I’m Moving…Again!

Long-time readers of this blog are probably about to curse out loud at this, but…

This blog is moving to a new domain name. So please update your feeds and bookmarks.

http://kateandcarson.com/

I actually bought the domain name www.kateandcarson.com over a year ago, but haven’t devoted any time to teaching myself CSS, FTP and other web stuff. I finally kinda-sorta figured out just the bare minimum now.

I’ve had so many friends and family call me because they couldn’t remember the blog address, so I thought www.kateandcarson.com would be very easy for everyone to remember.

Anyway, follow me over…I’m still working on it and cleaning everything up, but at least everything has been imported and is up…oh, and let me know if it doesn’t appear correctly on your computer. My mom said something about the post being way at the bottom of the page, but it pulled up perfectly on our computers.

I promise this is the final blog move! 🙂

Caribbean Cruise

Guess where Mark and I will be at the end of February?

 

YAY!! We finally booked our big vacation tonight! I cannot even begin to articulate how excited we are about this trip. Mark and I need this getaway.

For our honeymoon, we took a week long cruise to Jamaica, Grand Cayman and Mexico (Cozumel), and we loved it. Some folks love cruises, and others don’t. Mark loves cruises because all of the stuff on the ship, and I like being able to see multiple places and only unpacking once. We truly had such a fabulous time on our honeymoon trip through the western Carribean, that we pretty much started talking about our next cruise before we even got back home.

Five years later, and we are finally going!

We will be departing from Miami (thanks to Mark’s frequent flyer miles) and going to the Bahamas, St. Thomas and St. Maarten/St. Martin. Mark has been to Nassau, Bahamas once before, but I think it was on one of his college Spring Breaks which means it was all a hazy, drunken memory. I have always wanted to go to St. Thomas, and Mark insisted on St. Maarten (still not sure why).

We will be gone for a full week. Actually, it will probably be more like 8 days because we would like to spend one day in Miami. Neither of us have been to Miami before, and I have a cousin who lives there who we would like to take out-to-dinner.

A week! As excited as I am, I cringe at being away from Kate and Carson that long. The longest we’ve been apart was two days (last summer when we went to Galveston for the weekend), and I won’t be able to get a hold of them on the ship either. I can’t imagine missing an entire week of their lives.

One of the major reasons we picked February for our trip is because that would be the best time for my mom to watch them. What a job! I am going to have to Miss Jennifer, my mother-in-law, and my Aunt Cindy pitch in and help my mom out.

And…I won’t be here for the birth of my cousin Jil’s baby. She is due right in the middle of our trip.

Ahh, but I can’t think of all of that tonight. Tonight, I just want to be excited about our big vacation…even if it is SEVEN months away! We will be celebrating a lot on this trip…5 years of marriage (actually, our anniversary is 4 months before our trip), Valentine’s Day, surviving 2 years of twin parenthood, and my 32nd birthday is a month after our trip.

I’m off to go drool at more online island photos!

Ahhh…So Worth the Wait!

I realize how completely weird it is to write a blog post on this topic, but I love what the carpet cleaners did! My house looks brand new again (and we’ve only lived here for 15 months, and the house is 3 years old!). And they used a special machine and cleaned all of the tile and grout in the downstairs.

I was stunned at this machine! I have tried everything under the sun…I have been on my hands-and-knees dealing with the aftermath of living with 2 dogs and 2 toddlers (who love to throw food). Nothing worked. The grout on our otherwise beautiful tile had turned black. It was disgusting looking. With his high-powered steam magic machine, it all came up. The tile is back to looking brand spankin’ new!

I’m sure there are several folks reading this silly post and rolling their eyes, but issues with the floor have been a big thing for me. I hate gross floors, and my floors were pretty damn gross.

Not any more though! 🙂

I totally forgot to get before and after photos, but maybe I can talk Mark into taking my photo on the new and improved kitchen floor while acting like Demi Moore rolling in cash in Indecent Proposal (but I won’t be naked, thankfully). Yes, I am that pleased with the stupid floors!

The other item I was waiting on — and just as exciting — was the dryer vent guy. He got up there and told us we had a massive bird’s nest and it had completely blocked off the exhaust. So, he cleaned everything up and I just finished my first load of laundry…and it only took ONE cycle through the dryer! Hot damn!

This has been a good day. A very good day.

Oh, and the twins had a good day too. (Not that they are an after thought in this post…okay, well, today they are.) Miss Jennifer said they were little angels all day. We we got home, Kate practiced her walking a lot. I can see her confidence building in the walking department.

Crabby

Ugh. What a day. I had yet another yucky day with Carson. I know a good chunk of this is teething, but his hitting/biting/kicking is truly getting out of control. Today’s highlights include, but are not limited to:

1. Carson dumping out his box of crayons and throwing them like missiles at me…doing his angry scream while throwing. [Positive: It looks like my baseball blood has been passed down to him. He has a helluva arm!]
2. He (apparently) intentionally hurt our dog Schatzie. When she cried in pain, he yanked her hair harder.
3. He bit my knee cap (yes, my freakin’ knee cap!) because I wouldn’t pick him up at that very moment (I was washing dishes).
4. He got mad at Kate and attacked the first object he could get his hands on. Unfortunately, it was the floor lamp in the living room that my mom gave us (sorry Mom!).
5. And, finally, during a tantrum, he scooted his body into position to hit me in the face with the heel of his foot. I am very surprised that I don’t have a black eye from that because it hurt like hell.

And this was my day. It was so bad at time that I had to put myself in Time Out for a few minutes. I went into our bedroom, shut the door, and looked at the ceiling for about 3 minutes until I was no longer upset. When moms put themselves in Time Out, that’s a very bad day.

The excuse of teething only goes so far. I gave him Tylenol and that did not phase him a bit. Miss Jennifer told me yesterday that he was a perfect angel for her all day. What could be going on with him? It’s all directed at me, and I have no clue as to why.

The only times of the day that he was truly happy and content were when I was walking around carrying him. If I sat down, he would throw a fit. If I even walked near the bean bag (where we usually put them for bottles or when we are done holding them), he would whine. There is only so much that I can walk around with a 24 lbs tot on my hip especially since I have another little tot who needs me to.

So, I am a bit crabby tonight. Mark is on a business trip, and I have my fingers crossed that they kiddos sleep through the night and don’t want to get up at 5 AM.

To end on a happier note, here are some photos from today…

Here is Carson with his new lawn mower. I bought them 3 new toys yesterday (after seeing what Colin had in Dallas), and this was one of them. Look at that sour-puss look on his face. That look is the “I hate the camera” expression. Despite that look, he loves the lawn mower. He walked all over the house for the longest time with the new mower.

 

I am done with the sippy cup battle. For months and months, I have tried to get them into sippy cups. It’s never really worked well. So we found an alternative…cups with straws! They LOVE drinking from straws and they work and travel just as well has traditional sippy cups.

Carson at lunch time. On the menu today…green beans, slice of cheese, hot dog weiner, and ice water. (They only drink water if it’s icy cold. I’m the same way.)

Visiting Cousins

We got an extra special treat this morning when my Aunt Cindy and cousin Jil brought my cousin Cody’s kids over to see the twins before nap time. I don’t think we’ve seen them since Christmas, and it’s hard to believe how much older and bigger they are now.

Cousin Brylee (almost 3 years old) and Kate.

The girls had a fun time together.

Ahh, the joys of trying to get four kids to sit for a photo! That’s cousin Brayden on the right. He is Brylee’s big brother.

 

Brylee and Brayden are in town visit their grandparents (my Aunt Cindy and Uncle Gil) for the whole week, so we might get the kiddos together later in the week to go swimming.

Once again, Mr. Carson was freaked out with new people around. He clung on to me, and he ended up going down for his nap 20 minutes early. Is there anything I can do for him?