Things I learned from the ALS ice bucket challenge

1. Fun people do fun things. Even though this ice bucket challenge thing seemed very bandwagonish but when it really came down to it, it's just something fun to do to relate to others even if it does seem silly. In 10 years you'll look back at something like this and say "yes I was apart of that, and it was fun, funny, and memorable." And you know what you gotta support great things that go viral.

2. When someone else pours the water on your head, they do it much more slowly than when you would just do it to yourself. People who pour it on themselves aren't getting the real treatment.

3. When your 1 1/2 year old begs for the water to be dumped on their head, they really don't get it and will cry a lot when they're wet and cold.

4. It's really awkward to have water dumped on you when your Chinese neighbor (who speaks NO English) is sitting there watching. Weird Americans…

5. It's also a very uncomfortable feeling to be standing in your clothes, drenched from cold water, waiting outside your house.

6. The longer the water is dumped on you, the colder it gets.

I shall post videos soon for memory sake

Arizona play time.

 Pre-Hawaii I just hung out in Arizona for nearly a week while Casey was on a dental trip in Jamaica. It was a pretty chillax week but it was nice to be like that.

Annalee swimming (and diving!)

 in the above picture, Maxson had this little scowl, pouty lip face during lots of time in the pool, probably because of the brightness of the sun, but every time I saw it it brought me straight back to a year ago in the pool with him when that seemed like the only face he'd make, ex:

Playing with Logan and Annalee, Max was thoroughly entertained by this small hot wheels contraption.

We also celebrated Blairs birthday with a delicious boston cream pie cake. Ruthie helped blow

Ruthie and Max played together a lot, although I don't think Ruthie liked it very much, ha, Max doesn't quite know how to "properly" play house yet :)

We brought out a few sparklers after for Blair's birthday celebration. Maxson didn't want to get near them but al so didn't want to leave them.

and here's a few from our phones including the trip down towards arizona:

getting in the car towards wyoming we picked our second cherry tomato

Max can't say many words but learned how to say "iPad" very quickly…children raised on technology...

best moment of any road trip is when he FINALLY falls asleep!

We stopped in Provo and grabbed Slab Pizza, sodalicious, and visited our friend Kelly

a. stopping at Grammy's work in Wyoming

b. riding the Rhino with Kirky

torturous car shopping:

a. car buying

b. first step after buying the car: a reward of McDonald's soft serve after hours of torture

popsicles after swimming

 TIA ROSAS!!!!!

 a. Tia Rosas snoozing

b. eating his quesadilla he missed out on at Ti Rosas

 swimming

 at the YSA ward in Arizona, after the first hour we hung out in the hall (this was also after Maxson took a sharpie to the church piano…hand sanitizer works my friends). Maxson was so loud during church yelling out "papa" "more" after the sacrament and loud sounds in general, it was fun.

 cousins.

(Blair if you want to take this picture and crop Max out of it I won't be offended ha).

 a. meeting new baby Landon! This may have been the first time he's actually held a baby, usually I only let him look at them but he enjoyed for a whole 5 seconds before he began wiggling out of the baby holding

b. got to meet up with my bff Courtney.

Playing with the Cutler cousins who JUST MOVED to Arizona! It's going to be so much dang fun having them there!

the maximus and motherhood

words written last Friday.

Reasons why Max drove be INSANE today:

He kept drinking water from waterbottles and spitting it out.

He rode his tricycle into the street when he KNOWS he shouldn't.

He opened the fridge door a million times and began making a mess

He kept wondering to the front yard to play.

He hosed down my picture frame mat I had just spray painted.

He threw food everywhere at every meal.

He hit a few different times today.

He screamed at us when he wasn't getting his way.

He got into the kitchen drawer a million times today.

While we were (finally) putting a baby lock on the kitchen drawer he was crying at our feet the whole time.

He refused to brush his teeth, screaming, gnashing, foaming at the bit.

Once done brushing his teeth and I let him have the tooth brush, he threw it violently across the room.

We were 15 minutes into our first "friday family movie night" and he began pushing the buttons on the DVD player (eject and off), so we turned the movie off for good and his world shattered, cue tears and tantrums.

He pushed my belly button really hard which practically made me sick.

As I was taking (the smallest) cat nap on the couch, he stole my pillow away from me (as always) to wake me up because he hates when I take naps.

He ran away from the playground twice today at the park towards/into the street and I had to chase after him.

When leaving the park he would not get into the car but instead ran far away towards the walking trail and wouldn't come back, another mom brought him back to me.

He got into the trash and pulled out a marker I threw away and began coloring on the floor with it.

He said "no" literally a thousand times.

He tried repeatedly to take off the whole nail of my pinky toe.

He took off another key on Casey's computer

He rolled around like an alligator during at least half his diaper changes today.

He fought us going to sleep for both his nap and night time

But even at the end of the day, I was so glad I got to be his momma. 

I'm glad it was me dealing with his tantrums,

trying to teach him right from wrong,

laughing at his messes,

hugging and kissing him when he was acting up.

I am so thankful I have a perfectly functioning hands and body that can care for him so easily,

he and I are both healthy,

we have food to eat (enough to throw on the ground and not go hungry),

we have a roof over our head and private quarters where he tests his boundaries.

I am so glad I am his momma and that he is my baby boy. I know that being a mother is hard, yet it is so fun and it truly is God's work. I am where I am supposed to be at this time: at home teaching a 20 month old boy how to love, obey, and listen (and not cry every time he can't have the iPad). I know I am not alone in this and that even the smallest preyer in my heart to my Heavenly Father will add to my strength and patience.

My favorite talk on motherhood here.

A small video clip from that talk:

We be swimming.

Max turned into a fish while in Arizona. The week and half before we left to Hawaii, we were in my parents pool everyday if not up to 3 times a day. My child has no fear in the water. He'd stand on the edge outside of the pool and jump (belly flop) towards me in the pool without  moments hesitation, it was so fun. The no fear thing is awesome and awful because he's so reckless, just walks down the ramp into the pool not caring a bit once his head goes under, ahh. One morning after breakfast we walked outside and he just mozied himself into the pool in his pajamas up to his neck before I could stop him. Cue head shake.

27 weeks with twins

Holy moly has this pregnancy been different. So different all around from what it was like with Maxson. At 27 weeks I'm feeling rather large, more like I'm 36 weeks pregnant and just have a little longer to go, but that is not the case (stay in there babies!). My lower back hurts so much, it's a constant thing, last night I told Casey I need to stop using "my back hurts" as an excuse not to do things because I could literally use that as an excuse for everything. I just need to suck it up for the next couple months. and realize my back is going to hurt for the next little while. I am carrying 25 lbs of babies and stuff right there in the front of me, I don't think the weight is anywhere else in my body.

I have not swollen up anywhere yet, (except that big old belly of mine of course) a big hallelujah there. Pregnant life is so much easier when your ankles, legs, hands and fingers haven't grown in size.

The babies kick like crazy. It's a mad house in there at times I swear (and of course anytime someone wants to feel the babies move they stop right away). With Max I can only remember "kicks" and "pushes" really. With the twins it's more like rolls of arms and legs and big jumble crazy movement; kinda cool how different it is. Lately they've been active right when I'm laying down to go to sleep, makes falling asleep rather awkward and impossible.

I have definitely slowed down immensely over the past couple of weeks. I am drained after chasing Maxson around for just a little bit, I feel bad for constantly asking Casey to do x and y for Max but I just can't keep up with him. I'm a slow mover now days (and Max just keeps getting faster I swear). Picking him up is getting harder and harder and I try to do it as little as I can. He still begs at my feet/legs sometimes to pick him up and all I can see are his little eyes sticking out behind my large belly.   I am NOT looking forward to having Casey go back to school just knowing I'll have to wrangle Maxson myself, I'm literally dreading it.

Clothes are beginning to have less options. Even though I could probably still fit into a bunch of them, I'd rather be comfortable in loose clothes (like Casey's shirts). Some maternity shirts that used to have tons of room to grow when I first saw them, now end at the bottom of my tummy and are border lining too short, it's stupid ha. Maxi dresses are definitely still a huge win though, love those puppies (and I can foresee those to be the only things that I can legitimately wear in public the further along I get)

I have a growth scan next week to see their progress, very excited for that. Back at 24 weeks we had one and they were approximately weighing 1 lb 9 oz and 1 lb 8 oz. We're hoping and praying everyday for them to grow at the same rate!

Breathing is hard at times. Sometimes I just can't get DEEP breaths and that makes it so very uncomfortable.

Food is great. I eat a lot. I'm kinda self-conscious when I eat around other people because I'm seriously packing in a TON of food. Probably as much as Casey if not more than at each meal. I am no stranger to getting seconds and thirds at each meal. On the flip side if the babies are in a certain positions (I'm guessing) and I eat too much food it just hurts and is so dang uncomfortable, almost sickening. And I just have to lie down for a long time in hopes that it goes away soon.

I get LOTS of braxton hicks when doing too much activity, mostly walking too much. Casey has been a great supporter of limiting and supporting my minimal walking because we've had a few scares where it seemed like the contractions weren't going to stop. I want to do all I can to keep these babies in and I think borderline bed rest is my best bet right now.

24 weeks

25 weeks

26 weeks

Also I must add that it seemed SO MUCH harder to be pregnant in Arizona than it was in Nebraska. The humidity is awful, truly. But pregnancy wise, that high heat just DRAINS you. I was so unbelievably tired after just a little time in the sun. I hope I am never huge pregnant in the Arizona summer again.

back and kicking

wowee, was that a long trip or what? we are glad to be back.

we are tired, oh so very tired.

we put maxson down at 8 tonight and promptly fell asleep ourselves for an hour. it felt great, but once we woke up at 9 we were suddenly awake again and can now not go to sleep, thus my blogging.

i am large with children. oh so large. we left and i was still comfortable and great with this pregnancy. we came back and i feel like 9 months pregnant. my back endlessly hurts and some of my "maternity" clothes are getting tight already.

we loved visiting family. we got to see all our families members, not a single person was missed, even grandparents. (ok, maxson missed seeing my brother in utah but we adults spent a week's time with him).

hawaii was wonderful. we came back mostly relaxed and tan. i suggest not going to hawaii 6 months pregnant with twins though, puts a little damper on some activities…

it's so hard to transition to being home after being gone a month. you have so much stuff to put away, there's no food in your home to eat, there's lots of mail to go through and thus people to call, random things in your house have molded (the toilet and syrup?). and now there are not all these extra hands to help out with maxson. it is oh so tiring.

i have a bajillion and half pictures to go through. i had a goal of keeping up on them each night but let me tell ya, it actually felt great to not get on my computer for nearly 3 weeks. i was still on my phone checking things here and there if there was hard core downtime (i.e.- the airport and long car drives), but it did feel pretty great to be overall disconnected from really doing stuff online.

we have this whole week to get things done before casey heads back to school. i'm so happy we have a week of downtime before school starts and not just a night or a weekend. hopefully i can squeeze in a little blogging.

can i just point out the best thing of being on a trip: you get taken care of. you have, at the max, your 2 suitcases of laundry to do, purely clothes. meals are mostly planned and made for you. we helped out when/where we could but the overall burden was not on my shoulders, what a beautiful break. overall housework pretty much disappeared. there were ALWAYS extra hands to help with maxson; as i'm getting bigger, slower, achier, and overall more tired, this meant the world to me. our families were so kind to take such great care of us while we visited them, we are so so so very blessed.

so there you have it, hopefully i can catch up with life this week!

church in kauai outside the small hanalei branch.

RIP Corolla, hello Odyssey

A few weeks we got rear ended while waiting at a stop light and then got pushed into the people in front of us. Gosh, being in an accident is such a crazy and fast experience. It just happens. You have no idea what's happening, it just does and you roll with the punches until it's over.

I've been so grateful for a peace of mind during the whole situation. We were all buckled properly in our respective seats. Our car was was registered properly and licenses were up to date. We have great auto insurance (more importantly the person who caused the accident is insured wonderfully). All our ducks were in a row. There were no "I wish we had…" in this situation. The Lord was truly watching over us and all those times we ask in our prayers to be safe and watched over we were even through an accident

I then was suggested to go to the hospital by my doctor and get checked out to make sure the babies were both ok and all was still well with the pregnancy. Yet again, a peace of mind knowing we are all safe and looked after and cared for by insurances is truly a priceless thing.

Less than  week later we found out our beloved Toyota Corolla was totaled :( so many mixed emotions when we heard the news.

That was the car we dated in, our first experience together I asked him for a ride from one end of campus back to my dorm at BYU. The first talks of marriage happened in that car. So many make out sessions, ha. It was "our" car even though it was originally Casey's. We've lived in Utah, California, Indiana, New Jersey and Nebraska in that car. Countless road trip across the country including Wyoming, Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, New York, Iowa, Kansas. It's been through WAY more states than just those though. We drove completely across the country probably 4-5 times in that car. We brought Maxson home form the hospital in it. Learning how to use baby seats in it, so many crumbs in the back because of that cute little rascal. So many amazing memories in just our first car and now it's gone.

That car was so good to us, 209,000 miles and no problems ever, just normal maintenance. We're both sure it could have lasted us at least another 100,000 miles because Casey took such a good care of it. 

When we learned we were having twins we debated for months on what to do about our car situation. We knew a mini van was an absolute must (that was always in the plans for after graduation but now we had to bump it up a few years) but now suddenly all was changed. We were wanting to get through dental school with one car, and one car only, there was absolutely no need for a 2nd car but we didn't feel great about giving up our little car. We figured we'd get so much more use out of it over all the next years than we could possibly sell it for.  We had come to a conclusion, we weren't going to sell it and it would see us through so many more years. 

But then the accident. Our emotions were everywhere. Was it totaled? Was it worth fixing and keeping? Should we keep it? If it is totaled will the insurance company even give us a fair value for a car? So many conversations. Oh and the accident happened like 4 days before we were leaving for Nauvoo and we were only going to have 1 day between Nauvoo and traveling west for 4 more weeks. Awful timing.

We learned it was totaled and at the same time learned of the amount the insurance would give us and we were OVER THE MOON. We would have never been able to sell it for that price but that number was what the Corolla was worth to us and helped us exponentially when buying a new car.

As we went back to the auto shop to clean our car out we both felt very melancholy during the whole ordeal. It was like cleaning out a locker from high school: so many great memories, knowing you'd never come back to it and it will never be the same. So many great times yet all good things must come to an end. I couldn't believe how sad it was leaving that Toyota Corolla behind!!!!

But onward we had to go. We cut our trip to Nauvoo short by a day so we could car shop 2 days instead of 1 in Lincoln. We were disappointed at the selection we found in Lincoln and thought maybe we'd find something in Wyoming, Utah, or Arizona.

After another 4 or 5 days of car shopping, countless (exhausting) hours visiting dealerships and then talking through all our options over and over we settled on a car that would work well for us at a decent price point. 

So we are thrilled to introduce the newest member of our family:
the 2011 Honda Odyssey! 

It has lots of room to grow, will be perfect with twins and Maxson and  young family. I foresee lots more road trips in its future

PS- I NEVER WANT TO GO CAR SHOPPING AGAIN. I would rather go swim suit shopping, now that is saying something!

trip to Nauvoo

The week after school we took a quick little trip over to Nauvoo, IL. Nauvoo is a place with lots of rich, deep church history for members of the LDS church. The church has reconstructed a bunch of buildings there and just made it really fun place for families to learn all about the history of church. We got in in the super late afternoon one day, saw a tony little music show, walked around their country fair area and then saw the Nauvoo pageant that night. They did such a wonderful job with the production of it all. Maxson did ok during it, near the end we just had to switch out with Maxson so he could run around. We really loved finally getting to go watch the pageant (I've officially now seen all the church pageant productions!)

And to my surprise we were having camera card issues!!!! We got there and it wouldn't read the card we scrounged up! (Maxson lost the main one I use days before). It was great not having to lug that behemoth thing of  camera around for this adventure, a nice break from needing to take pictures of everything. But I did miss having the end result of all the nice pictures. Luckily for us we did have our phones for pictures and that's what matters most!

Nauvoo temple

b. Casey walked with Maxson in the children's parade
c. children's parade again
d. wagon ride around old nauvoo. maxson was enamored by those huge horses

a.-c. Thanks goodness for this kids station. It was the only area where we could finally enjoy some of the activities they offered without having to stop Maxson from touching everything and running everywhere. He was at such a hard age for visiting Nauvoo, just so active and busy but you couldn't quite be in that setting. So we were ever so grateful for this kids games area.
d. He FINALLY fell asleep after the kids game stuff and we were able to enjoy a couple of the house tours without chasing after him, glories.

a.-c. Definitely a favorites of Maxson's was the blacksmith shop. The loud banging was right up his ally. The fire also got too hot and started throwing out sparks like a sparkler, which was fun.

a.-b. We finished the Nauvoo area with a visit to Wilford Woodruff's home. An original home in the area. He's my 3rd great grandpa so it was special to me!
c.-d. We then drove the 30 minutes to Carthage to visit Carthage jail where the Prophet Joseph Smith was killed. What a sacred building. It was amazing to be there and see it all. The stories of the past are so richly with the filled the spirit.

I am so grateful for all the effort time and money the church has put into this history site to remind people of the stories and sacrifices of the Saints in the early days of the church. There were SOOOOO many wonderful senior missionaries making that place function so smoothly and then the sister missionaries and summer performer missionaries were so beyond awesome too. Can't wait to take my family back when we all my kids are older!