Well, only one more week of classes and I'm super excited. Nathan has been doing tons of presentations in his classes and soon it will be all over. I'm so proud of him. He's worked hard during the whole semester, waking up early and coming home late, always going to the tutor center for help with his math. Next semester is supposed to be pretty hard because he's taking this super hard math class, so we're told, plus he's taking more credits. He wanted to take this wood carving class or cabinetry class but they were the same time as his math class so he won't be taking any fun classes which is a shame. As for me, I've been having fun using the free facilities at the college. Since cross country ended awhile ago I've been going to some of the work out classes they have. I've tried turbo kick, hard to the core, abs of rock, cycling, and zumba. I can't say that I liked the zumba but I love the hard to the core class. I love having instructors because I'm very unmotivated to push myself in exercising without someone telling me. I'm so going to miss this free access to the gym and classes when we leave.

And as for the boys, they've been wonderful. Benny is still doing great in his underwear. He tries to hold off going to the bathroom as long as he can but he's good about making it before he has an accident. The potty dance precedes the actual event for the first 20 minutes. Ephraim has been growing and changing a lot lately. Not in the way he looks, he still looks like a sweet little, old man but he's got some new habits. He likes to read books now. before he couldn't stand still through the first page of a book but now he gets books from the drawer and puts them on my lap and just climbs up and makes himself comfortable. He still gets bored if you actually read the book but he does like to turn the pages himself and point to things. He's also becoming more conscience of messes and helps clean up. If his coat is on the floor, he'll pick it up and give it to me to hang up. He also likes to help pick up his toys and help me unload the dryer. He's such a good helper. He's also become a lot more clingy to me and surprisingly less adventurous. He was the kind of kid that would go down the tall big slide at the park without hesitating while I dashed to catch him before he hit the bottom. He was just fearless, but now he would rather sit on my lap and watch other kids playing instead. I took him and Benny to this cool indoor toy with slides and tubes, kinda like at McDonalds and he just sat on one of chairs and watched me and Benny playing inside (nobody else was there so I thought "why not join Benny in the big toy") and then he would cry if I tried to get him to go in with us. He's cute. I'm kinda enjoying this little change though because I get more cuddle time with him now that he prefers mommy to playing on the big toy. Anyways, I love all the changes that these boys go through.

Ephraim is emulating his brother quite skillfully

keep dreaming Ephraim

partners in mischief

one mommy, one daddy, and 14 babies!

ahh, nice and dry

I found this carelessly placed piece of evidence on the couch one day. It didn't take me long to find the source or the culprit.

Just some pics and a quick update. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. It was my first thanksgiving away from home. We spend it with Nathan's grandma and uncle Tyler, and uncle Kirk and aunt Linda. Linda was an exceptional cook and everything tasted delicious. Her yams were especially mouthwatering. We also spend time with Mark and Emily and cousins! I think Benny bonded with Jack because when we got back home, he wanted to look at pictures of Jack on the computer, on Emilee's blog.

Nathan is in the last week of classes and then it will be finals week. We are so excited to come home for Christmas! Merry Christmas everyone!

brothers playing

Benny is turning into quite the tower builder. He builds three kinds of buildings; mommies, daddies and babies.

just doing homework

Where is Ephraim?

peek-a-boo!

manger scene in Brigham city. We actually went to temple square and saw the lights but we forgot to take pics. but we stopped at Brigham city to see the progress on the temple.

Brigham city again

and there's the temple

Just some more dialogue from Benny:

Nathan was combing Benny's hair and getting him dressed in his Sunday clothes when he said,

"Daddy, don't make me pretty... Daddy, don't make me a woman"

which is kinda contradictory because on another occasion before that Benny was watching me put on my make up in front of the mirror as he looked at my coveted make up bag. He had on many occasion tried to dig up its contents only to have them taken away and he knew by now that the make up was hands off. He looked at me and asked, "why are you putting make up on?" I replied, "Because i'm a woman and women can wear make up but boys can't." then he sighed and said, "I wish I was a woman."

On another occasion we were playing a game of pretend. He had recently watched Bambi and so we were all deer. Daddy was given the role of the mean hunter. We were resting peacefully in our little home in the thicket when daddy hunter comes in and announces that he's gonna shoot one of us and eat them. The hunter turns to Benny for advice and asks, "which one should I eat"?

Benny says, "eat something else"!

Hunter says, "no, I gotta eat one of you guys. Should I eat you, mommy, or Ephraim"?

Benny stands by his first answer, "eat something else"!

The hunter is persistent and finally Benny makes a decision when the options are narrowed down to "Mommy or Benny" (Ephraim having walked out of the room during this dramatic scene therefore eliminating himself from the list of candidates). Benny chooses "Mommy".

The hunter begins to chow down on mommy and then Benny, too heroic to just stand idly by, runs and jumps on the hunters back, grabbing him by the neck. As the hunter shrieks in pain, Benny wildly shouts, "I got him! I got the hunter mommy"! The hunter runs off a little wiser and Benny is left to glow in the spot light.

It was so funny because he truly was so proud of himself. He kept talking about it for awhile and had the proudest face on.

Unfortunately this act of bravery turned into a lust for revenge because he ended up stealing the hunters gun, then shot him and ate him....four times!

There's Bambi II for you. "Bambi's revenge: who gots the gun now"

Benny is potty trained!!! After a couple of days with no signs of success, somebody suggested a method that their sister used on their kid and so I tried it and in less than a day, Benny had stopped going in his underwear and willingly went to the potty without me even saying anything. He even did it in public places too. He held it and waited for me to take him to a toilet before he released himself. But let me start from the beginning. On the first day of potty training, he thought it was fun and exciting and showed me that he could go on the toilet but then the novelty of it wore off and he was bored with it by the second day and no longer made any efforts to go on the toilet. He even told me "I don't care about going potty" and candy wasn't a motivation at all. Anyways, for some reason, I thought we should take Benny to church in his underwear. I don't know why, I thought maybe he would be more motivated to go to the toilet with people all around him. But he wasn't and he did it in the middle of the isle too and of course we were sitting in the front that day. He was playing this game with me to see how far he could wander into the isle before I would grab him and pull him back into the bench. So it was when he was in the middle that a very visible puddle appeared where he stood. I dared not look up to see who all was looking while I frantically pulled wet wipes out of the diaper bag to soak up the puddle. Our friends who were sitting next to us became aware of the situation and offered us a tip when sacrament was over. They said their nephew had trouble too while he was potty training till their parents started to give him a cold shower to wash him off every time he went in his underwear. So I gave it a try on Benny and it only took two cold showers before he stopped and now we're going strong on day 3 without any accidents. He's our big boy now.

Behold, our beautiful Christmas tree. Yesterday, we bought ourselves a tree permit and went up to the hills and cut ourselves a Christmas tree. A blizzard had just blown in during the morning and we had given up hope of going out and getting our Christmas tree when everything cleared up and the sky turned blue. We quickly dressed the kids up again and packed in the car. We were so excited. Our vision of a lush and full tree had to be modified when we realized that Idaho doesn't have those types of trees. Either that or we just didn't know where to go for the nice ones. All the trees were scrawny and sparse. So we picked the best one we could and even then Nathan tied some extra branches onto the trunk to fill it out a little. We're happy with it though. We made some Christmas stars but they're a little too big and make the tree look even more scrawny but oh well. I like to call it "quaint". Benny loves it. He wanted to stay up late just to look at the Christmas tree and when he woke up in the morning he cried when he saw the lights were turned off so we keep the lights on for him during the day. He just loved decorating the tree. He would put a star up and Ephraim would take it down. They made quite a team. The stars gradually inched their way higher on the tree so that Ephraim wouldn't be able to reach them. So only the top half is really decorated. She's a beaut!

Today I officially started seriously potty training. I'm kinda excited, but maybe that's only because I haven't had to clean anything up yet. I bought underwear and a little step stool so he can make it up to the toilet and as we speak...or read, he is without protection of his diaper, the safety is off in other words. I've been in denial the last couple of months thinking I could potty train him while still in his diapers but he's too comfortable in his diaper and won't make the effort to go to the potty while in them. The good news is that we finished sleep training him. Now we don't have to go to sleep with him at bedtime and he doesn't wake up and come into our bed. It's already made a big difference in the way I feel. Having uninterrupted sleep is the bomb pretty much.

We got word finally that Nathan has been accepted into the fast grad program so we get to register him for classes this week. We're both very excited.

Anyways, that's it for now.

Here's a bit of dialogue between Benny and Nathan from this morning:

daddy emerges from our room after just waking up and pointing to Benny says, "I'm gonna eat you!"

Benny- "No, I'm too big!" a short pause follows... "Ephraims smaller"

Spoken like a true older brother

Here's some pics from one of my cross country meets with Rachel Fowers, our friend and neighbor. She's super fast too. Sharlee wasn't there unfortunately, she had a knee injury. Anyways, I was really happy at this meet because I made a big improvement with my time. The last meet I had gotten 30:14ish and at this meet I got 27:40something. I was so excited about it. I really pushed myself hard. I've been feeling myself getting stronger and less tired when I run so hopefully I'll be able to beat that time too. Maybe, I've missed a lot of days because of trips, halloween, sickness, and sleep training Benny which has been really sleep depriving so I may have set myself back but oh well.

For Halloween we decided to be the star wars gang from Return of the Jedi. Nathan was Han Solo. I was princess Leah of course. Ephraim was an e-wok and Benny was Obi-one. We had originally planned him to be an e-wok too but his costume fit really funny and he hated wearing it anyways so we did a last minute Jedi outfit. Luckily we had a toy light saber for him lest anyone was confused as to what he was.

Costume in the process. We got a big teddy bear from DI and de-stuffed it basically and inserted baby.
The back of him was the cutest I think with his little bear bottom

So a couple of days ago, we were having Sharlee over for dinner and her and Nathan were talking and joking around. I was in the bathroom getting something and I could hear everything they were saying. In the course of the conversation, Nathan sarcastically and jokingly said "get outta my house" to Sharlee. I then I heard Benny, who was in a playful and happy mood, say to Sharlee in an excited voice "Get outta my house!" Sharlee instantly said "That's rude Benny!" Nathan who hadn't heard Benny, asked what he had said. When Sharlee told him, he got up and uprooted Benny from his chair and dinner plate telling him that he couldn't talk to Sharlee like that and how mean he had been. Benny who was confused by the sudden mood of things and why he was being taken to time out began to cry. It was about this time that I finally came out of the bathroom. As Nathan was walking out of the room where poor Benny sat crying in his confinement, I told Nathan "you do know that he was just repeating what you said don't you?" He then said "what?" It turned out that neither Nathan nor Sharlee had realized that Nathan had said "Get outta my house". Which is really funny since they were in a conversation and they weren't even paying attention to what they were saying or hearing. Anyways, when we realized, Benny was apologized to and restored to his seat at the table but I felt for poor little Benny. So many injustices and misunderstandings happen when you're a kid. It's hard to avoid them. It brought me back to some of my childhood days when the same kind of things happened. I remember one time specifically when my sister Julie was not getting along with mom and dad and I guess they had had an argument. Julie, to get back at mom and dad, wrote a sign and stuck it on their bedroom door. It said something like "Beware" or "do not disturb" but she drew blood dripping down from the letters. It was her way of saying mom and dad were being mean. Anyways, when mom and dad found the sign on their door, they thought it was so funny and were laughing. So as a kid, I thought I would be so clever and make mom and dad laugh by writing the same kind of sign but since mom and dad had already been done, I decided to do it on Julie's door. But when mom and dad found the sign on Julie's door, instead of laughing, I was scolded and punished for being a mean sister. Talk about confusing. Childhood seems full of these moments. They're funny though later.

We've also been talking to Benny lately about baptism and even though the idea of going under the water was very unattractive to him, when daddy mentioned he would get the gift of the Holy Ghost, he enthusiastically replied, "I want the goly host!" So cute, I love the way he pronounces everything. I'm also learning that he must do things his own way and with his own style. For instance, he's refused to say prayers for awhile now, but one evening he mentioned that we forgot to pray for the dinosoars. So I asked him if he would like to say it. He readily agreed and then bowed his head and said, "Thank you for mommy long neck. Thank you for daddy long neck. Thank you for little foot. Thank you for Pee Tree. Amen" I thought it was cute but I didn't realize the significance of the prayer till later. Benny loves the movie "The Land Before Time" and he loves to pretend that he is little foot. When he turns into Little Foot, I become the mommy long neck and Ephraim becomes Pee Tree. We sometimes go to the great valley even, which is the playground. Anyways, that was his way of praying for Nathan, me, Ephraim and himself. He was saying thank you for his family. We all just had code names. What a sweet little boy prayer. I love that little guy.

This is the snowman we made before it all melted. Benny decapitated it and loved stomping on it. Such a boy.
visiting the great valley

just a life update. The weather in Rexburg has been great but that all changed in a day at the beginning of this week. It started to snow like crazy and we were turning on the heater already. I was sad to say good bye to the hot weather but thankfully the snow melted and the sun came back out again but I suspect that won't hold out much longer. Surprisingly, Benny loved the snow and wanted to stay out in it and build snow men, and throw snow balls. Ephraim however, did now like the snow at all. All he did was touch it with his bare hands and then he started crying. Benny and Ephraim have been at odds a lot lately. Benny gets into these crazy moods when he's playing sometimes and gets really rough with Ephraim. I think Ephraim is kinda scared of him now because he'll wince or start crying a little when Benny gets too close sometimes. I wanted Ephraim and Benny so close together because I wanted them to have each other to play with but I didn't take into account that they'll also have each other to fight with. I still can't tell if Benny realizes that he hurts Ephraim when he plays or if he's oblivious. Time outs seem to be losing their effectiveness though. Benny also has been doing better with his potty training but I still can't get him to tell me when he needs to go so I can put him on the toilet. I usually put him on the toilet in the morning and then if he goes I give him a potty treat and I let him know that he can get another one if he tells me before he goes so I can put him on the potty but it never works. So if anybody has any ideas, feel free to share. I'm scared to switch him to under wear though lest I'll be cleaning them out every 2 hours.

I had my first cross country meet on Saturday. I was second to last and got 30:14. Sharlee did amazing. She was the first one on our team (there are 4 teams altogether) to cross the finish line and she got a whoppin 22:something!!! She's a fast one.

Also Nathan and Justin are on a business venture together. They decided to buy a whole bunch of that furniture from the hotel that's going out of business and sell it at a higher price. They got a U haul and a storage unit and moved everything over. So hopefully people buy it. It makes me nervous doing that kinda stuff, but I guess there's no stopping it now.

Anyways, life it good. till next time.

Okay, so Nathan and I found the bargain of a life time!! There is this hotel in Rexburg that is going out of business and they are going to be converting it into community housing. They're basically just going to put a small kitchen in each hotel room and make it a studio, so I guess it will only be for married people without kids. Anyways, they're getting rid of a ton of furniture and so we went there and got a cabinet/drawer piece that came with a T.V. for $20!! While Nathan was taking it away, the man offered to sell him a king size bed that included not only the mattress but the box spring, frame, sheets, 2 blankets, and head board for the same price!!! Its crazy huge! We moved our full size bed into Benny's room and deflated his air bed so now Benny has a crazy huge bed too. Nathan spread the news of the sweet deals to Justin and Rachel and they got a king too and then we had to borrow a neighbors truck to transport everything so they ended up getting stuff too. It was an exciting night for everyone.

here is the T.V. center. I have to come up with a new arrangement on the wall above it now but that will be fun. We just moved the fire place over to the corner. We got to buy a DVD player now but Nathan is going to save up his plasma money for that so it will be a little longer before we actually watch movies on it.
Here's the king, we need to buy a bed skirt for it though but that will come with time too. The head board also came with two really tall spires one each side that you screw on but they looked a little to overbearing so we're going to try and find something a little more subtle to screw on the ends. I also want to do something like paint or modge podge the head board but that will probably be a while because is it will be a bigger project and might require buying paint and stuff so I don't know.

So Benny has been getting better and better at talking and he'll often blow me away with what he's learning to say. For example, he's starting to form complex sentences. He doesn't get it quite right all the time but it's so cute. He's also feeling more confident showing off to people he doesn't know. He'll often ask another parent at the playground to watch him as he displays his awesome running or jumping skills. Anyways, one day our disposal had broken down and the repairman was over fixing it. Benny was showing off his ball throwing skills to the repair man which wasn't working out too successfully since his head was under our sink and decided rather to carry on a conversation instead. He then excitedly boasted, "mommy goes to the bathroom a lot!" Why he decided to open up with that remark, I don't know. But like I said, he'll often blow me away with what he's learning to say. (... and I don't go to the bathroom a lot. I am an average bathroom goer)

the kiddos can take a real bath now. It's so much more fun than getting a pitcher of water dumped on you.

We watched conference at our house on the laptop. Needless to say, it was quite hard to concentrate as this picture reveals.

Ok, so we are finally moved in and I've finished decorating so I'm ready to post pictures of our new home! The pics are kinda backwards though, I meant to start with the pics at the bottom but oh well.

This is the boys closet. I just show it, because now that we finally have a separate closet from the boys I wonder how we fitted all 4 of our clothes into a closet half that size.


And this is the boys room. Benny gots his airbed.

And this is our closet. I love having a bigger closet!

our bedroom

our bedroom
our kitchen. I love the dishwasher!
view of the living room from the kitchen. check out all that counter space.

view of the bathroom and bedroom entrances from the kitchen

view of kitchen from the living room

the couches and table came with the apartment

other side of the living room

view when you walk in the door

our apartment from the outside. ours is the top left one.
This is one of my latest finished projects. This was an antique window frame we bought at the oregon coast at an antique shop. We got some glass fitted for each section and put in some craft paper and pictures that Jana took while we were still in Kennewick. I love the pics! Thanks Jana.

This is my most recently finished project. Nathan has been wanting for the longest time a magnetic chalk board. So we found a cool frame at D.I. for super cheap and then we found some scrap metal in the garbage area of one of the buildings on campus. So we cut it to size and bought some of that chalkboard paint and painted it. Then I modge podged some craft paper on a cardboard frame and we taped it together. We also bought some antique broaches at the coast and hot glued those onto some magnets. Anyways, we love it.

Anyways, as for us, we are doing great. We both love it here in Rexburg and we especially love the school. Nathan just applied for fast grad and we are waiting to hear back from the school. If we get accepted, the projected graduation date is winter 2014. The reason it will take a little longer is because his degree requires two internships. So he will be going to school for 6 semesters and doing internships for 2. We have to make his resume and start applying for internships soon because they say we need to get that done with as soon as possible.

I've also joined the cross country team which I am loving! Thank goodness BYU-I doesn't take sports seriously enough to exclude out of shape non-student spouses. I'm on the same team with Sharlee and Rachel Fowers. They are both way faster than me (okay, I'm pretty much the last one back from every run) but I don't care, I'm just glad to be getting back in shape and boy am I out of shape! My muscles have been soar for days and I felt like throwing up during the first practice. We also live really close to Justin and Rachel (they actually live in the same kind of four-plexes as us so we're also in the same ward) and Brandon and Andrea Plunkett. We've already had some fun group dates with them. We went bowling at the MC together and had them over for dinner. Thanks to Sharlee for babysitting, we can actually do that. Thanks Sharlee!!! Nathan rides his bike to school which he loves but he's already had 4 flats on the same tire! It's been frustrating but we think we figured out why, apparently he was missing a tire guard to begin with.

Benny has had a hard time adjusting especially and at the beginning it made him extremely clingy but he seems to be doing better now. He frequently mentions "the other house" (which is our place in Kennewick of course) with excitement and I tell him we'll go back during Christmas time and he gets so excited. Oddly enough, the person he mentions the most is Aunt Jillian and then Uncle Cody. I think its because wherever Jillian and Cody are, Joseph is and he really loved playing with Joseph and I think he wants playmates his age. So I need to find some other moms with 2 year olds too. Anyways, that's is for now.

This morning, I woke up to Ephraim whimpering and when I picked him up his head was so hot. This is his first fever. It's always kinda heart-breaking to see little ones sick and hurting because they don't know what is going on, just that they feel miserable and don't know what to do and then me, as a parent doesn't know what is going on either because they can't tell you where they hurt or what they feel, so sad. I have enjoyed how cuddly he's been though. He just wants to be held everywhere I go because he feel so bad. He's just a big sweetheart. Tomorrow, if he still has a fever, I'll take him to the doctor and see if its an ear infection. I've noticed that Benny is a lot more prone to fevers than Ephraim. I think Benny had already been through a couple of fevers before he turned 1. Maybe Ephraim has a stronger immune system. Anyways, today I stayed home from church with Ephraim and we were both taking a nap when daddy and Benny got home. It was so cute because Benny burst through the door and was so excited to tell me how his day went. He was smiling and talking real fast, something about a "scary angel". Apparently some kids at church were telling him about a scary movie they had seen with a scary angel in it. It's just amazing that he can tell me about his day now. I asked him if he had played with his friend Zander in nursery and he said "I not play with Zander. Zander was busy." So then I asked him if he played with Peter and he said "Peter not busy." So I guess that meant that Peter's schedule wasn't as packed as Zanders and they had time to play. Benny has also taken a habit to calling everyone "honey" when he needs a favor done. I guess he hears me and Nathan call each other honey when we ask for favors so he does the same. He'll say "blow more bubbles honey" to his grandma Robles and "open the door honey" to his Oma and "Dinners ready honey" to his cousins when he's playing with them in the doll house. It's cute.

Well, so much has happened and so much is going to be changing soon. First of all, Nathan graduated on June 17th! He walked and wore his robe and hat and everything. I got to even walk with him which made it extra fun. I know I graduated last year but because I was 9 months pregnant with Ephraim, I didn't walk so this year I made up for it which we both liked a whole lot better. Now he is working his buns off with three summer jobs!! For a couple of days he worked 14 hour days but its toned down a lot and now he works more like 9 or 11 hour days. He works all day for the remodeling company and then depending on if he's scheduled or not he'll work in the evening for Yoplicity which is the frozen yogurt joint and then on the weekends he'll work for the funeral home cleaning. He really likes working for Yoplicity but I think he made himself sick with all the free frozen yogurt he gets there. He missed boating and hanging out on the river with my family during the forth of July weekend as a result. Nathan and I sometimes laugh at how things have changed so much. When we were first married and living in Rexburg, job hunting was like a death sentence for Nathan and there wasn't as much motivation as there is now to go out looking for work. It's just interesting how a person can go from not wanting to work to having three jobs and wishing he could get more hours. I've thought about what has happened to cause this change and I believe that the biggest factor was goal making. I realized that while we were in Rexburg we didn't have any goals. We didn't know what we were doing or what Nathan was going to do especially. There were no plans for our future. Since Nathan has started going to school, it's kinda forced us to think about those kind of things. Now that Nathan has a goal of what he wants to do, we've been making a lot of plans together and its been really fun and exciting. I know a lot of older people say they are glad they have passed the stage in their lives where they had to find out what they were going to do with their lives, kinda the same way married people say they are glad they don't have to date anymore, but in a way it's also the most exciting time too. Its fun to dream about the future and what you can make happen. I'm sure it will be fun too when we're passed that and are in a more stable and permanent situation but till then we're having fun. Right now, we're trying to get on the fast grad program at BYU-I, which means he'll go to school all year round so he can graduate faster. Our goal is to be done in two years or less, hopefully less. We're still trying to figure out how we'll accomplish that financially but I think it will all turn out.
Ephraim also turned the big 1!! He's actually a whole year old and he's just gotten cuter during that year. He's managed not to grow much hair also which figures because I've always wanted a little red head and now that I have one, his hair is taking its sweet time coming out. Maybe by two he will have a noticeable amount of hair on his head, but I can wait another year because he makes bald look adorable. I can't believe I have a two year old and a one year old. It somehow doesn't seem right. I still feel just as immature as I did in high school but I have these two little guys I'm responsible for. How did this happen? What makes it weird is that they're part of me. They got my genes and stuff like that. I just hope that when they get older, they'll see me as a mature and responsible parent instead of the way I feel. Anyways, whether I'm ready or not, I love them a lot.

Sometimes I feel like I'm talking about the family dog or cat instead of our boys. For instance, yesterday I was changing Ephraim's diaper when I realized that I was out of diapers and I needed to open a new box. So while I was trying to get the box open with our keys and tearing the tape away, "His Nakedness" made an escape into the kitchen crawling past Nathan who had his hands tied up with something. Then I heard Nathan yelling "He's peeing on our shoes!" I hurried over to find Ephraim smiling with those big eyes and sitting in a puddle next to our shoes with his very own signature mark soaking in. It took me back to another time when I heard Nathan yell "He peed on our rug!" referring to Benny while we were preparing him for a shower. Other times it will be "He's chewing on Benny's shoes!" or "He's gotten into the garbage again." or "He's digging up the garden." Maybe someday when we say these phrases, we'll actually be referring to our dog but for now, we're talking about our boys. Gotta love em!!!

This morning, I lay pleasantly in bed when I became aware of a small voice. It said "mom, it's time to wake up". I cracked my eye open to see Benny standing by our bed casually chewing on a folded up pancake. Sometimes he'll skip coming to me in the morning and just go straight to Oma and get some breakfast before he comes over and gets breakfast from me. So in a way, he's like a hobbit having first breakfast and then second breakfast. I moaned and shut my eyes again. Then he repeated a little more sternly but still patiently, "Mom, it's time to wake up". Talk about role reversal. Who's ordering who here. He had to repeat himself one more time before I got up.
Of course Ephraim is already awake and waiting to be lifted out of his pen and Benny promptly reminds me that I must do this by pointing to Ephraim and saying "Baby awake". After changing the boys and dressing them, I head over to the kitchen to make them a smoothie. Ephraim loves them and so does Benny and its the only way to make Ephraim eat his veggies. I let Benny help me by lifting him on the counter and letting him drop in certain fruits into the blender. Meanwhile Ephraim is getting very impatient and I hear gagging noises. I look down to see him rummaging through our garbage with an orange peel in his hand and multiple orange peel chunks in his mouth. And there it is, the start to another beautiful day.

mowing away






































sipping a smoothie




















"Look what we found rustling around in the cucumber bed ma"