50 things

At work my team did a session with Maryanne O'Brien of LiveDynamite and for us we took the Strength Finders' tests and focused on developing our strenghts and worked on a variety of other things as well.  I thought is was one of the best things I had done in years and felt it was a great refresher to refocus on goals and who you are and what you want to become.  A few times a year she does independent sessions, so for Keith's bday, I got enrolled in the class (random gift, I know). 

So on Saturday he spent all day downtown and felt like he really got a lot out of the session.  A majority of it focused on the power of positive thinking and where that can take you and the dangers of being negative and how negative thoughts not only bring you down, but those around you!  For example if on a scale of 1 to 10 on positivity, you are a 10.  Most people's positivity can only be the average of the 5 people you are around most.  So if you spend most of your day with a bunch of 1,2's, the best you will be able to be is around a 5.  Or another example of being more positive, would be rephrasing things to remove the negative words, especially with kids.  So instead of saying "don't throw your food on the floor," "please keep your food on your plate."  Those are just a couple small examples.

Anyhow, I wish I could spend a day a week with Maryanne and all of you could spend a day with her too, she is amazing!  After a day with her you will fill extremely motivated and energized.

One tip she gave the group was to de-clutter your life and one way to do that and give yourself a lift is to get rid of 50 things you don't need! 

Since I am a yard sale away from becoming next hoarder's star, this was hard for me, but I feel great about getting rid of this junk!  I even got rid of an old Coach purse, this was really hard for me.  It was white and had far too many stains to ever be used in public again, but it was a gift from Keith and I LOVED it at the time, so it was a hard one to let go of!  I don't know, maybe the old Chi Omega pillow would look nice on the couch.....just joking, it's a gonner!

A little Sunday Project

 This was one of those projects I have NO idea why we didn't do the day we moved in!  The guy who lived in our house was a developer, so he built all kinds of crap in our house with a bunch of random left over building materials.  I'm surprised he actually used nails on this guy, glue generally seems to be his favorite building material.  So these shelves did hold a lot of things for us, but they were very uneven and about half finished. 

 Keith removed all the old boards and replaced them with some 2x4s, it only took him a couple of hours to cut the boards and nail them on the existing structure. 

Now they can hold so much more stuff!  It's amazing how quick all the baby gear piles up!  And most of that is stored in a different room in our basement.  I need to buy a few more tubs this week and the basement will be looking much cleaner.

Those first few moments....

Happy birthday to our beautiful little boys!  I can't believe our two are already two!  The first months were such a blur, I barely remember them!  But at the same time, it seems like yesterday that we were finally meeting our little guys.  I can't say things have gotten significantly easier, just different.  Always exciting of course! 

I couldn't imagine life without these two.  I miss the days where we could snuggle up and cuddle, but it is also a lot of fun watching them turn into such little boys, talking so much and saying or repeating the funniest things and giving us lots of great hugs and kisses! Wishing both of them a healthy, fabulous year full of lots of fun and excitement.

To the moms of boys....

As I approach my third winter as a mom to boys, I would like to share a few words of advice...

HATS

Buy at least two hats right now, and if your little ones are still really young, buy different sizes, one for now, one for spring.  First off, somehow they disappear, reappear and disappear for good.  By the end of last winter, we were down to these two hats.  Honestly, I can't believe they fit!   Second, by mid January, there will be very few hats in sight to buy.  You would think in a state like Minnesota, where hats can be worn about nine months of the year, they would sell them all year! 

I'm sure it is tough to find girl hats late in the winter as well.

ADORABLE CHRISTMAS OUTFITS

There will be rack after rack of adorable festive dresses for the little girls and about one rack of fancy little boy outfits.  Don't hold out for the bargain, if you see something you like, buy it!  It will probably be sold quickly, especially if you need two.  Of course I was a little extra picky hoping to find black cords with red/gray argyle sweater vest (and yes, I did see several of these, not the right size).  After blazing through about 20 stores deep into December when I should have been focused on Christmas shopping, I finally found the argyle sweater vests, but settled on purple (so close to Christmas, I did manage to get a good bargain- not worth the struggle)!  I will be less picky this year.  But really, I rarely dress these two up, and I think little boy sweater vests are too darn cute and how long are they going to go for it! 

A few more pics

Celebration....

We celebrated Dylan getting his cast off by carving pumpkins, and then a bubble bath! 

The boys had a good time carving the pumpkins.

Carter colored the hair on the pumpkin on the right!

Thomas

Lately you won't find Carter without that Thomas book near.  We took the boys to the book store last week and Carter wanted that book the moment he saw it.  He is so cute with it and wants us to read it to him all the time, always bringing it to us with this sad little "please read this to me" face!  It's funny too, because it is a chapter book for kids learning how to read, but he sits and listens to it with 100% of his attention and doesn't attempt to tear pages or anything. 

Wordless Wednesday

Carter

Carter LOVES pumpkins!!!

Carter loves looking out the window at our pumpkins!  Then he has these small ones for the house!  Looking forward to carving them this week.

Scary Dylan Moment.

Last night I checked on the boys before going to bed.  As I was covering up Carter I heard Dylan starting to wake up.  As I turned around he started to stand up, but was still pretty out of it.  Then as he stood, he completely lost his balance and basically did a belly flop on the floor, just missing his dresser by less than an inch.  He cried a lot and has a couple of bruises, but seems to be OK.  How scary!!! Even if we still had our toddler bed rails, they wouldn't have prevented him from falling like that, actually it probably would have been worse.  Poor guy, I hope that doesn't happen again!  Really freaked me out too.

A rough couple of years....

Overall, we are lucky to have a couple of healthy boys!  However, these two have been to the doctor way too many times the past two years and have been through a lot!  Especially Dylan!  Here is the list....of what I remember.
Too many ear infections to count - tubes for both (so glad we did the tubes)
Thrush, they used to get this every time they had antibiotics, which they would have every time they had an ear infection
At least 10-15 rounds of pink eye between both of them
Clogged Tear Ducts, I think we will be have a second surgery for both boys within the next two months
Pneumonia - Dylan, this was probably one our scariest illnesses.  Poor guys was just four months old at the time.
Too many neb treatments!!
RSV- both boys
Torticollis resulting in physical therapy and helmets
Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease- both
A few ER visits with high fevers
Either the Thanksgiving flu (me, Keith, Carter) or was it food poisoning from Arbys...you may want to take that as a word of caution
Molluscum - Dylan (most annoying thing we have had to deal with!)
Dylan's broken arms - day of was really bad, since day one he has done great!


So you name it, we attract it!!  Well, we dodged a few, but still spent a lot of time at the doctors hitting our deductible in February!  Hopefully now that we are on the frequent shopper program at the doctor's office, we will have an extra healthy year two! 

When your twin brother breaks his arm...

You better join in on all the fun!  We decide to write on Dylan's cast last night and Carter wanted to join in on the fun too!

He's been wanting a plastic bag on his arm at bath time as well!

Tomorrow is the big day!

Dylan is scheduled to get his cast off tomorrow!  YAY!  Keith is pretty excited, I'm a little nervous he will fall without the cast and injure it again. 
Here is the xray from 2 weeks ago.  Initially, the bone stuck out a little bit and the hope was that it would straighten out on its own.  Then when they took these xrays it looks like it shifted out even further after the swelling went down.  The doctor was still against doing surgery and said it should straighten out within a year.  So we'll see what tomorrow brings.  Hopefully all goes well.  And if he still needs a cast, hopefully they will give us a fresh one!  This one hasn't been smelling so hot.

Stuck...