Easter Weekend!!

The weekend started with the boys getting a box in the mail from Grandma N. It had some fun Easter clothes and toys. The boys loved their barnyard animal toys. We added them to our bath time routine where we sang "Old MacDonald Had a Farm". I also taught the boys a new song called "It's Easter and I Feel Good." It goes like this...

I'm gonna clap my hands (clap, clap, clap)
I'm gonna clap my hands (clap, clap, clap)
I'm gonna clap my hands like I know I should
cause it's Easter and I feel good.
Oh............
I'm gonna stomp my feet (stomp, stomp, stomp)
I'm gonna stomp my feet (stomp, stomp, stomp)
I'm gonna stomp my feet like I know I should
cause it's Easter and I feel good.
Oh............
I'm gonna click my tongue (click, click, click)
I'm gonna click my tongue (click, click, click)
I'm gonna click my tongue like I know I should
cause it's Easter and I feel good.
Oh............
I'm gonna wiggle my hips (woo, woo, woo)
I'm gonna wiggle my hips (woo, woo, woo)
I'm gonna wiggle my hips like I know I should
cause it's Easter and I feel good.
Oh............
I'm gonna sing my song (laa, laa, laa)
I'm gonna sing REAL LOUD (laa, laa, laa)
I'm gonna sing my song like I know I should
cause it's Easter and I feel GOOD!

The boys really got into this song. Lots of big grins and hearty laughs. On Easter morning the boys found their Easter baskets. The baskets had Easter eggs with socks in them, baby sunglasses, their Easter church going outfit, an Easter book, and lots of candy. The candy was really more for mom and dad. After baskets were gone through we all got dressed and headed to church.


One of the parishoners told a story about when he was a boy and riding in the truck with his grandpa. A bee flew into the truck and wouldn't leave him alone. His grandpa told him to calm down and when the bee figured out he didn't have anything the bee wanted it would fly away. The bee didn't leave, so the grandpa caught the bee in his hand and the bee stung the grandpa. The grandpa showed the bee stinger in his hand and assured him that it wouldn't harm him no longer.

Not too long after that grandpa was on his death bed and the boy asked his grandpa if he was scared to die. The grandpa showed him the stinger still in his hand and said, "Do you remember this?"

The boy said, "Yes you caught the bee and took the sting so the bee wouldn't hurt me."

The grandpa said, "That's what Jesus did for us. He took the pain so we wouldn't have to, so no I'm not afraid."

When I heard this story, I'm not ashamed to admit, I cried. What a great story to explain the meaning of Easter and exactly what Jesus' intentions were. The best part is leaving church feeling like I've gained something from the service and that I had a great time. I know the boys did because they were all smiles the whole time. Later in the evening, right before bed, I asked my husband Brad what his favorite part of the day was. He told me it was church and I felt the same way.

Product of the Week

Here's Brady wearing our turtle "In the Tub" towel.

Here's Reese wearing the "In the Tub" towel.




This week's product is for the bathtub. I actually stumbled onto it by accident. That is, if an accident involves wandering into Target and a magnetic force taking over your body and drawing you over to the baby gear. I needed nothing but if you know anything about me you'd know that it's really hard for me to not leave a store without a purchased item. I've gotten better though...I swear. Anyway, out of the corner of my eye I saw this cute little turtle washcloth. Little did I know when I got it home it was so much more.
It is an "In the Tub" towel. How it works is you stick it into the warm water and get it wet. Once your baby is in the tub, slide the "In the Tub" towel over your baby. What this towel does is it keeps baby warm while your cleaning your baby, and for mommas of little boys, it keeps you from getting peed on. My kids LOVE it. They scream if they don't have it and as soon as I slip that turtle on, they're happy babies. It makes for super cute photos too! Ours is made by Circo, which I believe is a Target brand.

Dance, Dance Ants in my....Kitchen?!?!?!

After a lovely weekend of nothing, I wake up early Monday morning to discover ants had taken over my kitchen. I'm not talking about a few ants. I'm talking about a COLONY of ants. To give you a better visual of this, imagine walking down the street and you see a crack in the sidewalk with a giant moving black spot (the millions of ants),this is what my window ledge above my sink looked like. They were in many other places as well. I discovered them in the kiddos' rice cereal as I was making their lunch. That box couldn't find it's way into the trash can fast enough. Most of the ants were sucked up in the vacuum and taken immediately out to the dumpster. When Brad got home I left for the grocery store, mainly because I hadn't been in weeks, but also to purchase ant traps. Meijer must have known that I needed these bad because there was a display of ant traps in the center aisle, on the end of four aisles, and by the cash register. For the most part, the ants in my kitchen have been evicted, but I have a feeling this is only the beginning.

Product of the Week

I actually have two products this week I'd like to share. One is an application for the Iphone. It's called Baby Monitor & Alarm 2.0 by TappyTaps. This application turns your cellphone into a baby monitor and/or radio for when you travel and don't pack your own. How it works is I had to leave my phone in the room with the boys and when they woke up it would call my husband's cell (the number I programmed it to call). Some other features it has is I can choose to have my phone play a recording of my voice before calling the hubby's phone. It can be anything from, "Go back to bed you rotten kids"(I had to say it) or a lullaby. Mine has me singing "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes." Another feature is to program it to play a song from my Ipod song list before calling the hubby's phone. It can also play music to put your kids down at night too. It has different settings too as far as how long you want it to wait before calling you and noise sensor levels. All in all, it's pretty cool.


The second product this week isn't baby related. It is a kitchen product. It's the OXO Corn Stripper. I make this amazing corn salad that use to make me nervous to make. I was always afraid to cut the corn off the cob with a knife because I was afraid to loose a finger in the process. I don't worry about this anymore. The corn stripper is safe and easy to use. Here's my recipe if you'd like to try it out...
10 ears of unhusked sweet corn
extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper
one cup of sliced cherry tomatoes
one cup of feta cheese
Italian dressing

Warm up grill. While grill is heating up coat corn with EVOO and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Once grill is ready, cook corn and slightly char the edges. remove corn and let cool. Once cooled, use OXO Corn Stripper and remove all kernnels from the ear. When finished, you should have a bowl full of stripped grilled corn. Mix tomatoes and feta with corn. Drizzle with italian dressing (just enough to wet the salad. Now enjoy!

Milestones.

This week has been a crazy week at our house. For starters, I've been super sick. It started as a stomach bug then into one wicked migraine that lasted for two days. My husband stayed home from work one day because I was completely unable to function. I was thankful to him, but nervous that he had. Right now there's talk of laying off government workers and my husband's one of them. I can't help worrying about what's going to happen to us if he's not working also. The number one thing is how will bills get paid...we have two small babies! It's a scary thought. It's funny to think about all the silly things one worries about prior to facing this uncertainty. It was brought to my attention this week that I always try to please others and I can't do it anymore. I have my own family now to think about and times are hard.

On a less gloomy note, Brad and I decided to start the boys on cereal. I had visions of crying and cereal being spit across the room, but none of that happened. Reese went first. The only complaints he had was that I wasn't shoveling the food in his mouth fast enough. Brady was a pro at eating cereal. It was as if he'd been eating cereal his whole life. Brad and I even got smiles from the boys during the experience. As an added bonus, Brady who was still waking up twice a night up to this point, was now sleeping through the entire night.
Here's a picture of Brady sharing his enjoyment.

Here's a picture of Reese enjoying his cereal.

Exhausted!!

This past weekend I had to make another long trip to Michigan. My Aunt Sally, my father's sister, died and her funeral was this past Friday. Brad had to work so this trip was just me and the boys. I didn't think much of this, traveling alone with twin babies, but apparently it made a lot of my relatives question my sanity. One of my Uncles kept coming up with "what if this happened" senarios, as if the only thing that was going to save me was a man. I love my husband and I'm sure he'd appreciate it if I relied on him for knight on a white horse sort of stuff, but I was a girl scout, took wilderness survival classes in college, and had a fully charged cell phone handy. So there.

Aunt Sally's service was nice, as far as funerals go. Saw a lot of people that I don't see very often. I heard a lot of stories about her. I'm going to miss her a lot. It's still surreal though. I can still hear her laugh and her voice.

Some other things the boys and I did this weekend were we stayed at Nana's house, my mother's mom. My Uncle George and Aunt Rita came out to visit. Reese peed on my Aunt Rita. He's really good at peeing on people. That kid pees more than any kid I've ever met. Some of my cousins stopped by too. My cousin Gaelen's girlfriend, Becca, is a natural with babies. I wish she lived closer. She can babysit anytime. The boys were flirting hardcore with her too. So funny!

One of the other things I like about going to visit in Michigan without my hubby is my mom feels more comfortable with spoiling me, with food that is. I think all moms do this. Even if one eats well at home, moms always feel like you could eat more. So I ate a lot and I finally got my favorite International Dog House Swiss Dog. YUM!!!

The ride home was stormy and long, but we made it. Brad and Bo got really comfy while we were gone, but they were happy to see us back at home. That is until Bo realized he couldn't sleep on my side of the bed anymore. He didn't like that too much, but he got over it quick.

Here is a picture of my Aunt Sally and my Dad on Easter in 1956.