We'll be gone for a week, so if you miss us, you can stop by and look at these:

Just silly

Ok, so Mariah Carey is on the trash magazine cover this week as having lost 20lbs. Here's "a day in her diet":

Breakfast: 6oz plain yogurt, 1 cup sliced fruit, 1 small banana

Snack: 6 kalamata olives

Lunch: 1 cup .... Wait, what was that snack????

Come on. That's just dumb. 6 freaking olives? What torture. You shouldn't even bother having a snack if you're going to eat 6 olives.

Here's my kind of snack - which may include one (not too likely), or all (much more likely) of the following:

Oh, about a half a bag of these:

I wouldn't consider myself a black licorice fan, but I just re-discovered these and remembered I LOVE them. Luckily they're over at the hospital where Ryan works so I beg him to bring them home about every other day.

Or these:

Lots of them. This big size from Costco lasted a whole week last time.

I'm really liking these:

Slightly sweet, slightly salty. Yum.

Or these:

Has anyone tried these? A girl from Ryan's work very thoughtfully added these in with a baby present to help with the post-partum poop problems (beautiful use of alliteration, I know). Anyhow, it turns out they're really good, probably our favorite tasting granola bars. Throw in some fiber and I'm sold.

So whatever. Eat your six olives Mariah. Guess I won't be making the cover of Us Weekly any time soon, but I'll sure be enjoying eating a real snack.

Annuale Commercial

I don't know if anyone saw this clip on Saturday Night Live, but it's hilarious. Ryan and I keep busting up about it. I will warn you that it has a couple bleeped out words, so don't feel like you have to watch it. (I think it plays a commercial first.)

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/play.shtml?mea=221774

Bienvenido a Miami

This week we'll be headed down to Miami to look for housing. While researching online, we discovered this article. Unfortunately it confirms all my fears. Here are a few enjoyable snippits:

MIAMI IS IN NO UNCERTIAN TERMS NOT LIKE MOVING TO ANY OTHER CITY IN THE US. Heck, it isn’t even moving to the U.S. What you must understand is that if you are from another part of the country, no matter if it’s some self-proclaimed “melting pot” like New York or LA or Dallas, you will experience culture shock when you cross the Dade County Line.

So buckle up and don’t unpack too much, because without the proper instruction you, like so many Americans who think this might be a fun place to live, will not make it through your first year.

I am not going to make it sound like this is an awful place to live, but you have to have the right mindset in order to survive in this city. It is not the fast-paced, competitive mindset of New York, or the laid-back mindset of LA, but more the frenetic, anything goes mindset of, oh, say, El Salvador.

If you are young and single, there is no greater city to live. People in your demographic are really the only sane people who should ever consider moving here.

Married, people, seriously, Miami is not the town for you. I’m sure you are a very nice couple, possibly with very nice kids, but that is precisely why you should avoid this place like your mother-in-law on Christmas. I can almost promise you that your family will be worse off for having moved here.



Typically the only people who decide to begin a new life in Miami arrive by raft, but if for some unknown reason you thought moving to a city full of sex, drugs and corruption was a good idea for a young married couple, then Bienvenidos!

NICE.

I forgot to mention one thing about our big adventure outside. I had everything right by the door so I could keep my eye on everything - took one twin out, came in and got the other one and set him out there, and then came back in to get Cash. I decided right before I went out with Cash that I would grab the sidewalk chalk which was just on the other side of the room, so I ran across and by the time I turned around Cash was shutting the door and saying, "Bye babies!!!"

Too funny that he seemed to jump at the chance that we may actually be able to get rid of them!

Amazing

I managed to make it out of the house with all three kids by myself yesterday for the first time!!!

We sat on the front porch.

Loss:1, Win:1

As I have mentioned, we have about 4 television channels. NBC seems to come in the best, so when I'm feeding the babies early in the morning I often watch the Today Show. Last week they were discussing those controversial plastics - like sippy cups. Those that have the triangle on the bottom with either a 3, 6, or 7 are bad, but the 7 is the worst because it definitely contains bisphenol, whatever that is - it's just bad. I don't feel like getting scientific, so I'll just leave it at that. I knew this a while ago and happened to look at whatever sippy cup was around me and there was no number on the bottom. So this time I looked again at other sippy cups - our favorite ones, actually. Of course - there's a 7 on the bottom. Ugh. These are the ones we've used for over a year. These are the ones Cash goes to sleep with. These are the worst offenders. Since I haven't had time to go get new ones I feel so bad everytime I hand them to Cash. "Here Cash, enjoy your chemical-leaching sippy cup." "Would you like some milk with that bisphenol?"

But, to redeem myself, they also had something on a while back about autoimmune diseases and how our germ-phobic society may be partly to blame for them. They say one theory says that when our immune system isn't kept busy, it starts attacking itself. So the lady on the show said that we should be a little less germophobic. She even said it's good to let our kids eat food off the floor sometimes. Yea! See? I am a good mom!

Cash

Ryan was telling his sister some of the funny things Cash does and she asked if we were writing them down anywhere. So now Ryan is adamant that I write them down. I couldn't figure out where to write them, then realized the blog must be the best place since it's the only thing I'll keep and get made into a book and stuff. So, I'm warning you now that this is a post about Cash. I don't frequently post too much about him - like, surprise, my 21 month-old loves trains! I understand that is not the most interesting thing for everyone to read. And I'm sure what parents think is cute and funny about their kids is not nearly so to other people. That's why I'm putting the disclaimer that this post is about him, but we think he's pretty funny and I'm just trying to do some highlights. (You will also notice there's nothing on here having to do with him and the babies. That's because there is nothing. He couldn't care less about them. In fact, the only acknowledgement he makes of them is any time we put them near him and he says, "Bye baby.")

Cash is OBSESSED with the alphabet. (Gee, I wonder where he gets his obsessive nature?) Anyhow, the alphabet is his best friend. He will play and beg to play all day doing something that involves the alphabet. When he gets carried off to get his diaper changed or get taken off to bed, he frequently wails out, "Dub-uh!! (W), Y, Z.....!!!!" As if calling on the power of the alphabet to save him.

I will say we're impressed with his skills, but we don't really know since we don't have any other kids to compare it to. We didn't really encourage it much, he just did it on his own and frequently surprises us with what he can do. Here is one video we took when we realized he could do this:

He also loves movies that have anything about the alphabet. This movie has a scene where letters go across the screen. He makes us rewind and rewind and rewind this part over and over. This time he stopped doing it, but still managed to be funny:

Then there's the favorite game - Ryan pulls up a word document, types in letters, and Cash says them:

Now what is wrong with any of this? Nothing. It's great that he loves this.

Except.

He will do this for hours. And I mean hours. We're the ones that get tired of it. We're the ones begging to stop playing with the alphabet. And when we stop playing it, this is what ensues:

Notice he keeps looking longingly over at the computer where he wants to go learn his alphabet while wailing "A B C, A B C", and we're like the bad parents trying to stunt our child's learning saying - please! No more learning your letters! How bad is that?

Now what do I discover when I'm downloading pictures onto the computer? Videos taken that I hadn't seen. Apparently this is what happens when I'm not around:

Cash watches movie trailers. Nice.

Then this happens:

HOLY COW. Disgusting!!!!!!! What are you teaching this child when I'm not around!?!!?! (Just kidding. I hope. I really hope.) No seriously though - where did he get this? We're totally cracking up because it's pretty dang funny that Ryan caught this on video. But why?? Does the kid need a salt lick or something? Are we missing vitamins???

Anyway, lest you think he's either all serious, or disgusting, here's what I found him doing one day. Totally spontaneous, and I have no idea where he got this from, let alone the notion that it must be preceded by holding on to the bed post?!?

That's our little man.

Fooled?

Fancy little clutch purse or diaper wipes case? You decide.

Yet another creative gift. Thanks Melissa!

What it's like to be a twin

And then sometimes you hold hands while sharing pleasant moments like this:

I know you've all seen more pictures of me nursing than anyone ever needs to see in a lifetime, but I think this picture is as sweet as the one on the last post was funny. (Plus if you're still coming back to this blog, you know what you're in for). I've wanted to capture this bird's eye view because I think it's the sweetest thing, especially when they hold hands like that. And years from now I'll want to look back and remember this is what I got to look at for hours and hours each day.

A look at my life - literally

My sister just got in town. So yesterday I was trying to get done all the things that I don't have time to do. So I attempted my first light exercise on the elliptical. So I was still in my workout clothes when I realized my hair needed help, so I decided to put in some highlights before I showered. Then the babies started crying and needed to be fed. My sister took a look at me multi-tasking and bust out laughing. She decided she had to document it. Now if two sisters have decided it's hilarious enough to capture (and this second one is even the more shy and modest one!), it really must be funny. Now I look totally disgusting - especially after only getting 4 hours of sleep, but I guess if you've read my blog enough you've already learned I have no shame anymore. So I figured, aw, what the heck....

At least you can be thankful I strategically blurred it! My sister commented while looking at the picture on the camera that with the light colored hair and near baldness of these babies, from a distance, it doesn't really look like I'm holding a pair of babies heads, just a big pair of melons - as she put it!

Hope you get a good laugh. At least you can't say we don't aim to entertain here.