We've been a little busy :-)

Ice has fallen here in Texas, in the form of sleet.

The funny thing is, everyone FREAKS OUT((!!!) over 1/4 inch of ice on the roads. Schools close, offices close, roads close; which is fine and dandy with me because that means we get a weekend in the middle of the week. Everyone hunkered down the past few days eating soup, enjoying our fire in the fireplace, and playing Lego Batman.

I have always had this insatiable urge to finish things.right.now! Well, not everything; laundry, cleaning, dishes, that project I started 2 months ago, yeah, not those things. But books, movies, puzzles, games, and yes, even Lego Batman. We got this magazine about the game because it is Zach's new favorite thing. He even wants his room to made over in it. So it has a walkthrough in it where they walk you through (hence the name, right?) each level of the game telling you hints, tricks, and ways to get all the bonus stuff. Well, we have had this game since before Christmas and he has gotten a lot of the bonus stuff, but needed a few more things that were sprinkled through 15 levels. As I sat down to help him play through a couple, I could feel it welling within me...that need.to.finish.ALL.the.levels.to.day! So we did only to have much disappointment in the "bonus level".

This is why I have to read ahead in books. I have the ending at my fingertips; to know how everything turns out, right there. I also tend to skip ahead a few pages and come back and read through that section, then skip ahead a few more hundred pages or so, then read back again. And it is perfectly normal to me. Drives Gary crazy!! (Which I secretly love :-) Now with books I am serious about, I would NEVER do this with like Harry Potter, The Twilight Series, and others. But then I have the problem of having to finish them to.day!! I get nothing done as I race to finish it.

Hmmm...off to play Lego Star Wars (hee hee)

A Very Merry Christmas

No, really...it was. Even though Zachary was sick, sick poor thing and still is, it was such a great day. We couldn't go to my family's house and Zachary couldn't go to his dad's, but we made the most of it with our new toys. He is so pale and feeling just crappy. I am wondering if he doesn't have the flu again. Here are some pictures from our day.

Look what Santa left!

(Ummm...minus the beanbag chair we forgot until the last possible moment, Whoops!!)

Check out all of our mugs that Gary got us!
Love them!

First look at the haul.

And yes, he had Christmas PJ's too, but a middle of the night accident had them in the wash at this time. I told you he was the really yucky kind of sick. I thought to change him into a red shirt at least before we started unwrapping.

Olivia was really into unwrapping her presents...kinda

Abby was more interested in eating the paper

Yay! So happy to get in shape!

Just what he wanted!

Love this picture of us all

Playing the Wii

The yummy Monkey Bread I made (Christmas tradition)

Probably not the best thing to eat to get fit, right?

All in all a great and wonderful holiday. I am taking a small break for the next week or so. I am working on a 6 month post on their stats and such. That will be my post on Friday. I may do a menu, I may not.

I also got tagged for a couple of things plus an award! I am so excited to pass these on and I will when I get back into it next week.

I put a poll at the top because it never occurred to me that my signature was not coming up all cute to everyone. Gary's Mac shows it as a basic font as does my laptop so it got me wondering how many of you see a big plain Sara at the end of all my posts. So please vote so I can change it if I need to.

I will leave you with something fun, fun. Below you will find highchairs. We tried peas for the first time and Gary put a bit of baby food on each of the girl's trays. They both LOVED the peas but only one of them was into exploring it with her hands. Which one is which?? Did Olivia love to paint with peas, or Abigail? I will reveal it next week.

Have a great week everyone and I will see in 2009!

Sara

Professional Pictures

Post #1 of Marathon Posting.

Well, here are our professional pictures. I am not happy with them, but only because I am a perfectionist. These are the not edited ones from the website. I am going to scan the ones we got from the studio so you can see them. They are a bit better.

Oh my gosh!!
Sweet baby sweetness!

And, yep, that's it. They didn't tell us we had 6 poses. I overheard it later. Grrr...I probably will not be going back to Babies R Us to get pictures taken. At least not that one.

Computer Problems

My lovely computer knows that I got a laptop (!) and is rebelling against me. It has a stupid virus and cannot connect to the internet. I am on Gary's Mac which I despise!! Sorry all you mac lovers but...I am a PC. Hopefully I can get it taken care of soon so I will be back up and running. Meanwhile, you are stuck with the background and template. Thoughts?? I like the blue, but not the other. What do you think? Also, I have to add my followers again because it got deleted. If you follow, please follow again :-)

From the Man - About the Man

I got this little Meme from Deb. I am going to copy her spin on it and have both of us answer these questions. I answered first in pink. Gary answered in blue and he did not see my answers first. Then I commented back in pink. This should be fun :-)

1. What is your husbands name?
Gary
Gary ____ _____ __ - He put his whole name

2. How long have you guys been married?
2 years
2 yrs, 2 mths, and 1 day - showoff

3. How long did you date?
1 year and 1 month
1 year, 27 days - can you tell he is a precise person?

4. How old is he?
38 - This is a constant form of teasing in our house since there is 7 years difference in our ages.
38

5. Who is taller?
He is - I am a shrimp
Gary

6. Who can sing best?
Not that he is bad, but I am better.
Gary
Oh No, he just thinks he can sing better.

7. Who is smarter?
He is definitely. He is smart smart. Plus he stores useless trivia knowledge in his brain and because of this there is no room for important things like the conversation we had yesterday.
Sara
Huh?

8. Who does laundry?
Neither of us - my mom does it when she comes and helps out every week. But I usually wash and he usually puts up.
Gary
Umm...yeah, now that he mentions it he probably does do more than me

9. Who pays the bills?
He does - and I am so fine with that. I did this in my first marriage and I was so ready for someone to take this responsibility.
Gary

10. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed?
This should be interesting - I say him because I picture this while standing at the foot of the bed.
Sara
Our point of view was different...hmmm...

11. Who mows the lawn?
He does - always. He enjoys it, but also my hands swell from the vibration of the mower.
Gary

12. Who cooks dinner?
Both - him more than me in previous months. Ever since I started planning meals though I have. Yay me!!
Gary
This actually bummed me a bit. I feel like I have really been trying hard to have meals planned or on the way to being ready when he gets home the past few weeks. Yes, "historically" with the pregnancy and the girls, he has done more but I have been trying so hard.

13. Who is the first to admit when they are wrong?
Oh no, ummm...I say me, but he will disagree. This is a point of disagreement with us. He thinks he is not wrong. If I prove him wrong, he changes his original point just enough to be able to say that he is right. It is not his fault though, his mom does the exact same thing. On this note, I used to be able to say I was wrong very easily, but his confidence that he is right brings out a side in me that has a hard time admitting when I am wrong.
Gary
See #8 - I can admit it! Not surprising that he can't admit that he doesn't admit when he is wrong, huh??

14. Who kissed who first?
::sigh:: He kissed me at the end of our first date ::sigh::
Gary kissed Sara
No doubt here that he made his move first

15. Who wears the pants?
Him - Something else I had to work on from my first marriage. Trusting someone enough to not control everything.
Gary
Again, we both know who is the boss in the house. At least we agree on this!

Well there you go. That was fun to see his perspective, huh?

Sara

Tagged

Aww.. I don't care how corny it is, I love to be tagged. I got tagged by Debbie and Annie for this one. I met Debbie on The Nest Multiples Message Board. This is another one of those good friends on-line, but I know that if we lived closer together she and I would be great friends in real life too. She has two cute cute twin girls and I love reading about them. Annie is my reader from Puerto Rico. She also has cute twin girls. She does a great job doing both Spanish and English on her blog.

Rules:
1. Link to the person who tagged you. - Souza Sisters and Santiago Twin Girls
2. Share 7 random and/or weird facts about you. - see below
3. Tag 7 random people at the end, and include links to their blogs.
4. Let each person know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs.

Here goes:
1. I am a story spoiler
~ I spoil movies for myself. In fact, I go to MovieSpoiler.com and read about movies all the time. If I know for a fact I will be seeing the movie then I will refrain but those are few and far between. I just don't have the time to sit and watch movies anymore but I do like to know about them. I read the end of books as well. These two things frustrate Gary to no end. He actually started me on Movie Spoilers because he refused to tell me how "Million Dollar Baby" ended. So I found out on my own much to his disgust. I was flipping ahead in a book one time and he actually told me to "Respect the book!!" Heh Heh

2. I am an Ebay fan
~ I buy and sell on ebay constantly. It can actually get addicting and if you are not careful you will just start searching the house for random things to sell. My biggest sale was a set of 10 USED pages of Trend brand Scratch and sniff stickers from the 80's. You remember those? They had pictures of food on them like popcorn and root beer. Yeah, they sold for $95. That was a great moment.

3. I was a Donald Duck collector
~ Until #2 happened and I sold the whole collection on Ebay. I started collecting in high school and I had just carted it from house to house in boxes and I was just done with it! I sold about 100 pieces for close to $600 to people from all over the world. One miniature Donald that was less than an inch tall sold for $8. Crazy what people will pay.

4. I was a sensitive child
~ When I was a little girl I thought everything had feelings. When I was allowed to choose a toy I would wrestle within myself over which toy to take. I didn't want any of them to feel left out or abandoned. I also worried about taking them away from their "families" that were on the shelf. God forbid you actually suggest I get rid of one of my own toys. Once my brother and I got rocks (yes, people, ROCKS!) from our driveway to throw out the back of the pickup. I threw only a few of mine and sprinkled them back in their home when I got back. Even as an adult I have thoughts about letting a fly out of my car window. He is a long way from where he got in, you know? Oy! I know, I need help.

5. I love the beach
~ For some people it is the mountains, for others it is the desert; for me there is just something about the beach and the ocean. It touches my soul in a way that just settles a peace over me. I went to Port O'Conner the summer of my divorce and I think that is what started it for me. I just felt my tension melt away when I could hear the sound of the waves. This is the first year that I haven't been to the beach since then and I really really missed it. I would like to retire to a beach somewhere.


6. When I asked Gary for an idea here he suggested that I tell you that I am argumentative. I immediately said "Nuh Uh!" which only confirmed his point, dang it.

7. I am a haggler
~ I actually enjoy haggling over the price of a car. When I bought my car a few years ago, I haggled for hours over the price. We finally left at 11:00 p.m. with the price I wanted.

I tag:(in no particular order)
Monica at Jonas: Life with Two Boys
Meghan at The Tator Tots
Laura at Taylo' 2 Babies
Sarabelle at Mommy of Twins
Tamlyn at A Sublime Life
Sarah at Twins + 2 More = 4 Girls
Jamie at I Never Knew Until I Became a Mom

Feel free to use whatever subject you wish. If you only blog about your kids then tell us random facts about them or your pregnancy. Just play along!

Sara

Emotional Dump

I dumped my purse. Not my real purse. My emotional one. If you read the comments from my "What's in your Wallet" post, you remember that Gary had a pretty good theory about women and their emotional purses.

He said:
I have a theory on women that relates to purses: when a woman is upset and starts bringing random issues from weeks, months, or years ago into the argument I call it "cleaning out her purse". She is bringing up all of the things that she has tucked away in her purse and something triggers her to start dumping it out. So now men can know why they are getting hit with a comment they said two weeks ago. They just got hit with an old stick of gum from her purse.

Well, it had nothing to do with him, but last night after a truly trying day I did needed to dump a lot of my feelings of inadequacy and frustrations about some things; the state of my body, the constant crying (the girls not me), the frustrations I have with not being able to get out of the house on my own, my guilt over constantly having to attend to Olivia while my little Abby is happy on her own, the fact that there is no room for us down stairs...just so much that needed to come on out. So in true man fashion, he went into "fix-it" mode, which, for once, I really needed. We are going to turn the dining room (my beautiful dining room, sniff, sniff) into a playroom for now. And we developed a plan on how to get the girls on a schedule.

So that's what we are doing today; listening to fussy babies as they try to figure out why they can't have their bottles on demand. I know in the long run it will be better for all of us, so I can handle a few rough days with help from Gary. Surprisingly it is going pretty well, but it is probably just Gary's soothing presence...and I am not even joking about that.

I am working on something for tomorrow. I would like to get my own weekly thing going on Fridays so I am busy busy with that today. Have a great Thursday!

Sara

Happy Happy Birthday Baby

It's my honey's birthday today. Happy birthday honey!! You are an outstanding husband, father, friend, lover, provider, cook, and poop cleaner upper. And don't worry. I'll keep you young ;-)

That's Z's hat
This is one of my favs of Gary just
because of the way he is looking at me.

I love you. You are so getting lucky tonight if I can seduce you away from your first second love, that stupid Mac.

Sara

Happy Anniversary

Look below for a post about how we celebrated our anniversary. And look here for a post on how I feel about Gary. I am all about the actual wedding in this post.

It has been two glorious years since our wedding. I had so much fun planning this one. We got married at this really great spot in Downtown Fort Worth. It was perfect for our little get together. (I spent the night before at the hotel next door. You can see it below - it is the little white building. We also got ready there)

It was on the top floor of a restaurant on the Sunset Patio.

The Sunset Patio overlooked the next floor down which was also a patio and there is where we had our reception. It was all open except where we actually got married.

It rained that morning and everyone scrambled to get under shelter and also to protect the cake, pictures, candy and all that from getting wet. I will never forget looking out the window as I was getting ready and saying, "It's raining!"

They say it is good luck to have rain on your wedding day so I held on to that.

Everything was DIY (do it yourself). I did everything from the invitations, to the flowers, to the candy buffet, to the advice cards we had. My mom did the wedding cake and his mom did the grooms cake.

One of my favorite things was that we had pictures of our grandparent's and our parent's weddings displayed.

We wanted to include Z in everything so he walked me down the isle.

He also said, "I do" when asked Who gives this woman to be married?". Gary said vows to him and gave him a pocket watch to remember the day. We also had a sand ceremony where we each (me, Gary and Z) had our own color of sand to pour into a vase to signify our lives coming together.

We laughed through the whole thing practically

Since our wedding was just 2 hours long we had our photographers for a little longer. We walked all around the downtown area with them snapping pictures of us along the way. We had great fun!

He proposed to me on that balcony right there that he is blocking with his head.
This is at Bass Hall

We were actually running in this picture. It was a cool thing the photographer did.

At this corner there is wind tunnel that causes the wind to always blow. When we were dating we always went downtown to a theater or restaurant. We would stop at this corner and kiss as we waited for the light to turn. I would hear music as my hair would blow all around us. ::sigh:: Sappy, yes. We wanted to be sure and get pictures of it.

I call this one our Hollywood shot



Our little family

OK, so that turned into a longer post than I realized! Go here to see more great pictures from that day. Some of them are here on the post but there are some that aren't.

Sara

Our 2nd Anniversary

We actually went out!! We went to downtown Fort Worth to Texas De Brazil. It is a restaurant where the servers come around with hunks of meat and cut you off whatever you want. Yum! Plus, we had 2 hours to ourselves without children. We got all dressed up and everything. We were going to walk around downtown after we finished but our girls were crying so we went home. When we arrived it was obvious that Abby had been crying for some time. Her little eyes were red and puffy. She had a tummy ache and she missed us :-( Olivia had been crying too but she was ok when we got home.

Grana and Grandad are ready to babysit
Don't they look happy??


Abby likes to play patty cake with Grandad

A picture with all my wonderful kiddos

Sara

It's Your Love...

Happy Anniversary! my honey said to me as he came through the door with a dozen white roses (my fav color of roses).

Ummm...huh??

My brain raced ahead to September 23rd. I know I haven't lost that much sleep to have lost 2 months!! But no, it is August the 27th...the anniversary of our first date. Awww...so sweet. So like him to remember how we started out right in the middle of the chaos of our lives right now. So, I began to remember that day 3 years ago.

We had met on Eharmony.com. We were matched by the best, seriously, like scary compatible. I hadn't had much luck on there in the past so I didn't get my hopes up. I didn't see it going past a first date but I thought, "What the hey. It'll be good date practice." We agreed to meet at the restaurant then go play miniature golf. I was late of course, because I am late to everything. But I did win at golf. I remember thinking to myself, "Should I let him win?" But no, my competitive side won out on that one. I think I only beat him by like one point. At one point during golf we went through a tunnel to the next hole. I remember wondering if he was going to kiss me. Later he told me he thought about it, too. (I did get a goodnight kiss later.......Mmm.............Sorry, got caught up in the memory for a moment.) Needless to say, we hit it off pretty well. I remember sitting across from him and thinking, "This could be it right here." And I savored the moment because I knew this could very well be my last "first date." It was...

At the State Fair
You know, it's the little things that made me love him:

~He paid for my babysitter.
In those days, I literally barely lived paycheck to paycheck. I could have asked my parents for help, but I had tapped that well pretty dry in the years after my divorce. They would have gladly helped, but I got tired of asking. The ex was a no-go. I had asked him with no results. Never mind that his child support had stalled for 3 months between jobs. That was about $500 a month I was not getting all of a sudden...but I digress. So I made due. Z did not go without. We just had lots of Ramen, mac n cheese and cereal for dinner. After a few dates Gary had figured out about my situation and he offered to pay for my babysitter.



::Sigh::


~He planned all our dates with no input from me.
And this was a good thing. I was so ready to just sit back and let someone else handle all the details. I felt as though I had carried a world of details for the past ten years and was ready to let that go.


::Sigh::

This was when we were dating
he read him a bedtime story

~He played with Z
After about 6 weeks, I was finally ok with him meeting Z. I refused to have my dates meet him before I felt that they were there to stay for awhile. He loved spending time with Z almost as much as he enjoyed being with me. He planned things for us all to do together that he knew Z would like.


::Sigh::



~He filled my car with gas every time he drove it.
Again, he knew my situation and the fact that I looked for gas money in the cushions of my couch and under the bed. One time, I told him he missed my street and he said that no he didn't. He then pulled into a gas station and then I knew what he was up to.


::Sigh::


I found myself sighing a lot around him. Literally, we would be on a date and I would just keep sighing and sighing. Exhaling all the stress my world had held for the past year or two. 2004 was a HELL of a year and no, it wasn't the year of my divorce. That was the year that my ex left a second time (more on that story at a later date), I ended a relationship with someone else I cared about deeply, and I started and ended yet another relationship, plus I changed school against my wishes. Yea, not a good year for me. For so long I felt like I couldn't breathe. I would take a deep breath and there would be no relief at the top. I would gasp because it felt like I just couldn't complete it. I couldn't take in a deep breath. I know that sounds so weird. But little by little I started being able to breathe again; deep cleansing breaths. Every time I sighed, it would be a little less weight I felt around my neck, a little more peace that flowed through me as I inhaled.

He became my rock, my steadfast partner; in love and life. And it all started 3 years ago today.

I have been humming these words all night and they are so true when it comes to us.

It's your love
by Tim McGraw

It's your love it just does something to me
It sends a shock right through me
I can't get enough and if you wonder about the spell I'm under,
oh it's your love

Better than I was, more than I am
And all of this happen by taking your hand
And who I am now is who I wanted to be
And now that we're together
I'm stronger than ever I'm happy and free

Oh it's a beautiful thing, don't think I can keep it all in
If you asked me why I've changed, all I gotta do is say your sweet name
It's your love it just does something to me it sends a shock right through me
I can't get enough and if you wonder about the spell I'm under,
It's your love
If you wonder about the spell I'm under,
Oh, It's your love

Gary, my love, it's your spell I'm under. And today, like every day, I just can't keep it in. I am better than I was and more than I am just from taking your hand. You just do something to me and I can't get enough of you. I am truly happy and free. It's your love...

on our honeymoon

a sunset sailboat cruise

It's your love
It's your love
It's your love

Sara

Great Wolf Lodge

We went to Great Wolf Lodge last week. My nephews birthdays are in July so they chose to go there to celebrate. The rest of the family decided to tag along. Well, everyone but my dad, the party pooper. We had a great time. It is only about 45 mins away from us.

It is a hotel that has a water park inside it. It is open year 'round so we might go back in January when the thought of swimming is especially enticing. You pull up to these huge wolves that tower over the opening of the doors. Very cool. The lobby is breath taking with its rustic feeling. There is a huge tree house looking thing with a big fireplace next to it. Did a get pictures of these wondrous things? Of course! Did they turn out? Of course not! The pictures are all dark and crap. Only a few turned out. I have already tried to fix them, but I can't figure it out.



The room key is one of those bracelets that snap onto your wrist so you don't lose your key. Pretty clever, I say. The room itself was super cool with a log cabin inside for the kids. Z called the top bunk immediately.



There are arcades, gift shops, candy shops, and other money pits for parents to spend money in. The whole atmosphere is geared toward kids, of course. Each floor is a different theme like woody forests, or fairy land, or treetop for the top floor (Yea, I know. Clever, huh).

The water park was pretty fun too. And can I just say that I wish I could wear a sign that says "I had twins 7 weeks ago"? I know I look pretty good for having twins 7 weeks ago, but dang if people there didn't know that and I just looked huge! I know I shouldn't care what people think, but...well...I do. There were several slides that were pretty crazy. There was one that you could ride with someone in a double tube. Z and I rode together after we talked him into it. He wasn't too sure about it. Usually during a ride we hoop and holler all the way through it, but he was silent on this one. A sure sign that he was freaked out. There was a huge drop off that emptied us out in this huge bowl thing, kinda like a toilet. We went round and round until getting "flushed" down another tube. Great fun! He loved it after we got off. He also loved the wave pool. He spent most of the day there. Then there was one slide that we had to climb a massive amount of stairs to get to. I was seriously out of breath when I got to the top. Like, embarrassingly out of breath. Again, I wanted to say, "I had surgery 7 weeks ago to remove two children that I have been carrying around for 9 months, so I am a little out of shape here, but don't mind me...really...I am fine..."


And to top it all off there is a little something called Magic Quest. Ahhh...the Cha-chinging of the $$ is all I hear. And of course my little dude had to do it. It is where you go and buy a wand. Then you go on quests around the hotel to find different things so you can earn points and such. You pay for the wand, the game, then an add-on to the wand if you want. Well, we wanted, of course. We ended up shelling out about $45 to play this silly little thing. After getting the hang of it, we actually had a blast doing it all. You race around pointing your wand at pictures, chests, and props. They talk back to you and then you race to the next one, usually on another floor. That was the thing. You went to the 5th floor, then the 2nd, then back up to the 6th. It literally took us about 5 hours to complete this thing and by golly we where going to complete it!!

We took the girls and they spent the night but then my mom took them home so we could enjoy a day at the water park. They had their usual melt down and ended up in the bed with us on their Boppys. Abigail fought and fought sleep. We finally got her to go to sleep at one point. I tip-toed over to the Pack-n-Play to check on them and Abigail was just laying there staring up at me with her big eyes wide awake. It was pretty funny.

All in all a great time. We can't wait to go back :-)

Sara