come have your family vacation with us!!

Joseph with Mommy on the way to visit Tia Mandy
Sarah enamored with Mommy at a rest stop on the way to visit us.
Babies welcoming Daddy home for the weekend with Sarah looking cute.
Izana with Henry in our driveway
Whitney ready to go home while waiting for the car to get fixed.

Tucker at the gas station spot, waiting to go home

A typical afternoon playing while eating snack
Henry playing while waiting to go home
Not again!
Izana and Aaron, so excited to be traveling together

The babies on the way to go clamming in Daddy's truck
Henry scouting for food. I'm sure he was also noting the advantages of being a twin. Food at his disposal
Campfire night
Sarah loving her "birthday" dinner
Three babies
Lunch at the beach. Only one child ran out of the picture
Us without our kids trying to look skinny. Which doesn't really work when we are holding ice cream
Playing at the sand hill. Whitney learned to shovel dirt in her bucket before Tucker took it away. Now she is working on snapping straps together.
Whitney enjoying the sunny view on the ferry ride
Tucker snapping the straps of the stroller on the ferry. He is looking up at Sarah

Whitney at the light house
The lighthouse.
Tucker and Henry (sleeping in the back) at the light house.

Wow! What an adventure filled week. I don't think I've done that much stuff in one week since before the babies were born. Who said naps are good? Anyway, my friend Izana and her family came to visit. They drove 14 hours straight through with 4 kids ages 9 months to 6 years. I still can't believe they did it, did it with a smile and even considered doing it in the first place, but I'm really glad they came.

It all started a week ago today. I kept calling to see if they really were going to be at our house Saturday night. Every time they answered the phone, they said they were making good time and sounded like they were in a good mood. For any mothers of small kids wondering exactly how this was done, I'll tell you what she told me. They started at 6 am their time, so they were a little sleepy and looking out the window. When they started getting restless, she gave them some special bags prepared ahead of time with activities for each kid, like coloring, for example. They also had some new music and story cd's. She said the story cd was a bunch of short stories about dads, so it held their attention and then they would talk about each story after. They ate while driving. She said it took time to eat. The snack would start with one kid and get passed to the next, very slowly. Eating always keeps 'em quiet. They also brought a dvd player with videos like Wall-e where having the volume loud to get the point of the movie wasn't a big deal. At each rest stop, they would run hard around with their dad for 1/2 hour. Then there were a few naps in there, too. The 9 month old was weaned to a bottle. The 6 year old sat next to the 2 year old and the baby sat next to the 4 year old, the best play/family dynamics possible for them. I'm still amazed, but there you have it. They are driving home today, but I'm afraid to find out how the trip home is going. Hopefully they are sleeping more from being worn out from this week. Aaron, the 6 year old, asked us, as soon as he got out of the car at 9:30 pm our time last Saturday where the Star wars legos were and if he could play with them. Sometimes kids have amazing memories. It's been a year since he's played with them at our house. Star wars legos are that cool. Thanks grandma Ann again.

We went to church together. No idea what happened, as usual. But I did notice something that any mother would appreciate. We were spread out over several chairs, with each one in their separate chair reading a book or snacking on crackers in the beginning. By the end we were in two clumps, with each Mommy being in the center and bottom of these clumps. Sushi, I think you know what I mean. It was a little hard to keep the Sabbath rules of no playing wild outside with those guys as they wanted to explore our backyard. After a two days of behaving well, we gave in and let them go outside, but no bikes or balls. It worked, with some supervision. Once again, Star wars legos saved the day.

Monday Jim had off, so we went, guess where, clamming. Boy. Talk about an adventure. We went with another family that has moved here that we knew from Orem. Three cars. Two mini vans and one truck with a cab. A total of 10 kids and 5 adults. Talk about group rates. Since it was Memorial Day, the parking lot was full, so we parked on the road. The older kids had tons of fun looking for clams with the daddies while the Mommies talked, held crying kids (wet, cold, hungry all at different times) and threw out food to the clammers. Of course, the kids needed to go to the bathroom. Which actually saved us a ton of money. My friend was up at the bathroom when a policeman showed up to give everyone (us) parked on the road parking tickets unless we moved our cars in the parking lot. Lucky for us about this time, the tide had started to come in, so lots of people started leaving, letting us park where we wanted without getting a ticket. The third family decided to just go home, instead. We hung out at the beach a while longer. And then, the long trip home.

About 10 minutes into the 1.5 hour drive back, my friend's van broke down. Water pump was out and it broke a bunch of belts. Hmmmm. Last time we went on a trip with them, we piled 7 people into the truck to get back home as that car's transmission broke down 4 hours away from home. Back luck, me with that family and their cars. Lucky for us, Jim had decided he didn't want to drive my car there and we had moved the carseats into the truck, which has a handy-dandy tow rope. We towed it, passengers an all about 20 long minutes to a gas station that was close to an auto parts store open on Memorial day. This gas station also has a beach behind it while the tide is out, and some grass higher up. We hung out with the kids for 4 hours while the hubbies fixed the car. My friends husband had put his whole tool kit in the car last minute before they left Utah, just because he felt he should. We had plenty of food for the kids as my friend hadn't felt like unpacking all the car snacks at my house. We got home by bedtime. It couldn't have worked out better! It also was a dry, sunny day. Not bad. There is a God.

Tuesday my friend and I decided we had had enough adventures and sent her older two boys with her husband to the space needle for the day. They had a blast looking at the science museum that was there while we let the babies have normal naps and food for a day. We exercised during baby nap time.

Wednesday was raining. Hard. 6 kids under 6 that all want to go outside. I tried making Play-dough and realized my mistake. Making it took longer than the length of time they played with it and clean up was more involved than I thought. My friend decided to take her family and run errands for the trip home. They ended up fixing my vacuum (that we noticed was broken upon cleaning up the play-dough) while they were out and it was sort of dry enough for them to play at a playground for a bit to get energy out. yeah!

Tuesday and Wednesday night we swapped babysitting while the other couple went to the temple for the evening. I got the lucky end of the deal. Her kids were on Utah time and are more used to babysitters than mine. When we left, Tucker wandered around the house looking for us. Upon discovering that we weren't around, he cried until we came back. Grrrrr.

Thurday dawned dry, so we packed up to go for a hike to a waterfall that turned out gorgeous. The sun came out the last part of the hike. One hike highlight: 41 slugs were counted on the trail back to the car. After dinner, we had a campfire and a birthday party for everyone. When my friend called me back in February to ask if they could visit, she asked if she could come for my birthday, so we decided to celebrate everyone's birthday for the year, since we don't get to celebrate them together. Her daughter has the same birthday as I do. That night my friend and I went downtown, shopping together. We stayed out until all hours of the night. 9:30 pm, baby. It wasn't even completely dark yet!

Friday we rode the ferry. My friend's hubby bought ice cream for everyone on the way back to make it special. One of the workers on the ferry let her oldest push the button to let the arm down (it looks like an arm that stops traffic for a train) to stop traffic before we walked onto the ferry. There were beaches within walking distance on both sides of the ferry terminal that we enjoyed, as you will see in the pictures.

Today we are cleaning, doing laundry, and taking regularly scheduled naps (hence the post time of my blog) to recover, but it is worth all the fun memories we have now. Although, today, I decided to vacuum the car to get all the sand, dirt, shells, cheerios and dried up peas out from all those day trips. Tucker saw me going to the car and really, really wanted to get in his seat to go for another adventure. This morning Tucker got up to look for his play buddies. He searched every room, didn't find them, and then promptly sat down to play with his toys like he hadn't seen them for a week.

So, if you want a family vacation, come stay with us in the summer. Hope you enjoy the ferry ride via Tucker and Whitney's eyes

pinecones and poop

Tucker watching the other kids at the playground from the other side of the cement wall.Whitney playing with the balloons



So with kids, there are always lots of stories about poop, but this one is a "clean" one. When we first moved here, Jim poop scooped once. He complained about how hard it was to poop scoop with all those pinecones around, looking just like poop (not to mention poop scooping is never fun when it is constantly raining. it's that much harder). Well, this week, I was poop scooping with the babies following me around. Whitney noticed and started picking up pinecones and putting them into the pooper scooper. No worries, I always emptied it as she was approaching me and she never touched the thing, smart girl. Yep. Pinecones look just like poop. It makes me laugh because Whitney loves to collect things of the same thing. Whatever weeds I'm pulling, she pulls. She sees yellow small flowers and wants to pick them. If I'm picking up rocks, she picks up rocks. If I'm collecting shells, she is collecting shells. It's something I love about her.

This week Tucker figured out the spinning farm animal toy. You know, the thing that you pull down on the side and the arrow points to an animal. When you pull the thing on the side, it tells you the animal and makes the sound. The only problem is, Tucker is not much interested in the animal noises. There is one square that the arrow points to that sings a song. He pulls on that thing repeatedly until he gets it to sing the song. He is very persistant about getting a song out of the toy. Hopefully he will not be a gambler.

Another favorite thing of Tucker's to do is clip the stroller straps together. I think he is really excited that he figured out how to do it this week. That click must be very satisfying. He likes to have the double umbrella stroller out in the driveway, with me sitting nearby to unclick the strap once he's put it together, and click those straps shut for as long as I will unsnap them. At least 15 minutes. What is really great is I can have a 15 minute phone conversation with him staying in one spot while I unclick it for him. Thank you grandma Ann. Oh yeah. It's great it's a double stroller because he can go click one shut while I'm unclicking the other.

This week Jim was frustrated about something. I forget what, but what made me laugh is he copied Tucker. Tucker raises his hand in the air and and says "Uh!" So Jim did the same thing. Made me laugh, but I still wonder who is training who.

This week when we went to the grocery store, the lady at the balloon counter gave Tucker and Whitney each a balloon for being so cute. We got lots of milage out of those balloons. The one video I didn't get very well, but Jim tucked the ring that it was attached to in Tucker's pants in back. It was really funny to watch him run around the house being "chased"

Not much else going on this week. I did work on our 72 hour kits after having bad dreams about a natural disaster happening to us and not being ready. Hmmm. Wonder where that came from. Too much new media about tsunamis, floods, tornados and the like. Honestly, life is really good. Next week should have lots of photos. We are having friends stay with us for a week, so we are going on lots of adventures together.

love/hate relationship with oatmeal

Tucker having a blast going up and down the deck stairs

Whitney checking out her new sandels

Story time with Daddy after work

Whitney sledding on a box
Up close admiration of Whitney's adorable sandels

Tucker is really impressed with himself. He climbed up all by himself and was rocking in the chair

Trekking back to the car after clamming. Whitney sees a yellow flower

Babies clamming
Action shot of Daddy clamming


I'm not really sure how I feel about oatmeal. It is good for the babies to get into their mouths, but the process is painfully messy to watch. Tucker could eat oatmeal every day for breakfast, so I keep feeding it to them both.

This week we did a lot of weeding. The weather was great every day this week. I've heard that in CA and UT it was less than lovely. Hope you all enjoyed my rain. I was enjoying your sun. We went outside morning, afternoon and evening every day, so I got a lot of yard work done in between blowing bubbles for the babies, watching them climb stairs and keeping Tucker away from Rocky who no longer feels it necessary to move when Tucker is touching him. He just yelps loudly like he is being abused. They helped me garden quite a bit. They both liked putting on my garden gloves. They also learned to use the large clippers, much to my surprise. Whitney weeded some yellow and white flowers for me a bit.

This week Whitney let Tucker brush her teeth. I was really surprised by that, too. She doesn't usually let Tucker touch her and she doesn't let Mommy brush her teeth, but she let Tucker brush her teeth. Whatever.

They are acting more and more like siblings. They push each other away or whine a bunch if I try to hold them both in my lap. One at a time, but me first, please. Tucker also discovered the joy of purposely throwing items down the stairs for the loudest noise. He throws them, Whitney brings him objects and they both watch and laugh if the item makes a really loud. Like when the ladle handle broke off.

This week we went to visit a friend that had a new baby. Tucker was fascinated with going in and out of her sliding glass door while Whitney wanted to touch and look at the baby.

We went clamming as a family again this week, since they opened the season up again. It is really fun to leave the house when the sun is shining as a family.

grandma comes again. Can't stay away from grandbabies

Whitney at the botanical gardens

Whitney getting ready for church

Whitney shoving rocks down the drain at the botanical gardens. Whitney really likes to collect things. She makes stacks of pine cones around the house, puts as many gravel sized rocks as she can in her hands whenever she can (see above picture), and carries around sticks.

"Exactly how much longer is this shopping trip?"

Whitney is also teething like a puppy. She loves to chew on stuff. Here she is chewing on mommy's toothbrush. Another favorite chew thing is an unwrapped tampon. Why ever did I get them chew rings?

Found a rock.
Tucker didn't want to pose for any sort of picture. In the botanical gardens

At the botanical gardens
Throwing things in the water in the botanical gardens.


At a beach park. I think a bunch of local residents donated these sunbleached cars for every kid to enjoy. Worked with ours.
Another collection of rocks or shell collecting at the beach. At this particular beach we watched seagulls for a good 45 minutes. They love watching birds. We saw a seagull try to catch a crab (the crab won), another seagull steal a muscle from another bird that had dropped the thing from a good height to break the shell and another seagull capture a starfish. I didn't know they hunted starfish. That's the only time I've seen it. But maybe this was a dumb seagull. It was shaking the fish really hard back and forth, like it was saying no. It shook the starfish so hard, it flung it out of it's mouth and back into the water. Then the seagull waddled over to the side of the dock it was standing on and looked down in the water. Maybe that's why I've never seen a starfish being eaten.

Another sanitary hand washing.

Tucky with grandma on the ferry.

Babies climbing on the playground while grandma catches a pic and mommy enjoys the view.

16 month photo op at a farm park

16 month photo op at the farm park

The babies first attempt to bury mommy with sand.


This week we went to a new place every day with grandma. What was really awesome about it is that they were parks, mostly within a 10 mile radius. We went to a park that had farm animals, a park on the beach with a playground, the beach itself and a beach park with sand toys, and the botanical gardens, all for free. Pretty fun. We also finished the paint project in the kitchen that I started 3 months ago. I'm pretty excited about finishing that. I took my mom on her mothers day/birthday excursion and we played outside in the front a bunch, as well as in the house. Whitney discovered she really likes cots. My mom opted to try out the cot to sleep on and loved it as much as Whitney did. Well. Whitney loved it more. My mom also invented the "amusement park ride" (a rapid circle in the double stroller), making a "lake" (water in a bucket for the babies to throw rocks into) and showing the babies how awesome bubbles are. I cleaned the house in 1/2 day, the fastest on record all at once since they were born.

The commentator on the video below is my mom, who thought I was taking pictures, but I really was taking video.

Poor Jim. He had to go to work all this week, but he is liking it, and liking having work, so it was good week for everyone. He has started talking about work and his trips with work, so I think he is happy with work again.

mother's day and birthday, all in one

My mom had a blast finding these on the beach while Jim was clamming. This is how old I am. Looks like a lot. Good thing they are not candles.

Tucker helping clean up the clams and sand dollars.

Whitney clamming. She face planted in the water, but didn't cry. What a trooper!

Whitney and Tucker running in the water on the beach

The best part of the beach was climbing up and down sand dunes, obviously. Tucker with Daddy

This one is for Aunt B. Whit's first time wearing the sweater.

Daddy and Tucker after a very long night of throw ups and who knows what else.

Tucker and Whitney running on the beach.

Early morning car ride to the clam beds

Jim with his clam gun, but look at the thousands of people along the shore behind him. The beach was like this as far as we could see
Whitney looking for rocks. Clams are overrated

Mina cooking real chile rellenos for my birthday

Whitney less than excited about the early morning car ride


This week was a week of molars coming in. Very exciting. Tucker also learned to open caps to lotion bottles and toilet lids. Very exciting new skills. Whitney has been taking off all the heater vents. We found out they are not anchored to anything. They also learned how to climb in the stroller by themselves. Whitney continues to pull weeds and Tucker is learning to steer his car and kick the ball with more finesse. It is now fairly safe to let them go up and down the stairs with minimal supervision. Tucker's hugs are getting less fierce, so Rocky is doing better, but Whitney still wants nothing to do with Tucker touching her most of the time, even if he is giving her a hug. We also had a fun time going on a short hike and having a twin play date with friends.

Jim started work this week. That is one amazing feat and wonderful for all involved.

I had my birthday on Saturday and Mother's day on Sunday. A note on Mother's day. First of all, I'm so very glad to be able to enjoy Mother's Day with my own babies and not as "honored woman status". However, enjoying mother's day was different than I expected. I guess it is better to lower expectations significantly, as soon as possible. For some reason, in addition to being spoiled rotten, I expected to sit through church quietly, not change any diapers and generally take a day off from all mothering duties. Hah. No problem, if I have no problem listening to the babies whine and whine and whine and whine. I guess they had too much fun yesterday not really sticking to their nap schedule, so two days in a row of no nap made them both very grumpy and always wanting to be in arms with said honored mother. Oh well. I was very spoiled and appreciated regardless, so it made for an extra special day two days in a row. Jim captured, killed, cleaned and cooked crabs for my birthday dinner yesterday, then made dinner tonight, too. I also have lots of beautiful tulips to look at. My favorite mother's day present was a card I got with Tucker and Whitney's signature and hand prints. Jim colored each babies' hand with a marker to make the handprint, since he couldn't find our ink pad. And he did it on the sly. I had no idea what he was doing. Such thoughtfulness. I'm also amazed because I didn't even notice the babies hand color during bath, which means he cleaned up. My favorite birthday present from hubby was a gift card for a massage. I'm so very looking forward to that one.

As far as my birthday, yes Sis Perry, you got the date right, I got lots of phone calls from people, making me feel loved and important, and time to be outside on an adventure with the people I love most. Couldn't be happier.