Catch up

So we have been gone for so long from the blog world! Mostly because we have officially moved! We got to Corsicana on October 30.

We are staying behind a bed and breakfast in a furnished former carriage house for this home built in 1898! It's two stores and is between 800-1000 square feet. We are so thankful to not be in a hotel with our sweet little guys! We even have a washer and dryer and a kitchen! It's tight, but quickly becoming home. The boys call it "the big house."

We have had a few good weeks. Nate is loving his new position. It has been a real eye opener to how hard it was on Conroe for the past 2 years. The boys and I are doing well. We have joined the YMCA and been to every park in town as well as story time at the library. We have even made a few friends, been out to lunch with people and had a few play dates! I think we are doing great!

We have visited two churches in town and like them both, we still want to visit one more and the hopefully we will pick one and dive right in!

That's enough for now...don't want to overload any one with our big comeback!

Get ready for some photos! These are out of order...but this has been our October!

This was our going away party that our sweet friends the Bates threw us before we left. This wasn't quite every one...but covered enough people. We had such a great time...we will surely miss these people dearly!!!

Here are the boys on Halloween! We had several fun filled days. with pumpkin carving, HAFBC fall festival, and we went trick or treating in a neighborhood we like to see if the neighbors were nice! Thanks Holly for a great idea!!! The boys were garden gnomes. Target had them! And if you didn't know, Nate is 50% Norwegian and gnomes are a big Norwegian deal! Their Santa looks like a gnome...so since the boys are 1/4 Norwegian we had to dress them like gnomes...plus it gives me the good embarrassing pictures to show their girlfriends one day!!!

Our home on Corsicana on our way to Trick or treat!

Fall Festival

See...embarrassing photo! Owen's outfit was too small, but I made him wear it anyway!!!

The carving kind of back fired on us. I thought it would be a good idea to tell them the inside of the pumpkin was gross and that might make them more likely to touch it, but instead they ran from it! But here is the family photo - taken with a timer...impressed?

Blakey's new favorite thing to say is "tada!" with his arms in the air. So here he is saying "TADA!" over his pumpkin.

We also had the whole Heston clan over one last time for dinner at our house. It was really fun to celebrate our time with them in Houston.
Erin snagged us in front of our house. It was a good house...

Here Blakey is with his ladies!

Happy Fall!

These are a few weeks late...but still in time!

This was after Auntie left, but before the trip to HPU and that was all two weeks ago! I went with a moms group from our church to a place called Old McDonald's Farm for a day at the Pumpkin Patch. The boys had fun of course!!! There was even a train - which I might mention was the second out of three that they rode in ONE week! It was train heaven!!!

They loved all of the pu-kins they were shaped like balls!

When your husband is a garbage man

A few weeks ago Nate had to work the National Night Out in Conroe and so the boys and I headed that way to be some support.

It was a fun night. There were trains, fire trucks, police cars and free hot dogs - it was a little boys dream! Here are some pictures from helping daddy!

TT

Our anniversary was on October 1st and we celebrated our 5th anniversary!!! For the past four we have managed to sneak away for a trip which we decided would be our "gifts" to each other. This year we planned MONTHS ago that we would take a walk down memory lane by heading back to Charlotte where it all began.

Then Nate got a new job. And we found out we are moving November 1st to Corsicana, TX (that is an hour south of Dallas). So our trip went out the window.

Yeah for a job...Boo for my trip.

So last minute Nate's Aunt, Jean, aka, Auntie (pronounced with a Brittish tone) for Blake, and TT for Owen came to save the day!

Last year she visited as "Nantie" - a combo of Nanny and Auntie for those of you who are slow at my nicknames - and we went out of town for a few days...this year she returned but we stayed at our house and utilized a free babysitter. BTW she really liked us going out...because she loves us but loves having her great nephews to herself!

One fun thing she and I did was take the boys to ride their first train at Hermann Park. This was just as big of a hit as I had hoped. They are obsessed with trains and were so excited to ride! They proudly told their daddy for the next few days "I ride train! It go FAST!" We also got to play in the fountains, chase ducks, eat a picnic, see a horse and because it was by the medical center we saw LOTS of helicopters. It was an A+ day in the life of Blake and Owen.

Here are some pictures of our time with TT!

On the train!

Our date on our anniversary!

What 5 years brings you!

I have a few other videos...but this one pretty much sums up how Blake felt about the train!

HHHH-PPPPPP-UUUUUU

This past weekend Holly and I took our four kiddos with out hubby's to our college homecoming! We had a lot of fun! It was a ton of work, but not nearly as bad as we had thought it would be. My group made it through the weekend with only one timeout and one melt down each! I thought that was pretty good!
It was fun taking the boys to such a special place and equally as fun seeing faces I hadn't seen in years. Howard Payne is a special place and I am proud to be a part of it!
Here are a few photo highlights!

Here we come! At 8:30am!!! We got to stay at some of the Heston's family friends...this was our view when we woke up!


Owen was very concerned with Booper (Cooper) all weekend...he was trying to get him to say "Cheese!"


At the parade - they really loved the band! I think it was a shout out to Uncle Pete and Aunt Whitney!


Holly and her crew!


The boys sliding at the "Little Jackets Nest" - a play area just for kids.


Payton was singing the Alma Matter and ready to say "Ahh Sting 'Em!"


Here the kids are in front of Old Main Tower.


Me and my crew! (they were very tired at this point!)


Me and Holly!

I.am.energy.

Labor Day and Kingdom Focus

So over Labor Day we had the privilege of our friends the Ramsey's coming to stay with us! We hadn't seen them since May and they hadn't been to our home in 2 years! It was a blast having them here.

We also got to keep Drew one night so Lindsay and Hal could go to a wedding in the Hill Country. We had no idea what it would be like to have three 2 year olds (Drew is 4 months younger than B and O) - but I am pleased to say they did AWESOME! It was no different than having just two. I guess it helps that Drew is an easy kiddo!!!

We took them to the store and even made it to church ON TIME!!! It was so fun!

They are one tough gang!

Geeting ready for church was brought to you by Elmo on our bed!!!

On our way to church

This is our first night all together. We had been having a serious dance party...this is the calm version of it!

On another note...at our Mom's ministry meeting this morning God totally blew my socks off! I so happened to be sitting by a women who was really struggling with the fact that she had 3 miscarriages in the past two years and had not allowed herself to grieve those babies and was having a hard time moving out of her "low place" as she called it. I was able to share with her my story as well as pray with her. I am amazed at how God uses us and our stories to be his hands and feet to other people.

I have to go back tomorrow and most likely will be having another D&C...as I was sharing this with my sweet friend Abbey she told me she would be praying that I don't get stuck in the "why me's"...I don't want to get stuck there either. I want to be open and aware of the moments that are all around me that won't replace my baby, but that will allow me to minister to other hurting people and give them the same hope that I have. I want to maintain a kingdom focus through all of this and I am grateful for opportunities like this morning to see beyond myself and to see what this life is really about.

That is all I got for now!!!!

Wher oh where have we been?

For some reason, I have been seriously lacking in my blogging. I think the only people affected by this are family who live vicariously through the blog to see those two sweet boys named Blake and Owen.
We have had a ton going on the past few weeks. On a serious and sad note, I had a miscarriage a few weeks ago. I was 9 weeks along and since have had a D&C that did not go according to plan and have had a really hard time recouping. I am hoping to be back to normal soon.

On other, happier notes we have had so many visitors. God made me to be a people person and so he had lots of trips planned before any of this happened. I was so thankful to have the past few weeks filled with family and friends to help me get through this time.
So here is to catching up. I can't promise rhyme or reason to pictures...but at least you can see how cute the boys are!
These first two are for Auntie...because she sent the boys these very cute outfits!!!
Thanks Auntie!

We also had a visit from Nini and Pops. They spoiled us all rotten! It was great! I did a really bad job with pictures, but one day we went to the Children's Museum in The Woodlands. We had a great time...the boys loved it.

Here are the best pictures I got.
They really loved getting to drive the fire truck!

And if you are wondering about Christmas presents...we love trains!

Ok! More to come later!

One cool cousin

The boys are very fortunate to have some awesome cousins! Here they are a few weeks ago playing with John.
He had been dancing like this for a while...

Shamu, The Alamo and Deer...

Last weekend we took our first co-family vacation. We went to San Antonio with our dear friends, the Heston's. Despite the fact that it was 100 degrees outside we had such a great time. It is so much fun and such a blessing to have friends that are in the same stage of life and that are a ton of fun to be around.

We met them in San Antonio last Wednesday night. After getting everyone in and to bed we geared up for the next full day at Sea World. All of the kids (and adults) really enjoyed the animals and the shows despite the heat. We stopped mid day to go back and take naps and came back for a night full of a water park and two more shows.

Here are the Heston's enjoying some of the action!

Watching the water skiers...

I like the progression of these pictures.
Blake loves Payton (or Payti as he calls her)...and Blake doesn't care about being in charge....Payton and Owen on the other hand...they are both a little more dominate:). There was one point over the weekend where we were on a walk and Owen and Payton were trying to out run each other to be in the front. At the end of it all Payton is the leader of the pack. They are so cute to watch together. Here she is trying to round them up for a group picture.

The next day Nate and Clee went to play golf in the morning and then we switched that afternoon when Holly and I got to go shopping and get pedicures! That night we went to the Alamo and the Riverwalk. It was hot. But Nate has finally become a true Texan...he wore an Astros hat and learned all about Texas history from our tour guide and committed Alamo fan, Clee.

This is at the end of dinner...he was ready to go home :)


That night we drove out to Windermere. It is a little cabin in the Hill Country that we have gone to for our anniversary the past two years. We had a great time here for the rest of the weekend resting, playing games, catching up on naps and taking walks and looking for deer. It was a great end to a great few days.

Same yet different

The proof is in the picture!

A day in the life

People often ask me if twins are a handful...I always respond..."no they are just like having one!"

So for those of you who want to live in my shoes for 5 minutes - and this was literally all in 5 minutes - here you go.

We started with a clean house that turned in to this:

All of our jammies on the ground so we could practice putting them on...

That was fun, now let's wrestle... (You can see how fast this happened because the shirt on Owen's head in this picture is the one he was trying to get on in the picture above)

Ok, enough of that...let's dance!

Ok...now let's play chase! (I know this is hard to see but they are taking off from the living room and down the hall)

Around the corner through the kitchen

Back again...and they are down!!!!

I am tired just watching!