"Charmed"
narrated by Millie
Sometimes I'm pretty well convinced I lead a charmed life. My husband's music career does take him away from home longer than some other jobs, but when he is home we're able to enjoy him for weeks at a time.
My extended family all live in the area, so my kids get to grow up with cousins and second cousins and first cousins once removed and all that. [Here they are with Andrew Riedmayer, who is technically Millie's first cousin.]
Blake's family is all in town too, and his brothers' kids are all right around our twins in age. [Pictured is Emerson Whitfill.]
Of course, life isn't absolutely perfect--for example, a few years back we had a break-in and the cop let the burglar escape! Fortunately no one was hurt and we could easily afford to replace the things that were stolen.
That was just a few months before the twins had their big milestone birthday--it was so hard for me to believe that my babies were 12 already!
I must admit, we kind of went overboard with their birthday gifts. We had been wanting to renovate the upstairs for a while anyway, so they both got to go all out decorating their rooms.
They were getting too old to be sharing the same room anyhow.
We also got two new puppies--a male named Cullen and a female named Swan. The kids picked their names out; I think they're supposed to be characters from a book or something.
Blake was not happy to get stuck taking the puppies outside in the middle of the night, but I have to get up before dawn to go to the lab and the kids have school, so he did it anyway.
A few months later, Blake was doing a tour in the Far East that coincided with the kids' summer vacation. So we decided to leave the puppies with our siblings (his brother is married to my sister) and go along with him. It was an awesome experience.
The guys both really enjoyed the food. Blake used to be a chef, and Landon has been talking lately about becoming a chef when he's older. I'm not sure if we should take him too seriously, though--I'm pretty sure all 12-year-old boys are obsessed with food!
The kids really enjoyed themselves in general. They'd been talking for years about getting to go on a tour with Daddy, and finally they were old enough to make that dream come true.
I was worried they'd be spoiled by all the leisure time, but once we got home in the fall they threw themselves into their schoolwork again.
Right now Blake's on another tour, so I make sure to sit down and have breakfast with the kids every day before I go to work. (They get themselves on the bus a couple hours later.) Sometimes I quiz them on their homework topics, but other times we just chat about video games or whatever else pops into our heads. I love it no matter what. I might be a little biased, but I'm pretty sure these two are the most awesome kids ever.
