Words to live by

Before Greg heads out the door in the morning, Ethan always tells him the same thing:

Good bye! I love you! Make lots of money! Don't hit your friends!

There you have it. The secret to his success.

Galveston

There's one thing that Galveston is not...

 

pretty.

 But the water is warm and the current is weak and there's shells and sand crabs, and those things make kids happy.

So believe it or not, we head down there quite a bit in the warmer months.

Hello, summer.

4 year olds

There's something about 4-year-olds that you have to love. There's also something about 4-year-olds that you want to lock in a closet and never let out. Sometimes, both of those things come out about 12 times in one 5 minute period. During those times, I feel like my life is a living comic strip, with one exhaggerated emotion after another. Like, for example, our dinner conversation the other night.

Twin: What's for dinner?

Me: Cheesy rice and chicken

Twins: UGGHHH! Why? I don't like cheesy rice and chicken. Can you not make it again?

Me: Just take a bite.

Ethan: (takes a bite) OH! YUM YUM YUM! I LOVE IT I LOVE IT I LOVE IT! THANKS MOM! You're the best mom ever. I love you so much! Thank you! (and proceeds to hop off his chair to come give me a hug and kiss. On the lips)

Kate: (takes a bite) Oh yeah! This IS good! I LOVE cheesy rice and chicken. Can you make it every night?

Me: I'm glad you guys like it.

Ethan: There's so much cheese in it!

Kate: Yeah! I love cheese!

Ethan: Kate, I have more cheese in mine.

Kate: No you don't!

Ethan: Yes, I do!

K: No you don't!

E: Yes I do!

Kate: Mo-Om, Ethan says he has more cheese in his.

Me: You both have the same amount of cheese.

Kate:  Okay. Ethan, let's play family. I'll be the mommy and you be the daddy.

And so they played.

It's exhausting just watching them sometimes.

I love this age

I have something like 3000 hours of video from when the twins were this age. Not much before and not much after. And now I'm remembering why.

Sharing the love

• Here's what I followed to make my ruler.
• The pictures above the couch are actually wall decal stickers stuck to 12" canvases.
• NO we absolutely did not paint ourselves. I realize it's a feasible task for a lot of people, but not for this duo (plus, we painted our entryway which has like 200 ft ceilings (obviously, not really)). And don't ask how many tries it took to get the dining room right. It rhymes with free, how ironic.
• The master bedroom paint color is Shark Loop, by Valspar
• I found all of my fabric at Calico Corner. Oh, that place is a dream come true. And luckily, I was able to find some of the fabrics cheaper on other websites.
• And as for my "roman shades," all I did was measured, folded and hand-stitched. If you look closely, you won't be impressed, I assure you.

There you have it. The secrets behind a wannabe.

Date Knight

First, I'd like to make a few things clear:

1. I am not employed by Chik fil a 

2. I'm not addicted to Chik fil a

3. We like Chik fil a. A lot.

4. Ethan owns other shirts. 

Moving on...

Our local Chik fil a hosted a mother-son Date Knight last weekend. Not really knowing whether or not Ethan would want to go with me (he's pretty much a daddy-only kinda guy), I signed us up. I never told him about it, until he woke up from his nap, about an hour before the event.

"Ethan, would you like to go on a date with me?"

"You mean like when Mater went on a date with Holly?"

"Yeah."

"Just me and you?"

"Yup."

"YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!"

He then proceeded to immediately put on his shoes and proclaim, "I'm going on a DATE!! Just me and mommy!" over and over until we left. He even helped me get ready and requested that I wear a skirt for the event.

 It was quite possibly the most fun I have ever had with Ethan. Ever. He talked non stop the entire night (which is big for him, he usually lets Kate do the talking) and used the words "just me and you" at least 30 times.

Sweet, sweet boy.

Speaking of this sweet boy of mine, here's a crazy story for you. A couple of weeks ago, he burned his finger on the stove. I had JUST told him not to touch it, so at first he wouldn't tell me what happened. He thought he would be in trouble. We ran it under cold water for a good 10 minutes and then he never said anything again and I completely forgot about it. Then, a week later, he told me to look at his finger and there was a little yellow/green dot on the tip, which I thought was a booger. Turns out, it wasn't a booger, but an infection growing inside the blister of the burn (a blister I had not noticed till then; I just hope it was because it hadn't bothered him till then and not because he was too scared to tell me). Anyway, over the next 24 hours, the blister quadrupled in size, it was hot and painful, so I made an apt with his pediatrician. The doctor drained it, removed the skin (he was honestly SO brave), and biopsied the green goo in fear of a staph infection. Results came back Monday morning. No staph infection, but... strep. In his finger. I don't know just how rare this is, but the nurse seemed to think it was pretty strange. Luckily, they had started him on antibiotics just in case so at least it didn't spread to his throat. But it did spread to someone's throat... mine! Lucky me. I haven't had strep since I was a kid, and let me tell you, strep. is. no. joke. I got on antibiotics first thing Monday morning and to be honest, the symptoms haven't really subsided. I'm in so much pain, I'm taking post-delivery meds and that hardly helps. I guess being 30 is no joke either: Recovery time is a lot longer than when I was 15!

Moral of the story: If you go on a date with your son, he might give you strep throat.
But it will still be worth it.

Most of you reading this probably think it's a lame story. But we are NOT frequent visitors to the doctor (we're talking well-visits and maybe one other visit per year per family), so twice in one week is definitely a record for us.

Drew

I put this video on Facebook the other day and after a couple of days, I realized that the only people who really care to watch it are his grandparents, who don't even have Facebook. 
I finally sat down with Drew to ask some deep, hard, questions. He fared pretty well. His growl for the lion is by far my favorite, but you can hardly hear it. It really is deep and loud and he used to give it for every animal, though now it's just for the lion and ones he doesn't know. Also, my current favorite "trick" is clean-up time. He walks around saying something along the lines of, "bah-bee" which sounds nothing like clean up, but he always says it as he cleans (or throws things in the trash that have no business being thrown away). Anyway, the interview:

Humor Me: Part II

A friend of mine recently made her kitchen table. Like, from 2x4s, made. She acts like it was no big deal and says, I quote, "anyone can do it." No, Amber, not anyone can do it. But I did recently make curtains. With a lot of help. And in my book that is equivalent to, like, building a house. From scratch. So you could say I'm pretty proud of myself.

Oh, and we painted. Paint makes such a difference, don't you think?

 

 This has nothing to do with curtains or my prideful self, even, but these are hanging in my entryway. Someday I'll have them framed professionally, but I couldn't wait to put them up. They were my great-great-grandmother's and I'm kind of in love with them.

 And, these curtains are old news, but the paint is new, and although everyone said blue, I felt like enough of my house was blue already, and I kinda like this warm tan. I feel like it's inviting to rowdiness, which is basically the purpose of this room. 

For Kristen:

Humor Me: Part I can be found here.

Mother's Day breakfast

I got to go to school with the twinners yesterday for a Mother's Day breakfast. I've been to their class before, but just for class parties, so this was extra special. I got to see what they do for the first hour or so of every class. Kate strangely couldn't have cared less that I was there. Ethan, on the other hand, thought it was the coolest thing in all the world that I was there and that I was watching him. They start off the morning with circle time where they sing songs and talk about letters, numbers, days of the week, etc. and the smile could not be wiped from his face. Everything he did, he kept looking over at me to see if I was watching and smiling the whole time. That morning, it was his turn to be the "weatherman" and there could not have been a happier kid alive than Ethan who got to show his mom that he knew how to be the weatherman. Then, they sang "You are my Sunshine," we had muffins and juice, they gave me flowers and I was on my merry way. What a Mother's Day treat!

 Kate

Ethan

These questionnaires weren't as awesome as the ones they did for Greg, but they sure got their drawings spot on- long arms, blue clothes, and big ears. I'm so proud!

Wrap Up

Me: How was school today?

Ethan: (in one breath) Caroline got an owie on her arm and she showed it to me and she wants to marry me but I don't want to marry her cause I want to marry Kate.

Astros game

We took the kids to the Astros game last night. The game started at 7 and as we all know, our kids have a pretty strict bedtime (which we let slide a bit for the game), so we knew it was going to be a fairly short outing (and Greg had to go back to work).  We made the most of it by being there before it started. Of the thousands of baseball games I've been to in my day, I don't know if I've ever been there that early before. Anyway, the kids didn't care. We had the required hot dogs for dinner and watched a few innings.

 

 They closed the roof because of threatening thunder storms (that never came) so the temperature was quite wonderful.

 Drew was thrilled to suck up the watered down Sprite that was left in the cup.

 Don't judge me for this. I had no part in it whatsoever. Greg took them to get the required ice cream in a hat and they came back with these. Besides being disgusting, they're just not American. Ice cream in a hat, kids, ICE CREAM IN A HAT! I was so embarrassed.

 Whatever makes them happy, I guess.

 Honestly, I think this guy had the most fun out of all of us. He pointed at every single thing in the park, flirted with the ladies sitting behind us, and played with an empty cup and straw for a good 35 minutes. He's a champ.

 

And by 8pm, we were spent.

Supertwins!

Tigers

I can't get enough of these lately.

I've had this conversation with each of them multiple times over the past few months and it always plays out the same way.

Twin: Eenie meenie, miney moe, catch a tiger. Bite his toe.

Me: Um, I think it's actually 'catch a tiger by his toe.'

Twin: (laughing) No, mom, you wouldn't catch a tiger by his toe!!!

Me: But you would catch a tiger and bite his toe??

Twin: (more laughing) I guess

For hire

If you, or anyone you know, is looking for someone to come take the white things off your door stoppers... I know I guy.

He's cheap and very reliable.

And he'll even dispose of the white things. 

You'll never find them. 

EVER.

*BTW, I know they're a choking hazard and I know I need to glue them on. I'll get on it. Promise.

Pavlov's dogs

 I'm not here to proclaim that my kids are the smartest in all the land, but there's one thing they learn pretty quickly. When they hear that the KitchenAid is on, they're in the kitchen like white on rice.

 

And when you're goopy-eyed and bruise-forheaded, you get a whole spatula's worth of whipped cream cheese frosting.

And while it's usually a nice treat, sometimes they're surprised to lick a spoonful of mashed potatoes. Surprised because their mother didn't even warn them. A mother gets to have fun every once in a while, right?