A love is born...

I've recently started taking my kids to the park in the mornings, now that the weather is nice. This is a great park. Lots of sand to dig in, swings, climbing stuff, playhouse, water fountains, etc. etc. Every time we go, what do you think my kids want to do for the entire time? Swing. Every time. The whole time. I'm thinking of just getting one (or two) for my back yard! But then I may get even less done now than I currently do!

Here is a video of Gabe's first swing ride during a recent visit to my sister, Debbie's in Sacaramento. Oliver loved it too but he was so tired that he couldn't hold his head up.

Interesting Little Tidbits

There have been a number of funny moments that we've had this year and Doug and I keep saying, "we should put that on our blog." Well, I thought I would put some of these on today before I forget them all together!

1. A few months ago I took the boys in for their 15 month wellness checkup. In order to keep them from freaking out at the doctor's office, I brought a plethora of snacks to keep their mouths full and keep them occupied. Well, the bag of strawberries lasted through the weighing and measuring part with the nurses. By the time the doctor came in, I had moved on to the cheese sticks. Now, a note about control. I have found that the easiest way to limit my stress and the disaster that inevitably follows in the footsteps of my twin toddlers is CONTROL. In this case, I cut up the cheese sticks in pieces and hand feed them to my kids. I have found that this solves a number of problems. Namely, it keeps them from stuffing as many in as possible into their mouths in an effort to get some before their brother eats them all and then not being able to chew or swallow leading to excessive drooling and eventual spewing from the mouth onto whatever is closest and hardest to clean. My kids are big fans of cheese so naturally, when the doctor came in, they were eating them up like crazy. She started talking while watching the kids. It wasn't very long until she paused, looked concerned and then asked, "are you feeding them sugar cubes?" Needless to say, I was mortified that she would even consider this as I have been crazy about feeding my kids all sorts of whole grains, milks and fruits and veggies. But it made for a good laugh.

2. This one happened around the beginning of the year when Gabe was about a year old. His pajamas are one piece footed fleece pajamas common with children. Doug got up one morning and laid Gabe on the changing table to change his diaper. Well, lo and behold, when he unzipped his pajamas, the diaper was no where to be found! This amazed both Doug and I and we commenced looking for the diaper. Now, I'm not sure how this happened but at some point in the early morning, Gabe undid his diaper (through his pajamas) and slid them down his pant leg to under his foot. We still haven't figured this out and it's never happened since!

Current Home Project

Doug and I decided to tackle the last remaining non-remodled (well, partially remodeled, but not finised) room recently. It was serving previously as our "storage room/makeshift garage/tool room. In short, it was a mess and non-functional for anything but storage.

So why the sudden urge to tackle a room remodel, you ask? Well, three things mainly. Oliver, Gabriel and food all over our Mongolian rug after every meal many times a day. You see, our back room is tiled (done during my twin pregnancy with the tireless help of my parents). So, all we needed to do was tear off the paneling and molding, sheetrock it, mud it, sand it, paint it, and put up all the new molding. Piece of cake. And since it was so easy, we decided to also change out two doors so we could see out into the back yard and side alley. Better to keep an eye on my boys, I say.

We started memorial weekend and foolishly thought we could finish it in two days. Well, we are 4 full work days into our project now (and a calendar month later). Not to mention my few hours here and there during nap time to speed us along. We are getting closer! Here are some pictures of our progress.



Picture of the back room when we were looking at buying the house.

First thing Doug did was pull up the carpet that was pee soaked from the previous owner's dog. Stinky!

Turned out, once we pulled the carpet up, that we realized the floor joists below the carpet were rotten through. Have you ever seen the movie "Money Pit" with Tom Hanks? Sometimes our house reminds me of that movie...

Tiling the floor at only 4 months pregnant with the twins. This was early September. I didn't deliver (5 weeks early at that) until almost Christmas!




This was the beginning of the current remodel - Memorial weekend. Notice that we have cement behind our walls. Yes, that made for lots of trouble trying to figure out a way to put up sheetrock, etc.




Current status of the room as of last night. We are getting closer!