Yes, our lives are seriously boring.  So boring and filled with so many chores, that blogging often times gets out prioritized.  Take last week for example.   Here we did have excitement, drudgery, and way too much to do all in one week.

Chris and Don (Joel’s mom and step-dad), along with his uncle Bill, and “aunt” Emmy and “uncle” Dan all flew in from other states and converged in Everett for a vacation.  Thus, last Sunday, we had one big happy family reunion at our house.  Joel’s cousin Jaysa and second cousin Steve, wife Rachel, and 6 month old daughter Kayla, along with my parents and brother completed the picture.  I am so amazed at how loud our house can get – and that’s just the adults talking.  It’s truly impressive.  We have an abundance of pictures but have had little time in which to edit and prepare for publication.

Monday through Wednesday, the out of town extended family went site seeing and Joel and I enjoyed a typical week.  I stayed home on Monday to entertain the boys and run errands, I played volleyball on Tuesday, and then on Wednesday, we got ready to hand the boys off to Chris and Don because Malin left that afternoon for an East coast mini-vacation.  Poor Chris and Don – little did they know that when they agreed to babysit, they would be signing up for two 15 hour days.  You see, after work on Thursday, Joel and I took a CPR class and on Friday, we worked the pre-sale set up for my SNOMOMS club.  Of course, the boys behaved beautifully for them and kept them running.  Don had to take a mid-morning nap on Saturday just to recover.  Joel and I paid for it on Saturday though.  Saturday was one melt down after another by every member of this family – and I mean – every member of the family.  They continued constantly until around 6pm that night.  Finally, the sun broke through and Nicholas and Dexter started to laugh and smile again.  If that hadn’t happened, I’m not sure if Joel and I would still be alive today. 

Our happy boys stayed with us and Sunday turned out to be a peaceful and mellow day.  Nicholas went to church with me and Dexter stayed home with Joel.  It was our second attempt at one-on-one time with the boys.  Nicholas was great throughout church and quite the little charmer.  He hid behind mommy anytime someone smiled at him.  As soon as we left though, Mr. Chatterbox returned.  When we got home (2 hours later), we found Dexter still in his pajama top with no pants on.  Hmmmm.  I thought pants off day was on Friday, not Sunday.  Joel smiled sheepishly when I commented on Dexter’s appearance, and admonished me not to judge.  We also snuck in a visit at my parents’ home, a challenging hair cut (i.e., disastrous - when Marilyn saw it, she asked if Joel was drunk when he gave it), and bath time.  For the first time since before the boys came along, I slept the whole night through without waking once.  Around 7:30am this morning, I actually checked on the boys to make sure they were still alive.

Today has been a go go go day too.  Joel is attending the mandatory co-op parent meeting tonight.  I have volleyball tomorrow.  Wednesday I need to work at a post SNOMOM sale activity event in the evening.  Thursday is filled with appointments and on Friday, Dexter has his first Ocupational Therapy appointment.  We are getting Dexter checked out for sensory integration issues.

I am seriously tired just sitting and writing this post.  Lately, my memory sucks and words do not flow freely from my mouth or my fingers.  Like I said, nothing too exciting has happened lately.  Nicholas and Dexter are experimenting with words.  Some of the time we figure out what they are saying.  Other times they repeat the word six times, looking at us the the “are you an idiot” expression because we have no clue what they are saying.  Dexter ABSOLUTELY LOVES to try on shoes.  He puts them on and takes them off – over and over again.

Another thing the boys are hooked on is the PIXAR movie Cars.  We try not to let watching TV be a daily part of our routine, but it’s our standby for when the schedule is thrown and everyone needs a chance to chill out, which pretty much describes the time frame from when we left for Michigan until today, so we have seen that movie many times now.  I’m really curious as to how long we will be stuck on this movie before they move on to another.

That’s about it.  We’ll try to get pictures up.  It’s just that the blog is now competing with Christmas shopping, classes, volleyball, regular chores and precious little free time.   And, I do have to admit, I have come to rely on Malin’s blog to show you all the current going-ons in this house.  Hopefully, Annamaria will be a blogger too.