Memorial Day

For Memorial Day this year we took ourselves out to the Dunaway cabin.  It was so nice to spend a couple days out of town and still be comfortable with our babies.  

 

 

I guess every spring a robin makes a nest on their stairs. 



We mostly just relaxed and enjoyed the view.

 

The babies looked so little from up in the loft.  They did great!  They slept better there than they have slept at home in what feels like a long long time.  

 

We played a little horseshoe.  I miraculously pulled from behind in the Winner Take All round for the win!  It's kind of hard to throw those horseshoes while holding a baby. I managed to miss so badly once we spent quite a while looking for the shoe at the bottom of the hill.  Paul found it!



 

Paul made us some incredible hobo dinners in the fire.

 

 

It's just a really nice place to be.



Thank goodness for the Dunaways.  They are so generous.  And thank goodness for their neighbors Tom and Susan.  Tom helped us find a way in when we locked ourselves out!  Whoops.

Food & Babies

While I like to imagine my future mothering will include a heck of a lot more creating delicious food, (things settle down, right?) for now I am quite happy whenever we get a hot meal to come together out of our kitchen.  Paul does almost all of the cooking around here and I sure do a good job of enjoying it. 

 

Here was our most recent smashing success.  Cauliflower Sweet Potato Pizza.  Unbelievably amazing.  Trust me.  

 

 

There is a family in our ward that makes an incredible salmon dish.  Paul was successful in recreating it and now we can have "Pulini Salmon" whenever we want!

 

And for dessert, our neighbor is keeping us well stocked with goodies.  Thank goodness.



Paul spent some time getting our little garden prepped so soon we will have more goodies to put on our pizzas!

I went to check on the twinners the other day when they were waking up from a nap and this is what I found!  I guess one binkie is not enough for sweet Esme. 

They're getting really good at being smiley! 

 

We are having so much fun with our books.  A couple of our favorites so far are The Pout Pout Fish and Big Little.  Good times at the Rigg Household!

 

Out & About

We're doing it!  We're getting out!!!  This spring has been absolutely gorgeous, so it makes it easy to want to get out of the house and enjoy the beautiful days.  I am just so proud of myself!  And of my little totters who are quite the adventuresome champs. 

 

One day we went for a walk at Valley Of The Moon. 

 

 

We strolled along until we found a lovely bench.  The totters snoozed while I read my book.  Delightful!

 

 

Usually we live our summers at quite a frenetic pace.  And we love it.  But this year I am completely enjoying this new slowed pace to our life.  We have a few plans, but nothing grand.  And that feels so good. 

 

It is interesting how everyone older than you wants to tell you how important it is to cherish this time when they are little.  As in, every single person you cross paths with on the street.  Often it feels more than advice, edging on a desperate plea. They really mean it and they want you to feel their sincerity.  They want you to know how important it is before it is too late.  Can I just say, I'm killing it! (Most days.)  And I feel so good about that too!  (Can you tell it's sunny summertime in AK by how good I'm feeling about everything and how many exclamation marks I'm usuing?)

 

Today we went out to Alder Lake with Nate & Macrina and Macrina's brother Ben.  Do you want to know what's great about Macrina?  A lot of things, but especially this thing she made for us when we had our babies. 

 

 

Isn't that the most perfect thing you've ever seen?  I love it.  I know, I know...come talk to me about loving my wild children when they're 2 or 16 or whatever...but I love love it! 

 

Today she introduced Esme to the wonderful world of summertime lakes.

 

 

And Esme didn't even cry!  She just scrunched her feet together in the sand. I'm always so surprised when they don't cry.  I guess babies don't just cry all the time and it's okay for them to explore the world around them.  Who knew?



 

 It was an absolutely perfect day. 

 

 

Man, I love these guys.  Nate and Ben caught some nice trout.  Nate and Macrina are moving in June and I feel like I'm just about going to DIE without them.  They are so great.  

 

 

Esme loved it!  She loves to watch the trees.





Ezra loved it too...you just can't tell.



 

And we're enjoying our time at home too.  They have a nice view out the window.



 

And I still haven't tired of taking their cute little pictures. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Surprise Surprise.

I’ve already told everyone I can think of that the biggest and best surprise that I’ve come across in a long time is how much I am loving this!  It’s actually fun.  Kelsey told me that twins were fun when we first told her we were going to have twins and for the first few months of these guys’ lives I really wanted to strangle her.  Because that was not fun. 

But this, this is fun. 

 

It's true, I am not chipperly writing posts about how fun this is every day (especially last week when they had the sniffles and nobody could breathe and everyone was sad) (or the night we "let them cry" for 100 minutes before they fell asleep-please don't tell Child Protective Services), but more often than not I am laughing laughing laughing, and so are they.

 

Especially when Paul's home.  That guy makes our house so happy. 

 

 

They are even enjoying their morning workouts more and more. 

 

 

And they are enjoying each other more and more, which is way fun.  Especially Ezra.  One day we held them standing up facing each other.  They stared each other in the eyes and Ezra started laughing and dancing like he just couldn't contain his joy.  It went on for quite a while and I had tears in my eyes, knowing that this really was one of the happiest moments of my life.   

 

 

Also, they are in a really snuggly stage which IS THE BEST!!!!



We've been getting out pretty regularly.  We've been going on walks because the weather has been gorgeous.  We just love going on walks in our neighborhood because there's always something fun to see.  Like the one day we saw the actively psychotic man yelling obscenities as he walked down the other side of the street AND a very near fight as one man threw another man into the chain link fence beside the bar on the corner.  At 4:00 in the afternoon.  We just kept strolling along.  Good times in Spenard.

 

We celebrated Paul's birthday by our very first outing to a restaurant with the totters.  We went to Red Robbin for his free burger.  We knew it would be safe because that's where everyone with screaming children goes to eat.  We fit right in.  Esme had the decency to sleep through the whole thing so we could tag team darling Ezra with his poopy pants and evening crying.  And yes, he's wearing pajamas.  Can't quite remember why.  And no we didn't have any margaritas, contrary to the blazing sign in the background.

We also celebrated Johnny's birthday with the coolest moose piñata I have ever laid eyes on.  Esther made it!  It was way sturdy.  All the kids took vigorous whacks at it, but it wasn't until Johnny (who is a grown-up) whaled on it for a good five minutes before the moose finally yielded his candy bounty. 

My first Mother's Day was perfect.  Paul Wall, The Great, made me cinnamon rolls for breakfast in bed.  #whataguy!  #thankgoodnessforpillsbury.

Esme celebrated by looking cute and drooling all over her shirt.  Wow.

 

 

 These guys have been alive for 5 months! 

 

Reclaiming Mornings

A few years ago Natalie Seattle informed me that I had taught her how to love mornings.  I was surprised because I had completely forgotten that I once loved mornings.  Now, don't get me wrong...I am not and have never been a "Morning Person."  I hate nothing more than getting out of bed in the morning.  In fact, even at my ripe old age, it still fills me rage every single day.  And I do mean rage.  But she reminded me that there was a time in my life when I loved what comes after getting out of bed.  I loved to be up and intentionally spend my time centering myself for the day.  I would run (okay...stagger), read, pray, eat breakfast sitting down, and plan my day. 

That was during college.  Well, for the last 9 years or so (except for the 4 year stint of early morning seminary and the year plus of exercising before work) I have started my job at 7 and found myself incapable of doing anything more than getting myself there on time.  Now for the first time in a long time, I find myself unemployed and potentially in repossession of a nice slot of morning time after the babes go back to sleep after their first feeding.  Let's be honest.  My kids sleep great at night right now.  And have for a while.  And so I know that I really don't have an excuse for climbing back into bed, which is exactly what I have been doing.  You see, I got a wee bit traumatized when they were born and there was no sleep going on ever.  I got conditioned to rush to bed any time there was the slightest possibility of a few minutes of shut eye.  Until yesterday. 

Yesterday after they ate, I left them almost sleeping in the quite capable care of their father and took myself on a nice morning rollerblade.  And boy oh boy, was that ever good for my soul.

So I think I'm almost ready to start reclaiming my mornings.  Don't worry, today the skies were not nearly so blue and I went straight back to bed. Baby steps!  We'll get there.
 

Marching Through April

Look who's growing up!  One thing I've realized as a new mama is that taking pictures of babies is hard.  Most of the pictures end up pretty goofy looking or blurry, or they're doing something weird with their eyes.  But I think this one actually shows what they look like now.

 

 

While we are feeling better and more human all of the time, I still don't have any adventure pictures to share since most of our time is spent sitting around the house, forging new neural pathways and taking pictures. 

 

Having said that, we do have a couple of major accomplishments to share.

 

Our kids have discovered their hands.  Esme especially is a big fan of those two little things on the end of her arms.  They are definitely her favorite toy and snack. 

 

 

And Ezra has mastered the art of standing up like a champ and has discovered the joys of sitting up on his own in a little chair. 

 

 

 

 

We did venture out for a walk at Potter's Marsh for some fresh air.  All I remember is that Esme cried all the way out there, had a huge freak-out at the prospect of entering a front carrier and Paul and I were fighting about something that of course I don't remember now.  But still...we got some fresh air.   

 

 

The rest of our time is spent being as cute as a couple turtle doves.

 

This was the Potter's Marsh day.

 

 This was the day we all decided to wear red.

Like I said, Esme loves her hands/fingers for a snack.

Sometimes I feel like they cry all the time.  But they don't.  These pictures are proof!

 Good news.  Paul still loves our kiddos.

How could you not?

This was Easter cuteness.   

And so we continue marching towards adulthood.  Sometimes I get really sad at the idea of them going to kindergarten.  Am I ridiculous or what? Other accomplishments include singing through the entire Children's Songbook (only the ones I know of course) and reading Beatrix Potter, which only gives them lots of ideas of how to be naughty.  I am still astonished at how much I love these guys and how nice they are.