the kiddos

love, love my babies - sometimes the lack of sleep, the much too hot weather, the homesickness caused me to be a pyscho mom at times. Probably more times than I would like to admit to. The love was there just overshadowed..and then there is the fact that I was an only child with very limited babysitting opportunities. What did I know about babies - nothing. I always wanted a large family, probably to make up for being an only kid. I got my large family :) I think my kids raised me more than I raised them. It was a good thing the twins came first - they had each other to play with and torture. It was like a friend said, twins are like having a neighbor kid that never goes home. Yep. Those boys were as different as they could get, including their looks. Their pediatrician at Luke (Arizona) told us at their first appointment to go home, put our feet up and have a beer! She must have seen the look of exhaustion and desperation on our faces. We had just moved these sweet 5 week old babies to a place that was having record high heat at the start of an Arizona summer, which for us Idahoans would have been the start of spring. They learned from each other - the good, the bad and even the ugly. It was fun most of the time to have people stop us when we ventured out and ask us if the boys were twins, how much they weighed, their names, where were they born, do they get along...and so on. This happened so often if we noticed someone that looked like they were headed towards us with a smile on their face, we ran the other way. Justin, with his awesome sense of humor kept the family entertained and his laugh was contagious. He can tell the best stories with his fun laugh and have everyone laughing before the story was even finished! Good thing he was the oldest because he loves babies - he had his "womb mate" and 4 little sisters. He helped his mommy out a lot! The "womb mate" of course is Jason. He had this smile that never went away - I remember even at grandma Storers funeral, some of the cousins sang a song....Jason being one of them....and he smiled through the whole song. I'm not sure what people were thinking. I'm sure grandma loved it :) Unfortunately for him, his parents thought he was a smarty pants kind of boy and really his personality was one of fun, fun, fun. His parents were way too serious! He learned at an early age to run really fast and dodge flying things...guess why? That's right, his twin ;) Three moves later....all in Glendale... our adorable Melissa was born. Our first little girl! After a few sleepless nights when we got home from the hospital, she was named - the princess of the house. It was so fun to have a girl - dresses and girly things. Poor Melissa didn't have any hair for a couple of years. Once Dale took her to pay a bill and set her on the counter. She got called a boy - that was just not okay. And then her hair started to come in - it was thick and dark and beautiful. We were asked at church once if she was Hispanic. Only in Arizona would we be asked that ;) She and Justin had the darkest complexions out of all the family; apparently from an Indian family member way back. Beautiful skin! Melissa has the giggles and I love them ! Once at grandma Marians house, we had some serious giggles in the middle of the night. We were sharing a bed and we discovered fleas on the blankets - eww, yet so funny! Lucky us - we had baby girl number 2! Stacey was our blond haired, blue eyed sweetheart. As far as looks she takes after the Storer side of the family. She started out with a dry sense of humor - story in case....on our way home from church, she's in the back seat of the car and very seriously says "cowabunga dude". No smile, not even a hint of one, with her head in one hand. So naturally everyone else laughs because its so stinkin' cute and funny! This sweet daughter kept us on our toes and laughing at the same time. This would be the kiddo that flushed a bar of soap AND a washcloth (2 different times) down the toilet, then ran outside to the other side of the bathroom and watched to see if they would come up - yep, kept us on our toes! Jenni is our 3rd precious daughter. This girly always had a smile on her face. Happy, happy baby. I loved her cute little baby rolls - adorable :) Most of our babies were just skinny, so I was especially happy with my little Jenni. One noteworthy fact about Jen is her "inner mommy" she was born with. Always on the lookout for her baby sister, Amber. Followed her everywhere, making sure all was well and going as it should. To her credit, today she's a natural when it comes to being a mom, just born that way ! I love that when Jenni was taking piano lessons, she was able to play at the county fair and best of all, she played with Jon Schmidt at a very cool thing her teacher set up. Very cool :) Our sweet Amber is #4 daughter and the caboose of the kids. Just as much as her older sister was trying to mother her, Amber was finding ways to escape and disappear from her sister. Funny how she also conveniently disappeared when there were chores to be done, meals to be prepared or heaven forbid, time to clean her room. This is the girl who loves her independence and finds her own way! When she found that independence at college was when more of her fun loving personality came out and we love it! I have the best kids in the world!!