Kimber's Navy Family

My oldest is about a month away from turning four years old (where has the time gone?) and my twins are 14-months old. We love to get out of the house, play at a park or indoor play area, walk at the mall on hot or rainy days, and go, go, go! Since my husband is so occupied with his classes , most of the time it is just me and the boys. With such an active young family, I love baby gadgets that make my life easier (in case you haven't noticed all my must-have lists!). Here are my latest trial and error products: 1. Buggy Bench This is my most recent buy... I absolutely love this product. I've posted a few pictures on Facebook  and some of friends commented that there doesn't look like there is much room in the cart. Agreed. It does take up a good portion of the basket. However (a very big  however ), going into the store with the Buggy Bench was much, much easier than pushing a stroller with one hand and dragging a shopping cart with the other or weari...

If you have been following my blog or my Facebook page , you will have noticed that my boys are going through a very demanding stage. I have felt like, for this past week, that I have had crying one-year olds hanging from my pant legs from morning until night. I struggle to get them out of the house, only to have meltdowns and leave shortly after arriving. My three-year old is not a self-entertainer and feels the need to always be in the same room, participating in every small thing that I am doing. (Check out the blog: One Day I Will Go Potty All By Myself .) All of this has started getting me down. I miss my old friends. I feel housebound. I feel like I'm barely accomplishing anything during the day. I've developed a facial tick... (just kidding). And so the idea of writing a blog about those "hard phases" started taking root. The point of that blog would be to let mommas know that things are not always sunny and Pintrest-y. But as I was sitting and doing my devo...

Yesterday was a long, long day . For some reason the babies were exceptionally fussy and my three-year old was exceptionally "busy." Busy meaning all.over.the.place. I don't know if wild babies inspire D to compete more for my attention, but he is very much of the mindset that any attention is good attention, even negative attention. Breakfast was probably the only "calm" moment of the day. C and O are very impatient for their food. I am not sure how to teach 14-month old babies with no vocabulary "wait" or "it's coming." Lord knows I try. I talk to them as I prepare their food and try to have at least something ready to give them when I put them in their chairs. If they finish their banana before their oatmeal is ready, they get loud, especially C who is quite vocal. Leaving them out of the high chairs when they are hungry or while I'm preparing food is worse-- for breakfast. Often times I can make their lunch or dinner without th...

Breastfeeding. I know how I felt about breastfeeding my twins: it was what we were going to do. Hopefully. I told myself that I would give my best to breastfeeding and, if it didn't pan out, that was fine. And here we are, the boys are 14-months and I haven't breastfed them or given them breastmilk since they were 2- or 3-months old. What happened? Home from the hospital The boys were born at 35-weeks, premature, but not too premature. However, neither of them had a very good sucking reflex. C did much better. It only took a little "reminding" each time I fed him of what he was supposed to do. O had no clue. I had to spend a significant amount of time with him every time I fed him to get him to suck. I had a lot of pressure in the hospital to supplement. This being my second successful pregnancy and delivery, my milk poured in much faster than it had with my first son (who was breastfed, but that is a different story). I felt that I wanted to only feed them my b...

I recently read a blog post on Keep Calm and Have a Cosmo about the " Facebook Facade ." Yesterday, as I was madly dashing around the house trying to clean about before our house guest arrived, I realized just how very true that is. Here is how my birthday really went. My husband took the boys to the park while I had my hair done in the morning (it is amazing how those gray hairs just keep coming back and coming back, no matter how unwelcome I make them feel); he ended up leaving after an hour because the babies were too hot and our three-year old was, as he said, "tired." My guest arrived. Shortly after she arrived, I realized we still had no Father's Day presents or cards. I pulled my three-year old to the side and had the following conversation: Me: "We need to go to Target to buy Daddy a surprise for Father's Day." D: "Um, well, how about you go and I stay here?" Me: "You need to pick it out, bud." D: "Ok...

For those of you who have been following my blog, you may have noticed a progression towards our more "natural" family diet . While we have always eaten a diet heavy in fruits and vegetables-- fresh seasonal fruits and veggies a large part of my diet growing up-- other aspects in our family diet were lacking, like the allowance of some hydrogenated oils or convenience foods with low nutritional content. We've cut back on food colorings and many processed foods, though I do not ever see us throwing out our cereal or Annie's Mac'n'Cheese . We love cereal. And we buy the best cereal options we can, recently switching to Mom's Best Naturals  when shopping at Target or just about anything sold at Trader Joe's because, well, that has to be healthy, right? ;) Courtesy of Watchculture I also just re-read one of my favorite "diet approach" books, French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure by Mireille Guiliano, a book th...

"Tip #10: You will not get tired of the attention you get with the twins." From Every Other Twin Book is Wrong: 15 Tips on Twin Pregnancy, Infancy, and Toddler Times by Carla Shelley Anderson Wardin Here is the hard truth about all those ridiculous comments people make when you go out with twins: you would get ridiculous comments if you went out with a singleton. There was one particular incident that has always stood out in my mind. When we lived in Hawaii, I decided to stop at the grocery store on our way home from the beach. My son was tired and sandy from his day at the beach; I brought him in the store wearing just a diaper. This elderly woman stopped my shopping cart to comment on my adorable baby... girl. This is exactly what she said to me, "Some babies, you just can't tell. But, her, well, you can tell that she is a baby girl. And she is the most beautiful baby girl I have ever seen." Granted, my son was bald until he was almost two and ...

When you are pregnant with twins, people are full of advice on "how to do it." I did not join my local twin chapter until after my twins were born (they were about three months old), though I wish that I had. I would have loved the discussions on how other mothers of twins "did it." Throughout the whole pregnancy, I tried to go with the flow. I had a birth plan, but was prepared to throw that out the window. I had a feeding plan ( breastfeeding ), but kept telling myself I was prepared to throw that out the window as well (had a very hard time ending that chapter). As for scheduling, I felt that we would see what we decided to do when the time came. I did not schedule my first. He breastfed on demand. He ate meals on demand (I'm a natural "grazer" and I think I passed that down to him). He slept in our bed. He napped in the car or at friends' houses. It was much more day-by-day. I knew that twins would be different. However, when you are pregnant...