Two Lambs and a Bear: 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!