Two for Twos-day, How do twins ride in the car???

They hold hands of course!!! This is how Kaleb and Kendyl often ride in the car! Sorry for the grainy picture, it was taken on my cell phone!!!


If you'd like to see more two-somes check out Eight is Great

Half days on Friday??

Our school has been doing some weird things the last couple of years. First of all, every Friday the kids only have class for half the day. The other half they have the option to go home early (11:55) or they can go to F.A.M.E. I forget what the letters exactly stand for, but its "fun class" pretty much. When fame first came out I refused to sign my kids up. It was 20 dollars PER kid, for every SIX weeks. Well, we're a one income household and that was just too much to afford. And the choices for the lower grade classes that my boys were in were things like "arts and crafts" and "the great outdoors". So they were either going to make a craft, or play outside. Well, for 40 bucks every six weeks I can do that at HOME!!! I really felt like they were pushing community education type classes on us. The things that they try to get the community to come pay for, only they charge more. I felt like maybe they weren't getting enough numbers in that, so they were forcing it upon us parents. My heart broke for those parents who couldn't' afford the classes but weren't stay at home moms/dads like I am. Because I had the option to just bring my kids home. Some people were forced to pay the money, because their kids couldn't come home 3 hours early.

Then, last spring they started to offer some for free, so I figured we'd give it a whirl. The boys started out in something called Mad Science. They did different science experiments, and came home with some really awesome take home things that they could experiment with at home. So, I was sucked in. They have since started to offer more choices on the free side of things. There of course are those that you could still pay for. Its things like bowling, swimming, YMCA, etc. They're things my boys would LOVE to do, but again, we don't have the money to sign them up for them.

Once a month there are half days on Friday, with no fame. And today happens to be one of those days. It throws a monkey wrench into our plans for the whole day!! I have to drop them off just before 8:00 am, and I have to pick them back up at 11:55am. When you have two little kids at home, and a house to run, that just doesn't leave much time on those days to get anything DONE!!! Like right now, I've gotten the twins breakfast, they're dressed, the wash is going, I checked my email (and of course have worked on this blog post!) , I still have to shower, and get myself dressed, do more unpacking, get to shopping, etc. So now, I have to figure out how to split up the day. Do I feed the twins extra early so that they're done well before picking up their brothers? Or do I feed them when we get home, and have two boys who've already HAD lunch hoovering over the food? Do I shop now while I only have two kids to worry about? Or do I wait and risk going out with all four, and totally killing my patients level for the day???


Sigh. The decisions that one has to make!!!!

An update on a song Todd did. . . .

I know I posted the link to "Persevere" a while ago, but they've updated the video, and you can see Todd!!! He's in the back, in the maroon shirt playing mandolin!!!


I'm proud, and had to share!!!



Todd and Persevere

Bipity-bopity-boo!!!

Where oh where has MY fairy God mother gone??? I'm telling ya I could sure use one first rate, Disney princess style, fairy God mother right about now!!!! One who will wave her magic wand and make all my wishes come true!!! But you know, more than ALL my wishes coming true, I'd just settle for her coming in, waving her magic wand and in one swoop clearing away the boxes, clutter and moving mess! It of course would magically show up in the exact perfect spot that it should be put away to. Places that are logical, and easy to find. Places where I won't have to hear the bellow of "MOMMY!!!! Where is ____ (insert favorite toy from each child here!)!!!!!!!" Some place easy enough for my husband to find without having to walk through the house opening cupboard after cupboard trying to locate something that in the end was right in front of his face. Yes, I definitely thing that a fairy God mother is in order!!! Come to think of it, I think every mommy could use one in her back pocket for those "running out of options" times!


If you couldn't tell from my rant there, I'm still unpacking. I'm still trying to settle in. And I'm STILL trying to find the right home for the many odds and ends that are left to be put away. Oh. . . .and did I mention that this is only talking about the main level?? Yeah. . .I'm still just working on restoring order to our main level of living. Many many MANY things just get brought to the basement, to the area that will eventually be the kids' living room in the basement. I have a pile down there that's growing bigger by the box full that will be for a garage sale. I have a pile down there that needs to be sorted through. Its all the out grown baby clothes that now go up to size 3T for both boy and girl. I'm going to thin it DRASTICALLY. Half of my girl clothes already get passed on to my nieces, but the other half get saved for IF my brother and his wife have a girl someday. . . and ALL the boy clothes have been saved. So I'm going to go through and pick out the best of the best and save for them, and give away/sell the rest. I just can't keep holding on to it all any more. They have told me MANY times that they will need the hand me downs from my kids, but they're not expecting, and I don't even know that they're to the point of trying. So its all starting to add up quickly and I want it GONE!!!

I've been reclaiming areas of the house slowly but surely. But its NOT an easy process. There are still many parts of the house that have work to be done on them, like the basement. That's why its collecting all of the boxes right now. It wasn't ready to be a kids living room, so its storage for now. And the entry room still needs some tile work to be done, and getting situated. This is the room that I'm the most anxious about. It will be my "day care room" It will be where my changing table gets set up, where the day care tables, and toys will be housed, and in all reality its the most important room in the house to get finished!!! Right now it's still housing tools, and supplies, and things that I'd HAPPILY see go out of the house. I'm going to be starting day care here in June with an ADORABLE little boy. I can't wait!!! His mommy and I went to high school together, and just reconnected last summer. I'm very much looking forward to the honor of watching their little boy, and getting to see more of her, and her husband!!!


I guess the long, and the short of it is we're getting there. We're settling in, we're working on things (and by WE, of course I mean ME because my husband is always busy and has a million other things going on!) And its slowly starting to resemble something that I think I can call a house. Something that can even start to think of as a home. Sort of!!!

I'm hoping in the next few weeks to still keep working on it, and get it to a point where I'm ready to show pictures of it. Right now I don't want to share them. Its boxes, clutter, and mess EVERYWHERE!!! No pictures happening!!!!


So again, I say "bipity-bopity-boo Fairy God Mother WHERE ARE YOU!?!?!?!"

Way back When-sday!

In an effort to get back on track, I'm trying to get back into some of my favorite blog posts, like Way back Whens-day!!!


In searching through my pictures, I came across these.. . the first time Dallas had a star kiss from Dairy Queen! It made me smile, because just two days ago we were at Dairy Queen with the kids and I had four very colorful little kids!!!! Dallas would have been. . . .probably around a year and a half in these picture, maybe a little older!








For more way back fun head on over to Twinfatuation.

Telling the kids proved to be a lot harder than I thought it would.

I didn't expect it to be so hard to tell the kids about the bird being dead. They weren't especially close to her, and in most instances they didn't like her out of her cage because she flew (couldn't clip her wings because of the dogs!) and then she'd land on them. And then of course they wanted to pet her, and she wanted no part of it. I expected a few tears, or a few "why did she die?" questions. . . but what wound up happening I didn't expect at ALL!

The last time they had to "deal" with a death they were too little to really understand what was actually going on. Dallas was only 18 months, and Gabe was just a few weeks old. That was when Todd's grandpa died. There have been a select few other distant family members that have passed away in the inbetween but the kids were never brought along to the funeral. They didn't know the person well, if at all, so we didn't feel it necessary to expose them to all the emotions that people were feeling when they wouldn't really understand. So, knowing that there may be a few tears I waited until Todd got home.

We Sat all four kids down together and Todd began talking to them. He started the talk with asking if they knew what happens to everything as it gets old (even though the bird was only about 10 years old, and they can live to 40 and beyond, we opted for the age answer to why). The only one of the kiddos who got the explination was Gabriel. He answered with "they die?" In a very questioning way. Todd then asked them if they knew what happened to things when they die. And in unison they all said "Go to Heaven". Todd then broke the news to them about Charolette. The twins didn't understand at ALL at first. Gabriel seemed to understand but didn't seem much for showing his emotions, and Dallas immediatly began to sob. Uncontrollable sobs. My heart just broke. I sat with him, and talked with him as Todd kept talking to the other kids. Todd asked the kids what they would like to do. Did they want to help pick a spot to burry her? Should we put her in a shoe box before that? And the answer to both was yes. I hadn't done anything with the bird other than to cover her cage, figuring we'd want to do something like that with the kids. Just as we were getting ready to go outside, Dallas said "this means we'll never get to see Charolette again. We'll never get to have her here again." And that is the point that it hit Kaleb and Kendyl. They BOTH started sobbing. Kaleb almost uncontrollably. He just kept saying "I'm going to miss my bird". Kendyl cried more quiet tears. Gave several loud sniffles, and headed outside.

Both of the boys asked to see her. So Todd put her in the shoe box and let the boys look. They looked at her, and inspected her closer than they've ever been able to before, becuase she was always on the move. Both boys gave her a little pet, and were surprised by how soft she was.

After Todd had the hold dug in the spot that the kids picked (right outside the boys' window well) Kaleb took the box and put it in. He didn't want anyone else to do it, HE wanted to do it. He told us "I have a magic touch. I'm going to make charolette come back alive." It was heartbreaking to watch.

After she was burried, the kids all kind of looked around like "what do we do now?" That's when the "why did she die" questions and the "can we get another bird and name her Charolette" questions started. We addressed each one, and headed inside to finish making dinner.

Kendyl came in and asked if she could call Grandma. That's usually what she does when she's upset. I'd given my parents, and Todd's parents a heads up that this might be coming. So Kendyl called my mom and choked out that charolette had died, and just cried on the phone with Grandma for a little while. She seemed to feel a little better after that. Kaleb asked to talk to her as well, but his sobs became more uncontrollable the more he talked about it.

While I was getting the kids settled down to eat Todd took the cage and stand out to the garage and put it in the rafters. He was hoping that the out of site, out of mind philosophy might help some.

The boys still woke up this morning a little teary about the whole thing, but I think the worst of it is past. I certainly wasn't expecting it to hit them as hard as it did. I've never had to face death through a childs eyes before, and I can tell you that it is much harder than dealing with a loss on your own. My childrens hearts were broken, and that just shattered mine to pieces.

Some days its really hard to be a mom.

Not looking like a good start to the week.

I started to unpack more this morning, and I happened to think that I haven't heard my cockatiel Charolette tweet today. She usually greets me good morning, and chatters on from her cage. When I went in to check on her I found her laying on the bottom of her cage. She must have passed away sometime between yesterday and today, because she was tweeting yesterday.

We wondered how she'd handle the move. She's gone to other houses before, while we're out of town and what not. But this was going to prove to be a bigger move for her, since this was to stay. She seemed to be doing ok, since we'd been in a week and no signs of stress. But in the end, it looks like the stress got the better of her.


She could be a nasty little bird, but she was MY bird. She usually only let me hold her, only let me pet her, and she reacted most to me. She had a few fun traits too. She would mimic the beeps of a phone dialing. She had it down, she would give 7 beeps, or 10 beeps and in the exact tone of the phone! But our personal favorite was that she mimiced my laugh. This was her trait that often made us wonder if Charolette wasn't infact a Charley, since with cockatiels its mostly the males who are vocal on a level like that!!!!


I will miss that little bird, even if she was a little mean. She was still our pet, and still part of our family. The kids don't know yet. I'm debating how I want to handle telling them. I'm sure we'll have to tell them tonight.

Here is Charolette just a few months ago. Its not a very good picture, but its the only one I can find at the moment.

Good bye pretty bird. You will be missed.