"a spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down"

I feel like one of the advantages to having these twins a little later in our life is that now we have our older kids to experience it with and enjoy the fun. It's important to remember to have some fun every once in a while. If you don't then I'm pretty sure it's more a case of "when" you'll crack rather than "if" you'll crack. One way I like to unwind is to mess with Jackie and the kids. An oldie but goodie that I like to do with Jackie, is wait until she puts a baby on the couch and surround them with pillows to keep them from falling off while she runs to grab their diaper. I wait until she's gone and I carefully move the baby onto the ground then wait and see how fast all the color drains from her face when she comes back in the room. Now that every mom reading this hates me, you should know that I've quit doing that one because Jackie threatened me physically, and I don't want be the boy who cried wolf , just in case they do fall off something for real.

I do think the kids get the worst of of the pranks. Case in point, when we were in the NICU with the babies they had these huge syringes that they would feed them with. When I saw those syringes naturally I had the same thought that any dad would have, "That thing would scare the crap out of my kids!" so I borrowed one of the humongous syringes from the hospital, filled it with apple juice, threw a huge needle on it and told the kids a story. I told them that Grandma Shoell had called and told us that all the local pools had tested positive for kryptospiritum (sp) and that if they wanted to be around the babies they would need a Gamu-globulin (sp) shot. How they reacted at the sight of needle said a lot about how each of our kids handle pressure. Lindsay immediately broke into tears; Kade looked frantic and started crying; Kalli impressed me the most, she kept quiet, made herself look smaller, and located the nearest exit. Me and Jackie couldn't keep a straight face for long, and eventually the kids were able to laugh about it. I like to think that by the time they are grown, our kids will have built more character than any of their friends.

Kalli's really getting into the role.

 

Kade still needs to work on his acting a bit.

 

Good tidings we bring!

We had another great Christmas this year with some exciting things happening. The family got a piano (used) as well as some other news. The Loveridge family is up-sizing! Jackie is pregnant, and from what the doctors tell us from the ultrasound, she's having twins. This news has brought mixed reviews. Everything from cheers and slaps on the back to awkward silence, but either way we are pretty excited. It's still early and considering our past attempts at getting pregnant we are still a little cautious that everything will turn out good, but we've done a lot of praying and fasting over the past 2 years and definitely feel like this is an answer to our prayers.

We've received some good reactions and feedback from the kids, they are all super excited. We told them on Christmas morning, which got some "happy" tears from Lindsay, and a little bit of confusion from Kalli. I tried to load the video but it's not letting me, so just text me if you want to see the video.

Kalli is a bit more of a realist. Me and her ran to the store yesterday, and as we were walking down the aisle she said "Do you think you and mom can handle 5 kids?" I had to hold back a laugh, but I asked her what she meant. She said " Well Kade pees in his bed a lot, and baby's don't sleep very good, so you and mom won't get a lot of sleep." Just when I start to underestimate one of the kids they show me just how observant they are.  Yeah we're a little nervous. I guess we're hoping for some divine intervention.

Kade has been nothing but giggles and one liners since we told him. He is convinced that they will be a boy and a girl, and he wants to name them Hopo, and Chopo. I'm not sure which of those is the boys name, but we'll cross that river when we get there. He also said that the boy can share his room, but not the girl. And that his new roommate won't cry at night because he'll tell him not to. I can't wait to see that work so we can use his own technique on him.

He also told me that he know what we need to do when the babies need to go poop. We can hold them over the toilet while they poop, because their bums won't fit on the circle part (seat) of the toilet. That's a pretty good idea. It should really help us save on diapers. (I'm realizing just now that a lot of Kade's stories involve poop, I hope that changes)

Well regardless of whether we're crazy or not, we are excited and are hoping for the best. All prayers for Jackie and the babies health are welcome.

Not a creature was stirring

We had a great Christmas here in the Loveridge household. Everybody got what they wanted (or what we could afford) and we got to see some family that we hadn't seen in a while. All in all it was a great holiday season. There were some funny instances, some Christmas related and some not. The first two involve a mouse.

Kade- We had been out as a family caroling or roasting chestnuts or something and when we got home and opened our garage door we saw a mouse bolt behind a board. This kind of freaked everybody out - except me and Lindsay - Jackie spent the better part of an hour trying to reassure Kade that there was no way for a mouse to use the door to get into our house. Eventually the only thing that convinced him is that Jackie told him that the mice don't have a key to our door.

Kalli- I went that night and bought some mouse traps so that everybody could sleep easy. I thought it would be educational to show the kids how a mouse trap works. I was very careful as I set it and explained what happens when the mouse touches the yellow fake cheese. Then I told them not to touch it and I turned around to get a pencil to set off the trap. Apparently the fake cheese is more irresistible than I thought because I heard a snap and turned around to see Kalli (bless her heart) with her hand in the trap and a look of shock on her face.

Lindsay- this last one doesn't involve a mouse, but it does include a trap. On Christmas morning while we were all eating our Christmas ebelskivers, Lindsay came up next to me with the note Santa had left for the family. She was looking at the note, and in her most nonchalant way said "Hmmm Santa's handwriting looks an awful lot like your hand writing dad." then she set a pen on the letter and said "why don't you write something" I calmly said under my breath "why don't you be quiet". I guess she's just growing up despite my wishes. I must say that was pretty smart of her to figure out that Santa had forgotten to leave a note and asked me to do it for him.

Shacks, Speed-o's, & Copy cats

I just had to write down a few things before I forget them.

1. We were driving home the other day and as we were passing a trailer park we noticed a cop car with it's light on in the trailer park. Lindsay turned to Kalli and casually said " Kalli look at that cop car in that little city of tiny shacks". If that doesn't make us sound like snobs I don't know what does.

2. With all the storms we had a while ago Kade became pretty fascinated with the weather. One of his questions he would ask me every time lightning would strike was whether or not the lightning was going to "bite" us.

3. I got up early the other day and was drawing when Kade wandered out of his room at about 6:00 a.m. His eyes were still shut, so I asked him if he wanted to go back to sleep. He nodded his head, and as I picked him up to put him back in bed he asked me if there were monkey's in our trees. I told him there weren't any and he said "okay, . . . can I go to the store with you when you go?" I imagine that's about how the conversation would have gone if he had been drunk.

4. This isn't anything cute that my kids did. I just wanted to thank Tiff for the sweet speedo she brought me back from Italy. I tried in on as soon as I got home (over my garments of course). I don't know how europians can wear those in front other people. While I had it on I think I felt more naked than if I had actually been naked. Don't fear though I'll post some pictures of my self wearing it just as soon as I can get my body fat percentage down to 3% or when hell freezes, which ever comes first.

5. Lastly, I've noticed recently that Kade has been copying nearly everything I do. I confirmed this the other day when I came home and took my pants off and put on some basketball shorts. Kade disappeared for a little while then came back in his basketball shorts. I tested my theory to see if I was right by going and putting on my cowboy boots. He walked into the kitchen looked at me, then down at my boots, and ran to his room only to come out a second later with his cowboy boots on. We ate dinner like that then he came up to me afterward and said his boots were hurting his feet and asked me to put on my flip flops. I'm flattered and a little self conscious to know that he watches me that closely. I guess this means know more scissor juggling.

Can you hear me now?

Communication is kind of fascinating to me. There are so many different ways that people can communicate with each other these days. It’s also amazing how early in childhood it starts. I’ll try to keep this short (but that might be impossible).

First off there’s Kade. He’s really turned into quite the talker. Like any other kid his age he just repeats everything he hears. I guess that’s why everybody has funny stories about kids at that age repeating funny little things, like racial slurs and swear words. Kade hasn’t said anything too embarrassing, he prefers to express himself through song. He has a beautiful little song he sings which is a mash-up of “all the single ladies” and “the sun will come out tomorrow”. Normally I would say that these two songs go together about as well as diarrhea and a trampoline, but Kade has managed to blend them seamlessly together.

When it comes to communicating Lindsay and Kalli take it to new heights. My first example of the brain trust is when I walked into the bathroom and found Kalli crammed under the bathroom sink screaming something into the cutout for the drainpipe. Just as I’m about to ask what on earth she’s doing I hear Lindsay’s muffled response come back through hole. Apparently they felt that this way they could share secrets back and forth between the two bathrooms. I guess it would be secret as long as no one else was in the house at the time to hear the muffled screaming. I would make fun of them but I seem to remember a couple of other kids who made a pair of peep holes that looked into the back of Mom & Dad's closet in the old Orem house. Want to know what a suit coat looks like in the dark?

They don’t use the bathroom to communicate anymore, because for Christmas they got some sweet texting devices ($10 at Wal-Mart). Kalli doesn’t read very well yet, so this is usually how it goes down. They sit down a foot away from each other and Lindsay starts to type out her message (it’s usually “Kalli what are you doing?”) then Lindsay tells Kalli that she sent her a message and takes Kalli’s texter to read to her what she just sent. Then Kalli gives her answer to Lindsay who then responds and sends the message back to herself. I could only bear to watch this whole process once. Come to think of it I would probably rather have them yelling at each other through the bathroom walls.

Veteran-arian-egetarians

I love that my kids are old enough to communicate with each other in full sentences. One of my favorite things to do is eavesdrop on my girls in the back seat as we drive somewhere. They always have the most interesting conversations. The other night we were driving home from a Memorial Day party, and I heard the girls in the back seat discussing holidays and birthdays, and how cool it is to have a birthday on a holiday. Lindsay proudly told Kalli that her birthday was on Veterans Day. Kalli asked Lindsay what Veterans Day was. So Lindsay told her it was the day that we remember all the Veterinarians that have died for us. Kalli seemed impressed with Lindsay’s knowledge of the subject. On a slightly unrelated (but somewhat related note) Lindsay was telling us that there were some kids in her class that were really rude because they eat meat in front of a girl whose mom is a veterinarian. Me and Jackie thought that maybe she had mistaken a veterinarian with a vegetarian but she clarified that she thought the kids were being rude because the girls mom takes care of animals and all these kids are eating animals in front of her. The whole thing seemed very funny at the time. And apparently Lindsay has a fixation with veteranarians.