to attach the clothes to the bodies, but -pop- the head or waist off and -pop- on a different one. Seems to work for me and much better than the previous magnet swallowing that was going on.




Some of us got Strawberry Shortcake posters to color, and some of us 2 yr olds didn't.
It's hard to understand why they were getting presents and she wasn't :-(

The girls also got jump ropes, play phones, night gowns, new outfit and
High School Musical tennis shoes.

The Sheik and his entourage braved the ice, with presents in hand, to share all the cake and cupcakes and ice cream that we were ill-prepared to consume alone.

Here are our finished projects.

After a second ice day at home, we still have leftover cake AND another dozen cupcakes in the frig?

Which would you prefer?

I think we've started a new tradition...baking your own birthday cake.

Rebecca and Emily - part 5 - from Aunt Amy

Aunt Amy made her own blog post about the "twinkles".

Check it out here. Thanks M-Amy.

Rebecca and Emily - part 4 - 2008 fashion show

There are a couple of schools of thought on how to dress identical twin girls:
- same, same (means no fighting over who gets which color)
- similar (but not everything comes in pink and purple)
-different (because everyone is different)

Birthday Princess Emily and Birthday Princess Becca

Wow these pants are tricky!



Girls just wanna have fun...



What good is a beautiful dress with out some mud?

It didn't stop at their hands this day...


Equal but opposite in our random snow storm.


Emily in her "favorite shirt...EVER!!!"

Of course, we'd run around naked ALL the time if we could.

Making waffles with Daddy!

Look, more mud!


Sweet Becca in my wedding dress.

Sweet Emily in half a dress.

Eating marshmallows toasted over an open BBQ.

Cute braids

I love these girls!

What does 2009 have in store for them?

Rebecca and Emily - part 3 - 2007 videos

Many of these you might have seen on youtube (back when I was posting them on a regular basis) ...but let's visit them again, shall we...

What would you do with your twin sister?



Thanks for clearing that up.



They know them better than I do.



Great Job, Becca



Good try, Emily

Lice

Guess who has lice?

Nope - not the birthday girls...well, I'll check them again tomorrow.

Not Jacob or Daddy ... not enough hair. Not ClaireBells either - same reason.

I know what your thinking... Katy. 10 year olds are just starting to figure out their own personal hygiene habits...but again no.

So who does that leave? Amanda

She's watching Bugs Bunny on youtube and eating tee tee candy (aka Skittles) while Darren and I are good primate parents ... well, all except eating the bugs you find.

Oh yeah - Mommy has them, too :(

But neither Darren nor I can fathom going through my long hair with a fine tooth comb...hhhmmm. What a to-do, what a to-do.

But I'm doing all the other parts.. washing hair, ALL bedding, her car seat, coats, all blankets from the blanket box, and vacuuming couches, rugs, my car seat... this might be worse than the bedbugs we fought a few years ago!

Well, there's one more thing I can add to my list of things I'd rather NOT do.

Now I'm off to wash my hair and go to bed. Sleep tight and don't let the bedbugs (or lice) bite.

Rebecca and Emily - part 2

I've found a few pictures on my computer of the little ones.
I didn't have a digital camera back then...my sister did.

Wish I could tell you which sister is which...but I can't. Can you?
We did NOT get 2 of everything, we didn't have the room. They each had their own car seat and eventually their own high chairs...but they slept together in the crib, the pack n play, we put both girls in the bouncy seat or this portable swing - they were too small to fit by themselves anyway.Notice their arms are in the same posititions...

We also used the little video camera that was hooked up to our computer. So lots of pictures and videos were taken in the office...funny angles and bad lighting most of the time.

Lest you think we never take pictures of them alone...
Here is one of Rebecca

and one of Emily.Could you tell the difference?

look what I found

Apparently, we've always been this way... some of you may have thought it was a recent development. Nope.



Jenn and Darren circa 2003

Rebecca and Emily - part 1

Only a few more days until the big 6. Presents have been bought, cupcake plans have been made and sugar intake has been ramped up.

Hard to believe there was a time when they were not.

Could that really be my belly? Could it get any bigger?

Then the dynamic duo suited up...
4 out 5 births need an Aunt Amy, with her mad nursing skillz.
You will notice the bible in her hand...
During contractions there will be no laughing and cutting up - only the reading of the Word
(whichever one I choose or however many time I want you to read it over and over and over.)
Once this contraction passes, I don't care what you two do until the next one.

And soon there were 2 babies - 7 minutes apart.

Rebecca Dawn (5lbs 9oz) and Emily Delight (6 lbs 2 oz)
Don't know which one is which in this photo :)

Deep Thoughts by Emily

"Mom, one time Dad told me to get off the potty, and I had just gotten on. I hadn't been there a long time, just long enough to (insert Emily humming a little tune), for a minute or so. And he said get off, and I didn't even have time to talk to myself."

The kids and I laughed

Katy was talking about Tim Hawkins (a christian comedian) at school today.

So we went out to look at some of his stuff on youtube ... Cletus take the reel. This is too funny - I hope you enjoy it as much as we are!

I can only eat margarine is in second place :)

Somehow I'm fascinated...

You'd think with all the kids I have and all the baths I've given (even if they didn't get bathed regularly, I have still given a lot of baths).

This is something I hadn't seen:


A bathtub/bucket thing you put the kid down into. The child is covered in water, except the head. As opposed to laying in a tub where your butt is wet but the rest of you is freezing while someone gives you a spongebath.

Too bad Claire just outgrew it - we're actually in the market for a seat I can put in the big tub. But now I know what every new mom needs at her baby shower!

Ode to Dr. Pepper

Back in November, Santa made an early trip in a brown UPS van bearing a box for me, straight from Dublin, Texas.

Someone knew mommy needed a case of Dr. Pepper made with sugar (not corn syrup), in my own little bottles, to drink when I wanted.

As I sit sipping the last one, I felt obligated to express my love for such a small treat.

Dr. Pepper, cold and sweet
a taste of goodness that's hard to beat.

A little bottle, that's all my own
those 23 flavors are hard to clone.

Made with sugar, not just syrup
hard to find, even in Europe.

But not for me, my friends you see,
a secret stash in the laundry room
means whenever I need a drink
I pretend I need the broom.

None of this would have been possible with out Aunt Mel and Audrey. Thanks :)

January's Book of the Month: James

Darren and Katy have been talking about James. Well, I haven't read James in a long time...so we started a little game: to see who can read James the most this month. Luckily it's only 5 chapters long.

So far we are all tied at 2, even Jacob. Whereas Katy is reading for speed, I am trying to ponder it a little more, but I still want to beat her :) But the more I read it, the more she'll try to beat me... Just reading it twice has already started spontaneous conversations about it, which is really the point.... to read your bible and think about the One who wrote it.

So you are welcome to be part of our Book of the Month Club. If you read James this month, let us know and we'll put your name on our whiteboard.

Don't know what the prize is yet, but Katy and Jacob are asking for one :)

Other things

At Thanksgiving, we went on a trailer ride.
Poopa pulled us on the trailer behind his rhino.
Poopa taught us about the local wildlife
- especially the little birds.
Hey Poopa, what were those called again?

We found some fire ants...
so we tried to make them fire ants...
with gasoline and fire.
Kids, don't try this on your own. That's what we have an Uncle Marcus for.
My dad planted pine trees on his property in 2000 - the same year Jacob was born.
These trees are his age. Trees grow faster than people.

Theses are the trees from the 2003 planting.
Guess who was born in 2003?

And of course we had to have a little tummy time.
If I could just get to him...

We did pose for family pictures. A feat all in itself.
This is most of the grandkids with Poopa and Grandma.
We missed seeing the 2 that didn't make it this year.
Catch us if you can!

Photos a la Thanksgiving

Darren and I have differing opinions about picture taking ... he really prefers a candid photo to a "posed" one. I like both. But I do tell everyone to "look this way"
and say... cheese, funny money or hairy pickles.

Can you guess which pictures Darren took and which ones Jenn took?
* Jenn: 5 pictures * Darren: 7 pictures *

1. Silly cousins

2. Jacob

3. Becca
4. Emily

5. cow (with extra legs?)
6. a kissing self-portrait
7. Rachel and her Daddy
8. Grand Poopa
9. Grandma with Gabriel (4 months) and Claire (5.5 months)
10. Naomi (with a big owie on her forehead - just in time for family pictures)
11. My Katy girl (dimples still there)
12. Amanda

Did you guess right? Answers down below...

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Darren: 2, 3, 4, 7, 10, 11, 12
Jenn: 1, 5, 6, 8, 9