it's just so quiet here

I am temporarily childless this week. And, man it is quiet.
I've sent the boys to their grandparents' house (Adam's parents) so I can get our house painted - which would really be impossible if my 2 best helpers were here! I can picture them picking at tape and tramping gray paint all over the wood floors, so I am grateful for grandmas but I miss my little buggers! I'm headed to the lake tomorrow to play, go see some farm animals with the boys, swim, boat, see Grandpa in his annual community play, see Auntie Amy and Pete in a triathalon (which she tried to talk me into - ummm, no thanks!) and just have some fun (hopefully) in the sun!!
So far grandma had some cute stories of the boys. She took them to vacation bible school to listen to the singing and Andrew was smiling at everyone and introducing himself! He points to his chest with his thumb and says "An-oo", then he points to Luke with his thumb and says "An-oo" and smiles at the strangers. It's cute but we still don't say Luke around here yet...
Lucas was pointing at the pictures on Grandma's fridge and naming all the people (that kid LOVES looking at pictures, especially of himself!). He named "An-oo", "Dad", and "Mom" then blew my picture a kiss. Grandma said it was too cute. He does love his mommy!
They did their fair share of fighting over grandma's toys too. And I sure miss them around here.

a letter to my skinny jeans

Dear Skinny Jeans:
I met you in the Gap and you were ON CLEARANCE!! Therefore, I had no excuse NOT to buy you, duh. I did not dare to try you on in the store because I didn't have the right boots for you, so I brought you home and threw you on and wore you around my house.
I had visions of me looking like one of those emaciated gap models, wearing you out clubbing and to fancy restaurants (Ok, I haven't been "out clubbin'" ever, really with the exception of my bachelorette party 5 years ago and the fanciest place I get to these days is Buffalo Wild Wings). We'd strut around lookin all hot and stuff and people would think, "Wow. She looks really good. You can't even tell she's had two kids!" (again, my dream, people...)
And I do look REALLY good from the knees down:

And that is all anyone will ever get to see.

Summer photos

Over the 4th of July, our whole family got together, as we do every year, and my sister-in-law took some wonderful pictures of my kids having fun at the lake. (for the record, my brother married well as she is pretty much an awesome photographer and pretty nice too. She has a photography company if anyone is interested... let me know!)

Here are the boys and their cousin, Grant.

On "Papa's Vrroom"

(grandpa's tractor)

Luke LOVES the water!!

Andrew's getting better, but the lifejacket made him tip backwards!

Andrew playing

Luke in the paddleboat

Luke is obviously fine with water. Sheesh!

Andrew's trying to dunk his head in too

Andrew in the paddleboat

(they were on shore, not in the lake)

They are so cool.

Thanks, Morgan!!

what we say

There is a lot of talking goin' on around here.
Well, if you know me at all, you know that I'm probably the one doing most of the talking, but my boys are joining in.
No, really!
I should explain - they've been talking for a long time now it seems. They started talking around 1 year or so, saying the typical "mama, dada, puppy, uh-oh, ball" - you know, the usual. But this summer, man, they are talking. And I wish I had a video camera on them all day, because they are funny.
Mostly they talk about "poop", "oh goos" (gross), "uky" (yucky) and blame everything on "An-oo" (neither says "Luke" yet, should I be worried? They receptively identify Luke as Luke or Lucas, but don't say it. Hmmm. I spose I should work on that).
Today I had an entire conversation with Luke about the "beep beep" aka carbon monoxide detector that beeps really loud if you push the test button. It went like this:

Luke: Mama!!
Me: What Lukie?
L: Mama! Beep beep, NO beep, NO NO NO, nah-tee, touch, no beep, touch, no, nahtee.
Me: Yup, No beep. All gone.
L: AH -gah, no beep. Touch, nah-tee. No No, An-oo No Beep, nah-tee, touch, no.
M: Nope, Andrew won't touch it
L: Nah-tee, no beep, ah-ga, uh-oh, ah-gah, no beep.
M: Right, no beep.
L: Mama!
M: What?
L: Cookie?

Ah yes, a boy after my own heart. Cookies make all the worries go away.

Also, although Andrew didn't have such a long conversation with me today he did tell me "Mama. Pretty. Eyes" (I'm training them well, aren't I? :)

Then he proceeded to poke my eye and I'm now wearing my glasses because my eye is still red and burning. Thanks baby.

my new love

Oh, Jessica. You are my new best friend. I'm not sure how to tell you quite how happy you make us around here. Really. Thanks!

I just got this FANTASTIC cookbook!

I have picky eaters. One of my boys is picky (the other would eat garbage if I fed it to him) and my husband is picky. Like ridiculous, gagging on vegetables, can't even stomach it in front of the kids picky. He is terrible.
Enter Deceptively Delicious.
It's a wonderful cookbook by Jessica Seinfeld where she created kid-friendly recipes with added nutrients and lower fat, sugar, icky stuff.
Such as:

(Scrambled Eggs)
You may not be able to read it (it's called focus, Kristine, but I'm not a photographer - duh.). So, it says there is cauliflower in the eggs. Yes, you puree cauliflower (it's not necessary to get carried away and do 3 heads of cauliflower like I did- one should be fine) and you put the puree in with the eggs, some sour cream, cheese, blah blah and it's GREAT! Andrew ate it and Luke ate it (of course) and even ADAM ate it.
Then I told him what was in it and he said "What? Why would you do that? GROSS!".
And I laughed.

Take a gander at this one:

Yes, cookies with chickpeas (a.k.a. garbanzo beans for those of you that may not know)

And there are tons of recipes! Mac and cheese, burgers, muffins, bars, soups, chicken nuggets, pizza, lasagna, etc.
LOVE it!


Here I am making zucchini in my old babyfood maker (which you don't need, but I have so it's serving another purpose and works great!)

So you cook the veggies, blend them/process/puree them, and then freeze them in baggies and stick them in the freezer so they are ready to add to a recipe.

And you don't tell your husband.




P.S. I wanted to let you all know that prior to actually having children I saw Jessica S. on Oprah. I said "that's dumb. When I have kids, they will eat their veggies without me having to do anything stupid like hide them in foods. that's just setting them up for failure. Blah blah blah."

Then I had kids.



P.P.S. I didn't get paid by a sponsor for this post or anything, but if you want to pay me, I accept. :)

one crazy day

I am trying really hard lately to be a more positive person. To see the good in things instead of complaining about the bad stuff, deal with it and move on and focus on the best part of the day. Therefore I am not going to complain about the moron check-out lady at Target that was the
SLOOOOWEST EVER (ok, a little bit of complaining) and I'm not going to tell you that we waited in line for 30 minutes to check out! I won't complain (much) about dropping a container of yogurt on the floor that exploded and it took the checkout moron 10 minutes to call for clean-up, which really wouldn't have been that bad had she done some checking out while waiting (hence her job title). I won't go on and on about my boys having a super-fun screaming contest at the register and the moms around giving me those "oh, poor lady" looks and the young newly-dating couple behind me glancing uncomfortably at each other trying to figure out a way to get out of my line so they didn't have to listen to my kids. Plus, I'm not focusing on the fact that when I got into my car, I tried to call Adam and realized my phone was nowhere to be found (since, I've located it at Target guest services. It's still there.)
I am resolving to focus on the best parts of my day. And it was a good day. Really. Overall.
Today after nap, I was hoping the boys wanted to sleep longer so I said "more nigh night?". Andrew said "no" then proceeded to shake MY head no with his hands, just so the point sank in a little bit.
We were in a parade! Really!! A real parade!! My Mom's of Multiples group was in the parade and the boys were SO good. They did fight a couple of times, but really, they were strapped in a stroller for 3 1/2 hours, I expected nothing less than a couple of fights. They loved waving at people and saw their daycare lady and friends. Their twin friends Annika and Finn were with us in the parade and the boys could not stop saying "Anni" over and over again. (By the way, Anni was made for parades. The girl waved non-stop for 3 hours!)
Luke helped cool off his brother by taking a drink of water and spitting it out all over him. Andrew didn't mind, so I let it go. It was gross and cute all at the same time.
Along the route, we saw dad. It was so fun to see him along the side of the road, the boys were very excited "oooo!! Dad!! Hi dad!"
Andrew got a haircut and looks really adorable. Luke got a haircut because he needed a trim, but I like his curls best, so his hair will look really adorable in about a week. :)
Luke is figuring out where potty comes from. He cracks me up.
My house is a mess. I made Adam clean the kitchen while I sat and watched. Is that mean? That's a positive thing though, my husband will clean my house if I force him to.
See, I can stop complaining...

love and statues

We're at the lake, and boy, do I love the lake! The boys and I have been here all week, and let me tell you, it's been a good week. We've been going for walks, going for boat rides, relaxing, playing outside, riding our trikes, getting a tan and visiting with family and friends.
The boys love their "boppa" (grandpa) and they also love St. Francis. Weird. I know.
For those of you that may not be Catholic, St. Francis is the patron saint of animals and the environment. My dad received a statue of St. Francis that is also a birdbath for a gift from teaching confirmation classes for many years at church. The statue/birdbath is in the middle of their backyard. It's weathered and recently suffered some destruction when on Mother's Day the twins were running around the yard wielding sticks and knocked a bird right off St. Francis' shoulder (a plastic bird - not real). So began the relationship with the statue of the saint.
I made the boys apologize to the statue for hurting it (me trying to be a mother who teaches compassion - also to distract them so I could take away their sticks which were on the way to poking out an eyeball).
Now when we go outside, we have to go up to the statue and kiss his head, the squirrel on his shoulder and the fawn on his lap (which the boys yell "puppy!!" at and bark at - we're not getting into all that right now).
So, St. Francis, sorry for your shoulder, sorry for dumping you over to get the water out of the birdbath, sorry for the spit on your head. Forgive us in Jesus' name. Amen.
We'll try to keep a safe distance.