Boat has meaning

Hello friends and family,

I'm excited to have a semi-family portrait of the 4 Webbs!


I'm very proud of how well we are forming into a family and am grateful for such a good looking wife and kids. It's rare to have all four of us in front of the camera at the same time, but this one turned out well, except we need to get Easton and Layla to flash their bright smiles at the right time...

Kendra and I talked at length during her pregnancy about what we want our life to be like with children. We committed to live our life and have adventures while including the twins in everything possible. I've heard of some families who stay home for the first 5 years after having a child or two. One of our focuses was to no be hermits who's lives revolve around keeping the twins "stable and calm". There are certainly times where we dedicate a few days to doing absolutely nothing because of sickness or other issues. However, if everyone is healthy then we do our best to get out and find adventures. Whether that is shopping or playing in the park or even boating. Wait a second... is that right? do 18 month old babies belong on a boat in the lake? You bet!

I'll get to that later, but I have to do some show and tell through the past few days to get us to the boating stories. Layla is talking constantly now and can say almost any word. Easton is doing just as well as her in the verbal skills. All we have to do is say, "Can you say (add a word here)?" They do their best to repeat back whatever word you mention. Layla says princess so well, which is one of the sweetest things in the world. She's even starting to act like it.


She is also very creative. For example, she found the stackable cups that fit and stuffed her feet into them. Then she tried to walk on the tile, which was highly comical even though she has such great balance.


Back to the photo shoot, here is the best one of the day for Kendra's immediate family.


Easton and Layla both have smiles big enough to count the teeth in their mouth. Everyone else looks great in this one as well. Logan's girlfriend, Bree, was also with us and she's a real sweetheart who is accepted into the clan just as i was so many years ago.


Since Logan lives in SoCal, we don't have many chances where we are here at the same time he is. We took the opportunity to get a pic of Easton and Layla with uncle Casey and uncle logan.


And now for a the boating adventure... It didn't start out all that well as you can see on Easton's face.


This was the first experience for the twins to be in a lake (or pond or river) and also the first time to be in a boat. It proved to be a little much for Easton to absorb all at once. Even Layla repeatedly said, "all done, all done!" with words and sign language, which was meant to indicate she wanted to get off the boat. She was making this request about 30 seconds into the boat ride. :) But once we were cruising across the waves and twins could tell none of us were freaked out, they calmed down and enjoyed the ride.


The saga around trying to find a beach would take an entire post by itself, but lets just say there is more mud and sticker bushes in the lake than any of us anticipated. Anyway, we all took turns hanging out with on the beach with the babies while the others went out tubing behind the boat. I did my best to keep Layla from climbing the rocky, steep hill behind us.


After months of looking at books and pajamas and videos showing boats, it was interesting to see them make the connection and ride in one. Unfortunately, all the other pictures of us tubing and having fun are on Aunt Patty's camera. I'll have to ask her to send those to me through email so I can finish the story some time in the near future.

Last night we returned home and because of my commitment to P90X, I scraped together enough strength to make it through an hour workout last night and then colapsed into bed like a 100 year old redwood tree being cut down in the forest. Today's P90X workout was the extremely long Yoga X variety. I decided to do this while the twins were still awake, which proved to be more entertaining for them and me. Layla jumped right in before I even started and here is her amazingly accurate "downward dog" pose.


She's seen us do this enough to know that she should be on the mat too! Then as I joined in, Easton and Layla decided to use me as a jungle gym and climbed all over and around me. This added a whole new challenge to the experience. Layla thought it was so funny to sit on my back as I did my best "upward dog" pose.


Sadly enough, the weekend is over already and it's back to work for me tomorrow morning. We'll spend our last few days here in NorCal soaking in family time and the cool mornings temperatures before we head back to the oven (a.k.a. Arizona summer).

See you soon.