Thank you!!

I so honored to share that I received my first blog award - A Friend Award - from my friend Monica. This award so made my day (she actually gave it to me a few weeks ago and I'm just now getting around to blog about it). I am so grateful for this award and I'm so grateful to have found Monica's blog -- her boys are adorable and she is so sweet to leave super nice comments about B&K.

This award represents this: "These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind blogger's aim to find, and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers."

I am suppose to pass this award onto 8 blog friends. I am made so many friends through blogging this past year! I now pass this award on to (in no particular order):

Simi at Welcome to Insanity
Liz at Martelle-isms
Marie at Thornhill's Triple A Team
Megan at The Wilson's
Wendy (her blog is private, but she is one of my favs!!)
Sara at Twice as Nice
Rachel at Little Bites of Heaven
Kenzi at The Adventures of Millie T

If you have already received this award just know that you are a great friend too many people. Thank you for all your advice and comments that you have given to me.

Way back When-sday

In honor of B & K's big 0-1 later this week, here is a little look back at the past year. Enjoy!

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Pay It Forward

I am taking on a great idea by two of my favorite bloggers, Rachel & Monica:

Here are the details + rules:

1. Be one of the first THREE bloggers to leave a comment on this post, which then entitles you to a handmade item from me - something crafty or yummy, who knows?!

2. Winners must post this challenge on their own blog, meaning that you will Pay It Forward, creating a handmade gift -anything!- for the first THREE bloggers who leave a comment on YOUR post about this giveaway!

3. The gift that you send to your 3 Friends can be from any price range and you have 365 days to make/ship your item. This means you should be willing to maintain your blog at least until you receive your gift and have shipped your gifts. And, remember: It’s the Spirit and the Thought That Count!

4. When you receive your gift, please feel free to blog about it, sharing appropriate Linky Love! If you are not one of the Top Three Commenter's on this post, you can still play along. Go ahead and start your own Pay It Forward chain, and encourage your blogging friends to do the same!

SO, REMEMBER... Pay it forward!I can't wait to see who my three commenter's are - and start making their special homemade item.

Play time!

We had a very busy weekend. We went to Will & Sam’s birthday party on Saturday and had a blast. Well actually B & K were sooooo excited about it that neither of them took a nap in the morning (actually Miss K had been on a nap strike most of the week). But thankfully they didn’t really have any major meltdowns at the party and both were on their best behavior. Will & Sam looked super cute, they had a blast smashing their cake and B & K were drooling all over looking forward to doing the same thing this weekend (ok, the drool is probably from the constant teething, but I’m pretty sure they are looking forward to their own cake this weekend).

On Sunday we did a bunch of running around. We have started “project family room to play room”. I listed Tim’s beloved leather rocker/recliner on Craigslist on Saturday and received a crap-ton of responses on it immediately (and for my friend Patricia, who I know will ask how much is a “crap-ton” – it is a fricken lot!). : ) Have you checked out my friend Marie’s blog lately? She recently posted about how her family room has turned into baby land. We are on the same path (we even purchased the same baby gate at baby hell, I mean Babies R Us, this weekend). I had a grand idea to totally transform our family & living rooms, but we’re not quite sure if that will be possible yet (and it probably won’t happen before a million people descend on our house for the party this weekend). So we sold the recliner to make a little more room in the family room for all of the baby crap for now. I’m still trying to put on my HGTV hat to jazz it up a bit and I will be sure to post a picture soon.

Speaking of BRU and outings yesterday, I haven’t lamented on stupid people comments lately, have I? Yeah, I guess I haven’t really taken B & K out much lately. So at the grocery store I was stopped about 4 times (not many in my book) with the best one being this little old dude telling me I made his day just by letting him look at my kids as I was chugging my Starbucks looking for Tim. But the best was the little old lady (and I mean OLD lady) who was checking us out at BRU. Tim had our cart full of baby crapola (how is it that we just go into that place for a flippen gate and come out with a ton of other stuff, too??) and I was behind him with the double stroller. K was getting royally pissed off because B kept hitting her and trying to hold her hand so we were sort of in a hurry to get out of the joint. The old lady asked “are they twins” and we answered yes. She asked what they were (aliens? dogs? cats? reptiles?) and we answered a boy & a girl. She insisted they must be identical because they look so much alike (wha???) and we politely told her they were not identical (didn’t really go into the details). She proceeded to tell us she had 4 children who all moved out and she was quite bitter about it. Um, yeah, could you just ring up our stuff lady? We could not get out of that store fast enough!!!!!

We hope everyone had a nice weekend. I of course forgot to bring the camera to Will & Sam’s party and given that neither Bennett nor Kendyll slept that morning they really weren’t into the picture thing much before we left the house. This was the best I could get. (note: check out B-man’s sexy belt. Yeah, it is braided. That is all I could find in his size. Poor little dude. His legs are so long that he needs a 12 – 18 mo, but his waist is so tiny the pants fall right off. Reminds me of this picture from when he was really little).

Breakthroughs

Just a quick update. Kendyll is officially full-on crawling. And she is wicked fast if she is heading towards something she really wants (or shouldn't get or be near). We are now in lock-down process. We've been contemplating ways to create a play room / area and we will be creating baby jail very soon.

Meanwhile Bennett has made some progress as well. It used to be whenever we'd put him on his belly he'd instantly (and I mean INSTANTLY) roll over to his back. We noticed one day this week when I put him on his belly he just chilled there. For several minutes. Yeah, like at one point I rushed over to him when he was laying there like a slug for a good 3 - 4 minutes because I thought maybe the shock of being on his belly was causing him not to breathe or something. But nope, he was just chillin. He even rolled over onto his belly one morning and freaked a little bit, but was OK. So I'm taking this as a sign that he is finally ready to get on the mobility bandwagon, too. Poor dude, though -- his scrawny little arms need to bulk up a bit -- when he tries to push up his head he tires out after a second or two. He still has a really, really big head. So we're working with him.

I think he's going to catch up pretty quickly. Kendyll has taken to stealing his toys and then crawling off. I don't think he's going to like having his little sister walk (or in this case crawl) all over him for very long. :)

We're off to Will & Sam's 1st b-day party. It should be a very fun time. Happy First Birthday, Will & Sam!! :)

Here are a few pictures -- one of Bennett looking sad b/c he can't move around like Kendyll (don't worry, he was smiling 2 seconds before I snapped this picture) and the 2nd me catching K getting into something she shouldn't be.

Sneak Peek

Remember the great pics our friend Sarah took of B&K last year? We asked her to snap a few in honor of the big 0-1. She had some great ideas and now we know NOT to give them an entire "smash" cake on their b-day. :) Kendyll LOVED hers and couldn't wait to destroy it. It took Bennett a few minutes to get what he was supposed to do, but once he tasted the sweet goodness of frosting it was all over. And yes, they wore their super cute shirts by yet another Sarah. And they also wore their super cute babylegs (or the "queer leggings" as Tim calls them. . . I think they are adorable -- even on Bennett!).

Woo-hoo!!

Yeah, I know . . . there were a few missed / bad calls, the team is full of thugs and many will say they didn't deserve to win, but I don't care. The STEELERS won!! Woo-hoo!! We had a little par-tay for the Super Bowl and B & K (and me) were all decked out for our team. My friend Jodi even came to the gig in black & gold (even though I know deep down she wanted the Cardinals to win -- what a nice friend!).

B & K's friend Avery came over too. I love her to pieces, but she always makes me soooo fearful for our future. She is a few months older than B & K and I know whatever she is into is right around the corner for us. Well, what she is into these days is walking all.over.the.place. We all had a fun chuckle at this event (and we all felt a little bad about laughing at a 16 month old!). Jodi was blocking the entry to the kitchen trying to contain Miss A and she didn't like that very much. Too cute!

Hope everyone had a nice weekend. Aside from the big game it was also a very busy weekend for us. We took B&K to get their bday pictures taken. Stay tuned for a sneak peak of that! :)