We somehow end up at the grocery store every week during snack time- either mid-morning or soon after waking from our afternoon naps. Our grocery store has the bakery strategically placed as the first stop when you walk in. It used to be that I could bribe my children into staying in the wide-as-a-bus car cart the entire trip if I gave them each their own cookie. We normally don't get treats like this at home so an entire cookie is a huge deal.

No longer. Lately the cookies have been completely devoured and well on their way to digestion before we even finish with the produce section. This results in A) very hyper children, who B) do not want to be in the cart for longer than three minutes. A great combo- especially with twin two year olds.

Yesterday we were grocery shopping right around 5pm, the time the store begins to fill with people stopping in after work. It was busy. My children were amped up on M&M cookies and would not sit in the cart for anything. They despise being strapped in- even if it's a plastic yellow and green car cart.

For a few aisles they were content throwing my purchases into the cart for me. Then we reached the frozen foods. I think we opened every freezer and cooler door the store had before I turned around and realized that P had not just opened a freezer but was in the process of crawling in with the peas. Nice.

The next aisle had a great display of deodorant which my children were ripping the lids off of and pretending was hairspray- complete with sound effects. When I looked up and saw the babes 'hairspraying' their hair with Secret and making the sshhhing aerosol sounds as they did it I couldn't help but laugh. Laughing made trying to replace the products that had been ripped from their shelves near impossible. As soon as I got Fin's out of her hand, lid on and back on the display, Parker had grabbed another one. Then I would do the same for Parker and by that time Fin had another one. At this point other patrons were staring and I was belly laughing.

We escaped the deodarant and the next thing I knew Parker was dragging a bat and wiffle ball behind him as he perused the cheese section. Where he found this I haven't a clue and why my grocery store even sells these items is way beyond me.

After finally bribing them back into the cart by pretending it was a firetruck and then pushing it as fast as humanly possible, weaving through pokey shoppers, all the while making siren noises to ensure it's authenticity we arrived at the checkout. If you have ever pushed a car cart through a grocery store you know that it's steering capabilities are not that of a BMW and fitting through the tiny checkout lanes seems almost as if it's the final test for really stressed out and sweating at this point mothers. The other lovely thing about car carts is that the children sit directly at eye level to the candy and goodies on the opposite side of the conveyor belts. So by the time you have swiped your card and are ready to go you find that your daughter has eaten through the paper of a couple of Rolo packages and your son is happily drooling red Mentos spit down his chin.

This is all assuming they stay in the car cart during checkout (at this point you're asking yourself why doesn't she just buckle them in? Good question. This seems an obvious solution if, however, all three car carts at my grocery store didn't have broken seat belts.) Yesterday my children managed to escape the car/firetruck right at the point where I can't fit next to it to rescue them. So as I unloaded groceries behind the cart, my children played in the vacant checkout next to us. I couldn't move forward because a very not so nice man was in front of us pretending like he neither saw nor heard what was occurring two feet behind him. Just as I finished unloading the cart I heard my children over the loud speaker. I looked up to find them fighting over a telephone. The fight now being broadcast for all to hear.

I think the moral of the story is that the cookie trick no longer works in my favor.

Posted by Brooke* at Wednesday, July 08, 2009 |    

Posted by Brooke* at Tuesday, July 07, 2009 |    

The dinner we threw for the transitional year residents is over.

Our Fourth of July Party is through.

And now only the babes' Wild Wild 2's birthday party is left to organize...


What a fabulous weekend we had at the parade, the carnival, and our backyard surrounded by friends and family. Our city goes all out for the Fourth and it's completely contagious! Pet parades, bike parades, the big parade with the A & B clydesdales...even the rain couldn't keep us from having a fabulous weekend! I'm already getting excited for next year!

Posted by Brooke* at Monday, July 06, 2009 |    

From Ronald Reagan's own hand (1981)...

“For one who was born and grew up in the small towns of the Midwest, there is a special kind of nostalgia about the Fourth of July.

I remember it as a day almost as long-anticipated as Christmas. This was helped along by the appearance in store windows of all kinds of fireworks and colorful posters advertising them with vivid pictures…”

“Somewhere in our growing up we began to be aware of the meaning of days and with that awareness came the birth of patriotism. July Fourth is the birthday of our nation. I believed as a boy, and believe even more today, that it is the birthday of the greatest nation on earth.

There is a legend about the day of our nation's birth in the little hall in Philadelphia, a day on which debate had raged for hours. The men gathered there were honorable men hard-pressed by a king who had flouted the very laws they were willing to obey. Even so, to sign the Declaration of Independence was such an irretrievable act that the walls resounded with the words "treason, the gallows, the headsman's axe," and the issue remained in doubt.

The legend says that at that point a man rose and spoke. He is described as not a young man, but one who had to summon all his energy for an impassioned plea. He cited the grievances that had brought them to this moment and finally, his voice falling, he said, "They may turn every tree into a gallows, every hole into a grave, and yet the words of that parchment can never die. To the mechanic in the workshop, they will speak hope; to the slave in the mines, freedom. Sign that parchment. Sign if the next moment the noose is around your neck, for that parchment will be the textbook of freedom, the Bible of the rights of man forever."

He fell back exhausted. The 56 delegates, swept up by his eloquence, rushed forward and signed that document destined to be as immortal as a work of man can be. When they turned to thank him for his timely oratory, he was not to be found, nor could any be found who knew who he was or how he had come in or gone out through the locked and guarded doors.

Well, that is the legend. But we do know for certain that 56 men, a little band so unique we have never seen their like since, had pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. Some gave their lives in the war that followed, most gave their fortunes, and all preserved their sacred honor.

What manner of men were they? Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists, 11 were merchants and tradesmen, and nine were farmers. They were soft-spoken men of means and education; they were not an unwashed rabble. They had achieved security but valued freedom more. Their stories have not been told nearly enough.

They sired a nation that grew from sea to shining sea. Five million farms, quiet villages, cities that never sleep, 3 million square miles of forest, field, mountain and desert, 227 million people with a pedigree that includes the bloodlines of all the world. In recent years, however, I've come to think of that day as more than just the birthday of a nation.

It also commemorates the only true philosophical revolution in all history.

Oh, there have been revolutions before and since ours. But those revolutions simply exchanged one set of rules for another. Ours was a revolution that changed the very concept of government.

Let the Fourth of July always be a reminder that here in this land, for the first time, it was decided that man is born with certain God-given rights; that government is only a convenience created and managed by the people, with no powers of its own except those voluntarily granted to it by the people.

We sometimes forget that great truth- We never should.

Happy Fourth of July.

Ronald Reagan President of the United States

Posted by Brooke* at Saturday, July 04, 2009 |    

They're my favorite colors.

Tomorrow is my hands down favorite holiday.

You can call me a lot of things, but being unpatriotic just isn't one of them.

I love our country. I cry whenever I hear the national anthem. I well up whenever I see our great service men and women- in a parade, at the airport, eating at IHOP...I pray for her just as I pray for my own children. Before anything else I am an American.

An American who loves the Fourth of July!

Tonight there are fireworks...and tomorrow night too!

There is the carnival. Oh, the carnival!

Today I will spend the day preparing for our party...

Surrounding myself in this....


Making dozens of these...


And hundreds of these...


A few of these (that have yet to be crowned with their strawberry and blueberry jewels)...


Cleaning this...


And then walking two blocks for dinner at the carnival (again)...


Then catching the glorious Webster Groves fireworks...Did I mention that I love the fireworks?!

Posted by Brooke* at Friday, July 03, 2009 |    

Now I'm not exactly sure how long one has to be accident free before officially claiming "potty trained," however, it has been two weeks and we have had only two #1 accidents and a handful of the other kind. Other than a pull-up for bedtime, Parker has been diaper, pull-up, underwear free since Friday, June 19- even for naps!

We are soo proud of him!

It was soo easy!

We had a slight scare three days after we started when he started becoming fearful and resistant of the potty. We changed our technique a bit and a day later he was telling us when he had to go and we've been pretty accident free since then! He wakes up almost every morning dry so the next step (maybe in a week or two) will be to get rid of the pull-ups FOREVER!

YAY for being potty trained at 22 months!

I have a ton of friends and family members with children approaching this milestone and I have the following advice to give...

1) Buy a potty for every bathroom in your house when your child is TWELVE months old. This way you're not introducing something new (and potentially scary) at an age where they are more cognizant of change. We started bringing both the babes into the bathroom with us and sitting them on their potties (with their clothes still on) while we went at about 15 months.

2) The IDEAL time to potty train is 22-24 months. If your child can communicate needs (i.e. I want milk, food, etc.) even if it is just signing them, they are ready. Your child does not need to take interest in the potty to be ready. After reading, research, and talking with a ton of other moms who have gone through this before me, if you wait too long your child has become more self aware of their ability to control and their desire for choice. The earlier the better.

3) I'm a HUGE believer in any one of the 'three day' methods. For three straight days Parker was attached to me. I never went anywhere without him and him without me. This really enabled me to 'read' his facial and body clues as to when he needed to go and also it prevented accidents which I feel are bad for self confidence (sounds silly I know but if you can avoid accidents and set your babe up for success then they're always pleasing you and doing the right thing- you can totally avoid the disappointment/negativity).

4) MAKE IT YOUR CHILD'S CHOICE TO TELL YOU WHEN THEY HAVE TO GO. This is hard. Our biggest failure during the first three days (which I think led to the fear of the potty) was that we were constantly asking Parker if he needed to go. Talk about pressure! So we changed our tactic and instead constantly reminded him to TELL US when he needed to go. This puts the control back in his hands. So now we always say, "Hey P remember to tell Mommy when you need to use the potty" instead of "Parker do you need to use the potty."

5) Conditions. There are times when we'll be on a two hour stretch and Parker still hasn't told us he needs to go. When this happens we make the next activity contingent upon him using the potty. I do not ask, I tell. For example, I will tell him "No Dora (or outside, or pool, etc.) until we use the potty." Then I take his hand and we go to the bathroom. He has to at least try in order to participate in our next activity/snack/meal/etc.

6) DO NOT use pull-ups or big kid underwear. Any snugness in the crotch area gives a false sense of security and feels like a diaper. Sounds crazy but there will be a lot more accidents if you use these things. If you're going to do it, do it all the way.

7) Invest in a pair of Crocs. We have only had two full out empty-your-bladder-in-your-pants-accidents but when we did I was SO grateful for rubber shoes that don't require washing and drying. A little dish soap in the sink and we were good to go five minutes later.

8) BE POSITIVE. Always. Never punish, scold, get angry. Sounds obvious but it can be tough. Accidents happen. Move on.

9) I read the Three Day Potty Training by Laura Jensen and, out of everything I read, this made the most sense. It totally puts the blame of a child who isn't getting it on the parent rather than the child. I received this PDF (email me if you want it) three days into the process and after reading it we made a bunch of tweaks and changes that allowed us to get rid of pull-ups at nap and make a not so great potty situation into a full on trained little boy!

Finley Grace your time in diapers in coming to end! Especially after you got out of your bath last night squatted over the floor, and yelled out "I go pee pee, I go pee pee."

Posted by Brooke* at Thursday, July 02, 2009 |    

I have gone on many many 'dates' with Fin- shopping, wedding showers, baby showers, etc. I have gone on very few with Parker. Today we got a babysitter for Fin and went to our very first movie. It was love at first (big screen) sight.


Our local theater (and probably yours too) does a 'camp' every summer...every Wednesday at 10pm they show kids movies (today is was Madagascar 2) for ONE DOLLAR. Perfect time, perfect price. We were there! On top of the measly two bucks to get in they do kids packs at the concession stand - popcorn, soda, and candy for THREE DOLLARS. You can get as many as you want, adults too!

So there we sat amongst a crowd of kids and mommies (and a few dads) with the biggest snack we've ever laid eyes on perilously perched on Parker's lap (he would not let me near the thing)...he LOVED it! He was glued. He lasted an hour and 15 minutes. Waaay better than I had anticipated and for five bucks it was one cheap hour! We played on the mall playground afterwards before heading home to see 'Binee.'


Although I love spending time one on one with the babes they always miss each other soo much when they're separated. Every time I'm with just one of them they constantly ask where the other is...As soon as we get home they yell each other's names and run to each other to give big hugs and kisses. I had such a good morning with you P! You are turning into such a little man!

Posted by Brooke* at Wednesday, July 01, 2009 |