My Date Day with Quentin

Last Sunday Quentin and I had some special time to ourselves while Daddy and Jack held down the fort at home. Both boys had cold the previous week and Quent just breezed through his much faster, leaving jack still feeling pretty icky by Sunday. We had been invited to Lincoln's first birthday party on that Sunday and thought it was better that just Quent and i went. And we made a day of it.

We went out to lunch, Quent's choice. Well, we went to McDonald's and ate inside at a booth - BIG stuff for Quent! He was very excited and several times turned to me and said, "Momma, I am so big!" We had our cheeseburgers and apples and had a nice time just talking and watching all the things going on around us.

Next, we went to Michael's to pick out stickers (we are working on the potty stuff) and sgot some other good stuff too. Quent walked around on his own and did not have to ride in the cart! He liked that very much. It is just impossible to do that with both of them, so it was a big treat for him to be so independent when we were on our own. He picked out rubber balls for he and Jack, they had spiders inside them and he shouted, "Wow, these are spooky!" That got some laughs in the aisle!

Then we were off to the party. Len and Kyle were there too and lots of other family on my Dad's side. Lincoln is my cousin Steve and his wife Stella's little boy. It was a nice party and Quent had a good time playing with Linc and all his toys. It was kind of weird to not have Jack there, but I knew he was doing some special fun stuff with Daddy and getting soem extra rest so he would feel better. Here's some pictures of the party!

Linc and Quent playing

Linc was wondering why this kid is hogging all my toys?

"Hey Lincoln, looks like you are getting a farm!"

Quentin and his Ky-Ky

Steve and Linc in the sea of gifts

the farm was a huge hit with all the kids there

The Birthday boy and his Mom and Dad (Steve and Stella)

Cute Family!

Happy Birthday Lincoln!

On the way home from the party we stopped by Babies r Us for some needed supplies. Whenever I am there with both boys I always say 'not this time' to the ride in the front of the store, but this time I said yes.

"Hey frog, can you believe my Mom put me in this thing?"

I am still not quite awake from my snooze in the car, so will say that I like the ride, but you will get no smile out of me Mom.

I had a funtime on my date with Quent!
This weekend its Jack's turn!

Who takes pictures of their groceries??

Someone who just saved a boat load of money!!

So, Friday I took a coupon class from Shayla Merinsky. She and I actually graduated high school together and found each other on facebook, where I saw that she was teaching these classes on how to save money using coupons and belonging to her webgroup (where she does all the work for you by matching up the sale ads to the coupons from the paper and other places).

The class was awesome and i am so excited I had to shout it out all the great deals that I have gotten already!

This was my Meijer trip:
$45.00 worth of groceries for
$15.07!!

This was the haul from the Kroger trip:
(the top is the whole haul, and the other 2 are closer up pics)
$146.29 worth of groceries for
$60.13!!

Is that cool or what?!

Two for Twos-day - Jack and Daddy dance

As Quent (feeling too icky to dance- see previous post) sat on my lap Sunday night, we taped Daddy and Jack dancing the crazy dance to the song "Tantrum" from the book by Sandra Boynton called Dog Train
This is one of those Kohls cares for kids books that they sell for $5 and it as a CD in it. I bought it along time ago and the boys have fallen in love with all the songs on here - especially "Tantrum"!

So, here it is - the crazy Tantrum Dance by Jack and his Silly Daddy!
(with a little cute bonus of Quent at the end!)

Makes my Monday

I have been nursing an AWFUL headache all day today (worried the migraine activity from long ago is coming back with a vengeance) and poor Quentin is nursing a little illness of his own. He has had a low grade fever off and on since yesterday and tells me, "my teef in my mouf hurt me". So, we have been dosing with ibuprofen as he needs it and just making sure he gets lots of extra love when he needs it.

While doing a whole lot of nothing today, I was thinking about the fun day we had on Friday playing and having lunch at the mall with Gramma, GG, Aunt Barbie, and Alex.
Then I saw Cheryl's Makes my Monday post and thought I would share the pictures I took on Friday of the 2 little guys who Make ALL My Mondays (under the weather or not)!

Quent often puts the sunglasses on upside down - silly!
(his car seat is really not as crooked as it looks, I think it was the funny camera angle)

Jack is happy to have his shades, it took us a while to find somewhere that had sunglasses out this early in the year, but they were telling me that the sun was hurting their eyes, so thankfully I found them at Children's Place.

The boys got Valetine mail! They were so excited to have mail in the box for each of them!

Hooray - Valentine cards from GG!!

Baby Picture Sunday - LOVE!

So this week Debi chose the theme of LOVE, hmmm......I think I know why!

And in the spirit of love, I thought about the first time I fell in love with my boys...

We didn't know then that they were boys, but we loved those little peanuts with all our hearts!


Then the day they were born was just another day that we fell in love all over again!

Me with Jack right after he was born.

Me showing off Quent to our family in the hallway on the way to the nursery.

This was our first Valentine's Day together, 2007, both boys had colds and still they have the best smiles! Jack and Quent have made every Valentine's Day so much sweeter!
I am so lucky to have these little boys to love and to love me back!

Check out Who Says 8 is enough?,to feel even more baby love!

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day
From my Sweeties
To You and your Sweeties!

Our weekend

We had a very busy, but enjoyable weekend this past weekend.
On Saturday, we had our swim class. That is always a fun time for us all, but especially for the boys. They are both getting really good at jumping in unassisted and going underwater while closing their mouths. That's a major skill when you are 2!

After swim class, we had lunch with Gramma and Papa and then headed out to Uncle Dan and Aunt Betty's for a little get together. It was nice to see lots of our family (especially Aunt Tasha!)
and get to visit with everyone. The boys had a really good time playing, dancing, and watching a movie.

Jack is watching the popcorn pop in the big popcorn maker - fascinating!

The boys and some of their cousins (my cousin's kids, so that's what 3rd cousins?)

Watching our favorite: CARS!
Can you tell Aunt Betty and Uncle Dan spoil us when we visit!

On Sunday we spent the morning at home and then went out to watch Brendan's roller hockey game after the boys' nap. The boys loved it and Brendan's team won 6-2, with Brendan scoring 2 goals!

Brendan in his game gear.

Me and Sierra watching Jack and Quent playing on the Dance Revolution game.
The cool thing is that they were totally loving just dancing on it without actually having to have the game "on".

Quentin REALLY liked dancing/jumping on this game!

Sierra and I are helping Quent and Jack play the basketball game. They got so excited playing this game they were shaking, and actually did not do too bad scoring!

After the game we went out to dinner with Mike, Julie, Brendan and Sierra. Of course Jack and Quent were the entertainment for the meal! The two of them can get so silly and funny, even the waitress was having a good laugh at how silly my cute guys were being!

Our dance party for Tuesday

Saturday we made a visit out to see family (thanks Uncle Dan and Aunt Betty for having us) to hang out, laugh, and have some great food.
Many times I was thinking that I was so lucky to have my guys and that they are healthy and happy.
I was also thinking about how incredibly hard this day must have been for The Whitt Family, in their goodbye to sweet little Tuesday.
There is no greater loss than losing your child.
My heart aches for them and the road that they have ahead.
So our family (sans wagon while out and about) celebrated the love and beauty of Tuesday's short, but powerful life in a different way.

Here's my boys and some of their cousins dancing for Tuesday while Momma said a prayer for her and her family.

rejection :(

Oh, the job that I really wanted...

Rejected.

I am so bummed. I got the "we are sorry" letter today and "even though my qualifications were impressive" they decided to go with a candidate that better met their needs. Tom thinks it was probably filled internally. And really, this is a crappy market to be looking for a job in any field, so maybe they just got a ton of resumes.

I am trying to feel better about the whole thing, but right now it totally sucks. I really wanted to get this job.

So, thank you for all your well wishes and good advice on my job search. The search continues!

Anybody need a very qualified home childcare provider?

Way Back When-esday

This is a photo that my father-in-law recently gave to my husband and his sister, Julie, and I tried scan and fix the color some. even though it is not the best quality still, if you had seen it before it was in way worse shape! I thought it was such a cute photo of them in their African shirts!

This picture of Julie and Tom was taken not long after they were back in the states after being in Zambia. Their parents were missionaries there and Tom was born while they were there.
Tom and Julie's best guess was maybe 1976 on this, which would make Tom about 3 and Julie about 4. They were both super-blondies, and Julie still is!

click on over to Twinfatuation to see everyone else's way back photos!

Playing in the snow!

Today was the perfect weather for playing out in the snow, not so bitterly cold, but not so warm that the snow was all melty (is that a word?!). We took the boys out and threw snowballs, made a snowman, climbed a ginormous snowbank, and just frolicked in the snow in general. Needless to say, we all had a great time playing together!
So, here's our pics from today - how efficient am I! - and just so you know, Jack is in the blue and Quent is in the red. I am pretty sure you should be able to tell Tom and I apart!