My early morning

It's now 6:50 a.m.

Carter and I have been up for over an hour.

We are staying at my sister-in-law's house right now, so I didn't feel comfortable just ignoring the screaming. Nor did I feel right about turning on the tv and letting him entertain himself while I watched from the living room couch.

So I just brought him back to bed with me. Now that normally is not a good idea anymore. Where the babies used to snuggle down with us if in our bed, nowadays they tend to crawl over and across anyone or anything to try and get the remotes. Or right off the bed.

But today, Carter mostly snuggled. And it made me miss that snuggly newborn stage. But he just laid down by me; let me rub his back; sucked his taggie and thumb. And finally about 10 minutes ago fell back to sleep.

So while my day sure started early today, I think it was totally worth it.

For anyone local

Kelsey, my friend and fabulous photographer, is doing another giveaway on her blog.

Go and enter!

A Typical Day

So what does a typical day look like in our house?






Little boys who love to play together. Messes. Fights. Exploring. Smiles. Laughs. And one tired but happy mama.

Also, a big thanks to the comments left on this post where I got a little whiny. My favorite tip was the twice a day pick up; I'm not cleaning up toys all day long, but the house is picked up when I sit down to relax. I am also reminding myself that yes it is temporary--let's enjoy it.

Tyler's Big Day

What a long and busy day for my Tyler. First up, my baby has lost his first tooth! (sniff, sniff. they grow up so fast.)


He had been wiggling it for days but wouldn't let me pull it. Finally it just fell out when he bonked into a couch cushion.

Then later that day he and I got to head out for a little date. Dan volunteered to take the babies to a pool party, so I told Tyler the two of us were going to spend the afternoon together. I figured we would see a movie, but his choice was to go see "the stinky flower."

Here is a link to a news story.

I knew it would be crowded, but didn't realize parking would be that bad--20 minutes circling all the lots at Hermann Park, finally parking at the zoo. But we did make it in, and thanks to our purchased online tickets, we did walk right in. After taking in the exhibit at the Butterfly Center, which was actually fun, we finally made it to Lois. It sure looked neat, but we were disappointed to find no stench. It was said to have bloomed about 36 hours earlier, and the smell should have lingered, but alas, we missed it. But we did get our token picture.


The best thing was spending an afternoon with my boy. I think I am one lucky mom.

Just Keep Swimming

Some days I feel like I have been treading water all day long.

Once upon a time I kept a relatively clean house. I wasn't the cleanest, most organized person, but I was happy to invite people in with little advanced notice. I had a weekly rotation of jobs, laundry was actually put away the same day it was folded, and I even vacuumed three times a week. Now? It is all I can do to keep the laundry going, not let the dishes pile too high in the kitchen, and keep the family room relatively straightened.

Here are some of the things I can't figure out how to do with babies around:

• load/unload the dishwasher (it it's open, the babies empty it faster than I can deal with the dishes)
• vacuum (if they are awake, they don't like the sound; if they are sleeping I worry it will wake them up)
• sweep/mop (hard to get the floor clean when they are underfoot; unfortunately, or maybe I should say luckily, they are like puppies who will eat their dropped food off the floor if I don't get to it)
• keep the toys at bay (seriously, how does anyone do this?)
• shower (I used to just bring them in the bathroom, but lately they've been trying to eat my haircare products)

At the end of the day, after putting all the baby toys away for the 5th or 6th time that day, I am tired. And then I go check on my sleeping babies, from my 6 year old who looks so incredibly big in his bed lately, to the munchkins curled up in their cribs, and I feel so ready to get up the next day and start swimming all over again.

Vacation Recap

This is the very longest I have gone without blogging. I was going to blog our trip to Utah while it happened, but just couldn't. Am I the only one who goes on vacation and thinks--three weeks is so long. We have so much time to do everything we want to do. And then suddenly you are leaving in two days? There were several people I wanted to see (I was going to call you Tresa, sorry), but it just didn't happen. I don't think it helped that we ended up fighting sickness that took us out for like 5 days. The adults all shared a lovely 24 hour stomach bug, and then Carter got an ear infection, with a 105 fever!

But anyway, we are all better. We had fun. We even survived the plane ride. So here is a recap and a promise to get back to blogging.

The babies loved grandma's piano.

My fun mom had lots of "adventures" planned. Here is one to the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point.

The Lehi city miniature parade. I just love this parade.

The babies loved getting to know Uncle Dave's dog. Tyler, not so much.

Another "adventure." This is the Place Heritage Park. Not only is this place educational, but it is a lot of fun too.

My kids have 3 living great grandparents, none of whom have met the twins. We were glad to be able to visit with Dan's grandma on this trip and let her meet the boys.

Our fourth of July picnic up the canyon. My mom was determined to get a picture of everyone. Here are my parent's 4 children and 10 grandchildren.

Happy 4th of July!