a fail and a favorite

you know how some people with kids can sit and do things like check their email -without it being a problem?  well i thought i'd try that one day, and this is what a found when i came upstairs:

crew and kade brought almost every. single. toy. from the toy room into brody's room. when i saw the mess crew and kade excitedly proclaimed: "look mom!  we made a grocery store!"  darn kids, always too cute to stay mad at!  that being said i have returned to checking my mail only during nap time.

in another side note, this is one of my most favorite things in the world:

oh how i love an empty laundry basket!!  naturally it only stays empty for a few hours, but while it's there i smile every time i walk by!

turning three!

when the twins were a couple months old i seriously doubted i'd live to see the day they turn three, but speaking of time as a relative thing, it seemed to come quicker than i ever thought it would!  oh man, kade and crew, they're such a whirlwind of chaos and entertainment.  i really like the preschool age because they say and do such funny things.  we kicked of their memorial birthday with a swim at the pools and had fun celebrating with rob, jana and jacob!  after swimming we came back for the party:

we had a dinosaur themed party and there was food for all types: chicken nuggets for carnivores, fruit for herbivores, and chinese chicken salad for omnivores.  however the twins were more interested in this:

i really don't know how those cupcakes survived for as long as they did!  

the boys played some rounds of pin the tooth on the t-rex, and you can see from the picture that very few teeth made it into his mouth!

after the eating, it was time for the anatomically incorrect stegosaurus/triceratops piñata.  the boys had fun giving it a couple dents but justin was the one to break it open:

filling up on the loot: candy, dino stamps and dino tattoos

afterwards we had cupcakes and sang happy birthday, these guys were excited to FINALLY dig into those cupcakes!

we also made a giant t-rex to put on the wall, it was the very first thing crew and made noticed when they came down that morning.  here they are with their new larger t-rex's and giving their best dinosaur roar!

this big t-rex lasted two weeks on our wall, but of course the second the rs president stopped by for a minute they proceeded to tear it down and use it to roar at people around the house, awesome.

they both got a a buzz lightyear, and as soon as those were finally released from their child and adult proof boxes these two were in heaven!

we loved celebrating kade and crew!

keeping busy

you know that whole 'christmas is july' saying?  well we saved the boys christmas money and got a trampoline for the backyard, so it was pretty much christmas in april this year!  luckily micah was visiting when we got it and he offered to help justin set it up, and the boys love it!  i think trampoline people design these things with brody in mind, that kid's a jumping machine!

I'm trying to be more proactive in creating activities for the boys this summer, and right after i made that decision it rained for like four days straight.  so we started to get a little creative with painters tape:

i wish i had video of the twins doing hopscotch, it's so cute the way they hop from each square on both feet. another bonus of the taped game, the boys loved pulling up the tape when we were done playing, since there were so many pieces it took them like 25 minutes to pull them all up, it was wonderful!!

we took a rainy day walk:

and one saturday afternoon justin and the boys did play dough.  his parents had sent this dental play dough kit and justin and the boys really got into it!  kade liked extracting all the teeth- creepy!

back when i was teaching preschool i made quite a few batches of gak for my kids, i figured the twins were old enough to play so i used this recipe, which took about 5 minutes to make and i just store it in a ziplock.  we've used it almost everyday since i made it earlier last week! (as a side note if you do use this recipe and need borax, i got mine at target in the detergent aisle, it was at the bottom and i walked the aisle about three times before i finally found it; it's very discrete.)

stretchy fun!  

we also picked up a bike trailer from a garage sale and i was worried as to how to keep the twins helmeted while riding, and then lightning struck with raskullz helmets, we got the t-rex ones and the boys LOVE them!!  they also wear them around the house to play to help channel their dinosaur power.  they actually make them down to a size 3 yrs so that was very helpful! (and the little ladybug girl ones are soo cute!)

and last but certainly not least:

yup, it's undies all around for the boys at this house!  (pardon kade's hand.)  we used a 3-day book a friend of mine recommended.  the first three days were a bit of a beast, as expected, but by day four progress (thankfully) was being made.  overall the boys were champs with the big transition to undies so hurray for crew and kade, hurray for undies and hurray for no more diapers!!

states project

A couple months ago I mentioned here that we painted our powder room downstairs, but it needed a little decor to break it up. Justin got me a silhouette for my birthday, so I really wanted to use it for a project, holy cow, it's a really fun machine! So here's what the room looks like now:

Here's the straight on view:

I got state shapes to cut for each of the three states Justin and I have lived in since we've been married, and each heart is at the city: Torrance, Provo, and now Keller. I like how it turned out, I'm really excited to hopefully use the silhouette for more projects!