Update on me

I realized after I posted my late night update that I failed to include an update about me. whoops! 

So here goes:

I am really liking Kentucky thus far. I made a friend! And the cherry on top is that we live about a mile from each other and have become work out buddies. This means I am getting out of the house and exercising exponentially more, which is great! We are doing the Couch to 5K program (just started week 3) and plan to run a 5k in mid October. I've always wanted to run a 5k so I'm really excited about this!

I'm also going to start going to the park play group some ladies from church organized. I'm really excited to be getting out more and the boys are hitting an age where they get really bored at home and could use some extra stimulation. Win, win! 

So mostly my days are filled with chasing around my two sweet little guys who are getting more fun and mischievous by the day {SIDENOTE: One of my guys really likes to pull his brother's hair we're trying some different things to deal with this, but would welcome any ideas or thoughts!} In fact, enjoy this funny video of Andrew bustin' a move for the first time. 

I about died laughing at this. The kid has never moved like that before this.

Anywho, I think that about covers it. 

A late night update

After a very long Sunday nap I find myself awake at an ungodly hour, unable to sleep.

ugh!

But I'll use the quiet time to blog a little about us.

First off Nathan loves his new job. Yeah! The last year was a little rough and he didn't really like the place he was working very much. Thankfully, his new coworkers are awesome and friendly and excited to have him on board. Plus, 4 other people got hired with him so there will be a nice little cohort of newbies. Besides working he is in the throws of studying for his licensure exam. Fun for him! :)

The boys are growing up faster than I care to admit and are getting to be all kinds of fun. They are crawling like champs now and getting into all kinds of things. They also love to steal toys from each other, but sadly the robbed one has started to protest instead of indifferently moving on to another toy. Any one have any thoughts on teaching 8 month olds how to share? Thus far I think this is one of the most challenging aspects of having two the same age. You can't reason with anybody! Well at least they don't hit...yet.

But honestly they are just so fun and darling I can hardly stand it. They love to read now and books are some of their favorite toys.


{Andrew spending some quality time with a book}

They are getting so curious about the world and love to try and explore new things. For example, somehow we ended up taking turns sitting under this plastic tote. Andrew was thrilled and thought this was the best game ever. He actually cried when I took it off.

{Delighted at the new game}

Gavin didn't particularly care for this game until he saw Andrew having a great time and then he wanted back in.

{Andrew having fun and Gavin trying to get back in on the action}

{Playing together}

They love this set of jangley baby keys we have. Gavin loves to hold the keys in his mouth and then jangle them with both hands. I don't know why, but there is something about this that I find absolutely hilarious! He just looks so sweet and goofy. I love it!

My days are filled with these little faces.

Which should explain why my kitchen's a mess. Because honestly who could resist these two?!

Now lets see if I can get some sleep...

On the move

Well it's official. The boys are officially mobile!

Ah! This is both a happy and scary milestone. Right now they don't crawl a lot, but boy oh boy when they do I think I'm in for some trouble. Time to invest in some baby gates!

Happy Happy Day!

Less than two weeks after our move to Kentucky we packed our boys up and headed to Indiana for graduation. Back in June I decided to see if I could walk in August graduation with Nathan even though I technically finished in December. As you may recall I was in no state to be walking anywhere then (remember this?!). I thought it was a long shot, but figured it wouldn't hurt to ask. And how cool would it be to have a picture of both Nathan and I in our grad garb each holding one of our munchkins!

Cool, right?



I especially love how grumpy the boys look! hahaha! Really they were just mesmerized by my adviser's husband who was making all kinds of silly faces to get their attention so they would at least look in the direction of the camera.

Have I mentioned it takes them a little while to warm up to new people?

hahahaha!

To make the weekend even better, we found out that Nathan made the front page of the local news section of the newspaper! Everyone laughed when his adviser hooded him because of their height difference. When he stood in front of her to be hooded she completely disappeared and he had to do a super-squat so she could get the hood over his head. Everyone laughed pretty hard. It was great!


{from The Journal and Courier website}

{Nathan and his adviser, Dr. Heather Servaty-Seib}

We also got to meet up with my adviser and show off our babies to each other :) Seeing her little girl made me realize how much the boys have grown. I swear there is no way they were ever that tiny!

{Me and my adviser, Dr. Aryn Dotterer}

We had a fabulous weekend seeing old friends and visiting some of our favorite places. It was so nice to be able to walk together! We also really appreciate all the people who supported us by watching our kids (thank you Goodsells!) and offering their home for us to stay in (thank you to the Seidel's!).

Oh, and as an added bonus, they streamed the graduation live so some of our family was able to see it even though they live far away!

Most of all we are glad to be done. :)

{Master and Dr. Miles}

Getting settled

Moving always seems to take longer than anticipated.

Which is why we ended up driving through the Smokey Mountains after midnight (very twisty roads!). But we were glad to be on our way!


{The boys helping Nathan load the crib onto the truck. They thought that was very fun!}


Unfortunately we hit a few snags once arriving in Kentucky, like a dirty apartment and no running water! But I doubt we'll soon forget the bottled water showers we took after unloading our stuff. It's the stuff memories are made of.

Despite the rough start logistically we are really loving Kentucky. The people here are awesome! Nathan's co-workers have been so friendly and welcoming, several even showed up to help us move in. We also really like our church group thus far. They are really on top of things and read in our membership records on our first Sunday! Of course we were late so no one could put our name with our faces, doh!

After a long week of unpacking, we tried to get out and do something fun before Nathan started his new job. We wanted to go swimming, but inclement weather nixed that plan. We headed to a local park instead. This park ended up having an incredible number of ducks and geese. Seriously, they numbered into the hundreds!


{The boys and I and a few of our duck friends}



{The boys with Nathan}

{Despite a good portion of Gavin being cut off (doh!) I love this picture!}

So I think we had a better time feeding the ducks than the boys did, but it was great to get out and see a little bit of our new city. We're looking forward to hitting up the dollar theater, visiting some of the many horse farms, and getting to visit more with family (we actually have some family within driving distance!) We are so looking forward to putting down some roots here which no doubt will entail many more trips to feed the ducks.

North Carolina Beach Trip

So we are in Kentucky and getting settled. Nathan, wonderful man that he is, unpacked like a mad man before he started his job. All I can say about this is "thank goodness!" I'm pretty sure we'd still be mostly living out of boxes if I'd had to do it myself while juggling the twins. But since I'm behind on blogging the next few posts will be catch up.

The weekend before we moved we drove up to North Carolina to enjoy the beach with my brother and his family. The boys weren't quite sure what to think at first. Hence all the pictures with stunned or somber faces.

They did warm up to the ocean after a bit and liked to be taken out to play in the waves. Their favorite part was, of course, the sand, most especially eating it.

I love these two shots. They just scream "what may I ask is so funny?"

They had a great time meeting their cousins!

Thanks to my brother and his family! It was an awesome trip and we had a great time!