Carrying My Babies

Our kids are knee deep in that, "Me too! Me too!" phase.

There is no laughing at one, and not laughing at the other...

There is no hugging one, and not the other...

Tickling, feeding, even WIPING (they poop at the same time... weird little genetic thing)... what you do for one, you do for the other.

And because they are children, they need it done INSTANTLY...like:

RIGHT THIS MINUTE OR I WILL HAVE A TANTRUM AND KICK MY LITTLE LIMBS AND FLEX MY VOCAL CORDS AND MAKE YOU SORRRRRRRY.

Patience is not a strong suit for our kids.

Their need to have things done immediately is why I began carrying them both at the same time.

It started with dancing in the kitchen; if I danced with one, I had to dance with the other..

It took a little maneuvering, but I finally figured out a way to have Lovebug climb into my arms after I was already holding Girlfriend, and we'd dance around, just the three of us.... except my two legs were doing all the work.

Once we got it down in the kitchen, the kids wanted me to carry them together in the yard, the driveway, running through the living room.... it's pretty much the norm now for me to have two giant babies in my arms.

Of course it doesn't last long (unless Girlfriend is in the Ergo), because kids are heavy, and squirmy, and slippery... but I love to hear them laugh and feel their little limbs flailing and holding onto me for dear life.

The Bugs are a constant in my face reminder of how quickly kids grow and change.

As far as I'm concerned, it's common sense and simple math...

The absolute shortest and fastest part of any person's life, is when they are a baby, and a toddler and a child.

Think about it... you're an adult for like... ever.

You're a teenager for less than a decade...

A certified "real" child from like 5-10...

A toddler from around 18 months to 4 years old...

And a baby... from birth to 18 months or so...

If you add my children into the math problem... all I see is two clocks ticking, ticking, ticking their way through toddler-hood so freaking fast.

I know for certain that the days when Lovebug wants me to carry him around at parades are limited.

I also know that eventually both kids are not only not going to want me to carry them... they're not going to want me to even freaking WALK with them.

I don't even care though... you watch I'll be that Mom that carries her kids around like little koala bears before their prom...

Oh that Mom doesn't exist??

Well she does now.

You laugh but if you know me you know I am dead serious about carrying a full grown Lovebug in a tuxedo like he's Roo and I'm Kanga.

It breaks my heart to think of my sometimes sweet, terrorist children not wanting to be around me when they become tweens.

And so... if my kids ask me to carry them on my freaking head like a damn fruit basket, you bet your ass I'm going to do it... or at least try.

I'm going to soak up every damn minute of their young gun-ness... I am not going to let one opportunity pass me by, even when they are driving me insane, if they ask me to pick them up and carry them on my feet while I walk on my hands...

I will try to do it...

And chances are, every so often... I might drop them on purpose...

Just so I can watch them get up, hold out their arms, and ask to be held again.

Brilliant.

If I know anything about ((most)) three year olds, it is this:

Number One: More often than not they don't listen for shit.

Number Two: They love playing with the hose.

Combine the two and you've got yourself a super high water bill... and kids that are like.. "Ooops, I got wet... I need to take my clothes off and be nakkkkkked in the front yard, weee!"

Trust me. I know.

I was complaining about this to my friend Jen the other day, and she was all:

"Put the baby proofing door knob thing on there."

Seriously?

I have the smartest friends in the world.

Why didn't I think of that!??

The baby door knob thinger was the perfect solution to my water problems!

Side note; This just happened on my side of the screen:

 Spell check tells me that "thinger" is not a word... and I'm all, "Listen spell check... it's a word, if I say it's a word, bitch."

Anyway back to the THINGER (spellcheck, bitch)... it fit on the hose handle no problemo and I couldn't even contain my excitement tonight when I was playing outside with the kids.

I'm pretty sure I'm evil cause I was like laughing because my kids didn't even KNOW that I rigged up their hose playground and I just couldn't even wait for them to try to turn that knob.

When Lovebug eventually ran for the hose, I could hear the brakes in his little kid legs like ERRRRRRRTTTT.

His face was like: Hold the phone... what the....

And I was all... "Mwahhhhahaha."

I told him that the water man came during nap time and told me that the fish in the ocean were running out of water, and they looked into it and decided the water coming out of our hose actually belonged to the fish, and the fish would die if we used the hose too much.

Okay... so mayyyybe I overdid it with the fish dying... but it worked.

Thank God for that... because our front yard was starting to look like a circus with our plants drowning and our kids running around in their birthday suits...

Fingers crossed that our water bill will go down too!!

The thinger for the win!

Easy and Delicious Butter Cream Frosting

This recipe is artery clogging, button popping, finger licking good.

It also has no cleaning products in it (if you have no clue what I am talking about, read this).

My friend Jordo gave me this recipe, it originally came from her Mom, Lynn...

So I call this frosting:

Lynn's Likely To Give You Diabetes Buttercream Frosting

How's that for really selling it?

This stuff is seriously yummy, has only three ingredients, and is so easy to make that even I couldn't mess it up.

And, because I believe in second chances, I let my little gremlin daughter help me make this batch.

So here we go... the ingredients:

Number 1: Butter.

You can't have artery clogging frosting without some butter folks... so let's go ahead and use 3 sticks of unsalted butter, at room temperature.

Go ahead and toss those in your mixer (or use a hand mixer) and beat the hell out of 'em for 2 full minutes.

Because I am notorious for ignoring recipes and being mad when I fuck them up, I followed this one perfectly, and actually set the timer for 2 minutes while my Kitchen Aid mixer did all the beating work for me.

When the timer went off, the beaten butter looked like this:

 Of course Girlfriend wanted to try it...

I'm like... "What's it taste like?"

And she's like... "Butter."

You don't say?

Number 2: 1 lb (16 oz) of Confectioners' Sugar

After the butter is nice and whipped and frothy, add in the sugar a little at a time, slowly until it's blended and soft.

When all the sugar has been added to the butter it should look like this:

Minus the chubby baby hand, of course.

Number 3: Vanilla Extract

See how that little box says "PURE" Vanilla Extract??

Well, that basically means that it's organic, which means adding it to this recipe is pretty much like going to the gym.

So don't worry... you're good.


It actually doesn't matter if it's Pure or Imitation Vanilla Extract.... just add a half teaspoon to the butter / sugar combo and beat until it's mixed.

When it was all done we added some yellow food coloring to make the deliciousness look beautiful...

 It also got all over my fingers and made me look jaundice for three days...

And there you have it!

Delicious, frothy, gut busting, button popping, artery clogging, mouth watering, amazing, easy, delicious, butter cream frosting.

Just be sure not to add any cleaning products!!

Psstt... If you have a minute, please vote for us by clicking the link below and then the owl on the left. Your vote will help me bring you more cool Giveaways!! Thanks!

Love you, mean it.

Children Get Older

While my friends are getting pregnant and having their first babies, my first born is busy keeping his eye on the ball, karate chopping things like a Ninja Turtle, and finishing out his first year of Pre-School.

Sigggghhhh...

 
WTF KID... I thought we had a deal.

I hatch you... and you stay little and be my baby forever and ever, Amen.

WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR DEAL?!?

Picture me crying in a river... just in the river... crying.. buckets.

How can this be?!?!

I swear he was just a newborn...

As a matter of fact, four years ago TODAY... my baby was due!

And then nine days later... he was born... and then I blinked, and we were here:

HOW DID THIS HAPPEN??

Picture me climbing out of the river, finding a rope, making a lasso (cause that would happen), throwing it around the Earth and digging my heels into the ground like... STOP TURNING YOU DAMN PLANET.

YOU ARE MAKING MY CHILD OLD.

Make it stop.

Please.

The Besties Update

Before Girlfriend was born my mom kept reminding me of all the times my brother tried to kill me as a toddler.. it was terrifying.

Like I wasn't stressed enough about adding another person to our only child family...

Now I had to worry about whether or not Boyfriend would accidentally drop an exact-o knife into her knee. (That happened). (To me, not Girlfriend).

Fortunately for us... Boyfriend welcomed his sister into our home almost immediately and aside from asking me when her Mom was coming to pick her up and take her home... things have been pretty close to ideal ever since.

Of course, they fight and terrorize each other a couple times a day, I mean they are normal....

But more often than not they can be found side by side... causing trouble together.

We are so happy to be able to call these two a team.

And they are, a team, in every sense of the word.

Where he goes, she goes... what he does, she does.

When he's at school, she paces, and waits, and calls his name... even though he isn't around to answer her.

When she looks adorable, he tells her... when she says a new word, he's proud of her.

It is a wonderful friendship that I didn't push ... but I did pray for it.

I wanted so badly for Boyfriend to have a partner in crime, and even as they grow older, they continue to be two peas in a box pod.

It surprises me every day just how much they love each other... it is amazing.

And pretty freaking adorable too... if I do say so myself.

If you're out there expecting your second child and wondering how your first will feel about a new baby in the family... take it from me, a sibling is the best gift that we have ever given our children.

They are honestly lost without the other one.

They've been close for so long now that sometimes I have to remind myself that this isn't a phase... it's a friendship.

And it makes us so proud.

I knock on wood every day that things turned out so wonderful... because Lord knows it could be worse (I've got the scars to prove it... but don't worry, my brother loves me now... I think.)

I hope they stay this close for the rest of their lives...

They make my heart full and my eyes crinkle with happiness...

Plus it doesn't hurt that my mother was wrong, and it's always good when that happens.

Just sayin'.

Butter Cream Frosting Fail

Last week my friend Amy had her baby!

She welcome Jonah Cole into the world late on a Thursday night, and while she was push, push, pushing out a nearly 10 (!!) pound baby, the Bugs and I were making cupcakes.

I had high hopes of bringing a whole plate of baby blue deliciousness to the hospital so that Amy and Jonah could pass them out to visitors like... "Hey! Thanks for coming to my first birthday party! Have some yum!"

Unfortunately, when you have happy hooligans for children like I do... things don't always go as planned.

We made the cupcakes no problem, they were in the oven baking their little cupcake faces off when Girlfriend and I decided to whip up some AMMMMAZING home made butter cream frosting (recipe coming soon).

Not that I stuck my finger into the frosting, but I did... and this shit was good...

Like clogged my arteries and gave me diabetes in one bite good.

I know.

Anyway... we finished making the frosting and I unlocked the mixer top so that it was leaning back, with all that frosting goodness dripping down off the whisk.

Since I had no clue what was about to happen, I didn't take a picture of this... but a quick google search gave me the image below to kind of draw a picture for you.

Except imagine way more frothy delicious frosting puffed up all around the whisk looking so amazing and scrumptious that you want to stick your head into it.

So I turn my back to open the oven and get the cupcakes out, and my Girlfriend decides that since she can't stick her head into it... she will do the next best thing...

Stick the mop in it.

When I heard her say... "I stir... I stir..." I just knew I was going to turn around and see the mop, that had just been covered in Pine Sol a half hour earlier, all up in that frosting.

And it was.

Mother freaking effer.

Whose child mops frosting?

Mine. Mine does.

At this point I am so mad that I just want to say fuck nineteen times... really fast too... like the Micro Machine guy.

Because hello... number 1... that shit was delicious and number 2... poor Jonah can't give out Pine Sol cupcakes.

Since I knew that the frosting was amazing tasting, I decided to risk my life and see if it tasted like Pine Sol.

It did... it was still good, but very "the secret ingredient is mop," tasting.

Lucky for all of you... unlucky for me...  and Jonah... the frosting had to be trashed.

Which means I got to make an entirely NEW batch of the good stuff... with lots of pictures and no Pine Sol.

So some time next week I will post the recipe I used and you can get your hands on the easiest most delicious frosting recipe ever.

Until then... if you're looking for a moral to this story... I have decided that it is this...

Fuck mopping the floors.

It ruins everything.

End of the Year Class Picture

A few months ago, Lovebug's class had a super expensive photographer come in and take beautiful black and white pictures of the kids... he charged $27 for a 5 x 7.

I know.

We took the bait anyway because, hello, my child looked cute as hell in his first ever class picture.

The photographer also offered to take pictures of Girlfriend, who also looked cute as hell...

So, fifty four dollars later I had two pictures of the kids... pricey huh??

Anyway, Mr. Expensive and Talented Photog didn't stop there... he also wanted $27 for the class picture...

Which was just out of the damn question if you ask me.

I really wanted the picture, but not for twenty seven bucks.

So my friend Jen, who has taken some amazing pictures of the Bugs, offered to go in and take a year end picture of the kids, and have them blown up at CVS.

She even paid for all of them ($8) for the whole class.

What a doll right??

Anyway... when I saw the best shot she got, I was A) not surprised and B) wheezing because I couldn't stop laughing.

For real I was momentairly like... am I having a heart attack?

I know all preschoolers kinda look alike... so I'll give you a hint as to which one is him.

The one whose ass crack is showing.

This shot exceeded every expectation that I could have ever had for picture day, and is now hanging in the kitchen... right near the chicken balls.

Naturally.