Finally Some Nursery Pics!!!

I took some pictures of the boys months ago and had them made into 11" by 14" pictures. Reese and Brady are now five months old and finally have a somewhat finished nursery. Before I post some pictures let me fill you in with the story behind the nursery theme. Brad and I decided that we did not want to find out if we were having boys, girls, or one of each. With that said, the nursery needed to be gender neutral. You would not believe how hard this would prove to be. Most infant bedding is very gender specific and if there was a gender neutral one it was incredibly hideous or yellow. I don't have anything against yellow, but it's not a color for a bedroom. Yellow in a bedroom or nursery instills anxiety...don't believe me, look it up.

I searched all over the Internet for inspiration and believe it or not I found what I wanted on Pottery Barn Teen or PB Teen. They had all these modern rooms with polka dots. I really liked the brown and white polka dots. Brown can be paired up with just about any color combination; there's blue and brown, Pink and brown, green and brown, purple and brown...etc. We chose to do a blue/green (to be exact Tiffany Blue, I took the box into the paint store and had it custom made) and brown. I surprisingly found brown and white polka dot crib linens at Target and the rest just fell into place.

Here are the pictures that I had blown up. Reese is on the left and Brady is on the right.


This is Reese's side of the room. I'm thinking of putting an IPod docking station where the radio is eventuallt an possibly a hanging bookshelf above the dresser. we'll see.


Here is Brady's side of the room.



The rocking chair and changing station. It's a little cluttered, but oh well.


Here's the famous screen door. We put this in instead of purchasing expensive crib tents to prevent the cats from joining the kids in their cribs. It's worked out perfectly. It was a $15 purchase.

Product of the Week

I know I'm a little behind on my posts but it's been a little crazy here with the tornado twins! BUT I digress...

As anyone knows, babies are expensive. Having two babies is even more expensive, so with a little hesitation I agreed to switch from the boys regular (everything is honky dory) formula to store brand. It was half the price and and the label said it had all the same great things in it and very clearly said it was comparable to what we already use. Well, as you can probably guess (due to lack of naming this formula), this is not the product of the week. This formula gave my sons terrible diarrhea and an even worse diaper rash. Super annoyed!! Did we change the formula? Well not right away. My hubby, god love him, insisted that it wasn't the formula and they just caught a bug. So we tried waiting it out. It just got worse. We are now back to our regular Soy formula and the diarrhea stopped, but the diaper rash stayed. We were already applying cream prior to the rash at every diaper change, so I invested in the maximum strength stuff to take a more aggressive approach. Bath time, which is normally all fun and smiles, was now tears and frustration due to the sore bottoms.

Now with all this said, are you ready for my shout out for product of the week???

It's Aveeno Baby Soothing Bath Treatment!


It comes with six packets that look just like instant oatmeal packets. I poured one packet into their bath water (no need for soap in addition to packet)and abracadabra...I saw instant results in healing their terrible diaper rashes. Plus its soothing, hence the title, so there weren't anymore tears. It only took two bath treatments in addition to continuing to apply maximum strength diaper cream, before their rashes were completely gone. I highly recommend this product. Even if your little one is rash free, you should have it in your bathroom just in case. It's also good for insect bites, poison ivy/oak/sumac, and chicken pox. The other great thing about this product is it was less than five dollars. If this product is not already on your grocery list you are CRAZY.

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.