Cash and Canon

The twins came at 2:06 and 2:09pm and the LORD brought them with zero complications. To those who prayed, thank you so much. We are so grateful to have friends who love us and pray us. Here are the details of the twinnos.

Cash Urban Caperton
Stats: 6 lbs, 0 oz; 19 in



"Cash" is the English equivalent to the Jewish word shalom which encompasses everything from peace to wholeness to salvation. "Urban" means city, so together our hope for Cash Urban is that he will bring shalom to the city.

Currently, Cash is very calm, feeding quite well and being very snuggly.

Canon Gabrielle Caperton
Stats: 5 lbs, 14 oz; 19 3/4 in



"Canon" literally means measure or standard. We're using it as a reference to the canon of Scripture, the Bible. "Gabrielle" means God is my wisdom and together they spell out our hope that she will gain wisdom from God through the Scriptures.

Canon is also very calm, attentive and grunts often.

Mom is doing extremely well and both babies are very healthy (9.9 Apgar scores for both) and seem very at peace.


More picture are coming soon, but I wanted to quickly put these up.

The Beach

I love the beach. And I love my husband who watched all three kids for 4 days so that I could go to the beach. I never imagined that Drew would be up for such a task. It's not an easy task. But he did a great job! He blessed me with much needed and appreciated rest (and fun too of course) and our kids really got to spend some great (quantity and quality) time with dad. Thank you, Drew! You are an incredible husband!

I never understood why parents feel guilty going and doing things for themselves without their kids. Now I think I understand. At least in part. If I was going to do nothing but shop then I would have had no guilt. If I was just going to eat out, then I'd feel no guilt. However, I was going to play in the sand & waves and swim at the pool for hours on end. I was doing something that they would have absolutely LOVED to do. Watching the other kids play brought out two thoughts completely at odds with one another:

"It is so nice to just lay here and not have to chase my kids around."
AND
"I so wish my kids were here."

The Simerton Girls

Growing up, Drew's friends affectionately referred to his family as the Simertons...Simons (mom Janis and step-dad Michael) & Capertons (Kent & Drew). Well, here are The Simerton Girls - all 6 of us.

Jessica is holding Julianne. In her belly. Just in case you were confused about the 6 thing...

It is finished...

Jed is finally completely potty trained!! For over 2 weeks now he has not had a single accident. (He had been pee-free for months, but till now refused to poop in the potty.) I don't really know for sure what changed his mind...but I think that it was that we adopted Sarah McGooden's punishment idea of taking away one prized posession every time that he pooped in his undies....and that he got to choose something back every time that he did it in the potty. He even lost his pillow at one point. I put everything taken away up out of his reach but to where it was constantly looking down at him begging/daring him to use the potty.

With the sudden change here, he also started gaining other independence. For so long he would complain that he couldn't dress himself & needed help. It was like pulling teeth to get him to put his own clothes on. Now he's dressing himself and get's very frustrated if you try to help unless he's asked for it. At nap time I'll find him in his bedroom changing his shirt. Multiple times.

He also wouldn't go the bathroom by himself b/c he needed help with his clothes. Now he goes and I wouldn't have any idea except for that he's told me and is now asking for his candy and his pants are twisted. (Yep, we still bribe since Riley is now on the potty training wagon...it's hard to break for one and not the other.)

All of this potty talk is just to say that my little man is really growning up...

Full Circle

One of the stories that is told often of my childhood involves my love for butter. My parents used to get so frustrated because they would always find little fingerprints (mine) in the butter. So one day my dad sat me down and let me eat an entire tub. I ate so much that I threw up.

Jed loves ranch dressing. "Branch" as he calls it. He drinks it from the little condiment packages from fast food restraunts. He sucks it off of his carrots & continues to double, triple, etc dip - like it's a Lik-a-maid. Well today, while I was not looking he poured about 1/3 of a cup of thick, homemade ranch dressing on his plate. Huge glob. My first instinct was to take his plate away and send him to get in the bath. But I passed on that one and, instead, gave him a spoon. I told him I wanted him to eat all of it. At first he was loving it. Saying "MMMmmmmm!" and smiling. But then I started having to 'encourage' him to keep eating. "But mom, branch is not for eating!" he started to complain. "That's what I always tell you, but you always eat it anyway, so keep going." After one more spoonful he was begging to go get in the bath (which NEVER happens these days). So I let him. No throw up - at least not yet. But he did complain that his stomach didn't feel very good. "Too much ranch, huh?" I asked him. "Yeah" he said with his head hung low.

Hopefully we are done with the ranch mustaches. At least for a while.

Thanks for the 'parenting tip', Dad!

I'll skip right to dessert, thanks....

Last week I brought dessert outside after dinner so that we could all enjoy chocolate mint ice cream sandwiches. After carefully unwrapping the paper to expose the bright green ice cream sandwiched between two chocolate cookies, Jed, exclaimed "Ohhh - It's beauuuutiful!!"

However, lately, you can almost bet money on this scenario at dinner time:
Mom cooks dinner.
Mom calls kids & hubby to come eat.
Mom fixes kids plate with a small amount of everything.
Mom places plate in front of kids.
Son, who was previously in a great mood, immediately starts whining that he does not "like that."

Oh what I would give to have him exclaim that dinner is beautiful and actually eat it with out complaining. Without being bribed by dessert to follow...

Photo Shoot

Michelle Hulse from my MOM's Club does free-lance writing & was writing an article for the monthly Acadiana Parent magazine for which I recently responded to a couple of interview questions on frugal living. The editor of the magazine asked if we'd be willing to have a photographer come out to the house to take pictures for the article. We said yes and so they took pics on Tuesday. The magazine is supposed to be out next week I believe. When the March issue comes out you can check it out online at www.acadianaparent.com. Of course, the only pictures of Riley that might be in the article will be of her asleep on the couch because she fell asleep 15 min. before he arrived and woke up 15 min. after he left.

The photographer, Peter Piazza, said that he'd burn us a CD of all the pictures that he took. He was a great guy. In fact, when he asked Drew where he worked, his first question was wether or not the paper had done any kind of article on Vox Church. When we told him that they had not he told us to give him a call when we wanted them to and that he'd hook us up with the guy who does the religion section.

Potty Talk

Three whole days without a single accident during the day. That's right! I'm almost afraid to say it out loud but I think Jed is finally getting this potty training thing down. He has refused to poop in the potty for months but the last three days I have been in parenting BLISS as Jed is actually coming to me to tell me that he needs to go!

Last night I ran into Wal-mart to grab diapers while the kids sat in the car w/ Drew. Drew called me to tell me that Jed had to potty & that I needed to come get him immediately. So I did. He held it all the way to the bathroom! I am so proud of him.

We had been trying to get him to poop in the potty for so long that the first time he did it, I actually cried tears of joy! Now that's going on my "You know you're a mom if...." list.