A Long Time Coming

I have not written a blog post in almost 3 months.  That, ladies and gentlemen, is called, "Life With 15 Month Old Twins".  Jarrod and I used to talk about how we knew our lives would be dramatically different when the twins were born, but honestly, We. Had. No. Idea.  It's like when you hear a young person talk about being a grown up, and you think, "Oh, darling!  You are so cute.  Listen to yourself just dreaming away". You don't know whether to do an evil laugh or be annoyed at the fact that they aren't yet privy to real-life-ness.  So yeah, it's like that.

The past several months have been really busy for me at work, so I've struggled with juggling home-life, being a mom and a wifey and working.  I love my job, but occasionally it's nice to fold a load of laundry in between phone-calls.  Not too much of that going on lately, which is a good problem to have.  But still.  In turn, Jarrod has struggled with the "system" I've got going on in the laundry room.  It's called, I know there are way too many baskets in this small room, but if you touch anything I will hurt you because I have a plan for it.

My mom used to gripe at my brothers and I for all the laundry we caused her to have to do.  I get it now, Mom.  Imagine that YOUR family nearly doubled in size overnight and all the laundry that would bring with it....  Now, imagine the doubling was done by BABIES.  BABIES go through sooooooooooooo much laundry.  Poor Collin.  I grab clothes off his floor, inspect them for mess/stains, give them the sniff test, and tell him it's all good to wear again!

And don't even get me started on meals.  Collin has always been a wonderful eater.  Absolutely no issues.  He will eat most things, and he will try anything.  He's been eating table food for years now, so to have to start over with toddlers who don't have all their teeth yet has been rough.  I hated the days with Collin of trying to figure out what he was going to eat while Jarrod and I enjoyed our adult meal, and I find myself doing that all over again.  Who wants chicken nuggets?  Who wants another dad-gum fruit & veggie squeeze pouch?  You loved that yesterday, why won't you eat it today?!?  STOP throwing food.  Don't feed the dog.  What do you mean you're sick of chicken nuggets?

Every time we have driven to Texas since the twins were born, I swear we are not doing it again for a solid year.  It's nonstop climbing back and forth for me, trying to find a toy that will please a baby for longer than 30 seconds.  Handing out snacks, plugging pacis back in, singing songs and sitting wedged between Collin's car seat and Landry's dog bed in the 3rd row.  It's exhausting.  A couple of times it has literally been akin to torture.  I was wedged between the captains chairs that the babies car seats sit in, and the armrests from their seats were rubbing my elbows and knees raw.  When we arrived at our destination, I had to fight my way out of the car and then I had sores on my elbows and knees.

So we haven't been to TX since Christmas, and I've been missing my family.  It doesn't help that my parents recently obtained all sorts of baby farm animals that I had yet to meet, so we made the trek for Easter.

Collin talked it up for months.  He wanted to hold a baby goat, and he wanted to see his grandparents and play with his cousins.  His poor teacher at daycare was about ready to put tape over his mouth after all the talking he was doing about GOING TO TEXAS!

Well, thank goodness all of his dreams came true, and for me, the trip wasn't completely awful.

PawPaw told the boys, "You have to wake up early to feed animals on the farm".  Collin was so worried that he would miss this.  He LOVED feeding chickens, and he loved even more that his PawPaw guided him through it.

It's cool and all, but I just wish "hen treats" weren't dried worms.  I was not as calm as Collin while feeding these chickens!

Collin and big cousin, Cason, holding a goat

Just a couple of cute, little girls!

I have said since my pregnancy with these guys that Grady was "all boy".  He was determined to GET every single animal he saw!  He loved being on the farm.

...Even if he did think they all said, "Mooooo".

Atalie and PawPaw having a conversation about the goats

This guy has his hands full with grand-kids!

Grady: "Look, there's a goat up there."

 Grady: "Imma get up there too."

 One with his goat friends. 

Buddies.

My conversation with this one went like this:  What's up?!  Your name is Sassy?  Let's take a selfie!

 And the conversation ended with: Stop eating me!

 Ready to hunt some Easter eggs!

Atalie didn't exactly grasp the concept

 These little cousins were born only a few weeks apart from each other

This boy, aka The Ginger Monster.  He gave me a flirty grin all weekend but would never willingly come to me (or talk to me for that matter)!  I forced him to cuddle me once while he was napping on the couch.  He told us he was "protecting" Uncle Jarrod here. 

 So I have this really hilarious video of my brother, Austin, teaching his favorite goat how to hop in the backyard.  I promised not to post it though ;)

 Atalie only had eyes for Uncle Austin this weekend.  She would run to him with her arms up in the air and just wanted him to tote her around. I loved it! And it was super sweet that she was wearing a pair of overalls that belonged to Tinsley when she was the twins' age.

Grady getting some good "Mimi time"

 That Mimi is so funny!

 Uncle Austin taking the boys for rides, over and over and over :)

 Atalie getting in her "Mimi time"

For some reason, Maggie wanted to be all up in Atalie's face and Atalie did not want to have anything to do with her!

So the drive back was also relatively uneventful.  We made it home in good time and everyone behaved for the most part.  We get home, Landry jumps out of the car and does something to her leg because she started limping immediately.  Then, Collin says he doesn't want to eat dinner and that his tummy hurts.  I take his temperature and it's 102/103.  Turned out he had strep throat in its early stages.  As my mom pointed out, at least all of that happened AFTER we got back home!