2 of the many things I love...

2 of many things I love about my babies:

1. The sigh of contentment H let out as he snuggled deeper into my arms on the couch while watching cartoons tonight.

2. When I went in to check on them before I went to bed, JH had taken the socks from his feet and was wearing them like mittens. 😍

Happy early birthday, Jesus!

I have started really trying to talk Christmas up to the boys. Fortunately, they are still young enough to not yet know the commercial and materialistic side of Christmas. Well, really at this point they don't know any side. I've been trying to get them excited that is is JESUS' BIRTHDAY! In doing so, we've practiced singing Him happy birthday and I've been talking up that we will make Him a birthday cake and sing to Him for real. I'll still be getting my babies some presents but I just really want to raise them with the right focus and that is the birth of our precious savior, Jesus Christ. It's like the quote from the "Grinch Who Stole Christmas" movie that Pastor Chris used in his second part of "At the Movies" this morning, "Maybe Christmas doesn't come from a store. Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more."

In our celebrations, we have also set up the Christmas tree and put lights on it... Ornaments to come. I adore having the glow of a Christmas tree in my den. I wish that I could keep it up year-round :)

Happy early birthday, Jesus! We are so thankful for You!

The past week (week of nov 11)

I usually look through my pictures to help me get a good idea of what we have been up to lately. Since my last post we have been to the Vestavia library for "holiday in the hills" open house, which was kind of a bust bc they were out of cookies to decorate (or main reason to go).

We also got a McWane Center membership thanks to early Christmas present from Regenia and Milton! Yay! There was a $20 off deal through Birmingham Mommy, so Regenia have us the green light! I'm looking forward to hours of fun at MC and hoping to take friends with us--I think we get two more adults and 4 more kids in with us?! Amazing! Thank you, Gigi and Papa!!!

On Sunday evenings this semester, josh and I have been doing a small group based on the book "Fresh Air" written by our pastor, Chris Hodges. Love him. Love my church--Church of the Highlands! If you are ever interested in visiting, please let me know because we would love for you to join us! The small group has been such a joy and we have made some new friends I'm really excited to get to know better :) The pic of the snacks is from small group. We take turns bringing it and, like a nerd, it is exciting to me to find out what snack is each week! Haha

Speaking of our awesome church, Sunday was the first of two sermons in a series called "At the Movies". One of my favorites!

Josh, the boys, and I live less than a mile from my parents and we love it! It's is so easy to jet right over to eat dinner together and hang out for a bit. Last Saturday we went over to do just that and josh was excited to get the opportunity to watch the LSU vs Ole Miss game! I'm pretty sure thats who it was...I was distracted with my momma all snuggled up behind her laptop helping her design her Christmas card! Let me just say that there are some SUPER cute sugar babies wishing all of her friends and family Merry Christmas this year :) I'm also quite excited about our card that probably wouldn't have happened if I hadn't gotten a Groupon! Yay!

Josh, the boys, and I also made a trip to Yogurt Lab for a special snack one afternoon. Excuse me... josh, Bob the tomato, Bob the tomato (2) and I went. (see pics) :)

My boys also had their month birthday... They are 2 years and 7 months old now. Officially on the downward slope to 3 years old. Unreal! They are so much fun and so funny! The other day JH was eating breakfast and said "I hear poop, momma!"...
...(um what? Hahaha) "Really, baby? Where do you hear it?".
JH: "In my body!" ...
Well, I guess you can't argue with that! Bless his sweet bones.

We also let Miley come sleep in our room again. We had previously given her the boot to the den when we had a bout with fleas. Ugh. It was miserable. I think things have been under control for a while so she's been allowed back in, although I think she prefers the couch in the den and stays there most nights. Haha

One morning the boys also decided they needed to do their bible study while I did mine at the dining room table. It was so sweet and touched my heart.

I guess that's the week in a nutshell :) hope you're well, blessed and have a happy thanksgiving!

Spontaneous yard work

My momma came over this am (Weds) on her way home from her acupuncture appointment. (she's actually getting some relief and recommends it!) We were outside enjoying the BEAUTIFUL day with the boys before lunch, so we grabbed her a chair and she joined us. As we talked, we ended up on the bushes and how I didn't know how to prune them. She instructed as I chopped away and they look soooo much better! After she left at 1:00 josh and I still had a yard work bug in us and kept going... Until 4:45! I was a master on the leaf blower and he worked on baggie leaves he'd blown into piles the other day. The boys were in and out bc of nap time but loved being out there. We do not get outside nearly as much as I'd like or we should. During the summer it was too hot and/or Mosquitos were horrible and lately it has been a little chilly to be out long. Today was gloriously beautiful and just the right temp! It was so nice being outside, soaking in some vitamin D, being productive with my honey, burning some calories, and the boys NOT watching cartoons or fussing! :)

Entertaining brother and being helpful.

While the boys are certainly a handful and a half at 2.5 years old, they are also so much fun and really precious. They do sweet things like hug each other mid-cartoon watching and JH says "momma, we got two friends!" (we are friends) or H taking the time to entertain JH with his guitar playing while he was getting his diaper changed. Preciousness oozing out of their pores. I don't want you all to think that it is all sunshine and roses and have an unrealistic view and somehow let that make you question your children's behavior or something. People get tired of being painted a one-sided picture. It's not sunshine and roses all of the time, but I will make a choice to focus on the preciousness and not things like the 35 minute tantrum/fit one of them had last Wednesday night because he didn't want to leave his Mimi's house and her iPad. I won't focus on the kicking and screaming that occurred on the car ride home and in his bedroom because he didn't want his diaper changed or to put on his pajamas. I try to focus on the preciousness because it helps make getting through those over-tired tantrums more bearable. I am so grateful for the brotherly love and preciousness.

This weekend we went to the zoo with my aunt Sharon, uncle Ira, my cousin Laura and her new husband, Warren. It was so nice to spend time with them now that things have settled down post-wedding. Laura and Warren just moved to Birmingham from Nashville and my aunt and uncle just got back from a 10 day cruise on the Aegean down the coast of Turkey and Greece. I really enjoyed having them all back in Birmingham, and I'm excited for more time together in the future. After the zoo we headed to Urban Cookhouse at The Summit and then back home to get our wild turkeys in bed for nap. After they got up from nap, Josh, the boys and I went outside to pick up sticks in the yard. (Josh and I are making more of an effort to keep our house less cluttered and our yard prettier.) We have a big, fabulous tree in front of our house that really adds to the curb appeal of our yard, but is a pretty big pain in the Fall months when it drops all of its leaves in our yard. Poor Josh spent all of nap time blowing the leaves out of the yard on Saturday and after a windy Sunday, the entire yard was re-covered with leaves! We just laughed and said "seriously??" when we saw it :) The boys are at a very big helper stage and ate up getting to help out in the yard picking up sticks. It was so pleasant to be outside with them and not have to watch their every move. They are really growing up. While I'm sad that their baby days are getting farther away, it is also so enjoyable to be able to have more fun with them and allow them to do big boy things like helping with yard work on Saturday or cutting their own bananas with plastic knives this morning at breakfast. They are definitely growing up entirely too fast. Since it is inevitable, I am determined to enjoy it and them as much as possible. :)

Excellent evidence.

Last week, my momma told me that my daddy has this week off from work and that they would like to take the boys to do something fun. (background: my momma broke her back May 2011, had surgery June 2012 and it failed July 2012. She is in a lot of pain that she is working to manage as her back heals some post surgery, so her activity level abilities vary depending on her pain level that day). She and my daddy came to pick the boys up at 9:30 and they headed to the McWane Scince Center. Afterward, they called me to meet them for lunch at Jim N Nicks in Homewood. Apparently the boys were worn out from all of the fun and the time change this weekend, because they were sacked out before they made it to the restaurant. Bless their sweet hearts! My parents generously offered to buy me lunch to take home with me anyways. I gladly accepted and was pleasantly surprised to find out that Jim N nicks has a drive-thru! Yay!

While they were gone, I was home alone... Which NEVER happens. I finished my coffee and got to it. Man, I was a cleaning machine, de-cluttering the laundry room and kitchen... Washing/drying/folding clothes... Unloading and loading the dishwasher... Cleaning the kitchen, Etc. I did such a fabulous job that Josh let out a big "Wow!!!" when he walked in from work this evening. Haha :) I suggested that it was excellent evidence supporting how great it would be for my productivity around the house to meet our goal of getting the boys in one or two days of Mothers Day Out in the Fall. He chuckled and agreed. Score.

20 pesos

Today, I was de-cluttering the laundry room and found this 20 pesos. Neither Josh nor I have owned any pesos. Ever. I never would've thought the boys sneaking out would start this early... Or be international. ;)

Trip to Chattanooga

As I mentioned, this weekend (Sat-Sun) we went to Chattanooga, Tennessee with Josh's parents, Regenia and Milton. It was a really good trip and we are so grateful to them for treating us! We left Birmingham around 9am on Saturday and met Regenia and Milton (aka: Gigi and Papa) in Chattanooga around 11:45 am cst at Abuelo's mexican restaurant for lunch. Afterward, we headed to check into the Staybridge Suites Hotel right outside of downtown Chattanooga. Regenia and I had originally picked out the Chattanooga Choo Choo hotel downtown bc they had a package with aquarium tickets and we thought the boys would love the train atmosphere, but we were disappointed to find some negative reviews involving musty smells, etc. (would not be good at all for our sugar baby with mild asthma, H) so Regenia graciously moved our reservations. After having no luck finding availability in the immediate downtown area, she got us some fantastic rooms at the Staybridge Suites. (It turns out that there was a National Rowing competition there this weekend.) Josh, the boys, and I had a king suite that had separate bedroom and sitting/tv areas. I forgot to mention that this was our first ever hotel stay with the twins and, let me just say that this was THE WAY TO GO! Bedtime was a complete breeze after letting the boys skip nap. They fell fast asleep on the car ride back to the hotel. However, had they been awake for bedtime at the hotel, it wouldnt have been difficult at all, because we could separate ourselves from them and watch the Alabama vs LSU football game in the other room!

Ok.. Back to the trip... After checking into the hotel, we headed to downtown for the aquarium and then dinner at Sugar's. We would not recommend eating there. While our server was very pleasant and attentive, the food took forever to come and was not that awesome. The aquarium was pretty impressive though! There are two sections, the ocean exhibit and river exhibit. Having also been to the Georgia aquarium a few months ago, I'll tell you that the ocean exhibit at the GA aquarium is way better and the river exhibit at TN aquarium is way better. We also noticed that, especially without a nap, JHs short 2.5 year old attention span is drastically shorter. Whew. That sweet boy was practically dragging us through the entire thing, barely slowing down. H, on the other hand, was all about stopping to look and soak it all in. He's always been more of a "studier", soaking things in. I think they both had a great time in their respective viewing methods. Sunday morning, we got up and headed to the Tennessee Valley train depot (not sure of exact name but that's close) and took a one hour round trip train ride. I'd forgotten how much I enjoy riding on trains and thinking it would be fun for our little family to take a train trip somewhere in the future. Obviously I'll keep you posted if it ever happens!

Thanks again for the fun trip, Gigi and Papa! It was so fun exposing the boys to new experiences and getting to spend time with you. Xoxo