Superbaby

slept two whole nights this week!

Now if he can share some of his superpowers with Rhett I might be able to feel like a baby slept through the night!

I have everything I need and more...

and still I feel like I can't live without this coat!

Accursed internet. 

I'm warning you... I will throw you to the curb if you can't help me keep my worldliness in check!

So Long Sweet Summer

Ladies and Gentlemen...

presenting the CAR SHOW!

I was originally going to teach Jonas how to take pictures with our old camera for a car show but somehow it was improvised into this...

The spectacular finale was Jonas accidentally dumping the bucket of water all over our floor and then driving the huge car he borrowed from the toy library all through it. 

It worked.

Besties

In the mornings during the babies' second awake time I spend an hour doing tummy time, singing time, sitting time, feeding time and story time (if Jonas gets bored playing on his own by then). My house usually looks like a fright and I look like an even bigger fright but I'm trying really hard to focus on being present in the moment and enjoying time with my boys. It is gradually getting easier to push my to-do list out of mind for that hour with the babies and the subsequent hour with Jonas (when the babies are laid down to sleep) so I'm making progress.

It is adorable to have two babies holding hands, wriggling, smiling, and holding their breath in excited anticipation as they lay next to each other and watch my hands and my face.

I love when one of them spots the other across the room all of a sudden their face lights up and they smile like 

"Hey, there's my best friend!"

Change

Here are the week's accomplishments:

• Harland started giggling yesterday evening. I was talking to him and lightly tickling under his chin and he couldn't stop grinning and giggling in his cute little throaty voice.
• Rhett has been reaching for things in front of him while doing tummy time. Yesterday he kept crinkling a wrapper in his hand to hear the noise over and over.
• Both twins are asleep by 10 p.m. every night with Rhett waking up between 1:30-2 a.m. and champion sleeper Harland stretching out until 3:00-3:30 a.m.
• I have had three naps this week! I love when my lucky stars align and all three boys sleep at the same time. 
• Jonas has been talking a lot in complete sentences lately. It's so funny to hear him making sense of his world as he thinks aloud. Here are examples of some of the random one-liners and two-liners he pulls around here:
• "Cars go...beep".
• "Cupcakes are yummy".
• "Ants are bugs".
• "I'm poopy! It's a BIG one" (in his deep booming voice).
• Jonas also knows pretty much every construction vehicle by sight: bulldozer, crane truck, roller, digger, excavator, bulldozer, flatbed truck, backhoe and concrete truck.
• Jonas and I read books for 40 minutes straight two day ago and we read another 20 minutes later that same day. I love that he loves books right. I pretty much have choosing books that will interest him down to an art. One of his favorites lately is the "Gingerbread Man" which I read as "The Little Gingerbread Boy Cookie". This summer we've been going to the book bus as well as the library often (the bookmobile is big blue bus with a library built into it that parks in various places around the city).

These Twinies Are Getting Big

For being fraternal twins and looking so different, it's amazing how close Rhett and Harland's measurements are! Rhett is 12.8 pounds and Harland is 12.7 pounds and they are virtually the same height right now. 

This is post is a biased in Harland's favor so I'll have to even things out with some Jolly Jumper photos of Rhett next post.

Random

Hardly a still moment around here to take photos and write about our growing and very active family!

The twins are so fun! We are in the honeymoon stage of big smiles and baby conversations. The babies even smile and talk to each other. 

I've never heard a baby tell so many sad stories as Harland does! He talks in a mournful, sad little voice that breaks your heart. Unfortunately since he seems to be in discomfort half his awake time he has a lot of sad stories. His surgery is booked for a year and he gets ear tubes in five weeks. Harland does seem to have more happy waking moments now too and he's so content to be held by Matt and I. He had an 11-5 sleep the other night! Wonderful baby!

Rhett has discovered a love of the Jolly Jumper. Pretty much the first thing he did was a 360 turn on one toe. He's also been rolling around for a while. And of course he as been talking for ages. Rhett seems to be a bit a of a happy go lucky baby and he has inherited Matt's ability to be a natural at pretty much everything. His being is so full of joy it amazes me. 

Jonas has transitioned from the melt-downs and passive-aggressive behavior towards the babies into being an interested older brother and a great helper. He has become more snuggly since the babies came into the family and I've been soaking it up for fear that stage will end soon too. Yesterday, Matt, Jonas and I were having a water fight and it was great to hear his great belly laughs and to see him prancing around happily. Alone time with Jonas is extra precious now so Matt and I are starting "dates" with him one-on-one next week. He is maturing so fast and his vocabulary and sentence structure increases daily. Every so often throughout the day when he wants to reconnect with me after I've been busy feeding babies or he's been playing alone he comes up to me and says "Hi, how are you?" in his cute voice.

Matt has been enjoying his projects at work. His good work ethic and problem solving skills have been impressing his bosses at work. This job has been such a huge blessing in our family's life. He is such a hands on Dad and Jonas still continues to idolize him.

I've been trying to establish good habits and routines in my life but as far as routines go I'm learning (been forced) to be more flexible. My house feels disorganized and untidy many days but I am trying to spend the most time on my most important priority- family. I keep rereading Uchtdorf's talk from a few conferences ago, "Of Things That Matter Most" to remind myself to rejoice in life rather than be bogged down in stress. Slowly (painfully slowly) I am making progress.