Tid bits I noticed today

Hyrum refuses to use utensils and giggles when he puts on James's deodorant.

Sariah taught Lyle words ending in "-ing" in her mach classroom this evening.

Bryant breezed through his spelling words for a cookie.

Talmage finished Gulliver's Travels. (He's found the "Classics for Youth" section of the library.)

Rex and Lyle had pears for the first time.

James had a good laugh during "button button" (actually a penny tonight) for FHE.

What I'll miss in 20 Years

The little things I'm going to wish I remembered 20 years from now:

The way Hyrum says "tooties" (cookies) and how this or that is "da best in da whole wide world" (especially his dad). Other classics include "badoon" (balloon) and "peppioni" (pepperoni), and "boys and drills" (boys and girls).

How Sariah is hitting the learning curve in her reading and the joy I feel when my kids learn to read.

I'm sure someday I will miss not having to repeat to Bryant several times a day "don't throw things in the house!"

Something I've wanted to blog about Talmage for awhile now is that he completed "Twins Training Camp," probably about last November. "Twins Training Camp" was an idea I came up with shortly after we found out that we would be having twins. The idea was that the kids would be trained and learn how to take on more responsibility around the house so as to make the transition to six a little more smoothly. Lizza helped me make a booklet containing several pages each representing a category of tasks, i.e. laundry, bedroom, household, family... A total of around 160 tasks!

Talmage took on the challenge and worked consistently over several months to check off each of those 160 boxes. He chose as his reward, a Barnes and Noble gift card which he used towards a Lego set.

As for Rex, he has started to roll over on purpose. He loves to kick in the bath tub---quite the splasher. His two bottom teeth are very visible now and I even gave him parts of cheerios in sacrament meeting today.

Lyle has been army crawling this week and has been up on his hands and knees a couple times. He can get where he wants to go if it's not too far away. We've noticed his hair usually comes straight forward onto his forehead.

Both of them consistently go to bed at night between 7 and 8 o'clock and are awake usually at the same time about 5:30. James and I have a system down of diapering and preparing bottles and then he feeds both of them so I can run. Unfortunately, there is nothing much consistent about naps. In fact, both of them are crying right now because they've only slept a short time today. Sundays are rough on naps.

James has started a new semester of 2 classes. He doesn't come home until about 9pm on Wednesdays and Thursdays and he's up really late every night with homework. The light at the end of the tunnel is at least visible now. He'll be DONE, DONE come the end of June.

As for me, I'm working on opening up at Etsy Shop. I've wanted to do something of the sort for a couple years now. Hope to get it officially opened this week since I've made some Valentine's table runners and Valentine's day is right around the corner.

Zorro

One of the things James did during our 2 days of school cancellations was go through our VHS tapes.
He found the original black and white Zorro.
Bryant has a new favorite super hero.

School Cancelled

It finally came!

What does it mean?

Ecstatic (outside at 6:30 am) kids.

School Cancelled (James home---yeah!)

A LOT of wet clothes.

And...

Hot Chocolate.

Together Again

Rex and Lyle are asleep in the same room again for the first time in months and months. I kissed them, put them down and closed the door on those sweet little boys thinking, "Twins!"

Talmage, Bryant, and Sariah stayed the night at Grandpa and Grandma's last night so they could play in this year's first real snow. (Absolutely none at our house!) In the meantime, James took on "3 under 3" so I could go fabric shopping with Lizza. We hit three craft stores in 2 1/2 hours---not bad.

Played "Battle of the UFOs" for FHE---a spinning top game we played when I was a kid.

One Week Later

After one week of "sleep training," for the first time ever, Lyle konked out on the carpet. Yeah!

So people ask us how the "sleep training" is going. All I can say is they are alive every morning when we get up. You see, we put them down, close three doors between them and us, and sleep on an air mattress in the boys' room. Last night we layed them down at 7:15 and Rex woke at 6:30 and Lyle woke at 7:15. Awesome! How'd the night go? I don't know, but they don't seem to be hurting for it. Rex just layed down for a nap without crying at all. Yeah! Yeah!

The next step will be moving some cribs so they are in the same room. This will probably require moving some big kids for awhile, probably all four into the same room. I'm not sure how that will work. Sariah and Hyrum haven't been doing too well anyway the last little while.
James and I are realizing we are back to about the same position we were before we added onto the house 4 years and three kids ago.

Other cute twin moments this week:

In Sunday School they were taking turns pulling the binkies out of each others mouth. Needless to say, that didn't make it onto film.

Rex's two bottom teeth have broken through and Lyle has at least one broken through.

This week I've been:

working on an article about PPD,

creating a fun half apron with Lizza. She introduced me to Riley Blake fabric,

and finishing up a bag I started B.T. (before twins).

I've been reminded how much I love to create with a sewing machine.
Another reason we have to rearrange sleeping conditions---so I can have access to the sewing machine while babies are sleeping!

Next Step

It is time.

It is time that Rex and Lyle learn to sleep at night.

We did a test run at naptime. I'm reading a book, "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child." If a six- month-old wakes before 1 hour of napping, don't go get them it says. Both Rex and Lyle woke before an hour so they cried for about 1/2 hour and then
fell back to sleep for a significant amount of time.

Tonight, we did bedtime routine (PJs, story, and prayer) and they cried for less than 15 mins. Now we won't pick them up until at least 3am. At that point we will check on them. If they are awake then we will feed them. If not then we'll feed them when they wake.
We won't take them out of bed until 6am.

Sounds good on paper doesn't it?

Ahhh, the weekend.

There is always a sigh of relief that comes Friday afternoon.
No urgent homework. No where to be immediately.
As I looked around this afternoon, I could see all my "little" ones feeling it too.

I took the Christmas decorations down today.
It's always nice when the house feels a little less cluttered. It seems bigger.
Hope it's a nice surprise for James tomorrow when he comes home
from his three day conference in Portland, OR.
Thanks to a lot of generous help, I think we've survived quite well.