Two sleeping babies!

As a mother, I'm often tired.  There, I did it -- the understatement of the world.  I can rest easy now ;). But when both kids take a nap at the same time, I feel accomplished.  Getting the house cleaned, getting them both fed 3 meals and two snacks a day, playing, reading and teaching them all seem to help a little, but I REALLY feel accomplished when I get them both asleep at the same time and get 30 minutes to myself to read my blogs and answer a few emails.  YES!

In other news, I've posted a whole two days in a row!  A new record!  Yesterday my children ran and played in the mud for about an hour.  I then hosed them down and stripped them before bathing them.  I don't know whether that makes me and awesome mom or a terrible one, but I find it hard to really care either.  It's amazing how much I"ve changed in the almost 4 years since I had Sydney.  If someone had told me that I'd let my kids run practically naked in the mud for an hour in February I would probably have rolled my eyes and said dream on. The phrases one utters as a parent continue to confound me.  For example, today the words "get out from under the car, it's not a safe hiding place!" actually came out of my mouth.  I never thought I'd have to utter words like that in one sentence.  "Your brother is not a dog!"  Jems I tell you.  I need to be writing this stuff down... I just know it's going to be funny when I'm older, or when I have the next baby and am too tired to think straight...

Also, we built the kids this the past two weekends:

Please disregard the tools and wood still laying on the ground.  Apparently in my awesomeness I failed to take a picture of the completed product with Jeff not still building it.  Here's an interior view:

It's not the exact one, but ours is from this company: http://www.swing-n-slide.com/230-Englewood-Wood-Complete-Play-Set.aspx.  We put it all together ourselves and it took about 20 hours.  It was a huge pain with two kids whining at us, but was definitely worth it in the end!  Also, we got it on sale before Christmas...

We have big plans for the backyard!  Phase one (move the septic sprinklers) and phase 2 (swingset) are done... so now we need to install a real sprinkler system, put in grass, plant some trees (3 are getting cut down), put in a big raised-bed vegetable garden.  Yikes, I'm tired and broke just thinking about it.

Happy Friday!