Okay, I don't get a whole lot of pictures of my "boys" because I've got Andrew (the big one) and John Paul, who never holds still to have his picture taken!  I thought we could get some awesome pictures yesterday with all of Colleen's boys (real-life blogger meetup, what WHAT?), but our camera battery was dead and Andrew got a total of 2 pictures on his phone...  Both of which have Maggie in them!

 

So I give you...  My boys in old pictures!

 

 

The day John Paul was born - look at that "new dad" look!  Greasy hair courtesy 60 hours of labor...  But that's a story for another day.

 

 

That look!  And those monstrous feet...  John Paul had a 15-inch head, hence the 60 hours of labor...

 

 

Still learning how to deal with this "new baby" thing.

 

 

Tickling!

 

And my all-time favorite picture of my boys?

 

 

Easter 2012 - matching seersucker and bow ties. 

 

Linking up with Cari & Clan Donaldson for Theme Thursday!

5 Favorites!

Linking up with the lovely Hallie this week for Five Favorites!

UNO

People who link their blogger accounts to their email addresses!

I'm just going to send you over to Grace's for the tutorial, because that's how I discovered my email wasn't linked.  (Also yes, I may be addicted to linking to Camp Patton lately...)

But seriously, I LOVE getting comments on this blog, and I try to respond to as many as possible and I didn't realize that tons of my email responses were just getting emailed into the noreply-comment@blogger.com abyss!  So if I ever didn't respond to your thoughtful comment, it's because I DID respond via email but I didn't realize your blogger profile wasn't linked to your email!

Do yourself a favor though, and link it up!  Because then you don't have to check someone's post that you commented on just to see, "Hey, did they respond?" because half the time you know you (I) forget to check and that poor little comment thread dies right there.

But if your email is linked, you can end up with a beautiful, 41-email-long comment extravaganza without having to check Blogger every 30 seconds!

You thought I was kidding, didn't you?

DOS

 

My Ergo baby carrier - I've been using it TONS lately to wear the babies on my back (one at a time :P) while doing everything else around the house.  Mary Claire almost ALWAYS falls asleep, and it helps free up space for Cecilia in the double stroller, since she's the slowest walker ever and we've been taking lots of walks lately.

 

 

I can nurse a baby in it while cooking, too!  And it's such a pretty blue and green :)  I was really a fan of the Mei Tai we borrowed when the twins were littler, and the sleepy wrap was good for that stage too but now that they're bigger I reach for the Ergo a lot more often because it's a lot more comfortable for me to wear.

 

Mary Claire fell asleep on my back while I was making taquitos from scratch.  Yes, twin moms, you WILL have time to cook again!

 

TRES

 

 

 

Books.  All of them.  I never understand how it has to be recommended that you read to your child for 20 minutes a day - I'm lucky if I can get away with only 20 minutes!

 

We love books a LOT in this house, as you can see from the children's early morning pre-breakfast choices.  Cecilia's?  Carl's Afternoon in the Park.  John Paul's?  Latin chant in Andrew's Missal.

 

And today I stopped by the library on the way home from work to choose some new books for the kids and you should have SEEN John Paul's face when he saw the stack.  "BOOKS???" he squeaked excitedly!

 

QUATRO

 

Consignment shopping

 

We hit up one of our favorite stores (check them out if you're in the Northern VA area) to pick out insane amounts of clothing for the kids at ridiculously low prices.  I LOVE it because everything's in style and sorted better than thrift stores and there's none of the intense craziness that you deal with at those seasonal consignment sales.

 

And I feel comfortable letting the kids pick out some of their own clothes when things really don't cost very much.  Cecilia's favorite pick?

 

 

Her new (to us) Gymboree pink polo shirt dress with embroidered frogs.

 

Those legs are a story for another day...

 

CINCO

 

Zulily!

 

Okay, if you're not already a member and you want to be, you can click my link and if you buy anything I'll get some credit (no extra cost to you, don't worry!) which will be awesome because they have SO much cute stuff!!!

 

But that's not the whole story - their customer service is AWESOME.

 

I bought Cecilia a pair of baby TOMS (pink with butterflies) and after they shipped they emailed me to say, "Oh shoot, the pink with butterflies you ordered was the wrong picture and you're actually getting THIS pair of pink with butterflies shoes that are PINKER with SPARKLY butterflies, but here's your money back and also $10 in credit and you can keep the shoes!"

 

So...  Free shoes because they were too pink?

 

Cool.

 

And we generally have really good experiences with the stuff we get from them, but recently I bought Cecilia a pair of dress shoes that ended up being WAY smaller than advertised.  They said, "Sorry, we can't control the sizing but here's your money back and also $10 in credit but you can keep the shoes!"

 

And on that same order the sandals I ordered ended up being way BIGGER than advertised and also not the brand listed...  So they refunded me that money!

 

I just can't get over how awesome their customer service is.  It can be a little bit scary to order things online but I feel so much better about it since they handle these mishaps so quickly and awesomely.

 

*Edit:  This makes it seem like they screw up all my orders...  I've been shopping there for years and have never had an issue until these two orders - none of these errors were due to any fault of their own, and they rectified the situations perfectly in my opinion!

 

Okay this was a LONG 5 Favorites post (I blame the babies not going to sleep until 10:20...), so go check out more at Moxie Wife!

 

Kicking the Devil in the Pants

We had a conversation at dinner the other night about how every time John Paul does something good, that's like kicking the devil in the pants.  He got a HUGE kick (ha. ha.) out of this - every bite of dinner he took was a good thing, being obedient to Mom and Dad helped him KICK THAT DEVIL IN THE PANTS!

Now we don't talk about the devil a lot in our house - it's kind of a weird topic to bring up with a 3-year-old and a 2-year-old (and you know the twins aren't paying attention!), but John Paul (of course) brought it up first.  And, given our usual struggle with his disobedience, I introduced the concept to him.  And he LOVED IT, but mostly because of the silly image it made in his mind.

But here's the thing - it applies to all of us.

Those runners rushing to give blood after yesterday's tragedy?  Totally kicking that devil in the pants.

Residents opening their homes to strangers with no hotel rooms?  Kicking that devil in the pants!

The outpouring of prayers in tweets, on facebook, in blog posts, and just in the quiet of our homes?  Take THAT, devil!

Because amongst all this evil, one thing remains true - good always wins.

We know how the story ends.  Jesus beats death. 

So despite all the evil in this world (and ohhhh there is a lot of it), good always has, and always will win out in the end.  Perhaps not the battle, but certainly the overall war.

This doesn't mean it's time to get complacent - keep those prayers coming, keep those acts of kindness alive, and kick the devil in the pants every chance you get!

Not quite twins

 

Cecilia at 4 months.

 

 

Mary Claire at 5 months.

 

I'm definitely seeing more differences as Mary Claire gets older - not quite Cecilia's clone, but the face shape and build (and lack of hair) are definitely identical!

 

Now we just need to put Elizabeth in that dress and do a 3-way comparison!

 

Seriously, people get so confused when they see us with both babies, because they're never dressed alike and look TOTALLY different.  And they finally get it when we tell them they're twins, but it usually takes them a while to figure it out. 

 

I think twins are pretty uncommon in Catholic circles because Catholic women are generally not going to be using fertility treatments that produce twins, and twins are a lot more likely to be conceived when women have just gone off hormonal birth control, so that's another strike against Catholics in the twin game.  Statistically, I guess you must see fewer Catholic twins (and we only really see other people at church...)!  We certainly never see any, although I know there are some in the blogging world :)

WIWS: I give up

This week's WIWS brought to you by kids with no limits and the self-timer on my camera.

 

 

I sat down to write this and heard, "What's stuck to my cwotch?  What's stuck to my cwotch, Mom?"

 

So of course I had to run to the bathroom.

 

Answer?

 

"Nuffin!"

 

She just wanted to show me how well she was wiping.  And this time using LESS than half a roll of toilet paper!  But you can understand my apprehension...

 

I would like to thank you all for participating in WIWS - Sundays are pretty hectic over here, because we have to run around like crazies trying to get out the door for an early Mass, then we get home and Andrew has to leave for the Mass HE sings, so I'm home with all 4 kids by my lonesome for 4 hours and it is a little bit far from relaxing...  (And these are the hours when I am most thankful that Andrew isn't a doctor on call because holy cow I don't know how Grace does it!!!  I would be gchatting him every second with the "Are you coming home yet?  I NEED YOU NOW!!!  SOMEONE JUST PUKED ON MY UNDERWEAR!!!" crazy things that I send when it hits 5:31 on a weekday and he isn't home yet...)

 

But while I sit around nursing all the babies in the world (not all of them?  Well, it feels like I must be nursing all of them...) I get to hit refresh and see what everyone's wearing!  And while I mostly don't comment because typing one-handed is a lot of work, I love reading all the posts!!!

 

 

This is my "I-give-up-go-ahead-and-stick-your-foot-in-the-Easter-basket-as-long-as-you-aren't-touching-the-camera" pose.

 

The kids WERE very cute pre-Mass - John Paul had a bow-tie and non-twisted suspenders and a tucked-in shirt.  Cecilia (shocker, this one) wore pink.  The babies were in dresses that they both puked on.  Again, shocker.

 

But since we went to 7:45 Mass this morning (to hit up the pancake breakfast afterwards, and because I was hoping the early hour would turn the kids into well-behaved zombies), there was no time for pictures beforehand.  So this is what you get, post-Mass, post-breakfast, post-potty trips.

 

Dress:  Macy's from after John Paul was born when I thought I would never fit into any of my clothes again.  I don't even like it very much, but it's comfy, easy to nurse in, and I had approximately 0 minutes to get dressed this morning.

 

Shoes:  Well, they're heels.  Thank Cecilia's head for the blocked shot.

 

Messy hair:  Whatever, could be worse...  Again, 7:45 Mass.  Gross.

 

And despite 7 and 9 straight hours of sleep from the babies last night, I'm still completely exhausted.  And since I posted about it on the internet, they will certainly stop sleeping again.

 

Coherence?

 

No.

 

Well.

 

Happy Sunday?

 

See more here, at Fine Linen & Purple!