Busy, Busy August!

August has been so crazy! One of my previous posts was about Asher's birthday, which was on the 5th.  It was such a fun day and I'm so happy Asher could be in our family.  He is such a crazy boy!  He loves to get his picture taken and whenever I take a picture of the babies, he likes to jump in until I take a picture of him too.

I sure love this smile!

For his birthday, Asher got a bike.  He loved it that first day!  But since then we've had a hard time getting him to ride it.  He doesn't like going too fast and gets nervous he's going to run into things.  So we have to take him out into the parking lot and walk next to him while he rides it, somewhat forcefully encouraging him to work the pedals.  I hope he gets over that fear soon and learns to enjoy riding it!

Notice the boots...

The girls have grown so much this month!  Their personalities are coming through so strong now.  Mia is still sweet and quiet and mild.  She's been sucking on her thumb a lot recently (something she got from her mother).  I think it's super cute, but also know how hard it will be to break her of that in the future!

One night she didn't want to sleep so we had some bonding time.  My little Mia!

They are finally starting to notice each other!

While talking to David's brother and his wife the other night, I said that sometimes I feel like I'm really getting the hang of having twins and like I'm doing a pretty good job! (like when I took all three to the grocery store - Mia in the front carrier, Ava in her carseat in the cart, and Asher walking, all with almost no crying!)  Well a few weeks ago I did not have one of those days.  Two of my children cried themselves to sleep that night.  It's days like that that make me grateful for tomorrows.

I don't remember why he was crying, but I do know it took a good 30-45 minutes before he finally fell asleep.

She fell asleep in the chair crying while I was trying to put Ava to bed.

One of my favorite outfits we were gifted (I'm pretty sure from David's aunt Linda).
Born together, friends forever.  I sure hope so!

A week after Asher's birthday we did something crazy and went camping with my family!  My parents, brothers, sisters, and all their family's go camping every summer.  It's one of my favorite traditions and I look forward to it every year!  This year we went to Downata, Idaho.  It's a campground right next to a pool/hot springs.  My parents were even super nice and paid for everyone's camping spot!  We all bought 2 day swimming passes to the pool so it was nice to have something so close for entertainment.  I was worried about how the girls would sleep, but they did amazing!  They fell asleep fine and got up the same number of times as always so I felt like it was a success!  Asher had a harder time falling asleep, so he had many grumpy moments where I know he was just really tired.  Our first camping trip as a family of 5 was great!

Happy Daddy

We had to move their Pack n Play outside during the day because it was too hot for them in our tent.  I thought she looked to peaceful sleeping there!

After an impromptu nap.  Still waking up.

Asher thinks that sleeping in a tent in a sleeping bag is just about the coolest thing ever.  Especially when Dad is there to make him laugh!

The Clay girls!

My sister adopted Clara about 6 weeks after my girls were born.  Hopefully they'll all be best friends!

Grandma's hammock was Asher's favorite thing about this trip.  And he cried anytime he didn't have friends to hang out in it with him!  Here he is with his 3 cousins. 

Hanging with Grandma!  I wish we all lived closer together so you could see all my babies more often!

Three sisters with three babies.  These kiddos are all less than a year apart!

Grandpa and Mia.  They're going to be friends. :)

The whole group!  12 adults, 13 children (ages 2 months to 11 years) and 2 dogs!

My favorite picture of our family.  It was so fun!  I can't wait for next year!

You would think after a big camping trip that we wouldn't be leaving the house for another month, but the next weekend the kids and I drove back to Rexburg for my nephew's birthday and to see my aunt and uncle that I haven't seen in probably 15 years!  

Grandma was such a good sport and played marbles with Asher for about 3 hours straight!

Keny (Andy's wife) made this awesome Spiderman piñata! I guess she had made a couple other piñata's for other kids' birthday parties and they were all just as amazing.

Some of the kids at the party! (not Asher because he was having a meltdown at that time)  Keny is probably the best party thrower I know.  She made amazing food, had such fun decorations, and all the kids had a great time!

Poor baby Cache fell asleep with the bottle in his mouth!  Being held by his favorite person (Grandpa).

After that trip we started to settle into our new routine.  David started school and I was nervous to have all three kids by myself all day, but it's been going pretty smooth.  We are all up around 7, I go through my rotation of taking care of kids, I usually try to clean and make sure everyone has food.  David is really busy during the fall because he likes to help out with marching band and he also starts his after school orchestra, so it makes for long days for both of us.  But when he gets home he goes through and greets everyone, we try to have a meal together, and then from 6-7 I work on giving all the kids baths (which I have come to realize is not normal, but it really helps me keep a good bedtime routine), the girls are in bed around 7:30 and Asher is in bed by 8. 

One last thing to finish off our crazy month is we are watching David's sisters dog!  They are spending 2 weeks in Hawaii (of which I am very jealous) and so we have had 2 dogs for a little while!  It's actually not as crazy as I would've thought.  Milo and Millie entertain each other a lot and are always playing and chasing each other around.  He's a pretty good dog, just definitely still a puppy with tons of energy and wears Millie out really fast!  He's a funny little thing, but I will be glad to bring the level of chaos back down to our normal level once they get back.

They love each other.

Milo is kind of a punk, and Millie was too nice to kick him off her nice big bed!

I had so much fun with August and I can't wait to see what September brings!  Asher starts Preschool tomorrow, the girls turn 4 months old next week and David's brother is blessing their new baby next Sunday, so I know we'll stay busy!  Look for more posts about our crazy, fun life!

Pictures

August is going to be a crazy month for us!  We've already had Asher's birthday, and in 2 days we go on our first camping trip as a family of 5!  My family does an annual camping trip and it's always a lot of fun.  This year will be especially crazy because there will be 4 babies (I still count Cache as a baby...he just barely turned 1!), 7 toddlers between ages 2 and 4, and two dogs!  I hope nobody camping near us expects to get any sleep!  After that, David goes back to school and I'll be on my own with all 3 kids full time.  After David goes to school, we'll be watching my sister-in-law's little puppy for 2 weeks.  So I thought I would just post a bunch of pictures now so they don't get lost in all the rest of the crazy month!

We were just about to head out the door to go grocery shopping and I made David take this picture.  I think this is a great representation of my life right now, taken over by children!  But I really do love it and I want to remember all the craziness of my life when these girls were little.  I love spending my days with them and watching them grow up.  I am so grateful David works so hard so I have the chance to stay home while they are little!

David is amazing at getting babies to smile!  Mia is harder to get a smile from, so it's so rewarding to see her big open mouthed grin!

This was so hard to get because anytime I put my phone up to take the picture, she got distracted and stopped smiling!

They are finally starting to notice each other!

Asher made me make lunch for his imaginary friend Blurr (a Transformer) for lunch one day.

Another Mia smile!  I love this picture!

When people ask me what it's like having twins, I really want to pull out this picture.  This is my life a lot.

I was in the girls' room taking care of Ava when Mia started crying.  I told Asher to go take care of her until I could come. I came out to him doing this!

When Asher is feel especially silly he'll put his clothes on over the top of his pajama's.

Brian and Brittany's new baby, Henry!

This little girl is so generous with her smiles!  Unless she's unhappy, in which case she'll break your eardrums with her screaming.

Henry meeting his cousins for the first time.  I hope they'll all be good friends!

When Mia is tired she tends to get a little cross-eyed. ;)

When the girls won't sleep in their cribs I take both of them, walk around till they fall asleep,  and then we all take a nap together!  Sometimes when we do this, David and Asher clean for me.  I love it!

Asher loves to join in on any picture I take of the girls!

Sometimes in the evenings we like to go outside and lay in the grass.

Asher loves to help me bake! But he also hates loud noises.

Mia cuddling with Grandma at Keny's birthday bash!  

Asher loved going swimming!  I think he would spend all day, every day in the water if he could.  He kept calling this lake "Keny's party beach!"

Happy birthday Keny!  We all love you!

Swimming at Grandma's, in her freezing cold pool.

Asher finally got used to holding the babies!

We've never been very good at FHE, so this summer I decided to try (again) to start making it a habit.  We've done it 3 out of the last 4 weeks!  It lasts a total of 10 minutes.  For our activity one night we did sparklers!

Asher loves going to David's school and playing the instruments.  His new favorite is the piccolo! He walks around tooting on it, and pretending to play along when David is listening to songs!  Also, I was going to fix his hair that morning, but when he saw the rooster tail he got so excited and kept telling me how much he loved it!  So I just let it be.  He's only young once, right?

Ava is so talkative!

Asher Turns 4!

This handsome young man turned 4!  I can't believe that I have a four year old.  David and I have been talking a lot about when Asher was a baby, comparing it to our experience now.  David said that he felt like we spent the first 6 months of Asher's life trying to put him to sleep.  It's not much of an exaggeration.  That first year with him was pretty rough.  He was super colicky the first 3 months of his life, I was working 30 hours a week, David was trying to finish off school, and we were about as poor as you could be.  We decided that first year felt like it last about ten years. But we made it and now we're enjoying our crazy toddler!  We had such a fun day.  It's been hard to celebrate Asher's birthday the last few years.  His first birthday we were about to move to Utah and live with David's grandpa on zero income, second birthday we had just moved to Nevada and were away from any family and had no money from all our moves, and last year we were recovering financially from the past 2 years and didn't know a lot of things to do in the area.  This was the first year that I felt like we really did justice to celebrating this little boy's life!  

He's been looking forward to his birthday since about February, so I knew I needed to put a lot of effort into making it special.  He woke up this morning and climbed in bed with me (like always) and we cuddled for a little while.  We did our normal routine until about 10 when I had him help me make his cake.  He loves to help cook and had a lot of fun with this!  When the cake was ready to decorate, I let him do all the sprinkles and cake toppers (I bought some gummy Paw Patrol treats for him to put on top) and he just loved it!  I forgot to hide his presents and he was begging me all morning for me to let him open them, so we let him open one.  It was a small Play-Doh kit with cookie-cutters, scissors, plastic knife and pizza cutter, and a scoop.  He had a lot of fun playing with that until Joy and Kahea came to babysit for us!  

After they came, David and I took him to go swimming with just the three of us.  I think he loved having some alone time with us.  He's so good with the girls, but I think he misses it being just us sometimes.  After swimming, we went to Wal-Mart and bought him a bike!  He's been riding around on this little tricycle that he's way too big for, so I figured it was time to get him something his size.  He loves it!  And it didn't take him long to figure out the pedals, turning, and stopping.  Afterwards, we opened the rest of his present and had cake and ice cream with Joy, Kahea, Brian, and Brittany!  I loved having them all here to help us celebrate.  I honestly think having family gatherings is the most fun of all. And to finish off the day just right, Asher's friend Monty (who lives in our building) came to our door with a card and a new train for his birthday! He had such a good day and went to bed thoroughly exhausted, clutching two of his new toys.  Thank you to everyone who helped make his day amazing!  I feel like I can never thank enough the people who help support and love my children.

Some things about Asher:

• VERY into Transformers.  He loves to watch the show, play with his toys, and take just about anything in our house (laundry basket, board game boxes, etc) and pretend to turn into one. He likes to educate me on the various robots.
• Loves his sisters.  A lot.  And loves to play with them.  They don't love that so much.  Whenever we meet someone new, he usually introduces the girls first and tells the person which one is Ava and which is Mia.  If he ever hurts them (usually by accident) he gets very upset. He likes to get right up in their face and talk very loudly at them.  That makes them cry and then he goes and hides under a blanket.  He knows they're not hurt so he doesn't get upset about that.  He is such a good little daddy to them!  If they spit up, he'll tell me to get a burp cloth so he can clean it up.  He gets so excited when they smile at him.  And he loves to pet their heads.
• As much as he makes the girls cry from being a little too intense, they love him!  If he is in the room, they'll usually watch him instead of David or me.  They especially love watching him play with his train tracks!
• Loves listening to music with David.  David listens to music for his school groups to play and Asher likes to listen along and give his opinion.  He also loves going to David's classroom and playing all the instruments there (and drawing on the white board).  
• Starts Preschool this year!  I'll admit, I'm a little excited to have it quieter a few hours a week and for someone else to entertain/educate him, but I'm sad that my little baby is that old!  He's not excited.  He has a hard time with new things, so anytime I bring it up he says he doesn't want to go.  I think he'll like it after awhile, but the first few times are going to be pretty rough.
• He's actually a pretty good helper when it comes to cleaning.  I have him help clean up his toys at night and he usually doesn't complain.  And he LOVES cleaning the bathrooms with David! David hates doing laundry and dishes, so I have him do the bathrooms.  David is amazing at making things fun for Asher so there is a lot of giggling and running around and laughing when they clean!

I could go on all day about what a fun little person I have, but I'll stop there and just end with lots of pictures!  I sure do love Asher and am so glad I have him around to make me laugh!

I told him to smile because I wanted a good picture.  These are what I got.

This is the best one!  Four years old!

Just a little comparison - 3 years old

2 years old

1 year old (I love this picture! I miss baby Asher!)

Newborn Asher!  I showed Asher a picture of him as a newborn and asked him who it was.  He said Mia!  They do look a lot alike!  I'll try to put a comparison in my next post!

Spiderman bike! He had so much fun!

Whenever I try to take a picture of the girls, Asher likes to jump in!  I have many picture like this.

He can be very silly sometimes.  This particular day he wanted to wear mismatched shoes.

He made me dish out lunch for his (imaginary) friend Sideswipe (a Transformer). 

Another picture where Asher thought he needed to join in! I don't mind too much, I hope he is always this cooperative when I try to take his picture!

At the Wal-Mart near us they had a live Transformer!  Asher thought it was so cool to see!  He was a little (lot) intimidated by him, though, and I almost couldn't get him to take a picture.  He did make us stay there and watch him for about 15 minutes afterward though!