Tag - Mommy's It!

Today, we ventured to a new "elderly' resort because they have a nice kiddie pool with the zero entry walk in, water sprayers and it only goes to 1 feet of water. It was the best laid plan! Noone was there in the kiddie area and we had it all to ourselves -PERFECT!

On a side note: I try to walk the boys into most places holding my hands so I don't have to schlep in the stroller. Disadvantage- leaving can sometimes be hard to "herd" them out.

We loved it and I got to relax in the sun and have fun. Then it was time to go.. Tag- - game on! They started rolling around, laughing in the water so I couldn't pick them up at the same time. As I got one seated on a chair, I had to sprint, bend over and get the other - however..the one on the chair took off back in the water...vice versa non stop (including grabbing things from my bag and tossing it in the water)!


When I looked up, I saw a group of 5 adults in the resort section laughing hysterically at me (as they were lounging in the adult pool having their cocktails). For a second I thought.."Could ya help a mama out?" but I knew how funny this must look so I started to laugh with everyone. I just hope they didn't have a phone camera and it end up on Utube. Finally, one sat on the chair for a minute while I grabbed the other. Life was good again....I got them dried off, dressed, walking hand in hand then my bag dropped. As I went to bent over to pick it up...Christian took the opportunity and ran straight into the water with his dry clothes and shoes!!

Tag...Mommy's It again! Thankfully, Nicolas stayed put so I could get Christian and out we went. After they realized it was over, they smiled at me and said "so fun mommy - thanks"! What???? At that point I really couldn't stop laughing. Even after the insanity, I realized thank god I have this time with them and would do that all over again to see those smiles.

This was truly a twin moment!

Snap ~ Crackle ~ Pop

The boys had their first bowl of Rice Krispies! It is so cute to see them experience the wonder of something so simple (just like the commercial says). As I was getting their bowls ready, I told them the story of how the elves made the cereal sing "Snap, Crackle, Pop" to make it fun to eat. Then they sat there and waited with big eyes while I poured the milk on their cereal.. .SNAP..CRACKLE...POP!

WHY I LOVE YOU (Part 2)

This week I wanted to write a post for each of the boys, sharing some of those special traits each of them have and why I love them so much. The last post I shared some of the things Nicolas is currently doing.....for my other sweet little man - Christian! Christian:

• Oh my Wild and Crazy Christian ( I say that in the most positive way) - I absolutely love that you are so expressive in everything you do. For example, when you say something is "SO BIG" and you throw your arms open wide to get the point across. You always make us laugh with your wide range expressions.

• You love to talk..talk..talk. You start from the moment your eyes open in the morning,until they close at night. Sometimes you even chirp a word in during the night! Seriously, when you open your eyes in the morning, you immediately start having a conversation as if you were never asleep!

• I love your drive and determination. You never want to give up on anything and will continue at it until you or someone shows you how to figure it out. Grandma Terry said this week what a "great negotiator" you are and that you will have a successful future ahead of you in life with your negotiation skills and drive- I couldn't agree with her more.

• You love anything that has a great beat to it. You will stop what your doing, smile and start dancing. You have some serious rhythm kid!

• Your love for singing is hysterical! You love a audience and the more people listening - the better. Right now you can recite and sing the full song of " ABC's, BA-BA Black Sheep and Itsy Bitsey ".

• You are naturally gifted at imitation. We can show you something, like when we first showed you how to swing the golf club and in a few attempts, you have the stand, swing, follow through down! You do this on so many things.

• You have the most incredible smile ( I know I said that about your brother) and I feel the same about you. You can walk into the room an immediately light it up. You walk in like you own the place, no hesitations.

• Your amount of energy you have is priceless and your most favorite activity is to be chased and tickled. The squeal of delight you make is a sound I never want to forget and a feeling I hope you will always have with you.

• I love that you always go to your brother, want to play with him and see what he is doing. I can always tell how much you love him and miss him when you are apart.

• I love how loud you are (well most of the time) and that you are not afraid of speaking your words or trying them out. Your curiosity of life is incredible.

Lets just say little man " I love you to the moon and back" and I am so proud that you are my son! Again, as I said with Nicolas, I could write forever on why I love you. It seems like just a short while ago, I was holding you in my arms and rocking those sweet baby blue eyes to sleep. I wish I could freeze time because this age is so awesome.

Blogging

I realized today, if I write something and don't post it for a day or two, it appears before the most recent blog. Today, I finished writing a post about "Why I Love You" but you have to scroll down to the one before Splash Park.

Splash Park

I can't believe how big these guys are! It still blows my mind when I see how they run, listen and just have a conversation! Today, we went to the new park near my house (literally 2 minutes) and it has a cute splash park which is nicely shaded. I am so excited about this place because there are not many kids, it's clean and shiny!! As any parent knows, the best part of this was seeing their excitement and joy! A True Splash!

Christian and Dad I don't know why, I just love his little toes in these photos as he runs!

Why I Love You!

This week has been full of those breath taking moments that make you stop and realize how much God has blessed your life with children ( of course also the moments when you want to pull your hair out). It seems like it was only yesterday we were in the mist of trying to figure out what to do as parents of twins or should I say..how we were going to survive being parents of twins! For the next two blogs, I wanted to write something special to each of them! I will start with Nicolas since he was born technically 1 minute before Christian!Nicolas:

1.) Oh my "Ticolas Nicolas" - I love that you have this "old soul" about you and seem so wise beyond your years. The moment you were born everyone said you were an old soul, the way you look into everyone's eyes so deeply, intent and meaningful. This week you have come up to me and shared so many expressions. For example yesterday you were having alittle tantrum and you matter of factly stated to me, "Mommy, Ney -Ney crying, very sad".

2.) I love you because whenever you see me in the morning, you run to find me and the first thing you do is reach up, give me the biggest hug and say "morning mom"! It starts my day with a smile and thankful with the feeling that I am blessed to have you as my son. I love that when daddy comes home from work you do the "Happy Dance" and run to give him a hug or ask for one if you are in your chair eating dinner.


3.) You get so excited over trains and trucks to the point where you break out into your "Happy Dance" and you can't catch your breath from excitement. If you have never seen Nicolas's happy dance, click on the link to Yo-Gabba Gabba and watch the video of him busting a move! It always makes me laugh.

4.) All of a sudden you are talking so much all of a sudden and saying about 6-7 word sentences. Including telling me what you DON'T WANT TO DO or DON'T LIKE. Like today, you kept saying: "I DON'T want to go to the store - want to play"!


5.) You love to read and will sit there for sometimes up to 30 minutes reading your favorite books. Most of them are Dr. Seuss books.


6.) I love that you hate to be in "time out" and try so hard not to get put in there. You have so much self control for a two year old. Although, you like to tattle on your brother for everything!

7.) You have the most incredible laugh in the world and love to be tickled. You have such a bright happy smile.

8.) You have this soft spoken voice in the morning when you wake up before Christian and patiently wait until he wakes up. Today, you sang Old McDonald so softly before he woke up.


9.) Because you are so tall, I can squat down and you just wrap you arms around my neck and give me the biggest hug. You sometimes hold that hug for a minute at a time. You love hugs and snuggling.

10.) I love that you reach out to teach Christen so many new things and say "Come on Christian" or if Christen says " What's that Ney- Ney" You then say...."Ummm" "Ummm" like you are truly thinking about it. I also love the way when I ask you a yes or no question for yes you respond with "Yeah" full of excitement or "Noooooo" very dramatic!

Let's just say "I love you to the moon and back" my little man! There are so many reasons why I love you that I could write forever. Only two years ago you were born at 5 lbs and 12 oz and now you weigh 29 lbs and are so tall coming up just above my waist now!

The Boys

After a nice morning at the library with Grandma, the boys woke up from naptime in such a good mood. I went to peek in on them (it was one of those moments when they were being "TOO QUIET) and when I saw them, I felt like my heart was going to pop out of my chest with love. They were holding hands in the bathroom and kept holding them as they marched around the house laughing and talking to each other. Nicolas kept saying " Come on Christian" as he lead the way. I have been seeing their bond develop so much lately as they play with each other and talk to each other. You can really see their love and joy for each other in these snap shots, showing the unique bond that twins truly have! Christian so happy as Nicolas has to check and make sure he has his train!This photo would be perfect if it weren't for my pile of laundry...yes the reality of it is I always have a pile of clean laundry waiting to be folded!

Another Grocery Store Story

Yep...another grocery store embarrasment..A.K.A...my dear friend panic set in again.
This time for good reason (or at this I think). If your not familiar with my last attempt feel free to read up on it!

1.) As I was cleaning off the grocery cart and straps ( I am neurotic and think they are so gross, so I must spend about 5 minutes cleaning the carts) Christian quickly ran to the English muffin sale display and starts winging the bags off the shelves as fast as he can. I swear, that kid can hustle and move! Why put bags of muffins in the entry way where people are getting carts anyways? People kept walking by us..... "Isn't that cute, they are adorable, enjoy it while you can". ARE YOU SERIOUS? Don't you see I have twin 2 year old boys standing here, winging merchandise as I am trying to get them in the cart. Couldn't just one of them reached down and picked up a English muffin to help me? Where's the love?

2.) The boys have this weird obsession and don't want to be near men that are strangers in the store, so every time we passed one they said, "Man mommy, no man, no man mommy" repetitively until we pass them,which of course we often see the same men throughout store. With the ladies, they are complete FLIRTS and all smiles.

3.) Nicolas bit Christian ..again because he wanted his piece of deli ham. He even had some and was just finishing his last bit. TWICE!! So I had to diffuse the situation by correcting Nicolas and cuddling Christian in my arms until he would go back in the cart. Nicolas is typically my gentle love bug but not in the grocery store..he means business ...er..biting when it comes to his meat.

4.) Towards the end, Christian started reaching over and throwing everything out of the cart- RAPID FIRE! Every time I bent down to pick it up, it was like dodging bullets.

5.) Finally finished checking out all groceries and realized no credit cards, check books..nothing! All at home in my other purse. Shit, now what? PANIC sets in because I have been feeding the boys food from the groceries all through the trip and where was my bank card? Technically, if I don't pay its stealing right? Plus, I had two moms in line behind me giving me that hurry up evil eye because they were probably in the same boat with their kids.

6.) Lastly...loading and unloading the boys repetitively to get back to the store to pay for groceries. Not only EXHAUSTING, KILLING MY BACK AND ARMS because they are starting to weigh so much but then when we got in there it took about 15 minutes for them to get my cart! When he brought it up, he just put the cart in front of me and said " Here you go have a great day". At that point I was SEEING RED! I have two little boys standing next to me ( thankfully being angels) but I couldn't push this huge cart of groceries and risk letting them walk with me not holding hands in a crowded parking lot. I think the guy sensed I was about to freak out and when they couldn't find a carry out person the manager stepped up to the plate and helped me.

I thought, how easy would it have been to just have someone in the car with me and I could of dashed in and out in a flash? Oh well...so many moms must go through the same thing..right???

I promise more photos of the boys and updates on their activities and such! Just had to fill you in on this weeks grocery adventure. They really are well behaved boys..it's just this whole grocery store thing!

Babies in Belly

Kids at this age say the most random, funniest things.

For example, Nicolas had two big grapes under their shirt ....why I didn't know at first.

Nicolas: "Two babies in belly".

Ken: "Is that where babies come from"?

Nicolas: "Yeah..Mommy's belly".

Ken: " Is that where all babies come from"?

Nicolas : "Yes..all babies".

Ken: "Even Baby Addison and Baby Lily (our friends that are a year younger than the boys) came from mommy's belly"?

Nicolas: "Yes..all babies!"

Oh Lord...thank god that is not true!!!

Another Random Conversation Last Week:

While struggling with getting Nicolas dressed in his polo shirt in a mad rush to get out of house:

Me: "Nicolas please keep your green shirt on".

Nicolas: "I DON'T WANT TO" (first that shocked me he knew how to use the word "I" correctly and that he was arguing with me).

Me: Nicolas pleassssseeee...we are going to be late.

Nicolas : I DON'T WANT To be handsome!

Wait...did I just hear that correctly? How does he know to use the word handsome in a sentence?

Me: "You don't want to be handsome? But why..you are always handsome!"

Nicolas: "I don't want to be handsome in shirt".

Christian: "Christian handsome...Christian always handsome".

All the while, Nicolas is still on the floor rolling around continuously saying....I don't want handsome, no handsome mommy.

I guess I must always tell them how handsome they are everyday in their shirts. But..how could anyone not feel or want to be handsome in a nice polo shirt- ha!ha! I mean, they are my favorite brand of shirts: soft, comfortable, durable and have lots of style! Well, if anything at least the kid doesn't give a hoot about what others think if he is handsome or not...yep...mom building good self esteem at a early age...ha!ha!!!

Beating The Summer Time FL Heat!

We broke down and brought the 4-wheelers inside Sunday! Of course, I had to neurotically clean the wheels before they came inside in case any spiders were on them from the garage. Once I had the vehicles "de-bugged" and we cleared the space, the boys had so much fun driving them around! It is so flipping hot down here this time of year! By August, I tend to get a bit stir crazy because by 10:00 am it is usually about 85-90 degrees. Only a few more months thank goodness! I couldn't believe the difference in their steering ability since we took them out last time!

Nicolas stopping to pick up some toys to haul around the room.