Happy Retirement, Grandma Martin!!!

Hey, Grandma Martin, we got out all of our Caterplliar tractors to play with in honor of your retirement from Caterpillar Tractor Co. Congratulations on 49 years and 3 months!!! We (including Mommy, Daddy, Aunt Kara, and Grandpa:) appreciate all of your hard work and dedication. You have worked hard to bless us in many ways, and we love you for it!!! You are a wonderful example of what commitment and dedication looks like, and we hope to inherit that characteristic from you. Caterpillar will be sorry to see you go, but we can't wait to have you around more often to play with us:)!! We love you, Grandma!!!

Can I fit in this box??

Boogie down, boys!!

Finally, another video for all of you fans!! Here's a little clip of the boys doing one of their favorite things - dancing to their Go Fish CD. When the music starts, their personalities really show through!! It's instant entertainment and definitely a highlight of the day for both the boys and Mommy and Daddy:).

Kisses!!

The boys love to give kisses to us, and recently, they learned to kiss each other.

Here we are practicing on Daddy first:).


"Brock wants to kiss me?!!? I guess it's okay, if you say so, Mommy."

Everything looks good, two willing participants:).

Even some reciprocation:).

Uh-oh!! Things are taking a different turn:(. "I just wanted to feel his face, mom!!"

Kissing is over!! Now we have to dry some tears:(.

We've checked for damages, and everything is okay, except for a few hurt feelings:). We still have work to do on gentle touch, especially when we're supposed to be showing love!!

Do I look like Albert Einstein??

This hairstyle was all natural bed-head, not altered for picture purposes:).

1 year pictures

Here are the boys' 1 year pictures, taken 10 days ago. They were very good, despite a very busy photography studio and a significant wait that pushed nap time to it's limits. It was definitely more of a challenge because of their mobility. They now can run out of the photo shoot if it pleases them, climb on props, or get out of whatever chair we put them in:). Kyle took a while to warm up, but we managed to get some great shots of both boys. What handsome guys!!

We didn't have Kyle's hair parted this way, but the photographer was fanning him with some cardboard to get him to smile - and voila, a new hairstyle (not that we'll keep it:). Too bad we didn't notice it until the pictures were all over:(.

Note Kyle's scrunched up shirt - he was rocking the whole time he sat in the chair, so pics had to be taken on the back swing:).

Big Boy Haircuts!!

One of the boys' birthday presents from Grandpa Martin was a set of hair clippers. We got the message loud and clear.... Time to cut the hair. We started with Kyle on Friday morning after breakfast. Kyle sat on a folding chair in the bathtub, I held him still/entertained, and Daddy manned the clippers. After my previous hair trimming experience with Kyle, we knew that my barber skills weren't the best, so it was a good idea for Daddy to take over with this task. Kyle did great and sat reasonable still while we learned how to run the clippers and what size of guards we should use. Then in the midst of changing the guard, the clipper came apart, and we couldn't figure out how to get it back together. Luckily, we were pretty much finished with Kyle's haircut when this happened. After a run to Sears and a nap for the boys, we finally got around to Brock. He wasn't quite as agreeable about the whole thing. We're not sure, but we think that he didn't like the feeling of the clipper guard against his head, and he was determined to get away. He managed to scale the back of the folding chair into my lap and then proceeded to try and climb over my shoulder, all of this while I was trying to hold him still and Daddy was trying to cut his hair. It was a good thing that we had a little experience and that he didn't have as much to cut because we were lucky to get off what we did:). He's definitely a little monkey!!Overall, it went well, and they look much better. I don't know why, but that first real haircut does make it clear that they're not babies anymore. Now we've got little boys!! Here are the results:

Are you ready for baseball season??

Pitcher and catchers have reported. The first spring training game is 6 days away. We have our bats and balls out, but we're not quite ready for mitts yet:). We're ready for baseball!! Is it ready for us???

For all of you fans who don't want to miss a single post, check below the twin birthday party post for another new one. Blogger categorizes them by the date they were started, not the date I actually managed to get it finished:). Don't want you to miss out on some fun birthday present pictures!!

A Twin Birthday Party

The second party of "Birthday Weekend" was a twin birthday party. Two of my first cousins on my Mom's side of the family also have sets of twins. That in itself is a fun bond to have, but even more exciting is that they all have birthdays in February, all within 3 days of each other. Brock and Kyle share their birthday with Andrew and Elizabeth, who turned 11 years old this year. Dixie and Kinzie's birthday is the 10th, and they turned 4 years old this year. All of this celebrating made for one very fun evening!! There were actually four sets of twins at the party, as my twin aunts (on my Dad's side) were also there to take part in the festivities. The waitress actually noticed them first, and was then astonished when we pointed out the other 3 sets of twins in the room. I think that she told the whole resturant, and the cook even came in to check it out:). It was a fun sight to see!!


Here are all of the birthday kids together in front of their cake. You might notice that Brock and Kyle rounded out the boy/girl ratio. Now there's a boy/girl set, a girl set, and a boy set of twins.


Everyone (except Brock and Kyle) tried to blow out their candles, but I think Dixie and Kinzie had most of the candles out before the others even took a turn. They were soooooo excited!!!


Here's the cake - a nice combination of princesses and race cars. Now that's pretty unique!!


Brock and Elizabeth were good buddies all evening long.


Here are all of the cousins that were at the party.


Aren't these two just too cute?? Precious little girls.

Here we are opening presents. Brock and Kyle actually seemed to be interested in what was coming out of the bags this time:).

Kyle and Mommy

As you can see, all of the kids were in on the action. We let the older ones open their gifts first, but they definitely didn't loose interest when it was Brock and Kyle's turn!!

Brock and Aunt Kara. We are so glad that you made the trip home to celebrate with us!!

Our little family at the end of the celebration. It was a great weekend, and a great culmination to a wonderful year!!