Broke Back Bathroom

It broke Andy's back. . .again.
It broke our budget.
And it caused many breakdowns on my behalf.
But the downstairs bathroom is finally done!

Well, 99% done anyway. We are still waiting for 2 pieces of tile that are out of stock to come in. I've decided, however, that it may take another 3 months for that to happen.

That's just one of the many problems we encountered during the course of this project. I'm pretty sure that we had more problems finishing this bathroom than we did building our entire house. No exaggeration. But was it worth it? The answer is a resounding YES!

We spend a lot of time in the basement, especially in the winter months. I love the fact that I don't have to walk all the way upstairs whenever I have to use the bathroom. Especially because that is a frequent event these days. Not to mention that I get winded walking up 13 steps now. It was only a month and a half ago that I hiked for miles in the Arizona desert heat. Now I feel like Sir Edmund Hilary just by climbing a flight of stairs. If only the two little people in my house would let go in there and take care of business by myself. . .

But I digress. I am really happy with the way it turned out. Kudos to Andy for all of his hard work. My dad and brother also deserve a shout out for their help. Way to go boys!

Seeing Spots

Introducing Lucky (Brayden), Pongo (Andy), and Penny (Makenzie). They sure know how to shake it, don't ya think?





Do call me Ella; Cruella sounds so, cruel.

Can I get a woot-woot. . . I mean a WOOF-WOOF?Everyone asked me how I convinced Andy to dress up like this. It was quite simple, really: I keep him on a very short leash.

Happy Halloween! That's the exclamation from the Dalmation Nation! We took back the streets with some old-fashioned trick-or-treating and had a great time! Hope everyone else out there had as much fun as we did!

Fall Fun

The pumpkins have been harvested, the leaves are falling and the air is crisp. I do believe Summer is officially over. But Fall is lots of fun too! Just look what we've been doing. Last week we picked pumpkins from Grandpa Mildon's garden and painted them. The twins are quite proud of their masterpieces and enjoy showing them off to everyone who comes to the door.

Today we went outside and played in the leaves. I was sad to see all of the red leaves fall off of my favorite tree, but all was forgotten as soon as I saw how much fun Brayden and Makenzie had playing in them.

Soundbites

One of my favorite features in Entertainment Weekly is the Soundbite page. So naturally, I decided to totally rip it off. Here is a sampling of what has been overheard in the Rhodes household lately:

The End of an Era

It is so exciting to watch the twins grow up and see all of the new things they do. But at the same time it is bittersweet. I am sad that they aren’t going to be my babies anymore; sad that they are trading their cribs for “big-kid beds;” pastels for bold and bright.
Nonetheless, the transition had to be made. We’ve been talking up the new room for weeks as we slowly put it together and Friday night we read Bye-bye, Crib by Alison McGhee and Ross MacDonald and officially moved them in.

It’s a bit cramped with two beds and nightstands in there. But when we were building our house, we weren’t exactly planning on having twins. Our basement bedrooms are larger than our upstairs bedrooms and we thought our oldest kid would be old enough to move downstairs before anyone ever had to share a room upstairs. Silly us! So why didn’t we get bunk beds you ask? Let me count the whys: they are three-fold. First, Brayden sometimes kicks his legs when he is trying to go to sleep. I didn’t think Makenzie would particularly enjoy sleeping underneath that ruckus. Second, if Makenzie was on top, I had visions of Brayden pulling her off by her pigtails because he wanted to sleep up there. And finally, I don’t think they will be sharing a room for more than a few years and I wanted to buy pieces could be separated and would last for years to come.

And so the shopping. . .errr, bargain hunting began. I coveted some beds from Pottery Barn Kids for a while, but just couldn’t justify spending $800 on each bed when I could get both beds and both nightstands for the same amount at a great little store called Bed Haven. I found the comforters on clearance at Target and pulled the color scheme together from there. I wanted the room to be whimsical and fun for toddlers, yet sophisticated enough to grow with them. Since we painted the room a cocoa color, I used the accessories to add other splashes of color.

Makenzie gave the ultimate approval on accessories. After I hung up the bulletin board, she was running down the hall and stopped dead in her tracks. “Mama, wooow!” she exclaimed. I was very excited to hear that. They both love the tree and frequently look at pictures, especially the ones I hung between the bed of the two of them together.

In retrospect, maybe I made the room a little too fun. The first night they played in there for two hours before they finally dozed off. I had to go in there numerous times and tell them to get back in their beds and go to sleep. And unfortunately, when Makenzie tried to do as I asked, Brayden pulled her out of bed by her PJ’s because he wanted a playmate. (Good call on the bunk beds, eh?!)

That wasn’t the only excitement for the night, however. Around 2 am I was awoken by a loud thud and the sound of Makenzie crying. Poor little girl had rolled out of bed. I was afraid that might happen so I put some pillows in between the two beds to cushion the fall. But I’m sure it was still a rude awakening. I ran in there, picked her up and was consoling her when I noticed that Brayden’s bed was empty. That’s when I had a small heart attack! Where was he? I looked around the room and couldn’t see him. Was he roaming the house somewhere? Did Andy put him back in his crib for some reason and I didn’t know? I put Makenzie back in bed and went to the nursery—no Brayden in the crib. I went back in their room and turned on the light to get a better view—still no Brayden. So I got down on my hands and knees and looked under his bed—no sign of him there either. But then I caught a glimpse of a little tuft of his blonde hair in between the pillows and Kenzie's bed. He had climbed out of bed, crawled under her bed and shimmied up against the wall and fell asleep. Apparently his fung shui was off or something and he wanted to sleep East/West like he did in his crib instead of North/South like his bed. I really don’t know what inspired him to do that. But he had the foresight to take his beloved black bear with him. I pulled him out from under there and put him back in bed. Amazingly, he didn’t wake up when I did that.

After that, I couldn’t sleep. The adrenalin was pumping through my body. Not that it mattered anyway, as there were a few more thuds during the night. Last night there was only one thud. Here’s to hoping that tonight is thud-free!

The Good Kind of Time-Out

Lately the twins have been bouncin’ off the walls, which has led to Andy and I climbin’ the walls. So we decided to take a time-out and go to a place where it was acceptable to do both: Kangaroo Zoo.

Brayden and Makenzie had a great time jumping on all of the inflatable toys---running over bridges and riding various animals.

Instead of hair-pulling tirades, cries of displeasure and “no-no-no’s,” we were met with hair-raising slides, squeals of delight and “yeah-yeah-yeah’s!”

The fire-breathing Mom was replaced by a fire-breathing dragon slide.

Oh, and just in case you didn’t believe me about the hair-raising slides, here is proof. Andy convinced our little dare-devil, Makenzie, to try it before we left. And as soon as Brayden saw what she was doing he decided to try it too.

I’m not sure exactly how tall the slide was, but I’m thinking it was at least 30 feet. Andy is 6’1” and look how small he is in comparison.

After the twins climbed up all those stairs all by themselves, they went down the slide on their bellies. Probably less scary that way.

As soon as Makenzie got to the bottom she exclaimed, “More! More!” and went down it two more times. Brayden had fun, going down but decided once was enough.

The Month in Review

To my loyal readers (all three of you): My apologies for not posting for a while. Things have been pretty busy around here. And between the 1st trimester fatigue and the 2nd trimester headaches my to-do list just keeps getting longer. But I’m slowly crossing things off of it now. Hooray!! Here’s a quick peek at a few of the things we’ve been up to.

Build-a-Bear

We started working on table manners with the twins a few months ago. As an incentive, we gave them a coin after each meal to put in a piggy bank if they used good manners throughout the entire meal. I told them when the piggy bank was full we would use the money to go do something really fun. It wasn’t quite full, but in July I decided it was time to take them on their reward anyway. So we took the piggy bank to a Coinstar, cashed it in and headed to Build-a-Bear.
Grandma Rhodes even came with us! Everyone had a paws-atively great time!

Camping

We haven’t been brave enough to do any overnight camping trips with the twins yet, but we have gone on a couple of day trips to Southfork and Smith & Moorehouse this summer. They are always super excited to “go, go, goooo!”

Andy with his nephew Dallin and sister, Jill, cooking hot dogs while Jenna watches.

Of course no camping trip would be complete without S’mores. We use Fudge Striped Cookies and roast coconut covered marshmallows to put in between them. All I can say is D-lish!!

I’m pretty good about rationing the amount of sweets the twins eat, but not my own. I ended up eating four S’mores, totaling approximately 900 calories. Yikes! Maybe that’s why my doctor told me that although she wasn’t worried (yet) I had gained a little more weight than she would have liked. In other words, lay off the S’mores! And brownies. And ice cream. . .

BBQ’s

Speaking of all things yummy, we’ve had a few BBQ’s with friends from out of state this summer. It’s always fun to catch up when they come back and get the little rugrats together. Here, Brayden and Makenzie are posing with Sammy T. and Brinlie. They were all born within 2 months of each other.

P.S. Shoes are sooo 5 minutes ago!

Texas

Last week I went to Texas to visit my sis. Despite the wicked heat and humidity, I had a very enjoyable time. She is an amazing person. Ember was doing great while I was down there. If it wasn’t for the bald head, you wouldn’t even know she was sick.

Levi and I hung out in the mornings while Sonya took Ember to the hospital. We had fun doing craft projects and stuff. I even played video games with him once. But oddly enough, after he saw my shoddy performance, he never asked me to play again. What can I say? X-box is far too complicated. I prefer the simplicity of Atari.

Andy Stayed in Utah and played Mr. Mom for a few days. Both sets of grandparents also helped out. Thanks everybody for making my trip possible!

Home Improvement

Our latest project is a bit of redecorating. We are moving our computer room downstairs and turning it into the twins new bedroom. I’ve been having lots of fun shopping for big-kid beds and decorations. We also decided to finish our downstairs bathroom before we start potty training the twins. I’ll post some pics when we get it all finished. Wish us luck!