busy, busy, busy

We've been busy. Adam and I were busy last weekend celebrating the 4th of July with our annual party at my parent's lake. We were trying to figure out how many years we've been doing it, and have no idea. I think it's been at least 20 (making me REALLY old!). It's also the weekend we celebrate my dad's birthday, my aunt's birthday, my uncle's birthday, and 3 cousins' birthdays.
On Sunday (my dad's actual birthday), we helped my parents move all of the "big stuff" out of their house. That was a little sad, but very exciting because they are building a new house closer to the lake. I was reminiscing all weekend - alone, because no one would reminisce with me - about playing here and there, writing on the walls (sorry about that!), and remembering my childhood in that house.
The boys have been busy, too! The Sunday before the 4th, they had their first "photo shoot" with their auntie Morgan. She took WONDERFUL pictures of the boys that you can see here if you want to!
Luke is busy rolling all over the house, chewing on himself and his brother (which Andrew does NOT like), and just overall demolishing things :). Luke is using his 4 teeth to rip toys and put bite marks on most everything. He will roll over anything in his way - including Andrew, who doesn't seem to mind.
Andrew is rolling one way, then gets stuck. He is perfecting his "goo" sound and his screaming. He'll scream as loud as he can and then look over at us. We can't tell if he's looking proud that he can scream or sheepish like "whoops, that was loud" - it's a surprised kind of look and it's really cute.
Other than that, I'm just enjoying being home for the summer! I'm not really thinking about next year quite yet - denial works wonders! I will have to think about it soon because my new classroom is full of old flashcards that I'm allergic to (yes, nerdy, I know) and I have to figure out a system for storing my high school and birth-3 things in the same room.
Oh, someone's getting hungry - gotta go!

finally some peace?

Tooth count: 4-0. Yes, Luke has all 4 front choppers. When it rains it pours for that kid I guess! Hopefully he'll start feeling better now as opposed to the really weird all-of-a-sudden screaming his head off thing he's been doing the last couple of weeks. Plus, the air feels much nicer today, and maybe we can get out for a walk (if it doesn't rain...it looks cloudy...).
Andrew has not even a smidge of tooth coming that we can see, but he has been chewing on his hands a lot lately....here we go again!! That's one of the tricky things about these 2 guys, Luke does everything first, then when he's accomplished whatever he has done, Andrew starts!
This weekend we didn't do that much. The boys tried green beans. Luke didn't like them, but he'll eat them (sounds so much like his mom!) and Andrew gags and screams at me until I stop feeding them to him (sounds so much like his dad!).
Andrew did learn how to drink out of a sippy cup this weekend and he LOVES that! I read somewhere to try to give 6 month olds a cup (which seems so young) and basically teach them how to drink out of it. It didn't take long and Andrew is drinking liquid out of a sippy cup, bringing it to his mouth independently and sucking on the spout. It's so cute! Lucas, on the other had, threw his sippy cup on the floor 4 times, so I stopped handing it to him. We'll try again later.
Yesterday, my brother and sister-in-law came over to see the boys. Morgan took the boys 6 month pictures and they turned out SO CUTE (from what I could see on her camera), so I'll be posting those sometime too!

rollin'

Now we have two rollers, tooth count is officially 2-0 in favor of Luke, and everyone's a little crabby today. I am a little crabby because I stayed up WAY past my bedtime. I went to Singin' in the Rain with my family last night. It was fabulous, but I didn't get home until midnight! The boys are crabby because they had shots - 6 month shots! - yesterday and I think they're still feeling the effects. Plus, Luke cut his second tooth yesterday and has had a pretty rough couple of days... Poor kid.
It's times like these I wish I had a much bigger lap or arm span at least...

a few of my favorite things

If you know me, you know I love my cloth diapers (which are getting washed right now as a matter of fact!). I found something that makes my cloth diapers EVEN BETTER!! For all you CDers - this is a must-have! Flushable Diaper Liners!
These are papery liners that come in a roll (mine are from Imse Vimse), and were $11.60 for 2 rolls of 200 sheets per roll (on jilliansdrawers.com). Me, being the cheapie that I am, have cut them in 1/2 and use one half sheet per suspected poopy diaper. Once the boys have done their business for the day, I'm done using them for the day. So, I put this little paper in the diaper between the tushie and the diaper and it catches the poo! (maybe tmi?)
Not only do these fabulous little papers make clean up a breeze, they are also flushable, biodegradable, safe for septic systems and there is virtually NOTHING on the diaper! My diapers smell better and are SO much easier to clean up!
I thought I'd list some other of my favorite baby things right now:
Beaba (duh - told you about this before)
Hotsling (Luke aka "crazy guy" falls asleep within 3 minutes of being put in this thing)
Jumper (Luke can almost launch himself right out of this!)
Swing (Andrew's favorite place to sleep)
Black garbage bag (put over the window in the boys' room so the light doesn't wake them up at 4:45am!)
Is that enough for you to look at today?


P.S. One more thing for you Mom's trying to learn about cloth diapering. Go here for more info and an inexpensive trial!

houston, we have a tooth

Wow. Last week was a rough one. Luke was screaming and wouldn't take a nap most of the days. Wednesday was about the worst, and at one point I called my mom who said "I've never heard a baby scream like that before." So, he was in pain. I tried everything; teethers, frozen washcloths, cold washcloths, my hand, and nothing was helping so I finally broke down and gave the kid some Tylenol. I don't use medication much, so I'm trying not to give it to my kids unless absolutely necessary, and this was ABSOLUTELY necessary. After a half hour, he felt better and sure enough, the next morning, his brand new shiny tooth was visible! He has 4 more that seem to be coming in, so we'll see what happens next!
Andrew on the other hand has no signs of teething yet. Not surprising, he's been exactly 2 weeks behind Luke from the beginning, so I'm sure they'll come soon!
On another note, in my attempt to be "green" I bought a giant jug of vinegar to use for cleaning. So today, while reaching for my trusty comet and rubber gloves (I need the gloves because I hate cleaning with chemicals because I always think I am inhaling them or inadvertently ingesting them and for about an hour after cleaning I ask Adam if he thinks I'm going to die because I ate poison. He humors me and tells me I'm fine - what a good guy to put up with a crazy lady...) I noticed my jug o' vinegar and decide today is a good day to try cleaning my sink with baking soda/vinegar/lemon juice.
I found this site that tells how to make natural cleaning supplies, and although I am interested, especially since soon I'll have crawlers (yes, Luke is close to crawling already!) and I don't want them to get chemicals in their little bodies.
(Ok, up onto my soapbox for a second: I strongly feel that many health issues that we deal with on a daily basis are linked to chemicals, pollutants, preservatives, and other great inventions that have become widely used in the past 30 years. I look around at the kids I work with with autism and developmental issues and undoubtedly those would still be prevalent, but to what degree? Would so many kids have these concerns? I look at MANY of my friends who have difficulty getting pregnant (myself included) and wonder how this can be such a problem for young and otherwise healthy women? Ok, off soap box.)
Back to my story...Baking soda worked GREAT for scrubbing stains! It actually worked better than my Comet. I scrubbed the sink with a half of a lemon I had leftover and it smells terrific! I'm sold! I'll just have to try some other mixtures now...

pictures as promised

We've been so busy around here just doing daily things and I can't believe how much these guys are growing up! Luke is rolling, everyone's eating and Luke started sitting up, too! Here are some new pictures of the crazy kids:Andrew fell over in this position - getting ready for senior pictures, I guess!

We were laughing really hard.

Luke putting on a show for Andrew.

This picture defines them better than anything: Lucas has an audience and Andrew is perfectly happy to comply. Does it sound like anyone to you?

(It's the same relationship their parents have :) )

All of the guys on the couch

Cute outfits, don't you think?

He sleeps (thank goodness!)




Playing together... only Luke steals all the toys...

Andrew

Playing together again

(I tried to get them both to smile)

Andrew's favorite: hugging his blanket in his swing

Luke's favorite: jumping like a crazy man and drooling

Look who can sit! (It's Luke)

We are just having the best time getting to know these two boys! Can you believe that next week they'll be 6 months old!?! How did that happen?? Seriously, sometimes I look at them and wonder where my tiny little babies went. (sniffle) They grow up so fast! (sniffle)

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...