A Very Merry Un-Birthday to You!

In the words of Alice in Wonderland the boys had their UN-Birthday on Saturday. It was A LOT of fun! We had a small get together with Jared's side of the family because Jared's parents, aka Nani and Papa, are going to Colorado for a month to stay with Steve and his family. I figured since the boys don't understand when their actual birthday is yet it would be safe to have it a couple of weeks early. Needless to say they were spoiled rotten. They got tricycles, train sets, books, Barney stuffed animals (that sing "I love You" and wake you up first thing on a Sunday morning, not that I am complaining about being woke up by our dear purple friend, no, not me) and on and on goes the list of their toys. They had an absolute blast which began after their nap when they woke up to balloons in the front room with a birthday banner. I truly know they would have been happy with just the balloons and everyone would have saved a lot of money but it was a joy to watch them just enjoy the love that their family showed to them. They brought smiles to every ones lips and enjoyed doing it. Eli was determined to be the entertainer in the middle of the room sporting his sunglasses and clapping his hands while Alex melted hearts with his hugs and kisses for Barney.

Jared and I continue to feel a bit emotional around their birthday. OK mainly me but he feels nostalgic and deeply blessed to have our boys. I just sat and watched their wonder at all that was going on around them and drank it in. It was truly intoxicating and I will not soon forget the fun that was had. I actually spoke with our "NICU friends" this week who lost one of their twins while the boys were there. It was a nice conversation and we spoke of our children's upcoming 2nd birthday and what a blessing it was that they were here and doing well developmentally but of course she and her husband feel their loss of their sweet girl very deeply along with the joy they feel for their living child. It is odd to say how blessed we are when I know that the same God blesses them but still chose to take one of their babies home. It is not something I understand but as Alex and Eli approach another year on this earth I am thankful for their lives, their health and their presence in our lives. At the same time I think that their sweet little girl is at home with her heavenly Father and that brings some understanding. She will never again know fear, hurt, pain. She will not know the ugliness of this world that can so often disappoint. I just know that my God is good and that what he does is best for us even when we don't get it and in that I take comfort.

So Happy Un-birthday boys, Mommy and Daddy love you and you have brought us more joy than we can take in at times. As you would say "luh-loo".

this week with my boys

I don't have much to blog about but I am feeling the need so here is some randomness:

It's Jared's pseudo-Spring Break (meaning he isn't teaching but he is doing maintenance, landscaping etc., etc., at the school which usually involves more hours than a typical work week).

I watched my sister Missy's kids for a couple of hours this morning because as I am finding out Spring Break for parents isn't really Spring Break it is more like Spring Kids Constantly Around. My friend Mariah made me laugh writing about this very thing here. Every stage of parenting has its challenges that is for sure.

We had a lot of fun with the cousins and as I took pictures of them my niece asked me if I was going to put them on my blog. Of course I will not disappoint so there are some "exciting" pics at the end of this rambly post.

I had an amazing date with Jared last Friday for our Anniversary and it was SO relaxing. I thought we might both fall asleep at the restaurant. The low lighting coupled with the music and the fact that we weren't telling the boys not to put food in their own hair or each other's was like taking an Ambien.

I made the boys Thomas the Train T-shirts to wear on their 2nd B-day. This, by the way, is their latest obsession/not the show but the books, trains, etc. The show is a bit like watching paint dry, in my opinion, and well we just don't use the word "cheeky" much in the Big D! :)

The t-shirts don't match the Sesame Street plates that they picked out which in all honesty bothers me a tad but they will be thrilled to have a "character" birthday, matching or not. I will let go (b/c it is a small family party)!

Took a nice walk with Jared and the boys when he got home from work which was refreshing.

Talked to my friend Jenell on the phone for a while and enjoyed talking and laughing with her. On a side note: Jenell is a friend that I was out of touch with for about 10 years and when she hunted me down via facebook (I don't have an account but she found me through friends) we discovered that we both had twin boys. How crazy is that?? Hers are about 10 months old though and she breezed through the twinfant stage which is more than I can say for this momma, let me tell you.

My dear friend Heidi is doing well and did not go through emergency surgery yesterday which is something only insiders will understand but I have never been so happy for a Dr.'s mis-information in.my.life. I truly thank God for it.

Hung out with my sisters and ALL of our children this week. We haven't done this in a while and I have to say I left feeling refreshed which must mean either I have mellowed OR the kids are just getting older and it was a bit easier. I am pretty sure it is the latter.

I snagged a free Step 2 picnic table for the boys. I must say it is U.G.L.Y but with a little paint it will be as good as new and I was hoping to buy one this summer so this was a huge SCORE for Mom.

As far as the boys are concerned I am pretty sure that Eli thinks Alex's name is eye-I (translation Li-Li pronounced Lie-lie which is actually Eli's nickname). Oy, not sure how that happened.

Alex feels that it is his personal responsibility to watch out for Eli and will yell his name LOUDLY if he is out of his line of vision. He does this in the backyard (funny) and in the library (studying patrons don't find this that funny).

I believe they have started a bit of "twin speak" with one another. Eli babbled something recently and Alex responded which was pretty funny. They were also chanting something in unison on our walk yesterday. Twins speak apparently is just one twin copying the others immature speech thereby making it seem like their own "language".

We went to story time on Tuesday and Eli only stole the letter of the day off of the board twice (improvement).

I guess that is the run down of our week thus far.

Here are those pics I promised Celia! They were watching Ratatouille (for about 5 minutes).

Alex's Playground

Here is Alex conquering his own Mt. Everest. I am sure he will have it by Summer and in the mean time I will cringe and watch from behind my camera lens, where it seems a bit less scary for Mommy. You gotta love boys.

Aha maybe THAT is the problem?!?

I continue to upload last years pics. It is starting to become like a part-time job and I am wondering if the reason I have so many pictures could possibly be because I took about 30 of them eating yogurt recently??? Hmmm, I will have to further ponder this self-revelation.

Alex currently has ANOTHER virus which led me to feed them from separate spoons (I never usually do this). While giving Alex a bite of yogurt Eli became impatient and grabbed his own yogurt and spoon. He was doing pretty well so I figured, why not? I had fun watching them attempt this. I love the pure concentration that it took for their chubby little paws to grasp the spoon properly and the wonder in their eyes as they realized that they were doing it. I mean, yogurt is tricky for an almost 2 year old.

Who's Your Daddy?

Well, according to my sweet, son Eli, this is:

and this picture below is: (yep, that's Jesus)

Also Snook from "It's a Big Big World" (He's a large sloth on the show if you are not familiar. I should mention that Jared is FAR from a sloth.).

Yes, Eli has gotten to that point where men are all Daddies and women are Mommies. Older men are all Papa and so on and so forth. So far the "Mommies" have all been VERY attractive women. So I have lucked out. I am sure at some point the reverse will be true and I will be some female equivalent of the sloth but for now I am cute little birds and pretty women. I like this kid!!!

On a completely unrelated note the weather here is gorgeous today. It is 65 which is 20 degrees above our average. I took a beautiful, long walk with my boys and my 80 year old neighbor. It wasn't exactly heart pumping, to say the least, but it took about an hour and it has to be good for us to get out and breathe in that fresh air. My dear friend Stephanie called and asked me to go on a run with her this evening. I am a tad nervous but said I would give it a whirl. We ran together PT (pre-twins) and completed and 8K with my sister. Stephanie is my friend who has 5 kids, home-schools one of them, leads a bible study in her spare time AND just completed "Power 90 X". To put this in perspective I sit on my couch and watch the infomercials for this particular work-out and laugh at how ridiculously impossible it looks. Yeah, the run should be great! :) J/K Steph, I love ya! My goal is to make it one lap around the park jogging (what I do CANNOT be called running) and I will be a happy girl. I'll let you know!

Eli and Alex with their actual Daddy. And while he is not "Jesus" :) he is a wonderful father and husband and I have been married to him for SIX years on Saturday!

The above picture is of our first day home together as a family. Eli had just been released from the NICU after his 3 month stay and we were all finally under one roof. Praise God! These pictures of our first few hours home with them still melt my heart and I am sure they always will. As I am sure every NICU parent knows one of the hardest parts of their stay has to be the first day you leave the hospital without them. You aren't loading them into carseats for the first time. You didn't nervously drive them home like you had always envisioned. And then you come home to a nursery that you have been planning for several months with your arms empty, your heads full of doubt and your hearts unbelievably heavy. I cannot explain how much of a blessing their homecoming day was for us. I am so thankful God gave us these boys! Wooo, I got a bit more sidetracked than I had planned but their 2nd b-day is coming up and I have been thinking about their birth SO much. :) Bear with me for the next month or so!

Queen of Procrastination!

Yes, that is me. I have had the photo "issue" (for lack of a better word) hanging over my head for quite some time. I tend to be the type that needs a plan and if I am unsure about what to do I just DON'T. Unfortunately, this means that a lot of things get pushed back and then sometimes it means that I do them quickly to get them finished and it is not what I'd imagined. This is not one of my favorite things about myself but it is something I have learned to accept while pushing towards changing it. If that even makes a bit of sense. I guess as "they" say "knowing is half the battle".

So today I sit down to upload pics for our albums and realize that after last year, when I ordered about 600 photos and SWORE I would NEVER do that again, I have DONE THAT AGAIN! I haven't developed pictures in a year. Literally! And as you can see I am taking the time to blog about it which means I am, again, procrastinating. See isn't it lovely this self realization stuff? The improvement that I did make from last year is that as I upload my pictures onto my computer I have been editing them. This will save me a ton of time and I am glad that I didn't procrastinate on that particular task. I also backed up my photos (actually Jared did) and there is no danger of them being lost which is a huge relief and something that was looming over me until it was completed.

My next step after completing our family album is creating one for each of the boys' first year. It will be just of themselves for them to have some day. I got this idea from another twin mom Laura. She also makes her blog into a book as a keepsake (great tutorial here) which is my final project after completing the others that I have mentioned. My goal is to accomplish this by 2010. I am not kidding. I am trying to be realistic. Sure I could say by Summer but I'd be lying! :)

Ok, back to uploading millions of photos. BTW if anyone would like to confess how behind they are on pics or how disorganized, etc. in order to make me feel better leave a comment or if you have a great system that will make me feel worse but will give me some inspiration share that too! :)

Flashback Friday

Alex 7 months old
Almost 23 months old
(I caved in on the "binky front". He was sick, people.)

Eli 7 months old
Almost 23 months old

I was a bit disturbed that he not only was able to reach the dresser that the overalls were on, during his nap, but also that they were pretty much around his neck. Yikes! As usual though I found is somewhat adorable and had to grab my camera.

The Evolution of Eli's Hair

Eli is on the right. He was 6 months old here. I believe this is when the top of his hair started winning the race!

2 months later (at this point I began to think it was going to even out)

10 months old and it hasn't "evened out". It was at this point when we could not leave the house without people asking us if we cut it that way. Seriously?? I mean I like a good faux-hawk as much as the next girl but he is 10 months old.

Still 10 months old but I thought I would share a back view so that you can fully appreciate his "do". I find it funny that in this picture Alex hair is fuller on the top too but I just don't think it was as obvious b/c he has some hair on the sides ;)

It was at this point that we had to trim the top so that it was not too long. Now he just has a shorter faux-hawk.

16 months old~Hmmm, it looks a bit curly.

Fast forward 7 months and this is his hair today!

I think it was worth the wait. I love those blond curls. Lately I have been reminded of the rhyme:

There was little girl who had a little curl right in the middle of her forehead and when she was good she was very, very good and when she was bad she was horrid. :)

I will never say my son is horrid but he can be as sweet as he is "not so sweet". He and Alex have some all out wars. He also is a pro at telling us "NO!" He is loving craft time by the way and Alex can take it or leave it. I just ended up crafting with Eli today.

Wow, it's only noon!

The boys had a fun filled morning this morning (kind of). It was meant to be fun filled anyways. It started with the usual: breakfast, breathing treatments and then I attempted the painting. As I said yesterday I planned on making the dinosaur but then I remembered that I need to get their party invitations out and I don't need many so I thought that I would have the boys make their own. Little did I know that they would HATE it. It is never the same as when you plan it in your mind, is it? They liked the painting with brushes part but hated dipping their hand in the paint and doing hand prints. It was actually comical as I tried to convince them "this is fun", "Isn't this fun?", "See, you put your hand in the paint, FUN!" I am still surprised. These are the same boys who later the same morning played in the back yard and got so filthy that they needed a bath immediately. Hmmm, toddlers they keep you guessing. Here are some pictures from the morning. We didn't finish the invitations but I hope to tomorrow with Daddy's help. Tomorrow they may absolutely LOVE it and be the next Jackson Pollock. Who knows?

Oh, were you talking to me when you kept repeating "don't put the paint in your hair"? This child has the innocent look down pat.

Pre-dipping hand in paint trauma

Post

Here is a funny picture from last night's girls night out. My sister brought her sweet new baby and this was her response to all the talking. So funny!

Girls night was a lot of fun, as usual. The boys weren't excited about Mommy leaving and I felt a little guilty until I got in the car and put on my own music and hit the open road (as open as it gets in the burbs)! Ahhhh, it was lovely!

Momma's Got Her Groove Back

that is whatever groove I had anyways. The boys are on their medications and breathing treatments that will hopefully heal them soon and I am feeling good. I spent the morning actually playing with the boys instead of just trying to survive until nap time. I love that feeling after being sick or dealing with really sick kids when you see a flicker of light at the other end of the tunnel....you feel like you can conquer the world or at least the laundry pile. We had fun and laughed hard. They are so entertaining at this age.

I bought a few art supplies and I plan to start doing some artsy things with them other than coloring although they do love that. On a side note: I thought we were past the eating of the crayons however the blue teeth that Eli was rockin' this morning prove otherwise. I started pretty wimpy today and let them paint with water. I thought it would be a good lesson in how to use the paint brush (they were brushing their hair with it at first) before I take the plunge and actually let them...gulp...paint! I am not neurotic (well, maybe) but the thought of my boys and paint is a little scary. Tomorrow I am hoping to attempt this craft that I discovered over at No Time for Flashcards. This is a great blog for moms of toddlers. I have starred almost all of her posts in my Google Reader.

I am off to bake. I have a girls night out tonight AND I think Jared and I may get out of the house sans kids tomorrow night to watch our girls basketball team BEAT Inter-city! GO WILDCATS!! We have had a rivalry with this school since I was attending and it would be so nice to WIN. We are due but we shall see if it delivers!

I meant to add that I was very excited to get a good amount of craft supplies at Wal-mart for around $10. For those skeptical Wal-mart shoppers "Don't hate, congratulate."

My findings included 4 large paint brushes, 50 googly eyes, 50 clothes pins, feathers, 3 glue sticks and a 10 pack of crayola paints. The paints were $4.97 for 10 and I saw them in a pack of 6 at another store for $5.99. Score!!! Can you tell that I am excited about this stage with the boys? The inner teacher in me has anxiously been waiting for this!

Is it possible to hack up a lung?

I think Alex is giving it a go. Poor guy he is struggling. He was the little boy in the waiting room today that you didn't want NEAR your children because it sounded as if he had whooping cough (I'm not even sure what that is.) or something equally wonderful. I was good (with my sister's help) at keeping him away from the healthy part of the waiting room but I figured everyone else was fair game. I truly didn't sit once. I think this new stage in their development can only help in the weight loss department along with the stomach flu that I just got over. :) (I'm telling you our house should be quarantined.) Luckily, the boys just have viruses and ear infections which was the reason that we all slept for approximately 2 hours last night. They are miserable but it is nothing that some antibiotics and breathing treatments can't conquer and for that I am so thankful. Truly, thankful.



I hate to just post about my sick boys but that is life right now and I thought I'd "keep it real". I have to say that I am so thankful for family and friends that can help out when needed. I've had times of feeling overwhelmed, thinking that I need MORE help, due to various circumstances in my life, but the bottom line is if I am in need someone will pull through. My sister in law came over this morning and just sat and loved on the boys (this was an act of love because as cute as they are they had some scary snotty faces) and kept me sane by talking to me. My sister chased my children all over the waiting room and held them still for the exams. I had planned to go it alone because I am capable but Jared talked me into accepting help if it is offered and I am so glad that I did. It was so much easier with extra support. So there...those are my random thoughts of the day. Bottom line: God provided for me today in the form of sisters! Thanks!

On a side note: These are Eli's new glasses. He thinks he is so cool. In fact, he strutted around the waiting room today and told the other toddlers "I cool". He hates the sun in his eyes so these are his new toy. He calls them his "hat".

In contrast: this is Alex when he is sick. He is a pitiful sight to behold while Eli is still his usual crazy toddler self.

Blog Awards

I recently received a couple of blogging awards. Thanks Liz (Double Duty Mom) and Monica (The Jonas Family) for awarding me. I actually had to ask Liz what to do with it (so embarrassing) and I still didn't know how to link it onto my post. Copy/Paste didn't work. I therefore am not passing it on which I am pretty sure you are supposed to do but I took decongestants and can't figure any of this out currently. I love more blogs than I can keep up within the limited amount of time that I am online but if you'd like to see my faves click on my profile. I am always finding new ones and my favorites right now are decorating on a budget type blogs in addition to my friends and other twin mommies. I am telling you there are some interesting blogs out there. Going to bed now, may take NyQuil even though it is 12 noon. Hey remember that crazy lady who wished she was the sick one. IDIOT!