Thesis happiness

I sent my third chapter of my thesis to my chair yesterday and she emailed me this morning:

"Brittany, well done! . . . I am so proud of the quality and timeliness of your writing. Besides that, your work with the novels is simply delightful. You are blessing me a lot! Dr. Ayres"


This just made me smile and sigh a happy sigh. 


Plus her encouragement made me feel a little better about all the revision comments she made on the chapter....  

My boys are THREE!

Happy (well, 2 days late now) Birthday Micah and Benjamin!!!

We had a wonderful day on Saturday celebrating the boys' third birthday. Where did the time go??

I remember when I was pregnant I was watching TV--some appliance commercial where the woman says she wants her fridge to stand up to "three year olds" (you know the one?)--and I suddenly had a revelation: I am going to have TWO three year olds. And the fear of God suddenly struck me.

I occasionally still have these revelations (and am stricken with fear) that yes, I do in fact have twins. And yes, I do NOW have two three year olds. And YES, it is great! (Most days, of course. It seems like the fits are getting more frequent and loud lately....but oh well. It comes with the territory of being three)

Anyways, I have been a mommy for three years. It has been a wild adventure. But every time I feel their smooth skin beneath my hands, kiss their sticky cheeks, ruffle up their frowsy curls, and hear them say, "I wuv you too, mommy" I am once again amazed that these are my children, my babies from my own body, a miraculous product of Aaron's and my love. Yes, amazing.

I have two three year olds. :D :D

Enjoy the pics from their party! We had a blast!

Back to Normal

There have been a lot of changes this semester but one thing I have really enjoyed is having a little time in the morning to myself after I take the boys to school. Every day I drop the boys off and come home for a few hours to walk the dog, eat breakfast, drink coffee, watch a little Food Network, and do a little housework before heading to school for the day.

This week, however, has robbed me of my sweet morning routine. 

I have had student conferences Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday this week. Each conference is 15 minutes long--not bad, right? Well, if you multiply that by 43+ students (I had two conferences with some students)....let's just say I've been living at school this week. 

Yesterday I had 25 conferences. My stomach cramps up a little bit just remembering. While I love meeting with each student (most of them, anyway...) one on one, I really do not like the all-day-marathon of mental energy expended while helping student after student generate ideas, thesis sentences, organizational patterns, and MLA citations. It is exhausting. 

Plus I missed my date with my french vanilla coffee and Food Network.

Well, today is Thursday. Blessed Thursday!

I dropped the boys off at school and headed home for some me-time. Goldie and I took a beautiful walk on this crisp fall day, and I enjoyed a yummy breakfast and coffee, and yes, I am currently watching Food Network as I write this. 

And I have been looking forward to today for another reason: I am going shopping for the boys' birthday party this morning! I am so excited. 

Party hats, balloons, plates, party bags, here I come! 

How are my babies turning 3? Amazing! 

My dog hates me

It has been raining all week. Rain means no walk for Goldie. She has taken out her frustration by being very bad while I am at work. Very bad meaning eating Aaron's leather Bible  cover and eating a whole plate of homemade cinnamon rolls on Wednesday, knocking over the very full kitchen trash and strewing it all over my freshly vacuumed living room floor on Thursday, and last night (Thurs) she did this:

She ATE Aaron's new golf glove  

I think she is trying to tell us something....

Out of the minds of babes

As we were walking through a parking lot today, Benji spotted an orange traffic cone, exclaimed "CARROT!" and tried to take a bite of it!

Kids T-Shirt Refashion

Isn't it sad when your kids' favorite clothes start getting too small? The boys are at that stage right now and one of their favorite shirts is getting too short and tight. Plus, since the shirt is white, it was getting pretty dingy. Rather than retire their "Pirate Kid" shirts, however, I decided to refashion--well, really, upgrade--them.

The t-shirts before. The new ones were from a pack of 5 undershirts from Walmart

I cut out a background from scraps from one of Aaron's t-shirts I used for a previous refashion

A pattern for the background make from a large envelope (recycled junkmail...)

Background and picture cut out

I zig-zaged the picture to the background

Then zig-zaged the background to the t-shirt. Ta-da! "New" shirts!
Micah said, "I like it!"

Sandbox Saturday

I felt like I got to spend some real quality time with the boys this morning. Check out what we did--Sandbox fun!
Sandbox = free (hand-me-down from a family at our church)
Sand toys = $2 at Target (gotta love a great deal!)
Two HUNDRED pounds of sand--yes, 200 pounds. As in 4 fifty pound bags. That's a lot of sand.

The boys had a blast! And so did I. :)

Micah Man

Benji Boy

Want some sand, Mommy?

What is better than two boys in a sandbox?

I told him to smile....I guess the camera wasn't fast enough

I also told B to smile...I get dazed an confused...this is SO a "Meng" look....

The TINY two-fer dress

Here is my version of a TINY two-fer dress. I made it out of a 0-3 month onesie and a t-shirt. I absolutely LOVE how this turned out. It is so sweet and so tiny! My favorite part is the bloomers--ruffle butt! AWWW! I hope Chelsea and my new little niece love them!

Before: Cute little orange and white striped onesie

Before: T-shirt that ended up in our luggage when we came home from camp (weird, but free material for me!!!)

AFTER! Sweet little two-fer dress with bloomers!

The bloomers have elastic to hold them up and....

RUFFLES!! AHH! So, so cute! 

The "Little" Two-fer dress

My sister Chelsea is expecting her first baby in October--a GIRL! The first one in the family (there are 5 grandsons right now). I wanted to make her some clothes so here are my attempts at "refashioning" for a baby. I love how this outfit turned out!

The top "before"--one of the boys' onesies (I used the bottom to make a pair of underwear for the boys)

The bottom "before"--a skirt that wasn't quite my style

AFTER! Isn't it cute? It will probably fit 9-12 months

I "feminized" the sleeves a bit by shortening them and adding a  cuff made out of the skirt material

"Spit it OUT!"

This is kind of a sad post...but funny too.

Benji threw-up last night. I have no idea why because he was fine this morning other than sleeping a little longer than normal. We have Wednesday night suppers at church and I think something just didn't agree with his little tummy. :(

Benji HATES to be messy. Hates hates hates! If his hands get messy at dinner he has to have the cleaned before he can continue eating. So, getting sick last night in his bed was probably his worst nightmare because he was very messy all over his head, chest, and blankie. There was much wailing.

We were all up from 11:30 to 1:00am last night. YAWN! Thankfully Benji seemed to get all the sickness out of his system and by the time we laid him down again he was chattering away about what happened.

Here is his two-year old version about throwing up: "It was hot. It was messy. Spit it OUT!"

Sounds about right, Benj! I am glad you are feeling better today, sweet boy!