life size christmas

the other day brody came home with this christmas decoration:

yup, a life sized caroling brody. we've had it up for almost a week now and i still have a hard time stifling a laugh while looking at it.

wake up

i swear i put full jammies on the twins each night before bed, but when we open the door in the morning we sometimes get this:

sleeves and pants are way too overrated anyway.

decor-recor-ration

for some reason brody calls decorations "decor-recor-rations." but i can't really blame him because it is fun to say. so here's how brody decor-recor-rates a christmas tree.

He likes to put his legos together and throw his masterpiece into the tree and say, "I decorated!"

science and history museum

we recently got some passes to the science and history museum, which would rightly baffle most people. i should probably mention that it also has a dino exhibit and children's museum. there's some really cool energy and light rooms, but we spent most of our time in the children play part. here's some pics from our first visit:

our boys LOVE blocks, so here's crew starting his tower.

they have a really fun outdoor water area, which the boys really enjoyed, despite the chilly weather. note to self : i need to teach kade that he really shouldn't drink just any old pool of water he comes across.

good thing this is an ambulance, since someone's probably going to need to help the kid splattered across the front of the vehicle. note to self again: delay the date of brody's drivers license.

more outdoor fun with soft blocks.

a pic of me and brody at the entrance of the childrens museum part. he only wanted to run through the dragon's mouth, he thought if he stopped for a picture the dragon would close his mouth and eat him, we luckily made it out ok.

babyproof

recently we've had almost all our visitors comment on our unique style of baby-proofing our house. sure the big baby stores out there have lots of solutions to common baby proof problems, but, of course, our boys are not the norm. so these are the creative solutions we've invented to try to limit the trouble these boys get into:

first off baby gates, a classic staple. however, the boys can scale and climb everything in existence, so we had to go with mesh gates that don't allow any scaling, imagine that, a gate that keeps kids out. no more coming into the room and finding a toddler on top of the kitchen counter, emptying the cabinets by blindly tossing things over their shoulders (yes, this included things like salt canisters and glasses.)

this twine attached to an old stroller buckle finally keeps our chairs pushed in, and the boys off the table. the rope goes around three sides of the table. it's a great conversation starter.

the fourth side of the table is our bench which has to put down sideways and is tied back with a lower rope so the boys don't slide the bench out to climb on.

the tv, my favorite and most creative solution to date. we bought this little entertainment that someone here said would "definitely keep the boys away from the tv." um, it totally doesn't. they push all the buttons on the side changing channels or the input while watching a show (so irritating), so i used cleaned milk carton tops to go over the buttons and used duct tape to keep them in place. i can finally watch a whole show now! (oh, and side note, i wasn't the one thought the tv unit would work, i don't want to name names, but his name rhymes with mustin and he's a dentist, i hope that doesn't point a finger.)

the fireplace, justin's genius solution. particle board attached by magnets to the fireplace. insanely genius solution. the boys no longer try to climb in the fireplace and rock the grate.

and finally, the simple cost effective solution of limited decorating. and for those who visit here, yes, i know that table's empty. i've simply had too many crushed decorating dreams, not to mention and 16x20 picture tossed off the wall to shatter into pieces. i didn't think they could climb on the table, foolish, i know.

so there you have it, i guess i should probably submit my portfolio to babies r us for a career in baby proofing, but really, how can one really creatively market (and mark the cost up) on some milk carton tops and duct tape? maybe i'll keep my day job.