WHAT?? A NEW POST??????

Yes, folks, it's no lie. I am actually putting a post on this thing.

I know, I know, it's been a LONG time, but stuff gets busy around here. If you wanna hear about it, I'll tell you: I got a new job, the kids are almost 3, we've had a lot of things going on - weddings, hunting, activities, etc. and so there are all the reasons why.

And honestly, I'd rather spend my "free time" playing with my kids. Tonight for example, when we got home from work, I made yummy Pumpkin Chocolate Chip cupcakes with the boys. (From the cookbook Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World - One of my FAVORITE cookbooks, and I love cookbooks). Well, the cupcakes were vegan until Andrew smelled his spoon and it is possible that some of his snot could have gotten in them. Gross. Don't eat them (I will. Hey! They're good and the odds of boogs actually getting in the cupcakes are slim, right?)

So, other than that, work is good. Life is great. And here are some updated photos of us. :)

Yes, that is 2 sets of twins in 1 vehicle.

Travis and Adam were driving, while Leah and I were shopping!!

The ring bearers at Auntie Amy's weddin'.

They ran like this ALL DAY.

And then fell asleep.

Luke slept during dinner. Andrew slept during the actual wedding.

And then Andrew woke up, just in time to eat the bride's cake.

:)

Day at the Farm

It was such a beautiful morning, that Adam said "we should go somewhere today. I'm thinking this farm or the horse races". I chose the farm thinking the boys would probably like that a little better, and there would be more to do and see than watching horses run (which Adam would have preferred, no doubt).

So here are some pictures of our trip to this farm near our house that farms as though it's 1860. Pretty neat. I, of course, wanted to spend time in the museum reading about life in the 1800s. The boys did not.

Here's Andrew looking in the chicken coop.

Brave guys until the rooster started chasing them...

We saw some sheep. They "baaa"d. It was a riot. :)

This is Holly. She's a baby cow. They liked her, she was both tied up and beneath them.

Here the boys are looking in the cow pen. I had just explained what all that mud was inside the pen.

Luke didn't like it.

More cows...

Pointing at stuff.

After we looked at some of the animals, Andrew turned to me and said "Mom, now I wanna go see the zebra". Hmmm. Am I doing my kids a disservice by not having them near a farm?? When I was a kid, my grandpa still had a farm with pigs, cows, and chickens. We used to run around there like we were nuts, with directions not to jump off the haybales in the shed, don't touch the cats (they were pretty gross), and don't touch the electric fence - although we used to "warm up" rhubarb on it while getting a little shock. :) I never realized how different it would be for my kids who don't go to the farm every weekend.

Side note: the grossest parts about the farm were A) chicken butchering day - I still can smell it in my memory (gag) and B) When I realized that Spike 1, Spike 2, and Spike 3, the adorable calves my brother Aaron named had grown up and we couldn't find them anymore...(hint, they were in our freezer).

But the smell of the hay still reminds me of my grandparents house, which isn't so gross :)

bros

Looking through pictures of what we did this summer and I came across some from my cousin's wedding in July. It was a heck of a hot day, but was a beautiful wedding. The boys hung out with their other grandparents, and my whole fam went to the wedding. We had a blast!

Here's some rather adorable pics of me and my brothers (we only have 3 pictures together as adults - no kidding):

Here we are, looking' so spiffed up.

This is actually more like it, but YIKES! That's not my brother, that's Adam, I married him. And we unintentionally forgot Morgan, my brother's wife, who was taking the picture. Why didn't we have someone else take the picture so she could be in it? Hmmmm, it was probably the 5 glasses of wine I had and Adam's constant mission to drain the keg that must have done it...

Oh look, there we are!

(NOT my brother)

new friend

The boys have been enjoying the outdoors so much this summer. They really want to be outside and do boy stuff; dig around in the dirt, run like they're nuts, jump off of stuff, push each other down hills, you know, the usual. One afternoon the boys hollered "Mom, look at this!" and this is what I saw:

(insert video of a frog getting a ride in the boys' truck. I tried to upload it here, but after 2 days and about 3 hours it still wasn't working, so imagine it and if you ever come to visit, I'll show you :) )

If you can hear in the background (which you can't), Luke is laughing like a maniac. That's because he's terrified of creepy crawly things. Andrew's the brave one when it comes to that kind of stuff, so Luke is always saying "Andrew, you do it"! Mr. Boss.

so crafty

Day # 2 - IN A ROW PEOPLE!

I've mentioned previously that I worked a few days this summer. For those of you that don't know, I was doing home visits, working with children ages 0-3 in their homes. One darling little family had two of the most adorable girls I have ever seen. Really. The older girl was 5, going to

Kindergarten in the fall and just CUTE! The younger sister was almost 3, a tiny little peanut of a girl and both had long blonde hair and were about the sweetest things I've ever seen.

The hour I spent at their house went by WAY too quickly, and sitting there I realized how DRASTICALLY different girls are than the two hoodlum little boys I have at home.

You see, these girls LOVED craft projects and sat at the table with me for an ENTIRE HOUR

coloring, talking about pictures, cutting, gluing, stapling, beading, matching, twisting everything I would bring out. Needless to say I spent so much time planning for this little girls session - and brought out two of everything so her dolly of a sister could sit with us and craft too.

After six weeks of seeing these little girls work so well with all of this, I decided we needed some craft items at home too. I took advantage of the (dare I even say it?) "back-to-school" sales (I was irritated at Target for having this stuff out in JULY - really? Way to burst my bubble,

Target). I digress, I took advantage of the sales and stocked up on glue, construction paper, markers and even (gasp) scissors for the boys, determined to spend some time crafting at home.

We got home, opened our purchases and I started drawing suns in yellow paper for us to color, cut and decorate to hang on the fridge and show daddy when he got home. This is how our

crafting went:

It looks like they take after their mom in the "craft" department. Yikes.

slacker

Yeah, yeah, I know I've been slacking on my blogging duties, but (I don't have to tell you) we have been busy busy this summer!!

Not only did I work a little bit, but we've done a TON of fun things all summer and I just never know where to start. So, we'll take baby steps. I promise to you that until school starts I will put a new post up daily. They might not be great, but there will be some fun stuff, so hang in there with me!

Here's Andrew learning to throw a frisbee this summer (an important skill to have if your dad is Adam), while Luke is riding their "four-wheeler". Note the speed. I laugh every time!

at the lake

We went to the lake on this holiday weekend.

Well, the boys and I went on Saturday, while dad worked at our house putting in a patio (which looks really nice), and then Dad and I came on Sunday afternoon to play at the lake.

The boys are more and more fun because they are actually playing at the lake. They were digging and dumping dirt from the beach into the lake and dumping lake water on to the beach for hours.

Luke would NOT smile for the camera...

We went on the boat and caught a fish!

I caught the fish.

I was hoping for a perch or something to show the boys what a real fish was like and look what I ended up with:

Luke would not touch it, but told Andrew to touch it.

He did, and then he kissed it.

Grandpa let Andrew drive the boat, then Luke had to help too.

We taught the boys to potty off the side of the boat.

Yep, sure did.

Needless to say there were many potty breaks on the boat.

After the thunderstorm this morning, there were huge puddles, so the boys ran through them for a while.

You can get a small glimpse of the sheer JOY on their faces when they were allowed to run through this giant puddle and get grassy and muddy.

We fished some more.

My favorite part of this picture is that Adam and I are helping Andrew and someone is semi-unsupervised at the other edge of the dock.

(In our defense Grandpa was right there, just not in the picture)

Oh, this one is much more responsible. :)

And we climbed some trees

(geez, this kid is more like his uncle Aaron every day!)

Andrew was more cautious, but if someone was right there, he too climbed the tree.

We can't wait for many more weekends at the lake!

We've got ourselves a couple of lake boys!

Spring has finally arrived (kind of) and with it comes many new beginnings, and with the beginning of one thing comes the end of another. Here is what we are looking forward to...

Beginning:

A NEW JOB IN THE FALL!! I've accepted a position as a K-5 SLP in a nearby school district, which cuts my commute in half!

Ending:

Seeing my WONDERFUL co-workers every day. I'm sad about this ending. I've really enjoyed all the people I work with at Eastview and I'll be so sad to say goodbye to them. There's only 10 days left of work and they seem to fly by!

Beginning:

The boys sleeping in "big boy" beds. This has been exciting for them and awful for us! Mostly, they run around for a while before they go to bed and often times they fight, jump, run, steal things from each other, and on and on.

Ending:

The safety of cribs. Calm bedtimes. Going to bed early (for the boys) and sleeping until 7:00am. That's the worst, that that's over. These days we're all up around, say 5:30am. (BLECH)

Beginning:

Underpants. Pee on the floor, on the chair, on ALL clothing. Doing laundry every single day (at least 2 loads).

Ending:

Diapers. This is just fine by me! Buying diapers for 2 kids really just stinks!

Beginning:

SUMMER VACATION!! In just 10 days I'll be off for the summer!! We are going to have so much fun! The boys got a swingset yesterday and can't wait until is stops raining so they can go outside and play!

Ending:

WORK! Kind of. I'm working a few days this summer and giving a couple of presentations.

Beginning:

Swimsuit season. YIKES! Now with Adam running (and running and running) I've had less time to workout. Yes, I'm blaming him. No, it's not really his fault, but if I blame him, then I feel less bad about being a lug on the couch :)

Ending:

Sweatpants season. Too bad. I look good in sweatpants :)

catch up day!

Once again, we've been busy. I know, I know, excuses, but you have 2 year old twins and see how much you get done!

We celebrated the twins' season opener with Granny and Grandpa's yearly photo op. in Twins gear.

Taking this picture took about 10 minutes and 1/2 a bag of m&ms and this is the best shot we got. Seriously.

One weekend, we met some friends at Sea Life aquarium at the MOA.

It was pretty good if I forget the fact that we waited in line for 30 minutes to get in. It was probably 150 degrees down there and we did an awful lot of standing around waiting to file through to go through those tubes. I feel as though I may have a better understanding about what cows go through when being herded.

We sang the "octopus, octopus swimming in the water" song for 2 days.

I'd go back again.

The boys have been working on potty training. They like to wear undahpayants.

We have talked about it that this is not the correct way to wear them.

It doesn't really change anything.

We moved all the toys upstairs to the new "toy room".

It's wonderful in the living room now.

Slightly cleaner.

(but only slightly)

The boys are diggin' "Bob the Builder".

Get it? Diggin'?

I'm funny.

If you are wondering what this picture is here for, it's because I went upstairs and someone put undahpayants in the washing machine in the play kitchen.

I thought it was cute.

Today we dyed easter eggs.

It was not as messy as I had anticipated and the boys liked it!

And this?

Do these french fries give anyone else the creeps?

I couldn't eat them if someone paid me.

Well, maybe if someone paid me...

Have a great week!!

undahpayants

That's right!

We are officially wearing undahpayants in our house!!!

Luke refuses diapers and hates being wet, so he pretty much trained himself. He still has some accidents, but whatever.

Andrew is jealous that Luke gets praised for using the potty. Not to mention the fact that he gets "em nems" if he goes, so Andrew's following suit. (He is not successful as frequently and will often run around with a huge wet spot on his undahpayants before someone notices it. - Sound like anyone? Aaron ring a bell? - I have flashbacks daily)

So, we've been busy washing clothes, running to the bathroom and you know what the best part is? When daddy's home, no one wants mom's help.

In fact, I'm usually banned from the bathroom (and that is SO totally ok with me!)

I love hearing those three little words: "Daddy do it!"

Is that ok?

join me!

I just got an email about this 21-day vegan kickstart.
If you sign up, you get meal plans emailed to you.
If you've ever thought about trying to eat vegan, there's no better time than the present!!
Seriously, it's not a big deal, and you honestly won't even miss meat - maybe not even dairy. Isn't it worth a try??

Go here and try it with me!! It starts April 4th.
http://21daykickstart.org/

A Sigh of Relief

Those of you that see me or talk to me often know my recent stress and craziness relating to my boys. They have been nuts and I feel like a crazy person and a terrible mother almost daily.
Last week was spring break and while I looked forward to hanging out at home, towards the end of the week life became absolutely WILD! The boys were naughty, busy, testing ANY and ALL boundaries and just being overall difficult. We had a rough few days.
I went back to work this week looking thorough parenting and discipline books and trying to find one I hadn't read yet. Seriously, we have every book imaginable in our library at work and I've read them ALL. I have to so that I can recommend them to others as part of my job, but I use them frequently for my own life.
In any case, life was nuts. To top it all off, I had a busy week at work and wasn't home for bedtime 3/5 nights this week. Again, feeling terrible about it, but not being able to do anything about it.
Then a wonderful thing happened.
One week after the naughty started, it was over. Those 7 days were tough, but all of a sudden my nice, sweet boys were back! Daycare was good - no timeouts, no hitting, no biting or pushing friends (yes, this happens almost daily). Tami (the daycare lady) was amazed.
We went out for dinner as a family on Friday and the boys were ANGELS! They were polite and quiet. They visited with us and each other and had me laughing with all of their "interpretations" of what was going on (L:"mom, look fan! A:"No, fan. Helicopter" L:"oh, yep. Helicopter").
This weekend we had company and the boys were FANTASTIC!! Nice and helpful. Good to each other and us (and company too). Honestly, I haven't broken up a fight in 4 days! (it really is a new record)
And last night, Adam broke out his old home movies looking for some college antics (awful movies that should be destroyed before my children EVER see how crazy boys in college are), and we found a tape I had started with the babies on it. We saw Andrew's first day of talking "da da da da". We saw Luke rolling around the room like a lunatic! We saw the boys eating for Beth and Nicole.
I had totally forgotten all about all of it - but looking back made me remember how far we have come and how my life was calmer at one time (back when these boys couldn't move as fast!), but reminded me that I really wouldn't have it any other way.
Funny how fast your view on life changes, huh.
Have a fabulous week!

twins

This had Adam and I cracking up!

Eck-a-size

Lately I've been trying to work out more, but never seem to have the time...

So, in trying to be a good mother and still work out, the boys and I have been exercising (together) in the living room. Is it a good workout? Well, no. But, it's better than nothing!

Luke helps me put Jillian in the dvd player.

Jillian has since been broken.

For some reason, the boys think that they need to be shirtless and sometimes pants-less to "eck-a-size". I swear, I don't know where they got that from. I'm usually pretty clothed when I exercise.

The video is Luke asking Andrew to "eck-a-size" with him. Note he's trying to take off his shirt, and yes, those are my running shoes.

what we've been up to...

Now that the boys are so much older, they've been becoming more and more independent. It's a good thing, however, sometimes this is what happens:

Yes, he's ready for anything now.

(I think it's Andrew, but at this angle it's hard to tell.)

The boys got some playdoh for Christmas and their birthday, and have been having fun with it!

They like to open and close the cans and take the playdoh in and out.

The boys do NOT like to wear pants.

This is new. I'm not a fan because when they have their pants off, they want their diapers off. When the diapers are off, inevitably someone will potty on something - either by accident or just for fun!

They LOVE to dress themselves.

They put on their own hats and mittens often inside the house.

Only it's hard to eat their favorite snack with mittens on.

Yes folks, the snack of choice around here is bread.

One piece of bread.

Weird.

Here's Andrew playing piano.

Hat on of course.

Helping mom put away the paper.

Luke dressing himself.

He's getting really good at it!

Coloring.

On paper - this time.

We've had some wonderful wall decorations and window decorations courtesy of the boys' artistic attempts.

Reading books with Dad.

"Pig a Pancake" is the new favorite around here.

And puzzles.

Andrew is some kind of puzzle savant.

Really. He is a crazy person with the puzzles and is really good at them.

So that's what we've been doing.

I was home with the boys last week and it was a week of ups and downs.

Ups: Spending actual time with my kids, playing, and having actual time to get things done.

Downs: FIGHTING! AHHHHH! I can't handle the fighting over everything. yikes!

But, now I'm back at work, and they are back at Tami's playing with their friends, and they are pretty happy about that!