New Toys!

Laney loves living at Grommy's house. She loves her room and her new shelves for her shoes. She loves all the address labels that she keeps stealing out of Grommy's desk drawers. She loves Grommy's makeup and the unlimited access to her vanity. She loves having Grommy read stories to her at night. And she loves discovering new toys to play with. Like this umbrella stroller that Lezlie was given at the "Grandmommy Shower" that her friends hosted for her when Laney was first home with us. It has lived at Lezlie's house since then, so it hasn't seen a whole lot of action. Until now, that is! Laney has drug it in the house every day, filled it up with various treasures and pushed it all over the place. This particular treasure happens to be particularly precious and probably enjoyed the ride more than most of the stroller's other inhabitants......i.e. girl baby, boy baby, the wooden gingerbread doll that usually lives on Grommy's shelf, baggies of graham crackers, previously mentioned stolen labels to name of few of the other less interactive riders.

Grateful!

I am so grateful for the incredible outpouring of support that I have gotten from all my bloggy friends in response to my previous post. I am so encouraged by so many people who have validated my feelings, but also made a great effort at bolstering my spirits! I am very humbled to be blessed with such precious people in my life! Good thing, my blogging relationships will be unaffected by our move south! You guys are stuck with me!

It is about time that I get some pictures of these Lewis kids on this blog! One thing that is happening as a result of our move is that the kids and I are living with Grommy for a while. There is much work to be done our house to get it ready to put on the market and show. I was beyond overwhelmed at the thought of trying to get and keep my house pristine on my own on a daily basis with Todd living in Houston for most of the week. Yikes! So, my amazing mother in law, who happens to have three extra bedrooms at her house, opened her doors for us. She bought two cribs to put in the playroom so that the boys would be nice and cozy. Laney is in Todd's old room ( that still has tape on the ceiling from the very first Valentine's Day that we celebrated together when I decorated his room ) I am in the office with a very cozy Air Bed. I am being serious, it really is comfy! This move has been so great! Lez is such a huge help to me all the time! And the kids are loving all this Grommy abundance!
However.....Lez's computer is back in the office as opposed to my laptop being right in the middle of our house on my coffee table. So I am not on the computer nearly as often as I used to be. Also, I am at our house during almost every nap time working on getting stuff cleared out, fixed up, painted and cleaned. Needless to say, I would way rather be blogging!
Here are a few pictures from a really long time ago. If I give the boys bottles, this is our new set up. They are so big sitting there holding them all by themselves. And those boppies? Wasn't it just a little while ago that the boys looked like teeny little specks laying in those boppies, their feet barely making it to the ends???


And a couple more of my boys in their jammies hanging out on the step. Sam always sits here like this with his legs dangling over the step. It makes him look so grown up. I love it and hate it all at the same time...(the looking grown up part)

Miles isn't much for sitting still!

What's happening

I have kind of been in a bloggy hiding spot lately. Honestly we are in the middle of a really difficult time right now which makes it hard for me to jump on the blog and write. We are moving to Houston. Todd has accepted a position at a really phenomenal church down there with some of our most treasured friends. The Lord is doing some amazing things there and we are truly honored to get to be a part of it. But in all honesty, I am heart broken to be leaving our family and our home. I very much had an idea in my mind of what our life was going to look like as our children grew up. That idea most definitely involved daily interaction with the family that we are so blessed to currently live within minutes of. The reasons that I want to stay right here in my happy home are to great to number. It seems that, daily, a new loss to mourn is brought to the forefront of my mind. From the heart breaking realization that Laney won't hold hands with her cousins as she walks up the hill to Wood Elementary on her first day of kindergarten, to the knowledge that gone are the days of just popping over to the park at the last minute with Bobbis or Grommy. It seems that I am never far from tears these days. Obviously I am pretty fun to be around right now!
"Put on your big girl panties and deal with it!"
Literally these are the exact words spoken to me by our 10 year old neighbor yesterday after I shared our news with her, crying through my explanation. OH Holy Spirit, are you using a fifth grader to speak your wisdom in my life? In all seriousness, I don't think that the Lord is upset with me for my feelings or reaction to this life change. He doesn't require my happiness with His will for my life. He asks only for my obedience. There have been other situation s in my life that I have not been the least bit happy about. Very specifically I remember being heart broken over the fact that Todd and I couldn't get pregnant at the same time that all my friends were seeming to. I have recounted many times how God spoke a message to me during that time. "Sometimes we get so focused on our own desires that we settle for ordinary when God has beauty in store for us." I am trying hard to reconcile this knowledge to my life. This life that I live, which I have often said is like a dream, just a mile from my precious sister who is the best friend that a person could ever hope to have and her children who are like siblings to my own. This life that affords me the rich blessing of my mom almost next door to me and ever ready to come and "dry my wet legs. This life in which my mother in law, who I might as well call Naomi as she has so whole heartedly made me her own, is an almost daily fixture in our schedule. This life that is built in the city where Todd and I have spent our entire lives, where we met, fell in love, got married and brought our children home. The city that is home to the only church that I have ever known, where I met my Savior and fell very much in love with Him, where I learned what it meant to serve Him and try to live a life of surrender. The church body that has embraced the charge of Galations and has helped to bear my burdens for almost 20 years. This life that is wonderful and familiar and everything I ever hoped for. I can not conceive of a world in which this life that I live could be the ordinary in that scenario. How could something be more beautiful than this?
My thoughts go to the delivery room when my lovely little niece Tessa was born. A beautiful moment to say the very least. In the midst of the overwhelming joy of that moment, I remember feeling a little heart broken that I wasn't getting to experience that same thing for myself. It was a mere three weeks later that I stood in the baby room of Chung Yi Orphanage in Taiwan and claimed Laney as my own. For Todd and I there could have been no more beautiful way to start our family. It wasn't what I dreamed of or imagined, but it was and is beauty beyond measure.
So as I pack up all the rooms of my little house, I really am trying to rest in the assurance that if this move is part of the Lord's plan for our family, than Houston truly has to be the best place for us right now. He has surely proven Himself time and again to know far better than I do what is best for me. If he asking to me to leave my dream life behind, than surely there is something beautiful in store for us.
Even as I type this I feel a bit hypocritical. My big girl panties are most assuredly not on yet. I can write these words much more easily than I can embrace them with my heart and trust with confidence that they are truth.

Labor Day!

We took a trip to "Cona" over Labor Day weekend and had a blast as always. I didn't get as many pictures as I would of liked, but there was much fun had by all. We got there on Sunday after church and were going to go swimming once we arrived. But after we got suited up, it started raining. Try as we might, we couldn't convince Laney to change out of her bathing suit. She had so much fun playing a game of tug of war with Pops.

Pops played and played and played with her.

Miles took a teeny nap very late in the day, making it difficult for him to fall asleep at bedtime. Aunt Hailey was more than happy to step in and help him out.

The next day got off to a great start. When the boys woke up at 6:00, Nae Nae came in and got them. She and Pops spent the next three hours playing with them. Todd and I slept until 9:00!!!!!! Amazing! The boys don't do that well in pack and plays, so after a little bit of a restless night, it was so so fabulous! Laney slept even later that that.....the girl can sleep (except at naptime)

No rain on Monday, so we got to go swimming after all. The water was freezing, but Miles didn't mind a bit. He had fun splashing with Todd and getting tossed in the air.

Sam did not love the chilly water that much, but he tolerated it so that he could spend time with his daddy.

Laney spent most of her time, spinning in circles with me, which is her favorite pooltime activity, and playing on these steps with Nae Nae and her aunts.

Mustache?

Laney has some stickers that you can use to build faces. We found this one of a mustache laying around and decided to put it to use on Miles's upper lip. I will have to hold on to this picture to show him in the future to help discourage any attempts at a mustache!!

He was not as entertained by this as Laney and I were!

He kept trying to lick it off/

Down the step with Miles

At home with Sam

Rowdy, Proud and Loud!!!

My Spotting Scope!

For a few weeks before my birthday, whenever anyone asked Laney what she was going to get me as a gift, she answered, "a spotting scope!" with lots of enthusiasm!! This is, of course, derived from her beloved Dora! Whenever Diego makes a guest appearance on the show or in our books, he is always using his spotting scope to save that baby jaguar.
I knew that she wanted to get one, but I didn't expect it to really happen. Todd helped make Laney's wish a reality. I was so happily surprised to open my gift from her. She was so excited about it, which made it the best present I could have received. I am not really sure what one does with a spotting scope other than save jaguars, but we will have to find out.

The boys were so happy to be on the floor with us...... These pictures are a pretty good representation of how the boys often get when we are all on the floor. They both just get so desperate to get in my lap. Todd says that they want to be so close to me that they wish that could burrow under my skin. That sounds kind of gross when I write it out.

Sam's got his eye on you........

10 Months......Finally!!!

Sheesh! It has taken me
long enough to get to this 10 monthiversary post. My ten month olds are obviously keeping me really really busy. So I will give a little update about what they are busy doing as their cutie pie 10 months and 1 week old selves!!!
The twins are more fun than ever. Their personalities are presenting themselves more and more every day. They are on a pretty scheduled routine these days. Wake up at around 6:30 each morning. Eat a little breakfast (usually a combination of two of the following choices toast, oatmeal, bananas, applesauce) About three times a week, we load everyone up after breakfast and go up to the Y so that I can run a quick 3 miles on the treadmill. They go to the Kidzone, where all three of my kids are like superstars. The KZ workers LOVE them. Maybe they just do a great job of making feel like my three are their favorites, but their faces really do light up when they see us round the corner. Laney has her favorite stroller that she pushes around for the entire 26 minutes that she is in there and the boys love getting to snuggle with their friends in there. They go down for naps around 9:30, which sometimes happens on our way home. They have gotten great at transferring out of their carseats and into their cribs! They are both still in their infant carriers, but I think that we will move them into their big boy seats soon. They usually sleep about an hour in the morning. When they wake uip, we either play at home for the rest of the morning, or go out for the day's activity. i.e. park, zoo, jessica's house, lunch with daddy......etc. They nap again at around 1:30 for about and hour and a half or two hours. I try to get Laney to have some rest time at this point too. After naps, we play, take a walk, visit Grommy, bring Todd dinner at work....etc. Eat dinner around 6ish, take baths and go to bed around 7:30. There is the barebones of our days.

On to what these twinados are up to these days:
Miles: Miles has three teeth that he likes to show off as much as possible with his giant grin. He has this hysterical belly laugh that truly seems like it has to be fake. He laughs all the time and once he starts he can hardly stop. He starts laughing at his own laughing. So cute. He is still army crawling everywhere. He only uses his back right leg to push himself forward. I am not sure why, but I hope he doesn't end up with one super strong leg and one puny little weak one! I am not really too worried about it cause I think he will be up on his knees pretty soon! He pulls up on everything that he can get his hands on, particularly our little bamboo stool from Taiwan (thanks Ingrid!) It's his favorite spot right now! His newest and cutest trick is clapping. He does it on command. At first he would just do it whenever I started singing If You're Happy and You Know It. But now, he starts clapping whenever I sing anything. He smiles really hugely while doing it to let us know how proud he is of himself!!! He still loves to be held so much. I think that snuggling up is definitely this little boy's love language. He does not like to eat. Sitting in his high chair for meal times is a huge ordeal. He gets really really worked up. I think that maybe he is a really picky eater which might contribute to his mealtime issues. He just thrusts a lot of foods right out of his mouth. I am still offering him all the same foods that Sam is happily eating, but I end up having to hold him for many a lunch and dinner. He is definitely a carb loader. He loves the bread.....must have gotten that from me. His favorite toys right now are balls. Both boys love playing with balls. Their favorite one is a blue spiky ball that Joshua gave Laney for her birthday. She is happy to share because it came as a set with a pink one too. She is not so happy to share the pink one.

Sam: Sam has four teeth now that his top two are poking through. He has the absolute most adorable crooked smile that I have ever seen. (actually I guess it ties with his big sister's cross-bitten smile too) He juts his chin to the side, scrunches up his nose and melts my heart!! He does not have a belly laugh like brother does, but his is just as cute. When he gets excited, he gives that smile and then starts this breathy little snort over and over again. It's awesome! Sam is crawling on his hands and knees now and getting everywhere fast! He loves pulling up too, but doesn't have a favorite spot like Miles does. He has taken some very tentative steps behind his walker, but he didn't love it. He is a much better eater than Miles is. He will pretty much eat anything. He is does fairly at feeding himself. His pincer grasp is pretty good. Sam is not as adept as Miles at clapping yet, but he is our waver. He can wave when I ask him to, although sometimes he ends up flapping both arms and looking a bit more like a bird impersonation than a wave. Sam is a later sleeper than Miles. He always wakes up after Miles in the mornings and usually at naptimes as well. Everytime I walk in their room holding Miles, Sam pops his bleary-eyed self up over the rail in the crib and welcomes us with his silly smile. I think that the boys are starting to be more aware of each other in their play. They have started noticing what the other one is playing with and deciding that they need that particular toy for themselves. They haven't really started to mind having toys taken from them yet, but a few times it has caused a meltdown that has just given me a little taste of what we have in store for us!

Basically we are just love love loving our ten month one week old boys!