Greater Nebraska Parents of Multiples

Having twins has been a great blessing, but it is certainly not without its challenges. I've been blessed to have a friend from church who has seven year old twins. It has been fun to pick her brain about raising twins and share stories with her. We thought other parents of twins could also benefit from sharing their experiences raising multiples, so Amy and I have started the Greater Nebraska Parents of Multiples Group. Our first meeting drew 7 other parents of twins. We hope we continue to grow in number. One of the local papers was gracious enough to publish an article about our group.

http://www.npbulletin.com/index.asp?show=news&action=readStory&storyID=16603&pageID=3&sectionID=3

Dominic's 2nd Birthday Party

Dominic was spoiled with a big party for his birthday. Many of his friends were able to come. The weather was beautiful, so we spent the afternoon in the backyard.

I brought pool noodles to play a variation on hockey with them, but the kids quickly discovered that they made great weapons for whacking the adults. They turned out to be the hit of the party!

Dominic calls Katie "KatiePaul" (Paul is Katie's husband). They are some of Dominic's very favorite people. Katie is holding her little boy, Gradyn, who is 1 week younger than our twins.

Here are the kids beating on each other again. You'll notice Will, wearing his super hero cape, cowboy hat and dress shoes in the background. This seems like a great representation of what a three year old should be!

Dominic got to open many gifts and all his friends were more than happy to help him in this task!

Dominic and Daddy enjoying some time together.

Our friend Amy is holding her seven year old daughter, Tessa. A cupcake in one hand and frosting all over the face--what a good party should look like.

Here is Tessa's twin, Tyler and Dominic's babysitter "Winda" (Linda) and her granddaughter "Foo" (Hunter).

One of D's very favorite toys was his bubble lawn mower. He loved it so much that when one of his friends tried to play with it, tears ensued!

The babies enjoyed the party too!

The Masek family enjoyed the party as much as Dominic!

On Dominic's actual birthday, we took him on his new trike and the twins in the stroller and walked all the way to the Runza, about a mile away. Dominic did great the whole way there! He is becoming such a little man.

The twins did very well, also. The weather was so nice that we took them naked.

Here's daddy pushing him on his new trike.

He likes to look like a thug in his sideways ball cap. The whole way there, Dominic pointed out "orange". It is his favorite color. He could spot the color orange two blocks away!

After the walk, Dominic took a nice long nap. Thanks to all who helped him celebrate by coming to his party or sending gifts!

Family Fun

Patrick and Jackson are growing, growing. Both are talking quite a bit and smiling all the time. Patrick has even begun to giggle a little. We always try to get them to interact with each other, but they are far more interested in looking at adult faces! At three and a half months, we haven't gotten much more than 4 1/2 hours of sleep at a time out of them. All of their friends who are about the same age (Grady, Carson, Jack and Karly) are sleeping quite a bit longer. We remind the boys of their friend's sleeping habits, but this hasn't seemed to help! Nor has pleading with them....

Dominic is becoming more and more helpful every day. He often asks to "hol' one, hol' one." Of course, he loses interest in them in about 15 seconds.

Here Dominic is playing one of his favorite games--"Nigh, nigh" He tugs on Mom and dad to get them to lay on the floor next to him with lots of pillows and blankets and pretend to snore.


Here we are trying to get them to talk to each other a bit--to no avail. If you look carefully, you can see a bit of a scar on Patrick's head (he's the one on the right). When a few of our friends were talking to Patrick, Dominic got protective and covered Patrick's face. Unfortunately, he was a little over zealous and scratched Patrick's forehead.

Luke and my neice recently turned 1. We were able to spend a lot of time outdoors celebrating her birthday. Dad enjoyed holding Patrick while he slept.

This is our neice, Jessica. In a few years all the kids will love playing together.

Dominic ran around the yard with this flower for a while. He LOVES being outside--no matter cold, hot, sunny, or rainy!

I could never get Dominic and Jessica to sit still long enough to take a picture together. This was the closest I could get! Neither know how to share, yet, so it was entertaining to watch them push each other away from toys or take toys out of each other's hands.