Bye Bye Blanky. Well, sort of...

I am so proud to announce that Parker is no longer chewing on his blanket. He does still cuddle with it, which I think is fine, because at least he's not putting it in his mouth anymore!
I'm not sure exactly what made him stop. I don't even think I discovered it for a couple of days after, but he did it. All by himself and I'm so proud of him. I told him I wanted to take him to get a special treat, just me and him to celebrate. First he said he wanted Dairy Queen. Then he said he wanted a donut. Then a frozen yogurt. Finally we decided to go to Publix and look at the ice cream selections, but when we got there he spotted Easter cupcakes and chose those.
The back story is that I wanted it to be our little secret. I wanted this to be just for him. Something he didn't have to share with his brother for once. I had it all planned out and he was so excited that it was our little secret, but Brock shot holes in my plan and made me feel like I was deceiving Jake and it wasn't fair and how could I expect a 5 year old to keep a secret and when Jake found out he'd flip....ok, ok, ok, I get it. We'll tell Jake. I told him we'd bring him back a treat too. They were both fine with that. Parky and I got to go alone and he picked out what he wanted and brought something back for his brother and everyone was happy.
I do still struggle with the fact that they sometimes have to share everything and sometimes things can't just be about them. We RARELY spend any one on one time with them and I don't like that. But 1) some might say they don't know any different and 2) we have such little time the four of us spend together that it would be hard to separate anyway. So such is life with twins I guess. Maybe one day things will be different and there will be more opportunity for the one on one time that I think they SO deserve. As for now, they are best friends and being together, the four of us, is most important. And we are so so so proud of Parker's accomplishment. Definitely growing up!

"Can we wear our fancy shirts?"

Legoland

When we were in California for Christmas the boys went nuts playing will all their cousins Legos and then they got a bunch as gifts and since then that's all they've been playing with. The obsession with super heroes had come to an end. That being the case I asked them if they'd rather go to Legoland than Islands of Adventure as previously discussed for their birthday. They agreed... Jake listening to his brand new ipod on the way... Parky and Nana Brock and Brock Jr. Me and Sari Jr. Parker did not want Jake in the picture with him "Uh, what is this?" Scoping out a ride that they did not wish to partake in This one's fun! That guy on the bench next to them was asleep :) That's all folks!

Catch up time!

It's been a very busy few weeks! Nana & Grampa came to visit from California and as always, we filled the time with lots of activities. We saw movies, had ice cream, went to parks, swam, and oh yeah, the boys turned FIVE!!!
We got a bounce house for the backyard that we got to keep for 4 days and the day of their party it actually poured all day. But the rain didn't stop the kids from jumping! I did a terrible job of taking pictures at their party bc quite honestly I was stressed the f*ck out, but I'm pretty sure everyone had a great time and that's all that matters :) These are the 75 cake pops Donna and I made for the party. HUGE experiment. Had no idea what we were doing but they came out great. The boys had been asking for them since December so I knew I wanted to make them for their birthday but I did not anticipate it being such a project! My birthday boys! We gave them the option of either having a big party or going to Islands of Adventure...something else they'd been talking about and requesting we do for their birthday...and they said they didn't care about a party and they just wanted to go to the theme park. But they had also been asking for a surprise party so how could I say no to that? We decided the surprise would be the bounce house... They loved it. Couldn't get enough of it. And then we ended up having a party anyway. Whatever. My twins will only turn 5 once! For their big gift they each got an ipod since they're always swiping my phone and Brock's tablet... They were very excited Here they are with our phones and tablets breakin' it down... Both singing... And then we went to Legoland!! Those pics to follow...along with an explanation on why Islands of Advneture went out the window I don't know if it's a good thing or bad that I waited so long to post about their birthday. I can't believe my babies are 5 and starting Kindergarten in 5 months. I look at them and sometimes see the soft cheeks and tushies and other times I see these long, skinny big boy bodies with Jake's attitude and nostril flares and Parker's sarcasm and eye rolling. It's amazing. Every day with them is a gift and I am so proud to be their mommy. Five years watching these two grow has been a blessing and I feel so lucky to have been given this chance to be their mommy forever.

I Pledge Allegiance...

I did write things down!!

I just found my list of the things I wrote down when the boys started school that I wanted to remember.

So that night before the first day when Jake was up sick, he was saying pitiful things like, "Why is my belly so angry?!", "I'm afraid!", and "What's pushing it out?!"  Poor baby :(

When they had their first fire drill and they had to walk quickly but quietly out to the baseball field until they got the all clear that it was safe to go back inside, Jake told me that when he was standing out there he saw a big girl staring at him and laughing and he thought she was making fun of him. UGH!!! I told him that she definitely was not making fun of him and she probably just thought he was so cute and it made her giggle.

Everyday at school snack is provided for them and apparently my boys were the only ones that ever sat down to eat snack while everyone else was too busy playing AND they would ask the teacher if she had anything else to eat. Like, more, not something different. So since then I send them with an extra snack and asked them to please not ask the teacher for more food. Hahaha!!

They were given an assignment to make a family tree and I wanted them to do it individually, so when we sat down and I asked them who the members of their family were they each gave me totally different people. I think one of them left out me and their brother and the other one left out some significant members but came up with some random cousin or uncle that we don't see very often. Very funny.

So glad I have these recorded now...

First crush?

Yesterday before school Parker comes downstairs with a female 'action figure', for lack of a better term, and declares he wants to tape it to an extra blank Valentine he has and give it to a girl in his class. He wants to "accidentally put it in her backpack." So I taped the toy to the card and he wrote the girls name on it and From Parker.
How cute is that?

Still shakin' it...

Songs at bedtime

Everyone has a bedtime routine. Bath, brush teeth, books....whatever. In our house it's shower, get dressed, brush teeth, three books, dad gives hugs and kisses and a "smash hug" and gets to leave while I remain and ask my children what song they want me to sing to them while up until recently and I put an end to it, would also listen to stories that they would make up and share. I put an end to the stories because it would either get them worked up or they'd be about monsters or something inappropriate to be discussing before bedtime, but I digress. Once they decide from a list of songs that I will share with you shortly, I sing it then we exchange about a million hugs and kisses of different variations and we say, "good night, I love you, see you in the morning, sweet dreams, you're in my heart" a hundred times even as I'm walking out the door until I finally say, ENOUGH! So now it's like twenty minutes later and Brock's snoring.

My point of this post was to remember the songs I sing to them though...
Jake always chooses Rock-aby-Jakey (How do you spell aby?) The Wiggles version, not the original one
Parker's been choosing Somewhere Out There from An American Tail. A memorable movie for me bc 1, I saw it with my Mama and 2, bc I used a huge Fivel doll to stuff under my blanket to look like me sleeping when I really snuck out of the house. Later that huge Fivel was on display in my window to let me know that I was busted.
Our other favorites are:
Mama's Little Baby
Somewhere Over the Rainbow
Sugar Pie Honey Bunch
Batman
Spiderman
Great Green Gobs...
Everybody Walk that Dinosaur
Down Down Baby
The Sun'll come out
Goodnight Sweetheart
Mommy loves you
Ahahaha Baby, ahahaha

And some others, but mostly those. I want to remember this.... <3