Flashback Friday: NICU Graduation Celebration
Ready for the NICU Graduation Celebration
Today’s Flashback Friday goes back to September 2005 when the girls went to their NICU Graduation Celebration. It is hard to believe they are now 7 months old. We are thankful for all the doctors and nurses that helped our family during the time when the girls were staying in the NICU. They took good care of our babies and we learned a lot from them during their stay. It was a great event to celebrate. Glad the girls were still growing and healthy.
Relaxing while we pack up the diaper bag and get everything ready to head out. The super cute dresses are from my Aunt Mary Ann, Uncle Rick, and cousins Renelle & Laurel in Colorado! Thanks guys, they are adorable!
Karlie’s 1st Face Painting experience. She was not too sure about a stranger touching and putting stuff on her face even though the rest of us were right there.
Karlie made it through the face painting, but was not happy with us at the end. She was not a big fan of it. Her legs were kicking, arms waving, and was about to burst into tears to let us know that she was not impressed with this whole face painting adventure. A little TLC and snuggle calmed her down quickly and she was fine for the rest of the event.
Brina getting her face painted for the 1st time at the NICU Graduation Celebration. She didn’t seem to mind it at all.
Brina was relaxed and just let her paint her face. She figured Daddy was there it must be okay.
Karlie is all smiles now. She doesn’t even remember that her face is painted with a smiley face.
For some reason Brina loved chewing on this dress. Must of tasted good or had an appealing texture.
Brina talking and happy even though her pink heart is completely smeared all over her face from her fun NICU celebration adventure earlier that day!
Karlie is glad to be back home again. Her smiley face stayed on for several hours after we arrived back home.
Karlie and Brina are very lucky girls. During the NICU Graduation Celebration they won a door prize for some toy blocks and shapes. They are playing with their new toys now. They have no clue they won anything, but were happy to play with the new toys. So exciting!!!
Flashback Friday: Visit From Grandma
Grandma Kay and the girls at Falls Park
Today’s Flashback Friday goes back to September 2005 when Grandma Kay came to visit for a few days. The girls were almost 7 months old and are a lot more active than they were when Grandma was here a few months ago (they were actually still in NICU). We packed a lot of fun into the weekend.
Our family at Falls Park – Karlie and Brina obviously were not impressed or we wore them out already because they were fast asleep in the stroller for their first picture at Falls Park.
First visit to Falls Park! Brina and Karlie were so excited they fell asleep as we walked through the park.
Karlie and Brina are ready for a fun stroll through the park.
Karlie, Brina and Grandma Kay at GattiTown
Karlie and Mommy and Brina with Grandma Kay on the carousel. They loved it and were fascinated by all the lights and sounds.
Brina playing with Grandma Kay
Having fun with Grandma Kay
Taking a siesta in their bassinets. Karlie and Brina both have their legs hanging out as they sleep. The bassinets may be getting too small for them now.
Karlie and Brina playing with their toys.
Grandma Kay, Karlie, and Brina playing
Jake and his girls
Someone woke up from her nap all smiles – Karlie Kool Kat
Brina Bee woke up with sweet smiles and laughter too.
Brina and Karlie hanging out with Grandma Kay
Karlie and Brina kicking and pushing the ball back and forth across Grandma Kay’s lap
Brina crashed and Karlie’s not far behind
Giggling girls – Brina and Karlie
Bath time Brina!
Karlie was more interested in chewing on the bath toys
Karlie and Brina are now squeaky clean and ready to get in their jammies
Brina sporting a bowl as she supervises Daddy’s game of Settler’s of Catan
Karlie isn’t sure about the bowl thing, but relaxing with us as we play a game!
Flashback Friday: Fun with Friends and Bath Time
First trip to GattiTown with Mandy, Jack, Danielle, and Riley (Brina & Karlie)
Today our Flashback Friday is in August 2005 when the girls were 6 months old. It is quite an adventure packing up and heading out to visit family, friends, or do errands, but we are getting better at it. The process of just getting out of the house, into the car, and on our way is usually several minutes long.
The girls have been enjoying going out and about more. I try to do at least one fun activity outside of the house each week with family or friends. They are usually exhausted by the time we get home, but we have fun. It is good for me to spend time with other Moms too.
Thankful for family and friends to hang out with. The girls are really good and for the most part do really well when we are out and about. They love watching everything. It is neat to watch them soak everything in during our adventures.
Mandy and Jack on the carousel
Danielle and Riley on the carousel
Brina very excited about driving Riley’s cool car! Vroom…vroom….look out people here I come!
Josh carrying Brina
Karlie hanging out with Kari
Christy holding Karlie
Aunt Vick hanging out with Brina as she bounces around
Cousins Jordan and Rachel feeding Karlie
Brina watching cousin Jack open his birthday gifts
Jack opening his birthday gifts.
Karlie starting to zone. She didn’t like the party hat at first, but soon forgot about it.
1st Bath together after being out with friends and having sunblock on them. It was too hard to safely bath two wet babies at the same time before now. They could sit up on their own and each had a place to safely sit in the tub now. At first they were not sure what to do? You mean we can play in here!?
Getting use to the bath time fun.
Travel & Vacation: State License Plate Game
2 State License Plate Game Boards
Our family enjoys going on road trips. We’ve had 40 plus hour road trips before so we are always looking for fun ways to stay busy while in the car. We play games, listen to audio books, read, watch a movie, rest, and more. One of our road trip rules is the only time the kids are allowed to watch a movie is if the trip is over 5 hours long. We found these printable State License Plate Game templates on The Dating Divas website just in time for our last road trip (which was only 19 hours long). The kids have always traveled well and actually look forward to our road trip adventures.
We printed out two of The Dating Divas State License Plate Game sheets, one for each kid. After printing out the sheets we laminated them so we can re-use them for all our road trips. Once they are laminated you can use dry erase markers OR crayons to mark off each license plate as you see it. The only one we have never seen (so far) has been Hawaii. We’ve seen Alaska a few times, but Hawaii is a hard one to locate. On one trip we got 40 plus of the license plates.
You can do variations of this game as well. If you want try to play bingo, see what different shapes you create, four corners, and more. You only get to mark them off if you actually see them and one other person must see them as well to confirm it. So if you spot a few while your sibling is resting or playing a different game you may have an advantage. This is just one of the many fun games we play on our road trips. The kids enjoy it and it keeps them looking out the window and paying attention to the many sights we are passing along the way. Thank you The Dating Divas for this awesome template! We love it!
License plates for all 50 states
Whose ready for a road trip!?
The “Travel and Vacation” series is an insight into our trips together as a family, ways we relax, and tips on how to make trips more enjoyable. Life is short and we were thrilled to have the opportunity to build memories with family and explore of of the most amazing places during our time away. Explore with a good attitude, look for fun, and it will be an awesome trip jammed packed with positive memories. It is refreshing having some time away from the regular routine. Make it a once in a lifetime opportunity to meet new people and learn. You just might see or try something new that takes your breath away!
Organized Chaos: Kid’s Bookshelves
Kids bookshelf
Our family loves books! It has always been something we have done together. When the girls were little we would read to them everyday. Now we read more chapter books, library books, and special books together as a family. We do a rotation on who gets to pick out the next chapter book we will read as a family. Sometimes if Jake is traveling he may miss a chapter or two otherwise we usually do this activity together.
When the girls were little we barely had any kids books. We started collecting them, the kids got some as gifts, and they have also bought some with their spending money. Over the years these books have accumulated. For one of their gifts a couple years ago Jake made the girls a bookshelf for their room. They LOVE it! For the most part they do keep it pretty neat, but every once in awhile it needs a little cleaning and organizing.
As you can see from the picture above they have books piled on top of the books on the shelf, books leaning all directions, random items that are not books on the bookshelf, and various books out of place. Since they keep it in decent order it doesn’t take long to freshen up the book shelf, put books away, dust, and we had it looking better in no time.
We have their books arranged in specific order. On the top are the kids classics and chapter book series. The 2nd shelf down we have more chapter books or series. On the 3rd shelf from the top we have the Golden Classics and soft cover books. The 4th shelf from the top contains all the kids reference and educational books. On the 5th shelf from the top we have hard cover books. The very bottom shelf contains more hard cover books, including some series.
Bookshelf is all dusted and organized!
The next big bookshelf project I need to do is to go through all the younger kids books. Our kids have outgrown a lot of the smaller books so I need to decide which ones to keep, donate, sell, etc…. I have slowly been starting to do this by giving some of the younger kid books to kids who I know enjoy those types of books. I love looking into the kids rooms and seeing them reading books either on their own or together. It makes my heart happy. The learning to read fluently has been a journey for our family. Part of my hesitation in going through and getting rid of some of their smaller books means I have to admit my little babies are growing up and to a Momma’s heart it kind of makes me sad. Not sure if I will ever be truly ready, but I will eventually go through the books and eliminate some more kids ones so that it will make more room for their more advanced reading books, just not today…
Organized Chaos: 3 Simple Steps When Cleaning Out the Kids Toy Cabinet
White Toy Cabinet
The white toy cabinet may look clean on the outside…however, that is not the case when you open it up and look inside of it. It has items placed randomly all around and is in a bit of a disarray. Today we are going to talk about organizing the toy cabinets. Our kids love playing, but for some reason the items they play with do not always find the correct homes when it is time for them to be put away. Despite the fact that most toys have a specific location where they call home. Whether it is that they are in a hurry, don’t want to take the time, or are not sure where to put it, who knows. Every once in awhile the white toy cabinet, like everything else in the house, needs a good cleaning.
Sometimes when you are cleaning out the kids stuff you find little treasures that the kids have kept for a variety of bizarre reasons, a candy wrapper from a friend, a 1 inch scrap of paper they are saving to do a craft, a piece of ribbon, or some other item that they stuffed in the cabinet for later use. There are times when the cabinet is so full of items and disorganized that it cannot even completely shut. I often wonder why these instances don’t trigger some thought process that says “Hey time to clean me out, please”! Maybe it does, but they don’t want to do it at that particular moment in time! Thankfully, as the kids are getting older I am starting notice more occasions were they will voluntarily notice a mess and clean it up by themselves. These precious moments makes my heart happy!
It’s a mess, not sure where some of that stuff came from in the toy cabinet
Here are 3 Simple Steps I use when cleaning out the kids toy cabinet:
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If it is broken – throw it away
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If they no longer play with it – give it away
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If it is out of place – put it away
Much better! Now they can actually find the toys and items they are looking for in the toy cabinet!
After going through the cabinet and applying the three simple principles as well as wiping down the inside and outside of the cabinet it is pretty much done. Sometimes there are a handful of items I am not sure about or want the kids to make the choice about what they want to do with them, but otherwise it is done.
While these steps sound really easy there have been times especially when the kids were younger and watching me clean out the toy cabinet I hesitated on some items. They may not have played with it this month, but maybe they will again next month. In those cases I usually held onto the toy for a little bit longer and if they hadn’t played with it by the time I cleaned the toy cabinet out again it was time for it to find another home.
I am a sentimental person so I like to keep special items. The problem is no one has a house large enough to keep everything so while I may hang onto things longer than some people eventually I have to admit when it’s time to let it go.
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Organized Chaos: Kid’s Closets
What a mess!
We live in a home with imperfect people. Life has a way of getting messy. Over time the busy messiness of life over spills into other areas such as our closets. It happens to all of us, including our kids.
On this particular day when I opened the closet I noticed several things out of place – clothes out of their specific baskets, shoes not lined up, headbands askew, and the hair accessories organizer not even hung up, hang up clothes in the wrong spots, crafts all out of sorts, and more disorganization.
Thankfully with the system we have in place it usually doesn’t take too long to get everything back in shape and looking good again. The kids are not always “excited” about cleaning out their closets, but they do enjoy it once it is done. It does look much better to Momma too!
Here are some closet organizational systems we already have in place that make the closet clean up easier:
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Organized Chaos: Jewelry Organizer
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Organized Chaos: Hair Accessory Organizer
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Organized Chaos: Kids Shoes
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Organized Chaos: Closet Clothes Baskets
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Organized Chaos: Kids Crafts & Activities
Once all the items listed above are checked, organized, and put back into their proper places there is only one thing left to do. Make sure all the hanging clothes are properly on the hangers and put them in their correct places. For our family we switch out cold and hot weather clothes depending on the season. In South Carolina we typically have a longer warm season then some other places so we are a little heavier on the short sleeve shirts and tank tops than on the heavier winter long sleeves and sweaters.
I used a picture from the colder season (the long sleeves show the different sections better than pictures with tank tops). As you can see her long sleeves / vests are on the left side of her closet with her short sleeve shirts in the middle and her dresses on the right side. In the summer her tank tops would be on the left where her long sleeve shirts / vests are located in this picture. We do pull out the kids winter dresses and replace them with summer dresses as well.
Looks so much better with everything put away and organized nicely!
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Travel & Vacation: Look Out the Car Window (Charleston, SC)
Through the leaves in the blue sky and you’ll see a plane coming into Charleston
Whether you are flying into Charleston, SC or driving there is always plenty to see. Our family always sees something new or different every time we go to Charleston. There are a lot of learning and teaching opportunities if you just look out your car window while going down the roads. Sometimes we take the little stuff for granted. When the kids see something they will often ask about it.
I did not grow up near the ocean or port so I learned about more of these things later in life. The first time I saw the ocean was when I got engaged to my sweetheart. Yes, that’s what happens when you grow up in Kansas (the middle of the 48 states) and about as far away from the ocean as you can get.
Some really nice private boats are docked in one of the inlets nearby
We usually see this factory when driving to and from Charleston. You can tell when they are doing certain things because there will be a faint “wet paper” odor in the air. Usually that smell will be coming from KapStone Kraft Paper Corporation in North Charleston. It’s not a bad smell just unique which peaks the curiosity of the kids riding in the car with you.
The kids are always on the lookout for the cargo containers being moved around. If you time it just right you can see the huge crane picking up cargo containers and loading (or unloading) them from the ships. They think it is neat to watch.
One of the cargo ships coming as we cross over the bridge.
The “Travel and Vacation” series is an insight into our trips together as a family and ways we relax. Life is short and we were thrilled to have the opportunity to build memories with family and explore of of the most amazing places during our time away. Explore with a good attitude, look for fun, and it will be an awesome trip jammed packed with positive memories. It is refreshing having some time away from the regular routine. Make it a once in a lifetime opportunity to meet new people and learn. You just might see or try something new that takes your breath away!
Flashback Friday: Happy July 4th
Happy Independence Day from Brina and Karlie!!!
Today we are flashing back to July 4, 2005. It was the girls first July 4th Independence Day celebration! My Aunt gave the girls these adorable dresses to wear for the celebration.
We spent the first part of the day as usual. Getting everybody up, fed, changed, and some play time. That evening we went over to a friends house to play games and celebrate. They were good sports and happy babies the whole evening.
Brina, Riley, and Karlie all coordinated for the July 4th Holiday!
So many reasons to celebrate this July 4th!
Organized Chaos: Kids Crafts & Activities
Kids crafts
Our kids love doing a variety of crafts and fun activities. Anything from artwork to bead work to pottery and so much more! A lot of times for their birthdays or Christmas they will get some neat crafts and activities gifts to do.
We wanted to find a convenient place to store them until they had time to do the craft. Originally, we had all the craft items stored together in one general location, but not in their room(s). As the girls got older we had to start putting names on the boxes or items so each one knew which ones were theirs when they went looking for a craft to do. Since they are twins it is important as parents to make sure that each child has some items that are specifically for them. We felt like this was something easy to do regarding their crafts and it has worked out well for our family.
Once the kids moved into their own rooms we decided to put their individual crafts on one of their higher shelves in their closets. Each kid has their own individual craft or activity shelf so they can pick out their specific item whenever they want to do a craft. Some of the crafts on their shelves are the same while some are completely different. They can easily get a chair or step stool when they want to pick out a craft to do, but with the crafts being on a higher shelf it isn’t as accessible so when we have younger kids visiting the crafts stay in place and don’t get all spread out.
Crafts lined up, visible, and ready to be used.
