Post Weekend

These two kind of like each other.

(I think they were laughing at seeing the other wearing a hood...)

"Hey Caden, whatcha thinkin?"

"Twins stuffs."

We keep a couple of old comforters rolled up over some power cords in the living room, (ye olde out of sight out of mind trick), with the bonus feature of, hey, if you also drape them over the jumper...

...instant fort.

Brooklyn likes to crawl in and lounge back against the blankets, while looking around and grinning.  It looks like all she's missing is a cocktail cup of juice with an umbrella sticking out the top.

Good moms take pictures.  Great moms would have noticed their second child smiling in the background, and would have avoided chopping off their head so that they were included in the picture, too.

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Weekend food adventures:

Cottage cheese isn't so bad, after all.

(I tried cottage cheese with them awhile ago, and they instantly spit it out.  Since now, if I were to let them, they would inhale an entire block of any other type of cheese in one sitting, I decided to try cottage cheese again.  Pros: they loved it, no cutting up cheese into small, baby-friendly pieces.  Cons: the cheese-y, liquid-y, curd-y mess...)

I also let them try a fresh-baked, chocolate chip cookie...

Luckily by this point, it was almost bath time.

And, a significant milestone in any child's life...

...first Chipotle!  Really, Chipotle is all of their favorite things.  Chicken, cheese, veggies (corn salsa, green peppers, and onions)...also rice, though we didn't let them have that since it creates enough of a mess in our OWN house, and I wasn't going to inflict that upon the poor employees.  Going to Chipotle also seemed like a miracle, since we went there after church.  And then after Chipotle we went to the store for another errand.  These are the days I dreamed of back when they were still nursing round the clock.  We're living the dream, here, people.

Also...

Babies first beer!  Wait, just kidding, that's mine.  Tyson and I got out for a few hours on Saturday and got to sit at a restaurant where we were able to, get this, take our own damn time.  The waitress had to come back twice to get our food order because we were in no rush deciding what to eat (though we were busy slurping down beer and noshing on some delicious cheese curds) (Yay Wisconsin!).  And there was no cleaning up afterwards.  We even waited (slightly) for a table and had to entertain no one but ourselves!  Ah, the miracle of babysitters.  (Thanks to our friends who put up with block tower after block tower, snack time, and, from the sounds of it, some epic baby stair olympics.)

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(Sometimes the best pictures are blurry pictures.)

A (Couple) of my Favorite Things

I took a couple of evenings this week to do some of my favorite Christmas activities-sending out Christmas cards and wrapping presents.  This year I used a Living Social deal for my Christmas cards.  They came shipped so cute in an adorable little box, and a note saying that they enclosed two extra cards and envelopes, in case I was still adding to my Christmas card list, which I thought was a nice touch.  I also like that you can personalize the back of the card, as well as the front, and manipulate the colors, font, and text.  The address stickers I love, which were leftover from last year, and I used them to seal the back of the envelope.

Christmas presents consist of kraft paper tied with different types of red and green ribbon.  The kraft paper gives everything a uniform look, and the ribbon makes it festive.  I also bought gold washi tape, which glams it up a bit. It doesn't stick as nice to the kraft paper as I'd like (I actually had to secure the folds with clear gift-wrapping tape first), but I still enjoy the overall effect.  Most wrapping paper, especially at Christmas time, is too garish and busy for my taste, and I'm happy with the simplicity of this year's gifts.

Beer + Cabbage (Flowers)

My mom and aunt came to visit this weekend.  We made the most of our time by visiting the farmer's market, touring one of my favorite breweries, driving around campus, and checking out some of mine and hubby's favorite places to eat.  

The New Glaurus Brewing Co. has some seriously fantastic beer.  I enjoy being in Wisconsin where we have access to these local places.  AND we got to keep the glasses.  What more can you ask for?

Oh wait, these.

Cabbage flowers.  And eucalyptus.  Arranged together.  It smells fantastic.  This was my favorite find at the farmer's market.  For $5.00.  I'd never even HEARD of a cabbage flower before, so I bought it at the first vendor I saw.  Then as we were walking around I saw almost every single vendor with bouquets of these babies.  So...yeah.  Not as original as I thought.

It's purple.  And green.  And awesome.  Except I just picked up what I thought was a dead leaf bit on one of the flowers, and it turned out to be squishy.  And move-y.  So I shrieked and threw it back in the flower.  Cuz I'm brave like that.  Some sort of caterpillar thing?  I don't know, but it was terrifying.  And now it's still living in my flower arrangement.  Picking up something you expect to be not in any way alive and then finding out that it IS something alive = not cool.

They still look awesome though.  And are supposed to last for 3+ weeks.  Caterpillars and all...

UPDATE:

I was worried that when I flung Mr. Caterpillar back into the flower I had hurt him.  Never fear, when I checked a little while later he was crawling around inside.  Now hubby has rescued me (and the caterpillar) by putting him outside where he belongs.  Except now hubby tells me that we didn't do the caterpillar any favors.  He will probably be eaten by a bird.  Or freeze to death.  Whatever.  My flowers are now caterpillar-free (hopefully) and Mr. Caterpillar is back with his own kind (also hopefully).