My Grandmother

Two days before Thanksgiving my grandmother passed away while sitting in her favorite chair watching TV with my grandfather. She was my dad's mom and she was 86 years old. She had been married to Grandpa for over 60 years. Instead of calling her 'Grandma' or something like that, I called her by her first name, MaryAnn. The story goes that when I was born she thought she was much too young to be a grandmother and never decided on a name for me to call her. My parents kept asking her but she never gave them an answer so they just referred to my dad's parents as Grandpa Bud and MaryAnn. It stuck. I have called her MaryAnn as long as I can remember. When she did decide on a name, Grandmother Mary, it was too late she was MaryAnn. She and Grandpa tried but it was no use, MaryAnn was the same to me as Nana, Memaw or Grandma.

There never was a written or verbal agreement between my grandparents or my mom but it seemed that with my parents divorce my grandparents were given 1-2 weeks with me every summer since I was 4. The first 2 years they drove all the way from north Arkansas to take me home with them, after that they paid for my plane ticket to come visit. I was not able to visit during high school and my first year in college, I missed visiting them so much that I spent my spring break the rest of college and during P.T. school with them. After school, I wasn't able to visit them for as long as I used to but my dad and I or just me would drive up to visit for an extended weekend. My grandparents loved having the twins visit.

We were able to go and visit them at the beginning of October 2010 for MaryAnn's birthday. Todd and I both agreed that she was not doing well, but she kept telling us that it was Grandpa that wasn't doing well.

Two days before Thanksgiving we received a call from my Aunt that MaryAnn died. I was 7 months pregnant at the time. I called and begged my OB to let me drive to Arkansas for the funeral and to see my Grandpa before he moved to Maryland with my aunt. I was given permission and we loaded up the twins and headed north for a very long car ride. My doctor said I had to stop and walk every hour. So like I said this was a very LONG car ride. It was very nice to spend time with my Grandpa and letting the kids see Great Papa again. Explaining to them what happened to Great Mama was difficult but they seemed to understand as well as 3 year olds can.

Here are some pictures of twins with MaryAnn aka Great Mama, and Grandpa aka Great Papa.

Great Mama and the twins


Great Papa and Big D

Me and Grandpa

Halloween 2010

Before Halloween we made our annual trip to Owen's Farm for hayrides, petting zoo and picking out pumpkins. I had my own little pumpkin belly but sorry, no pictures. The kids were big enough this year to go on a barrel/tractor ride all alone! They got to feed a bunch of goats and go on a hayride. Then they picked out their own little pumpkins.





We set up a table on our driveway and let the kids paint their pumpkins. This year they completely covered the pumpkins in paint, every color that we had. I also made our annual "The Kings" pumpkin. Because of our trip to Disney land we dressed the twins up as Mickey and Minnie again this year. They loved dressing as their favorite characters. We went trick or treating with our friends and their little boy. Dylan and Kiera really enjoyed knocking on the door and asking for candy. But what they really enjoyed was coming home and answering the door for trick or treaters and handing out candy.

A Night of Firsts

We had one interesting night. To start it all off Kiera got her first haircut in over a year, thanks to Charlotte. The reason for the lack of hair cuts is that the last time we took her to a fast "Clips" place and they just butchered my little girls' hair. They cut it so short she looked like a little boy, so we have been letting it grow back out. So tonight she was a big girl and got the cutest little hair cut with her first set of bangs and all! We got home so she could show her Daddy and then about 15 minutes later it was all ruined with an egg size knot and a forehead covered in blood.

Yes, my little girl had her first big 'owie'. We were able to stop the bleeding after a little bit and then decided to take her to Acute Kids in Allen since it was a facial wound. She was SO brave the whole time. She let the nurse and doctor clean her 'owie' and push on it without crying, she just looked at us and said "Doctor clean my owie!". The doctor said that the cut was small enough that Kiera needed skin glue only, no stitches!

Wow! It has been a long time since I've been here!

So after being a total slacker in the blog world and then having the computer crash on us twice, I am finally writing a little bit of an update.

In case you didn't know from Facebook and just word of mouth, we are expecting baby #3. Can't believe I updated FB before our blog! Baby #3 will be making his/her arrival after Christmas via c-section. It is only 1 baby this time and we are NOT planning on finding out if it is a boy or a girl.

Baby is growing and doing well, Mama on the other hand is not doing so well. :( I have been sick the whole time, nausea, vomiting, extreme fatigue and extreme indigestion. Poor Todd is having to play mom and dad with the twins while I have been sick. Then when he is out of town, for work, my mom has been coming over to help out.

No pictures this update but hopefully I will have another decent night and I will be able to post some pictures of the 2 most adorable kids, yes I am biased.

Our little girl

Kiera has been in gymnastics for about a year. We started out with both of them in the class but Dylan did not enjoy the class as much as Kiera. Her class is called 'tiny tots' and one of us has to be out there on the floor helping her. In the past 2 months she has really blossomed and is able to do everything by herself and was starting to get bored. The teacher/coach, who she loves, suggested that we move her up to the next class.

The next class is for 3-4 year olds and the parents sit in the bleachers. Again in case you missed that, we are sitting in the bleachers and our little baby girl is out there on her own with the coach and other girls. The girls in this class are 1 year older and a foot taller!

My little girl loved it and did better than some of those 4 year olds. I'm not biased or anything!

(Please enjoy these pictures taken from our new camera. Thank you Laura!)

Kiera is the tiny little girl in all pink.

Kiera HAD to sit next to Coach Megan

She loves Coach Megan

Some of the girls were helping 'the baby' in class :)

She is so small compared to the others!

Easter 2010

This year the kids were pros at hunting Easter eggs. They had 3 hunts total. The first was The Height's Eggstravaganza, then at their school and the last one in our backyard Easter morning. We have candy to last for a year!

The Height's Eggstravaganza was the first one. While I was at a continuing education course the morning of the hunt, Todd worked with them on looking for and collecting eggs. It has been a whole year since the last hunt and he had to make sure they had a strategy! We met up at the church with some friends and watched the kids attack the candy.

Mama - Daddy: Look!!!

"We are going to be hyper for a LONG time!"

Easter morning, Todd and I woke extremely early to beat them; they normally wake up around 6:30 for some unknown reason. We then went outside and got the eggs ready. When the twins woke up, they opened their Easter baskets and then went outside still in jammies and shoes to find all the eggs. We had so much fun!

Even more adorable pictures

I guess they miss sleeping close together. . .

After the twins had been in bed and quite for a while, Todd and I went in to check on them (really just to look and marvel at them). This is what we found.



Now for the close up:


This is the first time that we have seen them do this.

Update

Over the Christmas holidays the kids figured out how to escape their play pens and then when we returned home they started trying to escape from their cribs. So, right before New Years, we pulled down the toddler beds and things have been rather crazy but awesome!

Now that they have all this freedom, they have destroyed their room several times. We have had to move their bookshelf into to the hall, tape up their dresser and put pretty much everything else in the closet or in the guest room. Their room was once fun and very cute, but now is BORING! Despite all of this, Todd and I have had so much fun listening to them on the monitor during nap time and at night.

To go along with that last sentence, Dylan and Kiera are talking so much. Here are some fun stories about our conversations.

1. After being in their big kid beds for almost a week they discovered how to open their door and ESCAPE! We could hear them on the monitor whispering to each other, "Sister (or brother) open door!" After 2 hours of leading them back to their bed we decided to 'lock' them into their room with a child gate so that they cannot open the door. Now don't worry, this contraption is removed every night before we go to bed. Now when Dylan was not able to open the door he yelled very clearly and for the first time "Daddy, are you ok?" When Todd answered yes, he tried the door again then "Mama, are you ok?". I answered yes, this went on for about 30 minutes until they both finally passed out.

2. Trying to get the kids to ask for something politely is something that we work on all the time. One day while we were all in the car, Dylan asked (yelled out) for something. Todd asked him to say 'please', so Dylan said 'please'. Todd then asked him to say the whole thing, so Dylan said "Whole thing". After laughing for quite sometime, I think we finally were able to give Dylan what he asked for.

3. Tonight was the first time that the kids said "I love you" without cueing from us. Dylan was in Todd's lap and said "I love you, Daddy", "I love you, Mama" then the best part he then said "I love you, chocolate milk!"

I doubt that all of you reading this enjoyed our stories as much as we did but I had to share. These two keep us laughing all day long. I love being their Mama!