Identical twin shoe resolutions

There are many ways that having twins makes my mothering different from having siblings of different ages. One that I finally got a picture of is the girls resolving their shoe disputes...you know the "I want to wear these shoes." "No, I'M wearing them!" With twins, you can say, "no problem...each of you gets to wear one and we'll pick another pair of shoes to wear on the other foot." We do this pretty often. Here they are happy to each get to wear the coveted pink shoes. (Note how blurry the picture is from the humidy outside!) A downside to twin shoe wearing is in addition to getting our shoes on the wrong feet like a lot of preschoolers...if we have two identical pairs of shoes, we often end up with one girl wearing 2 right foot shoes and the other wearing 2 left foot shoes. Sad thing is, I just pretend I don't notice most of the time.

Happy Father's Day!

I love to watch Phil with the girls! He can make the most mundane things exciting. He is so much funner than I am. Like most families...they want me to cuddle and watch over them, but Daddy is the playmate. I love to see their smiles when he is playing with them. It is amazing how children are just as happy with a rope and ring game as they are at Disney...the key factor is attention from us in making them feel happy, special and loved. I'm sure other adoptive parents have these same thoughts when they see moments of sheer glee on their children's faces..."What if we hadn't have adopted them? Who would make them laugh until they fell over? Who would look and smile every time they said, "Look at me, Daddy! Watch what I can do, Mommy!" It always amazes me how much they want and need our approval and our focused time. They so need an appreciative audience to develop self esteem and a true sense of who God has made them. I'm so glad they have a Daddy that can do that 10 times over what is needed. Here they are playing a game with Phil at the beach. I just love their unrestrained glee!

Lily and Kate's new BEDroom

...emphasis on BED because they are now, at 5 1/2, sleeping in their own beds in their own room! After 4 1/2 years of sleep anxiety, nightmares and nightterrors (our record is 20 nightterrors between the two of them in one night - can anyone top that?), 2 kids sleeping next to Phil and I, many expensive bribes, sleep clinics, purchasing and reading 5 sleep books, and a few other extreme measures...we are all sleeping.
Best things we did...melatonin, a family bed and prayer. I don't recommend the meds and family bed to everyone...only in certain situations. But it has saved us from so much frustration and lack of sleep. Once they felt safe enough and calm enough to learn to sleep through the night in our room...moving them to their own room has been so easy. It only took 2 weeks. Crazy. The first thing we did to make their room enticing was to let them build a "tent" in there and sleep in their sleeping bags in it for a couple of nights. Here they are sitting on their tent in a picture that Lily arranged (she loves to arrange photo shoots). In between them is a MagnaDoodle that they have written their names on to identify the owners of the tent, "Lilly and Kate." Lily has currently changed the spelling of her name...a very characteristic Lily thing to do.

Memorial Day

We had our first cul-de-sac cookout on Memorial Day. Here are all the cul-de-sac kids and their watermelon!

Lily and Kate decorate the house while I'm sleeping...oh, no!

Since we had no furniture in our living room in the new house, I was not in a hurry to decorate for Christmas so the boxes of trinkets sat in boxes in the living room, until....
the girls decided to surprise me one morning before I woke up and pulled out all the Christmas decorations/ornaments. They decorated the tree (with the ornaments that they didn't break). They also added a snow effect with artificial snow from our snow village. The snow effect was all over the living room. You can see it in this close-up of the busy little ladies topping the refrigerator box with snow.











Here is the bird's eye view of my "decorated" tree and living room. They were so excited to show me how they had helped! Oh, so much to clean.

Holiday festivities!

Here we are getting ready for Christmas in our new house with the annual gingerbread decorating. I was so tired this day. I think I recall asking Phil to take a photo so the kids could remember that I was a good mom even though I was blowing it left and right.

Sweet little Christmas party at Mother's Day Out.

Best friends...

...and more best friends! The invisible Mrs. Angel and Mrs. Dareitha...

Moving out

Oh, what a hard memory...We moved the week before Christmas.

This is the day we got the last things from my sweet little house where my husband had carried me over the threshold and my babies first came home. I didn't go by the house for weeks afterwards, I was so sad.











We said goodbye to our sweet neighbors who are our close friends.












And we weren't sure that my cat of 15 years was going to make it through the move.
















Once we moved, I felt like I was living some other woman's life for about 3 months. We moved to start the new church and knew God had clearly called us, but the unknowns of what that would look like were the hardest during this time.

Do I dare try to catch up on my blog?

A lot has happened since I stopped blogging abruptly.

We moved to the other side of town, started a new church and made lots of new friends all while trying to continue some structure for the kids. In the middle of this, my camera broke and my computer took forever to get set up in the new house. Ugh. But, I'd still like to chronical our lives so that I'll remember it all if you are up for following!

These pictures have nothing to do with this post, just a fond memory of our old house.

First "spend the night parties"

We successfully tried our first spend the night party! The girls counted down the days until Hadley and Sam could spend the night. What a wonderful memory and major milestone in a 5 year old's life! Mommy wasn't sure what the night would hold....so we went on a hike to make sure that all the 5 year old energy was used up prior to bedtime. First, we played in the mudhole...

Then I had them run themselves silly. The picture is blurry since I am trying to keep up!

We all found the perfect walking stick

...and hunted for treasures.

Showing off our treasures for the camera...

Then we buried the treasure...

After pizza and a movie, they all crashed without a hitch by 8 pm!!

The next morning working on the 3 hour craft with 3700 pieces. I'm not exaggerating...that is what the box said!

Of course, last but not least, trampoline games! Oh how I wish I could be a 5 year old twin.

Seeing their friends be so brave gave Lily and Kate the courage to spend the night out, too. The day before Thanksgiving they spent the night with my sister's family 2 hours away from home! I still can't believe they did it. Granted, my mother slept on the floor of their room and they woke up at 5 am both vomiting with a stomach bug....but I still consider it a success. And, most importantly, so did they! I don't have any pictures since I was at home sleeping so peacefully. (thanks, Mom and Aunt Julie!)

Twin Mode

Lily and Kate have this thing we call "twin mode." Where they start laughing uncontrollably and seem to be in their own world. It usually winds up in them getting in trouble, but before then, it is pretty funny and lasts for 1-2 hours. I finally captured one on camera while we where at the beach in Sept. Here it is... (once you press the arrow to get it going, be sure to click on the botton right square of 4 arrows to make it big).

This is Snoopy the Poopy Dog

The girls love to play with stuffed animals. They have never gotten into baby dolls...only stuffed animals of which they have like 50 or something. Anyway, they kept trying to give me this one to get rid of him and clearly were ostrasizing him away from the other animals. Finally, they handed him to my like this. "Here, Mommy. You can have Snoopy the Poopy Dog. We fixed him so he won't poop on you."

Halloween weekend

We had an action packed weekend! I think I've decided after this one that Halloween may be my favorite holiday for these reasons...the kids LOVE it, it is filled with imagination, free festivals, good times connecting with neighbors and very little preparation on the mommy's part is required. We celebrated so much that it will take two posts to relay!
First, the girls got to wear their costumes to Mother's Day Out and they each got to bring a pumpkin home from the "pumpkin patch" at the church. Lily is the princess and Kate is the penquin.












Here they are all ready to go showing me the stickers Lily is bringing to her friends and Kate with her pet lizard that she caught the day before. We devised a plan that she could take it to school and let it go in the pumpkin patch.











Sam, the lizard, was pretty popular with the kids. Their little friends were so cute in their costumes!















Then Mommy and Daddy went on an all night date at Ross Bridge! Our second one since the girls came home. Sarah came to have a "spend the night party" and she spoiled them, as usual.... Thanks, Molly, for coming too! I asked them what was their favorite part of the spend the night party and they both said, "Spending time with Sarah and Molly."



















Playing with Sarah's old barbies...

Trick or Treating and the Tailgate

Off to get the candy! Lily has a strange aversion to vertical pictures. Here she is telling me to turn the camera around. She decided to be a ballerina for Halloween night.
















Ringing the doorbell and waiting...!











We had so much fun visiting with neighbors. They are like family to us. They love to spoil Lily and Kate and look forward to seeing them! It was hard knowing it would be our last Halloween in this neighborhood. I love my little cul-de-sac!











Sorting the candy at the end of the night.











Next, the tailgate at the church with more candy and rides!