It's Spring!

Today we ventured to Hafer Park for a fun Easter egg hunt with some friends. It combined two of the girls' favorite things in the world right now: eggs and ducks (and of course friends and sunshine, too). It was a beautiful day and yet another reason to be thankful for this stupendous change of seasons.

Campbell admiring the mama duck that was sitting on her eggs above us. 

To say Sophie loved the ducks would be a huge understatement. She was glued to this spot for a good ten minutes and would only turn around to say "Duck! Cack, cack" Hilarious. I think she would have been more than OK if we took one home with us.

Mom, these are like the greatest things ever.

Hi duckies.

What a fun morning with our friends!

Yay for Easter eggs!

All this candy for me?!

Campbell is my professional egg hunter. She loved putting all the eggs in her bucket. Sophie lost interest after she cracked one open to find a laffy taffy, and spent the rest of the hunt trying to pry it open.

Canon dominating the egg hunting.

The girls with their loot.

All the kiddos

Where'd the candy go?

Today was such a fun warm up for our Easter weekend festivities, and I can't wait to take my little duck lovers back to their new favorite spot. ;)

xoxo

Funny

I'm sure you all have seen these before, but I can't get enough of them! Whoever comes up with these is simply hilarious.

My oh my how this is my life.

I heart Hunger Games.

This has become an ongoing joke between Kyle and I. Anytime one of us suggests something the other doesn't like, out comes the monopoly money line. 

xoxo

Giuliana and Bill Update

Ok, if you have followed this blog for any amount of time, you know I'm a pretty big Rancic fan. There's a lot to love about this darling couple, but mostly I just love how unashamed Giuliana has been about opening up to the world about her struggles with infertility, and now sadly, breast cancer. For those of you who don't know, they endured one (maybe two?) miscarriages through In Vitro Fertilization, and then while undergoing more hormone therapy, discovered she had breast cancer. She just recently underwent surgery to remove both breasts along with the cancer; and of course she has handled it with tremendous grace and strength. I wanted to share this article with you in case you were at all like me and interested in hearing about what's going on in their lives. I absolutely love G's response to people questioning her willingness to expose her battles and wondering if she was scared that this would forever define her:

"I'm going to do so many things that it won't define me."


Love that. So weird that I don't even know them, but I hope so badly that they get their baby and happy ending someday.

Happy Wednesday!

xoxo

Mom Must-haves

Since we are welcoming a new baby into our home soon, I've been doing some re-evaluating when it comes to essential baby items. I love reading posts about moms' must-haves, so I thought I'd share a few things with you that we love in the Nevels house. Obviously bottles/sippy cups and pacifiers were/are still a part of our everyday needs, as well. There are just a gazillion different types, and I've found everyone seems to find a type that they like. I also condensed the list down to some things that have not only saved us money, but a few are recommendations I've received from other moms that I didn't know about pre-babies.

Wal-Mart Diapers

A few months ago, my friend, Lauren, was raving about how these are all she uses with her kids. I was skeptical at first, but decided I'd give them a go (84 diapers for around $13 seemed like a good enough reason to try them out). Boy am I ever glad we did. Not only do I like them better than Huggies and Pampers, we now save a heap on diapers each month. I do still use Huggies overnight for nighttime, but these hold up super great throughout the day. 

Beudreax's All Natural Butt Paste

Ok, I realize I'm probably the 4 billionth mom to love this stuff, but I have to say I'm a new found fan of it. Is it weird that I always thought it was just a cute gift to give expectant moms? I truly thought it was probably not all that effective, just a cleverly named diaper rash cream. However, Sophie randomly started getting diaper rashes around 6 months, and after trying approximately 54 different diaper creams (including some prescription ones), I decided to give this a try. Within 24 hours her rash was gone! I have to say, the key for us was getting the all natural type. The other types seemed to be not as effective.

Aveeno Baby Lotion

My sister introduced me to Aveeno lotion this winter when my girls' skin started to get some dry patches. We get the thick kind that comes in this tube. I was using California Baby lotion for forever (can't get enough of the yummy smell), but it wasn't cutting it for their wintery dry skin along with Johnson and Johnson. This stuff is amazing. Their skin was back to its silky smoothness within a day or so. Only bad part is that it's fragrance free, and I happen to love for my babies to smell like lavender after their bath, but it's well worth it.

Gerber flat fold burp cloths

Obviously it's impossible to burp infants without some type of burp cloth. I was told before we had the girls that we would need around 30 burp cloths if we didn't want to be doing laundry constantly. Turns out, that person was right. I got some as gifts, but decided to purchase some extras. I had planned on getting the tri-fold cloth diapers that you always see, but by accident, grabbed a bunch of the flat fold cloth diapers at Walmart. Turns out, I'm so happy I did! I actually like them way better than the tri-fold ones. I felt like the tri-fold ones were tricky to get to stay on your shoulder, harder to use when wiping up spit-up, and overall just thicker and more awkward to use. I love these so much we still keep 4-5 in a drawer in our coffee table for spilled milk, drool, runny noses, etc. This seems like such a weird thing to be picky about, but it really made a big difference to us as much as we used them (for the record, I would have loved to have had 30 of the Aden and Anais ones if money weren't an option!).

Boon Drying Rack

So much prettier than the ugly white bottle drying rack I had forever. And now holds all of our sippy cups, as well for easy access. And you bet your butt I won't be using a bottle sterilizer this time, either (what are dishwashers for?). Don't ask, but the crazy first time mom in me thought it wasn't as effective as steam sterilizing the girls' bottles. So call me a lazy mom, but no more crazy sterilizing for me.

If we're being honest, along with bottles, pacifiers, swaddles/sleep sacks, and clothing, are there that many other items you use on a daily basis with your baby? I fully support minimalism when it comes to babies. 

I'd also love to hear any of your mommy secrets/must-haves! Feel free to share...

xoxo

Why I love MDO

This is what I call several hours with no kids well-spent. Could only be improved with a margarita by the pool, but I'll take what I can get.

P.S. Have you read the Hunger Games series? If not and you need a great 3 reads, I highly suggest them! Bonus: the movie comes out in about 10 days, and unlike the Twilight movies, I will not feel bad having Kyle watch it with me because the whole book is basically a bloody, intense fight-to-the-death (and yes, I still loved it!). Hope all of you Oklahomans are loving these relaxing, warm temperatures as much as me. :)

xoxo

Preparing for Baby

So I'm still pretty sure the girls have next to no idea how much their little worlds are going to be rocked come this July. Come to think of it, I'm not sure I'm still entirely prepared for three children under the age of two. Can anyone be? If you know of a way, please let me know. As for now I'll just stick to daily panic attacks. The nursery is still a dream on a pinterest board, but with the girls' ever growing fondness for babies and baby dolls, we are at least maybe making a little progress in preparing them.
They L-O-V-E playing in his room more than any other room. Probably because there are so many fun things in there like a bed to climb on, swing, and bottles (stored in the closet for now). This morning they decided to bring their creepily large (and might I add favorite) baby doll into baby brother's room with them; and then proceeded to do really cute things with him/her.

Sophie giving the baby a bottle. 

Easily both girls' favorite thing to play with currently. 

And of course baby needed to go for a swing...

Hugs for baby (followed shortly by throwing baby against the door. Oops.)

And this is just a picture to show how insanely lucky I am to have a sister who has had two boys. Jackpot! It also doesn't hurt that her two boys are the two best dressed little guys I know. Needless to say we will not be buying much for the little man for awhile.

I will say I now completely understand why moms are so unconcerned with preparing for their second (or in our case, third) child. I have such a sense of relief knowing that we have nearly everything we need, and after surviving life with two infants, realizing that 3/4 of the stuff at Babies R Us is a shameless marketing scam that preys on the fears of first-time expectant mothers. In fact, if you want a very accurate depiction of things that are not needed, I suggest you read this blog post. I agree with nearly all of it, except the diaper genie and crib bedding. We happen to be diaper genie lovers, and I can't resist the cuteness of crib bedding. Sorry, American Pediatric Association. 

So hopefully soon we will get around to finishing baby brother's room. In the meantime, I'll just work on bullying my husband into finalizing a name (we are thisclose to making it official)!

xoxo

Life With Twins: A Guest Post

The summer before my junior year of college, I was fortunate enough to get an internship with Brainworks advertising. It was so much fun learning the ins and outs of advertising and a great experience for me. I met several wonderful women during this internship, including Malena Lott. She was such a fun, energetic person to be around and even gave me my first, second, and I believe, last modeling jobs. Ha! She also happens to be a really great author of several books, and just recently re-released one of her books, The Stork Reality. I bought this book forever ago when she first released it, but never read it since, well, I wasn't a mom and didn't know if I would enjoy it; but now I absolutely can't wait to get started on it! I noticed that she also included an infertility story as part of the second edition of this book that I'm particularly excited to read. To go along with her book release, she has been doing a series of motherhood posts on her blog, "The Stork Reality: Secrets from the Underbelly."If you are a mom or mom-to-be, you would certainly enjoy reading the wide variety of posts from all different types of moms. Recently she asked me to do a post for the blog on twins. I was thrilled and honored to be able to write a post reflecting on our life with twins. The post can be found HERE. If you find her page on facebook, you will be able to follow the other motherhood posts (and find info where you can purchase the book if you'd like). As I said before, she is a great author! If you're looking for a quick, fun read, her book Dating Davinci is awesome. I read it in 2 days a few summers ago.

So thank you again, Malena, for the privilege of letting me post on the Stork Reality blog. I hope you all check out one or more of her fabulous books!

xoxo

Viva Las Vegas

Well, Kyle and I officially survived our first trip away from the girls. I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by this vacation. As opposed to every other vacation I've been on, I was actually kind of dreading this one. As much as I knew it was much needed, and perhaps the last one we will be taking for awhile, the thought of leaving the girls for 3 days and 2 nights was really daunting. Would my in laws be completely worn out? Overwhelmed? The girls were both also battling coughs, and Sophie had an ear infection. What kind of mom leaves her sick kids to go to Vegas? However, I have to say that the getaway was an absolute blast, in spite of the fact that I was pregnant and in Vegas (need I say more?). It was relaxing, refreshing, fun, and felt like Kyle and I were on our honeymoon all over again. I got a prenatal massage, experienced the insanely amazing shopping, read, slept in, and went to an awesome Cirque Du Soleil show (that Kyle scored third row seats for).  I actually didn't worry one bit once we arrived and knew the girls were in beyond wonderful hands with my in laws. It truly was a million times more wonderful than I ever imagined it would be, and is definite proof that there is indeed something for everyone in Vegas. In fact, it was so fun, the only pics I managed to take were with my phone. Oops. :) Here's a few random ones...

View from our room (we stayed at The Mirage).

Baby boy and I reading The Hunger Games. Seems silly, but both nights I turned in fairly early while Kyle played craps so I could relax and read for as many hours as I wanted (a luxury I rarely get while home). :)

A few of the items purchased for the girls, and one for baby boy. Poor guy is still taking a backseat to the girls in the shopping department. :)

The last time we were in Vegas, we discovered BLT Burger at The Mirage. It's easily the best burgers we've ever had and the most adorable little retro diner. And the only thing better than the burgers are their milkshakes. Kyle and I's personal favorite would be the twinkie milkshake, or heaven in a glass. We also put $100 on the Thunder and won! I wish I could say Kyle's adventures on the craps tables were equally successful...but no. ;)

Mmmmm.....

Lunch on the strip

And...the bump at 22 weeks taken the morning we left. 

One thing I found interesting about this trip was how much I enjoyed the little things like being able to read my book on the plane, ordering room service, going anywhere, anytime we wanted (no nap schedule to deal with), and of course sleeping in/taking naps. These are all things I would have enjoyed pre-kids, but now they seem like such a luxury. Needless to say, Kyle and I were planning our next vacation on the plane ride home! :)

xoxo