Seeing Double

One of my BFF from college lives close by now...and she happens to be an identical twin with another one of my BFFs from college...and she and her family and more of their family (who I think should be my family as well) all came into town for spring break. I met Alicia and Rachel through ROTC, then I bribed them into moving into an apartment with me and three other crazy girls....=)

Alicia and I by the hot tub....(I didn't dress for the pool that day folks...just sticking my feet in the water):

They are the kind of friends whom you get right back in the groove with like no time has passed...I have known them for 14 years and miss them terribly...I am so blessed that Sol and Rach (and their new baby) live close now so I can at least see them more!

We had some good visiting time (never enough though) and some time to relax in the pool (ok, maybe the pool was too cold for my thin blood), hot tub and the beach.

Rach, Adam, and Alicia:

Geoff and the boys on the beach that day:

Sol, Alicia, Adam, and Acey:

I swear each and every one of them has a heart of gold!

Go PuRdUe!

Easter Blessings

Easter Sunday was so much fun. The boys were READY for the Easter Bunny to visit and leave behind a trail of eggs. They had no trouble finding all of the eggs in the house (did I mention our Easter Sunday started around 6 a.m.?) Since we don't give them much candy and with the whole food allergy-thing...we filled the eggs with matchbox cars and even left some empty. Geoff told me that I could not leave any eggs empty but I did...and here is a short video of J's reaction when he finds one:

And here is a video of the boys in action during the hunt:

W showing off his eggs:

Reaction when Geoff carried in their Easter baskets:

Checking out their loot:


We went to church and then to our friends' house for brunch and an outdoor egg hunt. Unfortunately my camera battery died before I could get a family picture but one of our friends took one on their camera so maybe I will post it later.

Here are some pics of all of the little ones eagerly awaiting their release into the back yard to get eggs.

Get ready...get set..........

GO!

There goes W...where is J?

Still no sign of him:

Ahh, there he is...taking his good sweet time...looks like it paid off...he is going to get the eggs the other kiddos zoomed past:

Happy Easter!

Can You See It?

A few months ago the boys were running around our living room and I heard one of them (I don't remember who) point to the couch and say "bunny rabbit". I looked closer to see what he was talking about.

Can you see it?

And on the same note...during our severe weather last week...I had the weather station on to stay updated on the tornado watches/warnings and W pointed at the TV and said "Kix!" Huh? Then I saw the "kix"....

Watch Out--They're DRIVING!

We had neighbors a couple of years ago who generously gave us this battery-operated jeep (literally I think I was pregnant when they gave it to us)...and the boys were full-up driving, steering, and crashing the other day....Listen for big giggles after they crash into Geoff who was trimming the tree branches at the time:

Watch out...W's driving! It is perfect for them to be driving a jeep - they need it to get through the weeds and sand that is our back yard!

They picked up the steering and accelerating pretty fast. They also know how to move the lever up and down to go forward or reverse. The dogs weren't as quick to see that the boys might not stop! Here is a picture of W talking on the CB radio:

The Dolphins

The boys "graduated" today from their one-week "fast-track" swim lessons. It was a parent-tot class so it was perfect that Geoff was on leave all last week. The lessons were at a scuba place in a heated salt water pool (thank goodness). The program was FABULOUS...great coaches, great instruction-let's just say by day #4 one of the coaches had J doing his back floating exercise and she let go and we just watched him float (all by himself--he didn't know it of course)...and W was all fired up to be in the pool...he was jumping in - going under the water - and coming out with a big smile on his face. Good thing the pool was heated...the weather was not very (spring-breakish)--it was in the low to mid 60s for the first few days of the lesson (and overcast) so J and W were freezing. On the second day I went into the dive shop and bought a little dive suit for J and a long-sleeve rash guard shirt for W to help the boys feel a little warmer! Even in the heated pool their little teeth were chattering away. They especially looked forward to the dum dum lollipop they received from the instructors at the end of the class.

Here is a quick video of J going under water:

and floating on his back.....with my help and BTW, the crying you hear is not J or W:

They sang fun songs such as "I'm a little pancake nice and flat...I'm a little pancake on my back...I'm a little pancake nice and flat, flip me over...just like that!"

Here is W in the tub a few minutes ago demonstating his new floating skills:

Here is W showing off his dolphin medal:

I don't want them to forgot what they learned so I am going to register them tomorrow for two months of swim lessons so they can be quite the little fish before we get to Grammy and Grandpa's house this summer.

To POP or not..........

A little video of W trying hard to pop a balloon....Geoff took the balloon to show the boys a trick but accidentally popped it....so we will have to see if W can pop a balloon the next time he gets one.

To be continued...........

The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly

Life is crazy isn't it? During the week I dream of sleeping all day or having a few hours to myself in our house to catch up. Catch up with cleaning the boys' room, their closets, my closet, our room, our bathroom, my car, the yard, and the list goes on and on. Because it is just impossible to get it all clean all at the same time. My house is clean in sections only. But having it all cleaned is not really necessary-nice, impossible, but not necessary. I stopped trying to maintain control of this. In fact, that is a big "area of improvement" in my life. Letting go of control. Trying to control the boys from getting sick. Trying to control germs. Trying to control keeping them safe (you know what I mean...out of the humanly possible ways of keeping them safe), trying to control things that I can't control. It has caused me lots of stress and I am still working on it. I first noticed this need when Geoff and I were first married and I was always SO worried about him being safe. If I knew he was flying that day, I would be a wreck until I knew he was done and OK. I convinced myself that it was a protective mechanism so I would be prepared if something happened. It is all about trusting God though isn't it? He is in control, not me. I can't control the uncontrollable and THAT is still hard for me. It is better because I pray and am learning to lift those concerns to Him to handle...but I still am a work in progress. My life is far from perfect. I have a short fuse...I feel like I yell too much at the boys...I am impatient...I worry far too much about what other people think...I am overly cautious...ok, so why am I posting about this? Because I don't want anyone who looks at our blog to think that we are a perfectly happy smiley family that has it good all the time. Far from it. My husband is gone a lot and it makes me have pity parties for myself. In fact, he is going to be gone soon for a very long stretch of time and it is going to be difficult. I am trying not to be selfish about it ..because if I step back and look at the situation from his point of view, he has it worse. He will be far away, he won't see the boys for six months + (we all know how much a toddler can change in that amount of time), he will miss the boys' birthday (he missed their 2nd birthday too), he will be away for his birthday, he will miss Halloween and the whole summer. On the bright side, he might miss potty training =) so it is not all bad. I always try to remind myself that there are a lot of people who have it a lot worse than we do. So there is the good, the bad, and the ugly....but there sure is a whole lotta good....

Playgrounds:

Picnics:

Story time:

Snuggling and playing:

Ice-cream (the only time J has ever said "Mommy, goood!":

A crunchy apple:

Smiles:

A good post-dinner dive:

Our girls (unconditional love in its finest form):

Naps (I will take them however I can get them):

Baking homemade bread:

Playdoh on a stormy morning:

I just read this quote in a Real Simple magazine:

"I love living. I have some problems with my life, but living is the best thing they've come up with so far."

-Neil Simon