Easter 2015

had to take a pic before they took off towards the Easter basket! And yes, this is how she came downstairs. She wanted to sleep in a pretty dress and wanted her hair in a side pony with the flower clip. Ha!

Family Pic!

We went to lunch in Waverly, so I decided to get out my camera and take some pics of everyone :)

so very typical of them right now. Josh holding a basketball. Jules with a lovey and a thousand bracelets and necklaces. 

Seriously - little models. 

our cousin Lisa is due to have a baby literally any day now - shes past 40 weeks at this point!! So I took some pics of them as well :)

Olive Turns TWO!!

Our sweet niece Olive (Jake's sister's daughter) turned two in March. She had an absolutely precious Bubble Guppies party in Waverly. Can't believe she's TWO!!

Citrusolution - A Review

Ahhhhhh, its that time of year people! Now that the weather is FINALLY nice after all that snow, everyone gets that itch to start their spring cleaning. There's just something about cleaning out the clutter, making several trips to Goodwill, opening up the windows, and freshening up your house that takes me to the beginning of spring!

When we bought our home a couple of years ago, we completely gutted it. So, part of what we had to decide was new carpet. Well, when they give you a big board of 50 samples and you pick one, you honestly don't realize how LIGHT it is until you come home and its in your house! As much as I like it, it is SUPER light, and with two five year olds, and two shedding cats, our carpets already look several years old instead of two.

I was recently approached by Citrusolution to come out and clean my carpets in return for a blog review. If you've read the paragraph above, you will know that I was jumping up and down emphatically said of course!

Im going to show you some pics of my carpet before (yes, I know Im brave!!)

 Just lots of spots and just dingy wear.

I honestly had not heard of Citrusolution, but let me tell you - I was SO PLEASED and impressed! Ed Van Voorhees, the local owner of Citrusolution, couldn't have been nicer or more professional. He bought his small team, who have been with him for years, and they got it done in no time. And it was dry so quickly!

Citrusolution uses an environmentally-friendly, citrus-based cleanser. I liked this part due to the fact I have kids and pets! Its super safe! And I promise I was so pleased it worked!! And it smelled awesome!! The  solution contains citrus acid (like lemon juice) and d-Limonene (extracted oil from citrus rinds). The d-Limonene agent has been proven to fight against dust mites and other household allergens. In addition, this agent is also used in other forms to help support immunity and detoxification. I couldn't believe how great my carpet looked when they were done. They looked brand new! And the best part? The leave an entire bottle of the cleaning solution so you can clean spots yourself using the same solution they used. 

Now here's a BEFORE:

And AFTER!!

I spoke with Ed a little bit on their pricing. They dont do gimicks, they dont do the bait-and-switch, they dont do Groupons. What they do, if offer a very competive, all-inclusive pricing structure with nothing hidden. 

I was really pleasatly impressed with this company, and I absoluetly will give Ed and his company Citrusolution a call the next time I need my carpets cleaned. Im not sure I will go anywhere else! Their contact info is below :) 

Happy Spring Cleaning!

Facebook

www.Citrus4Carpets.com

615-333-8977

Stop, take a breath, and enjoy your friends and family

I'm not sure what the point of this post is. I just hope someone reads it and they stop and take a breath. 

There is so much sadness right now, surrounding so many of my friends in the Buy/Sell/Trade internet world. One sweet little girl is saying her goodbyes after succumbing to cancer; a mom who I knew only through the internet world was stabbed by her husband in front of her kids and passed. Only a few months ago she posted in our chat group- asking advice on how to obtain a burner phone so she could try to get out of her abusive marriage. Another's husband just found out he has stage 3 cancer. A friend of mine was in an awful wreck with her son on the interstate. So many prayer requests and it just makes me sad. 

A good friend of mine posted earlier. She had a good friend in town with her kids. They were swimming at local hotel poor so the kids could swim. Her out-of-town friends' 4 year old son ended up drowning. My friend's husband tried performing CPR, but the sweet boy didn't survive. You can look at her FB page and see pictures as recent as last week, and just like that he's gone. 

Time is so so fleeting. I know I post about time flying so many times on this page. It's just true. Horrible things can happen in the blink of an eye. I am the WORST imaginable at not being "in the moment". I'm constantly thinking about needing to do this and that, ignoring my kids, letting them watch TV or play by themselves so I can get stuff done. Then yelling at them or being frusturated if we're running late for the next thing. 

I'm just sad. I am a lucky lucky girl, and my family is the best. I want and pray that this year I just enjoy them. I need to take it day by day and just talk to them... Listen to them.... Play with them...love them. 

It's just too fleeting. So many prayers for all those hurting. I'm going to go kiss my babies in bed. 

The Blog Post about Blogging

I feel like I have approached a wall in the blogosphere. I'm not really sure how or why it happened, but I have definitely hit something. I'm pretty sure it has to do with my babies, and the fact they are now (aaaccckkkk! FIVE)

I'm trying to be a bit more sensitive to posts about them now that they're growing older, and think "would they want me posting about X,Y,Z". After all, in my TimeHop app this week (a social media app that is both awesome and awful, as it makes me cry at least once a week) TimeHop goes back five years, and pulls up your exact post on that day one year ago, two years ago, etc. So some posts are me posting about those early days of parenting, which I have blacked out. Ha! It happens when you have twins. 

However, the one this week was The Poop Post. While I did try to black that gem of a memory out, it's still fresh on my brain lol. 

While those posts are funny when they are babies, probably not so much now. 

I'm in an transition. In life and in blogging. I feel like most of my posts lately have been pictures of them, and just general things we've been up to. I've noticed I don't get my nice camera out as much as I used to... More relying on my iPhone. 

However, my Instagram account is my lifeblood lately! That's my go-to for daily funnies that the kids are into. But not "blog-worthy" if that makes sense.

I think I'll probably do a little bit more of lifestyle, things going on my my brain, and of course my kids. I think I knew it was coming, since last year when I changed the name of the blog to "The Fabulous Baby Striblings", to "Mandy With Multiples", but I just hadn't thought about it that much. 

And then in another part of my brain, I'm thinking "do people still read blogs?" I know I don't nearly as much as I used to. But then again, my kids are older. I was obsessed with other moms in the thick of new-babydom. I related to them. Now... I feel like those moms now have five year olds and are in the same rut I am. Many very popular mom bloggers have even stopped blogging, or have taken a break. I mean, my blog link feed over there is like a desert. Life happens, I get it. We don't have the two hour napping breaks like we used to to "catch up" on our blog reading. Our attention span is about one minute now. I honestly don't have time to read super long blog posts. (Hence my love for Instagram!) 

But all in all, my kids are still cute, they're still hysterical, and we are still up to everything lol. I still love blogging, and we will be around forever. But just posting my thoughts at the moment, which is pretty much for blogging is for anyway, amirite?