Where Oh Where Art Thou?

In my short and ever so brief blogging break, I feel some things were a little glazed over that I should quickly recap. I will do it in bullets to move things along and let the pictures actually be worth "a thousand words".
1. Garage Sale
Boy, oh boy, am I so glad that is over. I am never, ever, ever doing it again. The garage sale was to begin at 8 and people were camped outside my house at 6:45 am trying to see things. To top it all off, it was FREEZING outside. The kind of cold where you have to bounce to keep warm and hover over your Starbucks begging for mercy.
Papa Joe and Honey were troopers though. They came in for Papa Joe's 60th birthday and helped me survive the onslaught of deal seekers. Honey worked the sale and Papa Joe helped my hubby, Joe III {family nickname and to help clarify things} watch all three munchkins. This worked out great until the threesome was allowed outside to experience the "fun" and found their beloved little treasures being sold. The boys tried rescuing a few items but they eventually made their way back to the sale or goodwill donations. Thanks for everybody's help. Please remind me to never do this again though. It was a lot of work!

The droves of treasure hunters

my scary hoarder room now in the driveway for all the world to see

a couple of jammie clad twins interested in all the action with posing with Honey

now properly attired posing with Papa Joe and Honey before a jaunt to the park

Cute picture but seriously....never again!

treasures reclaimed by Fenley

Bear finding his old bath toy

 2. Big Kid Beds
Mary Ellie and Fenley got into a habit of escaping from their iron cribs and scaling the plantation shutters. This caused lots of problems: they were practicing nastics on our shutters, pretty sure the neighbors did not like being spied on all the time, they were going to break something while climbing out if we did not take action, and we would find them wandering all over the house and making trouble. So, garage sale profits went to big kid beds.
This was a very exciting move for them and us. Mommy kind of forgot that new mattresses needed sheets, blankets, and rails so I had to dash off after the delivery, run to Target and Babies R Us for the items, run home to wash everything, and make it back to school by noon for pickup. The twins were thrilled with the new beds but they still escape. They have had them a little over a week now and they are getting better but the new found freedom is still creating a little chaos.
Now we need bed frames or headboards or something but more on that decorating project later!

Bye bye cribs

Mamie home from school and excited about new polka dot sheets

Car sheets!!

the lambs are so very sleepy after school but so excited about these strange new beds

Hello Big Kid Beds

Think we need to get a decorator in here to solve the blandness but ahh...no more twins escaping and climbing out of iron cribs

 3. Into Everything
The children have been exploring and getting into everything at our house lately. Climbing on the kitchen counters, opening the fridge, emptying linen cabinets, emptying an entire box of wipes, and so on and so forth. The most noteworthy explorations go to Bear and Fenley.
Bear decided to climb the hearth and explore the inside of the fireplace. He was covered in SOOT. To make this even grosser, we have lived here almost 4 years and never have lit a fire there. Eewwww and not to mention a disaster to clean up. This little man was so proud of himself he was beaming and bouncing in delight by the time I captured him off the hearth. I decided to inwardly scream and pause to take the baby's picture.
We cleaned him off and rushed him out the door to a play date but I will never forget the look on his delighted face and the soot.
Fenley gets second prize for finding diaper rash cream and pretending to be like Daddy and shave with it while he was supposed to be napping. Also, not fun to clean up but he was a little more sheepish when I found him. I took a picture or two to show his father. Rascals have literally been getting into everything. Say a quick prayer for my sanity!

4. Date with Bear
I took Bear on a quick date after dropping off our trunk at my partner, Brooke's house, I knew we would never make it to bible study, so I spent the morning with the little guy. He is such a sweet boy and I loved every minute of just the two of us. Thank you for a great date, Baby Bear!

Bear is always on the move so a lot of my date he played hard to get

the sweetest toddler park

Such a great date!

 5. Severe Weather
As I mentioned in the last blog, we have been having some severe weather, freezing winds, and all over stay-inside and bundle up weather. This is a little hard to do with the two lambs and bear because they go stir crazy. I grabbed a few "new" toys or "out-of-rotation" toys from the closet and they entertained themselves for a couple of days.
The weather has cleared and the pipe newly capped {the one that flooded the backyard}, and Sunday has been sunnier and warmer. We got to take the kids to the park and on a picnic. What a treat for us all to get outdoors and the children love getting to run off some energy. Enjoy the park pictures. The munchkins look SO big to me in jeans and tee-shirts it reminds me why I keep them so baby and old-fashioned most of the time despite loving their tee-shirts. They love their tee-shirts too and proudly pointed to the new pictures on them and had a great day. Back to normalcy {relative term around here} and a new week ahead.

Fenley has a small obsession with diggers. This was a gift for Christmas that is quite noisy so it lives in the corner of a closet and makes appearances when Fenley really needs cheering up or the weather is too awful to play outdoors. Fenley loves it! Such a treat for him when the digger comes out to play.

Barbie and Barbie corvette were also gifts that live in the closet to entertain the twins. We play with mostly wooden toys so the kids think these toys are a riot when they get to play with them {we rotate toys as to not get bored around here}. I was a little concerned about Barbie and her lack of clothes so Pinkalicious has a new car that is pink-a-fabulous!

Fenley looks like a little boy here and not my baby. Boo hoo.

Bear also looks like a little boy. :(

Always running in the opposite direction, my little man. I love this picture because it captures his little toddler-trying-to-be-a-big-boy gait

He turned around. So thrilled to have a handful of gravel.

Happy Sunday and enjoy the Super Bowl!

Severe Weather and Major Drama

This has been a long a crazy week. Sometimes things start off kind of normal and then take a sharp turn for the worse. Starting with just going to Preschool. Pretty normal but then mommy gets called into the office because my Fenny has been a rascal because he likes two little girls in the class. Mommy was mortified and Fenley did not seem to think pulling a girl's pig tail if he was in love with her was a huge deal. Arg. It went kind of down hill from there for us.
We were supposed to go to our hometown but the winter storms rolled in and snowed in our hometown (this never happens) and icy conditions in our city shut it everything down later in the week.

I kind of forgot that during the week was my Spring Shrimp and Grits Kids trunk show. This makes things a little crazy organizing for all my friends to come and see the new adorable line, and managing my roaming hands kiddies but we survived. And I am excited to see their new Spring duds because they have seriously grown since last year and the twins needed some new stuff because little Bear wears big brother's old clothes. So...whew...one thing off our plate.

Then the bad weather rolled in creating chaos. We live in a city where people get a little nutty because bad weather and cold weather is so rare. I am attaching a link my friend Reed sent me that made my eyes tear up I was laughing so hard. It pretty much in a very mocking way, sums up the delirium that had set in for the severe cold weather.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sy80Arss0Go

Mary Ellie still trying to create a fashion revolution...Navy Coat with baby Bear's puppy dog hat that she had paired with polka dot gloves for the cold weather

Pleased as punch about her decisions and not minding the impending chill in the air

Still battling the new twin bed situation. We are tiiirrreeeddd to say the least. I am sure moving to big kid beds is a challenge for all parents but twins seem to think every night is a slumber party. And baby Bear is getting a molar that looks excruciating and he is crying lots at night. We need sleep....in a very bad way! But the twins were warm in long jammies for the cold nights ahead and decided to sleep together to stay war. Must be nice to have a built in best friend.

After a few frozen days, we planned to get up today and head to Austin. Then the children woke up with green gunky noses. Gross. Then, Bear chucked my iPhone into the toilet. There goes all my pictures and contacts (no, I have idea to sync things so they are not backed up). I was annoyed, to say the least, because I do not mind too terribly when it is his favorite elephant push toy lounging in the toilet or even when Navy Mary Jane gets the occasional soak, but my iPhone cuts me off from the world. Boo HOOOO.

Then, the worst happened, a pipe flooded all over our yard and water seeping into our hoarders-scary-room that I literally just had the handy man come and price yesterday to fix up the room. Add one more thing to the list to repair out there....bugger. Thankfully, Colby, my neighbor noticed the water gushing and even had the handy tool to turn off our water {not totally handy when you have to take a shower, wash clothes, wash dishes, bathe children and give them water to drink but saved our house from further disaster. I would call and thank her but I don't have her cell phone number or anyone's number thanks to Baby Bear washing my phone for me!}.
We called two services that laughed and said I was way down on the list of repairs and they could come Monday. Miracle of all miracles....they both randomly showed up a few hours later at the same time?! What in the world?? Turns out the plumbers were old boys and cheerful about the double booking and fixed it quickly (just needed a more expensive cap) and problem solved. Water on and all is well {except I still need a phone and everyone to email me their contact information}.

What a week....I still feel like those mummies but all is well that ends well. No major damage, no major bill, but we sadly we are still missing Aunt Holly's shower tomorrow but we survived a few major detours relatively unscathed this week.

Stay warm and for goodness sakes wrap those pipes!! :) And starting tomorrow I am resuming a week of blogging and fun Valentine's Day ideas. Stay tuned and thanks for letting me off the hook for a few weak weeks of entries.

PS I have not properly thanked Angie for her mystery box that arrived last week. We love mystery boxes around here. Auntie Angie sent a box of Valentines cookies for my three munckins. Each child got their own homemade batch of cookies in a theme cookie cutter shapes and names in their own little bag. I am SO blessed to have a friend like Angie. She is the sweetest person alive and how many people can say their friends make all of their children individualized cookies for each of their children? We love you, Angie, and thank you SOOOOOO much for the cookies. Hugs and big kisses to you. We miss you!

A personalized Mary Ellie cookie from Auntie Angie

Mystery Box Heaven

Sometimes you feel....

Like these guys...... mummies, dead tired, and all dressed up and a little confused because you are pretty sure you are supposed to be somewhere but likely forgot in the chaos of your life so you opted to stay home. Life has been busy, I have taken a small blogging break but me and the Navy Mary Janes are getting settled back down after some busy weeks at this casa so we are both back. I am one sleepy mama so this will be short but I have seriously felt like this festive mummies lately. So I am off to bed.....

These are real and right around the corner from my house. We have watched them through October & Halloween. They remained until Thanksgiving, wore Santa hats at Christmas, New Years Hats to ring in 2011, and now....Valentines outfits. We were rooting against them after Thanksgiving but now I am kind of all for the mummies. They are a riot. We are trying to ponder their Saint Patrick's Day outfits and Easter attire.

Bear running errands with me at Target

Bear coming home from playing in the nursery at bible study. Happy Camper because he got his applesauce in the car on the way home.

Fenley NOT napping lately and making pumpkin bread from a box to entertain himself. He also has stickers all over his head and body that he found somewhere in his room during the nap protest. My man loves to nap so this did not go over well around 5:00 pm when he cracked.

So, this tired mummy is going to bed. Joe just checked on the twins in their new big kid beds, as usual....twin beds was a total waste because Mary Ellie has climbed into Fenley's bed and they are both sound asleep together in one little bed. Pretty darn cute and I am following suit. Goodnight and stay warm!