two toothed Layla

Happy holiday weekend,

The 4 Webbs are back safe and sound in our humble abode. We arrived yesterday at 4:00 AM after driving through the night and everything went smooth. Nothing like In-N-Out burger at midnight to get us through the last few hours of driving. There were massive lightening storms off in the distance as we drove, but by the time we arrived in Phoenix it was calm and dry.

We spent the last afternoon with Robin and Gordon enjoying the dense fog and cool temperatures. They apologized for the "bad weather", but Kendra and I were soaking it in like a sponge and loving every minute of it. We have plenty of sunshine and warm temperatures here in AZ so the dramatically opposite weather was absolutely perfect. We often stood out on their patio with the twins overlooking the hills and neighborhoods just absorbing the serenity and clean air. Robin and Gordon were amazing hosts and we hope to visit them once a year if we have the opportunity. One humorous note for this picture is that you can see Easton has roughly the same expression as Gordon... Sans the teeth, of course.


Easton and Layla have made some serious progress on milestones lately and I've done my best to capture them with the camera. You know how I'm always opining on how great it would be if I could catch get a picture of Layla's two little teeth, but can't seem to have the camera ready? Well, I finally caught one of her "shooting star" smiles before her facial expression turned back into the studious intense look she normally wears. Her teeth came in about 5 weeks ago, but this is the first good closeup picture of them. Here's Layla and her two lower teeth:


And now for Easton's big accomplishment: He holds his own bottle now! He has really strong muscles and arms that he uses now to prop up his own bottle during his evening feeding. Now I can play Xbox while he's taking the bottle without having to hold it up with my chin. Just KIDDING! I don't even have an Xbox, but I have a friend who used to pretzel his way into a position that allowed him to use both hands to play Xbox while giving his kid the bottle. Anyway, here's Easton clearly doing me a favor by holding his own bottle:


Laying Easton and Layla side by side on the play mat with a toy just out of arms reach and saying, "on your mark... get set... GO!" is one of my favorite games to play. It's like watching a turtle race, but much less graceful. She rocks and he rolls and neither one of them move at more than a glacial pace towards the toy. Sadly enough, Easton never gets the toy because he hasn't made much progress in crawling yet. Can you see the determination in Layla's eyes??? Other than the drool on her chin she looks like the definition of intelligence. The bib she has on is my favorite. :)


Easton and Layla tried a new food today: fruit! Noting mashed up from a plastic container either. I mean real, straight-from-the-cutting-board fruit. My sister, Joanie, sent us these plastic rings with a mesh net attached and they work great! you open the top, put some fruit or other mushy goodness inside, and let the babies gnaw on it to their hearts content. I think they were munching on nectarines in these pictures... They also tried some butternut squash Kendra cooked up last night and that was a big hit also. NO allergies to any foods so far! We are thrilled to discover our babies don't have food allergies. Easton is such a handsome boy...

and Layla Rae has the prettiest eyes! I can't wait to see what color they will be. Every day I look into her eyes and see if I can notice the changes and figure out what color they are starting to show. From what I can tell they are hazel, which makes sense considering Kendra and I both have hazel eyes. Her hair is staying very dark also even though there isn't much there yet!

Time for their late night feeding so I'm off to go fetch the babies one at a time for their last meal before the full night's sleep. Rest well yourselves and have a great weekend and day off work.

Wet suits are required

Good morning!

The 4 Webbs are wrapping up our last day of this extended journey today. Our plans are to spend one final day here and then drive through the night back to our home in AZ. The time here with Robin and Gordon has gone by way too fast and we could easily enjoy another week because of their hospitality, spaceous home, and great surrounding close to the beach. Yesterday as an added bonus Gordon took me for a ride around town in his Corvette. I've never had 400 horsepower between me and the pavement... It was exhilirating to say the least! If I own one of these beasts I'll have to put marshmellows between my feet and the gass pedal otherwise I could get into a lot of trouble.

Even with my help and Robin and Gordon around with arms wide open, there are still occasions where Kendra has to hold both babies at once. Seeing all three of their happy faces made me want to take a picture and it turned out to be a good one that shows how their expressions are becoming more and more meaningful.





By the way, I found out last night that a setting on my camera was changed from auto to some manual thing about a month ago. Apparently some stranger who took a picture of Kendra and her parents decided to force a setting on my camera and it was never reset properly. We'll see if that really changes the quality of my photos or not, but it can't hurt!

Layla's smiles that are big enough to show her two bottom teeth are too fast to capture on film. Her smiles are like shooting stars in a meteor shower; Extremely bright and exciting, but so fast that you have to really have to quick to catch it. She has two bottom teeth and Easton has no teeth. Every few days when he has a little bit of fusiness, Kendra says he's teething, but I treat it like the boy who cried wolf now because it's been two months and still no teeth. I know having teeth early or late doesn't prove anything one way or another so we're not worried about it.

We have the 6 month pediatrician appointment set for two weeks from now. It's really late considering they will be 7 months old by then, but because we were out of town it made sense to push it out until after we return.

Anyway, yesterday Robin graceously agreed to watch the twins while Kendra and I played at the beach! We had a blast bodyboarding and laying in the sand. The weather was cold and cloudy, but we didn't care. The locals were in sweaters and scarfs! We rented the boogie boards and wet suits and spent a couple of hours catching good sized waves.

We were worn out physically and I felt great after having some cardi activity for a change. My work out schedule has been less than stellar over the past few weeks with all of the traveling so doing something active was just what the doctor ordered. Kendra and I did a lot of laughing and playing out there in waves so making time for "alone time" was very worthwhile.

Oddly enough, when we returned back to Robin and Gordon's we found out that both our babies were sitting up on their own! It's crazy! We've been waiting for them to sit up on their own and become strong enough for that. We leave for two hours and viola! they sit up while we are away...

Robin was kind enough to take a picture for us and I knew they truly hit the milestone when Easton and Layla were able to duplicate the feat-of-strength after we returned.

You'll notice Easton is wearing socks that are 10 times too big... That's a result of runnin low on clean clothes as we finish out the last leg of our travels. We are all enjoying the cold and fog immensely, but that means we have to bundle up their little tootsies constantly. The 4 Webbs have plenty of sun and heat waiting for us back in AZ, so we really are loving the coolness.

Last night we all celebrated Gordon's birthday over excellent home grilled steaks. Kendra's other aunt and uncle, Cindy and Terry, spent the evening with us. They live about 15 minutes away and get together with Robin and Gordon often. One of our hopes for visiting here was to see Cindy and Terry so the evening worked out well.


Well, it's time to repack the Pilot and hopefully we won't have pillows and suitcases squirting out the window. The next blog will be from my old, comfy office and since i have the next few days off for vacation I'm sure there will be time to blog!

bye bye for now.

rock and roll

Greetings folks!

It was a bitter sweet day yesterday as we said, "good bye" to all of the NorCal family and safely journeyed down to Pismo Beach where we are spending a few days vacationing by spending time with kendra's aunt Robin and uncle Gordon.

We are very grateful to GG for opening her house for us to completely take over and turn into baby-land for so many weeks. She helped more than I can even attempt to write about here in the blog. Layla and Easton loved seeing her cheery smile every day and hearing her never ending collection of favorite songs as she sang to them. Kendra picked up a few songs along the way so now she's building her own hit list of songs the babies enjoy. Even thought the babies won't remember the trip and time we spent there, I know the experience was very positive for them and pictures like this one below show what Great Grandma is all about.

Last night Oma and Opa came over to spend one last evening together and Opa appears happy in this next picture as he played one last round of "peek-a-boo" with the laughing twins. However, after spending almost 10 weeks straight (6 weeks in AZ and 4 weeks in CA) he was sad to spend the next few months away from the 4 Webbs.


Yesterday morning we packed up early and were ready for the long drive South. We loaded up the twins with one last feeding of mashed-up veggies. I wanted to get one last picture of GG and uncle Casey with the twins before leaving.

After watching the babies play around on the floor together it is obvious at this point in their life that Layla is rock and Easton is roll. Layla gets up on her hands and knees and rocks back and forth with such energy while Easton rolls around from toy to toy. It'll be impossible to get a single video with the rocker and roller both doing what they do best, so I decided this picture is sufficient to show how Layla is merrily crawling around into and onto whatever she likes.



The drive was safe and uneventful so thank you to everyone who prayed for our traveling and let us know you are thinking of us. Last night we did absolutely nothing and it was everything I hoped it would be. Talking with Robin and Gordon over an awesome home cooked dinner while overlooking the ocean was exactly what we had in mind for our first evening there. Not to make anyone jealous, but here's the view from their deck. You can see the long blue line across the middle that goes all the way from one side of the view to the other... Yeah, that's the ocean...

I never claimed to be a great photographer so you're wasting time if you try to tell me about the land-to-water ratio. some people use the limitations of their camera as and excuse for why a certain picture didn't turn out right. I, on the other hand, give all the credit to my little point and shoot Canon for whatever good comes from the blog photos. :) Which brings me to my "deep thoughts moment" of the day. Can you remember when someone asked a photographer how a picture turned out and they responded with: "Who knows??? I'll let you know it TWO WEEKS (or whenever the roll of film is fully used) after they get developed!" God, I don't miss 35 mm film... may it rest in peace forever.

Anyway, we woke up this morning and it was all I could do to keep Kendra in the house and away from the beach through breakfast. After everyone was well fed and napped and dressed and packed (2 hours later), we made it to the beach. Ahhhhh, the most favorite of favorite places for Kendra and I.... the beach!

Easton and Layla had on little jumpsuits to keep them warm because there was a slight breeze and a good layer of fog. We were able to test the Chariot jogger's abilities by pushing it along the path down to the edge of the ocean and then along the hard-packed sand.


I'm not sure what adventures the next few days have in store, but rest assured i'll do my best to capture them with pictures and share the excitement.

Take care and have a great evening!

Soaking up the family

Happy weekend everyone,

I have just a few short minutes to sandwich a blog between family leaving, ready to start packing, and one last evening with Oma, Opa, GG, and whoever else decides to come by for one last chance to see us and the perma-grin twins. We've been accused of taping their mouths in a smiley face position because they are both so continually happy looking and pleasant.

Some people ask, "how do you have time to blog with twins and all that life requires?" The answer is: Kendra takes care of everything so well and runs such a "tight ship" that she gives me this time to blog. Almost like a gift... the gift of time. :)

I won't spend too much time philosophizing about marital relationships, but we are both figuring out an important concept. Just because something isn't important to me, doesn't mean it is not important to Kendra and vice versa. We prioritize our time and efforts according to what is important to us as individuals, but the reality is we are doing much better by considering both of priorities at the same time. I know, I know... that requires communication and talking, which isn't a forte for some people. However, we're finding that by considering what is important to the other person even though it is might seem meaningless or outright stupid to us, that the effort of consideration means so much. It is a good feeling when although she doesn't value whatever I see as a need or desire, she treats it as important solely because it is important to me.

Anyway, back to the daily life and the grand finally of our month-long trip here. Yesterday we went over to Oma and Opa's for grilled burgers and dinner on their back porch overlooking the pond, the golf course, and the hills behind them. Logan and his girlfriend, Brie, along with GG spent the evening hanging out with all of us. Logan and his girlfriend, Bree, along with GG spent the evening hanging out with all of us.


It's hard to see there in that picture, but somewhere along the way Easton lost his pants and Layla lost her shirt... I think this was one way Kendra tried to keep them cool from the afternoon heat. This next picture is a good one of Oma and Opa holding the twins up by their arms. It's probably not the last time Easton and Layla will stand on the table though. that seems to be more and more of a common thing to happen lately.

After a full day we kicked back with the same group of people and watched a little of the WNBA gold medal game. Apparently yesterday was just a little more than Layla and I could handle because neither of us made it to bed time. I guess she was comfortable laying on me and she felt like a little, warm, cuddly baby to me.

Today we had almost all of Kendra's cousins and their kids (from her mom's side of the family) over to GG's house. I'm not used to being around that many children at one time so the experience was much different from my perspective compared to everyone else there who do that on a daily basis. The energy being exerted by all those kids running around screaming and playing was a spectacular thing to witness. It reminded me of walking into a room with normal lighting and someone slides the dimmer switch from somewhere in the middle to "all the way up"! After hanging out with all of them for a few hours I was tired and it wasn't even me being treated as a jungle gym like Kendra's cousins were! Everyone settled down just long enough to take a picture:

Also during our time of playing out in the yard, I caught a picture of the twins with GG, Aunt Susie, and Aunt Mary as they all made silly faces at each other (aunts and babies alike).


I'll have to come back some time and point out who is who in the picture, but one of the stars of the day was Hercules, uncle Steve's Chihuahua. Alyssa is holding mighty Hercules (on the far left). Here is a close up picture of the stallion himself. The monstrous things to the right of him are a small pair of size 6 feet so you get a good perspective of his stature. Talk about a funny dog... He could have his own reality TV show.

It's hard to believe our time here is already gone, but we'll be on the road to the central coast early tomorrow morning. Time to pack and have one last chance for Opa to play peek-a-boo with Easton and Layla!

Bye bye

2 ring circus

Hi folks,

It's Friday night and the 4 Webbs are together again! I flew in this morning to reunite with the babies and Kendra. This picture is from the Morgan Hill wedding for her cousin a couple of weeks ago, but it shows how Kendra probably felt without me around for the last few days.



I also started my official vacation from work for the next 10 days (yea for me). My short trip home was fast paced and I'm seriously tired. Our two kitties were very happy to see me and they spent every minute of my home time purring and hoping for my attention.

I still never caught up blogging about the adventures from earlier this week. We took Monday evening to visit some more friends and family. After I finished work for the day we went straight over to the Cassani's mansion (ok, it's not a mansion, but still a gargantuan house) and were able to catch up with Jennifer, Jesse, and Brandon. The last time we saw them was on our wedding day 6 years ago! Jesse was our ring bearer and Kendra still has a special place in her heart for those two guys. We forgot our camera, but Brandon took a few pics so i'm hoping he'll send them to me in email. :)

After that we went down the street for dinner with our friends Craig and Angie. Coincidently, (speaking of members of our wedding party) Craig was one the groomsmen in my wedding and has been a good friend for a lot of years. They have two youngsters of their own so they were well prepared with swings, play mats, and seats for Easton and Layla to entertain them while we enjoyed conversation. Of all the friends I've had in Sacramento over the years, Craig is the one I've kept in contact with the most so it was fun to see him and his family.

While I was away Jenny and Neill (see previous posts on July 16) returned to California and spent an evening at GG's house with Kendra and the babies. Here's a picture of "Goma" (Jenny) along with her grandbabies, TJ and Aimee, as they played with Easton and Layla:



we've been singing the "peanut" song on a daily basis to the babies ever since Goma introduced it to us during our time together in AZ.

I know accomplishments and measures of success for someone's child is completely subjective, but Layla is now officially a rocker and we are very proud of her. :) It's not quite the same feeling as Michael Phelp's mother must have for her son to win 8 gold medals, but probably very close...




I was incredibly relieved and glad to be back together with Kendra and the twins. I just had to take a self portrait with lovely Layla when I realized we both had on green shirts and hazel eyes. It is odd to look into her eyes and see myself more all the time. One big noticeable difference between us is she took three naps and slept for 10 hours last night whereas I slept all of three hours last night before getting on the plane this morning.



and now... introducing... Opa Burgess and the talented balancing twins! First, here is Easton looking indifferent as he commonly does, but still performing the feat of balancing with ease.


and here's Layla clinching her muscles tightly to stay upright as Opa moves her around:

And here is Opa with Easton in one hand and Layla in the other while balancing BOTH babies at the same time! OK, just kidding... We'd never do anything that dangerous with our bundles of joy.

Our time here at GG's house is almost over and we'll be around through Monday morning when we take our trip to visit Robin and Gordon for a few days on the central coast as a detour on our way home. I'm really looking forward to those few days with them and can't wait to be on the beach as the 4 Webbs.

Catch you later!

separation anxiety

Hi again friends and family!

I'm sitting in AZ without Kendra and the babies while they play and laugh and grow there in California... I'll only be here for 3 days, but it's a new feeling to be away from my family. It's kind of odd to be here in our house alone while they are away.

Anyway, things are going great for me and them based on the phone calls i've had with Kendra. I'll pick up in this blog where I left from the last one since I didn't finish my thoughts and posting around the excitement of the past weekend. While we were hanging out with the Burgess clan and cousins, we thought it would be funny to try and fit Landon in our bumbo. keep in mind that Landon is 7 weeks YOUNGER than our babies. He is so big the circulation to his monster legs would have been cut off if we left him there longer!

Here's Dustin's blog for their little guy in case you haven't seen it in previous posts and they've done a great job of blogging the adventures of child rearing.

After talking over various methods and practices and books it was great to hear some real life measures of how other babies are developing, sleeping, and eating. We drove from Jill's house over to Kendra's friend Megan's house for dinner and conversation. The plan was to put the babies to sleep at her house along with their little sweet baby, Isabella, and then we could watch the olympics and spend the evening chatting. However, as we've learned, when babies have another agenda ours changes right along with it. Easton and Layla were too excited about being in a strange, new place that they didn't sleep a wink. We all took care of the babies and held on as long as we could because it was so much fun to be with Megan and Santiago that we didn't want to go home. In the end Isabella napped here and there and I was able to capture a quick pic of one such moment. notice her cute, little hand sticking up from the burrito wrap she's in. And that is their dog, Sophie, who is a gentle Chihuahua. She sniffed our babies and if Easton could talk he would have said, "I want the doggie! I want the doggie!" Luckily he can't crawl or Sophie would have been in trouble.

Santiago grilled up a dinner worthy of his own reality show on food TV network! I learned a lot just by watching him cook and apparently I need a lot more tools because he was using things I didn't even recognize. :)

That evening before bed time Opa helped get things ready. While we were in between diaper changes, pajamas, feeding, and everything else that happens around 6:30 PM i caught this picture of Easton hanging on to Opa as he balanced himself.

i don't know if you can see the resemblance in the picture, but Easton's body type looks EXACTLY like Michael Phelps. Strong muscles, long torso, a look of determination, and big feet. OK, maybe Easton has a little higher body fat, but other than that he's got a great swimmer's body!

I know I already posted on picture of Easton with my hat on, but this was one of those rare occasions where multiple pictures turned out from a single event. His expression here just makes me laugh every time i see it.

OK, enough for tonight. Have a great week and call Kendra to cheer her up because she says she misses me.

Catching up

Good evening folks,

We've been so busy making memories that I've hardly had time to write and share about them. The 4webbs definitely need a vacation from this vacation, but we're loving every minute of it here. Guess we need to start all the way back at last Saturday! Kendra went with her mom, her friend Megan, and Megan's mom along with the babies for coffee and visiting.

That left GG and I the chance to take a walk to the local Starbucks and spend some leisurely time talking and taking the chance to stop and smell the roses. I thought it was fun to see GG in her natural environment of a Starbucks and out around town where every knows her and talks to her. :)

Saturday afternoon brought Kendra's uncle Steve and his family by to say, "hello". That was the first time I had the chance to meet Gabe and Ryan ever so it was great to get to know more of Kendra's family. They brought their teacup chihuahua, named Hercules who was fully grown and about half the size of your average sewer rat. very cool dog though... can't believe i didn't get any pictures of him!

After that we went downtown for some pizza where Layla found the joys of banging silverware on the table. The babies were so well behaved we received a few compliments before leaving the restaurant from impressed patrons who noticed our happy babies. It's taken Layla many months more than Easton to find her thumb because her fists are always too clinched to get that little piggy out there to be sucked on. She's a busy bee so any moments like this must be captured quickly, which I did. Luckily i caught her in the act with her thumb in her mouth because 1 second after this picture and she was back to whapping and making noises.

At the same place I captured a great picture that shows Layla's cute outfit and her intent look as Opa holds her up!

Sunday was the busiest day i've had in months. We woke up and went for a walk to get some doughnuts. then as we were getting the babies ready for nap time Easton grabbed my hat off my head. I decided to put it on him and he got a real kick out of wearing my hat. He looks like one of the 7 dwarfs, but I'm not sure which one...

He is such a happy guy and has a funny, manly giggle. He also has the hugest behind crack of any baby Kendra and have ever seen.

I no connoisseur of cracks, but holy cow man. Have you ever seen anything like that??? He could easily go straight into the plumbing profession and fit right in! After those pictures and nap time we had a good church time with the Thomas family and we've really enjoyed them each Sunday during our visit. Then we went over to Jill's house (Kendra's cousin) where we finally caught up with Jill's family, Dustin's family, and the Burgess grandparents all in the same house! It was craziness with all those kiddos around, but a very special time because of it. That's the first time all of the Burgess' great grandchildren were under one roof. Never a dull moment, that's for sure. I thought it was hard to get TWO babies to smile at the same time for a good photo. It was darn near impossible to get SIX to behave long enough, but we managed to get a few good ones.

All boys and one girl, our lovely Layla. I'm sure it'll be easier to take a good picture in December when we come back because all of them should be able to sit up on their own with pillow propping...

Here's Landon (Dustin's boy who is 7 weeks younger than our babies) and Easton as they laid on the blanket together. Landon's a good looking kid and he's huge! He didn't even fit in our bumbo without cutting off circulation to his toes... no joking...

I've got a few more pictures to go along with the rest of our Sunday, but I'm just too tired to do it justice so i'll say goodnight for now and finish posting the marathon Sunday of fun tomorrow!

bye bye

Layla meets Layla

Hello folks,

It's finally the weekend again and we're looking forward to doing absolutely nothing. The state fair is kicking off, but we won't be anywhere near that part of town. The twins still have a 3.5 hour cycle so their awake time between naps would give us about enough time to drive there, park, and get into the front gate before turning around and heading home. So we'll wait for another year or two... at least until they're old enough to eat some funnel cake or fried twinkies.

Yesterday I spent some time at home taking care of the babies and Kendra as she did some more recovering. As Layla sat in the exersaucer she figured out that since she's finally big enough to lean over and see the little mirror. Once she leaned over and saw her own pretty face in the mirror she spent the next several minutes smiling and talking to herself! Layla reached a whole new level of enlightenment and self-awareness. :) I took about 10 pictures trying to get a good angle and lighting to capture the moment and how amazed she is to see herself. This one turned out about as well as I could hope:

The twins are still able to fit their chubby legs into the bumbo so twice every day we give them mashed up spoon-fulls of peas, asparagus, squash, and several other tasty veggies. They both always look cuter in their pajamas. Easton has puppies and Layla has kitties... and of course they are blue and pink. :) This picture reminds of looking down into a nest of little birdies when the mommy bird is leaning over with a worm in her mouth. I can almost hear the chirp, chirp noises coming from Easton here:

and we're very grateful GG was able to help out so much over the past few days especially. She's been right in the middle of feeding, burping, and singing to Easton and Layla. Here's Easton saying, "thank you, GG"! What a good looking boy, huh.

Kendra is doing much better and she should be able to go for a good walk in the morning after the babies eat and before it gets too hot. Our weekend will be filled with seeing friends and family since our time here will soon be up. Time flies when you're... so busy you don't know what day it is.

Catch you later this weekend!

Stop by the beach?

Happy hump day to you,

The 4 Webbs are hoping to stop by for a visit with Kendra's aunt and uncle on our way back to AZ in a couple of weeks. Robin and Gordon live close to the beach on the central coast of Cali and we are planning a few days of a detour on our way home! We took a trip last year to visit them for our anniversary before we were the "4 webbs". We loved their hospitality and willingness to show us around town and include us in the family events. An expectation of our time there is to get Easton and Layla out to the beach for their first time ever. One of my favorite pictures of all times is below, which shows me and my nephew, Eli, looking out over the ocean in L.A. when Joanie and John lived close to the beach.

I'm taking the entire week off work for vacation so we'll take our time leisurely driving back to AZ. After all, it's still 82 degrees for the night time LOWS so what's the hurry to get back?

Last night we drove up to Grandma and Grandpa Burgess' house for a great dinner and special time together. We were honored to have them all to ourselves for the evening! During the past few gatherings there were many other family members around. Don't get me wrong, it's always fun to have lots of family together, but it was extra special to have their full attention and time with Easton and Layla. Grandma made her famous lasagna and it sounds like that is something reserved for special occasions and often requested from those who've tasted her secret recipe.

Logan and his girlfriend, Bree came by tonight along with Oma and Opa Burgess so it was an unplanned family reunion here at GGs! The big occasion??? Kendra had "minor surgery" today so everyone came by to help out with babies, have dinner, and make sure Kendra was doing well. It's no big deal and she's been through it before so it just means a couple of days to heal and she'll be back to normal. OK, so back to the topic of Bree being here... She took a few short video clips last week and posted them to you tube! I forget which one, but Layla takes the opportunity to spit-up on me right on queue.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xl9hMXXGlKg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2yyIifcyPs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuCAffdXJB4

This afternoon I was doing my best to entertain Easton and Layla at the same time and happened to catch both of them with great, big, happy faces! Unfortunately, it wasn't in the SAME photo, but what can I do... Here's Easton's big open-mouth laughter pose. Layla was chuckling here too, but you can't tell because her latest move is to shove her whole hand in her mouth.

and this picture of Layla will probably end up in her senior year book if I have anything to do with it. :) I really like her little summer outfit with the pink shorts that have a frilly butt.

We had a fun time today while Kendra went to the doctor and some good bonding, although I feel so bad because Kendra is in quite a bit of pain. On a happier note, I heard from Joanie and baby Daphne is doing much better now that she's hydrated and on a strict diet. Not sure if she's home yet, but it looks like she'll be ready soon if not there already.

Time to go catch up on the olympics.

Easton's turn to laugh

Good evening folks,


We've captured many great videos showing Layla's happy personality, but Easton took more time to develop into the interactive boy he is today. This evening Oma was here along with her friend, June, who has her own grandma experience to draw from. She had Easton giggling like a comedy hour!




Having these two fun grandmas around Easton and Layla was entertaining for us to watch. Even after experiencing play time with the twins over the past few months I'm still amazed at how many hours a group of us can sit around and just watch the two of them play. You can see from the next picture exactly how huge the smiles were for everyone this evening:

After emailing with my aunt Sheri I was happy to hear she reads the blog and enjoys the pictures as well as my haphazard musing. :) She also mentioned my cousin, Trent, loves to see the videos so hopefully he gets a good laugh from this one with Easton. Here's an extremely old picture of Trent giving me a drink of something while my other cousin, Bud, talks on the fake telephone. I have lots of great memories with Trent from years of family gatherings and childhood of when we lived close by...

Kendra also had two of her best friends, Laura and Megan over to spend some time with her and the twins at GG's house. Easton was completely at ease with Laura and didn't have the "stranger danger" he sometimes gets when being held by an unfamiliar person.

Megan and Isabella were there also and I think having these friends and babies all together was exactly what Kendra was looking forward to here in California. This "hang out" time is one of the things she misses about living here so I am thrilled for her to have the time and availability to experience this. The past few pictures weren't "blog worthy" of Megan and Isabella because I wanted one that showed BOTH of their faces in the same photo. Luckily Kendra took a few shots and captured exactly what I was looking for. Here they are in their blogging debut:

There's also some good news and bad news... The bad news first: my sister's baby girl, Daphne, is back in the hospital as of Monday night because she's really sick and unable to keep nourishment down. This is the second time in a few weeks for her to be in the hospital. I'm not sure exactly what they have found, if anything, as the problem and I don't know what is being done such as IVs or medication. Please keep her in your prayers and thoughts though. I'm sure this is a stressful time for Daphne and her family...

The good news came in the form of a surprise meeting for me. As I ate lunch here at work in Cali, my very good friend of 10 years, Guillermo, walked by in the cafeteria during lunch! He's from Costa Rica and I'm from AZ and neither of us knew we were in California. Anyway, we went out to dinner last night and had an excellent time catching up joking around. I call him my "brother from another mother" because we have incredible similarities in hobbies, life, thoughts, etc.

Enough for now... I have to get some work done today so we can spend the evening with Kendra's grandparents across town!