Hi, Everyone! I was sorting through photos the other day and thought how it's been a while since I've done a general life update, so I thought I'd sit down and type one up quickly. This is mostly just some random things we've been up to during the last few months.
At the beginning of March, Brecklyn accidentally hit me in the nose with a toy. She was sitting next to me in the chair, holding a metal triangle that came with a musical instrument set we have. We were getting ready to say our nighttime prayers when she flailed her arms and hit me square in the nose with the metal triangle. It hurt SO badly, and I immediately grabbed my nose. When I pulled my hand down, there was blood running down my face and on my hands, so it seemed really scary. I thought for a minute I might need a stitch or two, but Chris helped me clean it, looked at it, and determined that a trip to the ER wasn't necessary (thankfully!). I did ice it that night, though.
The photo below was two days after the incident. You can see that my nose was swollen a bit for a few days.
Three days after the incident, I had a parent-teacher conference for Brianna. This is what the wound looked like that night . . .
Fortunately, it healed quickly and was looking normal(ish) after about a week. Who knew Mommying was such a dangerous job?!? Haha.
We don't generally make a big deal over holidays around here, but I do like to do some fun and festive activities sometimes. St. Patrick's Day fell during Brianna's spring break, so I made sure to serve green milk with Lucky Charms for breakfast.
I also had green plates and napkins left over from the kids' Where the Wild Things Are birthday party.
My kids act like they think I'm silly for doing things like this, but I know they'd be disappointed if I didn't!
We also all dressed in green for the occasion. After taking approximately 416 selfies of our family, this was the best of the bunch. Ha!
The weather during Spring Break was really nice, so we took advantage of it by going to the lake for a picnic one evening. While the idea of a family picnic was great, the actual execution wasn't so wonderful. The babies were all over the place and made a huge mess of the food, while the wind made it nearly impossible to eat. Then, the big kids decided to get out a kite, but got the string all tangled up around the babies and themselves and the kite and the van, which led to a brief moment of frustration from the adults in the group :-).We finally just packed up the picnic blanket, food, and kite, and played with the kiddos on the playground. At least the evening ended on a positive note!
Our weekly Mommy-and-Me preschool class is currently on a temporary hiatus, but we were able to attend during the month of March. Brianna join us during Spring Break - and although she was super excited to go - I think she was a little disappointed during the actual class. She told me later that she was sad to not see her friends and that the class was waaaaay too easy now :-). I didn't think to tell her that it would be different kids than she attended class with.
Although we didn't have big plans over Spring Break this year (we stayed home and spent some time completing house projects), I was able to sneak away with Brianna to get pedicures one afternoon. Our local salon won't do a full pedicure for Brianna, but they will file and paint her toenails for just $5. She loves it, and that's a price tag I can get on board with!
She was just a bit excited :-).
Having pretty toes is so fun. Brianna wanted "Elsa" toes, so of course she chose teal.
It's a little crazy to think that this little lady only has three weeks of school left in her Kindergarten year. It has seriously FLOWN by. I'm so, so excited to have her home for a few months this summer, though!
I think these three are also excited for Big Sister to be home with us!
In the meantime, we've been carrying on with our usual activities. A few weekends ago, the weather was amazing so we headed to the zoo and had a great time! The babies are really beginning to enjoy these types of outings.
We're also still going to Library Story Time each week. It will end at the end of May and not begin again until September, so we're enjoying it while we can. The babies are so fun to watch as they listen to books, sing, do finger plays, and dance!
{Brecklyn}
{Brooke}
We've also been participating in Lego Club once a month at the library. Lego Club meets at 4:00pm which can be a hard time of day for the babies (they tend to be fussy), but the Big Kids really love it.
Every year, we make a trip or two to Atwoods during the Spring to see the baby animals. Last month, Chris was out of town for a few days, so we made our annual Atwoods trip during that time. The babies were fascinated!
Brecklyn just kept pointing and pointing at the baby chicks.
I love the expression on Brooke's face.
I was a little surprised that the Big Kids are still so interested in the baby animals, but they were very excited to go and see them.
Of course, these are the looks I got when I told them to smile for the camera, haha! Apparently, this is Brianna's new camera face :-).
Chris rarely travels overnight for his job, and this was really the first time he had been gone for several nights in a row since the babies were born. It was kind of hard on everyone! We were all ready for him to be home, for sure! Brianna ended up being sick and staying home from school on the day he came home, so we all made him this Welcome Home banner. Even the babies helped color on it!
He got home just after nap time, and I had some EXCITED children. The noise level in the house can be a bit overwhelming to me at times, especially when I'm already worn out from solo parenting all week. Chris told me to go lay down in the bedroom and relax for a while, but it was SO noisy with four littles who were all worked up that my head was just pounding. I finally snuck out to the playhouse to sit in the peace and quiet for a while, haha.
Springtime in Oklahoma often means tornadoes and severe weather. Thankfully, we didn't have any severe weather while Chris was out of town, but there have been several nights where we've had to take cover in our "safe" spot. Our town is rarely in the path of a tornado, but this year has been different. We did have a tornado touch down and do quite a bit of damage just a little over a mile from our house, and then another touch down briefly on another night around the same place.
Waking four sleeping children to take cover is painful for this Momma, though some of the kiddos think it's fun! Brooke Ellie, however, was pretty unimpressed with the situation!
Today, the babies are 15 months old! That is kind of mind blowing to me . . . weren't they just born?!? They are both busy, busy, busy little girls who keep me on my toes constantly. Having two at this age is crazier than I ever imagined, but it's also SO sweet. There is no doubt that I'm exhausted at the end of every day!
If I tell Brecklyn "no", Brooke Ellie pouts at me. This makes saying "no" much more difficult!
Brecklyn also pouts some, but she's much more likely to give me this look.
This is her signature "I'm going to be defiant and test my boundaries" look. Sigh.
It's amazing to me how quickly multiple children can wreck a room (or the entire house). A mess like this takes a minute to make . . .
I try to keep things in perspective, but I would be lying if I said that the messes don't get wearisome some days.
Really, I would just like to use the bathroom for one minute without being nervous about what the babies are going to do while I'm out of the room. They are always so "helpful" to Mommy. It's a good thing they're cute!
Both babies can be a bit destructive, but Brecklyn especially likes to rip things. I've never had a child who rips books the way she does. We actually own two copies of a book called 1-2-3 Daddy Hugs, and I caught her trying to rip it one day. I put it away for the day, but the next day she had it and was trying to rip it again. I put it up in a more permanent spot this time. However, the next day, she found our other copy of the same book and ripped it to pieces before I caught her :-(. Brenson nicknamed her "Baby Ripper" after she ripped a box he had been playing with, and I think it's a fitting name!
This day, Baby Ripper and Babyzilla cleaned out a cabinet and unloaded an entire box of Ziplock bags while I was taking clothes out of the dryer. I can't take my eyes off of them for one minute!
And this day, they got into a cabinet and found my old lunchbox (that I used when I worked outside the house). I found them just as they were destroying the strap on it. HOW did they even do this?
They have also started biting each other a lot lately. We have a biting incident about once a day around here, and it breaks my heart! It mostly happens when one takes a toy from the other or they are fighting over the same toy. At first, Brecklyn was biting Brooke more frequently than the other way around, but now it's about equal. They both do their fair share of biting :-(.
I'll have to do an entire post on Brooke and her climbing. Nothing is safe from her climbing, and it scares me every day! I'm just amazed at how fast the babies can find mischief . . . especially together! If I were reading all these things on someone else's blog, I would probably wonder why the parent isn't watching these children better. However, I can assure you that these incidents are not happening due to neglect or lack of training. I told my sister the other day that I would have never believed twins could be so challenging at this age had I not experienced it myself!
However, amid all the craziness are truly so many sweet moments. This day, Bren was watching TV and Brooke decided she needed a place to lay her little head. Love!
And this day, Brecklyn came to snuggle her brother for a minute while he was watching his favorite show. Side note - we don't actually watch much TV around here, so everyone is very interested in it when it's on.
And seriously, just look at these sweet smiles! We have two of these cars, but they love to ride double.
Sometimes I'll run outside for just a minute (like to get the mail or retrieve a package), and the babies always stand at the door just watching and waiting for me to come back. My little loves!
As a final note, how great it is to have the privilege of watching TWO babies grow together? I just adore seeing this special relationship develop. In the photo below, we had just walked in to Story Time at the Library, and as soon as I sat Brooke and Brecklyn down, they grabbed hands. They sat like this for several minutes . . . the sweetest!
I hope everyone is having a great week and even better beginning to their May!
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