My First Trampoline and I Sound Like My Mom

When I was growing up I pretty much begged my parents for a trampoline.  Three of my very best friends had those giant trampolines and I wanted one in the worst way.  Every time I asked though I always heard, "No, they are soooo dangerous", "Do you know how dangerous they are?" Pretty much danger danger danger.  Finally I got one for my 17th birthday and I was both shocked and thrilled.  I loved that thing.

Last week while we were at Sam's Club we saw this:

Seriously called "My First Trampoline"

John jokingly suggested we get it for the boys.  The first words out of my mouth without even thinking were "Absolutely not!  Do you know how dangerous those things are?!"  Oh man, I sounded exactly like my mom.  Which isn't always a bad thing, because my mom is awesome!  But I definitely surprised myself.  And trampolines are dangerous (which I totally don't know from experience...), but a whole ton of fun.  I hope to cross this bridge a long way down the road.    

Birthday Date Night and Oz The Great and Powerful

The weekend before last we went out for my birthday and had a super fun time.  It was really nice to have a night out, it doesn't happen very often.  We decided to do the dinner and a movie date backwards, and I liked it a lot better.  We dropped the boys off at John's parents and headed off to an earlier showing of the movie.  I had been debating between Oz The Great and Powerful and The Amazing Burt Wonderstone, but I really really wanted to see Oz, and so we did.

John and I both loved the movie, but I was very surprised to find out a few days later that it was only rated PG.  John and I actually commented when we got to the theater about how surprised we were at all the little kids in the audience.  I'll try to not give away any spoilers, but proceed with caution if you haven't seen the movie and want to.  Perhaps I am getting older, but in my personal opinion I don't think I would take anyone younger than about 10.  But obviously you know your children better than anyone.  There is no blood or gore, but there is violence, death, and those flying monkeys (baboons actually) are really very scary (seriously, I'm surprised I didn't have nightmares).

Ok possible spoilers start here (I'm not giving away any big plot points):  At one point the monkeys attack a field of what turns out to be scarecrows, but they are frighteningly vicious about it.  And although the destruction happens off screen, Oz comes across a demolished town where the only survivor is a little girl, and you know that her whole family has just been killed.  Since having the boys I've become a lot more sensitive to things like this though. 

Alright, end of possible spoilers.  The cast was great, and honestly, I really loved their costumes.  I read that the costume designers based the clothing on the period that the books were written in (the 1930's I think) and were made a bit over the top for the land of Oz.  The movie starts out in black and white and changes to color after arriving in Oz.  It's obvious that they flexed their movie magic muscles for the scene where Oz arrives in Oz.  John thought that it was a little too much, but I thought it was almost breath taking.  We saw it in 2-D, but it was filmed in 3-D.  After watching it in 2-D I think I would like to see it in 3-D, which is saying a whole lot because I really am not a fan of 3-D (hello migraine!)  So if you enjoy 3-D and are on the fence about how to see it, I would go 3-D.  Overall John and I really enjoyed it, but perhaps it should have been rated PG-13.  So just be aware if you plan on taking your kids.    

After the movie we headed to Red Lobster, yum!  I grew up in New England and loooove seafood.  I really like Red Lobster, but I do miss the seafood back there, it's just not the same here (you know, living in a landlocked state in the middle of the country).  And let me tell you, it was so nice to be able to just sit and enjoy dinner and not have to worry about making it to the movie on time.  I think we should do date night like this more often!  Unfortunately I had caught a bit of a bug earlier in the week and was still feeling kind of yucky.  While my taste buds loved my dinner, my stomach not as much, so I didn't eat a whole bunch.  But I took my leftovers home and they were just as yummy the next day when I was feeling better.  It was my birthday, so on top of our appetizer and dinners I ordered the lobster bisque and managed to eat all of it.  I've had it before and it is so yummy, I love lobster bisque.  It is delicious and not something you find often when not on the coast.  Oh man, I am soooo going to be craving seafood later.  It also doesn't help that yesterday at the store they had perfect looking swordfish (omg yum!) and even at $11.49/lb I was sorely tempted, but didn't end up getting. 

Anyways, other than feeling kind of yucky still, backwards date night for my birthday was great, we had a such a nice time!      

Orange Peelers

This weekend we did some shopping at Sam's club.  We wound up buying a huge 10 lb bag of oranges (which have been delicious by the way.)  When we got home the boys were super excited to have an "apple".  No matter how hard we try, all round fruit is an apple.  Anyways...I went digging through my kitchen drawer to find my orange peeler.  I pulled it out and John was baffled by what it was.  Really? I was amazed he had never seen an orange peeler before. Thanks to Amazon I found this picture, we have this exact one, except in white.  It's a handy little tool that makes peeling an orange easier.   Perhaps I've been influenced by my grandmother on this one.  I'm still looking for grapefruit knives and spoons too. 

 So, do you have an orange peeler, or are you like my husband and never used one before?

Almost Perfect Saturday and Parenting Fails

Friday night the boys did NOT want to sleep and didn't until almost midnight.  Which meant they slept until about 11:30am (woohoo!).  They played quietly in their room until I decided that we had had enough of being lazy and got everyone up and moving at about 1pm (but oh man the morning was glorious).  While getting the boys milk they decided that they wanted an apple for breakfast so they just took one while I was focused on their milk.  The boys actually ate their apples really well, a little too well.  Parenting fail #1 for the day:  Apparently we weren't watching Owynn close enough because we think he ate his entire apple.  Core, seeds, stem, everything.  We looked all around for the core, but couldn't find anything (crap!).   

John's mom got stuck working on her day off so we decided to head over and visit and bring her some ice cream (ok I really wanted Dairy Queen and blizzards are buy one get one for $0.99 right now).  While getting the boys out of the house and into the car Owynn fell into some mud.  So I put him in his car seat and spent awhile cleaning him all up.  Then I gave him his fuzzy winter hat, got in the car and off we went.  Just down the street from our house I heard Owynn talking in the back, and it took me a minute to realize he was saying "Buckle! Wait!"  Oh sh*t!  We stopped when we got to Dairy Queen which was only like a half mile up the road.  I was laughing and crying at the same time, I don't know if I was crying from laughing so hard or laughing to try and keep myself from crying so much.  Either way I felt absolutely terrible; parenting fail #2, poor Owynn.  I buckle him in and tell him I am so so sorry, then go get our ice cream.  I come out and this exchange happens:

Owynn: Cream Cream Cream!!!
Me: Owynn we will eat our ice cream when we get to Nama's work
Owynn: CREAM CREAM CREAM!!!
John: Owynn hush, we will eat our ice cream soon
Owynn: Hey! NO!
Me: giggling, trying not to laugh hysterically. 

The look on John's face was priceless.  Owynn has become full of sass lately and has been saying some pretty funny things.  John's mom fed the boys their ice cream while I finished mine, but when I tried to feed it to them Owynn says: No! Nama hold it!  Alrighty then.  We went to Sam's club afterwards and the boys had fun trying all the free samples.  It still surprises me how much they like going out to the store.  After a lazy morning and fun afternoon out we came home, ordered a pizza and had a nice evening.  That is until John's PS3 decided to kick the bucket, which stinks a whole lot.  We plan on replacing it, it's more of a question of when.  John plays games sometimes at night to help him unwind, and we use it a whole lot to watch blu-rays and netflix.  Big bummer.  Oh well, I still count this weekend as a nice relaxing one overall. 

Cute Things My Kids Say vol. 1

The boys have been talking a lot more lately, and they are starting to say some pretty cute and funny things. Owynn is at the point where he is starting to put small sentences together.

Last Friday I had the day off for my birthday and we spent a good part of the day grocery shopping.  (I wanted to spend the day with my boys, Saturday night John and I had a fun date night.)  Anyways.  After spending several hours at two different stores we finally hit one of our local grocery stores on the way home.  We go there a lot because it is right up the street from our house and they usually have some pretty good prices.  The boys were asleep when we got there, but woke up when we went inside.  They had done really good all day, but when we got into the store Oliver demanded "cookie, cookie, cookie!"  So we headed off to the bakery and got them each a cookie and they were good as gold for the rest of our shopping.  Oliver knew where we were, and exactly what he wanted. 

We were over at John's parents on Saturday dropping the boys off, and we were talking about how my brother-in-law's birthday was coming up in a few days.  Last time we saw him was Christmas. He's going to school in another state right now and we don't get to see him as often as we' like.  As we were talking Owynn all of a sudden said "JoJo home far far away." I was like oooooh, that is so sweet.  They really enjoy it when uncle JoJo comes to visit.  (You should come and visit again this summer =)   ).  I was pretty shocked though because he said a full sentence, and we hadn't talked about JoJo living far away for a few weeks.     

Tonight John ran to the store, and ended up coming home with a dozen donuts.  The boys adore donuts, but we don't have them terribly often.  John walked in the door with the box and Oliver says "pizzi?" (pizza), then a second later Owynn says "dont!!!!" (donuts).  And then we had two super excited toddlers on our hands, yelling "dont dont dont!!" Which I guess may not be the best thing for them to be yelling... 

I just can't get over how much they're talking now.  Owynn today kept saying "my teddy is? my teddy is?"  The poor kiddo had to sleep without teddy last night because teddy managed to get peed on last night while I was at work.  So I gave bear a "bath" as soon as I got home this afternoon and since then Owynn has been watching teddy very closely (well as best as a 2 year old can).  So every time Owynn put teddy down today and forgot where he left him, he would come running over and ask where "my teddy is?"  I felt bad, he was pretty upset teddy needed a bath and couldn't snuggle with him.   

Wordless Wednesday: We're Ready for Baseball Season!

Everyone here is very excited for the coming baseball season!  Happy Wednesday!

Owynn and Oliver

Oliver

Owynn

Wordless Wednesday with

all photos are property of doubleotwins.com

Big Boy Beds: Update

The boys have been in their new beds for about two months now.  They have been enjoying their new freedom a whole lot.  It has been a challenge though trying to get them to stay in bed at night and especially at nap time.

Nap time right now is the hardest.  They still need a good nap every day, but they have decided that naps are over rated.  It just depends on the day and how tired they are, if they wind up napping.  If they don't nap they usually will play in their room for a couple of hours.  But on no nap days we usually end up with two very grumpy toddlers and Oliver like this during dinner:

Oliver asleep during dinner...again

Bedtime is a bit easier.  We still have to go in and tuck them in a few times before they finally fall asleep.  It usually takes them close to an hour to finally wear themselves out and fall asleep.  Tonight went quickly though.  They didn't nap, were exhausted, and John sat in their room with them until they fell asleep.  Which was a very welcome change from Saturday night when the boys decided that jumping on their beds was a good idea (it was in fact a very bad idea.)  The boys sleep in the same bed just about every night now.  Owynn likes his space, but Oliver always winds up in bed with Owynn one way or another.  I have found though that they sleep much better when they are together.  Owynn used to wake up around 3am every night, but he rarely does anymore.  They also are able to comfort each other better this way.  Occasionally Owynn will wake up crying and 90% of the time Oliver will comfort him and they will fall right back asleep without one of us having to go in to tend to them.  Plus they are super cute snuggled up in bed together!  All in all making the switch to toddler beds hasn't been nearly as bad as I had feared. 

Owynn and Oliver

Oliver at the top and Owynn.  I don't know how Oliver managed to get into bed with Owynn like this without waking him up.

This night was a struggle.  They are both asleep, with Oliver literally on top of Owynn.

Oliver and Owynn.  Owynn declared my socks were his, took them off my feet, and put them on his.  He slept with my socks on over his jammies all night.

Owynn and Oliver

all photos are property of doubleotwins.com

Our New Fish Tank

With our tax refund John and I decided that we could each get something big-ish for ourselves.  I decided on having some nice professional photos done of the boys (I am still deciding where to have them taken).  And John decided on a fish tank.  It took awhile to get it set up and running, but now we have 13 fish and the boys absolutely love it.

John had been taking the boys to the pet store a lot recently in anticipation of getting a fish tank.  The boys know what fishies are and were looking forward to getting some of our own.  We got 6 fish to start out with.  The boys were wicked excited while we were picking out the fish and bringing them home.  They kept saying "fishies home, fishies home!"  When we got home and put the fish in the fish tank instead of excitement we got giant tears.  John and I were pretty surprised until we finally figured out that the boys thought that when we brought the fish home that they would be able to play with them like other pets.  Poor kiddos, so we had to try and explain to them that fishies aren't for playing with and that they have to live in the water.  

Every night now we have to feed the fishies, say goodnight, and then turn on their nightlight.  The boys will let us know too if we happen to forget.  Every morning the second thing they do (first being running into the kitchen for milk!) is to say good morning to the fishies, turn on their light, and give them breakfast.  It is way too cute to hear them say "mornin fishies" and "night night fishies". 

 I took this picture of the tank after it had been set up for a few days, just before we got our first few fish.  It's fairly square and holds about 25 gallons of water. 

all photos are property of doubleotwins.com

Their Twin Bond Makes My Heart Melt

Some days having two toddlers drives me nuts, but I can't imagine life without them.  They do some pretty adorable things sometimes that makes my heart feel like it's going to burst with love.

We had a busy weekend and so the boys didn't get a nap either day.  (They were surprisingly well behaved though.)  Saturday we spent over at John's parents getting caught up on laundry.  The boys really enjoy going over and spending time with Nama and Papa.  Sunday we spent the day running errands and grocery shopping.  We stopped by the toy store, saw one of our good friends, and left with more toys than we came in with.  The highlight of the day was going to the pet store and picking out more fish for our new fish tank.  The boys love it!

We got home and the plan was to have an early dinner then put the boys to bed extra early.  Poor Oliver was so tired that at dinner he drank all his milk then immediately fell asleep in his high chair without actually eating dinner.  So we let him nap there for awhile while I colored with Owynn.  It's not terribly often that we get to spend one on one time with them.  At about 8:30pm we started getting them ready for bed.  As soon as I put on Owynn's jammies he immediately fell asleep on my lap.  And not just kind of asleep, the kiddo was totally out.  So we put him to bed and spent some time playing with now wide awake Oliver.  Play time didn't last long though, Oliver was upset that Owynn was asleep in bed and he was gated out of their room.  Finally Oliver got his point across that although he wasn't tired or ready for bed yet he wanted his jammies on and to be put in his room too.  He was much happier playing quietly (you know for a 2 year old) in his room while Owynn slept, than to play with us in the living room and watch cartoons.  We gave him strict instructions not to wake up his brother, and he didn't.  He can be such a sweetheart.  I can't get over how much the two of them love each other so much.

Right now it's nap time, Owynn is sound asleep and Oliver is just happily playing in their room.  Satisfied because he is with his brother.  He is usually the one who ends up crawling into bed with his brother at night too.  Every once in awhile he'll open the door just to make sure we are still out here.   

Sick Day

I have caught yet another cold, ugh!  Why is it that I am usually the last one to come down with something and end up getting it the worst?  I don't remember colds being this bad when I was younger.  After only working for 2 hours yesterday morning I thankfully managed to get someone to come in and cover the rest of my shift for me (which is almost unheard of on a Monday).  And I called in today because I feel like I got run over.  After taking a few different medications I am starting to feel somewhat human again.  Hopefully I've hit the worst of it and my cold meds will help me make it through the rest of the week.

My very special somepony has been taking very good care of me.  (Thank you sweetie!)  I came home from work yesterday and took a 3 hour nap, and I was able to sleep in really late this morning too.  John ran out to the store this afternoon and brought me home Sprite and Cadbury Creme Eggs (best Easter candy ever), man I love this guy!

     

It's Time for Some Friday Randomness!

Another week, another cold, I am beyond ready for Spring.  It's March now (and almost my birthday!) bring on the nicer weather!  This winter has been a bit rough illness wise, it seems like as soon as we get over one thing we catch another bug.  I'm coming down with another cold, and poor Oliver still has a pretty awful sounding lingering cough from his cold.

Right now John is playing to new Need for Speed video game and it looks like a lot of fun!  I may actually have to try it out.  It's not terribly often that I find a game that I really like.    It's been a long time, but I really enjoy the Burnout series.  I have a frightening fondness for their crash mode, where your goal is to cause the most destruction possible.   And I am good at it too, which makes it that much more scary.

I feel like I am having some sort of blogger's bloc.  The craziness of the holidays has past and now it's just cold and boring outside.  We haven't spent a lot of time out of the house this winter because of our pretty constant state of illnesses.  We did have an appointment on Wednesday morning, after which we all went out to lunch at a local bbq joint.  It was super yummy and nice to have lunch out together.  The boys enjoyed it a lot too; I don't know why I'm constantly surprised at all the different foods they enjoy.   This weekend we plan on going out to get some more fish for our new fish tank.  I think the boys will be pretty excited about that.

The boys are getting so big I can't believe it!  Last weekend we got them haircuts and they look so much older now.  Where did my little babies go???  Oliver has hair a lot like John's, it sticks up straight in places and pretty much does whatever it wants.  So we decided to cut his hair really short.  The lady used the electric clippers for pretty much his whole haircut and he was NOT a happy camper.  She used scissors mainly for Owynn's haircut and he did an awesome job.

I plan on downloading a bunch of pictures that I've taken lately to my computer this weekend.  Hopefully I'll get some decent blog posts with some pictures together this weekend.  You know if I don't feel like I want to keel over because of this cold.

This Friday randomness is brought to you in part by:
 




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