just out for a drive

Puttin' on the Ritz

After a long three weeks of creating book layouts, flipping books and proofing the final copy, Bryan decided it was high time to get the four of us out of the confines of our home and do something fun.  We drove around for a while with no purpose and ended up on the road squashed in between highway 14 and the river.  The homes along the riverfront vary greatly.  We passed multi-million dollar mansions then next door would be Sasquatch's shack.  We came across El Swampo and a yard filled with chickens and a turkey.  There were several opportunities for amazing views of Mount Hood...if it wasn't cloudy, which is hard to come by here, especially in the spring.  At the end of the road we found ourselves just outside Camas and remembered the pizza restaurant, Twilight Pizza Bistro, we had eaten at when we first moved to Washington and decided to hit them up for dinner. We were a little nervous, as the last time it was just the two of us, but now we'd doubled in size and would need two high chairs, as well as the patience and understanding of the restaurant patrons.  Somehow, we lucked out.  There was a table in the back corner out of the way of anybody dining in the restaurant.  After our waitress took our order, we started looking around and realized almost every table had a child or two.  Phew!  If the twins decided to meltdown, no one was going to be overly annoyed about it.  Maybe we'd even get a few sympathetic smiles.
The twins were in seventh discovery heaven.  Their little heads turned back and forth, back and forth, as fast as their necks would allow.  They couldn't get the surroundings absorbed fast enough.  I tried to get a few pictures, and you can see the excitement hardly contained within their little bodies.  Dinner went really well; the food was as good as we remembered and the twins behaved great the entire time.  Well, until the very end.  Just as we finished paying, and Bryan stood up to get our things, Laith dropped his plastic spoon and started to have a spastic fit about losing his beloved toy.  Thank goodness it didn't last long since the change in venue (mommy hoisting him out of the high chair to get ready to go) made his spoon tantrum subside as he needed his undivided attention again.  This isn't the first time we've made the trek to eat out as a family at an establishment nicer than fast food.  So far we've been lucky the handful of times we've chosen to brave a formal restaurant.  I'm choosing to believe this means we have well mannered children.

 

No Rest for the Wicked

 

I've been trying to capture everyday life lately, but it's proving to be my unicorn.  The babies have somehow learned to act differently in front of the camera.  I'll catch them playing together, chasing each other in crawling circles, giggling and screaming, but as soon as that red camera is whipped out, they sit up and stare at me with innocent eyes as though that's all they do in life.

 

When they wake up for the day, even from their nap, Laith is usually standing at his crib gnawing away on the edges.  Yesterday though, he was actually holding on to the rail and jumping.  My first mommy-thought was "omg! you're gonna crack your teeth!"  My first Jenny-thought was "LOL, my kid is the monkey jumping in his bed."  Vivienne hasn't braved standing up in bed yet.  She keeps trying though and one day I'll find her little face peering over the edge when I walk in.  Most times, she wakes up and coos softly, babbling away at her blankets.  When I come in and say "Did you wake up?" she gives me the sweetest smile and starts bouncing on her bum, hopping up and down in joy.  I've tried over and over to record this on camera, but so far, it's only burned into the memory files of my brain.

Laith is walking everywhere, everywhere that is with a wall, cabinet, couch, piano, high chair, mommy's pants...anything that he can put his little hands to for that support as he cruises along.  I've caught him braving it every once in a while and taking a few adventurous steps on his own, but his little hands always get ahead of his feet, and they end up flying out to break his fall.  Or he starts to tip backwards and promptly sits as fast as he can so his diaper can take full impact.  Vivienne has mastered the art of crawling to perfection.  No weird leg movements or wiggling from her.  I think she may grow up to be a spy one day as she is the best sneak I've ever known.  So many times I've been eating at the table when suddenly a hand grabs my foot and I jump out of my skin and stop my scream just in time.  It's especially cute when she is loud and her little hands and knees smack the floor as she beelines it for whatever has caught her fancy.

*Ignore my conversation...I realized as soon as I thought about skyping grandparents that my sister just had a baby and they would be at her house helping.  I'm losing my marbles and having the toughest time remembering anything that happens in a 24 hour span.

Besides keeping myself busy with twins, work, house chores, laundry, cooking, errands and dogs, I've been working back and forth on several craft projects that I've been intending to finish for a long time.  Like my jean blanket I started before I graduated from high school...which was 15 years ago now.  Boy does that make me feel old.  It took 15 years just to get to high school, and now I've gone 15 more?  I knew I was old the other night when I skyped with some friends and we started talking about the 90s.  One friend sent a link about a buzz feed about the 90s and when I viewed it, half of the items didn't register with me, such as Backstreet Boys and N*Sync.  That wasn't 90s music...at least not for me.  My 90s was Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Live, and No Doubt to name just a few and that's when it hit me.  My 32 years are starting to show.  Back to the jean blanket.  I've finally finished piecing all the jeans together and have the back to work on now.  I have the fabric and finally decided last week what pattern I'd like to do.  Yes, I'm going to patchwork the back too.  I know, getting in over my head but when have I ever done anything simple in life?  I also have dragged out my scrapbook supplies and on occasion find time to paper craft.  This morning I decided to finally finish my cross stitch Something Wicked, the project I was going to finish while I was pregnant, that didn't happen because I went on bed rest 2 weeks after deciding that, then been too busy doing all of the above, so it never finished in time for Halloween 2011 or 2012, but it will finally make its debut for Halloween 2013.

 

Going Overboard

Last month, my sister pinned a chore chart that I fell in love with.  I repinned it, printed it off, and started following it.  As the days passed, I would make notes, cross out cleaning chores for items I didn't own, and added in a few extra deep cleaning items.  I then took the time to rework the chart with some digi-scrapping tools, and presto!  My very own cleaning chart.  I was definitely a neat freak as a kid, so the idea that I've latched onto a cleaning chart is funny to me.  But that chart is working.  As every mommy, I find I never have much time and that my house always seemed to be in shambles with dust bunnies and grime collecting here, there and everywhere.  The twins have been mobile since mid-January and cleaning has become a new obsession.  I vacuum almost every day.  It's amazing what the vacuum finds today but not yesterday in the same spot under the couch.  The twins are obsessed with the vacuum too.  When we first came home, I used the vacuum on the occasion that two babies were melting down at the same time.  The white noise soothed their worries and I found I was vacuuming every day, sometimes 2-3 times a day.  My carpets have never looked better.  Once the babies outgrew their bouncers and were rolling and sitting on the floor, I'd vacuum around them and they'd watch me intently.  After Laith figured out crawling, he'd scuttlebug over to the vacuum and then start crying in horror.  His bottom lip would quiver and he'd have a terrified look.  I was surprised as they loved when I came close before crawling.  Laith has gotten over that initial shock, and now follows me around holding the cord and bouncing it up and down.  Vivienne has never really been worried about the vacuum, but she likes to sit near the plug, grab the cord and then chew on it.  "Danger Will Robinson! Danger!" I cry, and run over and pat her little hands trying to convince her it's no fun holding the cord.
Now that cleaning, along with deep cleaning, has been happening for a month, the shambles feeling is slowly going away.  Then on Tuesday, we all got sick.  Well, Bryan got sick last week and lovingly shared it with the rest of us.  *Sigh*  Laith had a fever all Monday night into Tuesday morning, so I took him in to find out he has his first ear infection.  Hooray!  I've been watching Vivienne like a hawk, but so far, she's just got the cold, no ear infection.  At least, not the tell-tale signs of one.  Last night, I felt like Annie (Goldie Hawn) in Overboard.  The scene where the kids are sick with poison oak, and Dean (Kurt Russell) comes home from work just to turn around and go out with the boys.  Oh Annie, if you only knew he was working job #2.  Poor Annie gets in a huff and begs him to stay, but off he goes.  Later when Dean comes home, you get a bird's eye view of the house.  Everything's clean, in its place.  The sink is empty of dishes and the fridge full of eggs and beer.  And where's Annie?  On the couch, hiding under the blankets because she has poison oak too.  Before the twins, I'd smile at this whole scene, finding it sweet how hard she's worked and how Dean finally appreciates her.  Now I see it with new eyes.  I feel for her, as my house is clean and in order too, the fridge is stocked, the dishwashers going, babies asleep and me in bed sick.  When Bryan comes in, I want to look at him with big eyes, and say "Tell me something from my past.  Something NOT horrible, please Dean?!"  Then I giggle thinking what silly story will Bryan tell me to rival Burger Boy Employee of the Month.