It’s been a while since I’ve posted.  I’ve been busy.

I did a yard sale at my mom’s house on Saturday.  The kids and I went down on Friday night and stayed until Saturday evening.  They loved the extended time with my parents (and I’m pretty sure the feeling was mutual).  I made $50.  Not horrible.  Not great.  But I may throw what I didn’t sell into a sale a friend is having in a couple of weeks.  If it doesn’t sell there…then it’s gettin’ donated.  

Of course that meant I did a lot of sorting in most rooms of my house.  And it feels good to have less stuff on my shelves..and in my cupboards, under the beds, in closets, sitting out in piles because I didn’t have an actual place for it…I’m sure you get the picture.  

Sadly, I’ve done almost no cleaning for almost a week.  So I have fewer piles…and a dirty house.  Need to work on that!

I spent most of the last two days trying to meet a deadline on a writing project.  I made it…barely.  But hey, I made it.  And it is definitely nice to have time to blog instead of trying to bring the atonement alive for a teenage, unchurched audience.  Needless to say…you guys are a much easier audience than that!

Today we went to the library and Meijer.  And lest you think that I’ve somehow got the logistics of such a trip down pat…I don’t.  It still takes a LONG time to get out the door.  And I almost left said door open when we left (not the garage door…the one from the garage into my kitchen).  Both twins filled their diapers at the library, so they had to be changed in the van before we drove away.  Megan pretty much missed her morning nap.  And when we pulled into Meijer (after the library), Alex immediately melted down, yelling at the top of his lungs, “I Wan’ Go HOOOME.”

But on that topic…Alex’s verbal skills are skyrocketing these days.  That sentence totally clear, even while being screamed at the top of his lungs.  He’s getting more understandable every day.  He’s even started to talk back to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse when it’s on.  I’m lovin’ it!

On the other hand, Megan is hitting a weird phase for eating.  She’s totally distracted and has stopped emptying me of milk most of the time (maybe 1-2 times a day, she does). It could be teething (though I doubt it).  It could just be that she’s starting to be done with the current arrangement.  Of course, she won’t take a bottle and hasn’t quite figured out sippy cups (reliably) yet.  So for now, I’m just stuck trying to wrestle her multiple times a day to get her to eat.  *sigh*  

Then again, I found Books 4 & 5 of the series I’m reading at the library today.  Yay!  

And…this weekend is our 7th anniversary.  Sunday, to be precise.  Still working on the celebration of that achievement…but I’m sure we’ll figure out something.  It is an achievement worth celebrating, after all!  And I really like the gift I got for Eric.  It’s neither wool or copper (that’s my hint, in case Eric reads this post), but hopefully, he’ll like it anyway.

So…that’s a little update into our lives.  I need to blog more often again…these catch-up posts are too long!  Oh well.  

Happy Tuesday!

Megan actually slept through the night last night.  Okay, she woke up a couple of times, but she went back to sleep ON HER OWN!!  Woohoo!  And she slept until about 6:45 this morning on top of it.  Yay for me!

This was even better because I finally caught the cold that has been working through our household for a week or more.  We’ve had lots of snot and sneezing going on.  Eric had it first, then Alex & Erin.  Megan caught it over the weekend, so she wasn’t sleeping or eating well.  And now I have it.  It seems to be a pretty fast-moving bug, though, so hopefully we’ll all be 100% again in a day or two.  

Erin has been really entertaining me with her new words.  She now sleeps with her “pacipussel” and I’m pretty sure I heard her say “shoot” yesterday when her tower toppled over.  Well, it’s better than “dang it” which was what I used to say.  And Eric told her over the weekend what our “real” names are.  And she remembered.  So last evening, she called him Daddy Eric once and told me that my name is “Sannah.”  And in non-verbal news, her new favorite thing to do is build with our giant legos.  She has spent a lot of hours on towers and houses in the last week or so.  And we even built a tower that used every block in our house.  She loved that!

Alex has been quite the lover-boy recently.  He’s into hugs and kisses and snuggling.  LOVE that!  But he’s such a boy, for sure.  Over the weekend, he learned to climb up the sides of the slide toy we have in our backyard.  Once he figured out what to do, he climbed the outside, slid over the top onto the inside ledge, slid down the slide and started over again.  And his new favorite thing to watch is “Red Car”…otherwise known as Lightning McQueen.  Yes, he’s discovered Cars, and he loves it.  So fun! 

And we are loving being outside!  We collect rocks and bubble flowers (dandelions).  We love balls and are starting to learn to ride our tricycles.  And hopefully, the rain will give us some more time to be out in the near future…

Over the weekend, we watched TWO movies.  Crazy, I know, since I haven’t stopped to watch a movie in ages.  We had GI Joe from Netflix and saw Tangled in C-ville.  I liked them both!

And speaking of the weekend, I had a great Mother’s Day.  Eric manned the twins outside on Saturday morning, and I got a kid-free run to the store in during naptime.  It was a nice break.  And I got a bunch of chores done.  It was really a good day.  Sunday, we spent with my mom and family in C-ville.  So it was a crazy morning getting us out the door with enough time to get to church with my parents.  But Eric made cinnamon rolls for us, and the day went really well.  Yay for a fun weekend!

Oh, and Eric brought flowers home for me yesterday.  They are LOVELY!  

On a less-happy note, I hurt my back.  It was a combination of things, really.  Holding Alex steady on the trampoline at my brother’s house on Sunday.  Then pulling the twins in the wagon while testing out a new sling carrier with Megan on Monday.  Yeah…I woke up in serious pain yesterday.  I could move, but not fast.  And it was the muscles specifically used when picking up and holding Megan, so that wasn’t good.  Sometime in the afternoon, it sort of loosened up, thankfully.  And today it’s still sore, but it’s not painful.  So I think, with a couple more days of not overdoing, I should be good again.  But man…messing up the back makes taking care of kids a lot more complicated!

Anyway, my MIL is coming to hang with us today, and we are very excited about it.  It’s especially good because Erin has been crediting Grandma Hogue for just about everything that’s going on in our world these days.  A new pair of pants?  Grandma Hogue made them.  Pink lemonade for lunch yesterday?  Grandma Hogue got it for us (actually Mommy mixed it up for us).  So seeing her must be just what we need.

And other than that, I think we’re just normal and busy and being ourselves.  So…with that…happy Wednesday!

There are lots of “firsts” in our world these days.

We bought our first new car.  Eric came with a 1998 Jeep that he bought in 2001.  I owned a 1995 Corolla that I got in 1998 (which Erin affectionately called the “beater car”).  They were paid off.  They were good cars.  They had lots of good memories tied up in them.  But they were old.  And getting tired.  The Corolla got great gas mileage, but wasn’t reliable anymore.  The Jeep was reliable, but guzzled gas.  So, after discussing it, we decided to test drive a Chevy Cruze.  They took both our old cars in trade.  And we drove home in a brand-new car.  It gets insane gas mileage.  It’s cute and sporty. It’s Bluetooth enabled, so basically, we bought a really big, drivable phone…sweet!  And it cannot fit 3 carseats, so it is a kid-free vehicle for running errands and tooling around…super-sweet!

A week before she turns 7 months old, Megan has been in a whirlwind of firsts…

– she’s started clapping (it’s very cute)

– she’s learned to sit up on her own

– she hooked an arm over the handle of a stool and hauled herself into a standing position.  

Of course, we’re still waiting for a first tooth and a first all-night sleep (okay, so that would really be a return to all-night sleep, but it’s been so long that it’s like she’s just starting, for me anyway!), but at the rate we’re going, she’s going to be writing her own name next month.

Speaking of names, Erin found her nametag from Sunday and announced to us, “I found my name.  I found my name.  Erin. E-r-i-n.  My name.”  Okay, so she can spell her name.  Didn’t know that.  

She’s also getting really good at puzzles.  She can do a color puzzle we have (not a Melissa & Doug, fit-shapes-in-the-matching-hole kind) almost entirely by herself now.  

And I’m suddenly realizing that Alex is making more and more sense every day.  I’d gotten so used to just half-listening to his sounds because they weren’t really recognizable words that it is just hitting me how many of the sounds really are words now.  I’m going to have to start really paying attention to him.  

Other firsts…

Eric drove the new car (Erin declared that to be it’s name “New Car”) to work today.

We grilled out for the first time this year tonight.

I’m just re-read the book from which I learned the word “bauble” when I was in 3rd or 4th grade.  (Okay, so the first happened like 25 years ago, but I was just reminded of it this week which was kind of cool.)

I actually walked/ran for more than 2 miles on my treadmill this morning.  That’s a first since I got pregnant with Megan, for sure…maybe longer!

And…I think that’s all I’ve got for now.  Happy Tuesday!