The 4th Louisiana style

I'll get to that in a second.

Ok so first - finally gave up the idea of two blogs (one more anonymous "online" and one for IRL) But figured might as well keep a little tab on security so hubby will remain "hubby" and while the girls' names are used, at least those are nicknames, as is mine - not that "secure" and annoymous but figured well enough. And I set up a separate email for the blog. I'm figuring if someone wants to find something out badly enough, that'll happen regardless. Kind of like robbery. I'm pretty sure if a master burglar wanted in our house, they could pull it off. But we lock the doors and such in general to ward off the "petty" theives just looking for an easy entry. Not a great analogy but you get the picture.

Well hubby's b-day happens to be July 4th / Saturday. After a bit of pondering, he came up with what he wants to do: a crawfish boil. So 80 pounds of crawfish are going to be making their way to brother-in-law's house. Live crawfish. Now I'm not a vegetarian - however, I do not like to see what I'm eating in it's happy "still alive" state. If I had to actually kill a chicken for dinner, then yeah, I'd be a vegetarian. So I'm not exactly thrilled to have to watch the "carnage" Saturday afternoon. But I'll probably go over just to see what 80 pounds of crawfish look like. Hubby also is making it a bit of a "theme" - he's going to make a large volume of hurricanes as the drink for the day. I'll have to oversee that of course. Hurricanes are really tasty but they also seem to be an easy drink to completely screw up.

Allie not so keen on showing off her sun hat.

And trying to roll over - not quite there. Kind of like tummy time. Half the time we try it Allie decides "ok i'll just lay here and suck on my hand"

So off work this week (every year we close for a week around the 4th) Hubby and I may try a lunch outing with the girls as this week isn't the 100 degree crud we had last week. Not that it's the first time the girls have gone out to lunch, but with hubby and I working on different days and such it will be the first time him and I get to venture out with them. Guess I'm a bit of a pansy in taking them out a lot right now -not sure if they need to get out more and used to it or that I do. One problem is we're a good 20 minutes from most places and by that time one (or in really fun instances both) usually has decided "yeah not so much liking this car seat thing."

Seriously?

So call it my mean streak but at this rate I'm going to start a "stupid people Sunday" blog post. Is that too harsh? We just got home and along the way watched a guy hit a stopped car that was sitting at a red light. Huh??? How do you manage to hit a non moving car that has been sitting there for a good five minutes? Lucky for us we were the first car at the stop light and the guy hit the car behind us. Well, probably lucky for the guy. Hubby would have probably killed him (exaggeration but you get the point) We were rear-ended Christmas Eve (I was pregnant so of course that meant going to the hospital to get things checked out: not how I wanted to spend Christmas Eve night. Anyway I thought the hubby was going to seriously injure the kid (like I should be calling a 17 year old a kid?) Honestly would he ever hurt anyone? Eh no but if you want to make hubby go from zero to full blown temper, do something stupid in a car.

Anyway so back to today. That was one incident. Then there was the driver that put on his brakes while on the on-ramp to a highway. Hmmm that's not exactly the point of an acceleration lane dude. Hubby and I tend to have a lead foot, and some can say that speeding isn't good either. But compared to what I've seen lately on the roads, if speeding (and I'm talking nothing excessive at least in my opinioin) is the worst thing I do while driving, I'd say that's good. I just wish in general people would make driving the first (how about only?) priority when in the car. We barely made it through a stoplight today because the first car at the light didn't go when it turned green. In fact it took 2 other cars honking plus us before they went. (Gee and why? Cause they're on the phone) Not to mention when you have two babies who both have a tendency to be less than happy when the car stops, almost missing a light for that reason tends to make one slightly annoyed.

Again just a personal pet peeve. Espcially when it affects someone else. Going back to the Christmas Eve story - the guy told my hubby "oh I wasn't looking." We were stopped (yielding) to get on a highway since there were other cars coming. So you're telling me the guy wasn't looking and about to merge onto a busy highway? Not to mention if something had happened to one of the babies, not to mention having to spend three hours at a hospital - gee thanks guy.

So any pet peeves you'd like to get off your chest? (ok unless your pet peeve is when people complain about driving)

Ok end of rant. Not to say I'm perfect or that everyone won't make a mistake while driving. Just seems half the time people forget they're in a very heavy object traveling at a decent rate of speed - your attention probably needs to be on that fact.

So my other rant from yesterday was probably fueled by having nothing to wear still except early stage maternity clothes. I can't justify spending the money so we'll hold off. The thought was tempting for a bit but better off not doing it.

Ah once again last night we thought we had it - bottle at 9, put them to bed, life is good. Until 11:30 when a storm came through and woke both of the girls up - not sure if just waking up annoyed them or the noise scared them, but they both were not happy. At least they went back to sleep after a few minutes of rocking. (while the storm was still going on so they can fall asleep to the same noise that woke them up - weird)

And lately on occasion they prefer not to be held during their after-bottle vertical time. This morning was such so we said "ok" and let them chill together.


Or also the boppy version (they seem quite content in their boppies. Yesterday we thought "ok we'll move the boppies into the living room and they can sit there." Well that didn't work -they fussed. Turns out you have to move the whole "baby in boppy" as one piece and they're happy. If you move the boppy into another room and then put the baby in it, no dice. Strange -they do have their own little emerging personalities but there are a lot of things they both tend to like or dislike.

This one amuses me - not sure but seems Allie is wondering "hmm Mommy likes to watch the ceiling fan too?"


Their love for any ceiling fan still cracks me up. When we have taken them to my parents house, they tend to look up in the living room as to ask "where is the fan? Why does this establishment not have one?" Hubby's aunt thought they were so quiet / happy at her house for Father's day - of course - she has an insanely huge fan in their great room. Both girls spent all afternoon in awe of it probably.

Turning to the dark side............

Eh so I'm a Star Wars fan for lack of a better title.

So hubby as mentioned within reason pretty much just wants me happy (I say within reason as there are financial limitations, so forth) Well I've been a bit discouraged lately with the, albeit to a small degree, bit of loose skin in the tummy region. I mentioned that on a lot of message boards it seems a tummy tuck sometimes is the only fix. Not that hubby wants me to get one - he says I look fine, especially considering the fact 3 months ago I had two kids, but if I want to, then look into it. (Of course that would be easy since I'm dying to have a scar removed too - shall we say somehow I managed to burn my wrist trying to put a frozen pizza into the oven - see why I don't cook? But I digress...........)

But wait..........I'm the "I'll never have plastic surgery" poster-child. I want the girls to grow up happy and okay with how they look / have a great self image. Am I actually considering "crossing over" just to regain my old shape? And for that matter we're not talking about a huge difference. I know there are a lot of moms that don't mind their body changing a bit but call me vain, I'd like to be my pre-pregnancy size. I'll exercise however long / often I need to but if loose skin is the issue, then hmmmm, what to do, what to do.

I'm not a patient person. Having twin newborns can be a trip without it and I'm trying to at least become a bit more patient but eh, well, we'll call it a very slow process. Also the reason after just 3 months I'm complaining about how I look. But hey, I have one size of clothing and all my pretty clothes are just sitting in the closet taunting me. So maybe I should revisit this issue in a few more months and see if a little more time will fix things. True it'll drive me nuts.
So what extreme would you (or have you gone) go to to fix any physical issue?

Is this, all things considered, a pretty petty issue? Oh hell yes. Far more worse things that could be going on and I should, and am, grateful we have two healthy girls and in general life's pretty nice right now, besides maybe needing some sleep. And I feel petty in even talking abuot it. But hey, I liked how I looked pre-kiddies (ok and I tend to be a perfectionist - not a trait I'm too happy with but it is what it is) And I'm too budget-concerned (haha pc way to say cheap) to go buy a new wadrobe. I'm going to somehow find my newfound patience and give it a longer while. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised in a few months and not have to ponder the question. Or realize for such a small thing it's not worth it. We can hope. Like I've ever been the type to walk around a lot in a bikini anyway so why am I even worried about it. Not to mention the money issue - for what it costs, way not worth that amount of money.

No cute tangent to switch topics but the girls are pulling an excessively fussy day today (maybe it's the heat or just that age but yikes) Stereo crying is just not fun. Not to mention both girls lately have discovered this new high pitched screeching yell that just, for me, is like nails on a chalkboard. I'm surprised all the glasses in our china cabinet don't shatter into a million pieces. Last night they took their "bedtime" bottle nicely and hubby and I thought we were golden - put them to bed and no problem right? Oh we were so wrong. All of a sudden they both decided to have a 45 minute scream-fest. We even separated them to make sure they weren't sort of feeding off eachother and that did nothing. But just as quickly as it started, they both stopped and went to bed. Hoping they don't pull an encore of that tonight. Best (or worst) part is they'll smile right afterwards (aw...........how cute.......I think)

Friday Shoot Out - Colors of the Rainbow

So if you're not familiar with this, read about here.

Didn't get out too much this week, will have to do a bit more for next week.
Moving on - here's what we got. Most of these are from nursery / winery we stop at usually around this time every year when their enormous field of day-lilies are starting to bloom.








You can take a golf cart to drive in between the rows of flowers - they're not all quite in bloom but pretty close (they did have one year that a few deer ate all the blooms in just a few days - I'm not sure what they did to prevent that from happening - we did see one deer wandering around)








I'll throw in a little gold



The little town festival going on this weekend



And in other news - the girls have gone now a week pretty much sleeping from 10 until 5:30.
Now I just have to figure out how to do that.

3 months

So they're three months old today.........I'm not quite sure if it feels much shorter or a lot longer than that? Sort of one long extended day. And of course they (we) are stuck inside with the weather.

Nice, in triple digits! (yuck) For amusement this weekend, this little festival has a baby contest. I thought just for kicks we'd do it (and then sadly watch me end up on the Toddlers & Tiara show) but with the temperatures not changing, figure we'll keep them out of the heat.

At least we haven't majorly screwed up (yet) -ok well last night I did nick Allie's finger while working on her fingernails and she, to put it mildly, wasn't too thrilled. So guess I'm not as "bad-ass" as I thought with the baby nail clippers.

Although I get frustrated at times; hopefully that'll ease up as they get older / I get a little more accomplished - then again don't ask me why I started blogging when free time is already non-existent. I want to be like that girl from "Out of This World" - if anyone ever watched that - where she put her fingers together and could stop time. That would come in so handy. I was thinking of doing a second blog for non-IRL (a place to just vent and let stuff out) but not sure I have the time. Could do a post here or there and password protect it, but a. would people even ask for the password, and b. would the IRL'ers be offended. It's not so I can complain about people IRL, but just some things I don't need everyone I know to know -if that makes sense. So I'll see if I end up doing either.

For their 3 month "birthday" a few pics
the little peanut gallery at the hospital back in March


And today playing around (one guess what they're staring at)



Does it look that entertaining to you? Go figure, we didn't need to buy them any toys.



An easy comparison in the car seats
Going home (sheesh they were tiny!)



Heading out to the grocery store earlier today.




Was a short trip - actually got to use for the first time my "small" diaper bag for when we just need a few thing (stylish isn't it?) Though doesn't get much use - usually have to cart a whole lot of stuff around with the two.





Last random pic
:p - because everyone needs a cat to match their bedding

(yes i'm kidding, that is not why we got the cat - but it is where she likes to spend most of the day away from the two new little things intruding on her space.

Monday fun

Well the girls apparently have a preference on their sleep environment? At our house so far, they'll take a 9:30 (ish) bottle and then wake up about 2-3 for the next. Which isn't too bad so we thought. They spent the last night at my parents house (my parents take the girls for a night here or there to give us a night to sleep, which I'm very grateful for) and they went from 9:45 until quarter 'till 6. ???? Hello? That's great but hello girls, can we sleep that long at our house?

So the hubby and I are trying to figure out why they sleep longer there vs. here. Next step is to turn off their light in the nursery. We (well hubby) put in a dimmer in their nursery and we leave it on during the night. At my parents, the room is dark. So we'll see.

In general I'm trying to resume a bit of my "normal" routine. Exercising, having a good time here or there, sleeping............... just trying to recoup a little of my "former" life pre-IF and pre-kids. The girls are a top priority for sure but I have to be multi-faceted. Yes I have two little newborns but I'm still "me". I spent the first month or so doing way too much and just got drained. Now I'm going to balance all the aspeccts of my life which now include (gasp) the "mother" role. Somehow it'll all work out right?

So enough complaining. We had a nice father's day - a crab and bratwurst lunch at my parents followed by a trip to a nursery to see the flowers blooming. Hubby went over to his parents to visit and I decided just to chill for the evening.

The hubby and Allie on father's day.

Okay, so the girls are very good at not smiling for the camera. Audrey had the biggest grin and I had the camera ready, and well, you see what happened. (don't flame me, Audrey was fine and had no complaints at getting kicked in the face so I feel ok in posting the pic) They just don't want us to get a good pic eh?




Apparently Allie preferes to move around hence she started out like this:




And about 15 minutes she decided to change her position


So my father is a huge Clint Eastwood fan. (don't ask - I grew up on Broadway plays, Motown, and Clint) So for fun he "designed" two onesies for the girls to wear in honor of Clint / "Dirty Harry." But apparently my mom nixed using a .44 Magnum so they went with a pop gun shooting flowers. Audrey was modeling said clothing.



Off to watch another "True Blood" episode!

Father's day, ICLW and summer in STL

Well long post probably but a bit going on today - my first venture into ICLW, the first father's day for the hubby. And as usual it's summer in Saint Louis, which means for the upcoming week it's going to be just plain hot and miserable. Yes it's nice we get all four seasons but sometimes that tends to be not so fun. Like expecting 105+ heat indices this week. Gotta love humidity right? Not that I'm not used to it since I've lived here all my life (yeah yeah grammar-nut I am, I used a double negative) but it's a pain since it is too warm for the girls so we can't take them out in the stroller.

for the ICLW'ers -Welcome! I started the blog a bit post IF and pregnancy so it's more about parenting the little peanut gallery we now have. We started TTC in September 2007 but that's sort of a simple way of putting it. Not much to TTC when someone (aka myself) doesn't have a cycle right? So started seeing an RE pretty quickly and 11 (long) months later it all paid off. Ironically the last cycle I was willing to try before a much needed emotional and financial break. Much to our shock, it paid off double time and we were expecting twins. My pregnancy was pretty much in two parts - first half, major morning sickness troubles and second part, on modified bedrest to prevent PTL. Small summary of our girls here. Any questions or advice on TTC and pregnancy (or twins) hit me up.

And for part three - father's day and the Multiples QOTW, what makes the hubby a good father. It's very early in that role, so I'm sure that will be an evolving answer but I'll start off with a few thoughts and of course pictures (because a post with no pictures just wouldn't be any fun)

This fall will mark our 10th year as a couple (married for three) So I could make a very long post on what has all transpired over a decade but again, that would be a novel. We've both changed (guess you call that growing up) but in terms of a relationship, it's been very strong throughout. While having two newborns upped our stress level, he's taken a lot in stride and I'd be pretty lost at time if he weren't around.

So what about the hubby: stubborn at times, yes, but he also would do anything to make all his girls happy. Not sure when he brought up the "baby talk" originally if he ever thought it would go quite as it did, but, while it may have been a simpler plan to have one kid and see about a second down the road, dealing with IF, a bit riskier pregnancy, and two newborns at once - you tend to find out you can deal with a lot more than you thought, and somehow it'll work out. He has had no problems jumping right into doing all the diapers, feedings, you name it. Actually he finds diaper changing amusing. I think he's changed more of them than I have to be honest, which I don't mind of course. I at first was hoping to have at least a boy - you know someone he could take hunting, go play golf, do "boy" things - but he loves his girls and even was the one to pick out their little pink coming-home outfits. (well he still hopes they'll take to golf) I'm a bit short on time (about to leave) but I'll end with some pics.

A bit of a nervous smile but that's expected (about 5-10 minutes after their arrival)

Now the next pic is one problem with twins who at least currently look alike - I didn't keep track originally so I don't know who he's holding. The 2nd pic I do remember - that's Allie and her daddy.

And he did most of the work to turn our temporary exercise / sega room into their nursery

And a nod to my own father

For now Happy Father's day and I'm off to lunch

Lazy day

Well I've been pretty tired the last couple of days with today no exception. My large iced latte didn't seem to help - I think caffeine doesn't work as a replacement for sleep apparently (duh)

Couple that with another hot day (the storms last night at least provided a bit of relief but apparently we'll be back up to 100+ heat indices by mid-week. So couldn't really take the girls out anywhere so we stayed in and were lazy all day. Well hubby did cut the grass early in the morning but besides a few small household chores, been pretty idle.

Allie of course has no problem with that.

And Audrey spent the afternoon staring at her ceiling fan (which has been off all day - apparently that doesn't matter to her)

So I'll have to sit down when I get a chance to read up on the new camera and what it can do. So far the zoom is about all I've played with.

Of course our "third child" I guess has been feeling a bit neglected lately so last night she decided she'd just jump on hubby's lap baby and all and try for some kitty-love. Not sure what she thinks of the girls - usually she ends up getting kicked when she ventures too close to their bouncy seats.

Not much on for tomorrow - lunch with my parents and maybe try to spend some time outdoors.

Friday "My Town" Shoot-out - Metal

Ok so via a few blogs (here and here) I came across this. Sounded interesting and at least if for nothing else, gives me a chance to play with the new camera and features beyond just point and click (well eventually). The rough idea is to show off "your" town and just to take some pics. I'm not a photographer but figured I'd give it a shot (and crud that is a lousy pun!) So we'll see if I have any creative brain cells or should just stick to the math and science realm. Of course I found the blog yesterday so not much time to find some really cool subject matter.

Remnant from a casting tree in brass (from work)

My mailbox (again never said I was creative but least shows all the trees and such around where we live which is one reason I like the area)

The next two are just for fun - we moved into our current house in the fall of '07. The hubby was going to take over this pink metal chair left by the previous owner to his dad (said he could use it) Well I took the pic in our yard so, um, yeah hasn't quite made it over to his parents house. :)

(and for the light fixture, that has also been idle since we moved in. Old house had no lighting so we bought a few lamps like the one pictured, but the new house has overhead lighting fixtures in every room so not sure what to do with the lamps quite yet.




The gates to my in-law's property

Not a great pic at all but is sort of synonymous with Saint Louis (haha and i couldn't get down to take a picture of the obvious metal Saint Louis landmark, the Arch)

This is on the way to morning coffee - so you go from this type landscape (and biking / walking trails are very common around here- especially the Katy Trail)

to this in a few minutes -

So the peanut gallery is about due for their lunch bottle so more later. At least we have a/c finally.

Money, food & wine

Hah- alternate title: hubby's favorite things.....................

Well, Tuesday night with a few loud pops and a sudden dimming of all the lights in our house, our A/C decided to completely bust. Burnt up from the inside or something - either way no way around it, time for a new A/C.


At least it let me bring up the long postponed project of the hubby and I finally trying to create a budget of sorts. I've been wanting to with the girls to see how much (even "if") we save a month or where we could cut costs. So with having to purchase a whole new cooling / heating deal, good time to figure that out.


So in my online research ('cause what else is there to do on a 5 minute lunch break) I came across via MSN a blog post on cutting down when eating out which caught my eye.
(and anti-plagarist I am I even emailed the blog-writer to see if it's okay to post and link to his blog)


From Casual Kitchen

A second strategy is to buy the cheapest bottle of wine on the menu. Not only is it almost always a legitimate bargain, it also reveals one of the most clever profit-maximization techniques used in restaurants today.What exactly is this technique? Well, have you ever bought the second cheapest bottle of wine on the wine list? I sure have, but since doing the research for this article, I won't do it any more. Remember, diners resist buying the cheapest bottle of wine on the menu--after all, that would be cheap, wouldn't it? So restaurants, banking on this tendency among their customers, do a clever bait and switch: they take an inexpensive wine, mark it up massively, and sell it as the second cheapest item on the wine list. The restaurant makes a ton of profit on what seems like a bargain, and you spend more money that you should have on a wine that's overpriced.

Guilty............. Not that I refrain from the cheapest bottle not to look cheap, but the cheapest bottle has to be bad wine, right? Guess not........... Ugh, that's what I usually do, sucker I am. But how brilliant of a marketing strategy. Makes total sense too. I mean we all know alcohol has quite a markup in general but still............


Bad part is, since we tend to drink quite a lot of wine here or there, we tend to know most wines on the average wine list, and what those would cost at a local grocery store or what have you. I'd almost rather pick an unknown and not know the markup vs. ordering a bottle knowing exactly how much I'm "overspending." At least now I'll just go with the cheapest. If you read more wine posts on this blog, turns out in blind tastings, most people can't tell a difference anyway. I'm tempted to try that out. Hubby's brother and sister-in-law like to drink a particular wine (pinot grigio / chardonnay combo) that costs under $3. I think it tastes horrid, but now I''m wondering if maybe at least partially my mind was made up based on knowing where they bought it and the cost. Hmmm.............


As for food, guess for my budget I'll kiss Starbucks goodbye. And hubby can do the same for white castle hamburgers. I'm not the cook between us (obvious statement for those who know me) so hubby can work on how to cut down on our food costs. He also has the idea on trying to become a food critic since that's usually his role whenever we got out to eat. Not sure where he could start but sounds interesting as far as a venture.


But at least for tonight, we're really helping the budget: free wine (I'm not sure if it's a good or bad thing, but seems most family members this year decided to buy me wine for my 30th birthday. And free wine usually tastes pretty damn good.)


And for the obligatory kid shot: Audrey and her play-mat







I'm having fun with the new camera - good zoom function







(aw cute isn't it? Ha - they're really cute when they ate $30 worth of flowers when we were trying to sell our last house.............)

The weekend

Ok so a bit of a crazy / packed weekend. Not to mention everything we had planned going on, a few things "unplanned" decided to happen to really throw a wrench into the mix.

The plan was a charity golf scramble on Friday, my birthday on Saturday (i.e. a couple hours at a spa thanks to the hubby and meeting with friends at a bar for some darts at night) and an early Father's day gathering on hubby's side Sunday followed by my family birthday dinner.

So accident prone as I am, why not go break my toe on Wednesday night? And for nothing important - I went outside to watch a lightning storm and missed the brick step down to the porch. Brilliant! Well I figured I'd get it checked out so if they said not broken I'd deal with any pain and still play golf. They said "not broken" so Friday we went out to play. Hurt a bit but no biggie. Not that my golf game is anything that great anyway. Well of course halfway through the radiologist person calls back and says "yup it's broken" so take it easy for a few weeks. Um sure, thanks for calling, I need to go putt. It's not a messy break so nothing much to do. And being stubborn I'll probably not stay off of it that much - as if I could just sit around all day with almost 3 month old twins?

Next fun thing. So after being out in the sun all day hubby and I get home Friday night to a house with no air conditioning. Fun! Temp-wise wasn't too hot so we stayed there that night with the girls but for the rest of the weekend the girls were at my parents. The hubby and I pretty much stayed away from the house during the day Saturday and Sunday. Wasn't too much fun sleeping in stale warm air all weekend but at least now it works (plug outside went bad- lightning / electrical surge or something) Would have been nice to take a small nap Saturday before we went out but oh well - we hung out at Best Buy for awhile (looking for a case for my new camera - yay!!)

So now we have A/C and a broken toe. I may ex-nay my plans on running this week but stubbornly I'll fit in some other exercise that's a bit nicer on the feet. Decided by the girls' 4 month appointment later in July I should be able to be back in pre-pregnancy shape. We shall see. Poor toe is going to suffer. At least being accident prone I'm used to dealing with random injuries. I won't go into long stories but I've managed to impale myself on a bass drum once as a kid. The list has gotten quite longer. I blame it on genetics. My dad has quite a history of the same (it's hard to do but one can get stitches from playing tennis). The poor girls - maybe they will fare better.

So besides my temptation to complain about money and spending and the fact I was pretty tired all weekend, the actual birthday was fun. A friend and I got facials, pedi and manicures and the dart-night at the bar was nice - haven't done that in a good couple of years. Although a few years ago we all could stay up much later - hehe getting old.

Not many pictures - thought I'd post at least a couple with the new camera.

Off to watch the first episode of "True Blood" (another b-day present) - heard good things and don't have HBO so had to wait for the DVD release.