Wordless Wednesday

Wakey, Wakey!

Charlotte and Jensen are one week in to cutting their morning nap and staying up until 12:30 or 1:00. Thankfully, the transition has been fairly smooth...I think it's safe to say it was harder for me than for them! (Let's be honest, that 9:30-11:00 nap was pretty nice for me...I ate breakfast, drank some coffee, cleaned up after Hurricane Charlie & Jensen, and did my blogging.)

Throughout the past week, I've tried various ways to keep them awake through their sleepy morning time...here's a brief breakdown of how they've played out:

Good Ideas:
Swimming in the backyard
Lunch with Grandma and Auntie Tammy
Trips to Target to stroll around (the only thing our Target strolls are not good for is my wallet!)

Bad Ideas:
Haircut for Jensen (crabby baby = squirmy baby = questionable haircut)
Toddler time at the local activity center (sidenote: five-year-olds are NOT toddlers and should therefore not participate in activities with 'toddler' in the title)
Storytime at the library: To be fair, this idea itself wasn't bad...but my preparation for it was. Jensen was hungry and ran from person to person stealing snacks, sippy cups, etc. and irritating moms and other children alike. I did my best to wrangle Charlie and Jensen, but let's just say I was not what you'd call successful.

So if you see us strolling around Target, come say hi! And if you see us at storytime, well...just try to get a seat as far from us as possible. And hide your snacks.

Semi-comatose toddlers and a large foam hammer that Target Charlotte and Jensen convinced me was absolutely necessary to purchase.

Bug Fought the Slate Floor...

...and the slate floor won!

Ouchie!

Fourteen Months

Just a bit about what my stinkers have been up to during month 14 (besides getting sick, of course):

Charlotte Anne at 14 Months

Yes, she's a full-fledged walker now!

Chillin' in the taxi while brother got his second haircut.

Little Peanut is still a tomboy who loves cars, trucks and balls. She has become such a loving little thing, and will often walk up to one of her stuffed animals and give it a big kiss. 

Kisses for Jazzy!

 Charlotte is so great at keeping herself amused. She is very interested in how things work and will spend a long time (well, in toddler time anyways) keeping herself busy. For example, she spent forever in her kiddie pool the other day with a leaf:

She'd put it in, watch it float, go in and get it, get back out of the pool with the leaf, and put it back in another spot of the pool. She's becoming even more opinionated and likes to help me decide what she's going to wear every morning. We got a recent batch of hand-me-down shoes from cousin Knox...they are obviously for Jensen, but Charlotte found a blue pair that she decided she absolutely must wear now. She shrieked at me until I put them on her, and then she didn't want to take them off (despite the fact that they were a good three sizes too big):

 

Charlie has been such a sweetheart this month. I never knew what a blessing it would be to have a kiddo who is good at keeping herself busy...that is, until...

Jensen Todd at 14 Months

...my little wild man came into my life! Oh, Jensen...where to begin? He is a mess! A very, very busy mess. He rarely stays focused on one thing for more than a few minutes, and Brian and I have to take turns being on "Jensen Patrol" (which means chasing him around the yard if we're outside or making sure he doesn't get into too much trouble if we're inside). Thank goodness for our pool fence, that's for sure. When Brian is at work, he gets periodic picture texts of Jensen with the simple caption, "Mischief!" A few examples:

My little man is still a sweetheart, though. He loves to sit on our laps for story time, and he's mastered the art of standing about a foot in front of my lap facing away from me, then backing up slowly until he can plop himself down into my lap. Sometimes he lands squarely in our laps and sometimes he misses by a few inches...either way, it's adorable. 

Mom's view...yes, he still has some seriously chubby feet.

Jensen has also become attached to his "softie" (aka cloth diaper) that we have always given him to sleep with. He's gotten to where he likes to have one around all the time and will resort to digging through his dirty clothes hamper (ew) to find one...he's also figured out that the clean ones are kept in the pack 'n' play, so he'll try to reach in there and grab one sometimes, too.

"I know you're in there, Softie!"

"Gotcha!"

 

 

And he does still love to read...I came across this little scene the other day:

A rare moment of peace and quiet!

Jensen still only has four teeth! And he recently got his second haircut, taking him from these shaggy locks...

...to this slightly-too-short cut:

I know it must feel better for him to have it off his face and neck, but they went a bit crazy with the razor this time! Oh well, he's still a handsome dude.

So that's month 14...hoping month 15 is just as fun, but a bit healthier!

Wordless Wednesday

Dads of Multiples Should Get Their Own Special Day

Many new dads have the luxury of being eased slowly into fatherhood. You know, change an occasional dirty diaper, help with some of the feedings and bath times, and perhaps even get the baby dressed now and then. But for Brian (and I'm guessing many dads of twins) it was trial by fire. It was sink or swim. It was Mommy had a difficult pregnancy and delivery and can barely move so you're going to have to get really good at this baby stuff really fast, Buddy. For roughly the first month of Charlotte and Jensen's lives, Brian was better at changing diapers and getting the babies dressed than I was. He took care of all three of us. In short, he was (and still is) an amazing dad.

(In case you don't remember, those sweet naked babies pooped on daddy several times that day.)

 

Happy Father's Day, Brian/Daddy! You are truly a blessing to all of us.

P.S. My dad is pretty cool, too. But we aren't celebrating his Father's Day until next Sunday.

I Give

We had one healthy week. One. Then Jensen caught a cold from somewhere (cough, Uncle Dot, cough). Then he passed it on to his sis. I'm at my wit's end and fresh out of ideas on how to keep these poor kiddos healthy. They are pitiful...and to be honest, so is their mommy! I threw quite the pity party for myself on Thursday: Brian had left town for three days of work-related golf tournaments. My brother and a few of our friends were off for a long weekend in Florida. And my parents had planned a Saturday getaway to Choctaw for Auntie Tammy's birthday. Which left me and my sick babies.

But things began to look up, as they tend to do. Brian's Saturday golf tournament got canceled, and Jensen is feeling much better already. Brian practically pushed me out the door to go to spin class this morning, and it did me lots of good to work out. We hung out around the house today with our pitiful munchkins who, although still quite cute, were looking a bit worse for wear. At one point I looked at their snotty faces, disheveled hair, and dirty clothes and told Brian that if I saw them out in public I'd think they were pretty darn gross little kids. Brian's take on Jensen's appearance: "He looks like Nick Nolte's mug shot."

And that, my friends, is what I'm dealing with this lovely Saturday evening!

Bathing Beauties

Baby, it's hot outside! Charlotte and Jensen have been keeping their cool by suiting up in their swimwear and getting wet. I didn't take any pictures at Tate and Savannah's "Splish, Splash"-themed birthday party, but Whitney sent me her pics...and of course, they included a few of my wild man in action:

Tate and Jensen playing ball (and I love how Brian is laughing at them).

This one is great because it looks like he's actually completing the "slide" part of "slip-n-slide". He's really just sitting there...but as you can see, even that was quite amusing!

We have also been keeping our cool right here in our own backyard. We've been doing some swimming in our big pool, and C & J also received a little pool of their own from Tita and Papaw...I must say, it's been quite a hit!

So swimming is fun, but getting ready to swim? It's no easy task: Remove clothes and diaper. Put on swim diaper. Put on swimsuit. Slather on sunscreen. Put on hat (and if you think they're sitting still or cooperating for any of these steps, you're quite wrong!). Repeat for Twin B. Repeat for myself (er, minus the diaper part). I'm exhausted before we even set foot outside! But it's worth it to see how much they enjoy splashing around...and to see how stinkin' cute they look in their swim gear!

Wordless Wednesday

Our Weekend & A Spooky House

We had another birthday-filled weekend, and we kicked it off on Friday night with Mexican food at the Wren's house to celebrate Chris's 32nd. I made a yummy batch of sangria and we had a lovely time (as usual) with the Wrens, Samuels and Neitzeys. Here's the only pic (stolen from Hilari):

 

From early Saturday morning, it was clear that it was going to be one of those days. Charlotte was up at 6:30 (she's usually our late sleeper) and then morning naps came to a screeching halt after less than 45 minutes when Charlie, for reasons still unknown, woke up really mad. But we had birthday party number two to attend, so we loaded up our crabby kids and headed out to celebrate Tate and Savannah's second birthday. It was such a cute party, with little splash pools and a slip-n-slide for the kiddos. I was not at my most prepared and only had swimsuits for half of my duo (Jensen) and swim diapers for neither. Fortunately we got loaners from more prepared parents and C & J were off and running (or splashing).

I didn't take any pictures because Brian and I had our hands really, really full. Sometimes, having twins doesn't seem all that much crazier than having one baby...but sometimes, it seems way more than doubly challenging. This was one of those times...it was a bit hectic. But I was really happy to get to see Tate and Savannah turn two...their mommy has been an unbelievable help to me over the past year and a half! Saturday night we put the kids to bed then met up with Kim, Levi, Niki and Dennis for a quick dinner. 

And now for the spooky house story (which I have no idea why I'm posting on my blog...I just think it's interesting!). Shortly after we moved into our house, the home behind us went up for sale (probably at least three years ago). Asking price: $1.25 million. (It is on over three acres.) The house has just been sitting on the market and going down in price ever since (it's currently down to $675k). I looked out one of our upstairs windows one night and saw that a few of the windows on the house had been boarded up. Curiosity got the best of me, so Brian and I took C & J for a little off-roading in the stroller this morning to check things out.

The gate was open so we strolled on up. First of all, there was a sign on the window that said something like "Warning: This house has been winterized." No idea what that means; perhaps I should do some googling. Then, we made our way to the boarded windows and found that someone had removed one of the boards and the window had been broken:

 

So I peeked in the window and saw this:

 

Look closely...someone spray-painted one word, "Leave", on the wall.

Now, I've only seen a couple episodes of that "Designed to Sell" show, but I'm thinking the realtor might want to do a little redecorating if anyone's ever going to set foot in this house, let alone buy it. I am now quite curious as to what the deal is with the house. Brian suspects the the culprits are pot-smoking teenagers, but of course I have far more interesting theories! Anyways, I know that was a completely random spooky-house story, but it's kinda creepy, huh?

Feelin' Good Again

Things are looking up around here...Jensen seems to finally be feeling better, thank goodness. I never fully realize just how much I have missed my happy dude until he's back to himself again. So we've been making up for lost time with:

Lots of backyard exploring!

Charlie has launched a boycott of her swing...the only thing she wants to do in the backyard is stand by her wagon and put grass in it. Fun stuff!

Aaaand....they're off! (That would be Charlie in the foreground doing her "yoga baby" pose.)

Dining adventures at Chuys!

Mmmmmm....tortillas!

Shopping with Mommy and Grandma at Kohl's!

And just plain being wild and crazy!

How I missed this crazy dude charging the camera!

So that's how Charlie and Jensen have spent the past week. As for me, I'm just busy being thankful for two healthy, happy kiddos!