Shake it Caleb!

Caleb and Joshua have both started to dance to music. It is pretty funny. I captured this moment as we turned up the tunes to motivate cleaning. It worked for some and sent others into a dancing frenzy.

Joshua more then dancing loves to play along with the music. These little egg shaped shakers mean he can play to any thing!

oops she did it again..

Made us all laugh of course. And who is the she? Well, Kellina of course. This morning she was at the table singing Christmas songs and this is what I heard.
"We wish you a merry biscuit."
Sounds like one happy biscuit if you ask me.
About a week ago she was with Jeff in the bedroom. She asked about a picture on the wall. Jeff explained it was Jesus and had the verse John 3:16 on it. Kellina quickly said
"I know that one. John 3:16 For John so loved the world. NO, No, that's not right. John 3:16 For John so loved the world."
I don't know who John is but he sure sounds like he has to much love for this world.

Christmas with the Doyles

What can I say? We had a very good day. The kids got presents. We saw family. We spent the morning at home doing presents and then went to my mom's house. At mom's we opened more presents and dealt with the drama that my sister brought. Nothing really that dramatic. She just got her keys locked in her car. Would have been nicer if she owned a spear set of keys but she does not. That meant first the police tried to get in for her. No luck. Next she called a lock smith. When she found out how much that cost she joined triple a and had her car opened in no time. Who is the optimistic fellow in all the photos you may wonder. He is my step brother Nathan. We even braved some peoples competitive nature and played trivial pursuit. You know a game is going on to long when people a just plan old giving up at the end. In the end it was all good. Just ask Nathan I'm sure he would give it all a big thumbs up!

Random stuff..

I'll start with Christmas stuff since it's almost upon us. Here is what my family would look like if we were all snowmen. Pretty cute huh? Jeff's grandpa made these for us and as the family grows the number of snowmen grows right along with us! Next up, decor. We almost didn't do any because of mobile twins and curious kittens. I did say almost. I couldn't resist and the girls and I went to work. The kittens did kill a few balls from the tree so they all had to come down, but it has been pretty smooth since then. The angel is from when I was a little girl. It's my favorite! We also have our stockings hung with care. My grandma makes these. They are very cute and the best part is Melia's name is spelled wrong. It makes me smile every time. By the way Samantha's is the bear. She loves it and won't give it up. She told me so this year.

I recently had a tea party with my girls. This was fun! We don't really drink tea though so we had hot apple cider. We also don't have any tea cups so we had to use coffee mugs. The girls really liked it though. Can't you tell by this photo.

Kellina has hit a major milestone in our house. She can cook dinner. With some help from mom she made Salisbury meatballs, mashed potatoes, and stuffing. She was so happy at dinner when everyone thanked her. And my final thought after such a long post is this. Don't you wish that the instructions for life were this simple.

Boys in the nude!

I love naked baby photos. Two naked babies are irresistible! Here is Caleb's naked behind. Here is Joshua's naked behind. How can I tell? Caleb has two cute little dimples above his bottom. Go ahead go back and check it out. Here is a shot of Joshua's tell tale marker. His birth mark. See on his hip. Well when the picture is bigger its easy to see:) Oh these boys are to cute. Here is the last shot of Joshua. It's not totally in focus, but his pose killed me.

Being young

Yesterday I got to watch the little girls just be kids. Their friend Bella came over and games were played. My favorite time was when Melia tried to teach everyone Duck, Duck, Goose. With 3 kids it was hard to play and not everyone understood. Kellina wouldn't get up and chase because she didn't want anyone sitting in her seat and Melia wouldn't sit because she was having to much fun running in circles. In the end though they had a great time and isn't that what games are really all about?:)

Why is it called that?

This is Melia's new favorite thing. She likes to try and figure out why things have the names they have. The one that I really hoped wasn't true was hot dog.

Melia: Mom I think I know why this is called a hot dog. Because it's hot and made out of dog!

Sometimes she comes up with some very clever reasons. She is also really into being a princess. So when I told her was putting her hair in a princess braid for the day It didn't come out for three.

That's my little princess!

Conver sations with kids.

Driving to strings today this was the conversation in my car.

Me: Samantha I saw that truck and thought his canopy was a big pile of snow on the top of his truck.

Samantha: That's funny mom.

Melia: Why is it called a canopy and what is a canopy.

Me: It's something that goes over the bed of a truck. I'll show you one.

Melia: P P P. Mom it has a P in it.

Kellina: Pee in it? Pee Pee?

Melia: No! Like the letter P. Mom is it full of peas? Is that why they call it a can of pea.(Now a common thing for her to figure out why something is called what it is)

Me: No Melia. It's a canopy and I don't know why it's called that.

Kellina: Can a Pee! Can a Pee!(With much question and excitement in her voice)

I then showed the girls what I meant and they spent the rest of the drive counting as many as they could.

Hair cuts!

The boys got their first hair cut today. Grandma came over and the hair was flying! Caleb was first in line.Then it was Joshua's turn. Both boys were little wiggle worms, but in the end the both looked very handsome. Joshua was extra cute with his little mohawk. It won't stay like this it was just wet and I couldn't resist.

Then and Now!

When the boys were newborns I always nursed them together.After they got bigger I almost dropped one on the floor and decided to have them take turns. This went well for many long months. Then the other day they were both miserable and crying at my feet. I knew they both wanted to nurse and couldn't stand leaving one with big tears and envy. I had Melia bring me the nursing pillow and we tried the double nurse. Now that they are bigger and more able to control their bodies it works well again. I thought any mother who has nursed would love Joshua's milk drunk face in this photo. They sure are getting big fast!

Got Milk?

Caleb does! And Joshua? Well he knew dad was to busy to see what he was up to.

Kellina moment

"Look mom I'm swimming like an Eagle!"

Maybe we need to talk about this:) Then again maybe not.

It's CRAZY snow!

This is how Melia answered me this morning when I asked her to look out the window and tell me if the snow was still there. With an answer like this you would expect at least 6 inches right? Wrong! There was only a light dusting:) But don't worry we went out to my moms and played as if it were 6 inches. A snow angel was even made. The best comment came from Aspen "Melia don't eat the yellow snow!" Some good advice for all. After getting good and cold the girls came in for a movie while the big girls got started on Christmas baking. You know Christmas is coming when I make fudge! The little girls got into helping when it was time to decorate. I tried to keep it as under control as possible, but if a little frosting/sprinkles is good then a lot must be better. Right?

It sure does equal messy girls. I had to call it quits when I noticed Kellina using her knife like a spoon and eating her frosting. I don't know who got the dirtiest, but I know who did the most licking to get clean! Kellina was so messy I had to take her right to the sink with no photo to prevent spreading her frosting. Caleb came in close in the race for dirtiest with his "NO mom I didn't get an M&M" face. We had a great day!

Is that a good book?

She has started to read!! Can you believe it Melia can read. She told me a while ago that she wanted to learn. I was not ready, but she was and off we went. The first program we tried she became bored with and said it wasn't teaching her fast enough. We picked up Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Lessons and on lesson 12 she started reading. Nothing to hard, but we found Bob Books which she can do on her own. What a big girl she is now.

What were those lyrics again?

Last night I went to my nieces Christmas recital. It was her preschool so there were kids of all ages. Like this cute boy. I don't him, but his red cheeks screamed holiday cheer. After we left the girls were singing their favorite song."Fleece on a Dog" As sung by Kellina. "Fa lease mama dot" As sung by Melia. "Faliz na dee da" As sung by Aspen. My mom came up with Fleas on a dog and Fleece the log. When we got home Kellina was sharing her favorite part of the song. "We want to wish you a Merry Christmas" Then I jumped in with "And a happy New Year" She got a very confused look on her face and Samantha informed me its "From the bottom of our heart". Oops! It was a fun time with funny lyrics

More firsts!

This time though it's not the boys. It's me! I had decided a while ago that I wanted to be a mom with some sort of crafty skill. I really have none. One thing I always wanted to do was crochet. I hadn't found the time or teacher until now. My friend Ruth was sharing some photos of her kids with me and I noticed the beautiful crocheted(spelling?) out fit. Well it turns out she is a crafty mom. She does have her own cloth diaper company so this should have been a no brainer for me. I have had two lessons now and am hooked. The first thing I made was a hot pad. It was not beautiful, but my mom loved it enough to give it a good home. The second thing was called a ......... I forget:) Anyone else who knows please remind me. My other first was when I was making hot apple cider with Samantha. She told me that at Woods she had almost gotten a hot caramel apple cider. Oh that sounded so good, but no Woods coffee stand in my kitchen. Then I realized I had caramel topping. That was a good hot caramel apple cider! The best part was I didn't have to pay 4 dollars for it and now I get to blog about the first one I made.

Boys will be boys!

And my boys are at that age where they want to get into everything! With the cold winter weather our pellet stove has been working over time. We have a baby gate around it so the boys won't get hurt, but Joshua decided he was going to get to it no matter what. Lucky for me the gate won!
Joshua has recently also learned that his mouth makes a good third hand. When both hands are being used, when he crawls, or just because he wants too all things go straight to his mouth.