Does it get easier?

One of my main questions when the twins were born was always "Does it get easier?" I remember people would stop me when I was out with all of the kids and they would say "I have twins too! But mine are XX age now" I would always ask them my most pressing question (especially when the twins were under a year) "Does it ever get easier?" They would always give me that knowing look and say "it gets easier in some ways and harder in others"

You know what? They were right. I have to say that first year was the hardest. When the twins were babies it took everything out of me just to make it through each day. Especially with Will's reflux. When he had a bad day I wasn't sure how I was going to survive. Lack of sleep, three kids needing their mom, a house that needed cleaning, a husband working two jobs, hoping to shower at least every once in awhile, etc. Saying it was hard is an understatement.

Years two and three were easier but hard in their own ways. Terrible twos x two was not fun. Potty training x two - an adventure (although Ellie only took about a week. Will still has issues at times)

The twins are now 4 and Ben is 6. I have to say it really is a lot easier now. We still have temper tantrums and learning to share issues. But over all I have to say IT DOES GET EASIER!!!

They are now (not that they weren't always) very opinionated. Now they can voice them and they do - Loudly at times. But they are so much fun! It's been awesome to see their personalities develop. All three of them are so different. They all have a great sense of humor and make me laugh every day. I love how much they love each other. With three there does seem to be one left out alot of the time. Usually it's Will but he's pretty content to play with his Thomas Trains alone. He loves trains and waterfalls.  Ben and Ellie are usually off playing Avengers. (She is quite the tomboy. She HATES all things girly and is convinced she is someday going to marry Captain America lol) Ben is in first grade and loves Math and science. He doesn't love writing but likes to read.

If I could give a new twin parent any advice it would be

• Remember this too shall pass. The first year is hard.
• Recruit as much help as possible.
• Find time for yourself to rejuvinate you. It will benefit your children as much as yourself.
• You are not alone in this.
• Dont try to do it all.
• Take as many pictures as you can - the time really does fly quickly and you will forget how tiny they used to be.
• Hug your babies often.
• Encourage your children to grow up to be whatever THEY want to be. Not whatever YOU want them to be. Everyone will be much happier.

I am no way an expert on raising twins but I did survive the first four years and you will too!!

More than Dryer lint

Things I have recently found in my dryer:

• GoGo's
• rocks
• Chap stick (unfortunately on more than one occasion)
• a SD memory card
• a couple of Squinkies
• rocks
• a box cutter
• coins (on the rare occasion)
• dollars (on the even *rarer occasion) 
• rocks
• keys
• a ball point pen
• a small notepad
• more rocks
• an orange crayon. Or at least what was left of one.

Apparently I need to go through pockets more often.

Cursed

We have one spot in our house that seems to be cursed. I thought at first it was the rug but it seems I am wrong. (these are actually old pictures but you get the hint.)
Here is the spot in question:

Originally we thought a rug would look nice here. So we went to Target to purchase a nice rug. (actually two, one for the other room as well but you will meet that rug later in this story. He is an intrical part. Why I consider the rug a he I'm not really sure but we'll just go with it for the sake of continuing...) Lovely rug. Great colors. Its actually a little brighter than it looks in this picture. The colors are deep but not this dark.

We have this rug for awhile with no incidents. Then Will gets sick and barfs on it. So the rug gets taken out to be washed. And since we are really on top of things and don't like to procrastinate, the rug sits in the garage for approximately 3 months. Then I accepted an offer to have a demonstration on a Kirby vacuum cleaner.

(Mind you I knew I wasn't going to buy a $2500 vacuum cleaner - even if they could discount it to $1300 because seriously who has that much for a vacuum cleaner? I will say I am impressed with that vacuum and if I ever have that amount of money to blow on a vacuum you know which one I'd be buying. But back to my story which has already way longer than it needs to be.)

So the nice gentleman comes in an cleans both rugs for free! Woohoo!!! I can finally get my rug back in place. So rug gets moved back in and everything looks great again. Then the babies (who aren't babies anymore. They turn 3! can you believe it 3?! in 11 days!!!) get sick. Very sick. Will was first and almost immediately threw up on the rug. So the rug gets moved back to its spot in the garage until the time comes that we can wash it. (mind you this was January that they got sick.)

So last week we are going to have people over and I am cleaning the house. I decide we need a rug back in the family room because it will make it look cozier and that's where everyone hangs out anyway. So I move rug B  (remember him? Here's a pic of him. Isn't he nice looking. Beautiful cream color. Again lighter in real life than it shows in the picture) from the living room into the family room.

That very night, Molly (our new dog) barfs on the rug.

Well, to make a long story short...
Too Late!
{oooh, what movie is that from?! First person to guess correctly will win some sort of prize.)

Rug B is now sitting next to Rug A in the garage for a yet undetermined time. 

Is this not the cutest song ever?!

I have a real post coming soon. But I couldn't resist posting this. My niece sings this song and its so cute! (The way she sings it is so much cuter than these guys but I don't have a video of her singing it so you are stuck with this version)



Peanut Butter and Jelly Song


I’m peanut butter and you are jelly

and we’re so happy on our little piece of bread

I remember the first time that I saw you,

sitting across the cupboard with your other jelly friends



You’re so sweet and I am chunky

You’re low fat, well I’m working on that

Cause I’m peanut butter and you are jelly

And we’re so happy on a little piece of bread



I met grape and strawberry

But you’re raspberry and that’s my favorite kind

Please excuse me for my  recent stint with honey

I was looking at the label and not at what was inside



You’re so sweet and I am chunky

You’re low fat, well I’m working on that

Cause I’m peanut butter and you are jelly

And we’re so happy on our little piece of bread



I’m so glad that I discovered, you in the cupboard

I hope you’re glad too

From now on, we’ll be stuck together

But what could be better than being stuck with you



You're so sweet and I am chunky

You’re low fat, well I’m working on that

Cause I’m peanut butter and you are jelly

And we’re so happy on our little piece of bread

Comments

I bet you're thinking this is another post where I beg ask for comments. Well you're wrong :) This is asking for advice (ok I guess since I'm asking for you to respond I am in fact begging asking for comments. So I guess you are right.)
 
How do you handle responding to comments? Do you email the commenter directly or do you just post another comment after them? I feel bad about not responding to comments all the time. I read them and think I need to respond to that but then I can't figure out if I should respond in the comments so everyone can read the response, but what if the commenter doesn't come back to reread the comment section? or should I email the commenter but then everyone doesn't get to read the answer? or should I create a whole new post to answer the comments? Maybe I should do that. I'll write a post where I go through all the comments and respond to each question. I guess that would be more like a question and answer session...
 
:Sigh:
 
I think I'm over thinking this whole thing. If I haven't responded to your comments in the past please forgive me, I'm trying to do better.

Finally

So after messing with it most of the night last night and half of today, I changed my blog background. I had to redo it quite a few times to get it right.

I've been playing with the digital scrapbooking stuff and made the background. (I didn't actually make the papers or the elements. I just put them together)

I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. Also, I think I figured out how to be able to change it whenever I want without the hassle that I went through this time!
YEA!

My how times have changed

My mom sent me this ad

I can't imagine this would pass safety requirements now lol.

My favorite websites

I don't really have alot to post about lately.I have a doctor's appointment for the babies on Monday. They are 6 months now! I can't believe it's gone by so quickly. I''m going to do a milestone/update post after the appointment (once I find out how much they weigh and how they're doing)

Since I don't have a lot to say I'm going to share my favorite websites. (Not my favorite blogs since there are too many to list. BTW If your name isn't on my blog list and you visit my blog regularly let me know so I can add you!) So here they are (in no particular order):

MySpace
Kellymom - great information for breastfeeding support
Snopes - Check out all urban legends here! (Before I forward any email I check here first to see if its true or not)
Redfin - great place to check out real estate listings
The Toy Maker - lots of fun paper toys
Who called us - You can check out who those annoying 800 numbers are. I always check out unknown numbers before I answer them.
Haunted Paper Toys - These are AMAZING toys made out of paper. Perfect for Halloween.
Coloring pages - Great pages to print for the kids to color
Coloring Book - More great pages to print and color (They have a lot of coloring pages from our old cartoons!)
Ask Dr. Sears - Information on medication doses for kids and tons of other children-rearing questions answered.
TwinStuff - Message board for moms and dads of twins, triplets and more
TwinsTalk - another board for twin parents
Oriental Trading Company - Inexpensive party supplies
HTML help - help with HTML formatting
I know there are more

Free Bag Giveaway

Go to http://www.handbagplanet.com/ and register to win! They are giving away a free handbag every hour for 24 hours on Oct 15th!

There's absolutely no catch - this means no shipping/handling fees or credit card required. Yes, it's really that simple!

(thanks Chelsea for telling me about it!!)

Our new schedule

Things have been going really well lately. We've finally gotten the babies on some semblance of a schedule. They get up at 7 (or somewhere around there.) and I've learned that no matter who wakes up first I have to wake the other up at this time. If I don't the whole schedule gets thrown off. Sometimes Ben gets up before the babies and sometimes he gets up while I'm nursing. If I'm nursing the babies then Ben will crawl up next to me and watch TV until I'm done.

 They are up for roughly two hours and then they go down for a nap. Naps are still unpredictible. Sometimes they go down for 30 minutes and sometimes 2 hours. There's no rhyme or reason to how long they will sleep at nap times. (I don't wake the second one when the first wakes up)

After they wake up I feed them and change them then they "play" for about two hours. "Play" consists of the swing, the exersaucer, or a mat on the floor. We usually rotate through all of these at least once.

Then they go down for a second nap around noon. Again it could be 30 minutes or it could be 2 hours. I don't wake the second up this time either. It does make the "schedule" off sometimes but that's ok.

We do another round of eating, changing, playing and if it's before 4:30 I let them go down for a third nap. If it's after 4:30 then they don't get the third one. At about 5:30 or 6:00 we go up to Grandma and Branka's house to kill time waiting for bedtime. We usually play out side (by play this time I mean sit in a chair and watch Ben run wild. Sometimes I will hand the babies off to Grandma and Branka and jump on the trampoline with Ben)

At 7:00 we come back home and get ready for bed. Every other night they get a bath. Then I nurse them and lay them in bed whether or not they are sleeping. Sometimes it takes a little while for them to fall asleep and sometimes they just go right to bed.

Ben gets to stay up until 8:00 and then he goes down too. Tonight I had all three babies in bed asleep by 8:10!!

I've started something new. During the first nap, I do preschool with Ben. On Friday I created a lesson plan for the week. This week we are practicing the letter A and learning about Bats. I've found some awesome worksheets on the Internet*. We do a letter worksheet every day and then do either a worksheet or a craft on whatever the theme is. Tomorrow we are making bats out of egg cartons. We also made cookies today during the second nap. We made Cake Mix cookies. (so easy!! 1 box of cake mix, 1/2 cup of vegetable oil, 2 eggs. Mix and bake at 350 for 11 minutes) He loves to make cookies.

It seems to working really well. Fingers crossed it's getting a little easier.

*Internet Websites that are awesome for preschool worksheets*
Enchanted Learning (This is a members only site but I believe there is a free side)
Coloring Pages
The Toy Maker

I'll post more as I come across them. If you have any great websites please feel free to leave them in the comments and I will add them here.

Hilarious

I saw this video on another blog I read. I laughed so hard. (I'm not even sure why. but I think it's hilarious) I love the kid's accent. It makes me want to go live in England so my kids can talk like that. (and is it just me or does Charlie look an awful lot like Will?)



Did anyone else think of Charlie and Lola when they heard this?

Live and Learn

I think we actually did find the key! CIO seems to have worked. Tonight I laid the twins down at 7:50 and they were both asleep by 8:00!!! I no longer wake Ellie up to nurse if Will wakes up in the middle of the night.

I really wish we had done this with Ben. He fell asleep in the car at 5:00 and slept for 30 minutes. He didn't go to sleep until 9:40pm. Oh well such is life. At least they are all asleep now.

I spilled Rasberry Lemonade on my wireless keyboard yesterday :( Do you have any idea how hard it is to use a computer without a keyboard?. Thankfully I got a new one today. It's awesome!! It's a Logitech Wave

It has buttons that I can program so I can just push them and go to my pictures or the internet or the calculator. or whatever. I ♥ it.

Sept 11, 2001

I had only been married for 9 months. I woke up at 6:30 so I could get ready for my job at Dayle McIntosh Center. I got my bowl of cereal and turned on the computer to check my email. I logged on to my AOL account and I saw the image of the first tower on fire. I ran into the bathroom to tell Jim (He was in the shower getting ready for school) While trying to watch the news, I got ready for work. I carpooled to work with my coworker. I don't remember doing much talking. I do remember talking to Jim on the cell phone. He would keep me updated. I remember being in shock. I remember being afraid that Jim would be called back to active duty (he served 2 years in the Navy and was on Inactive Reserves for 5 years - that ended in 2003 so I don't have to worry about that anymore) We didn't do much work that day. I remember sitting in the conference room with the tv on.

It was very surreal. I couldn't believe something like that could happen in America. I remember wanting more than anything to just be home with my entire family.

I don't think I will ever forget that day.