TWINS!!

After Christmas has come and gone, we have learned that everything is better in TWO! I might as well as twins, despite their 15 month age difference!

So although each boy got their own set of gifts, we should have gotten each one the same exact thing!

It's fun to see how much alike they are, how Christopher longs to be JUST like his big brother!

Their bond is everlasting, it's amazing, and it's magical!

They spend most of each day apart, in their own class room, Christopher in Nursery School and Thomas in Preschool, but when both classes come together, these two seek each other out!

I know I am in for some big trouble as they get older, from knock down drag out fights, to some collaboration in some sneaky ways!

But it was entertaining to see that while they were home for a week together, while they fought over toys at Christmas, while they scream at each other NO and that is replied with YES and over and over and over.....

When I went to pick them up at school, guess where they were.....

together,

sitting,

quietly.

Being Brothers!

LOVE THEM!

Brought to you by pBd

Mommy Moment - FAIL!

I am having a horribly Mommy failure moment.

For several reasons!
1. My children eat horribly! I tried so hard, I listened to those Gerber commercials, telling me that how my BABY eats now will dictate how they eat and the choices they make for the rest of their lives! Guess what.....I think they are right!

I tried so hard, I fed them all the right baby foods. I transitioned into all the right foods, and Thomas never did like a lot of vegetables. He never did like meat, unless it was a cheeseburger. He used to eat grilled chicken all the time. Now? NOTHING!

Christopher ate like a champ! He was my self proclaimed vegetarian until he ate a cheeseburger. But he won't eat chicken, unless it's that "guess you can call it chicken" chicken from Panda Express.....Yes I feed my 2 year old fast food, don't judge!

Well apparently now? They won't eat anything! The last two nights both my boys have basically gone hungry, because they won't eat their dinner! Mommy Failure Moment #1.

2. My 3.5 year old WILL NOT poop in the potty! He WILL NOT! And he knows when he has to go, he knows when he gets that urge because he disappers and gets all quiet!

Now I know he has issues, he's had chronic constipation since he was 6 months old, he's been on miralax every other day for the past year. It's not a matter of his stool not being soft, it's soft, he just has this fear.

His school is pressing me! He will be 4 in May, and once he turns 4 he can move into the pre-K class, and in the Pre-K class you can't NOT be potty Trained.

I've tried, I've read every stupid piece of literature on the internet about this, and I've done. it. all. And now? I got nothing. Mommy Failure Moment #2.

3. My child acts up, as most 2 & 3.5 year olds do, it's happens, so child is perfect! But apparently no matter what I do, it's wrong! LOVE THAT! And we'll leave it at only 3 Mommy Failure moments for tonight, even though I am sure there is so much more, my emotional state can't take anymore!

I've only been doing this mommy thing for 3.5 years, I don't know it all, I don't know all the answers, and I'm going to screw up, let's hope my boys won't suffer because of my failures!

What do you see as some of your mommy failure moments? Or maybe? You're the perfect parent and you can tell me what I am doing wrong?

Traditions

Oh how exciting, it's that time of year again. Time for Traditions....

Grandma and Grandpa come to stay. Grandpa teases that he is getting nothing but coal and wood and paper in his stocking. He hangs a nylon trouser sock next to our knitted stockings, Each with our name on them.

We are full of nothing but cookie goodness and egg nog. That thick sweet taste of egg nog with fresh grated nutmeg on top. We dance around in our pajama's singing "Jingle bells, batman smells" and we talk about how good we were during the year, even if mom disagrees! We talk about what Santa is going to bring us.

We still can't believe how every year my grandpa always gets coal and wood and paper in his stocking. He must be really bad! Because we always get nuts and an orange and some candy and some toys in ours! So we know we are one ahead of him.

We lay on our tummies in front of the roaring fire, because believe it or not, it was dang cold in So Cal back in my day! My brother and I stare into the fire and we talk about what we see.

My Aunt says in the background "Remember how your sister ate Santa's cookies that one year and you cried?"

Yes, yes....that was me, I apparently figured that Santa didn't need any more cookies or milk and he most definitely wanted me to have them. So why shouldn't I enjoy them instead of him? I would post a pic of that very day but I am without my albums at the moment!

And we would read "Twas the Night before Christmas" and we would sit and try to remember all the reindeer's names. And every year we would beg to open just one gift....just one mom? Please? And my aunt would always bring us Chocolate covered cherries, that sickly sweet inner filling, that crunchy cherry in the middle and the melting chocolate all around. And that was our one gift we opened.

And my brother and I would go to bed, we couldn't wait until the middle of the night when we would creep out to the living room, quiet as little mice, to see what Santa might have left, and to make sure we didn't get coal and wood and paper like Grandpa. And after we got a peek at what Santa left, it was back to bed until we would wake up mom and dad at about 6:30 to get started on our loot!

We would have Christmas at our house, up to 30 people would come, enjoy dinner, and watch my cousins and I put on a show, where they would throw coins at us because we sang a few songs. And we loved seeing all of our family, having everyone together, happy and healthy. Saying grace before our big feast. Getting away with eating hardly anything so we could stuff outselves with pie and candy!

And that is the start of a tradition, I hope to carry on a tradition with my sons. Christmas eve, reading The night before Christmas, talk of Santa, how good were you, Christmas morning with all kinds of new toys and a magic that is only seen in the eyes of a child, and tears in a mother's eyes as she realizes how precious her children are.

The hustle and bustle of the Christmas dinner, at our house, with family, happy and healthy!
Tradition, it's important to me, and I hope that my boys will see just how magical this time of year really is, with Traditions.

What are some of your special Holiday Traditions?

Merry Christmas to all!

I'm baaaccckkkk!!!

Well I got my Christmas present early! =)
The computer took a dive last Tuesday night and I've been trying to get it repaired ever since! Add to that a couple of very sick little boys and you have a week of missed posts!!

So of course I've had a million posts in mind, and now where to put them! Until now! I went out and got myself a computer for Christmas, and brand new happy little Toshiba! It's so cute and I just love it!!!

So know what that brings to mind is places you hide your Christmas presents.....
If it's small enough you can hide it anywhere, but had the Hubs tried to hide a computer I would most certainly run across it.

Right now the boys are far to little to be wandering around the garage which is where we have their presents hidden! But in a few years, I'll need to come up with a new place.

It's been raining like crazy here so my trunk of my car is PACKED with presents because whenever we had gotten home or went out to get the presents out of the car, it was POURING rain!

I hid a birthday present for the hubs (his birthday is right smack in the middle of summer) I hid his present in his very own winter coat! I am usually one of those people who can NOT hang on to a present to save my life, and as soon as I get it, I want to give it out. Which I am getting better at! But usually I wait until the last minute and then only have to hide it for a couple of days!

So tell me, where is your favorite place to hide presents?

Waste Not, Want Not

My mom is pretty crafty, and she must have inherited it from my grandmother, because she made some pretty cool stuff....and it was always done with stuff left around....one woman's trash is another woman's treasure! I think the crafty gene skipped a generation because I am less than crafty!

So my grandmother made this, an ornament...and you'll never guess what it's made out of....
Now if you are 35 or older you might guess.....
Now after many many Christmases and being passed down from my mom to me and I hope I can preserve it for my children to show off... I give you one of my favorite ornaments

A few beads, a tassel, some glue and some stick on pieces and TADA, it makes any FLASH CUBE a work of art!

Remember those? They were used with a 110mm camera, you got 4 flashes from one cube! GENIUS!! Not the flash cube but the ornament!
Do you have a favorite memory about an ornament?

Brought to you by pBd

Lookie Lookie, it's a cookie cookie

It was time for our first annual cookie extravaganza! We got a bunch of us together along with all the kids....planned out cookies we wanted to make, heated up the oven, got the mixers mixing and at the end of the day the plan was to have several dozen cookies of all kinds to mix and match for everyone to take a boat load home. (these are all off my cell, so the quality is not that great)

Thomas and his tongue...the kid can not do anything without his tongue waggin' - he gets that from his dad!!

Aunt Laura took over when Thomas was bored, she made some beautiful stars!!

These were our wonderful little helpers, missing only one....my little Christopher, he was napping!

The kids did have such an excellent time decorating the sugar cookies that we made, I think they ate more frosting than what ended up on the cookies!

And Aunt Laura kept bribing my son with cookies if he would let her be his mommy too! She only has one little girl! And he agreed! As you can see with cookie in hand!

These are some of our creations....the tie dye cookie belongs to Quinney! She's amazingly talented in the cookie decorating department and she's only 3.5!

These will eventually be Marie's famous snow balls, they are so melt in your mouth yummy!

We had some macaroons.....

Some peanut butter cup infused sugar cookies!

We also had some chocolate chip cookies, some peanut butter cookies, dark chocolate stars, and some other fruit infused cookies, but all those cookies we were supposed to bring home? Yeah they were eaten by little mouths and husbands, so I think I ended up with maybe a dozen cookies and that's it!

Oh well the kids had a blast making the cookies (and eating them) and we all had a ton of fun spending time together during the holidays!

Brought to you by Unknown Mami

It's beginning...

I have been so busy so I have lacked any kind of quality post....until right now! =)
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....
Now that my Hello Kitty Tree is up!

It's simple, just one small tree, and lots of little Hello Kitties doing everything from ice skating to cheering, to drinking hot chocolate.

It's simple, yet enchanting.....Come on who doesn't love HK?

She's so simple....and so cute! There is nothing to her really.....some ears, a bow, eyes, whiskers, and a nose...she doesn't even have a mouth....how much simpler can you get?

And I love putting up my Hello Kitty Tree every year....it's the start of Christmas decorating for me....so now...it's beginning to look at lot like Christmas!!

Brought to you by MamaKat

Stuff it.....

Braving the mall today for a birthday party at Build a Bear. Thomas and his buddy Jayden learn all about how to stuff it! Thomas kept an eagle eye on the woman stuffing his new rabbit buddy! Making quite certain they didn't hurt him!

And he made sure to scrub him all up and brush it out just perfect! And he named him "Ribbit" That's right, our new BUNNY friend is named "Ribbit" I guess if it hops his name can be Ribbit right?

And Christopher made sure they didn't miss a loop while stitching up his new panda bear, which Thomas named "Colorwine" Which we later discovered, that it was so loud in the place that I didn't hear him properly, he meant CORALINE from his new movie "Coraline" by Tim Burton that he got from his favorite cousin Ashley! But on the birth certificate it's COLORWINE, so his panda is stuck with it!

And he spent the most time brushing up his Panda! They had so much fun making their new little friends.

And Thomas was quite disappointed he didn't get to see Santa, because by the time we left the party the line for Santa was closed, so this next weekend we'll be 1st in line to see Santa!

That's what Sundays in my City look like, how about yours? See what the rest of the world has going on in their city at Unknown Mami's

Inspire me

If you've been around a while, you'll know that Christopher was tested for Autism because he was two and had few words for what they considered "normal". He's been working with a language development coach for a few months now, and he is amazing me!

He can now put two word sentences together. He tries so hard to communicate with his big brother whom he still calls "Mama". And he doesn't always have the words, but they figure it out, Thomas listens, responds and they "talk" in a way only brother's can. And he's learning more and more everyday! He inspires me.

Thomas, my little 3.5 year old has now graduated from playing with little animals and little bulky cars to making everything into a gun and shooting dinosaurs from the car window! He also doesn't believe anything I say anymore, he must check with his teacher.

In the car I hear little shooting sounds and I turn around and look at him, he has a drum stick in his hand and he's pointing it at everything making noises. I say what are you doing, he replies "shooting the dinosaurs" and I said no dinosaurs are good, what about Barney or Rex, and he says they aren't dinosaurs and I said yes they are, and his response? "I'm gonna ask Ms. Kim" That's right buddy, don't believe mommy, like I would lie to you! And he inspires me.

I think of my boys, their bond they have formed, I think of their affect on not only me but our whole family, and friends. I know what I feel in my heart. And that inspires me.

Anything inspires me to write, my past, my present and my future. My life of jumbled thoughts and feelings....that is what inspires me to write,
Oh and of course Mama Kat's writing workshop, so check it out!