Before we left....

Surprise!   It's a post!  We've been so busy since we moved in.  I don't know if we will ever get fully moved in, but alas, we are here in Augusta and functioning!

Before we left, we made a quick trip up to the U.P. to visit with Erici's grandparents. Eric is so fond of Michigan. We loved bringing up the kids to have a little fun in the forest and to see Grandma and Grandpa Fase. Below are some pics of our quick trip.

HeHe! Brandt showing off his tush!

While the kids took a nap, Eric and I got to hang out together and we noticed this family of geese.  See the babies?

A rare moment with the hubs

Lil Miss trying pears for the first time

On our way to have dinner with Grandma and Grandpa Fase, we stopped for the boys to see the Ever Flowing Wells (I think that's the name of it).  They really liked it.

Hanging out with Grandpa Fase and going for a ride on the ottoman.

Trying to get a good photo of Brandt for Grandpa.  I didn't get a good one of Carter with my camera, but hopefully, Grandpa, I did get one with yours.

The boys had such a fun time with Grandma.  They kept feeding her snack mix and wouldn't stop!  She was such a good sport and kept eating and eating!

Having fun in Grandma's chair

Grandma with Elina

An attempt to get a good photo.  I don't think they really exist with so many small children!

I thought this pic was cute

Eric having some bonding time with Elina before the boys got up the next day.

This was taken on our way home.  Eric found a great park on Lake Michigan in Port Washington and we stopped to have lunch here and let the boys run around.  Such a great place!

The Twins Turn Two!!!!!!!!

On May 26th, the boys turned two!  I still can't believe it...they are little boys!  We had a low key party for the boys that day.  I did go a little ballistic with balloons, though.  The boys are in love with balloons, so I got them each a two dozen balloon bouquet.  We had them set out and decorations up when the boys got up from their nap.  It was so fun to see their reactions!

Everything set up!

I decorated with their names spelled on balloons

The cupcakes...I thought they turned out cute!

Elina wore a party dress, too!

The boys got these balance bikes from my parents.  They are called Y Bikes and are so cool!

The boys liked their presents, but the balloons stole the show!

We had their favorites for dinner: spaghetti and meatballs and garlic bread.

And of course we sang "Happy Birthday!"

Brandt loved the frosting.  He would love to eat just frosting!

Carter finishing his cupcake

Break Time!!!!

Last week, the basement flooded. Again. It was the fourth time since we moved into it less than a year ago.  The first time it happened, we had some damage to our stuff, but since then, it's just been just a pain to clean up.  This time, however, the clean up jump started our packing!

Eric's mom was working so hard to vaccuum the water.  She also had little helpers.  I took this photo when she and her helpers needed to take a little break and laid down on the stairs.  This picture makes my heart happy.

Toddler Tantrums

Here is a GREAT article on dealing with toddler tantrums.  It's written by the author of a blog I follow religiously, Val Plowman.  About 99.99% of the things she writes about is right on.  I've asked her for help several times and she gives the greatest advice.  Anyway, the boys are completely into the terrible 2's now and throw trantrums and I've found this article to be so helpful.

http://www.babywisemom.com/2011/05/toddler-tantrums.html

Mother's Day

Eric got me the coolest gift for Mother's Day.  It was a necklace that Pioneer Woman showed off that I fell in love with.  The necklace has three pearl eggs for each of the children.  I love it so much and think it's fitting as I like to call the boys my "little birds."

We spent the day just hanging out at home.  It was such a blessing to have my whole family home on Mother's Day.  I love my family :)

Easter 2011

 Easter was so much fun this year as the boys were old enough to do an egg hunt.  Eric was on-call on Easter Sunday, so we had the egg hunt and dinner on Saturday.

On Good Friday, Marcy and Aunt Sue came over and painted eggs with the boys.  The boys had fun dropping the eggs in the dye.

Marcy and Carter painting eggs

Me and Brandt

Me and little man Carter

Seeing their baskets for the first time

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Elina got one, too!

The boys had a blast opening their baskets and eating all the chocolate...before breakfast!!

My little girl!

After the boys' nap, we tried to take a family picture before going out on the egg hunt.

Here it is...the perfect family picture! :)

It took awhile for the boys to get the hang of the hunt, but once they did, there was no stopping them!

We had to stop and eat the egg contents :)

And here we are again, eating the candy!

On Sunday, we went to church with Eric's parents.  The service was held at Trinity's chapel.  It was so fun to go back and see my alma mater.  I took this picture while we were waiting for the parking lot to clear out.  Although Elina had a slight break down that required me to step out, it went great!

Trying to get a picture in our Easter outfits.

still trying...

this was about as good as it got!

Holidays are getting so special to celebrate as the children get older.  Hopefully, Eric will be able to go to church with us next year!

7 Quick Takes

Yikes, it's been forever since I've posted anything!  The main reason is because all of our computers have had problems.  Eric likes to have one when he's on call (and he's on call A LOT), so he takes the functioning computer with him.

Here's a recap of what's been going on in our lives:

1. Eric and I went to Augusta, GA on Thursday, April 28th to find a rental home.  We landed in Charlotte, NC around noon and drove down to Augusta and started looking at homes.  It was a hectic day!! We found one we really liked and on Friday we went and submitted an application and signed the lease.  On Saturday, we drove past "our" house and took some pics before driving back to Charlotte to visit with Eric's sister, Laura, and her family.  Right before we left Laura's to go to the airport, I got a call from the property manager that the homeowner no longer wanted to rent out her house!!! Eric and I were beyond livid.  I asked the property manager how that could be since she had to have signed a contract with the management company and apparently she hadn't signed it yet!  Talk about bad business!

          The next week we got a call from someone who was renting out his house.  We'd driven past it and really like the neighborhood.  We submitted an application and were so excited because it was owned by the director of the neuroradiology fellowship at MCG and the rent was sooooo cheap.  Then we received an email that the doctor's daughter was moving back to Augusta and was going to live in the house.  We were so upset!  It felt like Augusta really didn't want us to move there.

          Last week a home came on the MLS that sparked our interest.  The picture on realtor.com was really blurry, but it seemed to be in a good neighborhood and it had four bedrooms.  Without seeing it, we signed a letter of intent to rent it.  We'd met the listing realtor while we were in Augusta and really liked him. He told us he thought we'd really like the home and after we signed a letter of intent, he went and took this picture for us!

Isn't it so cute?  We hope we like it!

     2.    Eric finally got done with OBGYN. He was working at a hospital in the city and had 12-14 hour shifts.  The hours combined with an hour and a half long commute made for one crabby and extremely tired fellow.  So glad that month is over!

    3.    The short sale on our home was accepted by the bank.  Although we are grateful, my credit was severely affected. As my sister put it, I can't finance a pot to pee in!  I was so upset until Cara found the silver lining...Eric's credit was not affected!  If one of us had take such a huge hit, it was better that it was me.  Ugh...I was always so proud of my good credit.

   4.     We are in the midst of trying to find movers.  This is a pain because most of our stuff is in storage and if I have to take the quote people to the storage unit just to open the door and let them look in, I'm going to be so crabby!

   5.  Elina is growing up faster than I would like :).  She's rolling over both ways (belly to back and back to belly) and has the best laugh!

   6.  We had to put our cat, Chica, down last Friday.  She has had an autoimmune disease and she was doing well, but took a turn last week.  She completely stopped eating and on Friday, it was evident she was not going to make it through the night.  Eric and I ended up taking her to an emergency clinic.  It was so sad.  We got her after we went on our honeymoon and named her Chica because we'd gone to Mexico.  She was such a good cat and we miss her dearly.

    7.  The weather was warm enough last week that the boys got to wear shorts (it has since cooled down again...boo!).  One day, I took a shower and put on a pair of shorts.  When Carter saw what I was wearing, he kept staring at my legs.  It was so funny!!  My poor boys have been in the Arctic for too long!!

Well, that's about it!  We're just busy getting ready for the big move to the South!