The Great Migration

Oklahoma, here we come! With this year's fall semester coming to end (wahoo!) we are excited to announce that we are going to Oklahoma for the Holidays! And, we are leaving Provo, Utah. Paul is graduating from BYU in Electrical Engineering! (no more school for at least six months!) Our time has come to "go forth and serve" (hehehe). Paul and I are excited to start the next chapter in our lives. We've started several chapters this year, so why not one more?!?

Paul recently got a job offer with Raytheon Missile Systems in Tucson, Arizona. So, I guess it's really "Arizona, here we come!" I've been told that this time of year is the best in Arizona. The girls and I can acclimate slowly to the heat rather than moving there when it's already 115 degrees! Paul will probably be indoors for a lot of the time (we don't really worry about him acclimating). We'll miss the snow capped mountains of Utah, black iced roads and frozen windshields...okay, maybe not the last two. We will miss our families. We will no longer be able to hop, skip, and jump to Cedar City on the weekends to visit Grandma and Grandpa and the Uncles. Or, run up to Salt Lake to see Aunt Chelsea and Uncle Matt. Or, cruise out to Eagle Mountain to visit Aunt Arianne, Uncle Adam and the cousins. We will miss being so close to family!

So the migration begins. The girls and I are flying out of Salt Lake City on December 16th with Aunt Chelsea to Tulsa, Oklahoma. Paul will be driving out later that week with Uncle Matt. We decided that an 18 hour car ride with two nursing infants, all the things we need for the Holidays and a very tired Mommy and Daddy wouldn't be the best idea. Thank you to Grandma and Grandpa Burkinshaw! We will spend the Holidays with Paul's family in Bartlesville, Oklahoma and maybe some time after until we need to be in Airzona. Hopefully, we will be able to figure out a way to get us all to Arizona without too much trouble. Grandma and Grandpa Einfeldt will bring a trailer with our things; Paul's books, Molly's rocking chair, and the TV to Arizona sometime after we get there. We don't really have a lot of stuff since we have been fortunate enough to live in a furnished apartment for the past year and a half.

We are excited for the future and what suprises and adventures it will bring!

The Invasion

The other day, while I was out of town, something very strange happened. Molly put the girls to bed as usual and went to sleep. The girls apparently slept the whole night, because Molly didn't wake up at all. I say apparently because, well...this is what the girls looked like when they woke up:





Abducted by aliens? Perhaps, but all we really know is that they are much more interesting to talk to these days.

I'm joking of course. They were doing some research on 3-month old babies at BYU, and Molly graciously took them in to participate (on Wednesday). These pictures were taken after the "tests" that were done, which is why they aren't screaming. I really can't tell the difference between them in these pictures, but Molly told me that Olivia is in the close-up. The spit bubble isn't a result of what they did to her, she generates those all the time on her own. Talented baby.

Update

It's been quite a while since we posted last. Paul's been a little busy with school and I don't really get out much. Sorry! The past month has been pretty exciting. Paul got an interview at the University of Oklahoma Medical school on November 13th. He flies out the 12th leaving me all by myself for a night with the twins! We bless the twins on the 19th. My mom made their blessing dresses. My mom made my sisters' and mine hoping that we would be able to bless our little girls in them. Megan's was a little too small for Tessa and Krissy so my mom made on for Tessa. Arianne's was a little yellow so she made one for Aspen. I had twins so she had to make two for us. They were pretty adorable. Our neighbor said my mom should start a dress making company! We also had Halloween. The girls were ladybugs. Their cousin Spencer was a cow. So we made a ladybug-cow-sandwich. Spencer wasn't too happy to be n his cow outfit (he was a mad cow). Spencer was blessed the first week in November. Here are a few pictures of our past month. Oh, the baby acne finally cleared up. They now have beautiful complexions.

What does Molly do all day?

It is a question that has been on a lot of people's minds for quite some time. I have a couple of pictures to answer that question (along with some others that are cute):

Molly holds babies and smiles.



Molly also helps babies to sleep.



Molly can also be found holding onto babies, so they don't fall off her lap while simultaneously burping another baby.

As can be seen, Molly is pretty good at what she does. Some people have also been wondering what an Olivia-Aislee sandwich looks like.



Well, I have been noticing what other animals the girls look like, and maybe you can see their resemblance to:





a hippo,






a chick,





or a penguin?

Baby Pictures and the Tree Frog

Olivia and Aislee have both been compared to several different animals since their birth. I personally think that they bear a strong resemblance to 'hungry, hungry hippos', especially when they are eating. Molly thinks that they look like tree frogs. Hard to say.

So, my sister Jessica has figured out how to compress several pictures into a collage. We will have to ask her how to do that sometime. But until then, here are some pictures...

Rand's Homecoming

This weekend we went down to Cedar City to hear Rand (Molly's brother) report on his mission to Singapore. His talk was great, and we had fun seeing all the family that came down. Unfortunately our camera died after the first picture we took, but we were able to borrow a camera and get some good pictures. Mad props to Jenni for the cute yellow dresses the twins are wearing. This first one illustrates how big a difference 1 pound can make (when 1 pound is 20% of your body weight!). Aislee is still about 1 pound, give or take a couple of ounces, bigger than Olivia. It is also their first time in real tub (we only have a shower in our apartment, so they get baths in the sink)!



But can you tell the difference between them when they are in their dresses?

















Molly and I are smiling, but Aislee and Olivia obviously don't enjoy being help upright for pictures (Molly almost dropped her baby on this one).


Strangely they are much more comfortable in these positions. Aren't my girls beautiful?

How did this happen...?

So, now that the twins are here and I've been a little more mobile, I've noticed quite a few stares and have gotten some pretty interesting questions. I still don't understand why people ask me if they're boys when they're wrapped in pink blankets but whatever! I've decided to post some information about twins. Actually, when Paul and I found out we were having twins we did a lot of research and read a lot of books so that we were well informed.
There are two different types of twins; fraternal and identical. Fraternal is when two eggs are fertilized. These babies are no more related than any other set of siblings. They can be boy/boy, girl/girl or boy/girl. When they are the same gender, doctors may suggest an amniocentesis to see if they are identical or fraternal. Depending on when the egg splits in identical twins, they may not share the placenta, sac, or chorion. Sometimes fraternal twins share a placenta, but only when it fuses together. They do not share an amniotic sac or chorion. Fraternal twins can look very similar or nothing alike. The result of fraternal twins has nothing to do with the man's genes. The woman's genes, in the case of spontaneous twins determines whether or not twins happen. Her father's genes and her mother's genes influence her ability to produce fraternal twins or higher order multiples.
Now for identical twins. There are three types of identical twins. There's diamniotic/diachorionic, diamniotic/monochorionic, or monochorionic/monoamniotic twins. Identical twins are always the same gender. They are a result of one egg splitting randomly. Genetics has nothing to do with identical twins. They are genetically the same, technically clones of each other.
As for our twins, they are diamniotic/monochorionic identical twins. They split on day six. They shared a placenta and chorion (outer membrane) but had different amniotic sacs. We've also learned that our twins are pretty rare (we knew they were special!). We learned about our twins at an ultrasound appointment at about week 20. It didn't take the doctors long to figure out what type of twins they were because of the things they shared, but they do test the placenta after birth to "be sure".
Anyway, I just thought I'd share what we've learned about twins.