Blessed

For some reason, I am emotional today. My best friend for the past 15 years is having her 2nd child right now...a precious little boy!! I am so happy for Amy, James, and 3 year old Hannah-Banana! Love you guys!! I'm coming to see you soon, I hope!

I am also just reminded how extremely blessed I am. God has blessed me with the love of my life, my Eric! I have 2 of the funniest, goofy little dogs that I can't imagine life without, and now I am the proud mommy of identical twin daughters. I am just blown away when I think about it. I read so many sad stories of people struggling to get pregnant or having babies with heart and brain diseases or are just struggling to make it. Part of me feels bad, because I am sitting in my house on my laptop with 2 healthy little girls asleep in the next room. I do not deserve better than anyone else and I know that my life is not perfect, but I am just so thankful for every day I get and every thing God has given me.

My friend Jessica blessed us yesterday by loaning us some ADORABLE and wonderful baby clothes. Her daughter, Annalise, has grown out of them, and when my girls grow out of them, I am going to give them back for her sister to use for her new daughter (to be born soon...YEA!!). I told Eric last night how God had been so good! I have been able to clothe my children in the cutest things, and feed them when they are hungry, and give them toys to play with...those are amazing blessings!! Thank you Jesus for all my blessings!

Here is the song I have been singing today...

Martina McBride's "Blessed"

I get kissed by the sun
Each morning
Put my feet on a hardwood floor
I get to hear my children laughing
Down the hall through the bedroom door

Sometimes I sit on my
Front porch swing
Just soaking up the day
I think to myself, I think to myself
This world is a beautiful place

I have been blessed
And I feel like
I've found my way
I thank God for all I've been given
At the end of every day
I have been blessed
With so much more than I deserve
To be here with the ones
That love me
To love them so much it hurts
I have been blessed

Across a crowded room,
I know you know what I'm thinking
By the way I look at you
And when we're lying in the quiet and
No words have to be said
I think to myself, I think to myself
This love is a beautiful gift

When I'm singing my kids to sleep
When I feel you holding me I know

MY FAMILY!!!

I call this picture, "My twin tornado"

My Stinkers

We got the car seats figured out...thanks mostly to Brianna at the Harker Heights Fire Department. She was such a help. We have one carseat behind the passenger front seat and the other seat in the 3rd row seat with the 2nd row seat folded down...sounds complicated, I know.

Here are the girls riding in their big girl seats for the first time...of course, this was before we switched things up so Eric's poor legs could fit into the car.


Over spring break, our friends Jessica and Scott came over with their little girl, Annalise for dinner. They brought the girls a gift...and the girls LOVED it!! They brought them little chicks that chirp when you hold them in your hand. They have yet to figure out how to make them chirp, but they can't get enough of them.

Lexi will hold it up to her ear and shake it trying to figure out how to work it. Here are the girls after a nap the other day...Lilly still has her sleepy eyes! I just love how her smile gets crooked when she tries to smile REALLY big!

Miss Lexi in the blue, and Toby looking on...

Sweetness...

They also love their little lambs from their Great Grandma!

Here is Lexi shaking her little chick!

"Mommy!! They won't chirp for me!"

"Hellloooooooo!"

She wouldn't let go of her chick! It is her favorite!

Here is my other venture of the week...making pillowcase dresses. They are a little big, but they turned out okay and I think the girls liked them. However, they are not very coordinated at crawling in them. :) This is Lilly...

Good Morning

I don't know if anyone noticed or not, but yesterday's blog with the video was a "test" of sorts for me. Since I cannot make such cool videos from my computer as Eric can on his Mac, I usually just post them to YouTube from his computer and then post the link on my blog. Well...

I spent some time yesterday during a morning nap and figured out how to "Embed" a YouTube video into my blog, and that is what yesterday's blog was about...I am so excited. It is not hard to do either...I just never knew that was an option, but one of the blogs I follow on a daily basis had an embedded YouTube video in it and once I saw it, I just had to figure out how to do it. If I had known I could do that!!!

From now on, you will not have to follow a link to see my girls doing something fun or cute! Woohoo!

I don't have that much news, except for our car seat dilemma. The car seats are great, don't get me wrong. But yesterday I went up to my local firestation to have the lady there inspect the installation. I did that with my infant seats and knowing that a certified inspector checked them out, made me feel tons better. So she helped me get them nice and tight. Unfortunately, our backseat was not the correct angle to get the seat level. We had to put a "pool noodle" under the seat to make it level.

Here is the dilemma...we have 2 seats!! This means that the safest spot for them is one on each side directly behind the front seats. Well, Eric is 6'2" and I am 5'10". We have to have our seats scooted up in order to properly install the rear-facing seats, that Eric was too uncomfortable to drive more than 20 minutes last night. That was the issue in my Honda Civic...another reason we got a larger SUV.

So I may either be driving the SUV all the time until the girls are 35 lbs, or we will have to keep messing with our front seats until we can find a compromise. I feel bad for Eric though. He looked so squished last night. Pray we can find a solution and that we can all be comfy. Thanks!!

I will try to post some pictures tomorrow of the girls in their first car ride in big girl seats!!

Trying Something New....

Carseats

Well if you read my friend Laura's blog, you will know that Maddie had to get her new "big girl" carseat. We had been researching carseats for about a month now. The girls still have about 4 pounds before they exceed the infant carseat weight limit, but they are almost at the height limit. We thought about waiting another month or so before buying the ones we wanted, but bit the bullet and ordered them Sunday night. Since we had decided which ones we wanted, we really wanted to get them.

We even went to Target and set the girls in several different ones to see what they thought..pretty fun, pointless, and cute! They liked the ones that had labels on them that they could suck on! :)

They came in today and we are very excited! It was a tougher decision since we had to multiply whatever the price was by 2, but we got ones that had extremely high safety ratings, really good reviews, and not a terrible price. Here are my big girls in their seats as we were getting them ready to go into the car. Eric will probably have to put them in tomorrow after his classes.

Lilly above and Lexi below...
Also, Eric has started grilling more to help me out...plus it's yummy! The other day, Lilly was playing peek-a-boo with him while he was on the back patio grilling. It was adorable and I wish I could have gotten better pictures, but these are still great!!

A New Venture??

When I attempted to make my first tutus, I made, remade, and then remade them again. There are several ways to make them and I just couldn't decide which way I liked the best! I finally figured it out and I think they are cute...even if no one else agrees! :)

I am tempted to try and sell some, but there are several people here in town who already make them and I am not sure where I would sell them. I have looked at them online since the day I found out I was having girls and have a decent idea how much they are selling for in various places. So today, I made a phone call to the UMHB Bookstore. I was curious if they would buy purple and gold tutus to sell in the bookstore. I am awaiting a return call.

But I made 2 more of them today, and for the fun of it, I put my sweet little diapered babies in a tutu and set them on a blanket in the yard...What ya think??

If I do decide to sell them, I think I found my models....

Lilly is in the hot pink and purple tutu, and Lexi is in the hot pink and cream tutu!!

Our Fun Idea...Hopefully :)

So as the girls have gotten older, I have been cooking more. Their schedules change as they get older but once I get a new schedule set with them, I try to figure out how I can cook and clean while they nap or play with daddy! I am so lucky that their daddy is home quite a bit and can be so involved.

Eric and I have been buying a lot of groceries since we are trying to cook most of our meals and not eat out as much. We had no idea how much it would cost us to buy groceries every month. Well I have been trying to make things in bulk and freeze the extra portion. Last week we had the Sackreiter's over for dinner and I made my mother's lasagna recipe. I made 2 large ones and froze one away for a later date.

Well, we are out of a lot of things we like to have around the house. I contemplated making an afternoon run to the store, but then I got an idea. I was not sure what Eric would think about it, but he was surprisingly open to it....

I proposed that we get creative with the items we have at the house and see if we can go the last 9 days of March without buying much more food. I will have to eventually get a few more items, like my ever present jug of milk. I would die without milk!! Yum!

So we have some frozen items that will work for dinners and we have a fairly well stocked pantry. I have been trying to find great new recipes to try and this will give us an opportunity to get out of our "meal rut". I think we can go at least 4-5 days...after that it will be more of a challenge. I am really excited to try though. You never know what you can achieve until you try!!! Wish us luck!