More visitors!

Last week Hudson and Brooklyn were able to meet their Greatgrandma Van Essen. My Grandma and Aunt Marcia came out from the midwest to spend time with my kids and my sister's kids (and us adults too I think:) It was such a special treat to have them love on our kids for 4 days. Kevin and I even snuck out for dinner one night (while they watched the kids AND folded laundry....now thats a treat!). Thanks Grandma and Aunt Marcia for the help, fun, conversation and hair cuts!

Grandma Great with Brooklyn and Hudson. My Grandma has 23 grandkids and 33 greatgrandkids (I think I have that second number right). She loves babies and still gets down on the ground with them to play. It was fun to see her meet the babies.

Aunt Marcia loved playing with the kids too. She and Ethan had a whole afternoon together riding bikes, going to the park and playing football. Her youngest is a sophomore in highschool so I think she enjoyed playing with a little boy again. Ethan and Morgan adored her. Marcia's daughters are named Brooke and Morgan....I think we have similar tastes in names:) I would love for my girls to turn out just like hers, they are such strong women of God they are perfect role models!

Grandma Great and her California greats! Sorry Audrey, your little face is covered up in all the pictures.

Thanks for the great visit! We love you!

Meeting Opapa and Omama

Kevin's Opa and Oma Schenk spend some of the winter months in Arizona. This winter they wanted to come up to our house to meet Hudson and Brooklyn and to play with Ethan and Morgan for a while. Thanks for stopping by Opa and Oma and enjoy the pics!

Getting all four to look at the camera was quite a challenge:)

Ethan always enlists extra help with his Legos. Thanks Opapa!

Morgan got some more "girls" to play dress up with. Thanks Omama!

Presents are always a big hit!

Thanks for taking the time to visit us Opapa and Omama!

How to survive Science Camp week...

Each year Kevin heads up to the coastal mountains for science camp with his 6th graders. It's a great week of fun and Independence for the students. Kevin always enjoys it as well, but it can be a long week for him to be away from us. It is usually a pretty long week for me at home too. This year's solution for that was to head to Pebble Beach with my mom. It was so great to get out of our house for a few days and so great to have help with the kids. We pretty much just moved our chaos to a new location, but it was refreshing to be by the coast as always. We had beautiful weather. I took the older two to the aquarium one morning, Ethan went golfing with Nana one afternoon, we ALL went to the beach one morning (1/2 hour of packing and loading for 1 hour at the beach, worth it? still not sure), and we ALL went to have dinner and watch the bagpiper. That actually went surprisingly well. Thanks for a great week mom!

Ethan was really into the aquarium this time. It is so fun to watch him gain more interest in what is there and what he can learn. You'll notice he had to wear his shark shirt for the occasion. Ethan was really into reading about the displays and having his picture taken by animals...Morgan not so much:)

Ethan all ready for golf.

Nana and Morgan:)

Hudson and Brooklyn were there as well, we just didn't get any pictures of them. They loved having a new place to look around at and loved taking walks.

6 months

In some ways it feels like Hudson and Brooklyn have been a part of our family forever, and yet it seems like just yesterday we brought them home from the hospital and very slowly started to accept the fact that we really had twins. It feels so good to be past the "baby baby" stage. They aren't eating in the middle of the night any more, they take 3 fairly good naps a day, they are easily entertained by each other, toys, their older brother and sister and mommy and daddy, they love to interact and talk and they are overall content and happy babies. It feels like somewhat of a victory to have survived the first 6 months. I remember several times in those first few weeks thinking....I can't wait until the babies are 6 months old....and here we are. God has been shaping and molding Kevin and I to accept the gifts he has given us in Hudson and Brooklyn. It is definitely a journey and it feels good to be further along the road then we were 6 months ago. I can safely say I am a better person than I was a year and a half ago and I have learned to trust God more which has lead to a deeper relationship with him. We are settling into a rhythm now. I would say the hardest thing about adding 2 babies instead of just one has been my inability to just "quick run an errand." There is nothing quick about loading 3 or 4 kids in the van to go to the grocery store or Target. Errand running now takes careful planning and usually happens without any little ones in tow.

                                    

Hudson Lee

 6 month stats

     18 lbs 5 oz

       27 1/2 inches 

Mr. Hudson is our happy little Bubba. He loves to smile and laugh. He loves to be held and cuddle. He starts frantically kicking when he knows he is going to be picked up. I think his favorite people are his big brother and sister.

Brooklyn Helena

6 month stats

15 lbs 13 oz

27 inches

Brooklyn is our little squirt. She is by far my littlest baby. She is a little more reserved with her smiles, but is beginning to warm up and smile a little quicker for those she doesn't know. She seems to be very aware of what is going on around her and loves to watch us do life around her.

Both kids love the excersaucer. Thank goodness for all the toys and contraptions that clutter our family room, but make mommy's job easier:)

Ethan took this picture for me. A rare photo of mommy and the babes.

Hudson and Brooklyn love to lay on the floor and play together. I often find them holding hands or trying to suck on each others fingers. The other day I found Brooklyn sucking on Hudson's foot. Good think he isn't walking around outside yet.

We're trying to introduce solid foods to H and B. Unfortunately I have a hard time remembering to do this every day. Their doctor says I need to be better about getting them to eat solid foods. I figure they won't be drinking only milk their whole lives, they'll figure it out sooner or later...right?

The other thing we need to be working on more is sitting up. Again...they won't be strictly laying on their backs and tummies forever....right?

I snapped this picture right before I caught Brooklyn falling over. I was pleasantly surprised how well they did when I practiced sitting with them for a little while. In the pictures it looks like they were sitting up all day, but it was really only 3 or 4 seconds, don't let the pics deceive you:)

I am still taking weekly pics of Brooklyn and Hudson individually with their bears, and together. I think the picture of them together will be getting quite interesting very soon.

So there's an update on Hudson and Brooklyn. We can't imagine our life without them.

Videos

Here are a couple videos of our happy babies. We really are so blessed to have happy content babies. They cry when they are tired or hungry and that's about it. Otherwise we hear lots of happy shrieking, cooing and laughing. It sure makes life easier for us to have babies who will just sit and kick in their bouncy seats or play in their excersaucers while we bussle around them and stop to chat every now and then. We have Hudson and Brooklyn's 6 month check up next week so I'll post some pics and stats after that. For now, enjoy the videos!

Ethan loves to talk to Hudson and Brooklyn and most of the time its loud talking and right in their faces. Good thing they aren't anything like Ethan was when he was a baby. Ethan would burst into tears with any loud noise, especially noise from "unpredictable" kids/ babies. He is still jumpy with loud noises, but obviously has no problem being loud himself.

Hudson and Brooklyn interacting on their own. They were patiently waiting for their bedtime bottles. It is so fun to watch them acknowlege each other. I pray that this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship:)

Miss Morgan

To my darling middle child. It's not your birthday, but with your little personality lately I just had to dedicate a post to you.

Morgan has fully arrived to TWO. The phrase you can hear from her little mouth the most is "Me do it" or "I got it mommy." She definitely exerts her independence in a big way. Right now Morgan has us pulling our hair out one minute and laughing hysterically the next. She has such a tender heart and cries if we even raise our voice at her. That makes discipline pretty dramatic in our house. Morgan loves to help and is a loving sister to her siblings. She also loves to sing and is starting to talk almost as much as her big brother. Mo has officially hit princess mode, and most days she is going to be a princess when she grows up. However on the way to church the other day she informed us, " I grow up, I be dinosaur". You can't accuse that girl of not dreaming big:) We are blessed daily by her huge smiles, cuddles, hugs, songs and dancing.

The biggest part of Morgan's day is spent changing clothes. She changes her clothes approximately 5 times a day. Sometimes when she is really quiet I'll say, "Morgan, what are you doing." and she responds with "Changing mommy." Interestingly her clothing choices are usually the biggest, garage sale clothes she has, and of course, they never match:) We're currently working on putting clothes back in her drawers, not neatly, just in the drawer is fine with me. Below you'll find some of Morgan's outfits over the last couple weeks. Enjoy the fashion show:)

We love you so much sweet girl and we feel privileged to be your mommy and daddy.

Life

Nothing super exciting happening over here at the Schenks. We're just doing life and finally settling into a rhythm. A routine that will change soon I'm sure because that's what happens when you have infants around. Everyone is battling colds right now, the joy of having one in preschool. I think Hudson and Brooklyn have had coughs for 1/2 their lives, poor babies. Here are a few pictures and a video to show what we've been up to.

Ethan got this sweatsuit from Opa and Oma for Christmas. Little did they know that the colors on the sweatsuit are his school's colors. This is Ethan's FAVORITE outfit and he usually wears it 4 days a week. Sometimes just as "warm ups" over his "basketball" outfit. Hudson is wearing the blue and gold outfit Ethan wore to Kevin's basketball games when he was a baby. Ethan had to have a picture with their matching outfits. Hudson and Brooklyn LOVE to have their big sister and brother talk to them. Ethan especially is good at making them laugh. It comes in handy when they are fussing while I'm working on dinner.

Hudson and Brooklyn no longer share a crib. We set up a second crib in their room over Christmas break. It makes the room nice and cozy, but it works. I wanted to take this picture though to show how much they've grown over the past five months. Remember this picture?

H and B love to look at each other now and usually end up smiling and talking to each other. They are getting stronger everyday. They both enjoy the exersaucer, Hudson especially. Hudsers has rolled over from his tummy to back a few times, but we've yet to see rolls from Brooklyn. They both squirm around a lot though.

At their 4 month check up Brooklyn was a pound lighter than Hudson, I'd say it's closer to a 2 pound difference now. She is petite and a finicky eater. Her bottles need to be just the right temperature or she spits them out and she definitely knows when she is full. If only I would stop eating immediately when I'm full:)

Hudson is still our smiley little social bug. He loves when anyone stops to talk to him and I'm not sure he ever gets full:) The babes are doing awesome at night. They are sleeping about 10-12 hours at night. I have to replace a binky now and then, but they can usually make it until 4:30 or later before they need to eat. Now if I could just get to bed at 7:00 when they do I'd be a well rested woman! I do feel a lot better though with the longer stretches of sleep I've been getting.

I realize I don't have any pictures of Miss Morgan on this post. I've been thinking about doing a special post just about her. She is definitely our most challenging child right now, but she also brings the biggest laughs. I'm working on taking some pictures of her incredible fashion sense to share with you all.

I'll leave you with this video of the babes giggling at each other. Not a better sound in the world.