dj jazzy twins

I come from a fairly musical family. I think I may have instilled some of my musical talent in my kids - if I do say so myself.

Enjoy. :)

P.S. Ask me how much I hate "Livin la vida loca". I dare you.

and we're back!

Why is it that whenever I get home from a vacation, I am more exhausted than when I left??

It may have something to do with the fact that when my boys were gone last week, I rented movies and stayed up late, late, late (like 1:00am) watching them and counting on the fact that I would get to sleep in. I was up at 7:30, people!

Or maybe that when I went to Grandma's house on Wednesday, she had me non-stop racing around to pasta bar, visiting friends, Pizza Ranch buffet (at which, by the way, Luke preferred to eat green beans to pizza. Whose kid is that??), Grandpa's play on Friday night (yay for Paynesville Community Theatre), bonfires, swimming, tanning, chasing dogs, staying up WAY TOO LATE visiting with Adam's family, etc. Plus I read a couple of good books, the boys got to see Auntie Amy and Pete in their triathalon today, and I got to see a couple of old friends!

It was a good weekend. I should show you some pictures. Oh, but wait, my camera was upstairs in my bag all weekend and I didn't get any, hopefully Auntie Amy will send me a really cute one of Luke, sleeping in the swing. He fell asleep, drool dripping down the front of the swing (shaped like a car, so there's a place for drool to drip).

And now I feel fat from all the eating, drinking, laying around, snacks, and treats, so I'm gonna go workout. Jillian, here I come.

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. :)