We've had a new life experience over the past few months. We've been through a rough pregnancy, celebrated telling family and friends that we were having not one but two babies! And we've also gone through losing those two sweet little ones. 

These are the pictures we took to announce that we were expecting again, little did we know at the time there was two. I love these pictures, they represent our girls so well and show their personalities. Also how excited they were for a baby. 

Over the next little bit I will document everything but for now enjoy these pictures of these amazing little girls who will make the most wonderful big sisters some day. (My favorite is Kate's dress stuck above her bum!) 

The weather has cooled down a little bit the last couple of days and we have taken full advantage. 

I usually only drive to town once a week but we've already been three times and it's only Thursday morning! 

We were going to start potty training Kate on Monday. I had her show her doll how to run to the bathroom when she needed to go and had the doll sit on the toilet and go to the bathroom (a saringe with water hidden behind the doll). I made a big deal about the baby going potty, hooping and hollering, clapping. Kate was not impressed. She said "baby potty, baby potty. Crackers mommy? Crackers?" She ran out of the bathroom climbed on the kitchen counter and te crackers. I'll try again another day. 

But planning to potty train we ran out of diapers, a trip to town, hooray! We decide to go for a walk and play on the river walk path. The girls love exploring and playing outside, it was the perfect start to our day. Not to mention all of us took a 2 hour nap after that! 

That night we somehow convinced Cody to get ice cream at Dairy Queen when he got home at 8:30pm because te kids had taken late naps. I love that he is easily persuaded when ice cream is involved! 

Kate got her first haircut yesterday!! Both girls look a lot better with their hair tamed and trimmed. Ellie refuses to let me do anything to it and it was starting to look straggly. Ellie thought the hair dresser was te absolute best because she put purple glitter in her hair when she was done! 

Because they were so good we celebrated with a pancake breakfast from Denny's. These girls are getting so good at eating out that when I'm feeling brave we go out to eat at places besides fast food. Love having my kids to go do thing with. 

After breakfast was another promise of going to the park. 

Ellie kept shouting "I'm Peter Pan!" while on the swings. I asked her what her happy thoughts were about because you have to have them to make pixie dust work. "Puppies!!!" And? "More puppies!!!" 

Time for a random picture dump that I'll count as an update! 

Summer is flying by fast! This past week we celebrated two birthday's, Kate's 2nd and my 25th.

The entire day Ellie would randomly yell, "ITS YOUR BIRTHDAY KATE KATE!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!"

For my birthday we dropped off the girl's with Cody's brother and headed to Lagoon, it was a blast! "ITS SO FLUFFY!"

We spent the Fourth of July watching small town parades and fireworks! Nothing sweeter than a dad loving on his littlest girl!

We have crazy sleepers. I probably have at least 50 pictures of these girls sleeping because they are funny.

I ran another half marathon and got an amazing PR (personal record)!!! Four seconds shy of 1 hour 50 minutes, I beat my previous one by 8 minutes!!! Love having a sister who encourages me and does these crazy adventures with me. Crossing the finish line to Kneaders french toast and an amazing family is pretty great also!

We've done a couple fun things this summer. We took the girls to a movie, our first time taking Kate. They loved the popcorn but Ellie did not like that it was 9 pm and she was not at home. The last half hour of the movie she kept saying she was tired and kept asking to go home.

We spent quite a bit of time at the park, in our back yard kiddie pool, and at the library to keep us cool.

Ellie loves the library, can't you tell?! She also asks to go on a picnic three times a week and fishing and camping at least twice.

 

Our garden is amazing this year. Seriously amazing. 

If its too hot in our house (because who needs AC when its triple digits?!) we retreat to the basement and put together a lot of puzzles and play a lot of board games. There are currently six different puzzles scattered all around down there, half the fun is trying to find which puzzle the pieces go to!

These girls love to create mischief together, use their hands in any way, and fight with each other.

We like to randomly meet up with Cody for lunch in town. The girls were a little hyper yesterday but we had a blast!

Kate is a serious food thief. It doesn't matter if she has literally just finished her meal, she will come after yours.

I've been spending a lot of early mornings watching the sunrise and can say that I live in a truly beautiful place. At the beginning of June I did a local Duathlon (2 mile run, 12 mile bike, 2 mile) and learned that I like running a lot better than biking! I was dead during the middle!

An attempted fathers day picture. They would not smile and its hilarious!

Maybe the next update will only be in 2 months!

 

 

 

It feels like spring has sprung and we are loving it! Loving it so much that we've been to the park three times in the last week! 

Winter is hard for me, the after holiday blues are real, especially when Cody is gone just about every other week. I don't sleep too well when he's gone so I am pretty dang excited to have some real restful zZzZz's! He is currently driving home from the airport for what we know to be the last training for the spring! These girl's are crazy about their dad, I'm so glad for technology so that they can still see him while he is gone. 

 While he's been gone the past few months I have spent a lot of time keeping these girls busy and trying to stay busy myself. Between marathon training, binge watching netflix at night, & reading the Harry Potter series, I've been staying occupied.

These girls are getting to be so big. I don't feel right calling Kate my baby anymore, she is a full fledged toddler now! She thinks she is so funny and loves being wild and running around. A few days ago I decided to take a bath after a long run. I put Kate in her new to her toddler bed, turned a show on for Ellie's quiet time, & hopped in. Not even a few minutes later Ellie comes in to use the bathroom and decided to stay, insisting on holding my hand. Kate escaped her bedroom and we could hear her running up and down the hall laughing hysterically.

Last weekend I ran a local 10K race and won. Its not really that exciting when there are only five women but I was still really exciting to be able to say I won first place. Not to mention winning a pair of socks and a couple gift cards. 

The next couple months will be busy and great and we are so excited!