quack swing

Howdy folks,

I only have about 30 minutes of free time this afternoon because we're baby sitting tonight! We agreed to trade babysitting favors with our friends who have 9 year old boy and girl twins. Tonight is our turn to watch their kids and they will return the favor in the next few weeks.

The last couple of days have been somewhat uneventful except for Kendra taking our twins to the "mommy and me" group. Here's a picture of a few of the other women who bring their babies to the get-together.



Kendra always looks forward to the conversations and chance for Easton and Layla to interact with other babies. I know I don't have enough time share the full details of our outing this morning, but I'll try:

Quack!

We roller-bladed to the local park where ducks fill a huge pond. Kendra has been saving crusty bread pieces for a few weeks so we took our stash of goodies with us in hopes of luring a duck or two over to our edge of the pond. As you can see in the background of this picture, we exceeded our hopes of "a couple of ducks" and wound up with about 50.


We couldn't believe how friendly and comfortable the ducks were with us. They were eating bread off Kendra's shoe and straight out of my hand. At one point I had to physically push a duck away from Easton and I because I thought the duck was going to snap at Easton!


Here's another picture to show one section of the flock of ducks. They were loud and smelly and would eat almost anything we put in front of them... I'm referring to Easton and Layla, of course. Now that I think about it the ducks were very similar.


I was surprised at the lack of emotion from the twins. They were aware of the ducks, but weren't terrified or excited. They were just comfortable listening to the ducks quack and intently watching them walk around us.

Swing!

On our way out of the park we heard the bucket swings calling our name. We decided to find out if Easton and Layla fit in them and if they would get excited about the swinging feeling. I wasn't sure because neither of them cared much for the little plastic baby swing we have. However, the bucket swings were a big hit! They not only fit in the swing without falling out, but they were giggling and smiling the whole time.

Here's a picture of Easton for those of you who can't see the short video clip of Easton kicking and laughing:


and here's Layla


and here's a picture of both of them together:


and last but not least, a video clip of their first swing:

We made the most of our 72 degree weather and weekend family time. The only puzzling part of the last few days is why Layla is becoming more vocal with here eating demands. The spoon can't get from her mouth, to Eastons, and back to her mouth fast enough. She opens her mouth REALLY wide and makes this excruciating, loud "Aaaaaaagggggh" noise and holds the tone and volume for several seconds. We've been trying to teach her how to say "more" in words and sign language, but that doesn't seem to be sinking in much yet. I'll finish this post up with a couple of pictures showing Layla and Easton in their baggy 9 month outfits. At least they are semi-matching! She's getting more stable and brave with standing up all the time.

Easton's shirts are always dirty by the end of the day from commando crawling around on the tile no matter how recently Kendra has mopped. Go Roomba, Go!


Tomorrow we are planning to join our church picnic for fun times so I'm sure we'll have some good pics and stories from that. As we always say, "you can't have adventures unless you go adventuring!"

Bye bye

What's your favorite picture?

Howdy folks,

All of this voting lately really gets me into the spirit of things so I put together my OWN idea. Please vote for your favorite picture from the 4 Webb's blog! I've taken about 2100 pictures since the twins were born 9 months ago and I'd like to hear from YOU which one is the best. Here's how to do it:

1. Search through our blog and find the picture you like best.
2. Note the date of the post that contains your favorite picture (for example: Wednesday, October 29).
3. At the bottom of THIS post, click on the word "comments"
4. In the text box, enter the following information:
- your name so I know who is commenting
- date of the post that contains your favorite picture
- describe the picture so i know which one you're referring to
- describe why you like that picture the most

Then select the "Anonymous" radio button
Then click the button that says, "Publish your comment".

Your comment should look something like:
"Great Aunt Mary's favorite picture is from Wednesday, October 29 - the one with Nana and Layla and the flowers". then feel free to add why you like it. :)

On to the normal, daily updates and adventures! I went for a two hour bike ride up the side of a mountain this afternoon so I'm rejuvenated. Or should I say, was rejuvenated... I put in a few more hours of corporate work, then went for a long walk with the twins around the neighborhood while Kendra fixed their dinner. After that was more playing on the floor with Easton and Layla and saying, "bye bye" to mommy who is playing in a soccer tournament tonight. Then we played some more, changed into pajamas, read a few books, and I finally put them to bed at 7:00. Whew! That's a busy day and I'm ready for bed at 7:01.

Anyway, most people think of a soccer mom as a mother who drives a minivan around to various sporting events for their kids to participate. Kendra is a REAL soccer mom in that she plays soccer and is a mom. She's starting the twins early with soccer training:


I'm trying to get Easton into something a little less hazardous with lower odds of an injury. Pool? He and I rolled a few balls back and forth. He's has a surprisingly strong grip and was able to pick up the pool balls and hold them well.


Easton thought the felt of the pool table was interesting and his drooling on it put a quick end to the pool table fun. I just wanted to give him something new to play with and a new perspective of the room by sitting up higher.

Kendra says she spends her days now following the twins around the house as the pull up on and put their hands on every thing between the floor and 2 feet high. Our patio glass door may never see a clean day again as long as these two are on the job:


I know it looks like Easton's face is smashed into Layla's diaper, but it's only an optical illusion. He's over to the side and looking thoughtfully into the back yard.

The mornings are starting to get a little chilly so the twins stay in their sleep sacks for the first few hours after waking up. It's very common to find the twins side-by-side with Layla sitting up and Easton lying commando style. I thought they would be wondering off in different directions, but usually they stay very close together.

Thanks for stopping by to see the 4 Webbs and remember to vote for your favorite picture by commenting!

Mischief

Hi friends and family!

Kendra is off to play soccer again tonight and I'm glad she is so passionate and excited to do something active. She's convinced herself the "minor sprain" of her ankle in last night's game is already healed. She knows how much I am anxious about potentially hurting herself, which would result in you-know-who taking care of the babies and her. I try not to live by fear, but we all have our weakness and Kendra getting hurt would throw a real curve ball into our daily routine. Pray for safe soccer!

I'll start off this post with a small glimpse into what I can only describe as increased mischief now that Layla and Easton are getting mobile.


There's Layla pulling herself up to the book box and then stepping INTO the box! She stood there like this for quite a while trying to figure out what to do now that she has one leg in... Easton still is not convince he needs to do anything more than commando crawling, but he's starting to get up on his hands and knees and rock back and forth. He'll get there soon enough. Last night while Kendra was at her game I had the privilege of getting the twins ready for bed time all by myself. I put Layla and Easton in their sleep-sack pajamas and thought they would be immobilized somewhat as they crawled around. I was really wrong about that! Here's more mischief:


Layla pushed the box up against the couch, pulled herself up onto the box and then tried to use it as a step to get up on the couch. I was amazed at her ingenuity and frightened by the thought of Easton and Layla putting their brains together soon for a coordinated effort in exploration.

The latest change is possible teething for Easton and dragon noises from Layla. Easton's gums are puffy and he drools more than normal, but I've heard this same "teething" theory every other day for months now and still no top teeth. Layla's voice is extremely loud and in the bathtub it echoes and pierces our ears. So much that we cringe and hold water toys up to our ears to block the noise. She's also started this dragon noise. we haven't caught it on video yet, but here's the best way i can describe it: You know when you go to the dentist and they put that vacuum tube in your mouth? OK, you know the sound as you fight with it to save your tongue from being sucked into the vacuum? She sounds like that only really loud and long. I just missed one of her dragon noises, but caught this picture of the twins loving on mommy while hanging out on our bed.

Kendra has continually read to the twins since they were in her belly. Layla gets more intensely interested than Easton, but he loves a good story time. They both are interested in drooling on and destroying the books almost as much as hearing us read them. Here's a picture of the twins holding their own book and pretending to read:

Tomorrow is election day. Easton and Layla don't care... The highlight of their day will be mushy banana and the lowlight will be poopy diapers just like every other day. I envy their lack of responsibility! See you again soon.

neosporin and tylenol

Hey folks,

Greetings and welcome to November. I can't believe it's already November and we're closing in on the end of the year holidays. This year flown by faster than any other in my entire life. It's all been a blur and based on what other parents of twins tell us, we should expect the first TWO years of their life to be a blur.

Based on the title of the blog you may think the babies are sick and/or hurt, but let me reassure you all of the 4 Webbs are healthy and happy! The title comes from a profound moment of enlightenment a few days ago. Easton and Layla were placed in the middle of the living room with at least 10 store-bought toys scattered around. they rummaged through the inventory like a car load of old ladies at a garage sell and settled on these two items:


A tube of Neosporin for Easton and some liquid Tylenol for Layla. Boy, that was easy entertainment. Who needs expensive, hand-crafted wooden puzzles when you have a medicine cabinet? This wasn't an isolated incident, but they do also love their other toys. The wooden puzzle mentioned is a gift from my sister and they've had hours of fun banging and drooling on that one. I know, it's supposed to be a puzzle where they take the pieces out and place them back, but we're still working on that part. :)

Luckily this blog is about our wonderful, loveable twins instead of the ups and downs in marriage or else it would be much longer and less fun. Lest you believe the 4 Webbs are perfect, I can promise you that love abounds, but discussions sometimes become heated. Kendra calls it "enlightenment". I call it arguing! Either way, one of the many things I love about Kendra is she will always talk through problems with me no matter how we both feel at the moment. That's all I have to say about that. It helps sometimes for me to go back into the picture archive and remember I am supposed to treat her the same way I did when we were courting. Here's our engagement picture for my a trip down memory lane:


Where was I... Oh yeah, twins and toys. Layla also sees a dum-dum lollipop as a toy. Easton gummed a dum-dum so much that his drool turned the wax-paper wrapper into mush (yuk). Here's Kendra and GAM with the twins next to the big bowl 'o candy:


Last night we were hoping to dress the twins in cute Halloween costumes, but it was too hot outside during trick or treat time for the ones they had. We went over to Great Aunt Mary's house as we do every year for Halloween. We live on a dead end cul-de-sac where there are almost zero trick or treaters so we go across the street to her neighborhood where tons of kids shuffle by like herds of cattle.

The twins successfully moved their schedules up one hour to a 7 PM - 7 AM sleepy time. Arizona doesn't follow Daylight Saving Time so it wasn't in anticipation of the time change. We did it because that way I get another hour of fun in the evening before the babies go to bed and Kendra gets another hour of sleep every morning. We call that a Win-Win situation!

I'll close out the blog with two close up pictures of the babies showing you how Layla stays awake so as not to miss a single thing and Easton can sleep anywhere, anytime.

What an interesting set of twins we have...


Kendra's parents are coming to visit us in 3 weeks and we are already looking forward to having them here. I wish we had family visit every other week throughout the year because there is always a baby to hold and lots to do around town. I honestly would be fine with that schedule. It is finally great weather here in Phoenix so if you're planning to be in town, please let us know! We love company and hosting. :)

Good night and happy weekend!

cactus schmactus

Hey baby lovers,

Thanks for visiting our blog and peeking into what life with twin babies is like. My mom and dad left yesterday morning and flew back to Missouri without incident. I spent the day at work, then Kendra's uncle Jeff came by for an evening of dinner and conversation. He is in town for business and sacrificed one of his evenings here to hang out with us!

I know this will make Oma and Opa very jealous, but I have to post this picture of Easton and Layla completely captivated by Jeff. He's a big, tall guy so they were just staring at him for the first few minutes. Surprisingly, Easton warmed up to him very quickly and was happily holding himself up against Jeff's chest. Easton was intrigued by Jeff's infamous Donald Duck noises.


Dustin correctly pointed out in a comment on my last post that cacti is the plural form of cactus. The short answer is, he's right, I knew the definitions, but it was almost midnight and my brain was obviously on autopilot with no one at the wheel. :) The beauty of blogging is I could go back and edit that post. However, mistakes happen in real life and this is all as real as I can get, so we'll leave it as is!

OK, back to the past week with Nana and Papa as I piece together some more highlights... Kendra did a great job of making Nana's birthday a special day. One of the thoughtful ideas she had was to give Nana flowers so Kendra had them out on the counter in the morning when she woke up. Some time later while she was holding Layla I saw the opportunity to get the two of them with the flowers in a picture.


There were many opportunities for my parents to get hands-on time with the twins and Nana was more than happy to take care of snack time. The twins move their arms and legs all over the place between bites and sound like a nest full of little baby birds waiting for the mama bird to get around to each one.


On Sunday night we packed up the Honda Pilot along with all the required baby gear and went to visit Great Aunt Mary (GAM). Since my parents won't be here for Christmas we decided to have Christmas in October! Layla crawled straight over to the presents and did her best to drool and chew on every last one of them.


One of the gifts Mary gave to Easton and Layla was a set of twin dolls! Seeing our twins play with twins was really humorous. They didn't know exactly what to do with them. The dolls are technologically advanced... They say funny things and know when the other twin is close by, being fed, or being played with, etc. When you put the spoon up to the doll's mouth, it makes a similar noise Easton makes, "hawmina, hawmina".


After dinner and play time and opening presents we all went to watch Kendra play soccer. Here she is with a few of her team mates who all think our babies are the cutest in the world.


She's a soccer queen and loves being out there getting roughed up by the boys and girls on the other team. Nana and Papa did their best to keep the twins awake because it was well past their normal bed time...


She's really making the most of soccer this year and using it as an escape from the craziness of our household. I'm as supportive of her hobbies as she is of mine and it seems to be working out well for us to have breaks from everything. I'll close this post with a rare picture where Layla is smiling SUPER big and Easton is semi-serious. Usually the roles are reversed, but while we were strolling along at the botanical gardens the opportunity jumped out at me.


So there you have it, a mixed-up jumble of moments from our week with Nana and Papa... We miss them already. :(

Have a great evening and best of luck with gathering mounds of candy on Friday.

Just 4 Webbs again

Howdy folks,

Nana and Papa are flying out Wednesday morning and we've had an excellent time with them. The 4 Webbs loved temporarily being the 6 Webbs even though it was only one short, short week. I always go back and forth in reflection of how good of a host we were after guests leave our house. On one hand, I want to make sure guests have enough activities and experiences so we have chances for those bonding moments. On the other hand, I want to make sure we spend time doing absolutely nothing so guests have a chance to relax on their vacation and we can just talk. As for this trip I have no idea if we struck a good balance, but I sure had a great time. The days and events blur together like looking through a kaleidoscope so you'll have to bear with me as I try to organize the pictures and stories. I better start with the last picture of the trip...


Here is Nana (my mom), Papa (my dad), and GAM (Great Aunt Mary) and of course Easton and Layla. I wanted to get a picture like this because it's been a long time since my dad and aunt Mary were in a picture together and I wasn't able to get many pictures during this week of both babies with both of my parents. So there you have it. Anyway, Mary came over for dinner, which we hosted on the patio table in the backyard because we have no table inside our house. The tiny area where the kitchen table should be is overrun with bouncy seats, high chairs, and other baby paraphernalia. Dinner was great thanks to Kendra's culinary skills and Food TV network.

This morning we packed up the car and drove to the desert botanical gardens for a long walk amongst the cacti (that's the singular form of cactus for you city folk). We saw big groups of interesting, twisted plants like this one:


Easton and Layla were outstanding babies as they stayed up well past their nap time to accommodate our adventures. We tried to be good parents and protect the eyes of our babies, but apparently these sunglasses were not stylish enough for Easton because he immediately pulled them off. They are both looking at Kendra who was trying to convince them, "all the cool babies are wearing sunglasses!" It didn't work. we ended up putting hats on them...


We found a new house in the Phoenix area that we can afford! We may put an offer on it tomorrow. The only hurdle is convincing the Desert Botanical Gardens owner to let us live inside the park.


I'm just kidding about the offer on the house. This is an example hut of some Sonoran desert indian dwellers from long, long ago. Although I'm sure the idea of only cleaning 200 sq. ft. worth of a house is appealing to Kendra. One final picture from our botanical trip. I call this picture, "Nana thinks I'm out of my gourd"


Nana is holding a gourd from a gourd plant that grew up into a nearby tree... OK, that about sums up the "gardens" trip. Back at home we spent many hours during the week just playing with the twins and watching them interact. Easton was perfectly content to sit with Papa who made funny noises with his mouth.


Here's a common scene lately where Easton is prepared to commando crawl and Layla is trying her best to stand up. You'll notice the TV equipment is safely enclosed behind a glass door. As soon as that door opens, both babies make a bee line straight for the "shiny lights and buttons" like a moth drawn towards a bug zapper.


Even with Nana and Papa plus Kendra and I, we had a difficult time corralling the twins and keeping them from wandering off into the kitchen or front room. We need some baby gates! Anyway, Papa is a much more easy-going guy than the man I grew up with. I don't remember him for his spontaneity or adventurous spirit back when I was a kid. However, now he's actually a lot of fun and a great grandpa. Kendra and I decided to go for a late night jog around our neighborhood and I asked Papa if he wanted to join us by riding my mountain bike along side of us.


Well as you can see he said, "Sure! how do you shift those levers?" and away we went. He strolled along side us with a smile as we gasped for air like burglars running from the cops. Even Papa can't remember the last time he rode a full-sized bicycle so I was proud of him for going with us.

For many reasons, some of which I don't even understand, I'm having a very difficult time saying goodbye to my parents this time. More than at the birth of our twins or when Nana came out when the twins were a month old. It's hard to look at my feelings tonight this way, but here's a quote from the movie Annie: "How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard."

I better get to bed and hopefully have a more coherent blog to post tomorrow night. For now I'll leave you with a picture that I couldn't wait to post because Easton is just so darn cute! He's learning to pull himself up on the furniture and as you can see he is very proud of himself for such an accomplishment:


That boy is getting stronger and cuter every day...

Nana and Papa's visit

Hello friends and family,

The 4 Webbs are packing in so much fun every day my parents (Nana and Papa) are here that I'll have to use a couple of posts to cover everything. Since there isn't much chance my memory will allow for a chronological order of events, you'll have to settle for however things pop into my head.

Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots
I have no excuse for bringing such old school pop culture into my posts, so please excuse the obscure references. However, we all view the world through the culture of whatever time period we were raised, so there you go... Anyway, I call this picture "Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots" and you can click the link if you care to find out what that's all about.

Layla isn't really wearing red, but she's clearly the "Red Rocker" and Easton is the "Blue Bomber". Nana and Kendra weren't really fighting with the babies so there's no need to call CPS on us. They were walking Easton and Layla towards each other by holding onto their tiny arms and letting them use their own leg power to take steps. By the time they were a few inches apart, both babies would be laughing hysterically.


Race Day
On Friday Papa and I had a full day of racing fun. We started off at Speedway indoor kart racing center where we strapped ourselves to Go Karts that race around a 1/4 mile indoor track at 40 mph. Here's Papa leaving the pit area for his 15 minutes of intense racing.

That was his first experience of kart racing at that speed and we both had a great time. Here's our "I survived kart racing" picture after our wild ride.


After a few hours at Speedway we went home to nap and recharge. Kendra and I were able to attend our church group get together since Nana and Papa were hanging out at home while the babies slept. We returned home and I spontaneously told my dad the two of us were going to go down to Firebird International Raceway where I expected to find their standard Friday night drag racing where normal guys like me bring their street legal cars and race against each other. What we found was an opportunity to experience some REAL drag racing and it turned out to be an awesome experience. Unbeknownst to me, the Nitro Funny Car finals were scheduled for Saturday, but Friday night is when all the cars tune up their cars with all-out runs down the drag strip. Papa had never witnessed the big boy dragsters and I was very happy we were so fortunate to see it up close and personal. unlike the official race day we were able to stand less than 30 feet away from these monsters as they jolted from the starting line and barreled down the track at 230+ mph. Here's a picture of the JET engine car we say run down the track at 285 mph.


It's a jet engine from an airplane strapped to 4 wheels and body! Seeing that thing take off and run down the track from that close was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Here's Papa and I sitting next to it after we chatted with the driver.


The quality of the pictures is lame because they are from my cell phone camera. I wasn't expecting to see anything this spectacular so I left our camera at home! Hate it when I do that...

Hawmina Hawmina
Anyway, back to the babies! Every time I feed Easton I make the mmmm noises like the old Campbell soup commercials and say "More?" while making the sign language motion for "more". Easton has adopted that and now we call him "Hawmina Hawmina" sometimes because he makes these loud noises when he is ready for more food and then the "mmmmmm" noises as he is eating. Check it out:




Nana has helped out so much with the day to day mundane parts of raising twins. I know she is having fun though so I don't feel bad asking her to jump in with bath time, feeding time, even diaper changing time. Here she is feeding strawberry yogurt to them as a midday snack.



Here's Papa with the twins as they are dressed for bed in their cute sleep sacks, but not yet ready to go to sleep. Easton was fading fast, but Layla stayed wound up for another 30 minutes as usual. I call this picture the James Brown pose because: Papa's got a brand new bag... or two... of babies.


Papa so far has been an equal opportunity grandpa and I can't quite figure which baby he identifies with the most. Both of the babies stop what they are doing and stare at Papa when he talks or makes funny noises. You can see here how intently Layla listens to Papa tell her how sweet she is.


Phil Wickham
Kendra surprised me a couple of weeks ago with tickets to go see Phil Wickham in concert as he toured through Phoenix! A few months ago I blogged about how much I like his music and we listen to him all the time around our house. We had an incredible time and we appreciate Nana and Papa for letting us have an evening out by ourselves. After the babies went to sleep we showed up in time to get great seats in the 4th row of the sold out show. Here we are with our VIP passes with Phil Wickham ready to perform. He put on an amazing performance!

I'm taking vacation days Monday and Tuesday so we have a couple of more days to spend time with Nana and Papa before they head home. i can't believe it's going by so fast, but we're making the most of every day so I have no regrets. I'll do my best to blog again tomorrow and get caught up on our adventures over the past couple of days.

Hope you had a great weekend. See you again soon!

Happy Birthday, Ma!

Howdy!

Ma (Nana) and Pa (Papa) arrived safely yesterday and the 4 Webbs wrung out whatever energy they had left after the flight by chasing around Easton and Layla, bath time, and feedings. The twins were tiny bundles of joy, only 2 months old, last time she saw them so there was a lot of getting reacquainted going on. Layla has an intense desire to pull herself up on the wicker toy bin and find toys to play with.

The twins woke up bright and early at 5:45 AM. Needless to say, the rest of us woke up along with them. Do I need to point out that we had a nap time today or is that an obvious result of the early wake up? Anyway, we did a little shopping and Papa had almost as much fun pushing Easton and Layla around as they did. He had them giggling down the aisles as Nana and Kendra shopped.

The stroller you see there is what we take out for short trips in public, but the twins are growing out of it fast. The much prefer the Chariot and facing forward, side by side, but that thing is just too big to lug around town.

As the twins were playing together, Easton sliced himself with a sharp finger nail and left a big gash in his cheek. It looks much worse than it is, but I feel so bad for him because that must have hurt. Consequently, Kendra clipped his nails shortly after that and I've been gooping Neosporin on his booboo continually so he doesn't look like Inigo Montoya from "The Princess Bride" . It was the 6 fingered man...

Some of you won't get that last pop culture reference... Go watch The Princess Bride! We hung out this afternoon and then went out to dinner for Nana's birthday! Her brother called supposedly to wish her a happy birthday as he always does each year, but this year after Nana said, "hello" he said, "how does it feel to be an old buzzard?" Only he could get away with that kind of a humorous jab, but she got a good laugh from it. She was glad to hear from him and all her other friends and relatives who called to wish her a happy birthday. Anyway, it's been 12 years since I spent the day with my Ma on her birthday and I was glad Kendra helped make it a special day-long event by planning things. We went to Abuelo's for Mexican food and ended up with some good pictures. We found out very quickly Layla still doesn't have a volume control knob anywhere. She was talking up a storm with all of us at 100% volume so Nana held her as we all passed her around the table to keep her happy and quiet.

With the last rays of sunshine we sat out front and captured a picture of all of us.


I'm sure just being with us and their grand babies, Easton and Layla, made the day very special for Ma. I took one last birthday picture as we loaded up the Pilot to head home. It was 5:52 PM and Easton made it very clear we had exactly 8 minutes to get him home, changed into pajamas and fed.


Today turned out as good as I'd hoped. Being able to hug Ma and look in her eyes while saying, "Happy Birthday!" was very special. We have many more adventures planned for the next few days so stay tuned for updates and stories of the fun we're having. :)

See you soon!