For Valentine's Day this year, Troy was working midnight shift, so he worked from midnight thursday night to 8 am friday morning. I was working on friday and leave the house around 7 am to see my first patient at 8 am. But since it was his friday, he got off a little early (around 6am). On his way home, he decided to swing by Starbucks and pick up drinks for us. Here is our text conversation:
That was supposed to be a white chocolate mocha. Clearly my phone autocorrect, did not know what I was talking about. Silly iphone. But he knew me well enough to guess what I would have wanted after I didn't see his text in time.
He got home with a few minutes to spare before I had to leave at 7 so we could chat about the night and the plan for the rest of the day (Optimus getting a hair cut, going to a friends house because they were on THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE!!!).
I went to work and Troy came up to meet me for lunch since Aurora was home with all the kiddos.
He brought chinese takeout, a box of chocolate covered strawberries, and a dozen long stemmed roses. No filter on that baby. They're just that pretty :)
I was definitely the luckiest girl in the hospital. He dressed up all cute too. Me in my scrubs and Troy in his khakis and button down shirt. On a date in the hospital cafeteria.
Normally, Troy and I go to Walmart on Valentine's Day and pick out a card for each other. We exchange them in the aisle of the stationary section, read them, and put them back in the shelving. 5 bucks for a card that you toss in the garbage a few days later is just not worth it to me. And it's way more fun to have a Walmart date on Valentine's Day. Haha.
So I'm not sure what possessed Troy to be all sweet and thoughtful this year, but I'll take it.
Ps. I didn't do ANYTHING for him to celebrate February 14. I went to work. And enjoyed him spoiling me.
I think we have found the REAL Santa. And he lives in Las Vegas. More specifically, at the Fashion Show Mall. He was here last year:
And he was here again this year with all our kids. He seriously is awesome. BEST looking Santa I have EVER seen.
We brought all of the kids to the mall in their comfy clothes and then when we got to the parking garage there, we changed Avery into her Christmas dress. We put the twins in their stroller and walked in front of Macy's, where Santa was set up with his elves. Troy was prepping Avery the whole time to "ask for a bicycle, ask for a bicycle, okay?"
We were TOTALLY that family who took forever because we changed Caris and Kinley's clothes when we got there. Lucky for us, there was only one family behind us and they were super patient. It's a funny thing. You have two infants and people are suddenly patient and inquisitive everywhere you go. And by "a funny thing," I mean a weird thing.
**side note: We went to Costco last week and Troy was pushing the twins and I was pushing the cart with the food and Avery. Troy got cornered for almost 10 minutes by an older woman (maybe late 60s) and her husband. The lady was CRYING when she saw them! "They are so beautiful! Are they real?!?!?" She was praying over them, crying, and asking all kinds of questions and Troy was seriously uncomfortable. BAHAHAHA! I just hid 2 aisles over and laughed. Poor guy. My friends with multiples were not joking when they told me that going out with them turns into a show and everyone stopping you and telling you about their sister's cousin who is a twin. It's a circus every time we go out. It's hilarious.
Anyway. Santa.
We made sure all of the kiddos were presentable and waited for Avery to tell Santa what she wanted for Christmas. She told him she wanted The Little Mermaid. Not a doll. Like the actual mermaid Ariel as a friend for a visit. Bicycle completely forgotten in favor of Disney Princesses. Then we handed the twins over to Santa for our picture. How cute are they?
After we retrieved twins from Santa, Avery hopped down from the bench and ran over to us. Troy said, "so did you ask Santa for your bicycle?" And Avery goes, "OH NO!!!" And she runs back over to Santa (while he's saying hi to the next family) and yells, "I NEED A PINK BICYCLE!!!!!!!!!!!!"
We started laughing so hard. Everyone was super nice about it...probably because she's so cute.
So, all of our Las Vegas amigos, if you want to see a great Santa, head over to the Macy's at the Fashion Show mall on the strip.
Maybe you noticed some changes on the blog a few weeks ago? We asked a friend to come over and take some pictures for our "mail out" Christmas card this year. And we figured while she was over here, we'd get some "everyday" pictures too, so that any photos we sent out to family weren't holiday specific.
Anyone remember the last cover photo I had up on the blog?
Well, we had some changes! And if you look up, we have a new pretty photo with Kinley and Caris! We went with a kind of summer-y color motif and the cream and teal look great on all of us! WIN!
Here are a couple more pictures for your viewing pleasure:
Caris looks mad:
Optimus looks like the happiest doggie in the world:
My favorite one of everyone...except Optimus :(
Best whole family photo. Optimus really is NOT fat or big...the camera angle is like a side view mirror: Objects may appear larger than real life:
Caris and Kinley dressed up as baby Santas:
In front of the Christmas tree:
Adorable Avery:
We also ordered all of our Christmas cards from Shutterfly again this year!
Here is our picture from last year that my cousin took for us over Thanksgiving:
It was super fun and silly. Well this year, I didn't have much time to troll pinterest for something cute and silly (read: creative) so we went for a theme of everyone being showered and wearing clean clothes. Having twins in the house is cutting down on my sleep. But that is a blog for another day. Coming soon.
Here is our card from this year:
So, Merry Christmas from our family to yours! I'm pretty sure that most of the people who read this blog are family trying to keep up with us, so you probably got mailed a card. To the other 5 people, MERRY VIRTUAL CHRISTMAS! I love you all and appreciate you reading so much!
This has been such a huge year for our family and all of the love and support poured out from our family and friends has been a blessing for us. I am have a bunch of blogs queued up, so hopefully, the next few days will be filled with updates and pictures...so include an update on what it's like to have twins. And have no sleep. And breastfeed twins. And how Avery is adjusting. It's been interesting and we definitely owe you all an update on that.
I am terrible about pictures. I take TONS of them, but never print anything out. I have grandparents who don't have smart phones or internet. Seriously. So they never see pictures of their great-grandkids. I am going to print off a mess of pictures the next time I go to Walmart and send the photos to them.
We have also NEVER had professional pictures taken. We always have friends take them who have nice cameras.
So eventually, we will have professional ones done, but in the meantime, we've gotten great results from friends.
Here's one from when Avery was born:
Here's one from a friend at White Sands:
And now we have new ones from the same friend who took our White Sand pictures:
We also took a mess of Christmas pictures, but I'm not sharing all of those until we get our Christmas cards in the mail!
But here are some outtakes. Avery making us laugh mostly. And Optimus reminding me of a t-rex.
Seriously y'all. Optimus's big, goofy face just makes me smile.
I threw a bear at Avery and Kristen took the shot while Avery was in mid-catch.
Avery's new favorite game is the "steal the nose" game and she started playing it in the middle of pictures. This is Avery stealing my nose.
Avery stealing Troy's nose. He's not super tolerant of the nose stealing game. She doesn't quite get the "be gentle" concept of the game. It's a TIGHT squeeze and pinch from her. Ouch.
We took some Christmas pictures in front of our stockings (we don't have a fireplace). We gave Avery a poinsettia flower to hold and she decided that it needed to go on Kinley's head.
Up close shot of the flower on her head.
Well, since we got our photos taken, we got our Christmas cards ordered today. So I just need to make sure I can get them addressed and in the mail BEFORE Christmas. Wish me luck!
As a side note, there are some fires in the mountains pretty close to our house and they were raging huge on the 4th. I took this picture from the exit ramp on the way home. You can really see the smoke funneling up there in this photo. So pray for all the families who have evacuated Mt. Charleston and the firefighters up there.
On the 4th of July this year, both Troy and I had to work, so we didn't get home until about 530pm. I raced over to Carolyn's (our nanny) to pick up Avery and Troy got some BBQ stuff together. We are blessed with a wonderful small group from church that we have spent the last few holidays with. All of us are not Las Vegas natives and don't have family around, so we spend holidays together...how cute are we?
For Easter, we had a potluck at our house. On Memorial day, we went BBQ'd at another couple's house and for the 4th we had another HUGE potluck with everyone at another couple's home in our neighborhood. It was a BBQ and everyone brought some meat and a side and we all kinda shared when everything was done.
I was the most impressed with the desserts, which the hosts provided. HOLY COW they were awesome. There was a Chips A'Hoy lasagna thing with layers of chocolate chips cookies dipped in chocolate milk and layered with Cool Whip and chocolate sauce. I died. It was awesome. There were brownies, fruit salad, and cupcakes where you could pick your icing of choice. There were a couple preggos there, so be assured, there were some seriously happy fetuses. And children.
After eating, we headed outside for some kid friendly fireworks. There were these things called "Pop its" that you throw at the ground and they make a cracking noise. Avery preferred to step on them. Poor girl seems to have gotten her coordination from her momma, so aiming and stepping at the same time was not easy for her...
The second she stepped on one, she would go chasing after Troy, who was holding her box, saying "more please, more please, more please" and making her best begging face. I mean, who could say no to that?
She loved it and went around stomping on the wrappers of ones that were already popped. She was actually pretty good at spotting ones that had been thrown, but didn't pop, so she sure showed us! Cackling the whole time. Love her.
No "in the air" fireworks were allowed. Hunter had bought a package of permitted ground fireworks for our viewing enjoyment :) The kids loved it! Avery kept wanting to run up to them... between Troy grabbing her shirt and the other kids holding her hands, we kept everyone safe. As of right now, Avery is the youngest child in the small group...but that will change soon because 3 of the 6 of us are preggo. Something in the water, huh?
As you can see, Noah kept trying to hold Avery's hand, but she would rip her hand away to get closer to the sparks...eeek! But look how cute all the kids are!
Here's a front shot of the kiddos all being sweet to each other. And Avery standing in the back, protected from running up to the fireworks.
We eventually pulled her into Troy's lap, which made them both very happy :) Even though after every firework, she would jump up and clap and say "AWESOME!!" Her Dad taught her that...he was so proud.
After the fireworks were over, everyone headed over to a neighborhood park for an HOA sponsored Independence Day celebration. I went home. I had to be at work seeing my first patient at 630am. Yuck. Too bad I forgot it was the 4th of July and apparently fireworks are involved. ALL AROUND MY HOUSE. So even though I had good intentions to go to bed early, it didn't really work out in my favor because people were celebrating. But that's okay, I got some good snuggle time with Optimus because he is terrified of fireworks. And Avery slept until about 945 the next morning.
I hope you all had a wonderful holiday! Anyone else do anything fun?
When we woke up Christmas morning (Avery slept until 8:30!!) we came downstairs to find that Santa came for a visit. Santa doesn't wrap Christmas gifts at our house, so he had left everything down in the living room on the sofa!
He enjoyed the cookies and milk:
The tree was trimmed and surrounded with presents :)
Here is the activity cube that the elves snagged and a bunch of stuffed farm animals. Santa (Troy) felt it was necessary to set up the mommas and babies in a "natural" state. Aka eating/nursing. Which I thought was HILARIOUS:
And here is Avery playing with her presents from Santa. I promise she was super excited. This was the only picture where she wasn't moving with super human speed, blurring up the camera.
And here is Avery playing with her kitchen for the first time!!! She LOVES IT! We let her play for about 30 minutes until we ripped her away to open gifts from under the tree.
I helped her put on the hat and apron and she was ADORABLE! She was intensely concentrating. I couldn't take it. SO cute. Look at her cooking mommy a breakfast souffle:
Here is a video of her playing:
We finally dragged her to the front room to open presents from family that arrived in the mail. Here's what we all made out with:
Some of Troy's include (you can see most of it in the picture):
1. A box of 3 Dremel tools
2. A HUGE bottle of ranch (OMG Dick and Emily...DYING laughing)
3. The new Ken Follett book
4. 2 Dave Ramsey books
5. Remote control helicopter
6. Season 1 of Duck Dynasty
7. Clothes (northface fleece, a running top, and 2 casual button downs)
8. Random fun (Chick-fil-a gift card, tervis cup, catch phrase)
Natalie's summary of gifts include
1. Random clothing articles (pajamas, a homemade scarf, a couple shirts)
2. 2 puzzles
3. 2 DVDs (Pitch Perfect and Dexter Season 6)
4. Giant 31 Barnes embroidered bag for organizing things
5. Gift cards (Amazon, VISA)
6. Various doo-dads (pocket calendar, cards, decorative wine corks)
7. TRENDY TOPS!!!
AVERY CLEANED UP! I could not believe how generous our family and friends were.
1. A homemade sock elephant and hanging letter "A" to match her nursery
2. Red Riding Hood puppets and book
3. TONS of books...I LOVE YOU GUYS FOR THIS
4. New floating bath toys that make fountains
5. Doug and Melissa toys...TONS - 4 puzzles and stacking blocks...LOVE WOODEN TOYS
6. A bouncing Benny. Avery is in love with this toy right now:
7. A dancing and singing Santa. We actually had to hide this in the next room so that we could continue opening gifts. She played with it for about 10 minutes before we took it away:
8. She got A TON of clothes. 2T and 3T clothes. Major win for Mommy. And her bank account. Troy's grandma pretty much cleaned up here. Ask and you shall recieve :)
9. Aunt Taylor got Avery a dress up box. She came to visit about a week ago and got the box and started filling it with TONS of dress up things. A feather boa, princess outfit, 2 purses, 2 hats, some shades, fairy wings, etc. Avery LOVES it. She is super into hats and necklaces right now.
We had a WONDERFUL Christmas and we are so grateful to everyone who spent time and money buying/mailing things. We love you all.
And here we finally are...at the big reveal!! And Troy and I could not be more proud!!!
We hung the art from part 2 to cover the hole in the back of the cabinet. There is a $1.99 towel bar from Ikea with S-rings for hanging utensils, pots and pans, and hot mitts on. We got 2 tap light from Lowes (one for over her head and the other for inside the oven). And there is a basket under the sink to contain the crazy from Target. With all of the food components, it was starting to get a little crazy.
Here is a little close up shot of the stove top and sink.
This is a close up of the bottom of the cabinets, the plexiglass installed (gorilla glue on the back), and the knobs...AHHHHH!
Here is a little bit different angle. Can you tell we're proud? It was definitely a group effort by Mom and Dad...ahem, Santa and his elves ;)
I would like to thank:
1. Laura, for picking up most of the kitchen food from Ikea
2. My dad for helping Troy with the manual labor portion
3. Wendy for getting the pots and pans that were sold out when Laura went to Ikea
4. And Troy for letting me purse some bigger projects lately :)
Without you all, this may not have happened and you all had a hand in this great gift for Avery and she loves it!!! I am writing this post on Christmas Day while she naps :) I just couldn't wait to share!!!
love you all and Merry Merry Christmas!!!
I'll be back tomorrow with Avery's Christmas and a round up of gifts for Troy and myself! I have videos....
So about a week ago, Troy walked with Optimus down to the mailbox and came back with this gem.
Troy: What is this?
Natalie: What is it?
Troy: Did you order small pox from China?
Natalie: What? NO. Gimme that!
(Opens package while Troy picks up Avery and covers her eyes as if whatever is in there will explode and pour acid into her eyes)
Troy: Well, what is it? It better not be a Christmas present for me. I don't want nothing from China.
Natalie: Are you kidding me right now? I bid on it on ebay and got it for a DOLLAR. I mean the shipping was 8.99, but that's still cheaper than I could have bought it for in the US.
Troy: That doesn't change the fact that it was probably made by a 2 year old in a sweat shop for a penny a day.
Natalie: Well if the US could make such nice things for this price I'd buy it from them instead.
And then I looped the necklace over Avery's head to annoy him.
So look at THIS one from J.Crew. FOR 150$$$$ - WHAT!?!?!
Bubble Necklaces are all the rage on pinterest right now.
Evidence here:
So here is my identical one. OH WAIT. Troy was protesting my support of China and covered it up for a few shots.
Here it is for real. Doesn't it look EXACTLY like the 150$ one from J. Crew?? Except mine is MORE awesome because I only paid 10$.
I LURVE IT! Merry Christmas to me. You can see that Avery likes it too. Her hand is all outstretched like "gimme gimme, let me touch, I lurve it!"
