Good bye 2009

2009 had some low points.

Moving up to the 35-39 age bracket (oh wait, I did that with STYLE)...



Potty training times two scarred us forever (oh wait, NO MORE DIAPERS!)...



The Trying Threes (oh wait, Terrible Twos are over!)....



Losing grandpa Joe (no upside to that)...



Skin cancer (staying out of the sun will prevent future wrinkles) (believe me you don't want a picture of my scars on my pasty flabby belly).

A big part of me is so ready to say SUCK IT 2009... but 2009 had some serious high points.

An unforgettable trip to see the Obama inauguration...



A half marathon...



A beach trip...



Hours and hours at the pool (next year with a hat in the shade and SPF50)...



A family trip to the lake cabin...



One of the best Halloweens of all time...



Friends and more friends...






The best friend of my entire life...



My beautiful boys...






And my amazing family.




2009 was an incredible year. Thank you to everyone who has supported us, both here in and in real life, throughout the ups and downs. To some, this may seem like just a teeny tiny mommy website, but to me it has enriched 2009 in a way I can not put into words. 2010 promises to hold some amazing things and I hope you'll join me for the ride.

Happy New Year!

Holiday crafting, deconstructed

For the first time, the boys got to participate in (our) Case family tradition - the smashing of the gingerbread house. And let me tell you, they were an enthusiastic demolition team. Previous years have shown the best tool is a wide heavy mallet:



KERPOW!



BA BAM!



AWWWWWWW YEAHHHHHHHHHHHH!



SMASH!



THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!!



Jon and I each got a couple of good smashes on the gingerbread tree. I would highly recommend this as a way to compact your holiday crafts at the end of the season, as well as a way to release some of that pent up "too much time together as a family" energy.

Staycation, part two

Nate playing at Marbles Museum, downtown Raleigh, where we built a lego house so large both boys fit inside and pretended to be bears.



This photo reminds me of Nate sleeping with his long lashes.

Staycation

Waiting for the train at NC Museum of Life and Science.



(Day care is closed this week and Jon and I both have the week off. Having lots of fun as a family and getting stuff done.)

Dark Days challenge - another baby step

With guests in town and no CSA delivery, I never made one complete SOLE meal this week. We did have many bits and pieces throughout the week - roasted sweet potatoes, roasted acorn squash, Christmas breakfast with local eggs, cheese, and milk, apple cider, apple donuts. While not one complete meal, I'm glad to see more items in our pantry that are SOLE.

This morning I went to the Raleigh farmer's market with one of my boys Nate. The Cary farmers markets are closed from December through March, and the Raleigh farmer's market is a 20 minute drive from our house so we have always found a lot of excuses not to go. This challenge inspired me to stop procrastinating and go!

Even in winter, I was impressed with the farmer's market. The outdoor produce stands had quite a bit of variety and I was able to pick up lots of root vegetables and kale. At the indoor stands, I hit the jackpot. I found a seller with a large variety of dried beans and picked up some dried chickpeas, navy beans, black beans, and of course black eyed peas. I also found an awesome natural meats seller who sells SOLE pork, beef, eggs, milk, butter, and cheese. She had samples and told me quite a bit about the farms. Nate and I loved the sausage sample we tried and I now have an easy way to compliment our vegetable and fruit CSA with more SOLE items.

So... no meal pictures but this is my most exciting Dark Days week! And note to self, it is much easier to ask farmers questions when you don't bring along a 3 year old to manhandle their produce.

Christmas 2009 picture overload

Christmas 2009 will definitely be one to remember. It is probably the last year the boys will slowly open presents rather than tear into everything. It is probably the last year the boys will have simple, short lists. It is definitely the last time we will celebrate Christmas with two 3 year olds in the house, making this Christmas bittersweet (but mostly sweet). It was fantastic.



One of the true highlights was having Jon's mom Roxane visit. The meals, the babysitting, the presents, never getting tired of her grandkids... we'll keep hoping she'll move closer when she retires (because while we do love her, we're NEVER moving to Fargo).



And of course, Jon's grandma Gigi. How great is it that she is getting to celebrate Christmas with a fourth generation? Of all the group pictures, Alex picked this one special Just For You!



By far the boys' favorite present was Hungry Hungry Hippos. It is essentially a game designed for 3 year old boys. No one has to wait turns, the rules are simple, it involves banging on something, and it makes an incredible amount of noise. Coming in a close second was their odd Santa request - tennis racquets. We'll be spending a lot of Christmas vacation "tennising."

And I am having a wildly fun time getting to know the new camera (Canon 50D). The above shots are from the old camera because we wanted to make sure we got the shots. Our house is difficult to get indoor shots in winter because of the trees around it. But the new camera? Some great indoor shots so far.



(I know Jon hates me taking his picture but really, have you ever seen kinder eyes?)



And the Christmas overload post would not be complete without the classic Christmas tree photo. I am one lucky lucky woman this Christmas. There is something about three year olds that makes a house so happy and magical.



(And we were all so excited the boys were cooperative with photos that no one noticed Alex put his jeans on backwards. That small detail makes me love the photo even more.)

Christmas sneak peak

Hope those of you who celebrate it have a very Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve!

Jon's mom Roxane and Jon's grandma Marguerite (Gigi) are here and today is our Christmas eve. Santa is coming early so Roxane and Gigi can celebrate with us. Even though I still believe in Santa, I decided I had been such a good girl this year taking care of the boys on my own with Jon traveling so often that I bought myself a Christmas present - a new camera! I've still got a lot of playing around and researching to do but Merry Christmas to me!

The first good shot of the new camera:



I am super duper excited. I mean yes, I am excited about the camera but even more excited about spending so much time with my family over the holidays. I haven't decided how much blogging I will do over the holidays so I hope everyone has a fantastic holiday!

(Nate woke up with a fever this morning but seems to be doing fine with medicine. Because Casa Case is always a fever germ pit during December.)

(We saw Avatar 3D last night and it was INCREDIBLE It set the bar for technical achievements. I told Jon if it doesn't win every technical award, I will never watch the Oscars again.)

The Christmas program

Jon and I decided to forgo pictures and video of the Christmas program, instead we just enjoyed the moment. They combined both 3 year old rooms to sing four songs in the school gym, which meant there were parents of 30+ children sitting on the (peed on puked on) gym floor.

They brought the kids out and lined them up on little pieces of tape. Alex was right in front of us and frantically looked for us. We yelled and waved but he was too distracted by all the people. Eventually he saw us but a smile never happened, which we took as a bad omen. Nate was on the other side of the gym and as soon as he spotted us, he jumped up and down and cheered.

The singing started and OH MY, if you have never been in a room of 30+ 3 year olds SHOUTING Christmas carols at you, you must run and do this immediately. I was giggling so hard I had tears in my eyes. I've seen a lot of cute things in my life but this takes the cake. Some kids were shouting, some kids were dancing, some kids were singing, and there were quite a few kids crying.

After the first song, Alex broke down into hysterics and ran to sit with us. He eventually got brave enough to go back out there, but he just stared at the ground pouting and waiting for it to be over. Afterwards he told us he was really scared because there were so many people and they were "all looking at me!"

On the other hand, Nate sang and sang and sang. He was beaming when people cheered. After the program, he ran over to us and said, "Did you see all those people cheering for ME!" All night he talked about how everyone cheered for him because he did such a great job.

Pretty much what we expected, except I had no idea it would be SO SO SO CUTE!

Phone Photo Monday - the evolution of Santa

Year One with Santa, we were the hit of the Santa line. The boys were unbelievably cooperative and adorable. Everyone was excited to see TWINS!

Year Two with Santa was a disaster. The boys were fine until they got placed on Santa's lap. They would not stop screaming until they got away from the evil man. No one was excited to see TWINS!
Year Three with Santa was an EPIC DISASTER. They were screaming and bucking so much they wouldn't even get onto Santa's lap. We stood in line for an hour to end up with this picture. You know it's bad when Santa is looking like this.

Year Four of Santa, the boys totally understand who Santa is and why you talk to him. I happened to be in the Cary mall one night before Thanksgiving with the boys. Nate saw Santa and went running toward Santa. Alex took off running in the other direction. I yelled to Santa's helpers to watch Nate while I chased down Alex. By the time I got Alex and ran back to Santa, Nate was already sitting on Santa's lap telling him what he wanted. Alex refused to sit on Santa's lap and having gone through the pain of two screaming Santa photo shoots, I let Alex refuse.


We've since seen Santa at the mall a few times, the Pullen Park event, and will see him tonight at the Durham Life Science Santa Train. Every time we see him, Alex is deathly afraid and suggests writing a letter to Santa instead of sitting with him.

So that's what we did. Our town collects letters to Santa at town hall so we wrote letters, mailed them, and Santa already wrote the boys back. And I'm saving money for therapy when Alex sees the above picture as an adult.

(Forgive the laziness of this post but great-grandma Marguerite is already here, we're still working, and it's the holidays! No time to scan photos and find old copies of scanned Santa photos.)

Dark Days challenge and how to spend your sleety morning inside with twins

Last night Jon and I were both exhausted. He ended up being gone an extra day because of a mechanical plane failure, and between night time wake ups from the boys and extra chores, I was beat. We still managed to eek out a Dark Days meal:




* Ribeye from Grandview Farms
* Red potatoes from Cox Farms
* Roasted green beans - organic direct from farmer but from Florida, just a little too far to be considered local.

The potatoes are Pioneer Woman's Crash Hot Potatoes. It is a vegan recipe and you've never tried this recipe, YOU MUST. The basic steps are to boil the potatoes, smash them, then brush them with olive oil and roast them to get a crunchy texture. Since finding this recipe, it is my all-time favorite way to prepare potatoes. I'd recommend using small red potatoes for this recipe.

(The wine was from Italy, but I made the trek to Total Wine to buy some North Carolina wines for Christmas. We have a winery 10 minutes from our house but we found the majority of their wines use grapes from California.)

As a bonus, I know a lot of people are spending time this morning inside with their kids because of the weather. We got nasty nasty sleet last night and we were afraid it would freeze over so we've been hanging inside. I've mentioned over and over how twins at age 3 are easier than any other age so far FOR US because they play together and entertain each other. I now have video evidence as they did this for 30 minutes this morning:

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Twins rule!

Holiday program!

This is the first year the boys will get to participate in their school's holiday program and Jon and I are SO EXCITED! This afternoon can not get here fast enough. They will be wearing Christmas shirts made by Marta at Haus of Girls (check out her etsy shop):



For those who can not attend, here is a preview of one of the songs they will sing. It has been a long time since I've done a kitchen table video! This video sums up their personalities - Nate focused on the words and Alex focused on the gestures. This is also my mini shout out to Hanukkah, which the boys have enjoyed learning about and understanding who celebrates what holiday and why.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

One more week until Christmas and I could not be more excited. I say this every year with kids but I think this will be the best Christmas ever. It just gets sweeter and sweeter.

The moral of this story is: use Early Intervention!

This morning Alex had a speech evaluation. What's that? It seems like we've been talking about Alex's speech since his first word? Yes, yes we have. Since the first speech milestone, Alex has always been one of those kids on the border. He technically hits each speech milestone but just by a hair. We have been monitoring and tracking this, continually talking to his pediatrician. Shortly before the boys turned 3, we had the make the decision on whether to get him evaluated FOR FREE by Early Intervention or not.

You might remember from their 3 year checkup, the pediatrician did not feel his enunciation was bad enough to warrant calling Early Intervention but it needed to stay on the Worry List. The plan was to check in at 3.5 and if Alex's speech still wasn't 95% clear to complete strangers, then to follow up with speech therapy (NOT FREE) for an evaluation. Alex still struggles with some speech so I took him for his evaluation this morning.

The Very Good News: Alex's speech is considered in the average range, albeit on the lower end. They gave me a list of the letters he still does not pronounce correctly and a chart on when to expect those sounds to be perfected. The ones he does not pronounce correctly may not develop until age 7. They do not want to see him for treatment unless we feel there is a cause for concern. We should continue to be vigilant but he is "normal."

The Not Very Good News: $170 bill on the way out since speech therapy falls into a different category for most insurance policies.

With all the worry and time we have spent discussing this, we should have just called EI FOR FREE. Because you know what? That was just the bill for the evaluation. They wouldn't even book our appointment until they confirmed insurance and informed us how much it would most likely cost for treatment because speech therapy is that expensive and not well covered by insurance. I had to sign more paperwork before Alex's speech appointment than I did having to take him home as a preemie from the NICU.

But I do want to end this story on an up note which is that Alex is finally in the average range for speech. This is huge, very huge, and the VERY LAST preemie worry to check off the list. Mama would celebrate with a caramel brulee latte but my coffee money went to speech therapy. HA!

Perhaps this is why people co-sleep

December is always a busy travel time for Jon (Chicago and Austin this week) and with the holidays there are always extra chores on the to-do list. In addition December always seems to bring severe illness to the boys - vomiting, fevers, bad bad colds, ear infections - with very little sleep. This year I prepared in November, got our Christmas cards done, got our shopping list made. So it is that it is a week before Christmas and we are relaxed and done with everything, and the boys have yet to be sick so we've gotten plenty of rest.

Instead of staying up late wrapping presents or addressing cards last night, I was up late downloading missing Christmas songs from itunes and watching the last performance show of SYTYCD. I went to bed late (after midnight) as I always do when Jon is traveling. At 2AM, I woke up because I felt like something was wrong. I opened my eyes to find Nate staring me in the face. He needed to go to the bathroom but was disoriented, so I took him. He didn't want to go to sleep afterwards so I told him to get in bed with me and he fell right back asleep.

At 5:20 I heard Alex sobbing in the hallway that he was NOT TIRED! I asked if he wanted to come sleep with me. He climbed into bed and went right back to sleep. Everyone slept until 7:30 then the boys woke in the most joyous morning mood ever, laughing, cuddling, and extremely cooperative with the morning scramble. It was this amazing gift to wake up slowly to two kids in good moods and almost made up for the two sleep disruptions.

Then they said they wanted to go to Starbucks to see the baristas since daddy was gone and that's when I realized I've been hitting the caramel brulee lattes a little too often this month.

It's the most wonderful time of the year

In the fall when we were contemplating a weekend activity for the boys, we originally thought we would put Alex in soccer and Nate in music. Alex loves all sports and Nate loves music. The boys have music activities at school so after much discussion, we decided getting them in organized sports was the right choice. We've been happy with the decision as one parent takes the kids, giving the other parent some much-needed alone time.

The boys' school is putting on a holiday presentation on Friday (they learn about kwanzaa and hanukkah as well as Christmas). They've been telling us about it and their class is singing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. One of the best parts of this holiday season is that Nate can not stop himself from singing Rudolph. He walks around singing it all the time. Walk up the stairs? Rudolph. Sit coloring? Rudolph. I mean, we knew he loved music but this has been such a surprising treat this year.

Discussions are back on the table about what to do about classes. Unfortunately classes after work are not an option, so it leaves only the weekends. We're going ahead with soccer for January and February. After that we may take a break to hit up music class. In the meantime, we have an ipod playing Christmas music almost all the time the boys are home. And we listen to Christmas music in the car. And when it's quiet, we listen to Nate singing. Having kids in the house is making the holiday season magic all over again.

Quite possibly the cheesiest Case family photo ever

I mentioned the Pullen Park Christmas event had professional photographers. Since all of the pictures were taken at night, I was ogling their cameras to check out their equipment and hoping to learn some tricks. But guess what? I already know this trick of taking not-good photos:

I love that Jon has the cheesiest head tilt and smile, I have deer in headlights look, Alex looks like he is eating something, and Nate actually looks great if he were in focus.

As much as I joke, it is hard to quickly snap family pictures in the dark and expect any great results. We said yes to every opportunity to get our picture taken and got one semi-decent group shot on the last train ride:

And I really can't give the photographers a hard time because I like this picture of Jon and Alex.

Quite seriously, for $7 a person to ride the train at least 5 times, ride the carousel twice, ride the boats once, do a variety of arts and crafts, listen to live Christmas music, see (but fear) Santa, and end up with some semi-decent group picture? One of the best bargains of the Christmas season.

Dark Days Challenge, week four

I have telecommuted full-time for four years and I often get tired of my same at-home lunches. I was inspired by Dark Days to make a quick local lunch.



* Eggs from Latta Family Farm scrambled with Chapel Hill Creamery Hickory Grove cheese.
* Sunflower bread from The Bread Shop. Not organic, but local.
* Quite possibly the last German Johnson tomato to be harvested in North Carolina. I discovered these earlier this year through Papa Spud's and became completely hooked. They are now one of my favorite foods. I saw this one at Earth Fare and immediately pounced.
* Apple cider from Perry Lowe Orchards
* Apple butter I made from mixed North Carolina apples, also from Perry Lowe Orchards. I added some organic sugar, also not local.

I hit two stumbling blocks when shopping. My first issue was procuring eggs. Earth Fare had two options: organic but not local (within 150 miles), local but not organic. The organic option would still be considered regional since the eggs were from neighboring Virginia. It's hard to know in this kind of situation what the "better" choice is. Personally I would prefer organic but bought the local eggs. I am still on the hunt for SOLE eggs.

The other stumbling block is my natural tendency to want to use everything up before purchasing new. One example this week is the sugar in the apple butter. I already had organic sugar in the house. I'd rather use that and not meet my challenge than purchase new sugar just to get a 100% local meal. This issue should hopefully resolve itself over time as we use up our pantry items and replace them with SOLE items.

The meal was so tasty we'll be having this for lunch today as well, adding some broccoli to the eggs.

Pullen Park Christmas, year three

Pullen Park's holiday event is one of our favorite family traditions. Not only is the entire park decorated in Christmas lights, they have live music and Santa, and admission gets you unlimited boat, carousel, and train rides. We went last night and it was truly a magical night.

This being our third year, we had a solid plan. We got there as soon as it opened to quickly cycle through some rides without long lines. We grabbed a seat in front of the music to get food when we started to lose energy. And we went with the flow. When the boys wanted to play on the playground, we let them. When they refused to see Santa, we agreed since we saw no reason to repeat last year's fiasco. We rode the train an insane number of times and even got Alex to FINALLY sit on an animal on a carousel.

This year they had professional photographers taking photos, so hopefully more photos are coming soon. In the meantime, please vote and tell me whether you like this picture better in color or B&W. Like I said, truly magical to get them both so cooperative.



Can't decide!




And to top off the evening? I won a beer koozie from Moe's, my very first beer koozie!

Case boys, the ultimate product testers

One of the upsides of having a kid like Alex, a kid able to quickly find product flaws, is that he is a great product tester. And when Nate sees Alex doing something to an item, he does the same thing. If it stands up to the Case boys' use/abuse, it is a product I would recommend.

One of the items that makes our life most convenient is this kiddie light switch from One Step Ahead:

Both of my boys are shorties so they can not yet reach light switches. With this switch, they can easily turn the light on and off by themselves. Between the two of them, it seems like someone is constantly using the bathroom and/or washing their hands so this saves me and Jon from constantly going back and forth to bathrooms to turn lights on/off.

On the babyproofing front, this is the doorknob cover we use on the front door, also from One Step Ahead. I would say 50% of the ADULTS who come over need help getting out the front door. It is impossible to get off the doorknob and their tiny hands aren't big enough to use the doorknob with this design:

Also on the babyproofing front, this lazy susan lock from One Step Ahead RULES. The first time I tried to unlock it, I had to call Jon (on a business trip to California!) to ask him how it worked.

But what is the point of product testing if you don't find products to break? Here's a nightlight (again from One Step Ahead) I would never, ever recommend to anyone.

The concept of the nightlight is great. You plug it into the wall and the prong cover prevents kids from touching the prongs. But one day we walked into a SIXTEEN MONTH OLD twin room to find the nightlight missing. Gone. We searched the entire room and found it under Alex's bed with one of the prongs broken. He had been plugging and unplugging it from the wall until the prong broke! We were horrified (and oddly impressed).

But let me finish up this post on a positive note. If you are potty training kids, you must buy Nature's Miracle:

It is a stain and odor remover. I haven't met the body fluid stain that it can't beat. At $4 for this huge spray bottle, it is one of the cheapest stain removers on the market. My beautiful new fluffy rug? Came out of the wash looking brand new with pre-treatment from Nature's Miracle.

Where can you buy Nature's Miracle? At the pet store. It is a pet stain and odor remover. I walked into my local pet store and asked where I could find it. They asked me what kind of animal I was trying to clean up after. I said, "Two potty training boys."

WAIT FOR IT

Shock and horror on the teen's face. Pretty much can't go back to that pet store.

Disclaimer: I was not compensated and/or contacted by any of these companies to use and/endorse these products.