Linking up with Like Mother, Like Daughter to give you a wedding picture photo dump:

{pretty}

The flower girl in her tiara

Surprisingly, the little girl who refuses to keep hair accessories in her hair EVER actually kept the tiara in her hair all day!  Well, she took it out to admire it many times and then put it back in...  But still, I consider it an important milestone!  She was the flower girl, and threw most of the flower petals on the floor right before walking down the aisle.  But she's so cute that it didn't matter, right?

{happy}

The happy couple and family (photo stolen from my mom)

I can't explain John Paul's expression, except to say that he's John Paul.  And he's 4.  I think that's explanation enough!

{funny}

We bribed her with pickles to get her to take more pictures

{real}

Can you guess who didn't make it through the whole wedding?

John Paul actually did a pretty good job with his ring bearer duties, but he was VERY upset at having to actually wait until everyone was ready for him to walk down the aisle.  And he did really well at the beginning of the wedding, but once it was time for me to play the piano for one of the songs Andrew was singing, he freaked out because HE wanted to be the one playing the piano.  So he got taken out, since the twins didn't even make it through the processional and Cecilia walked right out with them!  To be fair, it was a wedding that took place in my father-in-law's living room, so they weren't exactly used to having to sit still in such a familiar location...

He calmed down later.  Once he got some pickles...

No duties to perform, but the babies may have stolen the show with those dresses and shoes!

Of course, they couldn't pose simultaneously...

Particularly not when there's grass to be eaten!

The kids looooved the bubbles!

And John Paul can actually blow them by himself!

Check out more PHFR links at Like Mother, Like Daughter!

8 months in with twins

Oh, friends...  If you could see how tandem nursing looks these days, I think you would laugh pretty hard:

1.  Elizabeth wakes up from her nap and nurses briefly and then sits on the floor playing.
2.  Mary Claire wakes up shortly afterwards and sits across from Elizabeth, swiping toys back and forth (no, not swapping...  swiping from each other!).
3.  Elizabeth starts her terrifying high-pitched shriek of glee.  Mary Claire starts sobbing because it is a TERRIFYING shriek!
4.  I strap on the nursing pillow, unhook my nursing tank top, pull up my shirt and latch each baby on. 
5.  While latching Mary Claire on, Elizabeth unlatches, squeezes, and sprays milk all over her face.  Fun!
6.  I try to pin Mary Claire's arm under her to keep her from exploring Elizabeth's eyes, nose, and mouth while her sister tries to nurse (sometimes I'm successful...  sometimes not)
7.  Elizabeth finishes nursing and NEEDS to be bounced immediately!  I flip her to a sit on the edge of the nursing pillow and jiggle one knee as Mary Claire finishes nursing.
8.  Mary Claire finishes nursing, pops off, and sees GOLD for the taking.  Hands free, she squeezes to her heart's content as I desperately try to put Elizabeth down and detach her grabby little hands.  Thank goodness their nails have been clipped recently!

There's a reason I pretty much only tandem nurse them while they're swaddled these days...

So what's up with these 8-month-old twins?

 

They LOVE being around each other - if I put them down NOT next to each other, they immediately find a way to one another.

They've both been crawling for several weeks, and recently started sitting up well.  Sitting is actually the very first milestone Mary Claire accomplished FIRST!  Everything else has been Elizabeth all the way, but I had a feeling Mary Claire would sit first since Elizabeth is our little mover!

They love to play in the tent together - they can crawl into and out of it and they have a blast chewing on various toys scattered around.

They're starting to be VERY interested in the contents of various containers, so I can keep them busy for a while if I just stick a container filled with ANYTHING in between the two of them.

Of course, then they have to fight over custody of the container... 

Other information?

Elizabeth beat Mary Claire to the first tooth - Mary Claire still shows no signs of any popping through, and I think Elizabeth's second will cut through any day now, judging from the lack of sleep...

Mary Claire still sleeps through the night, from about 7:30ish to anywhere from 4-6 AM.  Elizabeth...  Sometimes makes it from 7:30 to 12, usually is up for the first time around 10 or 11 and every 2 hours from that point on.  So yeah, we're tired.  But at least one baby sleeps, right?

Both have developed a really solid pincer grasp, so they're feeding themselves nicely from their high chair trays.  Favorite foods are broccoli, blueberries, goat cheese (ohhhhh how they love it!), cucumber, and beef.  Once again, I'm thankful for baby-led weaning - I don't know HOW we would deal with all the time and mess of purees with twins!

They still nap 2-3 times a day, and I'm going to work towards cutting that 3rd nap soon, since they've both been resisting it more lately.  I'll certainly miss it!  But I think that if we can get on a 2-nap schedule, I *might* be able to get simultaneous naps to occur more often.  I hope.

This is post #1 of Jen's 7 Posts in 7 Days blogging challenge.  I don't think this'll be a stretch for me - I try not to post every day because I feel like people probably get tired of reading the same old stuff from me!  So this challenge is my excuse to write more and you can't complain about it!  Is there anything you want to know?  Give me your questions!

7 Quick Takes - Photo Dump!

--1--

The Pants-Free link up is open until the end of the day Saturday!   Show us your outfits, or even just one!

Here's what I wore this week:

 

As you can see, I'm still having varying degrees of success focusing the camera in timer mode...

And here's Cecilia's best outfit this week!

--2--

How cute are these babies?

They were wearing coordinating outfits, so of course I had to take pictures.  And of course they did a REALLY good job posing...

 

It's like she knows how futile the exercise is...

--3--

Someone gave us watercolors for John Paul's 4th birthday and I actually let him USE them!  He had so SO much fun, and the salt painting actually made him concentrate really hard and work on his fine motor skills, which he rarely wants to work on...

He wore a party hat all day on his birthday, including out to dinner.

A tablet with 5 commandments (middle), a rainbow (top), color blending (right), and a snake (bottom)

He requested letters to paint.  Because he's John Paul.

--4--

Garden progress!

Hot pink hydrangeas!

The pear tomatoes are growing like CRAZY

The green zebras are slow and steady, and the chocolate cherry tomatoes are doing pretty well

I took this a few days ago and they've grown so much since then that the cages can't contain them!  What do we do to keep them from toppling???

I'm excited for strawberries in a few weeks :)

The cantaloupe plant has several flowers - if we get even one melon out of it, I'll consider it a success.  The dying plant was $2, and a cantaloupe is $3 at the farmer's market.

 --5--

I just love that Cecilia is swinging while sitting on a baby blanket and holding a doll between her legs...

 --6--

She wanted pigtails AND a fountain.  We're pretty much ready for pageants...

 --7--

I made the kids "ratatouille" because I needed to use up a bunch of veggies and I knew they would eat anything if I called it ratatouille!  So it's not reeeeeeeally ratatouille but it was delicious, especially with all the goat cheese!

And thus ends the photo dump - I'll try to add today's outfit photo later!

Check out more Quick Takes at Jen's!

7QT - July 4 style!

--1--

Happy belated 4th of July!  I really loved the pictures here:  How to Thank a Soldier - a nice reminder to thank our service members always, not just on national holidays!

--2--

We had a nice time at home, grilling and setting off our own little fireworks display:

 

John Paul:  It looks like JELLYBEANS to me!!!

Cecilia:  All da beautiful colors!!!

They each got to hold their OWN sparklers (very VERY carefully):

Big girl haircut!  No more mullet!!!

Can you just feel the eager anticipation?

And they very calmly shared a chair to await the "big" display...

We topped the day off with hot fudge brownie sundaes (homemade hot fudge - yum!) and had an impromptu "big" firework viewing on youtube, since John Paul was about to throw a temper tantrum that the fireworks were over.

Then he DID throw a temper tantrum, which woke Mary Claire up.  And of course, the neighbors shooting off their illegal fireworks woke her up again.  Elizabeth mostly slept, but it was rather a rough night for all...

--3--

 Thank you all for your words of encouragement when I posted John Paul's birth story!  

Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 are available for your viewing pleasure, if you happen to be a sucker for birth stories and pictures of pregnant women!  

It took me a really long time to finally write the story because I still feel a little ashamed that I ended up getting an epidural.  Long story short, 60 hours of labor, got an epidural at 48 hours because I had only dilated 1 cm (which is where I started out before labor began), still ended up with a vaginal delivery.

Here's the thing - we took Bradley classes, we were gung ho NOT going to have any sort of interventions or medication.  But after 48 hours of no sleep and puking up everything I tried to eat, it was time for some intervention.  I've thought many times about what I would have done differently, but it's really time for me to stop the "what ifs" and stop getting annoyed every time someone on facebook posts terrifying statistics on how all epidurals lead to exploding babies or something like that.

But really, this is a post for another day...

I still need to type up Cecilia's much shorter birth story...  Maybe I'll get that done this week?  After all, I'm in a birth story kind of mood!

--4--

On a lighter note, here's what I wore this week!

It's Day 5 of my "No-Pants July" challenge - check out my original post if you want more info.

I'm excited that so many bloggers are participating!  Mary already has some lovely outfits up and Erica's closet makes me so excited for all the bright colors she'll be incorporating!

Taking a picture every day is actually pretty fun - I'm beginning to see that I really do look a lot better in dresses and skirts - would you guess from the pictures that I'm only 5'2"?  I think I actually look taller!  But maybe it's just the small children in every picture :P

I'm thinking of doing a mid-month link-up so that everyone can share their experiences, and then and end-of-month wrap-up.  This is all assuming I figure out how to DO a link-up of my own!

Anyway, I'm posting each day's outfit on the facebook page if you need any inspiration/can't wait until Friday!

--5--

Sometimes it takes me really long to write my quick takes because I'm busy reading everyone else's...  

--6--

Look!  Happy twins in a chair!

--7--

 My aunt needs messy face pictures for a project she's doing, and I was preeeetty sure I could help her out - but the twins were eating too neatly!  So I gave Cecilia some yogurt and cherries and I think I got some good messy shots:

Check out more Quick Takes at Conversion Diary!

Five Favorites - Recipe edition

Linking up with Hallie for another week of 5 favorites! 

ONE

Silicone baking mats

I've been using the same two from Crate & Barrel since we got married - they are awesome!  Non-stick, easy to clean, reusable, everything!  I feel like a jerk every time I toss the aluminum foil I line my pans with, and these eliminate the need.

They don't seem to sell ours anymore, but these look almost identical:

Silicone Baking Mat Set

TWO

Italian seasoned panko breadcrumbs

An extra-crispy coating on everything, awesome topping for my bacon mac & cheese, and makes my meatballs so light and fluffy!  Giant brand sells them cheapest, but I've found tons of different brands on sale.

THREE

Rachael Ray's Florentine Meatballs

She drives me nuts with that scary chain smoker voice, but these meatballs are YUMMO! 

Oh wait, that stupid "Yummo" thing drives me nuts, too.  Sorry, haters gotta hate.

I double the recipe and it makes about 3 dinners' worth for 2 adults & two toddlers.  We had ours with baked penne and broccoli on Sunday.  Delicious!  And not spinachy at all, despite the entire bag of spinach I used.

FOUR

Oven baked chicken nuggets

Sometimes (most of the time) I REALLY want some Chick-fil-A but I can't leave the house to get any because, you know, all these children.  But these totally satisfy my craving!

Adapted from this recipe:

1 lb chicken tenders (sub breast if you prefer - I buy them frozen from TJ's and the tenders defrost faster)

1 cup italian seasoned panko breadcrumbs

1/2 cup grated parmesan

1 stick butter, melted (1/2 cup)

Preheat oven to 400.  Cut chicken into bite-sized pieces. 

Mix dry ingredients together in large bowl (or a big ziploc bag - one less dish to wash...).  Melt butter in large bowl.

Now stick all that chicken into the butter and make sure it's well-coated.  Lift with slotted spoon (or your hands) into breadcrumb mixture.  Coat well and transfer to baking sheet lined with nonstick mat (or sprayed/greased).  Pour remaining butter over nuggets.

Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes, broil for 5 minutes until crispy and browned.

Yeah, we all LOVE these!

FIVE

And what's a blog post without a cute picture of the kids?

Taken last summer on top of a mountain.

Go find more inspiration at Moxie Wife!

Pigtails

Do you understand why strangers are always stopping to tell us how cute she is?