Best of Both Worlds

No, I'm not channeling Hannah Montana, I'm just thinking of how lucky I am to be able to work for a while and now I get to be a "stay at home mom"! I really liked going back to work. I love my job, and although I missed my boys, I got to spend the day with some pretty cool kids. I kept busy (boy did I ever!) and got to see some adults for part of the day. The first week back to work was pretty rough - I was really tired from my new routine, and wanted to take a nap when I got home which was neither possible nor really that tempting because I wanted to play with my kids even more.
And now, I get to stay home all day with my boys! We just finished our first week and had so much fun! Luke had a busy week. He started rolling over on Sunday, and hasn't stopped since! He can roll back again, but sometimes lays facedown crying until someone helps him (we don't leave him too long, but we do let him try by himself first). We have noticed that when we are a little farther away, he will roll around on his own, but when we're close, he'd rather not have to work so hard. What a little stinker!
Andrew is not rolling yet, but primarily wants to stand anyway and has caught onto his brother's trick about crying to get attention. We will hear screams coming from him and look over and he'll be smiling at us. Luke's been doing that for months, now Andrew is catching on. Needless to say, it's pretty noisy around here lately! They are both to the point now where they want us to watch them jump in their toys and they love being praised. They get such proud looks on their faces - super cute!
Also this week, the boys started eating oatmeal for breakfast. Guess who loved it right away? Luke was making sounds like "yumm yumm" - he probably wasn't saying that, but it sure sounded like it and it was really cute. Andrew wouldn't open his mouth the first day, but now on day 5, he smiled the whole time!
I think it's time to start "real" foods too. According to everything I've read, you shouldn't start until babies are around 6 months old, but we're only a week away and last night Adam and I were eating and Luke was sitting in his high chair (Andrew was sleeping in the swing) and the entire time we ate, Luke was smacking his lips. It was so sad and funny all at the same time. I wished I could feed him something - he was watching us so closely, and just smacking away. So, we're starting with fruits and vegetables this week!
I have this wonderful device that my mother-in-law got for me. It's called a Beaba and it's a steamer, blender, and defroster all in one. So far I've made carrots and green beans in it. We had extra and instead of letting them spoil, I cooked them and made them into ice cubes of vegetables, so now we have poopsicles (frozen prune juice), carrotsicles and beansicles in our freezer! So back to my Beaba. It's really easy to use, you just put water into the steam chamber, turn it on and it turns off when it's done. Then you either dump out the water or save it to puree the food in (depending on nitrates - for example carrots have nitrates - don't puree in the water - but green beans don't - yes, puree in the water). Then I pour it into ice cube trays and freeze it. When it's frozen I put the cubes into baggies, label them and they're ready to go. Each cube is about 1 oz. of baby food. When it's time to eat, I can either thaw the cubes in the microwave or put them back into the Beaba with a little water and defrost them. So, yes, I'm making my own baby food - it's easier, healthier, and cheaper. What could be better than that?
Back to our first week home. We went on 2 outings with just Mom and the boys! The first one was to Erica's house to play with Grant and have lunch. I started getting Luke in his carseat at 10:30 and by 10:50 we were all pulling out of the driveway. Only 20 min. to load both babies and get them out to the car (plus I had to get the stroller in the car). We got to Erica's and she made me a good lunch, the boys enjoyed terrorizing all of Grant's toys, while he played quietly and watched it all go down. Then Luke and Andrew ate and took a little nap and all 5 of us went for a walk with the strollers around Erica's neighborhood. It was fun and it went well and we were home by 2:30. Then on Friday, I had to run to my church in Big Lake and I hauled the boys along. That was even easier, and the boys did great in the car. I hope I can get out some more with them now that they're a little older. We just need places to go! It's pretty hard to go grocery shopping with them because once they're in the cart, there's no room for anything else. It's hard to take them to a restaurant because there's not much room for 2 highchairs near any table. It's hard to take them somewhere their stroller won't fit, because there is NO WAY I can carry those 2 lugs (who are 16 and 17 pounds last time we checked!) plus their bulky and heavy carseats... So, I'll be waiting for invitations!
P.S. Pictures coming soon...