The pressure to come up with something witty here is tremendous! Since I'm fresh out of witty, I'll just recap. I was born in 1977 in a rural town in Michigan. Ok, maybe I won't go back that far. I was born in 1977 and I did grow up in a rural town in Michigan. I met Joey on the internet (gasp!) in 1997 and I moved to New England in 1998. We were married in 1999 in the same small town where I grew up.
Then in 2003, we were happy to welcome our first born heathen, oh I mean child, into our lives. Nathaniel, for those who are truly new here, was diagnosed with PDD-NOS (on the Autism spectrum) at age 2. He's had a challenging start to his short life but he's making huge strides, most of which you can read about here.
Then in 2004, after winning a buy-one-get-one-free contest, we brought home twin baby girls! Madison and Alexis are very typical little girls and they bring tons of fun and lots of drama to our life. Again, you can read all about it here!
Besides being a super fantastic wife (just ask me, I'll tell you!) and the best mother in the world (again, just ask me!), I also enjoy reading, photography, scrapbooking, House, Bones, Ugly Betty, baking and...well I'm sure there's more but that will do for now!
We took our annual Christmas photos this morning and they came out fantastic, if I do say so myself. :) It’s probably some of Joe’s best work with our kiddies! Here’s a sneak peek!
One thing we were told over and over again by lab owners before we got Starsky was that they LOVE to chew. And if you don’t give them something to chew on, they’ll find something on their own. So since we got Starsky 2 months ago, we’ve made sure he always has something to chew on. His most favorite things to chew on are these lambswool toys with squeakers inside. His first order of business is squeaking the thing until the squeaker can’t take any more. And then it’s on to opening the sucker up so he can attempt to eat the squeaker. Thankfully, we’re pretty careful and he’s never eaten an entire squeaker before - only little bits! And then it’s the last phase…by this time, we’ve deemed him Destructo Dog.
Sweet, cuddly Starsky
Cute little lambswool toy with squeaker…
Destructo Dog
I’m so embarrased!
And a few other photos I couldn’t resist…
On Sunday, we had our very first birthday party where we invited other kids. It went surprisingly well - all the kids got along and we had no tears at all from any of the kids! Here are a few of our favorite shots from the day!
Before anyone thinks it, I begged Madison to let me put rollers in her hair - it was a no go. So Miss Lexi has the curls and Maddie has the straight hair!
The table before the kids arrived.
The kids eating lunch!
Daddy manning the pinata!
Everyone diving for candy!
A quick pic of the girls during the party!
The cake! Cinderella was lit! 
The girls singing happy birthday to themselves!
Blowing out the candles!
They loved the cake!
I loved this pic of Maddie!
Lexi with some of her dress up stuff!
Maddie with her new roller skates!
Lexi Lou with a big grin!
Maddie still skating!
The girls with all of their presents!
The last several days have been unpleasant, to say the least. The kids are acting like they’ve been possessed by the devil himself; even my sweet little Nate. It doesn’t help that I have a to-do list a mile long in preparation for the girls’ birthday party on Sunday.
Today on my list of things to do? Go find the girls a new outfit for the party. We’ve recently had some issues in the clothes department…mainly, Lexi has become quite possessive of most of the girls’ clothes. And if Maddie wants to wear something that she has deemed as her own, she pitches a hissy fit. This has been happening daily. So on advice from my twin mommy friends, I decided that I’d let them pick out their OWN outfit (with some nudging from me, of course).
Right after voting this morning, we headed out to Target since that’s where I saw some dresses that I liked.
We got to Target and wouldn’t you know it, the dresses that I was hoping to nudge them towards were out in the size we needed. Crap on a cracker. No biggie - I had a backup plan.
Yeah, not a great backup plan. I’ve NEVER been able to find anything good at Sears and today was no exception. Crap on a cracker times 2.
The girls had already started their antics. Touching everything they can from within the cart, trying to climb out of the cart, wanting to switch places in the cart and just general not listening. What in world possessed ME to go to another town an hour away? I must’ve been possessed by the devil for a short period because off we went.
So our first stop in the different town, one of my favorites.
I was all excited when I found a couple of sweaters that both the girls and I loved - Lexi had picked a pink one, Maddie a blue/yellow one. Normal price $22.50 (way beyond my budget) but they were on a rack with a $10 off advertisement on it. SCORE ONE FOR ME!!! So we headed to the checkout. When I glanced down at the total as the cashier was ringing things up, the total said $75 and change. UH WTF? I inquired about the sign and she said nope, that’s just on outer wear. *grumble, grumble* No thanks then. So we’re off once again.
Against my better judgement, we head back to….
Again, not sure why. I came away with nothing there for the second time.
After the girls convinced me that they would wither away into nothingness if they didn’t eat lunch, I took them to Burger King.
On a final whim, we headed to the Target (different one from earlier). SCORE!! They had the original dresses that I liked at the other store in the size we needed!! The dresses were in a couple of different colors so I kind of thought they’d choose different ones. Nope, they chose the same exact dresses.
And now they’ve been running around like punks all afternoon. STILL not listening and wrecking havoc on everything..
Thank God we’re almost at bedtime!!
Having a stare down over a toy!
A little tug of war anyone?
Lazy, lazy dog!
He likes to use my pillows!
Max laying with Lexi Lou.
And Natey with “his dog Max”!
I have to say that this Halloween has been the best one yet! Everyone wanted to get their Halloween costumes on, everyone wanted to go Trick or Treating and everyone listened and behaved themselves! We had a wonderful 2 hours of Trick or Treating with our neighbors! Beware - LOTS of photos ahead!!
Lexi with her rollers in shortly before getting ready!
Watching for Daddy! He came home early to go Trick or Treating with us!
Scooby Dooby Doo!!
And his buddy, Daphne (Maddie)!
And our own Fairy Princess (Lexi)!
This is the best Halloween photo we’ve ever taken!!
The gang shortly before leaving for Trick or Treating!
The entire gang!!
Heading out!
This photo cracks me up - Daphne checking out her goods!!
Maddie loving the huge piles of leaves we had to walk through!
My Scooby Doo having a blast!
One of our princesses ready to head home!
Going through their loot!!
One of the blogs that I frequent often is Tanya’s Cooking blog called Sunday Baker and she’s having a giveaway on her blog! Check out her blog to enter!! :) She has one of the best food blogs out there!
Yep, it’s that time again - pumpkin carving time! :) We spent part of the day cutting, cleaning out and carving up the pumpkins. All 5 of us had a great time. Take a peek!
Lexi smiling for me while pulling out pumpkin guts!
Miss Madison waiting for her turn to clean out her pumpkin!
Anyone that knows Nathaniel and his journey thus far being on the autism spectrum, you’ll already know that less than 2 years ago, he would freak out and break down a bit if he had to put his hands/fingers into anything icky (such as finger paint). So these photos really show a huge milestone for Nate. He cleaned out his own pumpkin! And even though after just 30 seconds of having his hands in the pumpkin, he said “mine’s all done!”, he continued on and cleaned out quite a bit of his pumpkin guts! You can see his obvious discomfort!!
Maddie getting some help from Daddy!
Maddie smiling for me while Daddy worked hard at the carving!
And the results!! Scooby Doo, Blue from Blues Clues and a Frankensteinish face!
Maddie with her Scooby pumpkin!
Lexi with her Frankenstein face pumpkin!
Nate and his Blues Clues pumpkin!
We took them outside after dark and lit up their pumpkins so they could see them. They thought it was the coolest thing ever!
The pumpkins glowing!
1 whole chicken
2 cups water
3 carrots, chopped
3 celery stalks, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
1 bay leaf
salt & pepper to taste
4 cups additional chicken stock
1 24oz bag of Reames Frozen Egg Noodles
Rinse chicken and pat dry. Season liberally with salt & pepper. Place in crockpot with 2 cups of water. Cook on low 4-6 hours. Remove chicken from crockpot and when cool, debone and chop up. Strain water from crockpot into a stock pot. Add the chicken, bay leaf, all the veggies and the 4 cups of chicken stock. Bring to boil and cook until veggies are tender. Remove bay leaf and add in the noodles. Cook for about 20 minutes or until noodles are tender. Salt & pepper to taste.
