about face

it's finally happened. my girls are big enough to face forward in their new 'big girl' car seats. ok, so they've been big enough for a while there with their little feet hanging out of their carriers - but it's one of those things that you only think about when you're strapping them in to go somewhere. and lets face it - if we're strapping in, it's because i have a plan...

they are LOVING their seats and the new view. they love to look out the windows. of course it is a bit harder to get them both strapped in when it's just me. soon enough they will be able to strap themselves in, and then i'll really be sad because they'll be sooo big!

all caught up

ok, i know i totally slacked for a few weeks/months - whatever. i'm caught up now so check out the latest posts and i'm going to do better. christmas is coming and we're very excited.

family pics

we had brooke take some family pics of all my siblings and their families a few weeks ago. it was so much fun that we're going to try to do it every year. here's a few... and btw i got a hair cut Yay!!

the whole crewmy brothers & sisters (not in any order)

don't i have the cutest babes ever! so fun with me and my babes. we'll work on smiling next year!i think we do okay too.
thanks brooke!

Birthday

the girl's birthday was november 19th and we had a great time. the girls had their very first cupcakes and while they spit the actual cupcake out it was fun to get frosting everywhere
they also had fun opening presents. abby has a special knack for pulling paper off of things i didn't think possible (like board books, and boxes) so this was right up her alley. it still took a little encouragement but they caught on and it's great practice for christmas!grandma and grandpa won the day with their scooter gifts.
the girls took to them very quickly... i put abby on her's pushed her forward a little and she grinned and took off.same with maddie. they had a very fun night with several scooting sessions.

Walking

the girlies are having alot of fun learning to walk. abby is the front runner by far, which i never would have guessed. here's some video of all the good times. this is pre-walking to abby walking. she is almost running now, and maddie hasn't really taken an interest in it at all, but we're working on it.



Pre-Walking Training from Jason Hansen on Vimeo.


It's tough being a box - but we're livin it up from Jason Hansen on Vimeo.


Abby's Walking Skills from Jason Hansen on Vimeo.

Halloween

I know I'm way behind, but the girls have really picked up some momentum, so without anymore excuses here are some halloween pics.
Abby was Batgirl and Maddie was Supergirl. Following the theme Jason was Clark Kent and I was Lois Lane.



We had a busy night starting out with our new ward trunk or treat for a minute to say hi to the 5 people we know there - then off to grandma's to say hi and get some treats from them. This was probably the most fun for the girls. We took them to the door to see all the trick-or-treaters which they loved. There was a little girl that came to the door saw the girls and forgot all about the candy. Her little princess jaw dropped and she said "super hero babies... two super hero babies" and stood there in awe as the rest of her troop got their candy and were on to the next house. It was the highlight of the night.

Then it was off to the old ward trunk-or-treat which was fun to see all the old friends again. A very fun night.

The Big Trip

ok so the big trip of 08 was actually in august (yes, i know i'm behind) and it was great! the girls got to meet their two great grandmas so it was very special for them. we went to see my grandma first in Provo, where we spent the night at my aunt becky's house, then we went on to bear lake (utah/idaho border) and spent the rest of the weekend with jason's family.

abby & maddie are at a very fun age where they make friends fast, and eveyone loves them. they took to grandma very quickly... here's some pics of the girls with great grandma McOmber at our aunt Becky's house

abby, maddie & gr. grandma mac

maddie & gr grandma mac
abby & bob, maddie & grandma

we had a great time with aunt becky & uncle jed & grandma & grandpa. it was our first sleep over with the girls, we put some cushions on the floor and surrounded them with pillows which the girls thought were great fun to crawl over. we were trying to get them down for bed and they happened to start crawling over the same pillow right towards each other, and when they saw each other they just started laughing. so any frustrations that jason & i were having trying to get them down instantly melted into laughter with them. i finally laid down next to abby and they both instantly calmed down and slept through the night. what beautiful wonderful girls i have.

then it was off to bear lake for the annual hansen gathering

first things first, we had to meed gr. grandma wallentine
we had some good times playing with both our grandma's

then it was off to the beach for some real action

aunt michelle & abby, with grandma and cindy with maddie

splashing with aunts cindy & michelle

mom & abby testing out the water

mom & abby really making a splash

my new favorite pic of maddie ha!

The girls did absolutely wonderful on their first trip, they slept marvelously no matter where we were, they did great on the plane trips, and had so much fun with lots of family. it was alot of work planning and packing, and even though they will not remember it, we have plenty of pics to look back on and remember. i really want abby and maddie to have lots of fun memories to look back on, and just because something is hard to do, i shouldn't let that stop us. (even if it does take us a week to recover)

chicks dig skills

so it seems like the girls do something new everyday, and it also seems like it takes me a whole week to adjust to it and feel like i can handle it physically. here's some of the latest. sorry to be quick, but the girlies are up again...



Jumping from Jason Hansen on Vimeo.

one more..


Crawling buddies from Jason Hansen on Vimeo.

thanks jason for putting these together for me, ''you're the best... i laaaave you"

crawling

these girlies of mine are growing up way too fast. it seems like there's a new trick everyday. here's their latest



and here's why i don't have time to blog - i'm pooped from chasing this around



can you believe how big they're getting!!

grandma visit

my mom visited this last week, she was down for another baby, but we made a family party of it and had a great time. here's some pics of the soiree. we wanted to have everyone take a pic with my mom, so there's only a couple of candid ones the rest are just pics with grandma

hair do's

so i finally found some elastics that were small enough for the girlies, here's the results
maddie with a pony tail

maddie with pig tails & abby with pony tail

i need to work on getting things in focus,
but look at how good they are sitting up now

update

ok, so jason informed me that it has been two months since i've posted, and he's been getting mail that i need to post. i can't believe it's been that long, but here's what's been going on with us...

week one:

i get the stomach flu. i never threw up, but i also never ate anything. i thought i was over it, and then jason asked me what i wanted for dinner, and i said gatorade and saltines, so like a good husband he made me dinner.

jason's oldest sister, cindy also visited with her youngest girl quincy. it was the first time meeting the girls, so we had to have lots of parties - i just wish i had felt a little better while they were here.

week two:

my mom came to visit because jason was going out of town for the week for work. this is where it gets interesting. we found out that jason had to leave town about two months earlier, so i asked my mom if she would come down and help out while he was away, she said she would and maybe she would have my youngest brother taylor come along and visit with everyone as well. so when i told tyson (other bro) about it, he said 'well maybe taylor should stay and we could live together', so... jason & i thought maybe we could rent them our house and we could get a new one as we could see needing more space in the very near future. so, just for fun we started looking around, and before i even knew it, we had found a great house in a great neighborhood, and we were signing papers!! so - no more trainings for jason, they're just too expensive. but a great big thank you to my mom for staying with me - i didn't even worry about jason being gone because i knew i would have all the help i needed.

one other fun thing that happened while my mom was here is that the girls started teething. first i was hoping that they would start teething when they were six months and not five and a half, so i wasn't mentally prepared for them to be teething, it took me an afternoon to figure out the cranky drama. oh, and i also thought that the teething process involved a few crabby days for the tooth to push through and then you have a glimmering white tooth - ha boy was i wrong. it took maddie two weeks of on again off again teething to get her first tooth.
this sums up april - moving along to may

week three:

holy crap we just bought a house

there were a couple of things we wanted to do to the house before we moved in, like paint the cupboards, and put some shelves in a closet in the laundry room - for a pantry, etc so this week was spent getting quotes, looking at appliances, trying to rent our other house, oh and one other minor little thing... preparing a talk so we could speak on mother's day

week four:
speak in church on mother's day - jason & i stayed up way too late on sat night trying to prepare for these things and when i finally felt like i had a beginning, middle and end to the talk i called it quits and prayed that it was more than 5 min long.

holy crap we just bought a house

guess we better start packing

my sister came over and helped me pack things up which was great, it really goes 4x faster with two people. we got everything packed up and moved on Saturday with help from the men in the ward. thanks guys, nothing was broken.

maddie got her first tooth! you couldn't see it, but you could feel it break through the gums. holy smokes my little girls are growing up!

week five:

holy crap we just bought a house

time to unpack, because last month i told everyone they could come for a swim party on memorial day at my house. what was i thinking? probably that it only takes me two days to unpack a whole house - this of course does not factor in my two girls who turn 6 months this week into the whole unpacking equation. thankfully tam came over and helped me unpack the necessary areas needed for a family party.

maddie got her second tooth about 3 days after her first. i'm going to say this is the way to go. i like baby things in pairs so teeth in pairs is great. abby still doesn't have any teeth.

week six:

holy crap we just bought a house - and invited my three sisters, two brothers, spouses and children over. the party went well - we didn't think it would be warm enough to swim after the cold rainy snap of last week so only my brothers brought their swim suits, but oddly enough all the kids got in with parental supervision of course. it was a good time and there was plenty of room in the house for all those kids.



after the party and the girls were in bed for the night jason & i undertook the task of taking all the kitchen cabinet doors off - tuesday the painter came to paint the kitchen cabinets.

(sort of a before & after. you can kind of see what color the cupboards were before, and after with the doors back on. mucho bettero)

the rest of this week i had the painter here painting cabinet doors, the front door (which I absolutely love now) and then there was a hall linen cabinet, and the girl's bathroom that we decided to do at the same time. he was done on thursday and said they were dry enough to put the doors back on, but that night maddie had a temperature of 102.9 that kind of freaked me out.
i picked her up while she was rolling around on the floor and she felt a little warm to me so I took her temp and it was 99.8 or something, so i gave her a little tylenol and let her just sit for a few minutes, she just kind of laid there not moving a whole lot, with is very unusual for her, so after 15 min I checked her temp again hoping the tylenol had started to kick in, and it was way higher 102.9!! so i called jason and let him know, who then called his mom who could get there faster and i ran in to the bathroom to give her a lukewarm bath. i put abby in the bouncer in the bathroom with us so she wasn't unsupervised, but she was happy as a lark. i think she knew that i was worried about maddie, so she didn't fuss or make a peep, even when grandma showed up and didn't even look at her. thanks for understanding abby. after the bath her temp had come back down to the 99 range. i called a nurse, i love that you can call a nurse 24/7 from any of the banner hospitals 230 - CARE and she said i had done everything right, and babies can handle higher temps than we can, and they really only worry if the temp gets to be 104 and doesn't come down with tylenol. it was reassuring to know that i was on the right track and not rush to the pediatrician so they can say 'she'll be fine' the next day was still in the 99 range all day, but never got any worse than that.

ok, so i know this may sound crazy, but i actually enjoyed the whole experience. i know crazy right, but i don't know if exciting is the right word here, but it made me feel like a real mom, having to deal with fevers and feeling like i knew what to do immediately and then finding out that it was all that really needed to be done. i know that most people don't get excited about fevers, but i think it was just the whole mom experience that brought out new feelings and instincts and worries, and the reason i got to experience all those feelings was because i was finally a mom which is the best feeling in the whole world.

week seven:

the first half of this week was running errands and trying to get life back to normal after the move the cabinets are back together, and we had shelves installed so now i can finish putting the pantry away and start decorating the kitchen - if only we didn't all have colds.

maddie had it first and in true sisterly fashion she shared it with abby, the next morning jason & i both woke up with small symptoms which only got worse. so i've had the humidifier going in the girl's room for a week now and have barely had the energy to take care of two babies. and by 'take care' i mean feed them, change diapers, and let them entertain themselves while i sit and recover from the feeding and changing. ok so it might not have been that bad, but there wasn't a whole lot of singing or book reading or playing happening on my end.

and that brings us current with the runny noses still in swing, but i feel like i'm on the upswing which is good because jason will be out of town for thurs & fri.

men vs women

ok, so i may not have all the answers, but i think i have stumbled upon a major find. now, i don't claim to have found the genetic structure that defines the differences in the thought processes of men vs women, nor do i claim to know what a man's thought process is, but there is a difference. now to illustrate one of these said differences i have some evidence: below you will find two pictures, one taken by me, a woman, and one taken by jason, a man.


exhibit 1: abby & maddie holding hands... aaaahhhhh

exhibit 2: maddie with a diaper on her head... oooohhhhh

now, if you haven't come to the same conclusions as i have, then i will let you know that 1. i took the first picture, 2. jason took the second picture, and 3. you are probably a man

back to work

i went back to my old job just for a visit so i could show off my cute girls. it was fun to see everyone again, and of course everyone was so excited to see me, well at least to see my girls! i was having such a good time with everyone that i only got a few pictures, and only with my uncle (the boss). oh well, they're pretty cute.

here's the boss man (uncle mike) with abby & maddie

i turn around for 2 seconds and he's already got abby on the payroll. i guess you've got to start young
hmm, she's pretty good at this, you're hired!

i've also got to give diana props for the cute bows she makes. I don't leave the house without bows in their hair - and i still get asked if they're girls!! I think the bows just make every outfit 10x cuter!

spring 08 photoshoot

here is a fun slide show of pictures that scarlett took. the girls are three months old, and scarlett was a real trooper through feedings and naps. she really spent some time with us and got some great shots. i'll share the link when she gets her site up.

thanks again scarlett!

mia maids

ok, so she's technically not a mia maid, but they sure are growing up fast. i tried this seat out the other day and maddie is so strong that she had no problems with it. but it made me feel like i don't have little babies anymore, i mean if she's sitting up now, what's next crawling? walking? young womens?
this is like the third time maddie has used her little seat, and look at her! she's such a champ looking at me like she's an old pro at this. We had our friend Emmi over and maddie was totally showing off.
what a little show off. time to tone down the cuteness and give the rest of us a fighting chance.
abby's not too sure about all this yet. she's a little more laid back about the whole thing, but she's getting pretty good at it.
here's our friend emmi, she tried out our seat for the first time and apparently she's stunned at her own sitting abilities. it's crazy to think that emmi is 3 weeks younger than my girls, weighs more, but they're about the same length. it's amazing the development that goes on in those last few weeks of pregnancy. the girlies will be 4 months on thursday, and we're just starting to fit into the 0-3 mo. clothes. but, i am still amazed at how they've grown in the short time we've had them. we LOVE our girlies!!