Daddy's old shirt

Sassy is at Mimi's tonight for a slumber party.  She wanted to come home, but was lured to stay with promises of getting to sleep in Mimi's bed, and cinnamon rolls in the morning.  Wanting to come home is an all new development...I used to think that she could just pack her bags and move out and never think twice about it.  It's fun to just have one twin, and I know Bubby loves the extra attention (so does she!) so we split them up every once in a while for some special time at Mimi and Pope's.  Anyway, we were feeling a little lonesome for her tonight, and when I came in the craft room I noticed the dress I had started for her last week, laying there unfinished....and decided to complete it for her.  It's a really cute project using a man's dress shirt...Shawn had a really nice one that was going in the trash....a blue pen had exploded in his pocket and we tried everything to get it out.  Something in me couldn't throw it out, so I stuffed it in my craft dresser where it has been sitting for quite a while.  When I found this tutorial on this great blog (thanks Nat) I knew what I was going to make next!!  The blue ink stain is sneakily covered by the applique flower....I am still debating whether or not to add an elastic waist...I think I might since she is so skinny.  I think it turned out pretty cute!!  There is a tiny little stain on the collar.....last week when I put the first pieces together I laid it over her head to check the length...when I realized she had a mouthful of M&M.  She proceeded to tell me, "It's not my size, Mommy!" and brown goo dripped down the front. Oh well....hopefully it will come out, and if not, it probably would have happened the first time she wore it anyway! 

A day in my life...

The babies love daddy's toaster oven, and play "making cookies" all the time....I have found old curdling milk cups in there (gross) and all four pairs of the Disney dress up shoes.  Despite their complete disinterest in actually USING the toilet, they are now completely aware of the toilet paper.  It is still like the circus comes to town when Daddy comes home (making him more fun than me, I'm sure) and the pic of Liv on the boppy is a pretty accurate view of what I do about nine times a day.  Even though nursing is a bigger time commitment than bottle feeding (because you have to do it all by yourself) I am really enjoying it more now.  She started smiling last week, which is so sweet....

Random thoughts for today....

1.  I love this weather!!!

2.  Something died in our walls or ducts, and smells like I affixed a "Festering Boil" plug in in every outlet.  It is horrible...really unbearable.  Pest control can't find the offending creature, and candles only barely mask the scent....kinda like someone poured strawberry syrup over a dead animal.  We were informed the smell would eradicate itself in a week and a half.  Yippee.

3.  Doodle pea #1 and Doodle pea #3 are wearing matching outfits again today...Wasn't sure I would be that kind of mom, but here we are.  I just love seeing Sissy's outfits copied on the tiny one in miniature.

4.  I am wearing my real jeans today....but don't get too excited.  They are still a little squeezy....and not my ideal size anyway, but at least they don't have "Liz Lange" written on the tag.

5.  I am not going to spank anyone today.  Everyone will behave perfectly, even in Luby's, even when they see the Icee machine in Target. 

6.  From watching the credits roll at the end of "Lazytown", I have realized everyone (read: EVERYONE) in Iceland has a last name that ends in "sonn".  

7.  I have a ton of projects I want to start.  Namely: this Marigold dress and this Shirt dress.  Hayden LOVES her Daddy, so I thought it would be cute to make her a dress out of one of his old dress shirts. (A really cute one, that happened to be part of an unfortunate blue ink incident)

8.  I am uncomfortably excited about the Grey's Anatomy premiere tomorrow night.

9.  I have decided I love San Antonio Photolab.  If you haven't ordered prints from them, check them out.  It is a little more expensive than Shutterfly, but WAY better quality, and they offer all sorts of arty choices (wrapped canvas, flat canvas, etc.)  There are good out of state companies too, but I decided I can't tell the difference.  I have decided to support local business and try to use them more!

10.  My new favorite thing this week is Sally Hansen's new Insti-dry nail polish.  Finally, I can paint my own fingernails without looking like I had one too many cocktails before painting.  The brush is flat instead of round, which  works SO well....and the polish really IS dry in like thirty seconds, which means you don't mess up your polish when someone needs to go to time out in the middle of your painting!  I bought a sparkly dark purple in honor of fall, and I'm feeling very sassy about it! :)

Saturday didn't start out that well.  The alarm was set for eight a.m., in the event that a tiny human hadn't already woken us up by then.  My dear husband heard the alarm, got up, saw that it was raining and decided we probably weren't going to do what we'd planned to do that day.  So he let me sleep....now normally, this would have been a really, really nice thing to do, but I was so looking forward to our once a year trip into Gruene for the Buck Pottery Seconds Sale.  This is a big event in our family.  (Ok, for my mom and I.  The boys just get drug along for the ride. And to lift heavy things.)  I woke up on my own at almost eight thirty and started scrambling around trying to get everyone ready, while trying not to holler at the dear husband for not waking us up.  We threw two blueberry breakfast bars at the twins, strapped everyone in, and hurried down the road.  Shawn was sure he'd get me there by ten, but ten is really too late.  All the pottery is sitting on tables out in the yard, roped off from the onlookers.  Normally, we get there about forty five minutes early to walk around the tables, plan what we want and strategize.  This is the best part!  When ten rolls around, the ropes come down, and all the pottery is gone in about three minutes.  You've never seen such a sporting event as fifty women scrambling all over each other trying to get at this stuff....part of the fun is the dash to grab, and almost getting in a fist fight over what you want.  I was trying to explain this excitement to my amused husband as we rushed to New Braunfels.  I tried to tell him it would be like him getting to play in the Super Bowl, but he thought that was hilarious.  He managed to pull me up to the front at 9:58 ("just in time" by his standards) which gave me enough time to grab a box and run towards the tables right before the ropes were taken down.  I hadn't gotten to scope or strategize, so I was blind shopping....(sort of like playing a team you hadn't watched film on...again with the football comparison)  I managed to snag a few really cute things anyway, leading my husband to believe that rolling up two minutes early was going to be our new family tradition. (He's wrong.)

Despite almost missing the biggest event of the fall, we had a really nice day!  We hit Gruene Market Days, and I managed to get some super cute pictures of my kiddos and their BFF Logan....(always bringing the camera!!) We ate lunch at Gristmill, and took our sweaty babies home for a nap....fun fall day!! 

Lest anyone think I have more to say about my girls, here's my little "Cale only" post.  He doesn't always grab the attention the way Sissy and a newborn do, but he is his own brand of funny.  He is obsessed with football and all things Bevo, and loves to talk about it.  The other day, for instance, he was trying desperately to put on his football helmet while I was changing his number two diaper.  He was thrashing all over the place, making it difficult on mommy, all the while telling me "I go to the bevo school.  I play football and hit a baseball."  I decided then and there that if we are at the point where we are discussing potential colleges, you should be pooping in the potty.  If you tell Cale "Boomer Sooners!" he hollers back, "NO!! NO BOOMAH SOONAH! HOOK EM HORNS!!!" (which my grandpa thinks is very funny).....  He is so tenderhearted, but a little stingy with affection. (unless he is the one initiating it)  Case in point:  in the cart at Ross yesterday he was talking to his new Spiderman doll....I heard him saying, "Spiderman, I take care of you. I will always take care of you."  EVERYTHING is Spiderman now....the other morning, the first thing he said to me when I opened his door was "Mommy, I'm Spiderman."  He carries the doll around and narrates to me what it is doing. "Mommy, Spiderman is climbing the ladder.  Mommy, Spiderman is looking out the window."  It's a shame the movie is too scary, because I believe seeing the real Spiderman in action would absolutely blow his mind.  Cale is Mr. Manners in our house...all about "thank you", "you're welcome" and "I'm sorry."  He uses them at completely inappropriate times (like "I'm sorry Mommy" when I'm the one who accidentally mows him down in the hall) but at least his heart is in the right place!  He is OBSESSED with Shawn, and loves for him to come home at night.  If my mom or I tell him we love him, he answers back, "I love my Daddy."  I think he thinks if he tells me he loves me, it might diminish a little of his Daddy love and that ain't happening!!  He is almost always in a good mood or laughing, unless you wake him up before he is done sleeping, in which case he is a GRUMP.  He will refuse to leave his room, sitting on the bed or standing in one place while swinging his arms around answering "I DIDN'T" to anything you ask him.  For example, "Cale, do you want to go get some juice?" Answered with: "I DIDN'T!!" 

He is terrified of the carwash, and gets extremely nervous if we so much as comment on the dirt on our car.  He remembers everything, uses words like "rhinoceros", "bulldozer", "recycling", "dinosaur"...pretty much anything he hears he can use in discussion later.  He tries to be funny, getting on a kick where he hollers a word repeatedly and laughs hysterically after doing so.  One day the word was "coconuts".  The next day it was "bumblebee"....the last few days it has been "Dido" which isn't really a word, but clearly it is hilarious.  If we say anything is awesome, he likes to answer, "No, it's not awesome.  It's terrible." because that cracks him up.  He is rough and tumble, ALL boy.....but to me, still my little six pound five ounce newborn.  I told Shawn that this is what moms think of when their sons tell them they are joining the Marines:  when their little boy was a tiny newborn, or a toddler sitting in the backseat of the car pointing out diggers and airplanes.  If only he could stay little!!  

I did it!!!

Let me just toot my own horn for a minute....Today marked an important and monumental first.....(drumroll please)  I TOOK ALL THREE OF MY CHILDREN BY MYSELF ON AN ERRAND!!!!  We hit the Wal-Mart with a false sense of bravado and more than a little trepidation....would someone scream the entire time?  Would the black clouds open up and dump rain on us as we were trying to scramble our soaking wet selves back into the car?  Would some meanie of a stranger point at me and laugh at the amount of kids under the age of two I was trying to supervise by myself?  No, no and no.  We managed to return some size one diapers (Miss Thang's hiney has already grown out of the ones and into the twos...if you were wondering about her being a Hatter, you can now rest assured) and grab a few things we needed at home.  My only problem was trying to steer the ginormity of the twin grocery cart (with Livi in the basket) around the store.  That thing is ridiculous, but Thank God for it!!  Luckily I only needed to pick up a few things, because with two kids in the front seat and Livi in the cart, we only had room for a candle and some fabric softener.  We might have been able to buy a birthday card or two, but that would have been a squeeze.  All things considered, what could have turned into a disastrous situation to rival Chernobyl ended up being kind of nice.  I like hanging out with my kids.  They have tons to say, and it is all adorable.  Hayden pointed out the in-store McDonald's...I was waiting for her customary comment "Mommy, they have ice cream there." and instead got this: "Mommy, it's too dirty."  Hmmmm, she might be more wise than we know.  Cale made sure to holler "BEVO!" everytime we walked by anything that even remotely looked orange-ish or had a cow on it.  Livi cried for a few minutes when we arrived, but I'm pretty sure it was just because she feared I couldn't handle it.  When it was made clear that we were all still alive, she settled down and graced us with twenty minutes of precious nap-itude.  Now I am enjoying the silence of naptime and  peeking at my "To-do" list and wondering if I want to wrestle with that yet.  I just might.  I am feeling a little powerful after my successful day....can I get a what-what??? 

Almost seven weeks old...

Baby Livi is getting bigger every day.....at the doctor a week ago, she already weighed 10 pounds 13 ounces, so I am sure she is over eleven by now!  She is getting more and more alert every day...she loves to be talked to and played with, and LOVES to be held.  Apparently someone forgot to tell her she is a third child, because this baby thinks she is the one and only!  She would rather sleep on someone than in her seat or bed, and loves being bounced.  Mimi can do it better than anyone, and calls it "homogenizing" her or "making Livi Butter".....you know us, we had to make up a song about it!  Our newest thing is Mommy-Livi bathtime.  Shawn waits until I am in the bath and the water is all full, and then brings the baby to me...she LOVES being in the big bath tub...no matter how fussy she is, this always calms her down.  She kicks her little legs, and loves me to "swim" her around in the water...all of a sudden she is getting a little personality and seems less like a newborn to me...

My girls....

I thought I should document the first time they wore matching outfits....they look pretty cute if I do say so myself.  Right after I took this photo, Sissy decided she had enough and hopped right up, leaving poor Livi to roll into a crack in the couch.  Oops!  

Sassy Pants

The things that come out of this girl's mouth!  Everything she says cracks us up...last week she was standing in her high chair, and I corrected her in a louder than normal voice.  She told me, "Mommy, that's your outside voice."  It is hard not to laugh when she comes up with stuff like that....She is all about talking and asking questions now.  "Daddy, what's your favorite color?", "Mommy, what's that store?"  She is SO smart, and so observant....we really have to watch what we say around her, because apparently she has super human hearing in addition to her smarts.  If we are even WHISPERING in the front seat, she is frozen solid, listening to every word.  Every once in a while we hear, "Mommy, what you talking about?"  Nothing gets by this kid! 

Busy weekend

For two days in a row, I had to wake my brood up (rather than the other way around).  We had so much to do!!  Saturday was sweet Davie's second birthday party, complete with a tiny animal petting zoo-so cute!!  Of course, my two decided they would rather play inside in the playroom with all the boys' toys....oh well! Whatever!  I enjoyed catching up with friends while sweet baby Livi slept the ENTIRE time in her carseat!  (Who said three babies was going to be hard??)

After that party, we headed home for a VERY quick nap, and then right back out again to Uncle Fred's birthday party in Boerne.  We stayed and visited with family as long as Mommy could stand it....it is HARD watching two two year olds in someone else's house....they spent two hours chasing the poor cat, pulling cookies off the buffet table, and standing entirely too close to lit candles.  We left when the crying started.  Sunday we drove to Giddings for a family reunion...we were so excited to see Nick and Casey and ESPECIALLY baby Kate, who turns one this month!  The reunion was at a VFW hall, and my kids ran all over that place like they owned it....every twenty minutes or so, one of them would go streaking past me, shoeless, or I would hear Sissy crying on the other side of the room....it was pretty funny!  I sort of felt like I had twelve kids with all the supervising that was going on.  On the way home, the twins cooperated in a little mini photo session (because we know Mommy always has the camera and is scoping out cute shoots).....despite the fact that they had very little sleep and hardly anything to eat at all over the past 48 hours, they were pretty good sports!  I'm almost looking forward to the week starting again so that we can get some rest....

28 months...

28 months old means:

-still no interest in potty training, but a lot of interest in the "Potty Power" DVD.  Cale keeps claiming he has Potty Power, but I've seen no evidence of it thus far.

-playing make believe.  They have Tinkerbell and SpiderMan jammies (thanks to Mimi) and they run around saying things like, "I'm coming to get you, Tinkerbell!" or "Save me, Spiderman!" Hilarious!

-still taking one long nap and a "rest time" every day...I know, I know...I am LUCKY.

-devouring a food one day, and refusing to look at it the next.

-remembering things, making connections, learning new words and phrases every day.  Last week, Hayden was looking at my grandma's necklace, and she asked her, "Is that your birthstone?"  Ummm, Hello?  Where did she learn that??

-being able to walk next to Mommy instead of getting in the stroller.  Sometimes.  And for very short distances.

-saying funny things, knowing they are being funny, and repeating them for effect.

-equally alternating between smacking and hitting each other, and running around  like they are thick as theives.  

-loving TV.  This is okay when they are intent on watching Noggin, (which I have convinced myself is basically free preschool) and not so okay when Daddy has it on ESPN and the preview for Halloween 2 comes on. 

-starting to have some awareness of REAL consequence for actions.  (I.e: they might still disobey, but right before they do it, they confirm the resulting action. "Mommy, I get a spanking?")

-Lots and LOTS more hilarious statements, like:

"Mommy, someone stinks." -Hayden

"Mommy, that looks like a beautiful!" -Hayden, as I was painting the back door.

"I like to tackle.  I like to hurt people."-Cale, talking about football...we had to review with Daddy what it meant to appropriately encourage a love of sports.  

"Leave me alone!" -Hayden, going to the restroom behind the couch.

"Mommy, I want a big fry.  A giraffe fry." -Cale, asking for a big french fry.  I guess he used the word "giraffe" because it was the tallest thing he could think of.

"That is NOT scary.  That is fun!" -Cale, watching the news as they reported on the re-opening of Kiddie Park.  Little does he know he'll need a tetanus shot before his mommy lets him experience that little bit of San Antonio culture.  

"That's ludicrous!" -Hayden, after I told her we were going shoe shopping for her.  Seriously, you say a word ONCE and it is immediately part of her vocabulary.  

"I did NOT obey!" -Cale, in a grumpy mood, after not really doing anything wrong at all.  He just wanted to ruffle my feathers.  

Twenty eight months is definitely not two anymore...but not yet three!  It is exhausting, rewarding, hilarious, and futile all at once.  It is getting loved in return, and having two little friends around to talk to.  (Who sometimes make me laugh more than people my own age!) 

It is saying wise, brilliant things, but still in a baby voice.  It is snuggly love, hugs and kisses...mixed with refusal to give hugs and kisses when they are feeling independent.  It is the first time someone calls you "Mom!" instead of Mommy.  (sniff) It is the very beginning of seeing into what kind of people they are going to turn in to....smart, funny, fun loving, sensitive, deep thinking, stubborn...

It is the best stage yet!!