Freebies Week

http://www.pocketyourdollars.com/

The squirrels are chattering away in their cribs, meaning they are NOT sleeping.  Logically, I think, I will read through some blogs and stay quiet (read: don't do laundry or vacuum because they'll not fall asleep with all that noise.  Strangely, if I do it after I know they're asleep, they don't wake up).  So I stop by Pocket Your Dollars, one I frequent quite often and LO AND BEHOLD!  There are so many freebie links this week that I just had to share this with you!  In the past half hour, I've been able to request free:

Tide
Tampax
Curel Lotion
Always
Glad Trash bags
Garnier Fructis shampoo/conditioner
Head and Shoulders shampoo
Scotchblue painter's tape
Ester-C gummies
Huggies points, which I redeemed for a free wipes coupon
Pampers points, which I have redeemed in the past for free Shutterfly items
coupon for a full Advil bottle
Kleenex pack

I know I'm weird, but I think this stuff is really fun!  Hope you can snag some freebies, too!

Girl-Friends and Birthday Parties

We are blessed to have so many baby girl-friends.  Thus begins the birthday parties!  Friday night was G's first birthday party, where the guys each got their own mini cupcakes - a totally genius idea for the little ones! Here's N snacking on some mini cupcake with purple sprinkles, followed by M, who ate on Daddy's lap.  After the cake, the boys were playing with the kids - or so I thought, when I saw N swipe someone's mini cupcake off the unattended plate!  Guess he wanted "more," his new favorite word. "Mo?  Mo?  Mo?" he asks, making the sign for it ALL. THE. TIME.  Even when there's food right in front of him!

Who, me?

Yummy!

Birthday party kids - happy birthday, G!

We had another one-year-old-girl-friend's birthday party on Saturday, too.  Her Daddy took the funniest picture of the three of them!  Two of them did not want their picture taken, but guess who was hamming it up for the camera?  N, of course.  I'll add it here when he sends it to me.  Happy birthday, E!

Today we met yet more girl-friends at the zoo, C & R, who are identical twin girls born the day after my guys!  We've had an all around good time getting together with our girl-friends this weekend!

Sloppy Sloppy Joes

  I made sloppy joes last night. 

 M made a hair treatment with them.

What if they were sextuplets?

That's what I think to myself when I look at these pics.  Yesterday I had two twin mom friends over.  You've all met both of them: E and her boys A and G star in my blog quite often, and M and her girls H and B appeared just last week.  Every now and then I get the unction to have a half dozen babies squeezed into my house so that after they leave I think, my goodness, my house is so spacious and huge!

The four boys are totally diggin' having two girls over!

Ready to roll!

 The two guys in orange are E's boys: G in front, A in back.  M is front and center (again with the binky - still cutting that molar and pretty crabby) and my little ham and cheese in the back, N.  H is pretty in pink and B is binky girl in the back (sorry if I got them mixed up, M!)

What's amazing is that my guys are totally cool with having friends over.  Toys that were boring yesterday are fun today when someone else shows interest!  They share their toys and their food.  N was munching on half an apple and gave it to G, who clearly had never had an apple halved like that.  N, my sweet boy, then tried to put the whole thing in G's mouth, you know, to show him how to take a bite!  Of course, he swiped one of G's ravioli's in trade...but we're working on it.

On a side note, N has also learned how to hug!  On his own, he approached his brother and wrapped his arms around him yesterday!  It was so sweet, I would have cried, except M thought he was being attacked and got very upset, crying.  So I laughed instead, and tried to explain that N was hugging him.  N tried it again today, but M just walked away, N following him a bit like Frankenstein.  We'll keep trying.  I can't wait to snag a pic of the two of them hugging it out.

So what if they were sextuplets?  I could handle it for two hours, maybe, like yesterday, but the truth is, I'm happy with just twins.

Fall Fun

Last weekend, we returned to our favorite local apple orchard with Grandma A in tow.  The boys liked the hay ride so much the first time, we did it again!  Despite the fact that the point of the hayride is to take the riders to the farthest part of the orchard, let them off to pick apples, then take them back, they didn't mind that we stayed on board for the round trip.

That's the best shot we could get.  Poor little M has been cutting molar #4 since he woke up Sunday morning, the day this was taken.  Unfortunately, it's Wednesday morning and it's still not through!  As you might imagine, it's been a tough week for all of us because you're only as strong as your weakest link.  

Being in an orchard, we took the opportunity to teach boys where apples come from and picked a few honeycrisp.  N loved it!  Keep an eye on that apple in his hand and watch how much he eats!

I want one of these, Grandma!

N navigates the maze with his half-eaten apple.

Daddy and Mommy were having fun in the maze, but it's clearly now

time to go home.

I'm guessing we'll have at least one more visit because the pumpkins are just coming in - the few they have are in the crates on the left.  We hope to get another cute fall shot of the boys frolicking in the pumpkins with their football.  Here's hoping!

Birthday Weekend Fun

Around here, we celebrate birthdays when we are together, which is not usually on the actual day.  So, Happy Birthday to Me today, but we celebrated all weekend long!  Grandma A was here, so we took advantage of her asked her kindly to babysit so Hubs and I could have a sleepover party at a nice hotel downtown.  It was a much welcome and needed little getaway.  Thanks, Grandma!

Before that, we took her out to our (and her!) favorite restaurant, Punch Pizza (do you see a pattern?) before she was put under house arrest and the boys had their sleepover.  I'd put pictures here, but again, they are on hubs' brilliantphone which is, again, not here, but there, with him on a business trip.  So here's a Punch Pizza Picture you haven't seen.  It's Aunt L, who LOVES Punch, and replied to Grandma's message that we were there with a picture of her dinner that night: Lean Cuisine.  Haha!  Silly Aunt L!

While we were up in the cities, we stopped by Trader Joe's, a neat organic grocery store that has lots of fun treats.  Here are the boys shopping for flowers in their own mini carts:

This is a funny one!  The parking garage at Trader Joe's was painted all cute, and we wanted to send Aunt L another funny pic, so we took this next to a big red flower and the parking sign.  But check out that CHEESY grin on N!  What a HAM!

Sunday was our fun celebratory birthday day, so we fixed up a "fancy" dinner for us.  Remember when the boys got to pet one day old chicks back in July, when M got his hair cut for the first time?

You're gonna be my dinner, someday, chick.

Well, the "chicks" were ready and K(who did another phenomenal job on my hair!) had two plucked and frozen chickens for me when I got to the salon.  I've never roasted a whole chicken before, but with some help from Grandma A and my Good Housekeeping "Bible," I did it - I even cut off its neck!  It was quite delicious, too, if I must say so myself.  Here's N with what could very well be the chick in the above pic!

We baked a birthday cake with homemade chocolate frosting, which I ate for breakfast today.  Yum.  The boys and I are taking it easy today, recovering from the exciting weekend (more apple orchard pictures to come!) and M's fever.  Poor little guy really has a hard time cutting those molars.  Hopefully it'll be through today and we'll be up and at 'em tomorrow.

Thank you for all the wonderful birthday wishes I've already received today via calls, texts, cards, and facebook messages.  It's already been a great birthday and I think 33 will be my best year yet!

Take Your Grandma To School Day

Apparently, the third week of school is Take Your Grandma to School Day!  The grandmas were sweet, sharing what antics their (only) twin grandkids do.  Grandma A shared during the "parent education" time that she was amazed at how the boys follow directions.  And it's true!  I haven't mentioned it here because...well, I'm with them every day and it seems a tiny bit less amazing, especially when the brilliant children in question are throwing grilled cheesed on the (carpeted) floor. 

But they do  follow simple directions. 
When I say, "It's time to eat," they run to their high chairs. 
When I say, "It's time for night night," they run to the gate at the bottom of the stairs.
When I say, "Daddy's home!" they run to the gate at the top of the stairs.
When I say, "Don't throw that grilled cheese on the floor!" they do it anyway.

After us parents and grandparents got educated, we all sat together for circle time and played with the shakers for the "Shaky, Shaky" song.   Then, today's storytime was better than last week's because Grandma was there to wrestle one little fella.  I've decided my "goal" for this class (because we have to state one!) is to sit in the circle during storytime.  (We have to sell Butter Braids for a school fundraiser, too (!) so uh, if you're in the market for Butter Braids, I'm your woman.  Thus begins my stellar career of hawking my kids' fundraisers on all my friends and family.  How many more years of this?) 

N shaky shakin' it

Grandma A and M read a story during circle time

Mommy and N shaky shakin'

Our girlfriends H and B with their Mommy and Grandma

My MVMOM friend M and her 18 month old daughters are in our class.  School's more fun for us adults when our friends are there, too!  And SHE brought her mother in law to school today, too!  Here are the girls shaky shakin' their eggs.

N's favorite part of school is gym...and snack.  

Heavens, my boys are such BOYS already.  They LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the gym time and CRY if I make them share their favorite Little Tykes vehichle, the pickup truck.  Wow, it's like they're middle school already, loving snack and gym, not liking reading.