Lest we forget...

this is what life with baby twins looked like...

utter exhaustion, meltdowns, messes...





of course there were wonderful parts too but I still can't look at some of these pictures without my heart racing a bit. Stress baby!

 

That floor, shirt and 'do were standard issue around here for a solid year!

Jonas

Jonas is only three for three more weeks! Here are some of my favourite memories from this past year:

• waking up from a nap or in the morning to find Jonas snuggled up against my back, asleep, with his arms wrapped tightly around me.


• walking home from Nana's I commented to Jonas that my cousin Chris, who is lives at my Nana's house, is very tall (an understatement as he is almost 7 ft tall!) Jonas' firm reply was "Hmm, I think my Dad is the tallest".


• Jonas saving a single precious goldfish or bunny cracker from Nana for his Dad, even though he had to walk 20 minutes with it wrapped temptingly in his sweaty little hand on the way home and to wait for hours until his Dad got home from work!


• at the end of each dance class Miss Clare, the instructor, lets each child pick a sticker. One day Jonas picked a red star and put it on the top of Harland's hand. Harland couldn't stop holding his hand up to look at it in awe and walking in his funny happy leaping steps.


• for almost the past year Jonas has had the job of collecting the recycled milk jugs and dragging garbage bags full of them into the bottle depot. He always has something special in mind he is saving for (so far it's been a steam roller, a red Dodge pick up like Grandpa's, a horse trailer and now an ambulance) and he never deviates from it. Anytime we're in a store and he sees a candy or a Hot Wheels car he likes he decides to stick with his goal on own.


• every time we go into the bottle depot he says in a cheery little voice "I think it's going to be enough money Mom". Sometimes it's not enough and we have to make a couple trips before he has saved up for the thing he wants . I almost want to just throw in the extra but I'm so glad I don't. He always perseveres and he is so proud when he can pay for his toy all by himself.


• listening to Jonas read stories to himself and the babies from memory. He gets really excited when he teaches Rhett or Harland a new word.


• listening to Jonas sing his own songs and talk to puppy as he drifts off to sleep.


• watching him create from his imagination! His favourite pretend games are fishing, space station, doctor, Mars, and still anything to do with vehicles. This boy knows how to play outside and inside with whatever comes to hand- no toys needed! Couch cushions, chairs (aka snowplows), vegetable steamers, cake tins and sticks are some of his favourite things (or lately a rubbermaid container lid on stop of a variety of furniture set-ups to imitate the luge and snowboarding he's seen on the Olympics).

Some of his creations: a trailer, Curiosity's tracks on Mars, a delivery truck (I woke up from a nap to find this one!)



Nearly everyday he tells me "I want to play outside alone". What he really means is I'm going with or without you.

Building a Curiosity model head.



A tangram train and a car wash from cut up straws and play playdough.



Using his knowledge of wheels and axles to make Curiosity wheels.



A bird in a nest. I wish I could have kept this sculpture forever.

In other words, Jonas is a generous, creative, patient and wonderful boy!

Blooms

Blue Skies, Twinkly Eyes

I needed a picture of Dad's duct-taped coat. How many people do you know with a duct-taped coat?

Also, I swear I didn't photoshop or enhance a single picture, not even of Rhett's sapphire pools.

The sky and Rhett's eyes were just bluest blue today.

Royall

Nursery

I am so grateful that these little guys are in nursery now. I feel like an active member again since I can go to Sunday school instead of pushing these guys in the wheelchair around the hallways. They have awesome nursery leaders and love to go. As twins it sure is nice to have a built in buddy wherever you go.

Matty

Olympic Memories

The Olympics get me soooo excited. I can’t wait for Sochi in February. To get everyone else as excited as I am, here are some of my favourite Olympic moments:

• Calgary 1988 - I don't know if I actually remember this or not but I think I remember sitting in a bobsled simulator. Earliest Olympic memory.

• Atlanta 1996 - Donovan Bailey wins the 100m gold with a time of world record time of 9.84 seconds to become the world’s fastest man. Later on in the 4x100 relay, Canada wins the gold and beats the Americans for the first time ever. If you look closely at Robert Esmie who was the lead off runner, he shaved "BLAST OFF" into his hair....Awesome.

• Atlanta 1996 - "Who is going to light the torch for the opening ceremony?" was the big question at the time. I remember watching the opening ceremonies lying down on the floor in front of the TV like I always did when Dad says "It will be Muhammad Ali". It was that moment when Muhammad Ali walked on stage that I knew my Dad knew everything.

• Salt Lake 2002 - I was in Japan on my mission. While the Olympics were on, we carried around pictures of the Salt Lake temple and asked people if they had seen the temple on TV. The amount of doors we got into increased slightly which made missionary work that much more fun.  I also hear the Hockey team did well.

• Turin 2006 - The first "freestyle" snowboarding event to enter the Olympics was the half pipe in 2006. I woke up at 4:00 am to watch it live on my 13" TV. All I wanted was for Shawn White to win...and he did. I can remember feeling my heart pounding when he dropped in.  He then later won in Vancouver.  To 3-peat in Sochi would be insane. This year slopestyle (jumps and rails) joins half pipe in the freestyle snowboarding category and the favourite to win is Saskatchewan born Mark McMorris.  He has been on fire lately and is the best in the world at "triple corks". Also watch for Quebec born Sebastien Toutant (Seb Toots) who has a great chance at a medal for Canada. With these Canadians there is a chance to go 1 and 2 in slopestyle.

• Beijing 2008 - I vaguely remember Simon Whitfield winning gold in the 2000 Sydney Olympics. In Sydney he crashed in the bike portion and still set the Olympic record (which stood until 2012) by passing numerous runners at the end of the race...amazing. I do however remember his silver medal in Beijing very well. Heading into the final kilometer, Whitfield was fourth and far behind the lead group. He was like a machine for the next 800 meters where he caught up to the lead group and took the lead with 200 meters to go. His determination was truly amazing to watch. He ended up with silver but that didn't dampen the accomplishment for me. Perhaps my favourite Olympic moment. I was very disappointed that he crashed and broke his collarbone in London 2012. I was looking forward to him once again passing everyone at the end of the race.

• Vancouver 2010 - Watching women's downhill skiing was hilarious.  The amount of crashes became comical as it seemed almost every skier would crash. Enter French skier Marion Rolland. A lifetime of training and dreaming all for this moment. A couple pushes to get speed and 3 seconds later she was on the ground. I could not stop laughing. I can't blame her though, seeing all those other skiers airlifted out by helicopter I would be looking for a way out too. It's on youtube of course. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD7l2zakMbg

• Vancouver 2010 - The gold medal men's hockey game.  With 24 seconds left in the third USA scores to make it 2-2. This was heartbreaking as it looked like it was over and also because the USA goalie Ryan Miller was playing incredible that whole tournament, scoring again seemed impossible. Overtime was the most intense hockey I have ever seen and  Crosby’s golden goal had me on my feet.

I hope everyone gets the chance to watch some Olympics coming up in February. Heres to some more Olympic memories.

Matty

Nap Party

Harland's Raggedy Andy and Teddy (mine from 1986!) go down for nap-time and bed-time together.