3.

My little boy is three years old.

I cannot believe how quickly it has passed.

I love you beyond all rational comprehension, Jack... I have no words, Bud... just love.

Three.

Three.

Wow.

A Bit of Sunshine and Some Bloggy Awards

I've recently discovered a new friend in Sonora at Twinfinity!... I started reading her blog and got totally sucked into it.  I didn't think I needed a whole lot of "specialized" support in the twin-realm... that is, I thought I was doing just fine with the support structure I had in place and didn't recognize that there are things that are specific to a twin mom and life with twins that it takes another twin mom to get.  Not that my other mom or even non-mom friends can't help me or wouldn't understand... it's just that sometimes there are feelings and issues that don't take a ton of explaining to convey when you're talking to another twin mommy.  Sonora gets it.  I get it for her... Our "Mother of Multiples"ness doesn't define us... but we can't ignore that it makes up a big part of who we are as mothers.  And it's really, really, really great to have that camaradarie when I need it.  Or even when I don't know I need it.

She passed a couple of awards on to me...

The Sunshine Award

 

and the Beautiful Blogger Award.

 It means a ton to me to get these from someone I've come to think of as a friend.  So thank you, Sonora!

Well, as with all blogging awards, these come with rules and stipulations and blah bitty blah blah blah.  I'm just going to do one of those "tidbits of info on Melis" posts and then, in turn, pass these bad boys on to some of my favorite blogs - old and new (to me).  Got your coffee and your mouse handy?  You're going to want to check these out:

Mu's Nus

I'm Not Sure What I Want To Be When I Grow Up

Memories By Christine

Defining Moments

Ain't She Crazy

Addicted to Peanuts

Little Bit of Love

Artistically Amy

Hangin' With the Hagans

Kate's Life

The (Un)Experienced Mom

The Long Road to China

My Room 

Cop Mama

These are the blogs that make my cup of coffee a little sweeter every day... They give me something to laugh about and something to think about, and they've got an awful lot to share.


NOW, I'll to a list of 14 random tidbits of stuff you might find interesting - one for each of the blogs I nominated...

1) I love greasy, fried, salty bar food.
2) I hail from Colorado but have never once gone skiing or snowboarding.
3) I love to write poems.  I've even published a couple.  But I'm even more bashful about those than I am about photos of myself.
4) I despise all things oral hygiene. (I mean, I do it, but I don't like it.)
5) I hoard glass jars.  I don't know why, but I'm sure that I will find something to do with them.  It's the only thing I obsessively collect... and it annoys even me.
6) I will never understand how my husband puts up with my snarky, sarcastic, never-ever-serious demeanor.
7) My new-found love for CSI: fillintheblank on Spike during the day is killing my productivity like having twins couldn't DREAM of.
8) I will never (Sorry, Kate!) shop in a Wal-Mart store again as long as I live. 
9) My favorite author is Dean Koontz.
10) I am a social liberal and fiscal conservative.  Wow, figure that one out...
11) The idea of raw eggs in anything really grosses me out so I prefer Caesar dressing from a jar or bottle.
12) If the school day gets extended by a single minute per the Government, I will home-school my children.
13) I have so my admiration for trendy, fashionable ladies like my sister, but I just can't seem to pull it off...
14) I haven't purchased new undies for myself in years.  YEARS. 

That's what I've got for ya!  If you want to check out the other awards I've received, you can find them under the "Awards" page at the top... Now, get clickin'!

I Heart Faces Photo Challenge - "Hands On"

I'm a newbie photographer.  Okay.  I'm going to be more honest.  I'm not a "photographer" any more than I'm a "chef".  I'm a Mom with a camera and a Mom with a kitchen.  So... Yeah, I'm not really a photographer in the cool sense of the term... I'm just someone who takes pictures.

You know... cause I have kids and I want to remember stuff.  It's like a hobby to the extent that I can HAVE hobbies with the 3 littles running around.  But I love me some picture-taking.  Good, bad, or ugly, it makes me happy.  And I like to edit the photos because there's a whole new level of beauty that can be uncovered with a simple tweaking of contrast or layer of color.

And you've probably seen me participating in "Black and White Wednesdays" at The Long Road to China ... Which is awesome.  Well, I stumbled upon I Heart Faces Photography a few months ago and fell in love with their weekly contests.  It's so much fun to see how other people interpret a challenge and how they execute their photographs... I was totally itching to join in.  I just always forgot.  I'd think for days about which photo I could use to enter a contest and then just get busy and forget.

Well.  I remembered this week!

The theme was "Hands On" and I instantly knew that I'd be posting a picture I took back in November of Jordan's wee little hand nestled in her great-grandmother's hand.  I captured the moment when Nonni was here visiting us for Thanksgiving.  It was an incredibly sweet moment where generations came together and age and experience meant nothing... there was just love.  Jordan gave her Nonni's hand a squeeze as if to say, "I know you love me. I feel it. I love you too," and I snagged the photo at that exact moment.  I just melt when I look at it and my heart swells when I recall the two of them snuggling contentedly in the sunshine streaming through my living room windows.  Thanks to our Naval career so far, we haven't had many opportunities to spend time with our extended families, let alone holidays.   So this past Thanksgiving was really, really special to us.

So after all of that, I present you with my entry for this week's challenge:

 

It's a picture that means the world to me.  I hope you enjoy it!

Twilight...

... and all the associated stuff - the people, movies, vampire-obsessed teens...

I don't get it.

It just baffles me.

Black and White Wednesday

 

I'm so not thrilled that I'm putting my face into a blog post (I'm uber self conscious) but I wanted to do some more dramatic and intense stuff that just looked wonky on pictures of babies.  I needed an adult face to play around with some of the... grittier(?) techniques.  

I think this has a vintage quality to it... I dunno... I didn't do much to the photo (yeehaw, no zits to zap, even!) beyond messing with the curves and darkening shadows and using a red filter with the B&W conversion.  

Don't worry; I'll do my best to put a cute kid picture up next week!  

Join in at The Long Road to China, and if you like her photography (I do!), you can sign up for some cool sounding tutoring sessions to help you refine your editing techniques.  Neat!

When Your Heart Can't Love Any More..

...and then it does and your breath catches in your throat and your stomach becomes a stone and tears turn light-bulbs into brilliant stars.

Yeah.  That's how I felt last night when I watched my son display his love for me and for his Daddy.  It was crushing, the weight of my love, and it made my head reel.

See, there is a bookshelf in our hallway on which several Mommy-Daddy pictures live... you know, those "cute couple" shots from when we were dating.  I'd noticed that, from time to time, said pictures move around on the shelf.  After dinner yesterday, I watched Jack toddle out of the dining room and pass the shelf.  He paused for a moment and then started picking up each picture frame individually and plant a kiss on my face, then Dadda's face before gingerly replacing the photograph. 

He did this for each photo until he reached the final one, which happens to be a picture of just me.  He looked at it, touched my face, kissed it, then clutched the frame to his chest in a tender hug and put it back in place before scampering off to make train noises and build this 15th mile of wooden railway track of the day and play peek-a-boo with his sisters.

He had no idea I was watching him.

I had no idea he was so sentimental.

I mean, I knew he loves me.  He tells me so all the time.  He kisses me and hugs me and asks for cuddles...

But this was special.  It was beyond touching.  It was... profound.

My son is nearly 3 years old.

And he is the most incredible human being I've ever met.

Oatmeal Cookies...

Well, to be fair, cookies are a dessert... this is more of an energy... lump... disk... thing. 

And it tastes good, but not good enough to get a toddler to eat it and not too good that you feel bad eating 4 of them for breakfast.

So, if you're in a super granola mood and you want a healthy snack that's on the sweet side but ends up more like a bran muffin, this is your recipe.  If you're looking for ooey-gooey finger-licking decadence, check back soon. 

Ingredients:

DRY:
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cup whole oats
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 Tablespoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
2 Tablespoons toasted wheat germ

WET:
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup applesauce
1 egg beaten with 1 Tablespoon water
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 Tablespoon milled flax seed
3 Tablespoons brown sugar

Extras* (optional): Nuts, chocolate chips, raisins, dried cranberries (*I added chocolate chips in an attempt to entice my picky kiddo to eat them.  It failed and I was mad that I didn't add the Craisins I had laying around because I think those would have been delicious.)

See?  This is me working out the recipe:

Yikes. 

So, combine all dry ingredients and set aside:

 

Then, combine all wet ingredients.

 

Slowly add dry to wet and combine well, adding any extras at the end... it will look like poop.

 

 

Use rounded tablespoons to drop onto ungreased cookie sheets and bake at 335 degrees for 15 minutes.  Be aware that the honey in it burns at a much lower temperature so this recipe has to bake at 335!

 

And here is, I think, where my toddler was totally turned off because he didn't even TASTE these things.  I left them as lumps on the cookie sheet and didn't think about the fact that there is no fat (like butter or shortening) in these cookies to melt and allow them to spread out in the oven, so they came out of the oven in exactly the same shape as they went in.  

 

And what toddler takes a look at a turd on a plate and thinks, "Wow, I won't eat scrumptious looking veggies but I'll sure stick this lump of fecal matter in my mouth!"?  I mean, seriously.

If you're concerned about presentation, take the time to squish these cookies into cookie-like shapes before you bake them.

Next time, in fact, I'm going to do chocolate chips and squish them into cookie shapes and drizzle them with a bit of cream cheese icing.  

But really, these are terrific for a breakfast-to-go or quick snack mid-day.  And they're cookies... well, they want to be cookies.  So it's pretty much a win-win.

Sounded Fun! Friday Follow Blog Hop...

Never done this before but I thought it might be fun! I found it here...

-Link up your blog name and URL using the MckLinky above. Only need to add on one blog to be seen on all the blog hops.

--Follow the Friday Follow hostesses listed in the first 3 slots.

--Follow as many blogs as you'd like.

--Take a moment to comment on the blogs telling them you're from Friday Follow.

--Follow back when you get a new follower through Friday Follow.

The Blog Hop is the same at each of our three hosts blogs so you do not have to add your blog at each site. Just one - but you can follow each blog. Follow a few or follow them all.

The list is new each week. The links do not carry over. Please link up each week for new participants to find your blogs. The list is only open to add your blog links on Fridays. It will be visible all week to visit the blogs listed.

In the Saddle Again...

Now that my snot is no longer vibrant enough to own a spot on the color wheel and I'm no longer in danger of expelling vital organs through my mouth in a fit of frame-wracking coughs, and now that the 20 loads of laundry I neglected are folded and I've graduated from a steady diet of marshmallows and chicken noodle soup (thanks, Tanya!), I feel that I'm ready to resume my practice of taking up your valuable time and my less-than-valuable time with blogging.

Ooooh. Lucky you.

So, besides making legions of white blood cells and hordes of antibodies and moaning about my surely impending death, what have I been up to?

Well, I took the babies on a germ-spreading operation grocery shopping trip:

 

  

...that was an utter disaster because we got stuck in line for about 20 minutes, leaving me no option but to take pictures of them and leaving them no option but to bitch at me about it.  However, the trip quickly turned around (for me, anyway) when I was driving home and realized I was behind this truck:

 

... *crickets*... Come on, don't tell me that's not funny.  I cannot be the only person in the world who nearly wet their pants laughing at this.  Fine, even if I am the only person who thinks this is hysterical, I don't care.  It made the screaming babies in the back seats tolerable.

Rod Erections.

Do it.  Laugh.  You think it's funny.

Ahem.  Moving along.  We played in the snow... 

 

Which was obviously more fun for some than others...

  

I call him Mutumbo and it was a fight to the (near) death with my toddler and husband to build him without being knocked unconscious by flying snowballs.

(Note: when one is suffering a deadly strain of bacterial sinusitis, it is not a good idea to go play in snow.  However, it never snows here and when it does it is never this quantity.  So I made a choice and suffered for it later.)

My hubby and I learned how to plumb a kitchen sink when the pipes under ours mysteriously blew apart and my landlord determined that it was our fault and wouldn't help us.  Turns out, it was the result of worn out slip washers (oooh, look at me being all plumbery) and I was able to flirt with a midget at Lowe's to get the new parts free of charge (let no one question my dedication to family finances).

Also during this whole black-out period, I realized that someone had broken into our house and left behind a small pile of crushed-up dog biscuit.  Which is creepy, but helps to explain the missing financial folders that I had suspected someone stole but couldn't quite back up with evidence.  So, if you see my social security number out there someplace, let me know; I'd like it back.

Shortly after that ghastly discovery, I broke this window:

 

in the bathroom next to the bathtub... WHILE Jack was in it... by fumbling a bottle of shampoo.  Luckily he wasn't hurt except for a small sliver of glass that got stuck in his toe and required a 45 minute screaming, crying, traumatizing wrestling match to extract.  However, while the guys were here fixing the glass, they noticed that my natural gas meter smelled like... well, gas.  Yikes.  So I called the company and they came out and confirmed that we had a serious leak and needed to have the meter replaced.  

Thank goodness for broken windows, eh?

Not only is that enough, but during one of the really, really cold nights we had recently, our furnace broke, forcing me to sequester the children and myself on the 2nd floor (which has a separate heater) for a night of cookies and movies in Mommy and Daddy's room.  Though that sounds pleasant enough, my quads and glutes will tell you a different story about evil stairs and too many trips between said 2nd floor and the kitchen. 

I've been baking healthy cookies and researching investments and working on getting out household ready for all the traveling and transitioning we're about to undertake and I've been pioneering a new (though, surely not) method of preparing and freezing finger-foods for the girls to cut down on chaos that occurs as I'm finishing dinner and trying to serve 5 people at the same time every night.  More on all the culinary stuff in later posts - I promise! - including more toddler food ideas.

And finally, I switched from disposables to cloth diapers.

 

 

And I have plenty to talk about regarding that, too.  In due time, my friends.  

SO.  

My zoo has been hoppin' lately and I've had to make some sacrifices to stay on top of things and maintain some semblance of order.  Now that you're all caught up on my world and the chaos I've been trying to control, I can finally promise you that I'm back in the saddle again and ready to go.  And what have you, dear Readers, been up to?  Do tell...!

Black and White Wednesday

......and, in my dramatic re-emergence into the blogging world, I present...

Black and White Wednesday!

Please join in at The Long Road to China!

 

This is a random bell thingy attached (barely) to my 110 year old house.  It's one of the things that makes this house unique, despite all it's crapiness.

Enjoy!

I've Gone Dark

I know it's been awhile since I've posted anything quality.  And it might be another couple of days.  I am absurdly sick.  Shaking, febrile, mucus-y, cough-y, corpse-warmed-over-in-a-microwave sick.  What started out as a cold has progressed to a righteous sinus infection that has been kicking my jiggly behind for two weeks now.  I thought maybe SARS, but apparently that is sooo 2006.

And it's not just me; the girly twinsies are also sick, though, (hopefully) not as much so as I am.  Then again, I don't have someone feeding me anti-body laden milk every few hours.  I bet that'd help.  But instead I'm just going to have to struggle through my Z-Pack and hope against hope that my immune system crawls out from under whatever rock it has chosen to hide beneath and actually do something about this crappy illness.

So, I'm not going to stress about blogging.  Or laundry.  Or putting dirty diapers in the pail where they belong... or wearing deodorant... or a bra, for that matter.  I'm just going to eat marshmallows and watch HGTV and sleep until I can at least SEE the top of the grave in which I feel I'm laying. 

I know, you hate me.

But I'm mildly delirious most of the time right now and I can't guarantee that I'd have anything coherent to write.

You'll forgive me, yes? 

That's why I love you.