The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

For some people, the most wonderful time of the year is the start of winter and the holiday season. I loathe cold temperatures, winter clothes and snow, and the holidays tend to stress me out more than anything else, so winter is most definitely not my favorite time of the year. Instead, it's spring that's the most wonderful time of my year.
Here are some of my favorite things about this time of year:
1. The ability to shave a few minutes off our departure time in the mornings. Without winter coats, hats, and mittens to weight us down, we can easily get out the door in under 5 minutes. That's quite an accomplishment when you've got three kiddos.
2. The warmer temperatures, longer days, and extra outdoor time. There is nothing I like more than plopping myself down on my front porch and watching Caroline play with the neighborhood kids. So far, the twins are happy to sit next to me and play with a basket of toys, so it's almost like taking a mini-vacation. Almost. We've also been enjoying spending time with friends, especially our preschool buddies, at the playground in the afternoons.
3. Flip-flops. Favorite.shoes.ever.

Here are a couple things I do not like about this time of year:
1. The dogs' obsession with sunbathing and their desire to go in and out of the house onto the back deck a million and one times a day. This picture just about sums up Isabel's days when the weather is nice...

2. Flies: Flies are my own personal arch nemeses. When the dogs want to go in and out, in and out, and in and out all day long, I tend to just leave to door open to save myself a million annoying trips to the back of the house. Unfortunately, this allows flies to come into my home, and they drive me insane. Flies are useless and gross, they cause Frances to whip herself into a panic induced seizure, and they make me batty buzzing around and landing on all my nice clean surfaces. So what's a girl to do when she's too lazy to open and shut and open and shut the door all day but cannot live with flies in her home? Well, until this year, I've always left a bottle of Windex on our kitchen counter top solely for the purpose of killing flies. Once inside, the pesky critters typically end up on one of the windows and when they do, I draw my spray bottle faster than the blink of an eye and shoot. It's a win-win: the fly dies almost instantly and my windows are always nice and clean. The only downside of this method is that if you guests in your home, you end up looking kind of like a loon as you sprint through the house wielding a bottle of glass cleaner.
This year, I'd rather spend my time doing something other than hunt flies so I ordered this: https://www.buymagicmesh.com/  For only $19.95, I am hoping to stop the nasty flies dead in their tracks while still allowing my sunbathing-obsessed dogs free reign over the doorway to the back deck. We'll see how it actually turns out when my Magic Mesh is delivered in 4-6 weeks ;)

Ok, enough talk. Here are some pictures and videos of the girls from this past weekend and last week...

Caroline headed out the door with Daddy to go to the children's museum. 

Caroline and Daddy leaving for Home Depot. 

Double trouble: Margaret and Julia

Margaret spends a lot of time exploring these days.

Julia on a wagon ride with C.

Caroline scootering with Daddy.

                                            Julia loves to jump!!

Margaret on the move

Julia on the move

            

Julia clapping

A Different Kind of Picture Post

My mom recently sent me some pictures from my childhood that gave me a good chuckle. Here are four images that I thought were worth sharing with you all...

Here I am vacuuming at about age 5. Who actually wants to vacuum at age 5??? In a bathing suit, sunglasses, and jelly shoes, no less. Apparently I did. At least I can say that I don't wear a bathing suit when I vacuum these days...

My interest in staying fit started at an early age, as you can see below. I'm pretty sure my exercise gear was from the "Get in Shape Girl" collection. Any other 80's babies remember that?? 

Nice leg extension, Allison. And check out the old school Fisher-Price cassette tape player on the floor. I bet we were busting out some hip tunes with that thing!

I guess I had a love for tutus at one point in my childhood, as you can see below. But I maintain that Caroline's love for tutus beats any interest I ever had by a mile.

Easter, 1984. I'm not sure what's worse here: my hair style or the look on my face. Clearly I was not pleased by the Easter Bunny's offerings that year.

An Almost Perfect Weekend

We just enjoyed 3 days of all the things that make a weekend great: amazing weather, uninterrupted family time, lots and lots of outdoor play time, and fun with friends.
Only two things went wrong to keep the weekend from being absolutely perfect: Vandy lost their basketball game on Saturday night, and I was prevented from attending a baby shower on Sunday because Caroline got sick the minute I pulled into my friend's driveway, leaving me only a few minutes to drop off my gift, and say a few hellos and then goodbye before I had to return home. Bummer, to say the least. All in all though, it was still a pretty fantastic weekend.
I took what seems like a million pictures over the last few days, so I'll let the images do the rest of the talking...

We started off the weekend with a little water table action. The weather was just right for C to break out her bathing suit.

Margaret and Julia spent lots of time playing on the front porch.

We even let the dogs out on the front porch. A treat that Frances thanked us for by running away approximately 20 times.

We flew our Vandy black and gold with high hopes, only to be disappointed on Saturday night.

Margaret and Julia all dolled up for a birthday party.

Caroline looked super cute as well. She brought a flag, Baby NyeNye, and an Easter egg as her party accessories.

Lawson pulling his ladies around in the Radio Flyer.

Sweet girls Caroline, Wingrove, and Mary Michael

A girl and her cupcake.

YUM!!
Margaret met a new friend at the party.

We tried really hard to get both girls to look at the camera. We were not successful.

Designated baby spot.

Caroline and Daddy spent lots of time together all weekend.

Sunday surprise: a hand-me-down rocking horse from one of our neighbors! We named her Buttercup.

Despite the look on Margaret's face, the twins like Buttercup too!

Is it March...or June??

Can you believe these temperatures we've been having? We are loving this summer-like weather in the middle of March! It's kept us busy outdoors, and a tad more sweaty than we're used to this time of year, but we're not complaining.

Check out what the girls have been up to this week...

Margaret and Julia had their 9 month check up. Dr. Nelson was so pleased with the girls' development and growth. Both girls got the green light for table foods, which is sure to make their meal times even more interesting! It's hard to believe their next check up with be their one year visit!!
Here are their latest stats:
Julia: 17lbs, 3 ounces (25th percentile!), 26 5/8 inches (25th percentile)
Margaret: 16lbs, 10 ounces (10th percentile!), 26 1/4 inches (10 percentile)

Margaret was a happy camper through the whole visit.

We played with sticks while we waited!

What do you mean I have to get a shot today??

Zonked after the doctor's visit. J/M

Lots of outdoor time this week...loving it!

C on her scooter.

Happy girl on the run.

Snack time! J/M

Just for fun, we added a costume to this week's crazy clothes get-ups.

M on the move!

J on the move!

J sitting pretty

M getting into mischief. 

Having lunch with some friends at Westwood Club.

We love this place...we got to eat french fries!

Sweet Julia

Spring Break 2012

Don't be fooled by the title of this post. Our spring break did not in fact consist of a vacation to a tropical location where I lounged poolside and enjoyed delicious fruity drinks as I would have liked. Instead, we spent the week in the lovely state of Virginia, playing with friends, enduring a mini makeover in our kitchen, and taking a quick road trip to DC, among other things. Not exactly the most relaxing spring break I've ever had, but it was nonetheless full of fun. Here's a rundown of our busy spring break.

Playtime with friends: We were lucky to enjoy great weather for most of the week. We packed in lots of outdoor play time, play dates, and a bit of indoor fun at Monkey Joe's. Of course Caroline had to wear a ridiculous outfit to each and every one of these events. It added approximately 4 hours in all to our departure times this week.

I can bring my shopping cart to my friend's house, right?

Before a park play date.

Lookout below!

Wearing a tutu while scaling a "rock" wall at Monkey Joe's

Mini-makeover in the kitchen: Our home was built in 1955 and while there have been many renovations since then, the knotty pine cabinets in the kitchen endured throughout the years. I guess that look may have been attractive over 50 years ago, but it was time to give the cabinets a face lift. Getting brand new cabinets was not cost effective, so we opted to have them refinished. Unfortunately, that meant removing everything from the kitchen, dumping it into the dining room, and allowing three days of chaos, dust, and fumes to occur in my house. I'm pleased with the results but feel very strongly that our next home's cabinets must be brand spankin' new before I will commit to living there.

Adios, 1955!

Hello, 2012...or at least the 21st century!

Road trip: On Wednesday, we loaded up and drove to Arlington to visit Olivia, Mason, and Katie. It was my first trip with all three girls and I'm happy to report that it was a huge success. The babies were a dream, sleeping most of the way there and back, and Caroline was a happy traveler too. We had a wonderful time catching up with some of our favorite Darden peeps.

Mason and Caroline enjoy a lunch date.

With three girls in our house, you don't come by a lot of trucks. Margaret was excited to check out Mason's stash.

Julia was happy to munch on some toys we brought from home.

Sweet Mason was so eager to give Caroline some love. She wasn't having any of it though. A high five was all he got.

Twin News:
1. Margaret and Julia decided that spring break was the perfect time to stand up in their cribs and discover that they've been sharing a room with each other for 9 months. Both of them were supposed to be sleeping when I heard a chorus of "agghhs" and lots of giggling. I went into the nursery to see what was going on and found this...

Hey, Julia!!

Are you there, Margeret? It's me, Julia.

Oh hi, Mom!

As you might imagine, putting them down for naps has been just a tad bit more difficult as a result of this discovery.

2. Margaret had an appointment on Friday morning at the pediatric eye doctor to get an eye exam. I'd noticed that her eyes seemed to be turning inward and wanted to have it checked out. I tried to prepare myself that Margaret might need an eye patch or glasses to correct any problem. I may or may not have pre-ordered colorful eye patches designed just for children and I may or may not have selected a blog post title to break the news ("Introducing Captain Marrrggh-ret!").
Alas, all that anxiety-fueled preparation was for naught. Margaret was "diagnosed" with pseudostrabismus, or false cross eyes. Basically, until the bridge of her nose becomes more prominent and the folds of skin on the inner parts of her eyes recede, she will appear slightly crossed eyed at times. Of course I am totally relieved that her eyes are fine, but I'm also confident Margaret would've looked pretty darn cute in an eye patch :)
Super cute eye patch..too bad we won't be needing it.

3. Yesterday was the girls' 9 month birthday!

Margaret

Julia