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just so ya' know

i'm not dead, just back to teaching...i'll update when i come up for air.  love y'all!

i think i can...

Well folks, things are about to go into super crazy over-drive around here.  Tomorrow is my last day of summer since Thursday I have training all day and Friday I am going to go move into my new classroom.  I know that things will get easier every day and that we have already come so far in this crazy life of ours, but sometimes I just feel like the little engine that could.  So, on that note...I think I can, I think I can, I think I can....don't give up on me and I'll post every time that I have a chance.

Question of the day: How are you feeling about the end of summer?

crazy days!

Our best friends just found out 4 days ago that Mary got a new job in Lewisville. So 3 days ago, they found a new place to live half way between their jobs. Then life got really crazy yesterday. Mary and I were down in Hillsboro at Carter's Outlet store (whole other post's worth of stories & pictures from my finds there), and Michael calls and tells Mary that they will save a ton of money if they move out before the end of the month....which is....today. So, their precious daughter Addi has been hanging with us, totalling us at FOUR under 3 for most of the weekend. It weird how much easier it makes things to add a child. Sounds crazy, right? But look at these pictures of how much fun Georgia and Addi had together and how busy they were. AND this meant good sleeping for all! Yay!

As you can tell, the girls have used the diapers.com box in every way imaginable.


My e-trade baby, Mary at dinner. This little pretend laptop is a life-saver when we are trying to get dinner done without fussy babies.

Notice jealous Olivia in the background...surrounded by toys in her entertainment center, but no...she wants the ONE toy that Mary has.

Sweet Addi...Georgia's BFF!

Fun in the sprinkler with the big girls, Addi and Georgia...oh yeah, and Holly. :)

This picture tells you how crazy it has been...these are Mary's shoes for the day, and, no, they don't match. I love my bestie, even if she's just as crazy as me :)!


Olivia crawling everywhere, even almost under the couch.

Mary is happy as a clam just to hang out on her belly...she'll crawl when she's ready I guess!

Question of the day: What's the craziest, quick decision you ever had to make?

half

http://beckdoubles.blogspot.com/

The link above is to my friend, Candi's blog.  It's funny to think that it seems all twin moms seem to have a sense of "this is what is meant to be" about their twins.  I think having twins makes us kindred spirits.

Question of the day: Who is your kindred spirit?  Why?

I know these girls' kindred spirits...each other!

Diapers!!!

One key to survival with 3 little ones still in diapers in getting a good deal.  Another one is finding ways to make life easier when you can.  Enter http://www.diapers.com/ !  We love love love this website.  We order diapers from them every month for a great deal.

My girls in 1 of the 2 giant boxes that arrived yesterday.

Needless to say, we go through a LOT of diapers each month.  And if there is one thing that you don't want to run out of---it's diapers!  So we keep the closet stocked.  One awesome thing about diapers.com is that it keeps a record of your purchases so that you can very easily re-order in just a few clicks.  Also, shipping is free for orders over $49 all the time, so that means that I don't ever have to try to fit all my massive amounts of groceries and diapers in my grocery cart at the same time.

They also have great deals on clothes, toys, baby gear, like the box says, "everything but the the baby".  We got Georgia's slide for her birthday through diapers.com, as well as this Elmo doll that all the girls love.

Okay, now that I know you are dying to try it...here's some great discount codes.  Just because I love ya!

DIAPERS20PCT  this one is for 20% off of diapers for 3 months for new customers!!!
GET10PCT  this one is for 10% off of everything else

P.S. Go to diapers.com on facebook to "like" the picture of my girls in the box please!

My New Favorite

My new favorite place to take my family has got to be ChikFilA.  The one here in Waxahachie has amazing customer service, yummy food, and great specials and events.  Today (& Thursday if you missed it today) was double dollar days.  That means everything that I bought today got printed onto a special receipt that I can bring back next week and get everything I ordered today FOR FREE!  Oh and tonight they had family night with a clown, face painting, and balloon animals.  We had a blast!  To top it all off, they have a little station with supplies for kids, including stick-on disposable place mats, little containers of Cheerios, wipes, crayons, coloring sheets, and even sprinkles for ice cream.  Thanks, Hachie ChikFilA for making my family's day :)!

Question of the day: What restaurant do you love for their great family deals?

Keeping Busy for Cheap!

My last post, I asked you for ideas about free/cheap things to do with little ones in the summer. Well, we have tried to do a few of those things:

Like go to the park. Mary (in back) and Olivia get to enjoy being outside and ride around in their stroller, and the heat alone wears them out so that they sleep well.

Mary says, "hello" to all of Mommy's followers :).

Olivia wants to reach out and touch you too!

Of course, Georgia absolutely loves going to any park. She likes it even better when there is a "paygound", as she calls it, involved. This is one of our family's favorite parks. It is in Duncanville, near where Pat grew up. The name of the park is Kidsville and it has been there since Pat and I were little. I remember going there with my family!

It has a unique design, including:

a "tightrope"

Regular and baby/toddler swings (lots of them!)

A wooden castle-like structure with lots of places to climb, crawl, and explore and a bicycle-sized street system complete with a "bike" wash.




We've also tried to get creative inside the house with having fun.

My mom brought this hat over and it proved to be good entertainment, especially on Mary while she did her "happy dance"!

And who could forget...EATING!

My dad brought us some pork chops not too long ago....you think that Georgia liked them much?

We've also being grilling in the backyard a ton. Pat can cook, while Georgia plays in her baby pool and with the hose and I keep an eye on the twins.

This picture IS summer to me!

My hubby!!! Love him!

Olivia cooling down with some frozen peaches in her mesh feeder.

Dinner on the grill.

"I'm gonna get you, Mama!!!"

Once in a while, I do have to get away...thanks to friends like these I come back sane. We travelled up to Frisco and had a great girls' day at IKEA, In 'n Out Burger, and Sam Moon. Yay for girls' day!!!

Question of the day:  Who do you need to thank for helping you stay sane?

to be continued...

I'm way too tired for a post tonight, but here's a preview of what is to come soon:

-crawling

-grocery store adventures

-glow sticks

-IKEA

-In 'n Out


to be continued...

Summer

I love love love having summers off.  I can spend time with my family, get a few things done, and staying in short or sweat pants all day long.  Like any teacher, I need the break by the time June rolls around and I am definitely a better teacher in August after being refreshed.

However, I am finding that the lack of structure that comes with summer is driving me CRAZY!!!  I'm normally pretty good about planning outings way ahead of time to ensure that I have time to get organized for them and make sure we've got the money to go where we want to go.  But summer is another story... lately we have been getting stir crazy and taking off on a whim almost every day.  This would be okay except we keep spending money when we do.  We have had fun going to the zoo and going out to eat, but I know that we have to be smart about our choices.

Today, I am proud of myself.  We went to the park.  It was fun and wore the girls out so much that the twins fell asleep before we even got home and Georgia fell asleep on the couch hours before nap time.  I guess the lesson here is: the best things in life are free.

Question of the day (really need your impute here): What do you do for free to entertain your kids in the hot hot hot summer?

Open Mouth, ADDI!

Okay, funny story.  A while back my best friends, Mary & Michael, brought their little girl over for dinner at our house.  It was a fun night and we even caught a cute video of Georgia and Addi.  Addi wasn't wanting to eat, so Georgia took it upon herself to get Addi to eat her beans.  Addi kept saying "No!" and shaking her head and Georgia kept saying, Open Mouth, ADDI!"  Finally, after repeating this sequence a few times, Georgia cocked her head to the side and said, "No?  Oh, I see" and put the spoon down.  Open Mouth, ADDI! Video

We laughed really hard about it...apparently hard enough that Georgia still remembers a couple of months later.  Anyway, she now randomly starts yelling, "Open mouth, ADDI!"  Addi doesn't have to be any where around us, and most of the time we haven't even been talking about her.  I guess it goes to show that Georgia has the memory of an elephant.

Question of the day: What's the funniest thing your kid has ever said?

Georgia and her BFF Addi at Georgia's 2nd birthday party.

Why Plan B?

Just thought I'd back up a little bit to explain the title of my blog.  Plan B for my family has meant something very different than most people would think of...in fact it's not really a plan at all.  If you know me personally, then you know that I am all about planning.  In college I even had a calendar/planner that was broken down into 15 minute time slots.  I organize and re-organize everything in my life way more than is normal or healthy, but that's just me.

If you read my first post, then you know that there is one thing that didn't quite go as I had "planned" and that is my kids.  Sometimes I find that my natural tendencies and personality are at conflict with my faith.  You see, I want to control my life.  I want to know what's coming, be prepared for it, know how it will work out, write down every detail of my strategy, and even put a few cute touches on it (it being life).  One little problem: to be a true Christian, I can't be in control.  Being a Christian means giving it up, letting God take the wheel and being open to the results of that choice.  That's what Pat and I have done when it comes to having babies.  And God decided that a 2 year old and twin 9 months olds is His plan for us. 

It's not easy.  Heck, it's really really hard a lot of the time.  I feel like I am constantly rocking a baby or doing laundry or doing dishes or rocking a baby...wait, did I already say that?  BUT it is exactly what God has planned for us and his "Plan B" is just what I want.  Even if it wasn't my plan at all.

I know that this post is heavy on my beliefs, and some of my posts will be.  But I want this blog to be about my life...ALL of it.  So some posts will be about how we survive our daily life (practical stuff, like feeding schedules), some will be funny stories of my girls, and some will be a little deeper.  Hang on and enjoy the ride!

Question of the day: Who's in control?

Just a Note

Just thought I'd let you guys know that the adds on my blog are not a reflection of  my views or beliefs and I do not choose which adds appear here (especially those that refer to contraception).  If I want to tell you about some amazing thing that I love, I'll write about it here in the posts.  Thanks!   Also, if you are following me, please be sure to join or follow by email to the right. 

Question of the day #2 :) :  I love a bubble bath at the end of a hard day...what's your escape?

Surgery, Strep Throat, and Teething...Oh My!

Our crazy life has been even crazier that last few days.  On Friday, Olivia had surgery to remove one of her salivary glands because it had a growth.  It was a day surgery and it went really well.  The only things we have to do for recovery are give her Motrin as needed and wash her mouth out after she eats.  She was a bit fussy and really tired for the first couple of days.  No big deal, right? 

Well, it wouldn't have been...until Saturday morning Mary woke up with a rash over her whole body.  I took her into the doctor and I heard the word that every mother fears....STREP!  With Olivia still recovering from surgery, we decided to separate everyone to avoid spreading the strep.  Mary went with me to my in-laws house since I have had a cold that I didn't want to turn into strep.  Olivia stayed home with Pat and he went to work cleaning everything in sight.  And Georgia went to Grandmama's house for the night.  Still survivable right?

Add to that Olivia fussing almost all night Monday night and waking up with a runny nose Tuesday.  It was back to the doctor for me....this time with all 3 girls in tow.  We got away with news that it was just bad teething for Olivia.

Sometimes I don't know how we make it through days like these, but we do.  And then I get a rare moment to tickle Georgia, or watch Mary do her "happy dance", or listen to Olivia gibber gabber away and it's all worth it again.  In case you are wondering, we are all feeling pretty good now and Olivia's recovery is going very well.

Question of the day: What's your best teething comfort?

No...you're not crazy, there are 4 babies in this picture.  This is from gettting dressed after swimming on the 4th of July.  From top left, clockwise: Georgia, Olivia, Georgia's BFF Addi, Mary.

Welcome!

Welcome to our crazy life!  So here's the deal: I am married to an amazing man who I've been with for 8 years.  I've attended Mass with him for most of those 8 years and 3 years ago I converted to Catholicism.  Stay with me now...I'm going somewhere with this.  At one of our RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults) classes we heard a talk about why the Catholic church promotes natural family planning.  This talk really spoke to me, so we stopped using birth control and started trying our best to track fertility and use natural family planning. Welllll, about that... about 2 months after going off birth control I was surprise to learn that I was pregnant with my sweet Georgia. 

Georgia just turned 2 in May and she is a spit-fire and my "mini-me" for sure.  She keeps us laughing and running most of the time.

When Georgia was about 8 months old, I was again surprised to learn that I was pregnant.  Obviously, we aren't very good at this whole natural family planning thing.  About 5 weeks into the pregnancy, I started spotting.  So I went in to the OB to have an ultrasound.  As he showed us a heartbeat, I told my husband, Pat, "See, we're not dreaming.  I really am pregnant."  The doctor then responded with, "Well, you might think you are dreaming because..." (moving the ultrasound probe) "here's the other heartbeat".  At a moment like that you either laugh or cry...we chose and continue to choose to laugh.  Hence my blog title, "Plan B".  We never planned on having children with the timing that we did, but having our twins 16 months after Georgia is the best thing that every happened to us.  We are head over heals for our twin girls, Mary & Olivia.  They are 9 months old and full of life.

I hope you enjoy looking into our life...because you know you're curious how we haven't totally lost it with a 2 year old and twin 9 months olds!

I'm planning on trying my best to keep this updated pretty frequently and always end with a question for YOU!  So, here's your question:

What's your "laugh or cry" moment?