MUDfest 2015 // On being the mom

Give them an inch, they go a mile.

 They first began just squishing their feet in the mud. No big deal, I said. It's just a little mud, I said.

 Next they began squishing their hands in the mud. No big deal, I said. It's just mud, I said.

 Quinn be like "I'm coming guys!"

 Next was this video: smooshing his face in the mud, so he could go wash it off in the hose and do it all over again. No big deal, I said. It's just mud and water, I said.
MVI_1509 from Kimber Cutler on Vimeo.

Let's take a closer look at this dirtiness.

No big deal, I said. They're having so much fun, I said.

Picking your battles. Defining the boundaries. Trusting you child. It's all so very hard.

This instance of mud fun was literally no big deal to me. I remember loving playing in the mud growing up. It just made sense that there was a bunch of mud on our sidewalk and Max was playing outside, that meant he was going to play in the mud that day. It was calling his name and that was completely fine by me. Some parents ask their kids not to play in water, mud, sand, get dirty, whatever, it doesn't bother me a bit 99% of the time (Unless he's gone outside once he has his PJ's on ready for bed. NO WAY am I going to let bed time slip through my tired fingers when I'm that close to getting him to bed, ha, we all have our limits).

At times I worry I'm too relaxed of a parent. Who am I to tell Max the way he's playing is wrong. He's just 2 and he's playing, is that so bad? Ya, he loves to dump the WHOLE toy box out to play, that's ok. He's just playing.

When it comes to hurting others while playing that is of course different. But that's not what I'm talking about.

I want to step back and give this boy space. The world is constantly telling us how to do EVERYTHING. It's only going to get worse for this little boy over the next 10 years. So much more worse than I can imagine. So why not let him be little?

I love Maxson's spunkiness, thrill, energy, and excitement for life. He is passionate about life. Want to go swing? YAAAAA!!!!!!!!! I want to be as excited about swinging as Max is.

Dear little Maxson loves this beautiful life Heavenly Father has given us here on this earth, even down to those ugly bugs (BUG!!!!!!!!!!) he loves them!

Am I as appreciative as Maxson about life?

hungry hungry hippos

I would say that of the time these babies are actually awake, they spend half to 2/3's of their awake time eating. THEY ARE ALWAYS EATING it seems like. Thus why I have tons of pictures of them eating :) I proceed:

Q

BQ

Q

Q

B

B

BQ

Q

BQ

They are fabulous eaters. Baby purees are the thing of the past. They just yell and cry the whole time you feed them those because it's not fast enough. I usually give them sticks of food like sweet potatoes, carrots, and fruits. Or mash stuff up like peas, avocados, beans. They nearly always have meat in some form if it's just deli meat or dinner meat and we also try to feed them bits and pieces of what we are eating for dinner. They mush prefer the food on their plates and stuffing it in their own mouths. Granted it's way more messy but oh well. That phrase "before one is just for fun" for eating solids is RUBBISH. These boys are starving monsters and eat so much food. I honestly don't know when to stop feeding because they're often so happy in their high chairs!

Feeding for two

Feeding solids to two babies is semi time intensive, I've gotten more used to it and definitely complain less. They've quickly transitioned into not just eating pureed baby foods which can be convenient for us all and are getting better at picking up things I put on their tray and actually making it into their mouths. Feeding times is both fun and stressful, stressful because they're so loud and sometimes they're crying or yelling because they ant food faster or maybe they are done, I don't know. But I have found that singing them songs during the process quiets them down. They're hilarious though. When Quinn is feeding himself he's so messy and loves try to stuff his face. As evident in pictures, Bryson is not as messy and not as entertained about feeding himself, he much prefers me spoon feeding him.

Speaking of spoon feeding, sometimes I make the babies' pureed baby food from scratch and other times I grab the containers from the store, I try to always have both on hand fro convenience sake. However, I have found, that compared to my experience with making baby food for Max, it's much easier to make baby food for twins because your bulk making of the food gets eaten so fast between two babies there's practically no time to freeze it. So I can just put it in a big tupperware in my fridge and it gets eaten so quickly, no freezing measuring etc. Funny, huh? They eat a lot. 3 meals a day beyond their bottles and nursing, all they do is eat! 

So here are some adorable pictures of my adorable babies.

Quinny

 Bryson

 QB

 Q going to town

 Bryson insisting I be the one to feed him.

 Q be like "I got this mom"

 B

 QB- I love this series of 3 pictures between them

(best tip ever for the space saver chairs, putting a kitchen towel under them for easier cleaning!)

 B

 Q- I see these two expressions all day long, I love it

 Q

lately

Excuse my absence of regular postings! Jeeze! Every night I think about blogging but between a bunch of dilemmas it hasn't been happening! So I give you to you, reasons I haven't blogged lately aka: what i've been up to.

1. we be loving the tonight show with jimmy fallon. curses to that show for keeping us up so late therefor making us tired every morning but props to making us laugh every night. i sincerely would like to be that man's friend.

2. reading the book i am a mother. FRIENDS: read this book. it's a super duper quick read (i'm not into reading books usually, listening to them is my thing) but this is a fast, enticing, uplifting book on motherhood that i promise promise promise  you will love and love that i told you to read it. don't put this suggestion to the wayside. and it's a short read, so no huge commitment.

3. playing outside and with friends. for two days it got up to 70+ degrees around here and i was the happiest person ever. i was rolling my windows down when it got up to 39 so 70 was HOT for me, i was literally sweating while at the park with maxson but my body and soul loved the warmth of the sun. maxson loves to run away from me run everywhere. no but really he is adorable to watch outside, his curiosity of this new world not restricted by coats, boots, gloves, and snow pants is off the charts. i love it dearly and it makes my heart smile. tonight we had dinner outside with the missionaries and after we ate maxson was just running around, we watched him play in the dirt by our garden boxes. i'm all up for letting him get dirty (especially in the evenings) but then we watched him stick a mouthful of dirt in his mouth. we all laughed at it. then he did it again and we all laughed again but called to him to not do it (he was about 2-3 car lengths way from us). cue more dirt shoved in mouth followed more laughter and more fervent pleas in not putting dirt in your mouth. this followed by at least 3 more mouthfuls of dirt being frantically shoved in his mouth as i jumped off the bench to get him to physically stop. why child why? of course i didn't completely stop him, i went in to get my camera…

4. being a lot more diligent at food planning, food prepping, and house clean up lately. i still go in my waves of good and bad of this and usually for two days a week i lose it all and then find renewed energy to pick up the pieces and begin again.

5. my computer is on its deathbed. it is getting pretty slow, even with me taking all my pictures off onto back up hard drives. AND it is crazy finicky at charging lately. only casey can get the blasted thing to charge and he has to work with it awhile before it acknowledges that it's being charged, mmeh, don't die computer!!! i need you to last me 2 1/2 more years!!!!

6. speaking of computers, maxson kinda wrecked casey's. the screen part is all wobbly and half of it is disconnected from the keyboard...

7. my "in the picture" project. the past few days when i've thought to blog i also think, mmeh, but i should update those pictures, ha

and there we have it

mess maker

this was last week.

i came down stairs to find him covered in nesquick chocolate milk mix, covered.
i took it away asap to prevent  bigger mess but i should have left it for the picture, ha.

when he saw me his eyes got really big and he began shoving the powder into his mouth.

he was also trying to get his hand in the honey bottle that the lid had somehow come off of.

he brings joy to my heart.



on another note i made it through october of our 2013 photo album,
wahoooooooooooo!
i didn't work on it for a month but i'm determined to finish it by the time the olympics are over.

mostly making messes

more of the fruit explosion

seeing him with his milk and vacuum was just too cute

and now we begin the cheerio explosion

"nom nom nom, must stuff as much as i can in my face before she sees me"

and lastly he was NOT happy when i forced him out of the kitchen so i could clean up all the cheerios.

messes mostly make me laugh, and truly, it's fun for him to explore.
it's all learning to him.

this (messy) face kills me.

that's it :)