Perfecting Imperfection

Valentine's Day has never really been a big deal for me.  I like chocolate.  I like flowers.  I don't necessarily think  they are money well spent, though.  I don't like jewelry.  Weird, huh?  I'm just not into jewelry...I've got my wedding rings and a few necklaces, some earrings and my watch...that's about all I need and all I really want.  My husband bought me a charm bracelet for Mother's Day last year and I like it...but it's kind of noisy and bulky to wear all the time.   So ~ I made a decision about Valentine's Day.  I'm going to teach my children to enjoy Valentine's Day as a holiday when we show people we love them in different ways...doing things to help them or making sure to give them extra hugs and kisses.  We will also enjoy a great "family" dinner tomorrow!


We are also going to make chocolate chip cookies.  :)

Jerry and I had an awesome Valentine Celebration last night!  My parents kept Nate and Danika and we sent the twins up to bed at 7:30.  Then, we dug into this:




It was SOOO yummy!

Then we watched a movie and went to bed!  It was relaxing and quite and wonderful!  To top it all off - we slept wonderfully because we didn't have little people (aka Danika or Nate) in bed with us in the morning!

Well - I'm off to go clean up the kitchen...shine my sink...and maybe get to bed early again tonight!

Happy Early Valentine's Day to all!  <3

This week I was busy.  VERY busy and I'm still not feeling great - which meant that I couldn't take on one of the bigger projects on my To Do List.  What I did do was organize my online clutter.  I started by taking care of all of those emails that can't bring myself to delete for some reason or another - responding to those that need responses and even unsubscribing to a few newsletters here and there.

In fact, I unsubscribed a lot this week.  I hit my Google Reader hard and really looked at the blogs I read and the ones that I only followed because I wanted the follow back...yes, I'm guilty of that!  Honestly, though, I use FeedSquares to read my blogs and I LOVE it...but seeing that number climb and climb (85 unread, 146 unread, 238 unread) makes me feel crappy and over whelmed.  So...I cut down the number of blogs I subscribe to in hopes that I won't have that sinking feeling I get when the number is too big to tackle.

In doing all of that I realized something about myself...I try to do too much.  I don't stick with one thing.  I don't give myself time to really try something out and see if it works before abandoning it.   I'm not very good at following through.  I plan on really thinking about this discover and trying to come up with the one thing I want to try and ignore the rest for a while.  It might be the whole grocery thing...or maybe I'll get back to Flylady - I haven't given up on that, yet!!!  I'll keep you posted, though!

I did head out to Staples today and bought some awesome organizing supplies for next week's project!  I can't wait to get started!!!  :)

So...I must have felt like taking pictures today because I have some to  share with you!

First...remember when I did this post for Say Mmmm?  I talked about making some grub for the Super Bowl?  Here's pics of the ones I made for lunch with the leftover ingredients!



Totally yummy, right?

Remember my last post about Duct Tape and Velcro?  I figured out that I can get about 40 minutes of peace if I just give in and strap them to chairs and let them beat up  play on my table!



I also want to share this awesome Valentine hairstyle for little girls!  Here's the practice pic from our morning try out of the hairstyle.  We are going to redo it for her party tomorrow.  It was SUPER easy!!!



I also stumbled across this awesome post today - and pulled out my #6 plastic cups to decorate with the kiddos!  (Who knew #6 cups were made out of the same plastic as shrinky dinks?!?)






So - that's it for now!  We had an awesome day playing at home and just hanging out - tomorrow we start early Valentine Celebrations with Danika's party at school...then Nate's on Friday!  :)

Here are a few more pics of them doing their cards last night - Jerry is such an awesome dad!

Love this one!

I have always been one of those mothers who refuses to ask for help.  I can handle it.  I can do it.  I got it.  Heck, who am I kidding?  I have always been a PERSON who refuses to ask for help and that hasn't changed when I became a mother of 4 children 5 and under.  I'm starting to think that God gave us twins just to prove to me that I can't do everything alone. I have to learn how to ask for help and accept help.  That God...geeze...like he knows EVERYTHING.  Wait.  Umm...nevermind.

So, here I am asking all of you mothers of multiples or just VERY active little ones.  How the heck do you keep them out of things and off of things?  I'm seriously considering duct taping my dining room chairs together at the leg and putting velcro on my garbage can lid - industrial strength velcro...not the easy to rip apart stuff.  Aside from buying a baby "pen", which I am considering - think Rugrats - I am having a really tough time keeping my babies safe and getting anything done around the house.  I'm at a loss...HELP!

On a side note - I'm thinking of taking up a new hobby...it's totally related to the previous subject.  I'm thinking of actually learning about wine and what makes a good wine and why some wines are so expensive and all that jazz.  I started listening to a podcast and reading a new blog, Wine for Normal People, and it piqued my interest.  I'm probably going to look into getting a book or taking a class or something in the future.

I bought a bottle of Shiraz the other day and actually liked it!  Not Merlot or Zinfindel (which are usually what I get) and I have to say that, while it isn't a "drink a bottle of wine" kind of wine but more of a "enjoy a glass or two" kind of wine - I would buy it again!

So - what kind of wines do you like?  Do you like wine?  Do you know anything about wine?  Do you have any suggestions on how I could learn more about wine?  :)  I think I've picked the perfect hobby - don't you?

Now...if I could just convince Jerry that Chocolate is one of the food groups and perfectly acceptable for me to eat for breakfast, we will be all good!