Jaker's Pumpkin Patch

So there is this really fun pumpkin patch in Springville called Jaker's. A few friends had told me about it and invited me to go and I just never did until finally I went with Kristen on Halloween. It was the last day it was opened. My kids had so much fun and the place was totally awesome. Everything was free except for buying pumpkins and the corn maze. 

We went on a tractor ride, the kids had so much fun on the slides, and they loved looking at the animals. They brought animals over from the guy who lives down the street who has a ginormous pig, a kangaroo, and lots of other fun animals. We always stop by and look at his animals when we go to Ashli's house in Springville. Anyway, I was so sad that I didn't get my butt in gear and go to the pumpkin patch till the last day it was open. We will definitely go next year as much as we can.

Their corn pit is HUGE! The kids had sooo much fun playing. We went to Hee Haw's last year and the twins were so much smaller and harder and I didn't enjoy it that much. But this year was just the best. I feel so blessed to be able to stay home with my kids and do fun things like this. I love that Mckinley only has school a few days a week. It's going to be sad next year when she is in Kindergarten every single day.

Halloween 2014

Halloween was so much fun this year! Our kids are at really good ages where they can walk everywhere on their own, and they actually understand partly what is going on. We really enjoyed ourselves.

My sister Kristen invited us to her ward party and Mckinley was obsessed with this kid and his headless costume! She wanted to get her picture with him. The kids also loved seeing the Elsa's, Anna's, and Olaf's, and pretty much thought they were the real people, even though they were kids. Ha! Mckinley had the cutest Elsa dress she could have worn this year but she wanted to wear her fairy costume instead. I was fine with that. I think there were enough Elsa's to go around this year. :)

Tyler and Kallie refused to wear their monster capes until I told them they had to to get candy. They didn't complain after that!

My mom bought Kallie this cutest mouse costume for her birthday, and she actually loved wearing it! She also had a cute candy corn costume this year that she wore to a party with her cousins.

The kids had a lot of fun at our own ward party.

Kallie is trying to put vampire teeth in Tyler's mouth for him. Melts my heart!

Mckinley begged and begged to go to a pumpkin patch and we finally did on the day of Halloween and I bought her a pumpkin and went home and carved it for her. We lit it up in the laundry room so the kids could see it, and then never ended up lighting it up outside. But she was so happy with it!

Trick or treating was lots of fun. My favorite was watching Mckinley just run up to the doors on her own and then her friend Kaylie, and Tyler and Kallie would follow behind. She had so much fun!

My THREE kids trick or treating together. Such great memories! Every year is just going to get more fun as they get holder. Holidays make me happy.

BYU Homecoming Parade and Hogle Zoo

Saturday, October 18th started out as a really fun day. We took the kids to the BYU Homecoming parade and had so much fun!!! The weather was amazing. The kids got a ton of candy and loved being there.

Right after that we were supposed to go to the zoo with Brandon's family but I discovered I was bleeding (I was 6 weeks pregnant at the time) and so I stayed home and Brandon took the kids to the zoo. We were supposed to go to the zoo on Tyler and Kallie's birthday but it rained all that day so it got pushed back a few weeks. I was so excited to go. I really love the zoo and I was excited to see the kids' reaction. Brandon didn't take very many pictures because he was too busy keeping track of all the kids by himself but he said they had a great time.

Tyler and Kallie with their cousin Hadlee who is younger but much taller! We have two shorties on our hands. :)

Thoughts on Twins

I think because we have to do IVF to get our babies, the thought of twins was always kind of cool. Two for the price of one. We were so sad to find out Mckinley wasn't a twin. And we were so excited when we found out I was pregnant with Tyler and Kallie, especially when we found out it was a girl and a boy. They were super fun in the beginning, as hard as it was to feed them. But I'll tell ya, the entire year they were one was just plain HARD. I keep thinking it will get easier but I'm still waiting.... No, it has gotten a little easier over the last month or two. But just a little. Mostly it's still hard and I am realizing I really was not cut out for twins. I'm just glad they won't have any memories of this time in their life and how awful their mother is. Hopefully by the time they are older I will figure this Mom thing out.

This is pretty typical. Both of them crying uncontrollably after a nap. Absolutely nothing I could do to help them. So I just took a picture. And counted down the hours till Brandon got home from work. Pretty much a daily habit.

Now, when they are cute, they are SUPER cute. And when they are fun, the are INCREDIBLY fun. Here they are brushing each other's teeth. :)

I really am holding out hope that one day they will be best friends.

They climbed up on the couch together and then Kallie put her arm around Tyler. See? So cute!

Now that Tyler realized he can get out of bed, he has a new nightly ritual of going into Kallie's room and reading books with her by the light that comes in from the hallway. It's adorable.

Everyone that knows me knows I have really struggled this last year. For the most part, it is not a year I want to remember well. I think my twin miscarriage was a little easier to handle knowing that I probably would have died having two sets of twins back to back that were so close together. Those twins were due on March 7th which means I would have had them in February, making them less than two and a half years younger than these guys. That would have been HARD! I still would have preferred to do that though instead of have them both die. That was super sad.

It really does feel like there is a light at the end of the tunnel with these guys. They get along a lot better than they used to and I see them playing together a lot. They still fight a lot, but I think they consider each other to be a friend. I love watching them learn and grow together.

Mckinley

I could do a 20 page post on Mckinley. She is just the best little thing to ever have happened to me. I don't know what I would do without her. She is such a sweetheart and helps me so much with Tyler and Kallie. She is so creative. She loves to draw. She walks around the house singing songs she is making up as she goes. She loves playing pretend. She doesn't really play with other kids much and is perfectly fine with that. She is so good at quoting movies and guessing what movie certain songs are from.

Mckinley is learning so much in school. She goes to school next door at our neighbor Robin's house. I miss her so much while she's gone but it makes me so happy to know she is having fun and learning a lot because I don't have as much attention to give her as I would like. Since we live next door, she gets to go spend a lot of time in the school room after school. Tyler and Kallie love being there and sitting on the little chairs and coloring.

Sometimes we are there so Mckinley can finish her work that she didn't get finished in school. She is a bit of a perfectionist. And hello, look at this! The other kids just scribbled all over the dinosaur with one color but not Mckinley. She had to go and do a rainbow that took forever!

This has Mckinley written all over it. Her bathtub letters organized by color, in patterns, stacked up. Oh, how I love her.

She would paint all day if I let her. I'm pretty sure Santa needs to bring some new paints and A LOT of paper to her this Christmas.

Here she is playing with her cute friend Kenzey. These guys have been playing together ever since they were babies. They get along so well and have the best time together, even if Mckinley can never remember Kenzey's name. Mckinley has a thing with names. She can't remember anyone's name!

Mckinley loves coming on special dates with me and Brandon. This is at a BYU basketball game. She has so much fun looking out for Cosmo but gets a little scared when he comes up close. She did give him a high five.

Tyler

Tyler is our sweet, sensitive boy. He is just the best. He is all boy and loves trucks, cars, trains, balls, and airplanes. He totally has a manly growl and yell when he wants to too. And he has a deep laugh sometimes too. He seriously makes me so happy.

He has been so good at staying in his bed until the last few days (more on that in another post). I thought this picture was so cute of him sleeping upside down in his bed.

The one thing that is so hard about Tyler is how picky he is of an eater. It drives me absolute nuts and causes me so much stress!!! This is what I gave him for lunch one day. I keep saying I can't wait till he is a little older and I can really reason with him and get him to try new foods, but I'm probably getting my hopes up for nothing.

I have a really hard time doing individual posts on Tyler and Kallie. I always end up talking about both of them. We really love our Tyler though and it just makes my heart so happy to have a little boy. I love him to death.

Kallie

Kallie is our little spitfire girl. She drives me crazy sooo much. But she is also adorably cute. She is always getting hurt. She split open her chin on the side of the bathtub. We didn't get stitches or anything and it is healing up very nicely. It's underneath her chin so you can't see it.

Then this month she fell and hit her nose on a cement stair. It was scraped up so bad. My sweet neighbor gave me some Lavender oil to put on it and it healed up so nicely!

Kallie love love loves her babies and strollers. She is always taking care of them and wants to have them up on the couch with her while she sits. It's adorable.

I was pregnant. Twice actually. Once with twins and once with one baby. And all three babies died. We never told our kids about the twin pregnancy but we did tell them about the next one. It was fun to enjoy it with them for a few weeks before it ended. Kallie still thinks I have a baby in my tummy and she still likes to put her baby in her tummy. She is also completely obsessed with this stuffed lamb that used to be Mckinley's.

We took off the crib rails on Tyler and Kallie's cribs just after they turned 2. Kallie is so wild and does not stay in bed and ends up falling asleep anywhere in her room. A couple times it's been right up next to the door and she blocks me from getting in. She really hates when I close the door and those are the only times she goes and sleeps there. Tyler has been able to open doors for a while now but Kallie still can't. We are hoping that lasts as long as possible!

Kallie is talking a ton. She will pretty much say anything you tell her to and she has started speaking in sentences. It is so cute. She and Tyler both have lisps that are pretty cute. It's so nice having them be able to tell us what they want!

Springwater Park

We had the most beautiful weather pretty much all through October. It was amazing. One day I took the kids over to Springwater Park, right by our house. I've never been there because it's right by the stinky sewer plant but my friend told me there is a house right next to the park with goats and I knew my kids would love seeing them so we went.

It ended up being the most amazing morning ever. All three of the kids were so happy running around on the slides and then over to the goats, and then back.

We went over to the edge of the park where there is a huge hill and the kids just ran up and down the hill. I sat and stared at them and felt so happy. It was a moment I totally needed because they are usually driving me nuts but in that moment I was so happy to be a mother and was just so grateful for my kids. It's a day I don't want to forget.