Maddie at her cutest

MOMs sale

Today was the St Paul Mothers of Multiples semi-annual kids garage sale. I hauled 16 boxes/bins of stuff, plus several big items (like car seats) and came home with 5 bins -- a little more than I wanted to bring home, but not bad. All the big-ticket items sold and mostly I brought home clothes and some feeding stuff (bibs, bottles, etc). There were lots of sellers this time -- more than in recent sales -- but the buyers were about the usual turnout for fall, about 200 people. So we had a lot left to box up at the end of the day.

I found some great stuff for Ben & Maddie, including a few clothes, toys and books. I tucked away two matching sit-and-spins that we'll make either a christmas or birthday present.

The big fun today was the matching doll strollers, which they immediately loved...

From 2010-10-23

Next sale is March 26. Those 5 bins will be going right back!

Fall weekend at the cabin

It was a perfect weekend to go to the cabin. I took an impromptu vacation day on Friday so we could do a three-day get-away. The leaves were almost all off the trees (thanks to some heavy wind the day before we got there) and they were dry, thanks to a lack of rain. Perfect conditions for raking.

Ben and Maddie had a great time playing outside:

From 2010-10-16

From 2010-10-16

From 2010-10-16

From 2010-10-16

From 2010-10-16

From 2010-10-16

I also found a few old baby toys that me and David played with when we were kids. Maddie particularly liked the helicopter that you pull around:

From 2010-10-16

From 2010-10-16

Ben and the pants

Ben absolutely LOVES taking off his pants (and his shoes!) these days. Lately, he's discovered how to put one leg back into his pants. This morning he was walking around like that, holding up his pants with his hands. It was pretty funny....

From 2010-10-14

From 2010-10-14

Night-night time

This is from a few days ago, but just now posting. Got this adorable picture of Maddie and Jamey. This is what Maddie does now when you tell her it's "night-night" time. She'll crawl up into your lap (usually Jamey's) and lay her head on your shoulder. It's so precious, it's hard to not let her lay there for hours!

From 2010-10-10

New look for Mom

For those of you who don't see me too often, thought you might like to see the big change I made today.

Here's the before picture:

From 2010-10-09

and here's the after picture:

From 2010-10-09

Chocolate pudding!

Last night we had chocolate pudding for dessert -- one of Ben & Maddie's favorites, especially now that they can manage the spoon by themselves. They each polished off an entire cup of pudding. Boy what a mess....

From 2010-10-04

From 2010-10-04

From 2010-10-04

Finally, some sun!

We spent quite a bit of time outside today since it was FINALLY nice, with lots of sunshine! Ben & Maddie clearly enjoyed it.

From 2010-09-26

From 2010-09-26

From 2010-09-26

From 2010-09-26

From 2010-09-26

From 2010-09-26

From 2010-09-26

Rainy day

I've been a bit lax about posting on here. Going back to a 5-day week (the first I've had in a couple of months!) was a bit tough. This week I'm back to three days. Jamey left this morning for Duluth to be with his grandfather, who is having triple bypass surgery tomorrow. So I'm on my own with the kids for a long weekend. We all have colds, to make it even worse. I think today the kids seemed a bit better, but I'm sure we still have several "sick" days ahead.

Today it rained non-stop all day. We ventured out to the library this morning -- luckily it wasn't raining super hard. Unfortunately there were slim pickings in the board books section. But we got a few new ones.

This afternoon we played inside, including with some lego-style blocks that our neighbor lent us (I'll be going to buy some very soon!).

From 2010-09-10

From 2010-09-10

Also got this cute picture of Maddie in the play "garden." She figured out how to drag a pillow in there and laid down on it. Notice that she even shut the door behind herself!

From 2010-09-10

And here are some pics that were on the camera from the last couple of weeks:

From 2010-09-10

From 2010-09-10

Labor Day weekend

We had a four-day weekend at the cabin and our friends Roger, Chris and Roger's daughter, Masyn, joined us Sat through Monday.

Masyn, who is six, and Maddie were practically glued to each other all weekend. Maddie just followed her around and copied everything she did. And Masyn was "little mom", helping her into a chair, or to get up when she fell down, reading to her, etc. It was really cute.

But we had a tough night with Maddie on Saturday night. She woke up at 12:45 screaming and was awake most of the night. She wouldn't go back into her crib and what little she did sleep was on my chest. Which means that I didn't sleep hardly at all. And she woke everybody else up, so we were all pretty tired and cranky on Sunday.

Then on Sunday afternoon Jamey had to drive back to the Cities because the sewer backed up at the rental property. Turns out one of the kids living there dropped a phone charger down the toilet and flushed it. We have decided they will be paying money for that. He got back to the cabin around midnight.

Here are some pics...
Maddie playing with Masyn....

From 2010-09-04

From 2010-09-04

Maddie REALLY enjoying potato chips (shoving as many in her mouth at once as she could!)

From 2010-09-04

From 2010-09-04

Bath time (ok, shower time since we don't have a bathtub at the cabin)...

From 2010-09-04

From 2010-09-04

From 2010-09-04

And jumping on the inflatable mattress with Masyn just before bedtime Sunday night (otherwise known as....wear out the kids!)

From 2010-09-04

From 2010-09-04

From 2010-09-04