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!

Partners In Slime

Hello again friends and family,

This'll be another happy edition of adventures with the 4 Webbs. Everything will be happy except {queue the jaws theme} the story of the "Snot Sucker" {queue frightful scream}.

Easton and Layla are fairly isolated from sickness and other kids because Kendra stays at home with them all day and we are overly protective of them when we are out on the town. The twins have only been sick once in 9 months and that was just a short, light case of the sniffles. This round of sickness is a whole new animal. They are still happy and playful with just a slight hint of lethargic attitude. BUT, the biggest problem is the snot! I can handle the babies drooling on my arm or shirt... I've "evolved" now into the daddy role and have reached a new level of enlightenment. However, I had to look away to avoid gagging several times today while Kendra wiped, sucked, and clean up snot. They are as bad as Slimer from Ghostbusters only it isn't as cool to have EctoPlasm sneezed all over your shirt like what happens in the movie. That's where I came up with my new nickname for them, "partners in slime".

Anyway, the real hard part of this is watching Easton and Layla have the Ectoplasm sucked out of their nose with the blue thing we call the "snot sucker". The twins always cry their way through this process and that's hard for us to see. Mommy gently sucks the bogies from their nose and daddy looks up at the ceiling fan trying not to puke. I was able to look long enough to take a picture of Layla surviving the treatment and my heart breaks just seeing it:


OK, now on the normal happiness and sunshine the twins bring to our lives. They haven't figured out the walkers yet, but their little feet are starting to move in the right direction so we are proud of their progress.

During dinner tonight I was able to capture some ultra-closeups of Easton and Layla's eyes and face, which I've been trying to get for a few weeks now. We've been reading a book called, "where is baby's belly button?" and the twins LOVE it. One of the pages fits with Layla's picture and it goes like this: "Where is babies mouth? Behind the cup!"


She has the prettiest green eyes of any baby in the history of the world. And I caught Easton with some freshly puréed butternut squash on his face. Ignore that though and look at his cute face and eyelashes that are so long they look fake.


Kendra moves the play time into our front room periodically because it has carpet and that makes for a softer landing as Layla is pulling herself up onto everything with a handle and then falling back to the ground. This next picture appears to show how Layla is ordering Easton's next moves with a blue marker that acts as a director's baton.


You can also see Kendra on the floor in the background because she is worn out from the day to day routine and keeping the 4 Webbs house running like a well-oiled machine. Tomorrow afternoon we will pick up Nana and Papa from the airport for a week-long stay! We've been looking forward to this for months now and can't wait to spend time hanging out with them in our house and around town.

I'm not sure if i'll have more time or less time to blog with them being here, but i'll do my best to post the plethora of pictures that is sure to come from our time together.

See you soon!

Bumper cars

Hey friends and family,

Thanks for stopping by to see what's up with the 4 Webbs! I thought it would be fun to do a little Q and A based on some questions we get from time to time.

Q: Are you planning to have more children?
A: Until chickens have three legs and carnival rides have room for three seats across... No. With three kids and two legs on a chicken, someone gets stuck with wings. We are completely content with 2 babies. We discussed this matter one month after we met and agreed then we both want 2 kids. Kendra and I came from families with three kids and neither of us want to force our child to sleep in the back window of the car on long trips or on a cot in the hotel room.

Q: Are your twins fraternal?
A: Yes they are Dizygotic

Q: Are your twins identical?
A: No! You'd be surprised how many times per week we get this question in conjunction with teh previous one. It's impossible to have identical boy/girl twins.

Q: Do twins run in your family?
A: No, neither of us have twins in our lineage. We had a little scientific help through IVF . We tried IVF one time, had two embryos implanted, and came out with two babies. We were extremely fortunate and blessed to have such great success. 1 minute prior to implanting the embryos we changed our mind and decided to only put in 2 instead of three! It's highly likely Kendra would have given birth to THREE babies and we would be called the 5 Webbs instead.

Q: Which baby is bigger?
A: Easton has always been 1 pound heavier than Layla even from the time they were born.

If you have other questions, please post a comment and we would be happy to answer anything you want to know! After 9 months of posting to this blog every other day, you can tell I am very open about our lives.

We decided today that we need to get walkers for the twins because Layla and Easton are starting to pull themselves up on everything in site it's obvious they want to explore. Also, Kendra is getting worn out chasing the babies around and constantly pulling them back to the rug/sheet where they are supposed to play. Here's Layla in her cute pajamas hanging on to the TV stand:

She kept trying to bite the knobs on the door and drawers, but I'm not sure what was so appetizing about them... Anyway, we went to Babies 'R Us and bought the Baby Trend Walkers. We sat the twins in their walkers and guess what gear they were in? Reverse!


They both starting moving backwards and couldn't figure out how to go forward. Oh well, they'll figure it out. It'll be fun to watch them gain their independence and figure out how to play bumper cars with each other...

I shouldn't have taken my victory lap of health during the last blog. Yep, the last of the Mohicans is officially sick. I have the same symptoms as the babies except I don't drool everywhere. Check out the line of drool from Easton's chin!


Luckily Kendra is feeling much better so hopefully she'll stay healthy and take care of the rest of the 4 Webbs. Mommy is down for the count, but only during play time! Here are Layla and Easton the conquerors:


My sister's daughter Daphne calls her bracelet her "pretty". Joanie asks Daphne, "show them your pretty..." while we are seeing them over Skype and Daphne smiles really big and holds up her wrist to show us her "pretty". When Joanie was here visiting she gave Layla a bracelet so we've adopted the idea. Here is Easton and Layla where she is eating at the pizza place. You can see she's wearing her bracelet and I'm sure it'll be a while before she knows what it is and can show it off.


I better go rest up so I can work this week and help get the house ready for my Ma and Pa to arrive in town on Wednesday! See you soon.

Cribs Lowered

Hello baby lovers,

Happy weekend to you all and may you relax in peace. The 4 Webbs are doing well, but we are sharing more than "love" here in our household. We're sharing in sickness too! 3 out of 4 Webbs are sick. I am the last of the Mohicans to avoid catching the sniffles. Those of you who were at my wedding may remember my nervous demeanor and shaky voice as I said, "In sickness and in health". Subconsciously I was thinking ahead to this moment in time where i'd be taking care of Kendra AND the twins! :) The symptoms are not all that bad and everyone is still sleeping through the night. Just some runny noses and a few coughs here and there. Easton is just a little more ho-hum than normal and Layla isn't letting a little sickness slow her down at all. Spirits are still high around here and we're hoping to get every back to healthy over the weekend. You think I'm kidding? Here's a video clip showing all of us laughing for Oma and Opa while chatting with them via Skype:



That's one my favorite clips of all times! Layla is so happy and so intense. While I'm thinking about it, I have to clarify the names we considered for Easton. As Dustin pointed out in the comment for our last blog, Kobe was only a frontrunner in my mind. Here's a picture of me 5 years ago with my brand new set of Kobe sneakers with my Kobe poster in the background:

Kendra was looking over my shoulder as I wrote the last blog and she firmly requested I remove that name from the list. I responded with, "this is MY blog post. Feel free to post your own thoughts if you choose to do so! In the famous words of Captain Barbossa, 'I am disinclined to acquiesce to your request. Means no." Those kind of sarcastic responses don't go over well with Mommy, but she gives me some latitude to kid around with her without taking things too seriously. Anyway, to make a short story long, as a Lakers fan I seriously considered Kobe, but Kendra was almost offended I would even mention such an abomination as a name for our first born son.

OK, so back to the twins and what's new. The title of the post comes from the fact that we had to lower Easton's crib last night because he is now standing up on his own in the crib!


Over the past few days we noticed a trend when we put Layla and Easton down for nap time: They don't sleep. We lay them down, give them Nunu blanket, and leave the room. As soon as we leave the room they both stand up in their cribs and talk across the room at each other with shrieks and laughs. Kendra and I just look at each other and laugh along with them because it is so funny to hear them communicating. It's hard to see their little heads and hands poking up above the cribs, but here's a picture from when I caught them red-handed:


and for those of you who can see the videos, here's video #2 for this post that shows Easton and Layla BOTH standing up in their cribs talking to (shrieking at) each other instead of sleeping during their afternoon nap.



I forgot to mention and post the picture from Kendra's soccer game this past Monday. Her teammates, Jenn (on the left) and Kendra (on the right) were asking us to bring the babies once so the team can see them so we decided to bundle up the babies and head out to the field. In case you are wondering, that last sentence is not a typo. There is another girl named Kendra on my wife's soccer team. Anyway, we arrived at the field and were getting ready to put their jackets on since it was getting chilly. I asked Kendra where she put them and she said, "where did YOU put them?" Doh! Both of us forgot to grab their jackets so we used whatever was in the car to keep them warm... A shopping basket cover to be exact. See that blue thing in front of Layla?


Yep, that's the shopping cart cover. I felt like a dope wrapping up the babies in that thing, but it kept us warm for about 30 minutes while Mommy kicked the ball around with her friends. Oh well... As my Uncle Dave used to say, "You can't have adventures unless you go adventuring!"

I'll leave you with that thought as you plan your weekend. Good luck and happy adventuring!

The story of names

Good morning folks,

Today I'll tell you the story of names: How we ended up with twins named Easton and Layla. I've had a few people ask the question so I thought it would be a good opportunity to share! Plus, if our twins ever get around to reading this multi-volume blog some time I want them to have the answer regarding where there names came from. We found out 6 weeks after conception there were two lint balls (babies) in Kendra's tummy and then we found out there was one boy and one girl after 18 weeks. So if you do the math, we had a LOOOOONG time to figure out names. Kendra and I spent hours surfing the internet and reading books in Border's searching for the perfect names.

We'll start with our beloved Easton who finally figured out this week how to use a hammer:

To understand his origins, i'll need to use some etymology on my own name. From what my parents tell me (since they have no blog or documented account of the origin of my name) I was named after a TV show... sort of... Apparently after having my older brother and sister, who are a year apart, my parents were content and happy with their own version of the 4 Webbs. 4 years later I was born as a "surprise gift from God". That last phrase is code word for a contraceptive malfunction, but I'm ok with how things turned out! :) Anyway, while at the hospital just before I was born Ma was watching TV. There it was as if by divine revelation... A rerun of the show called "Then came Bronson". Ma says they were deciding between "Bronson" and "Terry", but once I was born, my fists were clinched and I looked really intense and tough (I wonder where Layla gets her traits). Hence, the name Bronson.

OK, fast forward 33 years and now it's my turn to name my son. I decided to follow Ma's example. I had four basic criteria for the name. It had to be:

- known as a last name
- strong and masculine
- common enough that it is pronounceable
- rare enough to be cool and memorable

As I was looking through a big book of last names I came across Easton and it was the first one that Kendra didn't hate or laugh at. So there you have it. The runner up names for Easton (in order of likelihood) were:

Nolan
Shaden
Bronson
Ace
Braden
Kobe

Here is one last picture of Easton from play time with Marsha yesterday. The twins always have a great time with her and Kendra really appreciates Marsha's help with going to LapSit, shopping, and hanging out around our house.


It wasn't as if I had autonomy to pick whatever name I desired. Both babies have names Kendra and I both agreed to mutually. I just want to make sure that point is noted so everyone knows we jointly decided on these names. :)

And now on to our little sweetheart, Layla. The Curious George monkey (Thanks Jessie Cassani) is her all time favorite stuffed animal and she spends more time chewing on and drooling on him than any other toy.


The runner up names for Layla were:

Ava
Kylie
Summer

I can't remember how we found Layla exactly. I think it was from a character in a TV show oddly enough. Anyway, one evening when Kendra and I were finished looking for names at Border's book store we walked down the shopping mall row and went into a restaurant / coffee shop for some hot tea. As we sat at the table contemplating the name "Layla" a musician sat down next to his equipment, picked up his guitar, and began singing Eric Clapton's song named "Layla". We agreed at that moment that if divine revelation can come to my Ma through a rerun of a TV show, then why not a musician at a coffee shop? As Paul Harvey says, "Now you know the rest of the story..."

Almost every day during Kendra's pregnancy I would say, "Kendra what do you think about... blah as a name?" and based on her reaction I would say, "Yeah, we should consider that one" OR "Ha! I was just kidding... that's a stupid name".

Here's a picture of Layla holding and chewing on one of Easton's socks. Don't worry, it was a clean one. Just after this picture she said, "Hey, wait a minute... this sock doesn't match my outfit?!" OK, maybe she didn't say it, but i'm sure that is what she was thinking.


Can you guess which baby is feeling a little under the weather and has a temperature?


Nope, not the girl with her fist in her mouth. The other one... The boy who has snot running down his nose and was caught mid-sneeze in this picture! He's a little sick, but doing ok. It's difficult not to laugh because every time he sneezes it sounds like, "Ah CHOO! mmm nah mmm nah" as he moans and grunts after each sneeze.

That's it for today, but check back again soon! I'll post the video of "Playtime with Marsha" where the twins really ham it up for the camera.