Twin's First Thanksgiving

I remember Jack's first Thanksgiving. After dinner, he threw up all over me and my friend Kristen's bed.  The twins' first Thanksgiving was also quite memorable. Dave and I each ate with a baby on our lap while talking to Jack and his cousins on the other side of the table. Things have changed a lot in the last two years. I took a few Thanksgiving pictures of the twins. I also put a few other pictures from this weekend. I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and is enjoying the Christmas season!

Dad and Tim

Mom and Chris

Tim on his first Thanksgiving

Sweet sleeping Chris after Thanksgiving

Chris on the left and Tim on the right. Every once in a while I look over at them and go "wow, there really are two of them"

My friend Gina sent the twins these really cute onsies. Tim is peanut butter and Chris is jelly

They're Huge

I still think of the twins as my little 5 pound babies. I call them my little bugs because sometimes I get four eyes looking and me while they are wiggling around. I just looked at them the other day and realized they are getting huge. I weigh them in at a little over 12 pounds a piece. They are working on tripple their birth weight at 3 months old. We have been so lucky because they are growing like crazy and not having any issues getting sick.

Three weeks old




Three months old. As always, Tim in green and Chris in blue.



Look at all that eye contact. Chris straight at the camera and Tim straight at Jack.

I have started using my Bob stroller for walks around the neighborhood.

Christmas Cards

Last Christmas, I decided that I should start doing Christmas cards in 2010. I don't know why I never did them before because I love getting them from other people. My friend Riann told me that Shutterfly is giving away  50 free cards to bloggers as a promotion for their 2010 Christmas cards if you spread the word on your blog. I have never used Shutterfly before, so I decided to take a look.  Here is a link to their Christmas cards http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-photo-cards. I think they look totally professional and beautiful at a reasonable price.

Since I can't go visit everyone I know on the holidays, I want to give people a view of how we look this year. I tend to like simple cards with one picture on it like this one.

Since I have three kids now, I think it might be hard to find just one picture that really captures each of our personalities. Shutterfly also has awesome multiphoto cards which makes it easy to pull lots of pictures together. I like this one.

I

The Minivan

When Dave and I got married, I never would have imaged that 6 years later I would be living on post and driving a minivan. It's funny how life turns out. Of course, our house on post is awesome and we're almost done getting it all set up the way we want it. This weekend we decided to take the plunge and trade in the Pilot for a 2011 Honda Oddyssey (only had 4 miles on it!). It was just getting too hard to put 3 kids into car seats without being able to step into the car. I'm actually really happy with it. We got the completely decked out version with Navigation and DVD and memory seat settings. At first I didn't love how the window goes down and comes to a point at the end, but Dave read that it is referred to as the "lightning bolt" trimline. They even launched it at the Charger's stadium. How cool is that!

Veterans Day

I was walking through the hospital there other day and someone handed me a card. Here is what it said:

"Dear Military Family Member,
I want to thank you for the sacrifice you have made to preserve our nation's freedom.
Your long nights, lonely days, times of fear, hours of worry and seasons of stress are not unnoticed by those of us who enjoy freedom.
Thank You."

Dave was at Fort Campbell for 5 years. This card perfectly articulates what it was like. 
Two years of being in a war zone, month long field training, lost weekends, and the feeling that at any moment there would be more to sacrifice. I completely appreciate that there is a holiday to honor those who have been through that and who are doing it now.

This is a picture of when Dave got back from his second deployment. It reminds me the amazing feeling of being reunited and that the worrying is over.

I feel so very lucky at the moment. There are people who have to give up so much more than we ever did. People who are on deployment number three, missed big moments in their kids lives or their birth, and of course there are those who give up their life. We left Fort Campbell over 4 years ago. San Antonio was like living in a bubble protected from the "real" Army. This assignment has been my dream come true. Dave gets to put on a uniform and help those who serve, but we have not been sacrificing at all.

My grandfather, father, and husband were all veterans who gave up part of their lives to serve. Veterans Day really has a lot of meaning to me, and I'm thankful we get a day off in honor of their sacrifice.

Swim Meet and Future Runner!

They have a competition on post called the Commanders Cup. Dave ran in the 5k last fall. They had a swim meet last week and Dave thought he would give it a try. I actually think he did really well. He got 5th and 6th in a few of the events he was in. These people were real swimmers, so 5th and 6th meant last place. I still think it's cool because he scored points!

Dave is in lane 5 which makes him the farthest swimmer to the right

These girls came over and wanted to help me take care of the boys. They fed the twins and chased Jack around while I supervised. Pretty sweet deal for me.

As you might be able to tell, Jack is all about sports, but hadn't discovered running until now. While we were at the swim meet, some kids were running races in the park. They would yell "set. go." Jack went over and race with them. They were like 10 years old and he couldn't keep up, but it was cute to watch. Now he goes around getting into his version of a track start and saying "set. go." Here is a little video of my future runner!

Jack's Halloween

Halloween on post was great. A lot of houses went all out with their decorations and there were plenty of little kids out and about. We got Jack a Root Beer costume. He was so cute, and I couldn't believe he didn't try to mess with the hat. It took Jack a few houses before he really got the idea. It was cute to watch him figure out that you go up to a house and put some candy in your bag. I mean seriously, is there anything better than that? After we finished up in our neighborhood, we went over and did some wondering around with Dave's brother and family.



The bag was getting heavy

He did it!

The Twins First Halloween

Halloween babies!
Tim on the left and Chris on the right

We had a really nice Halloween. It was both the twins' first Halloween and Jack's first Halloween walking.  I wanted to find twin costumes that weren't exactly the same. Most days, I have been dressing Tim in green clothes and Chris in blue clothes. I managed to find similar monster(ish) costumes that were colored in blue and green. These costumes were very warm which was perfect for the cool fall night.

It is subtle but they are both sticking their tongue out!

I still need to go through all the pictures and video we took of Jack. I will post that tonight or tomorrow. Hope everyone had a nice Halloween!