Airplanes!

On Saturday we took the boys to visit the Air and Space Museum out by the airport. It was super hot and humid so this turned out to be the perfect place to go for the day! We got out of the house, the boys got to run around, and we stayed cool - everybody's happy!

They insist on walking pretty much everywhere by themselves now and they get very cranky if they have to be carried very far. They also hate to hold hands with us while they're walking, they want to be free to wander wherever they please. I think it's cute that they're so independent. But I do not think it's cute when they start screaming and sit down right in the middle of the street just because they don't want to have their hand held. So we're working on accepting holding hands with Mommy and Daddy sometimes, at least in dangerous places. It's a work in progress... Anyways, here's Cullen looking oh-so-grown-up walking up to the museum.

The museum is out by the airport and is in a gigantic hangar. As you can see from this picture, it's just filled with airplanes! Every little boy's dream!

In front of a fighter jet

Jack admiring some old airplanes

Cullen

We're standing in front of the Enterprise Space Shuttle, it was enormous!!

This picture doesn't do it justice, it was several times bigger than the biggest airplane I've ever seen! It was amazing to see a real space shuttle in person!

Of course, the boys spent a good chunk of time just running back and forth together. It's their favorite game :-)

A Boy And His Stick

While in St. Michael last weekend, Jack found a stick on the ground at the park and carried it around for a while. He used it to whack bushes, trees, people, anything that got in his way.

Birthday Weekend

Last Saturday was my 25th birthday and thanks to my husband and kids, it was very special! On Friday night, Brandon and I went on a date. With kids and babysitters these days, we have to be quite efficient on dates. No time for dinner, then a movie and then coffee like the old days. So it works out perfectly for us that right here in Old Town there's a movie theater that serves meals while you watch the movie. So we saw Ironman 2 and ate yummy paninis- then we got lost getting back to our car and took this picture on some random street corner in Alexandria while searching for it. A memorable evening :-)


On Saturday morning, I woke up to a delicious waffle breakfast in bed and a bouquet of roses! All 4 of us enjoyed breakfast in bed actually! The boys thought it was super fun to eat in Mommy and Daddy's bed and, a week later, we're still finding little bits of waffles and scrambled eggs in there ;-)
After breakfast, we packed up some snacks and toys and took off for the Chesapeake Bay. We ended up in a quaint little town called St. Michael and spent the day visiting parks, antique shops and just admiring all of the cute old houses. We found some really wonderful little parks too which the boys loved. We spent the whole day there and got home just in time to give the boys a bath and put them to bed. Here's Cullen running to "get" me while we were playing in the park, they think they're so funny!

Hmmm, that's a long way down. Good thing he's being cautious, huh?

Watching the ducks swimming in the bay

We saw the cutest little family of ducklings, I think I liked them more than Cullen though.

On Monday night, Renee took me out for margaritas and I completely over-indulged in chips and salsa. I had been craving it for months though, it was SO. GOOD. And I got showered with gifts from our family and friends, including an awesome sewing box from my inlaws! Inside were all sorts of little gadgets (I think in sewing lingo they're called 'notions') including a rotary cutter! YES! Look out anyone who's having a baby, now that I have a rotary cutter, I'm going to go crazy making quilts! Thank you to everyone who helped to make my 25th so special, even though most of you were far away! And yes, in case you were wondering, I definitely feel old now!

Are We Raising a Narcissist?

End of the Week Ramblings

*First of all, my niece Violet is due exactly 2 weeks from today!! I won't get to meet her until the beginning of July, but I'm stoked for her to be born nonetheless!

*Brandon and I are going on a date tonight! The only bad thing about dates is that the babysitters will see how dirty our house is so I've been cleaning all day long! Normally it wouldn't take somebody an entire day to clean a small apartment like ours, but I have two little destroyers who are very good at their job and who follow me around as I clean. As soon as I've put a clean shirt in a drawer and turned my back, Cullen's pulled it out and dashed across the room to throw it in the dirty clothes hamper. And Jack tries to steal the broom and mop out of my hands while I'm still using them! He grabs on with both hands and pulls as hard as he can, and he seems genuinely surprised that I won't let him have it.

*We gave the boys a haircut earlier this week, they look so old now! They're definitely more like little boys than babies :-( Well, you know, apart from the fact that they don't speak and that they throw tantrums left and right. Here's a video of Cullen getting his hair buzzed off:



*Speaking of speaking (hehe), they actually are making a little progress lately. They've been showing me that they understand a lot of what I say lately. Before, when I said, "Jack, go get the ball," I would get a blank look. The past few weeks, though, he's been getting huge smiles on his face and runs as fast as he can to get the ball. And it's not just with toys either, twice over the past two days I have asked them to go get their sippy cup and hand it to me so I can refill it... and they've brought it! When I ask them "Where's the kitty?" they immediately start looking all over for the cats and they'll point to them when they see one. Cullen often says 'mama' when he wants my attention, both boys say 'dada' though not always to Brandon, Jack says 'ba' for ball, and I may be hearing things, but I swear Cullen says "ow" when he wants to go outside.

*They've been a lot more interested in reading lately. Well, not so much me reading to them, but more them sitting on my or Brandon's lap and reading to themselves. It's the funniest thing to watch them! They go get a book, walk over, turn their backs to us and start doing a quick little backwards shuffle until they run into us and then plop down. Then Cullen points at all his favorite pictures and yells 'ba' or 'da' or 'oo.' Jack does this really fast quiet murmer where he says "bwee, wee, wee, whoah, whoah, bee bee." It sounds almost like he's really reading aloud to himself, only in gibberish. It's so. funny. Also if I'm reading with Jack, Cullen comes over and tries to plop himself on top of Jack so he can read with us too. Nevermind that I have another leg for him to sit on, he wants to sit right in the middle. Jack of course gets furious and starts screeching and punching him in the back. I just laugh and rearrange them so we can all read together. And then about 3.5 seconds later, one of them decides he's over it and gets up to play with something else.

*By the way, both boys do this awful high-pierced screeching sound when they're angry now. It's the bane of my life. If they're both screeching at the same time, I just want to run into my bedroom and slam the door. It doesn't seem to bother Brandon that much, he just ignores it. Maybe it's because I hear it a lot more often or maybe something about it just especially bothers me, but it drives me crazy! I hope they stop doing it soon!

*Jack hasn't sat down in the bathtub in over 2 months, crazy huh?!? One day in March, he just suddenly decided that he didn't like bathing anymore. He doesn't mind baths if he can walk around the tub playing with toys but he absolutely refuses to sit down and usually hangs over the side of the tub the whole time. This makes it extremely hard to wash him and results in a lot of the dreaded screeching when I have to rinse the shampoo out of his hair. (And no, he's not afraid of the water because he still loves pools just as much as ever and doesn't mind being up to his shoulders in water then. It's just something about the bathtub.) Cullen on the other hand is still happy as a clam during baths. His favorite thing to do is steal the washcloth when Mommy's wrestling with Jack and suck the water out of it. Gross!!

That's about all I can think of for now, besides the babysitters will be here in an hour and a half. I better go finish up the cleaning and make dinner for the boys!

Another Family Outing

On Saturday, we took the boys to the National Arboretum which is basically a giant, beautiful park here in DC. The boys had so.much.fun. They just love playing outside, it's definitely their favorite thing to do!

They think it's really cool to ride on the front of their stroller instead of in the seats. Until they fall off of course.

Splashing in the fountain

Throwing a frisbee for the first time, it didn't go far...

Playing catch with Daddy

Playing peek-a-boo with the frisbee

Jack fell near the fountain and hit his lip on the cement. He split it open and it bled for a few minutes, but after that he was just fine and had a great time. Thankfully, no teeth were damaged this time.

Cullen climbed onto his daddy to enjoy his water

Fighting over the ball. When Brandon saw this, he said "that picture pretty much sums up our life nowadays ." I couldn't have said it better.

You might be fooled into thinking that Jack's sticking his lip out because he just busted it up. But no, he is actually making his new favorite face. He started sticking out his bottom lip about a week ago and does it pretty much anytime I tell him no or take something away from him. He is so stubborn! But I guess with Brandon and I as parents, that really doesn't surprise me ;-)

Me and my boys enjoying the sunshine. A thunderstorm came on Friday night so there was no humidity on Saturday, it was wonderful!

The Zoo

On Friday afternoon we took a family outing to the zoo. It was super hot and humid and the boys weren't terribly interested in the animals (probably because most of them were resting in the shade and out of sight) but still a very fun time because at least we were all together! This rarely happens anymore because of Brandon's crazy schedule and the boys were just ecstatic to spend extra time with their daddy this week :-)

We spent a lot of time in the bird house because it was air conditioned. The boys didn't care too much about the birds but they sure did have a great time chasing each other back and forth.

An action shot of Cullen running as fast as he can

They especially loved hiding behind these clear plastic sheets and then jumping out at each other and laughing hysterically.

Once the birds started squawking, they were spellbound though.

Refueling before another game of running-back-and-forth-while-giggling.

The weather report had said it was only going to be in the high seventies so we all wore jeans. Too bad that didn't take into account the humidity which raised the temperature to about 95 degrees. It was SO hot so we stopped and got slurpees on the way home. I gave the boys a taste of mine. But, of course, a taste wasn't enough for them- they screamed for more the whole way back to the car.

Evil Laugh?

We're obviously working on understanding what things are ok to throw and what things aren't. Also, no throwing anything directly at other peoples' faces/heads ;-)

Last Word on Coupons

I promise- but for those of you wanting to know what coupon resources I use, here are some coupon blogs I check daily:


The Krazy Coupon Lady - This site is mostly for West Coast stores, but I like their Safeway, Target, and drugstore deals. Plus they always have the best internet and clothing deals and I LOVE their printable coupon database. I use it all the time!

The Thrifty Mama - She has the best deals on organic and natural products plus all the drugstore and internet deals too.

Money Saving Mom - She's one of the biggest coupon bloggers out there and an inspiration to me! She and her husband have ZERO debt, not even a mortgage! They save up and pay cash for everything, isn't that incredible?!?

Frugal Fun and Fortune - She's on top of all the deals and always has good extra posts too, like on being vegetarian. We're not going vegetarian or anything, but we do eat a dinner or two every week without meat in it (to save money and eat more veggies) and she always has good recipes on her site.

I read a few other blogs too, but they're all local so I know what the best deals in the DC area are. I don't have much time to spend clipping coupons and planning, but I do thoroughly enjoy it so as soon as the boys go down for their morning nap I grab my coffee and head straight for the computer for my daily blog reading. It's a nice break during the day for me and I feel productive planning out ways to save money. Of course, I also check family and friends' blogs too, which negates my productivity, but what else is a stay-at-home mom to do during naptime? I can't cook and clean all of the time, right?

Oh and P.S. I know some of you are going out of your minds waiting for more pictures/videos of the boys but Brandon accidentally deleted all the pictures on my camera and I haven't been able to take any new ones today so you'll have to wait just a little longer. I'll try to put some up tomorrow though!

I Heart Coupons

I don't even think that words could adequately express my love for coupons! I feel like my life was so empty before I discovered the joy of couponing and I can't believe that I actually used to pay full price for all my groceries! I just look back on those dark pre-couponing days, shake my head, and thank the Lord that I at least discovered coupons when I did. It's saved us untold amounts of money! I've gotten our weekly grocery bill down to about $60 a week and that includes diapers and toiletries and everything. We're actually spending about 30-50% less on groceries now than we were a couple years ago when there were just two of us to feed!

One of my favorite things about coupons is that my grocery store here occasionally has "Super Double" and even TRIPLE coupon weeks! (Now that I think about it, this may be the first truly great thing about the East Coast. I have never heard of a West Coast store that triples coupons. I'd be happy to be wrong though!). Super Double week is when the store doubles the value of coupons up to $1.99 (normally they only double up to $0.99) and Triple week is when the store triples all coupons up to $ 0.99! This means that a $0.50 coupon becomes a savings of $1.50 and a $0.75 coupon becomes a savings of $2.25!!! Incredible, right?! Each week I always get one or two freebies using coupons but during these special coupon weeks I usually get tons of free stuff!

For instance, here are some free things I got this week:

Worcestershire sauce, Skinny Water, hot sauce, refried beans, taco seasoning, Land O' Lakes butter, canned chiles, Greek yogurt, McCormick spices, dish detergent, 100% apple juice, white rice, frozen veggies, tortillas, Ziploc bags, Arm & Hammer cleaners, and pasta.

Since I usually have multiples of the same coupon I got several of each of the things listed above all for free. I seriously got 6 bags of white rice! And I also got tons of other things including milk, lettuce, and shredded cheese for $0.75 cents or less!

If you're one of those people who doesn't use coupons because you think you'd end up buying things you don't need just because they're cheap/free or think that coupons only exist for junk food, think again. Granted, there are tons of coupons for junk food and if I wanted to I could probably get twice as much free stuff if I used these coupons. But I don't even bother cutting junk food coupons out, instead I only cut out coupons for the things we actually use. And before I buy anything I ask myself, "Would I buy this if I didn't have a coupon?" and "Will we actually use this?" If the answer is no, I don't buy it. Nearly everything I bought this week is healthy and something I feel good about feeding to my boys. (Well, ok, with the exception of the refried beans and taco seasoning... but you can't make 8 layer dip without them and Brandon and I can't have movie nights without our 8 layer dip!)

There are coupons for every single household staple (including milk, butter, eggs, etc.) as well as toiletries, cleaners, paper products and everything else you buy at the grocery store. And there are even many, many coupons for healthy and organic products. I regularly get organic frozen berries for less than the store brand non-organic frozen berries. I have a stockpile of Kashi cereal that I got for about 25 cents a box. I also got 3 bottles of Seventh Generation cleaners for absolutely FREE a few weeks ago. And just today, I got a big container of organic yogurt and a block of organic mozzarella cheese for less than $1.50 each. That's about half the price of non-organic yogurt and cheese! These organic and natural deals are the ones I get most excited about! And I get them a lot! Plus, I can take the money I'm not spending on paper towels or rice and use it to buy organic fruit and vegetables and they don't even make a dent in my grocery budget.

I could go on and on but I'll stop preaching to you all about coupons. I got so excited about triple coupon week that I just had to share though! If you don't use coupons, you probably think I'm crazy. But guess what- I think you're crazy! Haha, in all seriousness though, coupons are AWESOME! They've completely changed my life!

Coloring

I bought these crayons on sale at Target in March and was so excited to come home and try them out. I envisioned the boys having the time of their lives scribbling away and proudly showing me their artwork. Not quite. Instead, they were only interested in eating them. So I packed them up and decided to wait until they were a little older.

I broke them out again a few days ago and this time, they actually caught on and tried coloring! And, you can tell from the smug look on Jack's face and the way he glances at the camera as if to say "Are you getting this, Mom? Look at me coloring!" that they're pretty darn proud too. Cullen colored a little bit, but he mostly wanted to chew on the crayons or bang them on the table. But I have a nice "drawing" done by Cullen with lots of little colored dots all over it. And Jack couldn't get enough of it, he loves coloring! I've hung each of their first drawings on the refrigerator, what a milestone!






P.S. The way Cullen has that crayon in his mouth totally reminded me of the way I used to take the white crayons and pretend they were cigarettes when I was a kid. Weird, huh? Am I the only one who did that? In my defense, though, it was the 90's and I was too young to know cigarettes cause cancer, I just thought they were cool because I saw it on TV and movies. (Nowadays, I think they're actually banned from TV and movies that kids can see, thank goodness.) I think I'd have a heart attack if Jack or Cullen ever did that, though.

Cullen

He's talking to himself about all the things he sees out the window. They do this all day long!