The Stewarts Came...

  And it was good times!

Our first week home from the hospital we were a family of not six but eleven!!  Yes, eleven of us living in our house for the first week home with Tesa and Tyce.  Brian, Kimberly, Brandon and Taylor paid us a visit all the way from Oklahoma.  Yes, I know that six and four do not make eleven....but remember C.G. was hanging around for a while to help us out....that makes eleven.  I am so glad that she was here because most of that week it was her and me with Tesa and Tyce while the rest of the crew was out and about enjoying a little summer vacation.  Brian had only one week off of work for the summer and that week was dictated for him several months prior so they booked plane tickets as soon as they found out his week off.  We were hoping that the timing would be right and they would get to meet the new babies.  

I don't have many pictures off their trip here because I didn't get to go on any of the outings.  In fact, I still couldn't go up and down the stairs more than a couple of times a day while they were here....I was still  trying to recuperate. I did send the camera with Kyle for each adventure so I do have just a couple of pics of each thing they did.  I will share what I have.  Please forgive me for not having any stories to go along with the pictures.  Feel free to make up your own stories! Ha!

 Here are my favorite snapshots from the week.

Let me preface these by telling you that the Stewarts had a long day of flying and a super late night upon their arrival in Washington.  However, they were more than happy to have new babies to hold.  I took advantage of that and grabbed myself a nap.  When I woke up, this is what I found....

 Apparently I wasn't the only one who needed a nap!  I love it!  Especially sweet Taylor just laying in the floor with her juice cut apparently not caring at all that everyone else was asleep.

So, here are some of the fun things that they got to do while visiting...

Charlies's Safari

Brandon and Ryne heading in to do some climbing around.

Aunt Kim enjoying a little bouncing around with Ryne and Taylor.

Brandon, Kade and Taylor all on the ground....bounced out I suppose.

 The Zoo

I think they spent quite a bit of time playing in the kid-zone on this trip.  Looks like Ryne is making a new friend.

Kade and Bradon were climbing on the spider web.

Ryne, Kade and Brandon watching the white "monkey" in the corner.

Ryne and Brandon checking out a bird of some kind.  Maybe it's an owl???  I wasn't there, remember.

The Northwest Trek.

Got very few usable pictures from this trip.

Here's a nice picture of a moose.

Ryne and Kade trying to see something.  Maybe this was the barn owl exhibit.

 And that does it for the usable pictures from Northwest Trek.

Most of the rest of them look something like this....

 Apparently they let Ryne be the photographer for the day and he was not on his A game this day.  I have definitely seen Ryne do much better work than what he brought home from this trip.  Not blog worthy material.  He must be needing more lessons.

He may need lessons on taking pictures but not on posing for pictures.  He seems to have that down....

Can you tell this big brother was proud to be holding both babies???

 It wasn't his idea.  He heard Aunt Kim wanting to take a picture with both Tesa and Tyce and decided that he would "let" her do that if he got to do it first. Ha!

Aunt Kim with Tesa and Tyce.

 Ryne wasn't the last to want to pose with two babies....

Brandon with his new baby cousins.  Looks like Tyce was all pictured out at this point.

 Kyle and Brian made special plans for one day....a deep sea fishing trip.

Doesn't this look like fun?

 There are no pictures of fish....because they didn't catch any.

There are no pictures on the boat, or after the voyage.....because photographer Kyle was apparently VERY sick the entire time.  Said it is the sickest he has ever been.  I felt terrible for him. I did want him to have a good time because it was his first real break since being the Daddy of four.   Kim and I have already said that since they got a play day this trip, next trip it is our turn.  We think we will go for a spa and shopping day...something a little more tame and less likely to leave us feeling awful after it is all said and done. 

Before the Stewarts headed back to Oklahoma we had to try our best to get a picture of the six grandchildren for Granna and Paw.  We got all prepped and ready...

Taylor getting ready to pose.

Kade already hamming it up for the camera.

This was our best shot.

I turned our best shot into this!

Most of the shots look something more like these.....

 Yep, that's life with six little kiddos!  It will probably be years before we actually get all six of them to look at the camera and smile nicely at the same exact time. 

Thanks Aunt Kim and Uncle B for coming to meet us!

It was so good to see our family.  I have apologized to them for being so "out of it" while they were here.  Of course they are just as sweet as can be and weren't mad at me at all for not being a very good hostess.  Shucks, I wasn't just a bad hostess, I was a bad conversationalist, a bad decision maker, a bad picture taker....you name it, I wasn't very good at it that week.  SO thankful for family who understands....or at least pretends to in order to make me feel better....forgives me and still loves me.  Looking forward to future fun times with the Stewarts.  I promise to take more pictures next time and to have stories that go with those pictures.  I am especially looking forward to showing you pics from mine and Kim's spa/shopping fun day that we are due!!!

Stay tuned for more catch up blogs...I promise I will catch up one of these days.

Visitors....We've had a Few!

I tried my best to remember to get pictures of all the sweet people who came to meet Tesa and Tyce once we got home from the hospital but as I was looking back through the pictures (from two months ago) I realized that there were a lot of people that I missed.  So, if you are looking through here for your picture and you don't see it...SORRY I missed getting your pic with our sweet babies, come back over if you want and we will stage it. Ha!  Anyway, here is a quick look at the few pictures I did manage to remember to get.

Mary-Hayden did more than visit...she was willing to change diapers!

Isabella came with her mommy but wasn't too interested in changing diapers...she just found some fun stuff to play with.

Moises and Laura!   Baby Levi was with him but we didn't manage to get him in the picture.  I'm sad that we didn't because he is such a cutie.

 

 

Lissa came, of course!  Apparently Ryne thought she needed a little extra help with feeding Tesa.

Lissa's mom, Kelly, got to visit while she was in town.  Ryne must have thought she could handle feeding Tyce all by herself.

Claire and Joe, our super sweet neighbors, came over to meet the babies.

Jordan, just back from Africa, and Jillian stopped by for a quick peek of the new additions.  Jillian is holding our sweet niece Taylor.

Mrs. Katie Sue is a sweet friend from back home in Junction City, Arkansas.  Her daughter lives just a couple hours away from us and Mrs. Katie Sue has been promising to come visit ever since we moved out here.  She made good on her promise!!!

So sad that I missed so many, like Mollie, Jess, our neighbors Martin and Jayma, Karla and Kayla painter of the nursery, our entire Wednesday night Life group, and others I'm sure I just can't remember right now.

They were all so kind to come see us.  Many of them added to the blessing of the visit with sweet gifts like these...

Presents for the big brothers!

Beautiful flowers to liven up the nursery where we were spending LOTS of time.

Check out these amazing quilts that our neighbor Claire made. I should totally get a better picture of them for you to see.  They have all of their birth information on the back side.  Treasures, no doubt!

Lots of yummy food came our way.  This was a cake that Katie Sue and her daughter brought that was just too pretty not to take a picture of.  We were amazingly blessed by people bringing us dinner for several weeks.  Seriously, if you are looking to do something nice for families with newborns, make them dinner!!!  It is a HUGE help! 

Oh, and more pretty flowers that Mollie brought to brighten our day.  

Just looking back at all of this makes me realize all over again how incredibly blessed we are to have so many great people in our lives!  And I haven't even gotten to the part where I tell you about all of our family coming to visit.  Of course you already know that C.G. and Grandaddy were here.  C.G. stayed a while to help us out.  Brain, Kimberly, Brandon and Taylor came from Oklahoma to see the babies and vacation a bit.  Paw and Granna made it out to hug and kiss on their new grand babies.  And Monk Monk  was here, too!  I will tell you about all of their visits in future posts....so....stay tuned!

Two Months!

Unbelievable!

Tesa and Tyce are two months old today.

Seriously, where is the time going???  One thing is for sure, I'm not wasting it writing blog posts. Ha!  If you notice the last blog post was entitled "One Month" and it had pics of Tesa and Tyce at one month old.  Yes, that means it has been an entire month since I've blogged.  YIKES!! Know what that means???  I am MEGA behind!  Like never before.  Well, before I commence with excuses as to why I am so behind in my blog world just let me show you what I know most of you are here to see....

Remember what they looked like a month ago?

I will save you having to scroll down to the last post...

Would you say they've grown a bit??

They are also much more photogenic! Here's more from our photo shoot today....

 

Tyce was really into the photo shoot so there are some extra of him, mostly because I couldn't figure out which ones I liked best.

And just so there are no concerns over whether we are living in the real world where babies do cry and aren't always so happy to be photographed, here's my proof....

Yep, they both cry.  And sometimes at the same time!

They were quite happy to snuggle up together for some "chill" time after all the hard work smiling for the camera.

Babies in the hood!
Tesa and Tyce are both doing just great!  I'd tell you how much they weigh and all that but I'm not sure.  They go to the doctor tomorrow for their check-up and I'll let ya know.  We are having so much fun with them!  If it weren't for the 4am wake-up call last night, I would be able to proudly announce that both babies have been sleeping through the night for 6 nights in a row.  I'm going to tell myself that last night was just a fluke and tonight we are going to be back on the "sleeping through the night" train!  Cannot even tell you how many prayers of thanksgiving I have lifted up to God for such a huge blessing!  BOTH BABIES sleeping ALL NIGHT!  Kade nor Ryne slept through the night until they were almost a year old so you can imagine how elated I am about this.

So, now that you've seen the babies, want to see the big brothers?
They are growing too!

Kade and Ryne wore their NYC fireman and policeman shirts for Sept. 11th tenth anniversary and were quite proud of them.  And just for fun let me show you what they did last night....

They got to take a glow-in-the-dark bath with some glow sticks.  Should have seem me having them hold the glow sticks up to their faces to make sure I got all the dirt off.  It was good times.  Think I might have to stock up on glow sticks now. Ha!

Summer is coming to a close and it has been great.  There is so much more that I want to share about the past two months.  We have had all of our family come to visit!!  My kid sister just left this past Saturday. She was the end of our "extra hands" and we are trying to get into routine again.  Well, a whole new and different routine since we added two babies to the mix.  I am totally hoping to work in a regular blogging time to that routine.  It may take me two more months to catch up on what I missed blogging about while we were so busy but I am determined to do it.  Not necessarily because I think you all want to read and see all about it, but because it all happened in such a whirlwind that I need to go back and remember what all just happened and enjoy all the pictures that I took and haven't even had a chance to look at.
All of that to say....many blog posts to come....most all of them will be old news by the time they are posted.  But watch out, I just might decide to throw something current in there every now and then to spice things up!
At this moment I have to say I am relishing in the fact that all four of my children have been asleep at the same time for at least an hour now. WOW!  If I can work that into the routine every day I just might be able to catch up on this blog after all.