April 7th, 2013, a day to remember forever :)

Our sweet babies were born on Sunday, April 7th, 2013.  Oliver was 18 inches and 5 pounds 9 ounces and Gwyneth was 18.5 inches and 5 pounds 8 ounces.

This was an amazing and wonderful day! I was so happy to welcome our sweet babies into the world. This has to be one of the best days of my life. 

Our visitors that day were my mom, Nate's parents and my brother Chris.

~Here are some pictures from the day were born~

Here is my handsome Oliver. He brings so much joy to my life and loves to be snuggled. 

Here is my lovely and sweet Gwyneth. She spoils me with her smiles. 

And here is a recent photo of my mom with the twins on their blessing day, June 9th, 2013. 

More pics to come in the next blog!

quick end of 2012 summary

Well it has been awhile since blogging. After the tragic passing of my Dad last August, I simply lost interest in some things. A few weeks after his passing I learned I was pregnant. Although uberly excited about it, a part of me was not as happy as I thought I would be. It took till half way through my pregnancy for the pain to ease up a bit over the passing of my Dad. It still hurts every day of course but I know that my new role is to be a great mother… And this role needed lots of my attention.

In the fall 2012 at our first ultrasound the doctor said something like “looks like there are two in there”.  Neither Nathan nor I said anything at first but just looked at each other. I wasn’t sure if I heard correctly so I asked the doctor after a long pause if he said there were two, of which he confirmed. Wow!

In December we were pleased to find out it was going to be a boy and a girl!

Here are a few never seen before shots of my preggo belly! I remember after taking the first one thinking I looked SO PREGNANT. Ha, I really had no idea how huge my belly was really going to get! :)

Life is delicate. I am thankful every day for the father I had. I know not everyone is lucky to have such a supportive, caring, devoted father in their life.

I miss my dad, my life is forever changed not having him in it.

Oh how we love summertime!

Okay so I was informed that my last blog was not blog-worthy! 
I know, it was weak sauce... 

But now we have something blog-worthy to write about!....

We just got back from Hawaii!!!  We are a little crazy excited about this... it was a GREAT trip and and here are some pics to help depict that! (And by the way, we took 984 pics/videos on our main camera so I am trying to pick out a few for you all to see).......And a big thanks to several friends who tipped us on what to do in Oahu! There was A LOT to do, we simply couldn't get to it all. 

So a little summary of the trip:

We arrived on a Saturday and spent the first 4 nights on the South Shore at the Hyatt Place, two blocks from Waikiki Beach. This is a newly renovated hotel, very posh, and gets an 8.5/10 on cleanliness, which if you know me is huge. They only do valet parking, $25 night so that is a bit lame, or you can park across the street for $12 night at a public lot. 

The Hyatt Place:

 

The view (Mountain View):

The highlights of the South Shore: Diamond Head was a great hike, with very scenic views, a lot of fun. Hanuama Bay, excellent snorkeling, went really early to beat the crowds, it cost like $16 total but was worth it for a good refresher on snorkeling. And saw plenty of fishies! 

Us at Diamond Head:

Nate is cut-off a bit, but you can see the beautiful view!

The ward building where we on on Sunday, way cool: 

On Wednesday we checked out of that hotel and made our way to the North Shore where we stayed at the Turtle Bay Resort for another 4 nights. This resort is simply fantastic, it has wonderful amenities, great dinning, it's smack-dab right on the beach, we can snorkel there, self-park parking and valet, I mean it is FANTASTIC! It does get a 7/10 on cleanliness in case you are wondering (not that it wasn't clean-clean, it was just so outdated with paint pealing, in need of new rugs, little nicks in the wall, time for some major renovating people!), but the room was 3x the size of the last room, and it was a simply wonderful place to stay with ocean-front views, great room service... we would recommend both our hotels to others.  

Turtle Bay Resort, view from our room:

Our trip was fantastic: with more snorkeling (Sharks Cove was THE BEST & Turtle Bay Resort has their own cove), visiting a friend Rachel, hanging with sister Megan, visiting the L.D.S. Temple, the Polynesian Culture Center, BYU-H, locking our keys in the car at the Dole Plantation, and laying on the beach a ton... 

enjoy the pictures below of more of the North Shore!!!

 

Best Friends Forever <3

The end!

Summer yet?

Just found a blogging app on my phone! This could be dangerous! And potentially annoying as there may be errors all over this thing! So on a lovely note: schools out for summer!!! But mentally I haven't decompressed all the issues this school year entailed. But a great memory I just remembered was the second to last day of school a student barks and says another student has Rollie pollies in their pocket, and sure enough it was true! And out they went outside the classroom door. I figured their lifespan might be extended outside rather than inside a six year olds pocket! On another happy note- one year of BTSA is done! Half way! This is thrilling because once year two is done I can embark on new and exciting adventures! But I need full teacherness first; i.e. BTSA! Nate's great! Life is busy and that pretty much sums it up....as far as phone blogging is concerned!

quick snid-bit.... if that is how you spell it, probably not

Okay, part 2 of 3....

So life was crazy the last few weeks... I totally put way too much on my plate, especially since working what feels like long days and then taking home a couple hours of work a night...... got to stop doing that!  I blame a lot on BTSA, cause yeah it is important and critical to my future teaching possibilities.

Valentine's was a fun and special day :)  We spent part of it with my parents and brother, and my brother showed up with a rose for my mom and a rose for me, WOW!  I love him so much, he is a thoughtful person. And hubby had a very nice arrangement for me, makes my house look so lovely with all the roses and flowers!

Nathan and I exchanged gifts, which was sweet... but just spending time together with the ones you love is how I like to spend each day.  We have a little getaway coming up which I am thrilled for.... although I will miss cleaning house and doing chores this weekend, no really I am serious I like doing those things, but it will all be waiting when we get back.

I did a 2 mile run yesterday... needing to work back up to my 4 miles but it is a start!!

I can't wait to finally see my best friend next week... 2 months is clearly too long to go when we only live 20 mins away!!!

I love my hubby more than anything :)  He is so great, and I pray we will always continue to be getting closer and closer together :) 

MAJOR updating, finally!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay so we are SO PATHETICALLY behind on blogging... considering I did it for $$ last year, you would think I would be keeping up our personal blog... but in fact, I am way behind, but in HEART I do love to blog and have way far more to blab about on here then you probably want to hear......

With that said, let's do some blog action, woot woot!

So summarizing of 2011...

last year was completely nutso! I had a job from March-June that was REALLY tough, in so many ways. Nate was an awesome support, as always, but I was really glad when Summer came. I decided I wouldn't go back to working full-time, that the last job majorly burned me out.... Well if you have kept in touch with us you would know that I was offered an awesome job as a contracted teacher last August, and have been working 45-50 hours a week ever since...

But honestly, teaching is just awesome. My students crack me up every day!!!! There are some major challenges I will admit, but I love my job because I adore my students and I have TWO of the greatest friends there to work with.

Some latest student remarks that make me laugh (well usually laugh hehe):

"But Mrs. Rogers, we don't have rules at my house"

"How did that toy get in my backpack?" and then later, "my mom put that toy in my backpack"

"My mom doesn't let me do my homework"

...just to highlight a few.  I love my students, they make me smile. Although I am not sure what next year if they have room in the budget to keep me on or if I want to go to part-time or work on my aspirations as a professional hiker, I am enjoying my time for now...

Last year trip highlights:

Awesome trip to D-land in February, stayed with awesome cuz Caroline

Wonderful trip to Utah for Conor Tyson's wedding, stayed with my brothers family :D

We also dashed over to Oregon and got to be with the Rogers-Porter Family, SO MUCH FUN! Although I had bronchitis, SO LAME! But Karen is a GREAT hostest with the mostest!

Sly Park in August with Nate's family, that was way awesome and can't wait to go again, hopefully this year :)

And somewhere in all of that was a one night get away to San Fran for Nate and I :)

October we went down to Southern Cali for my nephew's baby blessing, and our 1 year anniversary, spent at Disneyland and then with Lindsay's very nice in-laws

Christmas was a BLASSSSSSTTTTTTTTTTTTT, we rented a house a block from the beach in La Jolla, and had our first May Family Vacation in over a year or two!

So yes, lot's of trips, and it is tiring. So this year, we are going to minimize the trip taking, and maximize some things we want to do at home, in Cali, etc. Although there is talk of a cruise, Europe trip, but we will see!

Nathan is continuing to be a hard worker at Akamai. He has been there about 5 1/2 years! Wow!!! He amazes me every day and honestly cracks me up. I never knew someone could make me laugh so much! I just LOVE everything about him. He is such a support, twice in the past week I have had to do a last minute project for work and he has jumped in to help, even when it is at 6:30am! What a stellar husband!!!

Last weekend we had so much fun doing a double-date with some friends, and it was just nice to relax and hang out. We also got to babysit 2 nephews and 1 niece, Nathan's brothers kids, who are fun and silly... I think we won them over with making popcorn, homemade ice cream, watching Despicable Me, playing Little Big Planet, etc.  We will gladly babysit for them anytime!

Well let's call this part 1 of 3, cause there is much more to say and blog and post. 

Like my addiction to the Hunger Games series, oh my heck, I LOVED it!
And my quest for tablecloths and new recipes and crazy fun adventures to plan....... and life just goes on and on and on! 

Sometimes we, The Rogers Family, is MIA... doing all the things we do, but above all the crazy-crazy, we are a very blessed and happy family. We love our families so much and keep getting good news from both sides, which is an answer to some prayers! We are grateful for our faith, we are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints. And we are SOOOOO grateful for each other... I can't believe how lucky I was to marry Nate. And to think it all started with a date request and a response of "maybe".

I love you Nathan Rogers!!!!! I love our wonderful life :)