Opus 316 - Pooh's Modesty

Lissa has a stuffed Winnie the Pooh that she sleeps with every night (in addition to her Teddy and Teds - Joshua sleeps with Tigger and Teddy). She has recently discovered that Pooh's shirt is removable. The other night, she looked at her shirtless Pooh and said, "Pooh shirt off. Pooh naked! Pooh funny!!" - as Joshua laughed hysterically in the background. She is such a ham!

Opus 315 - Mama's Shoes

The kids have now decided that playing with Mama's shoes is the new "in" thing.

Don't you love Joshua's horizontal and vertical stripes? Daddy dressed Joshua that day - he said to me, "He matches - there's blue in the shirt and blue in the shorts." LOL!*

*In Jason's defense - he dresses the kids quite often and usually does a really good job of picking outfits.

Opus 314 - Camping Trial

We decided to go on a short camping trip as a trial run for the upcoming family reunion. We thought it would be nice to go some place we have never been, so we drove up to Dinosaur National Park near Vernal. We stayed at a nice KOA just outside of Vernal. Overall, the kids did pretty well with the whole camping thing. That is, if you don't include the "sleeping" time.

They did not sleep well at all. They are not used to having so much space and they also are not used to having to keep covers on them. Sleeping bags don't work for them since they are moving around so much - they would have ended up with their heads at the bottom of the sleeping bag. So we put them on top of their sleeping bags with lots of blankets. It was quite cold at night - they had a hard time staying still enough to keep the blankets on them and their winter PJ's didn't quite cut it. They kept waking up... over and over and over. I think I got about 3 hours of sleep. At one point, after putting a kid back to bed, and got back into my bed, turned to Jason and said, "I wish I could say that I'm never going camping with 2 year olds again..."

However, the kids really did enjoy themselves. We went swimming, made pie-iron pizzas in the campfire, ate at the Father's Day pancake breakfast hosted by the KOA, enjoyed talking to our neighbors, visited the Vernal Temple grounds, and even went to McDonald's to get some ice cream and let the kids play in the air conditioned play area.

Chillin' with Daddy in the tent

Trying out the sleeping arrangements

I took these pictures while they were watching the fire - they were a bit hesitant

Visiting the Vernal Temple grounds

Playing in McDonald's

The Dinosaur National Park turned out to be fairly uninteresting; mostly because the visitor's center is being rebuilt and the quarry was closed. We took a short shuttle ride out to a trail that took us up to see some dinosaur bones that are in the rocks. The hike was a little tough on the kids so Jason and I ended up carrying them... have I mentioned how big they are getting? The kids absolutely loved the shuttle ride (or "baby bus" as they call it). They still talk about it.

Someone offered to take this picture for us - it's a little hard to see us :)

Opus 313 - Bedding Trauma

Lissa has decided that taking off her sheets and mattress cover is THE thing to do each morning and during nap time (in addition to completely removing all clothing - the diaper would be included if we didn't duct tape it). The clothes I have come to terms with. We change her clothes in the morning anyway, and we take off half of her clothes to change her diaper after her nap, so it's not really that big of a deal. Putting her sheets and cover on twice a day, however, is getting old. It's getting very old. Any ideas on how I can prevent her from doing this?

I was talking to my Mom about this dilemma and asked her, "Did any of your children do this?" She answered, "Well, actually, yes - just one..." Yeah, that's right, it was me. Dang it! So she inherited this craziness!

I shouldn't be surprised. Lissa is just like her Mama and it was meant to be. It's the oldest daughter "curse." My Maternal Grandma said to my Mom several times, "I hope you have a child just like you!" She did - me. My Mom said to me several times, "I hope you have a child just like you!" Along comes little Lissa. I don't mind. I think I turned out okay and if that's how Lissa will be, then everything will be just fine. Oh, we'll have our challenges along the way (and already have) because we oldest daughters are energetic, mischievous, and stubborn, but we'll make it :)

Opus 312 - Patriotism

I love the $5 flag t-shirts at Old Navy. Lissa and Joshua picked out their shirt color this year:*

*I could only get Joshua to sit still and smile by telling him to hold up his Lightnings.

Opus 311 - Latest Car Game

Joshua decided that he needed a new place to line up his cars:

Opus 310 - Pillow Time

Lissa and Joshua love, love, LOVE to jump and fall. They do it in their cribs all of the time. We have had our share of bloody lips/noses from their jumping. Their latest thing is put all of the throw pillows together and play with them.

Opus 309 - Goofballs

Seriously, my kids are crazy:

Opus 308 - NICU Reunion

We were able to attend the NICU reunion again this year. I was worried that we wouldn't make it since I had to attend an all day marching band clinic with my high schoolers that day, but we made it. It is always nice to see some of the nurses that took care of Lissa and Joshua when they were so tiny. I was especially pleased that we got to see the occupational therapist this time. Annie is amazing! I am so grateful for all of the help she gave us when we were teaching the kids how to eat!

(I love Lissa's classic "What are you doing???" look - she gives that look to anyone that she is not familiar with or is not interested in talking to/playing with.)

Opus 307 - Racing Time

We were offered free tickets to the World Super Bike Championships held at the Miller Motorsports Park on Memorial Day so we decided to load the kids up and take a trip out to Tooele. As we guessed, Joshua absolutely LOVED watching the races. Seriously, the kid was in heaven. He looked so cute in his Lightning McQueen gear too - hat, shirt, shorts, shoes, and sunglasses. Lissa enjoyed watching for the first minute or two, but then found other ways to entertain herself - like learning to drink from a regular water bottle, throwing the cap around, etc.

We have found that food is a necessity when trying to keep 2 year old twins happy :)

Because it was Memorial Day, they had members of the Armed Forces there displaying some of their "stuff." The kids enjoyed looking at the air plane.

and then they found the playground...

They especially enjoyed the helicopter (or applecopper, as Joshua calls it).

Lissa chillin' during some down time... (notice Joshua checking out the goldfish - that kid loves to eat!)

Do you remember those sound protection ear phones we got for the kids a couple of years ago? They're still handy!

Last, but not least, a short video of Joshua LOVING the race: