Sad News

I heard via a multiples board I frequent that a family has lost one of their 18 month old twins- Matteo. He had a fever, but was really a healthy little guy. My gut aches for this mother and father who found their baby lifeless one morning. How many times have I imagined a similar scenario as a paranoid new mom? Checking for breath in the middle of the night during those new days. You never dream that such a nightmare could be your reality as they grow. I also got to meet a newborn of our friends' yesterday afternoon. Such a different place of joy welcoming a new life! My heart is heavy today as God reminds me that 5 hours old or 18 months old, our children-our lives are precious and cannot be taken for granted. I mourn for this family today and selfishly thank God for mine. I will be squeezing them extra tight today-not complaining about whining, crankiness, diaper blowouts or any of those other silly things we groan about. Not when I know of a mother who would trade ANYTHING to have them back. God Bless little Matteo and his family. Help us all to remember how blessed we truly are.

Weekend Recap

We had a great weekend. We left town and headed down to Puyallup to spend the weekend with out families (who live 5 min from each other). Friday Sean had to work, but since my mom and sister did not I went down ahead of him with the twinnies. We spent a nice day at grandma's playing and exploring her big house. It was nice to have extra hands. The babes have especially taken to my niece who is 10 ( and I swear was JUST a baby herself), they love to sit and play with her which is a nice break for me! After Daddy joined us we had dinner and bed time, then my mom and I were able to go see a movie! If I ever get a break, going to a movie or out to dinner are at the top of my list!

Saturday was a FULL day. We went to breakfast with grandma and grandpa and auntie. They did great at the restaraunt surprisingly. Afterwards they took almost a 3 hour nap! JOY! I read my book with coffee on my the patio. It was bliss. After nap we went back to Sean's parents and had lunch and play time. Tate was not so happy in the heat (nearly 90 degrees), even in the shade with wetting his hair he got pretty cranky. So we played inside most of the day. We had afternoon nap and then dinner and BBQ with their neighborhood. We let the babies stay up about an hour after their usual bedtime, but we were all getting tired and cranky. After bed time Sean and I treated ourselves to some ice cream and passed out at 9:30PM! I even slept through the fire works booming all around the neighborhood. Thankfully, so did the babies.

Sunday we laid low in the morning and came back up to Seattle in the afternoon. I think we were all happy to be home. The twins refused their afternoon nap which resulted in some fussiness ( read:crying, screaming, whining and general misery). This resulted in a slightly early bed time and a tough time falling asleep for overtired eyes.

Sadly, I don't have any pictures because we lost our camera charger! Daddy is back at work and the twins are "napping" now. I am hoping for a nice loooong one like they took this weekend. I am 36 weeks pregnant now and just plain tired most of the day. I am hanging on for the delivery and then Sean will be home on 12 weeks of paid paternity leave! I like having some alone time with the babies during the week like this, but physically it's just getting hard.

Thanksgiving Thursday!

So much to be thankful for in my life! In reading the featured blogger over at Multiples and More I was reminded (Ok, convicted) to remember all the blessings we have! ( In no particular order)

1. Gracie Girl- what a sweet heart she is. She makes me laugh out loud with her new scowl and growl routine to get more cheerios. She knows when mommy needs her to play on her own for a minute and gladly (for the most part) shares toys and kisses with her brother. She is a trooper and a bright little light in our home. Oh and daddy is PUTTY in her hands, it's hilarious.

2. My Tater- What a boy! He is a crawling, climbing, cruising, ball of energy! Though he is a boy through and through, he loves to cuddle more than any child I have ever seen. An hour doesn't go by without him charging someone for a hug/cuddle and a kiss. He reminds me the joy in loving each other!

3. Our home. We have a place of our own, small as it may be- it is warm, safe, full of memories, cool in the summer, has a real fireplace for the winter, is painted cute, and has met our needs. Would I like a bigger house? Of course, but I am thankful that we haven't lost ours and that it has been a great first home for our family!

4. My husband who is AMAZING. Seriously, could not have designed a more perfect husband for me or father for our children. He is not perfect, but perfect for us! Unwavering support, love, patience and faith in our family with a silly side that leaves no day without laughter.

5. My Faith in God that spurs me on when I think I can't do any more, any better or anything. I am a unique, unrepeatable, miracle of God and for some reason He thinks I am worthy!

Creation

Happy Upcoming Birthday Peaches!

To answer the question: Where Do I Find Inspiration/what do I create with it?
I find inspiration as a teacher, at school working with my 1st graders. They often inspire me with their art work, talks we have, or writing. It is part of why I love teaching that age. They are unashamed to share their ideas and thoughts with the world! When i am inspired I try to create a new "lesson" out of it, create an opportunity to explore the ideas further or in a new way. It is so rewarding to learn with them rather than teach at them!

Making Room

Yesterday was a rare treat. The Husband and I had the whole day (ok until 3pm) together.  He took the day off so that we could attack to new plan/ house reorganization project. I am thinking this plan needs an official name, but I digress. We dropped the twinnies off at daycare and went after our list.  We went to Storables and designed a custom closet project for the nursery/mom's closet. Sean was SO excited, I had to laugh. He has been talking about organizing the closets since we bought this place 3 years ago and wanted to spruce the place up a bit. Well now it appears that nobody will be buying our condo so we have no choice, but to accept that we will be a family of 5 here. Hopefully not for long, but the fact remains. We have about 800 sq feet to work with and it terrifies me.  I can cry about it (and I do), but we need to start making some plans to make things as functional as possible.  In addition to revamping the closet, we are getting rid of our "dining room" table  to make more space for play in the living area. The table is currently being used for the computer desk anyway and I can't remember the last time we had dinner on it.  In it's place we will add some high shelving with baskets for toys and whatnot.  I am looking at this:

with some large baskets like these  :

We'd also like to add a plush rug and some cute baby seating like this:

Hopefully this will all come together in a cozy/functional way for all of us!

Not Me Monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

This is my first Not Me Monday! I definitely did NOT take my kids to daycare today so that my husband and I could shop fir the new baby. I did NOT enjoy walking at a leisurely pace and take my sweet time eating lunch before  going to pick them up.  Like a good mother I did take them to the park to play, but certainly did NOT eat half of their snack.  I applied sunscreen and watched the other kids play, while thoughts of how much cuter my twins are did NOT run through my head. That would be rude. When we got home I did NOT realize that the twins haven't had a bath in 4 days and was NOT horrified when I saw how much yellow gunk was in their ears.  After bath time, we definitely did NOT play the baby sign language dvd twice so that the twins would zone out and we could relax and make dinner. All in all, a wonderful day!

Not So Fast!

And now we have our first bloody lip. That didn't take long! Like a true little boy, after a cuddle from mom he was giggling and back at it.