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.

hop, hop. roar. roar.

We have this frog puppet washcloth. (We also have a shark, lion, and tiger, but more on those later).

I thought it was funny to "hop" the frog all over the tub one night - entertaining Lucas and scaring the crap out of Andrew. I ate his hand with the frog, and it was all over. Crying, "no, no hop", and needing to get out of the bathtub immediately. (what a terrible mom!) I honestly didn't know it was going to freak him out so much. Whoops!

So, Andrew has been trying to be brave. The first week or so, he would see one of the puppets and just walk very much around them, but the other day he actually picked one up! It was the lion. I decided that since I was such a terrible mom before, I should rectify the situation and I kissed the lion. MMMMMWHA. So, Andrew kissed the lion. MMMMMMA. He even put the lion on his hand. All is right in the world. Except that he said "hop hop" with the lion. So, being such a good mom, I said "no honey, it's roar". He walked around for a little bit "roaring" with the lion (and kissing it too - so that's good). He said "bye bye roar", dropped the lion and moved on to the next thing.

Since then, he's been finding any of the washcloth puppets and saying "hop. Roar" and "bye bye hop roar" and "no no hop roar".

Now tonight, in the tub, Andrew was playing with dinosaurs. Adam was "roaring" the dinos at the boys, everyone was having fun, splashing, squirting the dinosaurs. Then Andrew picks up a dinosaur and says "hop".

What have I done?

experts

We have twins. Did you know that? That means TWO kids. And, our twins are 18 months old. That means they are absolutely nuts! Like running around - diving off furniture - leaping down stairs - climbing on the oven - opening the doors - messing up the living room - putting toys away in the pots and pans cupboard - nuts.
And it's double what you're thinking. I promise.
So since my life is actually insane, I've had to do a lot of calling doctor's, poison control, googling, etc. to find out everything I need to know. I thought it might be fun to compile a list of 25 things that I am now an "expert" on due to having my children. Feel free to quiz me on any and all entries. Here goes:
1) Cloth diapering
2) Breastfeeding/Pumping
3) Black eyes
4) Making baby food
5) Organic gardening
6) Veganism/Vegetarianism
7) Head injuries
8) Natural cleaning
9) Money-saving
10) Asthma
11) Sleep Apnea
12) Baby CPR/Choking/First Aid
13) Poisonous Mushrooms
14) Dave at poison control
15) Vaccinations
16) Sleep Schedules/Schedules in general
17) Baby sign
18) Tornado spotting (ok, this isn't from having kids, this is due to my fear of storms)
19) Lost (the tv show)
20) Rashes - reactions of any kind
21) Medicinal uses of herbs/essential oils
22) Blocking out crying at night (ooo, I've gotten really good at this one :) )
23)1,2,3, Magic
24) Putting snaps on
25) Marsupial Sue

Maybe I should share the knowledge...