Natalie's dark side

Short history: Natalie and Sydney have bunkbeds (thanks Nick and Kim!) and Tanner has a crib and regular bed in his room. Natalie takes naps and sleeps in her bunkbed. Tanner takes his nap in the crib (so he doesn't get out) and sleeps in his bed at night. This worked for a little while....

Now Natalie and Tanner have learned how to climb up to Sydney's top bunk. Natalie won't leave the ceiling fan alone (it doesn't get turned on anymore), and won't leave Sydney alone at night, wanting to sleep on the top bunk. Tanner won't sleep in his bed preferring the crib (not sure why). So we put Natalie in Tanner's bed the last few nights.

So last night, Tanner is crying in his crib, and I go in to see what's up. Natalie gives me this little smirk like 'I can't wait to see your face'. She had emptied Tanner's drawer of clothes INTO THE CRIB. Not just that. Her shoes, books, diapers, stuffed animals, etc. You name it, she's trying to fill up the crib with anything she can reach. Tanner was gripping the end of his grib like the stuff was boiling lava. I couldn't stop laughing, taking things out and attempting to tell Nanners that it wasn't cool and she shouldn't do it. She smirks again, starts laughing, and I just bust out laughing. I still can't stop when I tried to tell Lisa what happened, or even now while I'm typing.

While we were away...

So while we're on the cruise, hoping for the best (i.e. the kids won't start any upheaval, etc), everything went well. It sounds like the kids were as spoiled as we were. We sure love our parents!

Paul and Mo (Lisa's parents) sent us pictures like this:






My parents sent this video:

Cruising the Bahamas

A couple weeks ago Josh and I enjoyed another fabulous getaway to some white sandy beaches. This time we visited the Bahamas. Josh found a great deal for a 4-night cruise on the Majesty of the Seas. Doesn't it look majestic? It was a much needed trip away and it's so true that absence makes the heart grow stronger. I missed the kids a lot more on this trip but I absolutely loved spending lots of care-free time with my hubby. :)
So our cruise departed out of Miami. I'd never been there before but we didn't see much of it besides the airport.

Here we are about to sail off. Bye-bye Miami!

Here's our towel elephant our stateroom attendant made us. The staterooms were especially small on this ship but we didn't care. You basically just sleep in there anyways. And I sleep really well on ships. I think it's the subtle rocking all night that makes me sleep like a baby and wake up really rested.

A lot of people don't like the assigned seating that Royal Caribbean does but I actually really like it. It gives us a chance to make friends, which was especially fun this time because we kept running into them on our excursions.

This is Luke and Sonia who live in Florida.

This is Calvin and Kristen. We couldn't remember Kristen's name on the first night so we suggested we call her Hobbes. I told her about his the next day and she liked the nickname. So it stuck and we called her Hobbes most of the time on the trip.

Even though you can eat for free pretty much all day and night on the ship we decided to try out Johnny Rockets once just for kicks. Calvin and Hobbes said it was worth the $5 cover charge and I have to agree. It really was quite delicious. It was also a fun little diner styled in red leather and chrome like in the 50's and the employees would come out and dance for us every once in a while.

Day 2 of our cruise was Nassau. We decided to do a beach break on Blackbeard's Cay. It was beautiful! We just swam around in the crystal clear waters and laid out on the beach chairs. The white sand just makes the water look so amazing.

It turned out Calvin and Hobbes were also going to Blackbeard's to swim with the stingrays. We saw a couple of "wild" stingrays while we were out swimming too but Josh and I were too late to get in on the actual stingray excursion.

After relaxing on the beach we wandered around Nassau for a bit and did a little shopping.

Here we are at dinner that evening.

Coco Cay was our second stop on the cruise. This is Royal Caribbean's private Island. I think it was our favorite stop. We didn't book any excursions but we did rent floating beach mats and floated around the ocean. This was actually not good because the sun was very intense but it felt so good floating in the cool water that we didn't notice the heat too much. That resulted in a sunburn. We also found Calvin and Hobbes again and they showed us the ways of geocaching. We'd never done this before and it was pretty fun! Like a little treasure hunt. We're planning to take this up as a new family hobby. I'm so glad we joined them on the nature trail which took us to the other side of the island because it was nearly deserted there. We found a stunning beach with hardly anyone on it. You could walk out for probably a hundred yards into the ocean and still be waist deep. It was awesome.

Our final stop was in Key West. Due to our sunburns and the lack of beaches in Key West we decided to stay out of the sun a little bit that day.

We spent the first little while wandering around the town looking at all the beautiful houses and historic buildings.

The very first thing we did was call home and make sure the kids were behaving well for their grandparents.

We visited Ripley's Believe It or Not museum. And once again we ran into Calvin and Hobbes. I think they were stalking us. :) Ripley's was weird but there was air conditioning. I am not used to humidity so I was extremely happy to go somewhere cool and indoors for a bit. We did a little shopping afterwards and I had some killer Key Lime pie. I also got some Key Lime juice. I don't know if this is better than the regular lime juice I buy in the grocery store. I haven't actually made a key lime pie out of it yet.

Here is us sitting in the shade of a bush.

And back to the ship. Overall this was a wonderful trip and I highly recommend this cruise. Especially if you can get a good deal on flights to Miami. Thanks again to my parents and Josh's parents for watching the kids for us! And kudos to any of you who actually read this entire post. That was long!

My new hobby

For those of you who know Brooke or follow her blog then you know I'm totally copying her. But I'm so excited about the money I'm saving on groceries lately! My good friend, Andrea, invited me to a GrocerySmarts class a few weeks ago and it was awesome. I've seriously been telling everyone I know about it ever since. I've been bulking up our food storage over the last couple weeks and saving tons of money doing it. Today I made a trip to Albertsons and look what I got.

That's 3 Marie Calendar frozen dinners, 3 bottles of salad dressing, 2 bottles of mustard, 2 packages of hot dogs, and 1 can of shaving cream. My grand total? $3.33. The regular price total would have been $37.55. That's a savings of 91%. I'm kind of addicted to this now. Honestly, I get this little high when I watch the cashier scan my coupons and the total of my groceries just keeps dropping. It's so much fun!
Anyways, my sister Rachel and I asked Brooke to teach another GrocerySmarts class for us on Saturday, May 30th at 1:00 at my parent's home in Murray. Anyone who would like to come learn how to save some money is welcome! The class is free. Just comment me with your email and I'll get you the address.

My babies are 2!

It's official. Our babies are no longer babies. They are officially toddlers. Their birthday landed on a Sunday this year so we decided to do most of the celebrating on Saturday in order to have more playtime with the presents. Here are some pictures of the fun weekend. My parents came over to play on Saturday for a bit and Josh's parents came over on Sunday. I didn't get any pictures with Josh's parents since my camera battery died. I got video but I'm not technical enough to figure out how to put that on here. The video is cute though. They got a jump-o-lene and have been using it well.

The kids are enjoying their pizza on the new picnic table.

Natalie is feeling oh so pretty in the pink tu-tu that Grandma Ruben gave her. She's worn it every day since.

I'm glad the kids got to unwrap something. I was too lazy to wrap their presents this year since they were in fairly large boxes and they don't really care that much at this age anyways. Tanner is playing with some cool lego-like toys. They're fun. I made this awesome back scratcher out of them.

Now for a little about my cuties. Tanner first. Tanner is such a character and I'm so glad to have a little boy in the mix around here. I think he's actually a lot like me. He doesn't mind doing his own thing on his own and he gets very focused on whatever he's working on. He lately really likes puzzles and lego building and every once in a while he'll stop what he's doing to come over and give me a quick hug or just make sure I'm still around. He's very independent and has learned how to get what he needs. What he needs is usually food so he's learned how to open the doors that have those child-proof handles on them and get into the pantry. Everything in the lower two shelves in there and anything on the counter is no longer safe. He's a very good sharer. If he has an extra binky or snack he will usually give it to one of his sisters. However, if his snack runs out he will also try to share somebody elses with himself. It's very fun to watch how he thinks.

Natalie is kind of our "class clown" in the family. She loves to make us all laugh. She also loves to copy everything her older sister does, right down to the facial expressions. I told Sydney to get dressed today and she gave me a pouty face and folded her arms subbornly. Natalie walked over and stood right next to her, made the same pouty face and folder her arms. She is also very girly. She loves to dress herself in jewelry and hates and carry around purses all day. AND she likes getting her hair done and will sit very still for me. Yay! She also loves to dance to anything - church hymns, the vacuum, the blender. I held her one night while she was sick and watched American Idol and even then her little back would start twitching as she tried to dance to the music. All in all I am so grateful to have these little people in our family! Even though twins can be very challenging sometimes I wouldn't have it any other way. I can't imagine what it would be like to have one of them without the other.

Tulip Festival '09

Yay for tulips! My favorite flower. The tulips I planted in the backyard are not doing so well. Everyone else's are in full bloom but mine are looking a little dry and wilted. So once again we headed to Thanksgiving Point so I could get my tulip fix. Traditionally we go on my birthday but this year we had bigger plans for that day so we went on the following Monday. While talking to my friend, Sara at the gym I mentioned I wanted to go that night and she said they were going too. Family night with the Weavers! That's always fun. The kids had a blast as usual. What kid doesn't love running through a field surrounded in flowers?

I took way less pictures this year it seemed. It could have something to do with the fact that the twins are walking, no running now. I already have plenty of pictures of my kids running away from me so I didn't need anymore of those.

Tanner is getting a little more mischevious these days. You can see when his mind working on a new escape plan.

Everyone squit into the sun and smile! Here is Tanner Weaver, my Tanner, Natalie, Sydney, and Jackson.

So this picture is just in case Sydney and Jackson fall in love and get married someday! Hee hee.

The kids had a blast at the fountain which, for some reason, was not turned on. Natalie was barely tall enough to reach and look like she was going to dive in at any second. Tanner actually was going to dive in, but it was more on purpose in his case.

A wicked birthday

So my birthday was 2 weeks ago and I'm barely getting around to blogging. It was such a great birthday that I had to wait until I had adequate time to rave about it on here. Back in December our friend Okie found out that previous season ticket holders at the Capitol Theatre could get tickets to Wicked a couple days early. So being the super friends that they are they asked if we would like to join them! Yay! Because basically I have wanted to see this broadway for the last 4 years. I have all the music memorized, the piano book, a magnet on my fridge, and have even seen an illegally recorded tape of it. Yeah I'm basically obsessed. But I had never seen the real thing. It was the best birthday ever!! Tickets ended up being extremely hard to come by. They apparently sold out within minutes the day they were available. Anyways, I love every single minute of it. The talent was amazing and in my opinion every bit as good as the original cast on the CD. Elphaba could really belt out those notes in "Defying Gravity" and Glinda's song "Popular" was one of my favorites. I couldn't believe how she could bounce around the stage in heels all hyper and sing at the same time. Yeah basically I just sat there and grinned all goofy-like for almost the whole production. It was also extra fun because we got to go with Okie and Lynette who basically make me laugh till I'm crying almost every time we see them. Thanks for the fun night guys!

Josh and I during the intermission when I bought my awesome Wicked t-shirt.

Okie and Lynette are very savvy to the plays at Capitol Theatre and were smart enough to buy a poster during the intermission and then wait outside the backstage exit at the end of the show to get an autograph from all the cast. Why didn't I think of that?? Why didn't Okie tell me to think of that? Oh well! Next time I will be so smart. So above is "Glinda" signing with her pink pen.

Here's me, "Elphaba", and Lynette. Elphaba looks pretty different when she's not green.