Prayer Request Update

I got the call on Friday to come in and sign next years contract. I HAVE A JOB!!! We are so blessed to see God work in our lives and to see how he has his hands in everything.

I don't know if I will stay at my school, or be moved to a new school, but I have a job. I will most likely have my same job. I'm so thankful for the blessing of a job in these tough economic times.

10 months old today

Today marks 10 months we have had our beautiful miracles in our lives. Every day we notice them doing something different and new. They amaze us daily with their personalities and how they explore the world around them.

Bekah now has 4 teeth and shows them off when she smiles. She has been having a tough time sleeping and wakes up crying like she is in pain, but haven't figured out what it is that causing it. She likes to crawl around the room with a bib or burp rag hanging out of her mouth. We call her our little puppy dog. She talks a lot during the day and likes to say "da da" the most. Sometimes she makes it into "a da da" not sure what any of it means, but its pretty cute. She walks around the furniture as long as she has a hold on something or can put her hand on something for balance. Bekah waves bye bye and is just learning how to blow kisses. She is the most beautiful little girl with a very strong spirit. She will be able to achieve anything she sets her mind to.

Billy now has two teeth and working on the top two teeth. He uses everything to rub on his top gums (crib rail, moms arm, high chair, and anything else he can get his mouth on). Billy is quite the sleeper and has taken 3 1/2 to 4 hour naps although 2 is his normal. I think he is going through a growth spurt. Billy took his first step on Tuesday right into Uncle Bobby's arms. It was so cute. He has been working on it, but this was his first true step. He is babbling on and on. He makes all different sounds and changes his tone of voice when he is talking. He loves to lay his head down on stuffed animals. Billy has a soft spirit. He watches and observes everything around him, checking everything out. He analyzes his environment and has incredible determination.

We bought the kids a push/ride toy. You can walk behind the toy, and then in converts and they will be able to ride on it when they are older. Billy didn't want to ride, but Bekah liked pushing it backwards. They will both walk behind it, but don't know what to do when they get to a wall. You get the look "mom, come fix it".

When they wake up in the morning and from naps are one of my favorite parts of they day. They are always so happy and excited to see you. Billy jumps in his bed while holding onto the rails and gives a huge smile. Bekah lights up the room with her huge smile and is sometimes still sitting and playing with her doll or standing and talking with her brother.

It is fun to watch them interact. They will look at each other and just babble back and forth. I'm kinda scared to know what their conversations are about. I think they are plotting against Bill and I ;)

Finger foods are so much for them. They eat little bites of about anything. They get so excited to share our foods with us. Even though they don't like baby food rice, they love ours.

Just wanted to let you know we will be traveling to MI August 1st and will probably be leaving either the 8th or 9th. I'm not sure when we will be in Kalamazoo and when we will be in Sturgis, but we will let everyone know.

Quick Prayer Request

I just want to make a quick request to keep us in your thoughts and prayers. Please don't stress over it, but there is a small chance that Karrie could lose her job. The entire state of NC has to make staff cuts in Education, but until they finalize the state budget, no one knows how many positions must be cut. When they announce the cuts, it will start from the bottom with 1st Year teachers. Second year teachers will be next, which is where Karrie is. From all the talk from administrators, they seriously doubt the cuts will make it to 2nd year teachers.

Hockey League - Game 3

Alright, game 3 of our season was the best so far. Unfortunately that doesn't mean we won, just that we played better. We didn't have our full team because of it being such a late game (we started at 10:45pm) but it actually helped make things less hectic. This was my first game taking over the goaltending responsibilities, and I played fairly well despite the score. It may seem strange to say that, with a score of 6-12, but this was the best team we've faced yet and if it wasn't for a handful of crazy saves it could have easily been much worse. I let in the occasional bad five-hole goal, which was a combo of rust and being tired. There were also a few fluky goals that everyone including the ref looked at one another like "How in the world did that go in??" Our defense played better, but they still need to work on picking up guys in the slot. I counted at least 3 goals were I had to play all the way against one pipe and the other team had a guy camped out behind me just outside of the crease. No one on my team picked up this extra guy and they had an easy pass across center and slam dunk goal. There's nothing really I can do in those situations other then dive and hope for the best. From about halfway through the 2nd period on, we actually outscored the other team. We started spacing ourselves properly and jumping in on offense when we had the puck. I also had quite a few saves throughout the game that not only had my teammates cheering, but the ref and other team were commenting as well. It felt nice that my first game back was also our best game, and not trying to boast, but if we had one of the two previous fill in goalies the game would have been much uglier. Everyone was very appreciative of how I played, and they were taking the blame for many of the goals that they knew weren't my fault. I got the feeling that everyone thought I played well and were happy I was in net for the team. Unfortunately, it sounds like we play the best two teams the next two weeks, so things might get a little worse before they get better.

Twin comments

When we are out and about we get many questions and comments. It never ceases to amaze me some of the questions we get. I'll list some of the comments and questions we get.

1) Are they twins? um, no, I just took the neighbors baby that is about the same age.

2) Are they both yours? That is how twins work!

3) Are they identical? Well one is a girl and one is a boy, what do you think?

4) Do twins run in your family? Does it really matter?

5) Oh good a boy and a girl, your family is done. Um, isn't that our decision?

6) Oh bless you. I know that can be a nice comment but when it is said sympathetically, not so nice.

7) I can't imagine having twins. That is why God gave them to us and not to you.

8) How do you do it? Well, I feed them change them and love them just like you do one baby.

9) I've always wanted twins! Did you want the preterm labor, complicated pregnancy, possible NICU time, two mouths to feed, two diapers to change, two medical bills to pay, two babies to get up with in the middle of the night? It isn't all puppies and rainbows.

10) Are they natural? Aren't all babies natural?

11) How far apart are they? 21 min THEY'RE TWINS??? yes, there are only 2lbs difference between them, not 9 months worth.

The worst will have to be the ones that say "I just have to stop you." We want to reply, "Then we will just have to run you over." We get this about 2 times a month. People will walk right in front of the stroller or cart and stop you. Do they realize that they aren't the only ones that do that and people like that make our shopping trips turn into all day outings.

I thought everyone would get a laugh from our daily events.

Summer

Yesterday, my summer started at home with the kids. Our first day was great. I feel like I'm running around crazy, but a good kind of crazy. I try to get things done around the house, but it isn't easy with two little "helpers". The only time I can really get things done is when they are napping or in their high chairs. Our living room isn't baby proof, so I'm either moving the kids away from things or saying "no". Since I don't want them saying no, no, no back to me, I try to remove them more than say NO. We baby proofed as much as we can but there are still things that they love to play with that they shouldn't like lamp cords and other cords.

I made it on my first full out grocery trip yesterday with the kids. Bill and I usually do it together or only take one kid with me while the other stays home with daddy. I had Billy in the front part of the cart and Bekah in the carrier. Her legs are getting so long that her feet hit my legs when we walk, but it wasn't too bad. I don't think summer in NC is a good time to have a 9mo old furnace in a carrier. I think Bill and I will stick to big trips together where one has the cart and the other has the stroller. I can manage smaller trips with the stroller and a few items.

Today I think we may hit the library and see what all fun books we can find. Tomorrow I will be going to a Small group bible study for moms. I'm excited to meet other moms at our church.

Here are some pictures from when we went to the park the other weekend. Bekah and Billy tried out the big swing. They had a blast.

Here are some pictures from their first time at the pool. It is pretty dangerous taking a camera to the pool with these two. Funny part about it is, Billy splashes like crazy in the pool, but Bekah splashes more in the bath tub. :)

Hope you enjoy the pictures and the update. :)

Hockey League - Game 2

So at the end of the post for last weeks game, I said "If we learn how each other play, and get used to being out there together, we should be alright." Well, apparently we haven't learned enough yet, because I think we might have played worse. We actually started the game fairly well, but it was apparent pretty quick that the other team just out matched us in the skill department. It didn't help that we were still having trouble doing the small things like line changes and staying in our positions. There were times when I was out as an offensive player and I would have to collapse to our net to make up for the bad positioning/play of the defenseman. And this was after I had just led a rush the other direction where I had no one to pass to. Karrie and the kids came this week, which was really nice. It was fun to look over and see them, especially because it was so painful to look at my team on the rink : ( Oh, and Bekah does not like the cage on my helmet! She started to cry both times I got close to her with it on lol. Another factor that didn't help our cause was our goalie. I am grateful he played for us, as he had just finished his first game right before ours. The problem was, he was very tired and it appeared that he stopped trying about halfway through the game. So two weeks in a row now we've played bad as a team and have had a goalie playing two games in a row letting in soft goals. With that in mind, I decided to step up and tell everyone that I'm playing goal this next week. Not only will it help with stopping the lame shots that were going in on Wed, but it will also take one person off our very cramped bench. For some reason, they added an 11th player to our roster. That's too many for an inline team. The only bummer about playing goalie, it takes me off the rink as a player, which we still need. Overall, I think my presence in net will do more to help us win though, and it will help me get back in the goalie mindset for when I try to play on an ice team. Oh, and that final score....11-1...OUCH!!

Hockey League - Game 1

Alright, I said I would keep everyone posted on my inline hockey league and we had our first game Wednesday night. I'm playing on a house team, for those of you that don't know, a house team is made up of a bunch of people that signed up individually and are just thrown on a team. We've never met before, let alone played on a team together. This can make for some interesting challenges. First off, I had to sign up for the Beginner level league because of my work schedule. You can get skill ranges from true beginner to fairly decent all in the beginner league. We don't have anyone on our team that is as skilled as Bob, but a few of them are alright. We also have some that are very weak skaters and you can tell that inline is new to them. We also had all 10 players show up for the first game, which was actually a bit of a bad thing. With all of us being new to each other, and many new to organized hockey, it was a bit chaotic. There were a few guys (some of the decent players) that were getting quite frustrated and they let that get to them. Overall we played ok for our first game, especially considering the circumstances, but ended up losing 5-2 according to the official standings. I played fairly good for my first time in quite a while, and I could tell pretty quick that I'm one of the best players on the team. For those of you that used to watch our Chiefs team at SoccerZone in Portage, our old team would have destroyed this house team. All in all, I still had fun getting out there and playing, and one of the guys has taken the initiative to try and organize lines for next game based on skill. If we learn how each other play, and get used to being out there together, we should be alright.

Baby Dedication

Baby Dedication - May 24, 2009 from Johnny Cook on Vimeo.

On Sunday, May 24th Bekah and Billy were dedicated at our church. They have posted it, so I thought I'd share it with you. We are so happy to have found such a wonderful church to call home. If you don't want to watch all of the dedications, we are at 4min 10sec.