I hear that phrase from all my moms of smaller kids. So, I have been using my blog for that. I still haven't been doing a very good job of writing it all down!!

The latest: we've been having conversations with A & P about how Jesus lives in our hearts. The other day, I laid my head on Annie's chest and told her "I can hear your heartbeat." She shoved me away and exclaimed, "quit listening to my Jesus!!!" We also have a few friends who are pregnant, and we've talked about how babies live in the mommies' tummies. Parker told me the other day that "Jesus lives in my tummy."

So cute. Hope you get to chuckle today...

Grandma Mary and I have been doing yoga classes at 24 hour fitness for a couple of months now. The girls were so fascinated with our practice, that I signed them up for our community's rec. center "Yoga for Kids" class. They've learned so much through that class.

One day, while on our way to adult yoga, the girls asked Grandma if she would take them to the bathroom before going to the kids' club. Grandma reports that after she helped them use the potty and wash their hands, each of the girls placed their hands in prayer position, nodded, and told her "namaste'." Grandma nearly fell on the ground into a laughing happy baby pose it was so funny!!

It's been awhile since I've posted anything. Since this blog has spoken about potty training so much, I thought it would be a wonderful place to share how well the girls are doing! They hardly ever have pee accidents anymore, and just a few poo accidents. We went to the Denver Zoo Saturday, and not one accident! I was so stoked. The funniest moment we've had was when Annie made her first poo. I was sitting on the edge of the tub, Dad, Parker, and I were all cheering, and she bent over on my lap so I could wipe her. Before I could grab the t.p., her sister grabbed it and wiped Annie for me. I laughed so hard. I told Parker thank you, that I was Annie's mom and that I could handle that job.

Sorry it's been FOREVER since I've written a post, but with work, family, church, etc., etc.,... oh well. Anyway, I have a funny "overheard in the car" statement. I was driving, and I asked Annie to count to ten. She counted to five a couple of times, then I suggested six, and she counted again. She said, "one, two, three, four, five, six...then exclaimed "six is all we need, whoo-hoo!!!" It was so funny.

To brag a little, they can both actually count to twenty. :)

Merry Christmas to all of my loyal blog readers. We had a fun-filled morning, waking up at 2 a.m. and coaxing the children back to bed. It worked, and we eventually rolled out of bed to see the bounty left by Santa at 7 a.m.

After all the hard work, energy, and money I spent on the girls' gifts, the thing they've played with the most so far today is a piece of green yarn tied to a stick. (It's their "fishing poles.") I could have saved so much money... :)

Hope you all have a very fun day, and I hope to post some pictures later!

This year, Christmas came a little early for the girls and me. At Thanksgiving, Aunt Frazzled and Bedazzled left us some Christmas gifts. We placed them under our tree for a day or two before the curiosity (and good timing--no adults watching) was too much for them. They did not rip the paper, but they opened all the gift bags, including my present. Oh well, I should be proud they lasted more than a day! We have since placed all the other gifts out of reach.

Thanks for the great gifts, Aunt F & B!! We loved 'em!

I recently became a published author in the legal world. I wrote a chapter on the federal sector EEO process for a continuing education publication. While mine was the shortest chapter in the book, about 16 pages, I was pretty proud of the accomplishment due to all the obligations in my life. (I even mentioned my twins in my bio.)

If you've seen the Steve Martin movie "The Jerk,*" you can get some idea of the reaction I had when I received my copy of the book. "The new phone books are here, the new phone books are here!! I finally have my name in print! I am somebody!" *Greg, you still need to give me a tutorial on how to post links!!

Parker says to Annie, "you're a genius." Annie replies, "I'm not a genius, I'm adorable." Parker says, "I'm a genius." Annie remarks, "I'm a genius, too."

Grandma and I about split our guts laughing.

Have you noticed the geniuses who advertise on my blog? All the ads I've seen relate to potty training or nursing or something baby-related. Do you think they're trying to send me a message? How do they know I (and even their Gran-Nanny) have given up altogether on potty training?? Are they TRYING to make me feel more guilty?

Guilt. That's something I've learned that comes with motherhood as prominent as stretch marks. It doesn't matter what decision you make, it is always accompanied by a modicum of guilt. I guess we moms just have to do the best we can, get over it, and help our kids find good therapists someday. :)

Here's a good scary story for you. We put our little darlings down for a nap a couple of days ago, and they fussed for 15 minutes and then became quiet. I assumed they had fallen asleep, but when I heard them laughing ten minutes later, I became nervous. Sure enough, as I walked upstairs, I saw a trail of toilet paper coming from our bathroom winding toward the girls' room. Annie and Parker had not unrolled one roll of toilet paper. Being twins, they decided to unroll one APIECE! Bill put on his rubber gloves and unloaded the potty while I held the trash bag and picked up the clean pieces. At the time, I was so distraught, I didn't think to take a picture. Twins can be very dangerous!

Scary tale #2: this morning, I gave Annie and Parker their usual favorite breakfast--toast. After they finished, Parker asked me for pickles. I said, "really, pickles??" She replied with an enthusiastic, "yeah!" I fed her three pickles. She asked for more pickles. I cut her off after six pickles. I think she takes after her Uncle Grey, because he used to eat really wierd stuff for breakfast, too. Of course, Uncle Greg eats wierd stuff all the time...

As you can see, TAOTLM has a new look. It's going to take some getting used to. Not sure I like all the ads that came with the free template, though...

For those of you who don't know, two months ago, my mother recently moved two doors down from me to be closer to her twin grandgirls--to watch them while their mother works so they won't have to go to daycare. While we have done quite a few fun outings with just the two of us (we saw a movie and went yard-saling to name a couple), today is the first day that she has taken the whole day "off" from the girls. It seems our 2 1/2 year olds have given Grandma the stomach flu.

Welcome to ALL the joys of raising toddlers, Gran-Gran!

Since Parker's "so into" going to the potty, she has decided to help mommy train her sister. I think Annie would say "thanks, but no thanks."

Week before last, I was in a week-long training that resulted in my certification as an EEOC investigator. The training was held in Denver, but we had "classmates" from all over the country. Evidently, I was the only one in the room with a wonderful Southern accent.

One of the exercises we participated in was interviewing a witness as a class. The trainers had us take turns asking one question or giving one piece of information. When my turn came around, my duty was to "swear in" the witness. Since no language was provided, I came up with my own lingo. I instructed the witness to raise her right hand and repeat after me, "I do declare..." I guess the way I said it was extremely cute, because after those three words came out of my mouth, the whole class giggled. It didn't dawn on me why they were laughing at first, but I soon realized it was due to my awesome accent. I then said, "I know, I know," and I continued on. Life can be hard being such a cute Southerner. :)

and a pot full of pee! Warning: a potty training update follows.

My little Parkie-bear is progressing along with her training very nicely. She goes pee-pee on the potty about 4-5 times per day. (She'd probably do a lot more if Mommy were better at reminding her.) Whenever someone goes, we have a big celebration and the little girl gets a balloon. I thought it was a brilliant idea of Grandma's to do that, since I didn't like the idea of giving a sweet treat as a reward. Little Park has been going so much lately, though, we are having difficulty walking around in our living room because of all the balloons. For that fact, and for the paranoia I have of the choking hazards, I have decided to switch to Princess stickers. Hope she likes 'em. I plan to let her decorate her "throne" with them. :)

My good friend Amy (link to her blog in the side column) tagged me a while back to reveal six quirks about myself. So, here goes:

1. I am nearly ALWAYS barefoot if the temperature is over 70 degrees. It doesn't matter if I'm walking in the grass or on the sidewalk in front of my house. I get a little sad when I have to put on shoes when leaving the house.

2. If it's colder than 70 degrees, I almost ALWAYS wear athletic socks. Sometimes I'll wear slippers, but it's mostly athletic socks. I always wear shoes when I go outside, too.

3. I can say the alphabet backwards really, really fast.

4. Like Amy, I, too have to have perfect conditions before I can sleep. I build my "nest" every night, consisting of two pillows and one body pillow. This was a point of contention early in my marriage, but that's the resulting compromise. (I used to sleep with a six-pillow configuration, and my mom told me I've been building "nests" for many years.)

5. Don't tell anyone, but I'm only ticklish if someone is holding down one of my arms. I was more than a little miserable when Bill first figured this one out.

6. I have perfect "color memory." I can remember the exact color or shade when asked. This skill came in handy when I was little and my mom sewed a lot. She would have me look at a piece of fabric, and I would pick the exact shade of thread for her at the store. She never had to bring scraps.

I hereby tag my brother, one family member from family blog, my friend Roo, mama, Michelle, Susan, Uncle Ron, and any others who read this post. Ha, ha. :)

I have received many comments about the picture I put as background to the title of my blog. The reviews have been mixed. Some nameless family members said it "freaked them out." Other family and friends have remarked it is "so cute." One has petitioned me to "reconsider" the picture. One said it was "so cool," and another said it was neat and it looked like I downloaded the pic from another website. (FYI, I didn't, those are my girls and their bears who are both named "Missy.")

After much consideration, I have decided the picture stays for now. Sorry, brother and sis-in-law. ;) I do promise to change it periodically, though.

Lately, I've been reading a book on productivity. So far, it has been very good, but I don't want to recommend it until I finish reading it and test it out. So far, however, it has made me markedly less productive, since I have been reading the book instead of doing work. I know it will be challenging for me to implement because it involves a lot of front-end planning work. If you are familiar with my heritage, you know that would be difficult for any Tolleson to undertake. If you know me personally, you know it will be against my highly procrastinating grain. I think it will change my life (and my family's lives) for the better, so I am finding my motivation.

I am very excited right now because I just finished writing a ten-page motion. I have not done many of these, and it feels good to be doing more "lawyerly"-type work. I think I did a decent job on it, but I wonder how much better it could have been if I were fully rested and stress-free. This way of thinking is pretty crazy, because I know of no person who is actually fully rested and stress-free; I do, however, know a few lucky ones who are a little more rested and have lighter stress. To all who may read this post: may your productivity increase, your fun increase, your rest be adequate, and your stress be low. Peace.

She woke up this morning still in pain and refusing to put her weight on her right foot. Unfortunately, Bill also woke up with a great pain in his back. I decided to call our chiropractor (who, by the way, has an identical twin-chiropractor sister). She called in a prescription for some x-rays of Parker and made appointments for treatment and an hour-long massage for Bill. (Maybe my back's starting to hurt, too!?) So, Annie and I loaded Bill and Parker into the car, dropped Bill at the chiro's, and took Parkie to the x-ray place. She was a little scared but was very, very brave. They had an aquarium with all the "Nemo" fish in it, so the girls were in heaven. We finally got home at 10:30, Bill was asleep by 11:00, and the girls and I drifted off at 12:30--before having lunch. We all slept until 3:00! Bill had taken the day off in order to "organize" things and "catch up" on things. All any of us caught up on was sleep. Very nice, though. The chiropractor called us at 4:00 and told us Parker had no broken bones, and that I could tell her it was ok to walk on it if she wanted to. We had company over for dinner, and she finally walked on it after supper. She's doing great now. Thanks for all the prayers.

Oh, she also mooned us this evening. As we were playing outside, she and Annie had very wet diapers. Since we'll be potty training soon, I just stripped them down and left their dresses on. They've been in to Princess "bowing" lately, so Parker bowed to the neighbor's house. She also picked up her dress and stuck her little white tushie out at us. I haven't laughed like that in quite a while.

Today was Mother's Day Out at church. Luckily, my frequent babysitter Patrick is in charge of the program. Since he lives so close to us and the church is a little bit of a drive, he drives my car and takes my girls for me. When they came back home today, he reported Parker had an incident. He said she was involved in a brutal game of ring-a-round the rosies. Apparantly, she fell and twisted her ankle good. She had fallen asleep in the car, and when she got home, her ankle looked fine. When she awoke, however, she cried her poor little head off for an hour. I bent her ankle around, moved her toes, twisted her knee, and worked her hips. No pain. When she stands on it, though, she screams. (We'll be taking her to the doctor tomorrow.)

When I was talking to my mom on the phone this evening, she said that when my brothers were about three or four, Grey hurt his leg. She informed she got out a little wagon, and Greg took him anywhere he wanted to go. I thought, "genius"!!! So, I got out my little umbrella stroller. Annie pushed Parker around for about 15 minutes, but since she is two-and-a-half, she then started asking, "Annie's turn, Annie's turn?!" Oh well, it was worth a try.