Catching Up...

These pictures are out of order but they'll give you the gist of what we've been up to lately...

These are my parners in crime...where you find one, you'll usually find the other.  If you see one come crawling around the corner, the other is not far behind - it's so funny! 

This drawer is their absolute favorite one...they LOVE to throw every utensil on the floor - and there are a LOT of utensils in that drawer!  It entertains them so much that I haven't had the heart to put a lock on it yet - but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't strongly tempted to do just that a time or two!

 If the fridge is open - these two crawl faster than you can believe to get right in it before it's shut.

 My babies are ONE!!  These are their new birthday outfits and I made (somewhat) easy Mickey and Minnie Mouse cupcakes for their cakes this year. 

 
 They got lots of great snacks, sippies, toys and cute clothes - but they lost interest in opening all the gifts after they discovered a couple of their favorite snacks - Jacie grabbed one snack and crawled to a corner to eat it while we opened the rest of her presents for her - ha!

 This was just a funny series of pictures I took...happy...

 happy....

 MAD!! 

 Now...on to our trip to Idaho!  It's been SEVEN long months since I've been able to visit my family in Idaho.  We went up to celebrate my parents' 50th Wedding Anniversary - way cool, right?  My parents are amazing - they raised 14 children and are now being bombarded by more and more and more loved ones multiplying over the years - they can claim 110 family members right now with 5 more currently on the way (2 weddings and 3 babies to come soon) - all from their happy little marriage back in 1962.  WOW.
This picture is of my dad trying to make the twins stop crying as they waited for us to be ready to go out to dinner to celebrate the big anniversary.  Serious bicep workout right there!

 And we made it to dinner!  About 25 of us were able to make it and we had a fabulous waitress who took great care of us and didn't even balk at the sight of so many Judys!

 My parents' anniversary just happens to land right on my baby brother's birthday (Lane).  His wife had some great stickers made up for all of us to wear that had his picture on them with Happy Birthday Lane written all around it.  He's a good sport - he even smiled happily as many of the waiters/waitresses sang a funny birthday song to him in front of everyone!  It was a fun evening.

 Now to the actual reception/party the next night...This is a cake that Bethia (and associates) came up with - each of the 14 kids has their own little cake with a paper showing their own little families - so cool.

 This is a close up of my cake - it tasted great too!

 This is a shot of the crowd we had all night - we were able to take family portraits before the shindig and we look forward to getting some copies of that.  There was a steady stream of people all night - so many lives touched by my good mom and dad over the years.  It was fun to see faces that I grew up with but haven't seen for many years.

 My darling baby Jacie was stuck to my side all night - she likes crowds but only if I'm holding her!  This shot also shows the corsage that my sister Delene made for the sisters to wear.  Serious talent in my family!

 The kids LOVED spending time with cousins they rarely see.  Lots of little girls in this age bracket - but Jarrett was happy to join their fun!

 And, yes, I had to sing.

 More fun cousin time - this is them playing a really cute game I fell in love with...they're singing, "Little Sally Walker walking down the street.  She didn't have a friend so she stopped in front of me and said, Hey girl, do that thing, do that thing and switch..."  Add a little boogie between the two girls singing the Hey girl part and it makes a very entertaining game to watch!

 Upon our arrival home - a couple more days passed before our twins turned ONE.  Here are more birthday shots that didn't make it to the stack of pictures at the top of this post! 

 Oh - another random picture - oops!  This one makes me laugh because it's a testament of competitiveness, believe it or not.  Alissa has been leaving me little "you are the best mom ever" type notes where I'll find them after she's gone to school.  I wrote her one and stuck it to her alarm clock and Carly discovered it.  I soon found this GIANT poster that said "I love you mom.  Love, Carly" on my bedroom wall.  She waited a couple days but never discovered a giant poster back from me - so this time she made the notes pictured below.  I had to laugh then I followed through this time and made her a similar note and stuck it to the headboard by her pillow!  These girls crack me up.  A funny follow up to this note is that she made her own set of notes to tape to the ones I left on her bed that said "I love you too mom" - but kept them on her bed!

 Okay, sorry for that side track but it was worth the read, right?  Here are the inevitable pictures I take of the birthday haul...Jacie's

 and Trevor's...

 Their Great-Grandma Sandy sent them money from Washington so I'm thinking they are going to want some giant bouncy balls from Walmart - ha!
Here's a shot of them "sharing" their cake and ice cream - they are always passing food back and forth - or often stealing food and sippies back and forth is more like it - if I leave their high chairs too close to each other!

 And now, we have a BIG garden project this year...this is what it looked like before we started attacking it - what a hard job - but it's inches away from being ready to plant - and here's hoping the weeds don't overpower it.  I've got a long summer of gardening ahead of me but the harvest will be worth it!

 This is how we spent most of our Saturday - we also mowed the lawn, weed wacked and cut down some ugly bushes along our fence - looks and feels SO FABULOUS now!  Both Matt and I realized how easy apartment living is when there is no yardwork to do but I'll take this, thank you.

 The fun continues...the girls made fun Jester hats at their school's literacy night earlier this week so they were in the middle of some make believe game they were playing that required their jester hats and working in the dirt. 

 This is the new kids' bench Matt's sister's family gave the babies - Jacie LOVES to climb on top of it.  She is also working hard to perfect her WALKING skills - pictures to come soon! 

Thanks for sharing our journey over the past few weeks - let the fun continue!