Saturday afternoon and Evening

Be sure and read the blog just before this one talking about our Zions market. It is always a fascinating endeavor and a lot of work but well worth it.

After I finished with Zions Market then I went to work on our back yard for the family party that is going to be held this afternoon. Ed has been hard at work leveling out and preparing the area next to the house for our hot tub. In the process he tracked mud from one end of the yard to the other and then we have been accumulating junk that we stuck behind the little shed next to our house - I was fed up with it all so I went to work cleaning it all up. I dug out our Black and Decker vacuum/blower thing a ma jobber and first vacuumed up leaves and mud and pits and all manner of crud. Then I switched it to a blower and cleaned off the whole basketball court. That all took hours and I was hot and sweaty and went in to take a quick shower so I would be presentable to go get some Subway sandwiches for supper. I decided a nice hot soak in the tub sounded much better and it only added 15 more minutes to dinner time. By the time I got back home with the sandwiches and started to climb out of the car I felt every muscle in my body. Sitting in the car and not moving around for 15 more minutes had allowed all those overworked muscles to tighten up and I wasn't even sure I could walk.

fter we ate I had Ed fire up the lawnmower for me. You need to realize i NEVER mow the lawn. Ed always does it but he is working so hard on the back yard I couldn't bear to have him have to do it too. So I mowed the whole lawn. Lemme tell you - although it did loosen up those muscles I could feel all of them aching as we finally headed into the house at dusk. I was heading for a hot soak in the tub again - with lots of sweet smelling skin so soft oil. The phone rang just then and it was Kelly wondering if we wanted a couple of babies for an hour or so while they went out to dinner - YES!! Forget the exhaustion, forget the aching muscles - babies to play with!!! I took a quick shower and was ready for them to show up.


The were both sound asleep when they came. Full tummies, dry bottoms and so comfortable
Instead of getting a close up of Brayden, I got a picture of the cute jammies he was in complete with puppy dog toes.
Here is an angel at sleep She woke up first and started fussing but I was able to hold and cuddle her until she went back to sleep - and then I held and cuddled her while she slept for about 45 minutes. :-) Then Brayden started fussing so I laid her back down and held Brayden. He continued to squirm and to fuss until I put his binky in his mouth and that settled him right down. He relaxed and slept so well in grandma's arms. I finally put him down after another 45 minutes. Shortly after mommy and daddy came home so cuddling time was over. Thanks for sharing, Kelly and Jamie.
She has finally grown into her preemie size jammies - yes, newborn sizes still drown her!
Here they are together -so precious

I thought it would be fun to post a picture of what they looked like when they were newly home. This was just a little over four weeks ago - they have changed from preemie s to a more softly rounded newborn look

TWINS!!!

my twins - Kelly and Kecia abt 1982

I know that I said my next blog would be pictures of the cactus and desert of Southwestern Arizona but I lied!!! We had a family party tonight at my house and had so much fun but the highlight of the whole night was when Kelly and Jamie came with Harley dog. Harley ran in the house wearing this cute little t-shirt with two binkies tied onto it.



Wait a minute - I had seen two binkies before --- about two years ago when Kecia and Glenn and Kelly and Jamie had given me an easter egg with two binkies on it. But this was NOT a dual announcement from my twins and their spouses like before. This was an announcement from Kelly and Jamie...alone!

Kelly and Jamie are having TWINS!!!!!

WOW!!!!

Kelly is the male member of my set of twins. Its enough of a shock to think that he is going to be a daddy - and to start right out with a pair of babies. Jamie - you are going to have your hands full!!!

I can't wait till September to welcome these little ones here. Tammy - you might be number # grandma ...but I live closer!!!!!

CONGRATS TO you both - Jamie and Kelly. You will love having twins!! I know that I did. I am so thrilled for you.

27 years and counting

It's been 27 years ago - wow!! My twins are 27. We were living in Texas and I had known for just six weeks that there were two babies!! Shawn was 11, Dirk was 9 and Mauri had just turned 6. We had said we didn't care whether the baby was male or female but as I headed off to the hospital Mauri told me I better bring a sister home!! Dirk wanted a brother and Shawn was like his dad and I - either one would do. They were supposed to be born on Tuesday December 9 - they weren't due until December 24, but they had given me gestastional diabetes and it was dangerous for the babies to go full term. When I went in to the doctor that morning they found that Kelly had turned and both babies were now breach. They didn't dare do normal delivery with both of them bass-ackward. (They didn't mind planning on delivering the bigger baby normally and then the breach baby (Kecia). So they decided to do an amniocentisis on me on Wednesday - I remember seeing the needle for it !! It was at least six inches long!!! But it didn't hurt and by Wednesday afternoon we knew that Kecia's lungs were developed enough for birth and so they scheduled a C-section for Thursday morning.

I was awake during the birth and can remember as the doctor delivered Kelly how excited I was but at the same time thinking - oh let the next one be a girl...and it was. The doctor told me afterwards that he didn't want my six year old giving him a bad time for not giving her a sister!!

The main thing I remember with those two babies (besides the around the clock care they took) was the joy of being a mother. The fun of having TWO babies at a time and how people - total strangers would react to seeing twins.

I wrote in a letter to my sister when they were several months old how I would grumble at being woken in the middle of the night with their cries - but as soon as I picked up which ever one it was that had woken me, what a thrill of love I had go through me. They were precious babies and even more so because Ed and I got to see their advancements through the eyes of their siblings who were old enough to be excited when we saw their first smile, or they sat up all alone the first time, or they crawled. I always said they didn't walk until they were 15 months old because they didn't need to - their adoring older siblings were always fighting over who got to hold whom.

Shawn and Dirk and Mauri loved those babies - amazingly enough Mauri never showed jealousy or animosity for being kicked out of the #1 baby spot - and she had been the 'baby' for six years. She just loved them. Dirk was our #1 diaper changer - and he and Shawn both were so careful of taking good care of these two. It really was a good thing that there were two of them because they had 4 moms!!! Me and Mauri and Shawn and Dirk!!

Kecia and Kelly were very close siblings. As newborns they loved being near each other. They shared a crib - we had the two cribs right next to each other but they didn't like being separated. Lots of the pictures we have of the two of them as newborns show them holding hands. It was amazing how they needed to touch each other in their sleep!

A baby brings such joy and twins double it!! They finished off our family just perfectly - All of my children are wonderfully choice beautiful people. I have been blessed.