Hey there, October!

It's October! It's October! Wahoo! 

Tomorrow I have a Moms meeting. I wasn't going to go because I'm really not prepared, but I got a "you're on snack duty!" emails this afternoon and figured it was fate. So I baked banana bread, a recipe that never fails, until it failed today, of course. For some reason the bananas sank to the bottom and now there's this strange banana custard on the bottom of the loaf. I tasted it and it was delicious, but I'm pretty sure that any mama who's ever baked banana  bread is just going to look at it and think, what the frick happened there? So now I'm trying to decide if I should work a little trip to the bakery in on my way to the meeting. 

Anyway. Onward. The boys are ten months old today! At this time last year I was just trying to keep these little rascals on the inside for as long as possible, and now they're just these big, fat, adorable sweethearts. They are just little wild men and they're really running the show around here. Their hair is coming in like crazy and I'd say it's going to be a very light strawberry blond. It looked absolutely white when it first started coming, but as it gets thicker it's looking much more red. They still have bright blue eyes and are just the most handsome little guys!

The boys are still as identical as any twins I've ever seen. I mix them up the most, but I think it's just because things move VERY fast around here and I have far more opportunities to do so. If I look closely I always know who's who, but half the time I'm pulling people out of small spaces, changing multiple poopy diapers, wiping up spills, etc. Our friends and family have the luxury of taking a moment to look at them and spending time with them in a more relaxed setting, so it's pretty easy to tell them apart. I usually see the back of a head as a baby is crawling away, or pick someone up after he's fallen down, so a lot of time my "who's who" is based on a loose memory on who might have been in a certain spot last. Now that they're moving so fast there are so many moments that I just have no idea who I'm looking at! 

Here's a fantastic example. Max and Miles were in the kitchen this morning and I was standing in front of the computer reading one of those silly life hacks pages on Pinterest. I happened across one for a temporary tattoo that was supposed to last a month or so. FANTASTIC. We've been trying to work out a way to keep the boys straight, and permanent marker is gone within a few hours. These boys take a LOT of baths and they can lose any jewelry we put on them. They're also usually in just diapers in the house and I'm usually looking at their backs. So, I need something to apply to their backs (somewhat like numbering prized hogs) and something for their hands while they're clothed. We usually just mark Max with an X, so I grabbed Max and got to work. I wrote "Max" on his hands and put a big asterisk on his back. Then I rubbed baby powder on it and blew off the excess. After that I sprayed hairspray on it. 

Then I looked closely at the baby I was holding. 

And I looked at the baby on the floor. 

Fail. 

So anyway. Ten months is fabulous. Ten months is a great turning point in parenting small children. They're eating normal food, they're sleeping consistently, they're doing funny little tricks, they're portable and going down for naps when we want them to...right around this age you start to think, ah, I think I can manage this. Now, I won't say we think we can handle it yet, because they're now on this crazy mission to get into as much trouble as possible. One serves as a lookout or decoy while the other eats whatever he can cram in his mouth, and then they switch places. I'm fairly certain that we won't get a break until they've been safely delivered into the arms of a nice seminary or a pair of women who are willing to put up with them. 

Ack. I was going to type about the girls, but I got totally sidetracked by youtube videos about how to put victory rolls in your hair and now my laptop is dead AND I have to go play with my hair. Busy, busy! 

Random boy phobbles

These boys are so funny! :-)

Confession.

The boys haven't napped since ten am, so they're pretty cranky. I usually leave them in the bedrooms to play for an hour or so and lock the baby gate between the hallway and the rest of the house. This is usually in the morning, but today was a little screwy. So I put them in the nursery around 4 and they were super happy for about an hour. Knowing that I needed time to cook dinner, I decided to try something super sneaky. The boys are super attached to their blankies and I knew they'd be crawling down the hallway eventually to call for me from the gate, but wouldn't be able to get past a blankie force field. So I laid the blankies across the hallway and it WORKED. They fell right over when they reached them, moaning and sucking their fingers. Totally defenseless against the soft minky fabric. Why do they not give parenting awards?!

Big families, small problems. Lots and lots of small problems.

Today was Lisa's first full day home with all five kids. They recently welcomed darling Susanna, who brings the total to one complete handful! We are so happy for Lisa and Michael and their brood of cuties.

No doubt, going from 3 to 5 was tough. It was so noisy and there were SO many tears. Sometimes the kids cried, too. There were so many days when I thought to myself, I will never be able to unearth myself. What's going to be left of me when they're done with this torture?!? Don't get me wrong, it still feels like that several days a week.

There isn't much of the old me left. In the place of expectations and exasperation there is this wonderful new space for joyful surprises and incredible patience. I started praying for humility in December of 2011. Boy was that a crazy thing to do. I was given a pregnancy that required me to ask for help and two babies who force me to admit daily that I just can't do it all. When you add two babies to an already busy house full of young children, the result will always be chaos.

Next week the boys will be ten months old. It's been an incredibly long ten months, and we are tired. I believe my text to Lisa today said something like, "There isn't a day I don't feel like I just got my ass handed to me." Andrew and I look at each other at the end of the day and we so often say, "How on earth did we get through another day?"

But, OH the blessings. The love around here just pushes right out the front door. It's melts right down the driveway. We are just surrounded by these darling children and every day is better than the last. I'm fairly certain that if we had any more, I would die of "overblessedness." It boggles the mind. Andrew and I can have the longest day and just be ready to collapse (but only days that end in "y") and we still look at each and just swell with love and happiness. So many people to please, so many souls to tend, so many faces to kiss, so many knees to band-aid, so many tushies to wipe, so many giggles to hear, so many prayers to send up, so many spills to clean up, so many reasons to smile. Here, Lisa. You're going to need this. And you're going to love every minute of what's to come.