Welcome to the Jungle!

Our little family have definitely been travelers for the first half of this year. We have been all over the country and have finally begun to settle back down and get into a routine at home.

All spring long I was planning and anticipating having a yard and a garden.

When we were gone we had some people drive by our home to make sure it hadn't been burned to the ground while we were away. They all said the same thing, "Everything looks okay except you probably need to get the lawn cut." We did our best effort to call a company that would cut the grass for just a month until we could come back and do it ourselves. Everyone we called wouldn't do it for just a month and wanted us to sign a year contract with them (weird huh!). Well the days and weeks slipped by and since we couldn't really do anything about it we just kind of brushed it off.

We arrived home and took one look at the front yard. It really wasn't bad at all.



That is when we received the shocker.




The back yard was horrible. The grass had gone to seed and there were weeds back there that were taller than Darin. Not to mention there were four bushes that had completely died from a frost earlier in the year. It took Darin a couple of hours and a lot of restarting the lawn mower to get it back in shape. Our allergies were out of control that whole time. Thankfully things are getting into more of a groove. After having to rip out dead bushes and enrich the soil we have planted a small vegetable and herb garden in the back and a nice flower garden in the front. I am now anxiously waiting for the flowers to fill out so that I can post pictures of how good it is looking now. Thank goodness that jungle has been put out of its misery.

P.S. The front lawn didn't look so bad because our neighbor graciously mowed it for us. Apparently, before he mowed it, the front lawn was beginning to look like the back lawn did.

Teeth!

Cameron finally started getting his teeth and they are coming in quickly. His first tooth came in at the end of April, but I neglected to document the event in my blog. Now his first top tooth is coming in. Three teeth in a little over a month. Yay for my big boy!

Happy Birthday, Sweet Babies!

I cannot believe that my babies are a year old! They have changed and grown so much over this past year. Just yesterday I was sorting out some of their old clothes and I came across some of the pj's that they wore when they were newborns. I couldn't believe how small they were. I swear the leg sections went down from the bodice only three inches. Now they are wearing much bigger clothes and doing so much more than they did when they were first born.

In this past year the babies have gone through a lot. We lived in a tiny one-bedroom apartment, then lived with my family, then bought a house only to be spending more than half of the time in hotels and rental homes. Darin and I figured out that since they were born, they have been in fifteen different states.

They have gone from being completely helpless, to being able to feed themselves and get around on their own. They aren't walking yet, but Dallin is getting really close by balancing without any support. Cameron on the other hand is afraid of standing without support and very content with crawling around. They are beginning to say words and communicate. Most of the time it doesn't resemble the actual word, but we get the gist of their babble.

They charm us everyday and make us laugh. We are so glad that we have them in our home they have made life dramatic and exciting. We have surely had our difficult moments, but I am really looking forward to watching them as they continue to grow and mature.

For their birthday we celebrated a week ago by having a little party with our family members. Today, we celebrated just the four of us by having cake and ice cream and by giving the babies their big presents--new car seats. It was so funny to see the babies' reactions to having a solid mass of cake placed in front of them. Today, however, the cake didn't go as well because as Dallin was scarfing his down, he started to break out in hives. We had to take his cake away and plop him right in the bathtub. After a good washing, the hives went away. I don't know what triggered the reaction, I guess time and food experimentation will tell.

It was a good day and I thank the Lord for all of the things he has blessed me with, especially for these two sweet boys that I can be a mom to. Happy birthday babies!

Cha Cha Cha Changes

Well every springtime I get the itch for change. Sometimes it is my hairdo, sometimes it is a few pieces of my wardrobe. Well this spring the item that is getting a change is my blog title. Through much deliberation and trial I have settled on a new title. It is (drumroll please).........


A Kooky Little Paradise

I found this title from an old song that came on the radio as we were driving down the road. No, we don't really live in paradise, only Texas but our home is a paradise to me and our home is certainly kooky.

So, without further ado, enjoy.

Ode to Darin

Last week we celebrated Darin's birthday. We had a great time and this birthday was a very memorable one. While Darin was at work, the babies and I snuck out and got him some balloons, his favorite candy (jelly belly's), cake, and mint oreo Ben & Jerry's. He was surprised to come home to see the suite all decorated for the special day. He wanted to go out to eat at the Texas Roadhouse so we packed up the kids and headed out.

We were really enjoying our dinner and the babies were having a fantastic time. There were two little girls and their mom who came over and doted on them a little bit as they sat in their high chairs--we didn't think too much of it.

I had told our waitress that it was Darin's birthday and toward the end of our meal she brought the other servers over and they made Darin sit on this western saddle that was mounted on a wooden sawhorse. She called for everyone's attention and asked them to give him a "Texas Yee-Haw" and everyone responded with a loud whoop. It was then that I noticed that Cameron's face began to change from a smile to a grimace. Apparently everyone else noticed because they stopped Yee-Hawing and were looking at our babies. Cameron started crying worse then I have ever seen him. It wasn't even a real cry it was more of repeated very loud sobs. He couldn't catch his breath and tears were running down his cheeks. Dallin saw this and started screaming too. I grabbed Cameron and Darin grabbed Dallin and we calmed them down relatively quickly. The waiters and waitresses left and after a couple of attempts we saw that they weren't going to go back into their high chairs. We quickly finished our meal and the waitress came to our table. We were expecting her to hand us our bill but instead she said, "You don't have to pay."

"What?" Darin and I both said in unison.

"Someone else in the restaurant already paid for your meal. They asked me not to tell you who it is. There's really not much more than I can say other than that you don't have to pay."

This has never really happened to us before so we sat there stunned. I glanced around trying to figure out who had paid. I asked the waitress if she could thank the person and she said that she couldn't, they already left. Darin said that he saw that woman and her two daughters leave a couple of minutes previously and that it was probably them since they were talking to us for a while and since he saw them talking to the waitress before they left.

We left a generous tip on the table and left the restaurant in awe. Wow. A random person who we will probably never see again paid our fairly-expensive bill at a restaurant. Wow. Pay it forward. Someday I would like to do that to someone else kind of out of the blue like that.

What an interesting birthday Darin had. It was certainly unique.


>>Darin: love you hon. You are the best husband I could have ever dreamed of. You really are the best! Happy birthday. Here's to another great year!

The Babies' First Real Zoo Trip

On Friday Darin was able to get off of work a few hours early so we decided to take advantage of that and explore DC a little more. We loaded the kids in the minivan and headed off to the zoo. It was a free zoo and what can be better than that? It was so much fun to take the kids to the zoo and show them all of them all of the animals. We would wheel them around to the exhibits and you could certainly tell all of the animals they really liked. They really enjoyed the monkeys and the birds. There was this one little monkey in particular that would hop around from branch to branch that Dallin loved he would squeal when he saw the little monkey. It was so cute!

There was one bird in particular that was a Stanley Crane that we passed. That cute bird followed our stroller from one end of the pen to the other. Darin noticed it following us and walked back and it still followed. He ran from one end of the pen to the other and it ran alongside the stroller. He was the cutest bird. It reminds me of a story that my dad tells about a time when he was jogging along the side of the road (he is an avid runner--has run the Boston marathon etc.) and a sandhill crane flew down by him and literally ran with him for a couple of blocks.


Another time we were in a bird habitat where you could go into a room that had live birds all around flying in trees and such. I thought it was the perfect time to grab a handful of cheerios and give the babies a snack since it was so nice and cool in there. All of a sudden I found myself surrounded by birds. Not just little tiny flying birds, big walking birds. I didn't even fathom birds like that being in there! A couple of them even became so daring as to come really close to the babies. They had big beaks and I was afraid for the kids. Darin and I had to physically shoo the birds away and we quickly left that building.
The last exhibit that we wanted to see was the giant panda habitat. I was looking forward to seeing a live panda. We looked in all of the outdoor cages and didn't see even one sign of a panda. I gently suggested (ha ha) that Darin ask someone where they were. He did and we found out that they were located inside of a panda habitat since it was so hot outside. We followed the masses to an Asian looking building (by this time I was nearly limping because we had been walking around so long). I went in with so much anticipation. I walked up to the enclosure and gingerly looked in. I saw a huge mound of bamboo and right next to the bamboo was a small animal that looked unconscious. It was draped over a rock in the strangest position. It was completely spread-eagled. I numbly mumbled, "I think the dang thing is dead! Let's go."
After we left the building Darin grabbed me by the arm and pulled me under a nearby tree. "Honey I think that you really scared those kids in there. After you said that comment about it being dead a couple of them looked like they were about to cry." Whoops. Open mouth, insert foot.

Aside from almost being eaten alive by blood-thirsty birds, and freaking out poor innocent children, we had a great time at the zoo. The babies thoroughly enjoyed watching the animals and I am convinced that Dallin can now say the word bird--even though it sounds like diid. What a great time we had.

Dixie

Last weekend we were able to do something way fun. We traveled from Jacksonville, Florida all the way to Washington, DC. It was a blast and the weekend trip went by far too quickly. Here is a little sampling of all of the fun that we had.

1. The first stop that we made was at this old plantation home in Georgia. It was the Hofwyl-Broadfield plantation. It was a beautiful place with HUGE oak and magnolia trees that were draped with spanish moss. The house was absolutely charming with huge porches, spacious rooms, and gorgeous barley-twist furniture. The only major ado was that while we were walking around, pushing the kiddos in the stroller, spanish moss somehow kept becoming entangled in the wheels of the stroller making it impossible to push and making long trails behing each wheel. We still have the moss stuck in the wheels now even though we have tried repeadly to clean it off. Also, much to my chagrin, Dallin decided that he wanted to taste the stuff. A little clump of moss had fallen onto Darin's shoulder and Dallin grabbed it off when he was being held. I tried to get as much moss as I could out of his mouth, but I still think he swallowed a little bit.

2. On the evening of the first day we decided to stop and hang out for a while in Savannah, Georgia. We found an area of town where old cotton warehouses were converted into hip little restaraunts, bars, and shops. We enjoyed walking around and looking at all of the historic buildings and admiring all of the charm that Savannah had to offer. We found this candy shop on the river front named River Street Sweets it had the best pecan pralines I have had in a while! Oh how I love pralines... I wish that we could have spent a little bit more time in Savannah (and in that candy store ;).

3. We stayed that night and most of the next day in Charleston, South Carolina. Oh what a beautiful city! Darin was kind enough to watch the babies while I did a little bit of antiquing. I found a couple of cute dishes for my collection and I found a lot of amazing old furniture that I had to pass up on including two chairs that would have looked great in my living room--and on sale none the less (darn you airline fees). I also wanted to get a new vintage purse (oxymoron I know) so we stopped at this little vintage shop. It had some great merchandise at the front of the store but due to the funky smells and odd looking smoking paraphernalia from the back of the store I quickly selected a sleek silver clutch, paid, and then bolted out of that shop.

We walked around the historic Charleston battery and rainbow row. The babies enjoyed seeing people's dogs and the horses that pulled the carriages for tours (because they now love animals), Darin enjoyed reading all of the history and I enjoyed looking at the houses and yards. There was really something to fascinate all of us in Charleston.


4. Driving north, we came upon the little town of Wilson, North Carolina. That is where we decided to spend Saturday night. Since it was a Sunday, we found the local ward there and attended Sacrament meeting. I don't think that I have ever been in a friendlier ward (except that time in Oklahoma when there were only about 14 other people besides us). Almost everyone introduced themselves to us and doted on our babies. The people who spoke gave wonderful talks. One woman in particular spoke on being in debt and I about giggled outloud when she said in her talk, "I hope I'm not meddlin' but..." and then added a bit of town gossip about the real reason she thought a local couple got a divorce--debt (she didn't say the name but I just loved the accent and terms she used). I really wish that I could have popped a couple of tires on the rental van and settled down in this town. Hospitality, beautiful green landscape, slow lifestyle, what more can you ask for. Just like Mayberry.

5. Petersburg, Virginia was our final stop before we reached our destination. We stopped here for lunch at our new favorite eatery, Panera, and we let the babies crawl around in the van before we made the last leg of our journey. One memorable thing about this stop was that while we were at the Panera an older middle-aged couple was sitting at a table next to us eating. We were kind of playing with the babies and enjoying them when the older couple stood up to leave. The gentleman came over to us and said, "Keep enjoying them, because they grow up so fast." We hear comments like this quite often but this man had tears in his eyes and he just said it so sweet that it has just stuck in my mind.

Well we made it to DC and Darin has been doing his training for a week now. We only lost a few of the babies' toys in the process, but that is another story. I was so happy that we were able to make that trip as a family and we were able to see a little bit more of Dixie than we would have if we had traveled by airplane. We had a great time and really enjoyed the South. I look forward to going back again sometime soon. O I wish I was in the land of cotton, Old times there are not forgotton... For now we will look away and enjoy our stay in DC. More adventure is sure to come!