It's all downhill from here

According to this article, at least.

But regardless of whether or not I should have had black balloons to celebrate my golden birthday, I had a blast. Thanks to the ladies in my family for taking over baby duty for a night so the hubby and I could celebrate my birthday kid-free!

Hello, my name is...

Setting: A casual Sunday afternoon lunch at Potbelly's. The after-church crowd is just rolling in. Dad jumps in line to order sandwiches for his family while Mom scouts around for a booth.

Mom: (buckling Abby into her highchair at their table) Daddy went to get your sandwich. Do you want some water?

Abby: Wa-wer!

Kid in the booth behind us: (peering over at Abby) Hi, I'm Zach.

Abby: Hi! I Abby!

Fast-forward 30 minutes. Abby's finishing up her turkey sandwich when she notices a little boy behind her smiling at her.

Smiling little boy: (shaking goldfish crackers everywhere) Weeeee!

Abby: Hi! I Abby!

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Since when did she start having conversations? And where did she learn to introduce herself like that?

The trouble with big sisters...

...is that they tend to act like big sisters.

Don't worry. I had the situation totally under control.

Let's hear it for the boys

Caleb (7 weeks) and Sam (10 weeks) are looking forward to getting big enough to play with each other like their big sisters. See how happy Caleb is to have another guy to hang out with? (Even if Sam is an Auburn fan.) If we thought playing with the Abbys was fun, I guess the fun's about to double.

The girls were a little older when they first met (Abby Mae was about 3.5 months and Abby Jean was 6 months in the picture below) and have turned out to be great friends. Rebecca and I are pretty excited that our guys will have built in playmates too!

Octagonally speaking

It's frightening to suddenly realize that your 18-month-old understands everything you say. What's even more scary is realizing that this has been going on longer than you know.

Apparently Abby's been paying pretty close attention during playtime. I certainly didn't go out of my way to teach her what an octagon is. But she learned it anyway.

I share this video as evidence of my daughter's genius:

If you're happy and you know it...

We're finally starting to see a little return on our investment. Caleb's beginning to show some personality now, making him slightly less boring than your average unsmiling newborn.

At six weeks, he now coos, smiles, grunts and wiggles up a storm. He's getting enormous. And he's sleeping about 8 hours a night now, which makes for one happy mommy.

All in all, I'd say we've got another really great kid on our hands.

Aww, snap

We've got a little engineer on our hands. Abby has a new obsession: buckles.

Buckles on her carseat, on Caleb's carseat, on the baby swing, on her shoes, and anywhere else she can find them are destined to be manipulated by her pudgy little fingers until she hears that resounding "snap" that tells her she has succeeded in placing the small end into the buckle.

She's got an unusual amount of patience for this new activity, and can't be deterred when she's in the middle of trying to snap the two ends together. So far she can only fit them together, and has yet to figure out how to unsnap things. When she figures that out, we're in big trouble.

Two ugly hats

Attention Tech fans: It's my blog...I can say whatever I want. And no offense Uncle Matt, but I think these yellow jacket hats are ugly. But the people wearing them are pretty cute.

What's my favorite part about springing forward for daylight savings time? There's still plenty of sunshine left after Justin gets home from work, which means plenty of daddy-daughter time in the great outdoors. Even if it is still cold enough for mittens.

Bedhead

As a general rule, I am ordinarily opposed to pointless blog posts. This is the exception to that rule. The sole purpose of this post is to point out how absolutely adorable my son is waking up with a severe case of bedhead. Be honest now: are you this cute at 7:30 on Saturday morning?

Lessons in Sharing

Toddlers don't share. They may drop, grab, forget, throw, claim, and reclaim items. But that's not sharing. It may look like sharing in the beginning, but as the Abbys proved on our dinner date, with toddlers, anything that starts off cute and sweet is sure to quickly digress.

The $200 Grocery Challenge

I love a challenge.

As a stay-at-home-mom to two under two, my life is full of them. But every once in a while, an idea pops into my head and manages to stay there, through the diaper changes, the late night feedings, the car seat wrangling and the tantrum throwing, until it becomes an idea I can’t ignore. And that’s where this idea was born. There’s no better time than now to evaluate spending habits, and I chose to start with an area we can’t cut out of the budget, but could certainly cut down on: food.

A close examination revealed that my family of 3.5 consumes, on average, between $350 and $400 in groceries a month, for a grand total of about $4800 a year. We’re fairly frugal, so I realize we’re probably on the low end of the spending spectrum anyway, but there’s always room for improvement. I’m not one to pick an easy target, so I’ve set my goal at cutting my grocery budget (and consequently, my grocery spending) in half, bringing our monthly bill down to $200 or less.

The rules:

* I will not compromise my family’s health for this experiment. We will continue to eat three meals a day, and they will have some nutritional value.
* I will not drive all over creation for a good deal. The munchkins don’t love being in their carseats, and I don’t love listening to them whine when we’re in the van for too long.
* I will cut out non-essentials. We may forgo desserts for a while, and it may be a few weeks before I enjoy an ice cold Cherry Coke again. If I can save $2400 a year by sacrificing a few sweet treats, it will be worth it.
* I will not stop eating out. Eating out is a separate portion of our family budget, and does not relate to this challenge. Although it is worth noting that if I were to stick to my 30-day $200 menu, I would save not only $200 a month on my grocery bill, but would also save whatever we would have ordinarily spent on eating out as well. Alas, I can’t get Abby to sign off on giving up her Chick-Fil-A play dates, so we’ll save cutting back on the restaurant spending for another day.

How will I do it?

Careful menu planning. Thoughtful spending. And learning to say no to Abby's request for that $1.29 box of animal crackers in the check-out line.

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So that’s the big idea: cut my grocery spending in half, keeping it under $200 a month for breakfasts, lunches and dinners. If I can do it this month, I may try again in April. A penny saved, after all, is a penny I can invest in the kids’ college funds…or maybe put towards a pedicure.

I've started another blog to journal my efforts toward reaching my goal this month. Click here to follow along.