Martin Cousin's Christmas

Early in December, the Martin family has a tradition that we all look forward to - the annual waffle breakfast at Arlys and Arlene's. The waffle breakfast was started as a way to keep the cousins connected, as it had become increasingly difficult to get everyone together at Christmas time. All cousins know to keep a Saturday early in December open, before much of the Christmas chaos ensues. There are waffles aplenty, presents for the kids, and time to talk and reconnect. It is a time that many of us treasure and look forward to each year. Brock and Kyle got to experience their first waffle breakfast this year and seemed to enjoy it, even though it was nap time. They had plenty of cousins to play with (or watch:), and got lots of cuddles and kisses.

This is only part of the pack of little boys at the breakfast. They all had such a good time playing together:).


Kyle was too tired to play and preferred to cuddle with Aunt Arlene and watch all of the action.

Here are 3 of the 5 sets of twins in our family!!

Brock and Kyle share the same February 8th birthday as Andrew and Elizabeth - just 10 years apart. What a cool connection for them to share!! I feel a big birthday party coming in a few months:)!!

Tashawn says "Babies like to sit on my lap!!".

Kyle need a nap, and Tiff's lap is a good place to snuggle:).

Here's Kyle hanging out with my cousin Alan. I remember being scared of Al as a little kid (I'm not sure why - he's perfectly nice:), but Kyle wasn't scared at all. In fact, he seemed quite comfortable!!

Here's Brock - perfectly delighted with his new CD's!!

Kyle and Mommy - "Could someone please find me a bed to lay my little head??"

We spent the night at Grandma and Grandpa Martin's the night before the breakfast. Here are the boys playing on Grandpa's chair. I should have used the video feature to catch them jumping around on and off of the chair - the picture just doesn't do it justice.

Brock showing Grandma and Grandpa his new skill - walking!! He loved to walk towards the bean bag and then fall face first int0 it. Finally, a soft place to land!!

Play Date

Several of Rob's co-workers had baby boys in the same month as us and they've enjoyed comparing stories as the boys grow. We decided to get them all together for a play date to see how they interacted. They all did great, and a fun time was had by all.


Here's Joey, Corbin, Kyle, and Brock. Corbin was such a nice boy to share his toys. Brock and Kyle really enjoyed having some new things to play with, and Mommy and Daddy got some ideas of new things they might enjoy. Christmas is coming, you know!!

Kyle LOVED playing with the sing-a-long stage. Here he is sharing it with Joey.

And with Corbin:). As you can see, he spent a considerable amount of time playing with this toy!

Here's Brock sitting on the couch with Daddy. He's such a goof!! Look at that smile!

New Predicaments

Here are some of our funny predicaments of late. The stronger we get, the funnier they become!!


Here's the close-up - just so you can see the distress on his face:).

Once again, no babies were harmed in the making of this post!!!:)

Who cuts your hair?!?

Poor Kyle!! Well, we've decided. Barber I am not. Kyle's hair had gotten a little unruly around the ears, so Mommy decided to give him a trim. She had done this once before with no ill effects, but this time Kyle was not so lucky. It seems that she got a little over zealous with the backward motion of the scissors, and forgot to curve down around the ear. Luckily, he's so cute, hardly anyone will notice and hopefully it will grow back quickly. Brock got his first trim and things went much more smoothly for him. At least Mommy learned her lesson!!!

Here's the good ear.

And the not so good ear!! Glad it's winter so he can wear a hat. Now only if we can convince him to keep it on!!

This is just to prove how cute he is and that no one will stop to notice the hair cut!! (and to prove that he's not too mad at Mommy - he still smiled for the picture:). To all of you hair cutting mommies out there, drop me a line with any tips for cutting kids hair without botching the job!!

New Shoes!!

This is my first attempt at the video thing, so bear with me - I'm still learning. The lighting is not good, but you can still get the jist of the story. The boys have both worn Robeze which are soft soled shoes, but they have never worn real shoes until last Friday. Here are the responses I got from 2 very different little boys. The first video is Kyle and the second video is Brock. You also can see and added bonus on the 2nd video of a little drama that is played out every day at our house - pacifier wars:).

Christmas Card Outtakes

As I mentioned in the previous post, we finally have our Christmas card picture taken. I know that by putting these on the blog, we'll ruin the surprise for some of you, but after this picture taking experience, I just had to share a few of our ummmm, shall we say, not chosen pictures:). It was fun and trying at the same time, and in the end, we were very grateful for digital cameras. I can't imagine how much film we would have wasted the old-fashioned way!! But I'm also glad for these outtakes because they tell the everyday story of our life, shows a little of their personalities, and gives a glimpse into just how fun our 2 little boys are:)

Santa comes to State Farm

Last Saturday, Santa came to State Farm to visit, bringing gifts for all of the children!! We had signed the boys up for a visit (did you know that Santa takes appointments??) and were excited to see how they would do. We had high hopes of taking our Christmas picture there, as they have lots of cute picture backgrounds set up, but things didn't quite work out as planned. For all of you prompt people whose Christmas cards are arriving in our mailbox, I apologize. I can almost hear it now, "She doesn't even have the picture taken yet??!!??" Unfortunately, having two 10 month old boys has not cured me of my procrastinating ways:(. Poor Kyle had a bad cold/cough and was feeling pretty rough. Combine that with the fact that our assigned time was smack-dab in the middle of nap time and you get one little boy who could hardly keep his eyes open, let alone muster up a smile for the Christmas card!! We were planning on leaving him home until about 1/2 hour before departure time, but then got very sad at the thought of pictures of Santa with only little Brock:(. So, putting good sense and good parenting aside, we dressed them both up and away we went. Neither one was afraid of Santa or Mrs. Claus, and Brock actually had a great time. At least we got our first Santa photo with both boys and got some nice Christmas loot. Here are some pics of the day:

P.S. At the time of this post, the picture cards are taken, ordered, and hopefully on there way to us:).