Yesterday was a full, full day - peach picking and playing at a friend's house (in their awesome creek but mostly with the baby's toys because, you know, that's what matters!), then off to a party and a long, tearful drive home...  So of course, after that active day the kids would sleep in, right?

Ha. 

We attempted a family picture (really need to get a tripod one of these days) and ended up with the majority of the pictures featuring Mary Claire with a peach crammed in her mouth and John Paul with his face in his calculator...

I love this shirt - one of my few maternity purchases, but it's gonna work great postpartum too because it's flowy and buttons - 6 different prints here!

Elizabeth finally came out of hiding (the moon was in the sky, which was VERY exciting from her) and Mary Claire took the peach out of her mouth, but John Paul was more interested in spelling words on his calculator than anything else, since he had decided he was DONE picking peaches.

Just for fun, here we are at the same orchard last year - look at those hairless babies!

That being said, the kids are actually almost getting useful at fruit picking!  The big kids each picked a few pounds in their bags before they got tired of carrying them, and the babies didn't run away and mostly just picked up peaches off the ground and took a few bites before discarding them for another more exciting peach, also from the ground...  It's a LOT easier to pick peaches when you're not wearing a baby on your back, did you know?

John Paul took naughty to a new level this morning at Mass when he decided (while reading a book about saints) to make pronouncements like, "I want to be a pagan!" and "I want to join an anti-Papal party!" and "I want to be like Alessandro!" (from Maria Goretti's story)...  I don't understand that kid at. all.  

So I'm thinking I'll be joining Mary starting Tuesday...  

Did I ever update you on the kimono?  I like it a lot - I don't think it's the most flattering article of clothing, but it's really nice for layering because it provides coverage without making me ridiculously hot, a VERY important clothing trait!  So I wore that with a new (like, actually NEW) maternity dress from thredUP and suddenly realized that I'm in the 3rd trimester (hello, 28 weeks!) and can't really expect NOT to look enormous in pictures...  Not that I feel even a little bit enormous, but there's just no flattering angle at this point!

And if we're talking pregnancy and you're wondering, I'm feeling surprisingly good!  I think that after the twin pregnancy, this one feels sooooo much easier, so the fact that I can still roll over at night, still lie on my back, still DO normal things like cooking and dishes and maybe sometimes laundry (but let's be honest, not a lot) is still rather astonishing to me!  Baby boy is still nameless, and will likely be nameless on the blog until birth because, well, if we ever decide we may very well end up changing our minds!

And I've got the lovely glucose test on Tuesday sooo...  I've been reading horrible stuff about that nasty Glucola lately, and I'm wondering if I can just bring my own alternative to the doctor's office and convince them that fresh-squeezed orange juice would be a better solution?  To be fair, I eat a fair amount of junk so I don't know that I'm that concerned about the corn syrup, but it gives me SUCH bad heartburn and I already get terrible heartburn...

Oh!  And while we're talking about nothing in particular, we finally took the twins for their 18-month checkup (when they were 21 months old...) and they're TOTALLY in the middle of the pack on the growth charts, both for height and weight!  This is really exciting, because for a looooong time Elizabeth was just barely hanging on to like, the 3rd percentile...  Mary Claire still beats her by about a pound, but they're both the exact same height.

And then I realized that they were probably putting them on the 18-month growth charts even though they're 21 months, soooo maybe I shouldn't be too proud ;)

Linking up with Fine Linen & Purple if WIWS gets posted today.

How to Teach Your Kids to Sew {PHFR}

{pretty}

These babies are getting so BIG!  And more adorable by the day :)

They were reciting all the animals from this book (seriously, they adore all of her books!) in the car the other day and it was hilarious, because there are random animals like "Quetzal!" and "Xerus!"  And of course my favorite Elizabeth pronunciation, "Wino-OCeros!" (for rhinoceros, if you don't speak toddler)

{happy}

We've gotten into a pretty good rhythm around here, which includes snack time at 10 that allows me time to get dressed if I haven't already by that point (and let's face it, I usually haven't...).  And that makes me pretty happy!

I just can't get over how big they all look sitting at the table together!  And eating off of plates!

Of course, usually snack time ends with Elizabeth trying to steal Mary Claire's food.  Or taking her plate into the kitchen, sitting on the floor, and declaring it a picnic.  Or dumping John Paul's food onto her own plate the moment his back is turned...  But sweet Cecilia always collects the empty plates and stacks them on the counter for me :)

{funny}

I was ordering some supplies from Amazon to make our own bug spray (because at the rate we go through it, it's GOT to be cheaper than buying the natural stuff!), but I needed something else to add to the order because every single thing was an add-on item (don't you hate it when your Prime membership doesn't actually help?).  So I remembered that I keep meaning to get yarn needles so I can let John Paul and Cecilia do some "sewing."

Well, they found them in the box and could not wait for me to find the other supplies I actually needed to let them sew (I was going to punch holes in felt and let them sew some patterns), so I found some remnants from a scrap bag I bought a while ago and got them embroidery floss.

They were SO happy.  Terrible at it, but happy.  I kept having to fix Cecilia's because she kept stitching on opposite ends of the fabric tube (they decided to make dresses for their baby dolls), and it was really hard to pull the needles through the fabric because the heads were so big (which is why we weren't going to USE real fabric!  Just felt!).

They are so. proud. of the finished product.

You can't even see how truly terrible those things are - there's an arm stuck through the seam and I cut another hole in each side for another sleeve because they refused to settle for "tube dress" or "toga dress" as a solution...

Cecilia has now told me that someday she'll get a sewing machine and paint it pink and make dresses for ALL her dolls.  Little does she know it, but there are pink sewing machines out there in the world already!

{real}

So there you have it - baby dolls in their "party dresses" - what party they're going to in see-through orange mesh dresses, I'm not sure I want to know...

Are your kids into sewing?  I told them that before they sew anything else, they have to practice with their lace and trace pets so that I don't have to babysit their progress!  But I don't think Cecilia will be satisfied with anything that isn't sewing her own doll clothing...

Linking up with Like Mother, Like Daughter for pretty, happy, funny, real

Why I Worked, Part 5: Surprise Twins & Mayhem at Home

Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here

When we left off last time, I was getting ready to start teaching again after about 9 months off, one class every other day with almost 70 students...

Middle school girls.

I love them, actually.  Their drama is SO important to them, but for the most part it's not the *real* depressing drama that older high school girls have, so things stay a little more lighthearted.  And I had a really great group that first year back - talented singers, receptive to my teaching style, nobody threatened to kill my baby or anything...

The teaching part of that year was fabulous!  It was an awesome way for me to get out of the house a few times a week and it really energized me.  Finding a good babysitter was tough because the hours were so erratic, but I felt like I had the best of both worlds, for the most part.  I could still have playdates and see all my mom friends, I even kept hosting a bi-weekly storytime/playdate that worked with my schedule.  My coworkers were awesome and the little break I got from the kids was mostly during naptime, so I didn't feel like they really missed me too much.

We still had the time and freedom to GO places and DO things!

We decided to try for baby #3 once my fertility returned in the new year, and were pregnant soon afterwards.  The timing worked out nicely - I'd have a baby right after our winter concert and come back to work in time for the second semester.  It still wasn't really a choice to be working - we needed the insurance, even though most of my salary went towards childcare.  But I wanted to be working because it felt like such a good balance at that point.

Easter 2012 - right after we found out we were having another baby!

I closed out a successful school year and found myself slated to teach a more regular schedule the next year, because my enrollment was up and we were adding a piano & guitar class that I'd be teaching.  I thought it might be nice to have a set starting time every day and that teaching every day would make it easier to find a good babysitter (we had been through three the year before, which was too many...  Two of them were great, though!).

Cecilia and John Paul visiting my classroom

The theoretical plan was for me to keep working until we had 4 or 5 kids, at which point Andrew would hopefully be making enough money that we could actually afford the cost to insure all of us.  But everything kind of got thrown for a loop when we found out baby #3 was actually twins...  Now my maternity leave would certainly have to start earlier, I wouldn't be able to make it to my December due date, and going back to work was going to be a LOT more complicated.

A week or two before the twins were born

I finally managed to find a long-term substitute who could teach music, and almost made it to my self-imposed maternity leave before I went into labor - luckily my amazing colleagues covered my classes for the two days before my substitute could start.

A rare moment captured of them sleeping while NOT physically attached to me

Mostly they finished nursing and had to sleep right against my belly, usually holding hands, and they'd wake up screaming if I put them down.

Maternity leave was rough, obviously, because twins are hard.  So I was REALLY ready to go back to work and have a little break.  It was stressful being at home and I hadn't adjusted to being the only one caring for 4 kids under the age of 4.



Especially nursing the twins nonstop, I needed to be not in the house with them all day long.  Going back to work would be a welcome break!

A VERY rare moment, in which I wasn't holding any children

But of course, I got back to work and the stress was still there - my students HATED the long-term sub.  And to top it all off, I returned right when they were signing up for next year's classes, so I lost a ton of good students for the next year because they had such a bad experience with my substitute.  The new babysitter (the old one decided to go back to school) was the only one we could find, but she couldn't seem to grasp the concept of cleaning ANYTHING up, or putting away dishes, or really doing anything except keeping the kids alive.  I figured that was about all we could ask for because life was so nuts, and so almost every waking minute Andrew and I were home, we were cooking, cleaning, catching up on copious amounts of laundry...  And we decided to move to a house with more than 2 bedrooms, a wonderful thing but MORE stress.

It's amazing how much mess accumulates when nobody's dealing with it during the day...

Not to mention the fact that there was no time for any playdates anymore, since all my friends were stay-at-home moms whose kids were all napping by the time I got home every afternoon.  We couldn't leave the house to go anywhere because the twins needed to nurse ALL THE TIME still, and John Paul and Cecilia couldn't be trusted to fend for themselves outside of our bubble.  Oh, and the sleep deprivation...  There was no napping, because I was out of the house when the kids were napping and Andrew and I were up late every night trying desperately to do all the necessary chores.

So cute, and so terrifying...  As you can see, this is mid-move!

The break from the kids to go to work was great, but things were deteriorating at home.  And I was terrified that there was no way I could handle this all by myself.  I jumped at the chance to sign a contract for the next year, working my schedule so that I didn't have to be away from the kids for as long (it had been only 5 or 6 hours at a time, but it felt like too much), all the while knowing that either this year or the next year was going to be it for me - once we had baby #5 there was no way I could outsource child rearing to a babysitter...  We'd have to find a way for me to stay home, somehow!

But for now I was just worried about surviving the summer, and taking care of all 4 kids all by myself, all day long...

Read Part VI here

Fake Pouting, Dinosaurs, and Fruit Flies {7 Quick Takes}

--1--



This kid kills me.  She does this fake pout and uses her deepest voice to scold whenever she does something wrong...  "You pooped on da playroom floor.  Did you eat a crayon?  Did you pee on da chair?"

And then brightens up immediately to correct herself, "Poop goes in da POTTY!  We COLOR wif crayons!  Pee in da POTTY!"

It makes it a whole lot funnier because she uses the same voice and expression when she's pretending to be various dinosaurs or small plastic animals, which frequently tell her to do a good job pooping (her idea).

--2--

John Paul dictated a really boring dinosaur story to me before bed...  And I spelled half the dinosaur names wrong.  Whoops.  (You may have to click through for the video if you're on email or in a feed reader)

I really don't understand the ending.  And I was expecting something more from a story titled Protoceratops vs. Triceratops but somehow it ended with a flea.

He also wanted it to be a math, hence the math problems.

--3--

This is disgusting buuuuut...

We've been trading off between having a problem with ants and having a problem with fruit flies in our kitchen.  It's gross, and once we solve one problem, the other always comes back with a vengeance.

But THIS I find fascinating:



Fruit fly traps - cut off the corner of a sandwich bag, invert and rubber band over a glass with apple cider vinegar (I like wine glasses because then I can see them dying).  On the left is Braggs, on the right is the dregs from a Trader Joe's bottle.  And they LOVE the Trader Joe's stuff!  To be fair, they were in different locations, so maybe that was the only reason but yeah, I find it fascinating.  Also gross.  But mostly fascinating.

--4--

Cecilia has decided that she would like to put the baby to bed all by herself when he's born.  She just needs us to build a crib with a ladder, she says.  "And what if the baby won't go to sleep and you get tired of rocking him?" "Oh, I'll just put him down and he'll fall asleep on his own!"

Yes, because that has EVER worked in the history of our babies...  Oh wait.

Two baby dolls and a unicorn under her in that bin.  Babysitting, literally.

--5--

"Picture Yizabeth pouting!"

Elizabeth played a game for a long time this afternoon that involved two small wooden elephants jumping on my stomach, but my stomach HAD to be bare.  So that was a lot of fun for me...  I think I preferred the game she and Cecilia invented later, which involved a very small baby doll being shoved into a toilet paper roll.

They're going to be AWESOME babysitters when they get older.

--6--



Naps are a disaster lately.  Mary Claire keeps refusing to go to sleep, in no small part because John Paul is SO LOUD no matter where I put him.  I piled up a stack of books for him to read today and then went out to tend to the garden.  When I came back, he AND Cecilia had both left their rooms because they "needed to tell me something" but never got to it because I was so confused as to why John Paul had changed into his suit and Cecilia was wearing fleece-lined boots in August.

Then of course he was totally quiet AFTER the babies were both up, and stayed in his room for 30 minutes past naptime's end, only emerging with his Encyclopedia of Music because he wanted to tell me "SOME composers never die!!!"

By which I suppose he means that some composers are still alive...

--7--

I think we've finally settled into a routine around here, which involves quite a bit of time where I get to lie on the couch and read aloud to the kids (necessitated by my hurting my back a few weeks ago - I'm better now but I'm really enjoying the schedule we've got in place!).  In the past few weeks I've read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (PLEASE don't tell me that you don't read this first to your kids - go with Lewis' original order, not the stupid chronological order the publishers changed to - it loses so much if you read The Magician's Nephew first!), Little House in the Big Woods, and Prince Caspian to the big kids.  We're halfway through Little House on the Prairie and I think we're just going to keep going with these two series until we finish them (well, I'm not sure we'll get all the way through the Little House books just because the last two are a little more for an older audience). We also got some of the My First Little House picture books from the library and Cecilia adores them.

It's such a blast to be sharing these books with John Paul and Cecilia - they're constantly either exploring Narnia or talking about various homesteading adventures that we're going to have next (John Paul is especially intrigued by the pig's bladder).  And we've got a while before we move on to something else, but I'm excited to re-read some of my childhood favorites!  SO much more fun than reading the same boring pictures books over and over again...  Well, they're not all boring, but a lot of them are.

Linking up with Jen at Conversion Diary - go check out more Quick Takes!

Flowers from a Volcano? Reviewing the Bouqs Experience

I got an email a while back from Adam, who works for The Bouqs.  And I was confused, because what even is that?  I had never heard of the company, but a friend mentioned watching an episode of Shark Tank that featured them, so I figured they were a real thing.  And I started doing my research and was kind of fascinated...

Fun facts:

- They're grown on the side of an active volcano in Ecuador (or in California, if you opt for that collection).  More sunlight = brighter blooms.

- They're stored for less time (only 4 days compared to up to 2 weeks) after they're cut than other online flower companies, and flowers from California are shipped directly after being cut.  Fresher flowers, and eco-friendly, too.

- They aim to provide "living wages, childcare, healthcare and adult education" so you know you're supporting a great industry!

- They offer a lot more variety than your standard selection of multi-colored roses!

- You can set up automatic deliveries and get volume discounts - I know some VERY hard to shop for ladies who would be ideal recipients for flowers every couple of months or so!

Cons: 

- You have to plan ahead (at least a week) - no ordering the day before unless you opt for the California Collection, which is a little pricier.  And no weekend deliveries, either.

- I'll admit, $40 (including shipping) for flowers seems steep, considering how cheaply you can get them at the grocery store.  So I see these as more of a "special occasion" sort of purchase, and one that I'd love to receive for birthdays or anniversaries, particularly because it means Andrew didn't have to take time to go to the florist and instead came home to ME faster!

- The bouquet requires a little more work than other online flower companies.  They don't ship it in a vase (which I LOVE because I ended up with waaaaaaaaay too many of those cheap vases over the course of a long-distance relationship), so you have to cut the ends off the stems yourself, and strip off some of the greenery to get the bouquet to fit in the vase you want to use.  I actually find this to be more of a pro than a con, but it's a little less convenient.

So how does the experience actually work?

I chose the Desperado Bouq:

Desperado

Another picture of Desperado from their site - you can see how the colors and filler flowers differ slightly

It arrived in a box via FedEx on July 30.  I had to sign for it, so you'd have to make sure somebody was around for a delivery.

This is the Bouq 3 days after I got it.  It came with a packet of flower food to put in the water, and I had to cut off an inch of stem and strip off the leaves from the bottom of the stems.

It took a couple of days for the blooms to start opening, and you can see the filler flower is different from the one in either picture from the website.  And they were BRIGHT pink roses, not the pale pink I was expecting!

But they're absolutely gorgeous, and it looks like they'll last for quite a while.  This picture is from 6 days after the bouquet was delivered and they look even better!  Do you spy St. Therese and a triceratops skeleton in the background?

Are you intrigued?  Do go check out their site!  I love the variety they offer, and the fact that they're an eco-friendly business with ties to their communities.  What a great endeavor to support!  And if you order through my affiliate link, I get a little kickback at no extra cost to you (more flowers for me, hurrah!)!

I was given a complimentary Bouq in exchange for my honest review.  All opinions are my own, and I wouldn't recommend a product to you that I didn't think was awesome!