thanks

i am thankful.
i love thanksgiving.
it's my favorite holiday

i love
the chaos
the mess
the stress
the fact that it's 11:14 am and i have already run the dishwasher twice
the parade
the beautiful linens
the perfectly set table
the music that is being drowned out by my husband yelling at the tv screen
the lions and the cowboys
the fact that the tv gods magically start football right after santa moseys on down 34th Street and Herald Square.
it's like they want all wives and husbands to be aligned and not to have to do paper rock scissors to see which will be starring on the big tv.

i love
the flickering candles
the laughter
the wine
my moms stuffing
my grandma p's pumpkin pie
my grandma wood's pecan tarts
a  too full tummy
my family drinking, laughing and eating all under one roof......except jess who we will miss over and over again and hope she will somehow surprise us by walking through the door.
staying up late and drinking more than i should not wanting it to end.
i love this time of year.

i feel lit in my bones when i think of how thankful i am.
i get choked up.
i never thought this thing called life could be this good.
it is.

these kids have changed my life more than they will ever know
so this thanksgiving
i'm not going to let the mess of everyday life get in the way.
i'm going to stop for a minute and try to make them feel my love.

i'm going to hug my family a little bit tighter as the night comes to an end.
i'm going to beg them to stay.
you people are my life and i hope you know how thankful i am for all of you.
you don't get to choose your family but if you could, i wouldn't change a thing.

xoxo and happy turkeying ya'll

baby it's hot outside

We finally made it to the new park downtown.
I have wanted to check it out for a while but you know how it goes.
Crystal is in town and I wanted some qt with my girl so we made it happen.

Nap.
Hurry up and eat.
Hurry up and get dressed.
Hurry up and get them loaded.
Hurry up and get there.
And it was totally worth it.

It was ridiculously hot for November 22nd

And I was so tempted to take a stroll through these.

These babies had FUN

And got dirty

 And ate mulch and leaves leftover from the big kids

 And Chloe got to hang with her friend Sofia.

And we got back to the car all hot and sweaty just in time to pass out......well 2/3rds of us.



Can we talk about how excited I am for Thanksgiving?

Everyone is coming to our house and our oven is broken.

Should definitely be interesting.

AND THEN

On Friday

we get our Christmas treeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!

I am not one of those people who bans Christmas stuff until December or any of that crazy nonsense.

As far as I'm concerned, we could live in a holiday bubble all year round.

It makes me happy.

The twins and I have been eating breakfast to Christmas music since my birthday.

That was November 1st for any of you who may have forgotten to drop my gift in the mail.

Happy beginning of the holiday season, baby.

little miss independent.

has become even more independent.
just now in fact.
my pensive,
contemplative,
calculated,
independent,
dainty,
analytical,
cutesy,
gentle,
high pitched,

cuddly when she wakes up but not before she goes down

angel of a daughter

crawled today.

and I was sitting right there.

camera in arm's reach.

I watched her instead of the camera so the blurry pics were worth it.

she knew mama was proud

 and liked the cheers

she just didn't realize it would be so much work.

days like these remind me how amazing it being home with these two.

even when this one won't let me put him down for a minute.

Lizard

I hate lizards.
I hate lizards.
I hate frogs and lizards.

I would take a bubble bath with roaches and spiders before I would touch a lizard.

Lizards know this.
They taunt me.
I hate them.

I lived in the boonies before here and never once had a reptile problem.
At our new house - reptiles torment me.

They have meetings about what they can do to piss me off.

First there was the snake.
I'm ok with snakes.
I just don't want them in my house.
A snake was in my house.
In my bathroom.
It scared me when it would occasionally creep out letting me know we would, in fact, be roomates.
I wanted it out but snakes have nothing on lizards.

On Halloween a little lizard got in my house.
I screamed.
Like a girl.
I cried.
I don't want lizards anywhere near me let alone my perfect, pure, yummy, delicious twins.
Everywhere I turned I looked for the lizard.
The whole day.

That night I knew the lizard was crawling from crib to crib snuggling with my twins.
I knew he would then come in my room and dance on me as I slept.
I hated him.
I still do.
Next morning
Matt saw him.
Matt caught him.
Matt put him outside.
Where he belongs.

Last week?
New lizard.
He was bouncing up and down on my white pea coat that was in the dry cleaning pile.
He was the size of an alligator.
I do not want to be dramatic here so I will clarify, he was the size of a small alligator, not a big one
but still
an alligator.

I screamed at him and cussed at him and he looked at me with his disgusting beady little eyes and made sure I knew he would be staying as long as he liked.

I walked around the house on eggshells for the entire day.
Finally I let my guard down and only thought about it 64 times an hour versus 3,873 times an hour.
Fast forward one day.
There he was.
Little did he know I had back up.
Mom.
She is not afraid of lizards.
I screamed.
Loud.
Ridiculously loud.
Over and over.
She sprung into action.
I kept screaming.
He jumped on top of her.
Trampled over her and ran right at me.
Down the hallway.
Laughing.
I screamed if he came near my babies I would kill someone.

I screamed so much I terrified my twins.
They started screaming.
Mom ran.
She eventually caught lizard and threw him outside with the rest of his disgusting little friends.
I figured he told them all that I wasn't messing around.
He didn't.
He came back.
As soon as I felt comfortable walking around the house without whimpering and turning lights on at night to make sure he wasn't there.
He made his second appearance.

That was Thursday.
I cringe every night when I go to my room because I know he is somewhere.
I turn on the lights in the middle of the night when I have to pee because I know he is enjoying a late night swim in my toilet.
I know he has laid lizard nests everywhere in my house.

I have said lizard 457,248,205 times this week.
Any noise is the lizard.
Anything missing the lizard took.
Any shadow is the lizard with his stupid little lizard friends.
Matt's over hearing about the lizard.
So tonight my friends, when I got done loading the dishwasher and asked Matt to throw something in that I had forgotten and asked him if that "stuff" on the bottom of the dishwasher was lizard remains I expected a sigh of annoyance and another eye roll.

What I wasn't expecting was a yes.
I screamed.
I made him swear 74 times.
I burst into tears.
I cried for thirty minutes.
I can't stop crying.
I have lost my appetite.
I am buying new dishes.
And a new dishwasher.

I am in a bad place.
I don't know if will recover.
I'm serious.
My house is ruined and I want to move.

I hope you had a better Sunday than I did.

8 months.

How we got from here

to here
I'll never know.

I do know you two are
by far
the cutest children on the entire planet.

You get more fun everyday and now that you are sleeping I don't have that much to complain about.

I think I'm actually going to have to clean the house now that I'm getting sleep.

 That sucks.

I write you each letters but those are just for you so here are a few of my favorite things for everyone else to enjoy.

Colton: You have so much hair and it's getting darker. I think Daddy is jealous - he lost his hair at 14 ; )
Chloe: You have barely any and you are definitely a blondie.

Colton: You sleep all night but are not a fan of naps. Sometimes you scream for 30 minutes before going down.
Chloe: You are a big nap fan.....yesterday you slept for 3 1/2 hours.

You both say mama, dada and nuhnuh and Chloe you throw in a Bubba every now and then. Chlo - you are close to saying bye bye and do the the cutest little practicing thing that daddy and I can't get enough of. Everytime you are asked to mimic me you move your lips like "I better make sure my mouth can do that before I try to make the noise"

Chloe: You love food. Your favorites are still mango, avacado and this month we can go ahead and add bananas, peas and brown rice to the list.
Colton: You also like peas and brown rice but bananas are definitely your favorite. You eat, but you are far less enthusiastic than your sister. Somehow you still manage to outweigh her by almost 3 pounds???

Colton is crawling all over the place and acting mildly like Godzilla toppling over any and everything. Yes, your sister included as you can see here.

And here.

And here.

Chloe: I think you are going to start crawling any day now. You get up on all fours, rock back and forth and even move one knee forward but then realize what's the point and plop back down on your belly. I can't decide whether you are a master manipulator or just a controlling little girl. Neither of which run in the family on my side! The more we try to make you crawl the more opposed you are. You have resorted to shooting your legs out like a pencil and locking them so we can't get you into the crawl position again.

You both love Yo Gabba Gabba and are mesmorized by the mere sound of DJ Lance Rocks footsteps. When the song starts - forget about it. **Yes my kids watch tv. They watch a lot of tv....let the eye rolling and judging commence.***

You both still share a pair of dimples and it is one of my favorite things about you. Chloe's is on the right and Colton's is on the left. I actually think know that you guys are getting them on both sides now, but I refuse to acknowledge it because it is so much cuter thinking you share a pair.

Bubba we still call Bubba and only Bubba but Chloe has 462 nicknames. I will be shocked if you ever know your real name. I call you Tika (pronounced Teeeeka) most often now. You love being tickled which turned in to tEEkle which morphed into teeka. So now I call you Tika. Or Tika Chica. Dady calls you birdie because you always flap your arms and legs in udder deliciousness when he walks through the door. You're still Chlo, Baby G and G. Ok, so maybe not 462 but I feel like there are way more than 4??

We're getting ready to put you in your big kid carseats. You even tested them out the other day but I am still hesitant to take the leap.....not because I want to hold on your babyness for ever and ever.
That would be silly!
No, really, it's not for that reason.
It's because I will now have to carry you two everywhere instead of carrying just your carseats, which is actually more difficult than it sounds.

You both love music and really love it when I sing to you. Our favorite song is You Are My Sunshine and I cry almost every single time I get to the "you'll never know dear, how much I love you" part.

Because, it's true.

You'll never ever know dears, how much I love you.

Happy 8 month Birthday 2 days late.

errrrrrrr. rewind

I just realized that I haven't bragged about my twins Halloween costumes???


What the what?


That is so unlike me???


So, long story short my mom convinced me we could make the twins costumes.
I like to think I'm crafty but I know my limits.

This was absolutely exceeding my ability.


"Mom, seriously, this is too much and they aren't going to look like fools their first Halloween"
I sassed.
"What are you talking about? It will be easy."
Mom said.

I mean.....
I have taken A sewing class.....

So...
With mom's help, we did it.

And,
we did it quite fabulously I might add.

I know we had exceptional subjects but I mean come on, these bad boys far exceeded my expectations.

The bone on big boy's costume was an actual dog bone and defintely came through in the clutch when he got fussy.

He could chew on it was not able to destroy it.

We went to my sisters house.

Our family was bigger and better this year.

It's only going to get bigger

and better

***disclaimer***
yes, my husband did shave the top half (of what was left of his hair),and
DYE 
a moustache and "soul patch" for his Halloween costume for the party we went to the night before.

***yes, he refused to shave it on real Halloween***

***yes, I told him he would RUIN the fam's first Halloween pics.

***no, he didn't care.

***yes, he thought it would be funny to keep it.

redic.

So cheers.

Here's to more candy.

And more butterflies.

and sweeter dreams in new scary pj's.

I love these kids.