My Babies are 3

THREE!!!!! How did the time go by so fast? I feel like they were just born, but also like they have been here forever and I never had a life before them.

My little lovies when they were first born. That was such a surreal experience (by surreal read: I had no idea what on earth had just happened to me). They were so little and smooshy at 5 and 6 lbs. I couldn't believe they were here.

Their one year old birthday.

This was so special because I felt like I had it finally figured out, they were sleeping more and developing big personalities. They weren't walking well yet. I was so into their party and it seemed like such a huge milestone, one year!!

Two Years Old

And now, THREE!!

Three has been a crazy birthday. My babies aren't really babies or toddlers. They are preschoolers. They are people now. I know they were always people, but they're like real people. They have opinions and they want to know about everything and they go to the bathroom in the toilet and want to get themselves dressed and be part of our conversations. It is so odd to have had little smooshy babies and now they are people. The big job of raising good people in the world has begun.

We celebrated with a birthday party with friends at a jump jump place and then had family over for dinner afterward. It was really nice.

I love these two monkeys. The monkeys who made me a mama are three. Wow.

This was of course a pinterest find and a big hit!

Friday Phone Dump

1. My sweetest little Butterball turned 4 months old this week. Yes, he is the cutest baby in the whole wide world. He is also super human baby who can roll over, lift his head up and scoot around! A mobile just turned 4 month old? That is correct! I love him so much. While I was pregnant I was excited for him, but I really didn't believe that I could love anyone as much as the twins. But I do. He's delicious in every way.

2. When I thought of being a parent, I knew all the things I wanted to be a part of in a child's life. The big things, like learning to crawl and then walk, the first words, going to school, graduations, weddings, everything! One of the little things that I was so excited about that I did for the first time was get a pedicure with my daughter! She sat on my lap and dipped her tiny toes in my water and the woman doing my pedicure did the same things to her. We got our toe nails painted in matching hot pink color. There was a mom sitting next to me with her teenage daughter and instead of doing the usual mom thing of wishing back the newborn days I was so excited to look into our future at all the things we would do together, one of which being trips to the nail salon. I know it's not earth shattering, but it was definitely a full circle moment for me.

3. Peanut is obsessed with mommying since the baby arrived. Okay, not at first, but after a few weeks she became obsessed with mommying and our baby. She loves the Butterball! She follows me around with her baby doll and jostles the baby around like I do to my baby, she walks around and feeds him and sometimes even breast feeds her baby doll. It's adorable.

4. We went to one of those trampoline places. Have you heard of them? They are popping up all over but there are huge, gigantic trampolines everywhere. I had way more fun than an adult should and the twins loved it because they are obsessed with jumping.

Travel with Three Under Three

We recently made a 2.5  hour plane ride away trip to visit family for a wedding for a week. My first major perk of not working anymore was that normally I am the last to arrive and the first one to leave vacations due to work time. This time I got two days of travel plus five days of vacation. That has been so rare in my life the last time was while I was on maternity leave with the twins.

I am proud to announce that I packed all of our stuff for seven days time into only two checked bags. I put all their outfits together ahead of time into separate ziploc bags (thank you pinterest) and stayed up on laundry while gone. For the plane each twin took their own bag that had a blanket, their Kindle with new movies on it, headphones, a bag of special snacks and a clipboard that had paper, stickers and markers attached. They were very well behaved. I also took my purse, my breastpump supplies and also a diaper backpack with Butterball's bottles, a change of clothes just in case for each child, diapers and my own snacks.

For security purposes, I put all liquid items separate so I could easily pull it out without anyone running away.  I also did not bring their carseats to install in the seats. I know that is a sanctimommy no no, but I really can't imagine hauling all three of the seats through, plus Butterball was a lap child anyway.

Everyone told me not to bring our BOB stroller or our other stroller, it's too much hassle. This was my biggest mistake. Have you tried walking with two slow, easily distracted toddlers through an airport? It was no bueno.

I must say, everyone did awesome! The twins have always been such good travelers I have been waiting for it to bite me in the butt one day or I thought for sure the Butterball would be my bad traveler but he did great too.

Another thing to remember is to expect the unexpected. On our way home, we got their about an hour and a half early and checked in at the curb. Another family was travelling overseas and there were 7 of them and all of their bags were overweight and it screwed up everyone else, it took forever to get them sorted out! We hauled to the security line which was also out of control. Once we got through that we made a bee line to gate which seemed like miles away. We got all the way there and our flight was delayed by an hour. We laughed it off and decided this was a great opportunity to feed the kids because they were hungry. My grandpa went to get something to eat and while he was there they made an announcement that our gate changed clear out of the terminal we were in. We were all so tired! I got a wheelchair, put the baby in a wrap and we went on our way. For some reason we crossed path's with my grandpa and didn't see him so I took all the bags while my grandma went to help him with the lunch. I looked ridiculous! The baby was started to sag and people were staring. A very kind little old lady came and helped me all the way to our gate. All of this made me really wish we had shown up two hours ahead of time instead of one. I even made fun of my sister for getting to the airport so early, but now I'm going to have to eat crow because I wish I did too!

We got to the gate and ate. Ocean had a tantrum and then they both decided they needed to pee. We went to the bathroom and got all sorted out. I had pull ups on over their undies just in case so that took some maneuvering. Osh started freaking out so I looked down and there was his monkey swirling around in the airport toilet! Osh is very serious about his stuffed animals so I stuck my hand down in that nasty thing and pulled monkey out. He got a harcore scrubbing with soap in the sink and I wrapped him in paper towels and assured him that we would throw him in the laundry at home and he would be good as new. I felt a moment of panic, but then laughed seeing that stupid monkey swimming in the airport toilet. Gross. And funny. We can't even go to the bathroom without shenanigans.

That's the way we roll! I had initially booked this trip to go by myself and now I am so very thankful that my grandparents came along for an extra set of hands. I think I would have ended up in a bathroom stall crying my eyes out if they hadn't. Or possibly on the news. I will say that I am so happy with how the kids do on the plane though. I am super fortunate for that. There was a woman in front of us with a child who was out of control and loud and this lady next to her was so rude. I felt terrible for her (and thanked my lucky stars that wasn't me).

Airplane pics!

Stay At Home Mom Budget

Going from always being employed to being completely unemployed has been a huge life change for me. Hubby and I don't have joint checking and have always been very independent financially speaking. This is what works best for us so going from that to being dependent on each other, especially me being so financially dependent on him, is weird.

Staying at home with your kids is definitely a luxury, even though it doesn't feel like it at the end of the day when Hubby comes home and the house is filthy, I still haven't put on a bra, brushed my hair or teeth or put contacts in. The truth is I never made much money in my career. I'm not a big baller in the spending department anyway so it worked for us and I also provided health benefits to our family. After paying for daycare for the twins, I brought home some money but not a ton, it was all gone each pay period, so that was a huge factor in me staying home.

Before I was on a budget but a rather loose one. Now my budget is very tight. People keep asking me how we do this, am I rich, what a luxury, etc.

Well, here it is . . .

1. We have no car payments. There are four cars (one to be sold soon) sitting in our driveway and not a single one has debt related to it. When we sell one of the cars it will help reduce other debts we have and our ultimate goal is to be debt free aside from a mortgage. Our cars need to get us from point A to point B, they are not designed to give us a thrill or keep up with the Jones. We have what we can afford in car payments which is nothing. The vehicle that Hubby uses for his heavy driving is also a fuel efficient vehicle.

2. I am currently very thrifty in the shopping department and spend only about $130 maximum a week to feed us all each day, every day. That means no eating out or eating out very rarely. Most meals I make come from the crock pot because that requires very little cooking and a lot of the time it is chicken because that goes on sale a lot in the frozen section. Soon the downtown farmer's market will get going and I will be able to buy a boat load of produce for cheap. The smaller farmer's markets are more expensive than the store, but the one downtown is so huge that there is lots of competition. I have the Target debit card so I automatically save 5% on my groceries plus a few coupons if I am shopping there.

3. I have a dumb phone with no data plan and no intentions to upgrade anytime soon. This is absolutely stunning to people and they say HOW CAN YOU LIVE WITHOUT INTERNET ON YOUR PHONE?? The answer is, I've never had it, so it's easy.

4. There is no cable in our house. Even when we had the money we didn't have this because I am cheap and can't imagine spending hundreds of dollars a month just to watch television. If you spend $120 a month that is over $1400 a year on sitting in front of the boob tube. We spent less than that on our one week vacation to Kauai (we admittedly got a ridiculously amazing deal). I would much rather take a vacation than watch TV and it is easier if we don't do both. I will admit I mooch cable from my grandparents and go watch at their house when the Walking Dead is on.

5. I have never bought any item of clothing not on sale. Ever. For any reason.

This sounds like pure torture to some people. It's only slightly different than the way we have always lived. When others were buying houses and cars and paying things off we were spending all of our pennies making babies, which I actually can't think of a thing that money could buy that is better than the twins or the attempts we had to make to get to the Butterball so money is an arena that I'm just not bitter about it. We use it for what we need to use it for and that's it. As I said, we already had a tight budget but we are definitely making more sacrifices now than we were before and that's ok. So yeah, there are five of us living on an undisclosed amount to you, but know that it isn't a ton of money.

One splurge that we do have now that is new is a gym membership. We belong to a gym that is income and family sized based so with five people and one income that isn't a lot and it's a great deal for what we get. It has daycare so that means I can get some time to myself and the twins get to socialize. It also has cable so I can watch the Real Housewives while I run a few miles. It's a really nice thing and something that I chose to sacrifice some of our food budget for and I am happy with that.

So there you have it (in case you wondering, as many people seem to be in my life, no we did not win the lottery, yes, we still don't have much moola around here). I think it's awesome for the ladies that can stay at home and still afford everything! In our home though, it took some serious cuts. Also, if I made more money, I would probably still work so don't look at this as you should do what I do, it is merely an explanation of how we afford it.

Smooching on my boys.

Friday Phone Dump

1. My kids have a stuffed animal obsession. I don't get it and have never liked the things, but they LOVE them. They call them their friends. We never leave the house without a "friend" of some sort. A big part of their day right now consists of them moving their huge box of their "friends" from room to room, unloading them, arranging them just so, and then packing them up to do it again. It's weird. You can see their rolling box of "friends" takes up half of a queen sized bed.

2. This is what it was like to travel with three children under three. Bags, carseats, carry ons, it was nuts!

3. My little angel. He is literally as sweet as he looks.

4. We went out of town to a wedding and the children felt quite fancy with themselves getting to dress up, Peanut got her toes done and hair curled, Osh wore a tie and the big deal, they got to drink water out of wine glasses and sparkling cider out of champagne flutes. Osh would only take one sip at a time as long as we said "cheers" first. No cheers=no drinks from the champagne flutes. It was pretty cute.