what's up weekly. (Finally Starting to Feel a Bit Normal!)

Well, hello friends!  What a difference a week makes!  Last Friday, I was a little at my wits' end - exhausted, dealing with back pain, feeling stressed and depleted.  This week has been a radical improvement.  The babies officially turned three months old, and that must be the magic number because they're all of a sudden settling in to a really manageable routine.  (It doesn't hurt that I polled many of my large-family-mom friends with twins and got some solid sleep training pep talks.)  It's incredible.  They have been getting up for the day between 6:30 and 7:00, and then on a very predictable three-hour schedule through the day.  I'm having to wake them up from most naps! And then they're down for the night between 7:30 and 8:30.  I'm only up with them once a night now, and things feel so much more manageable.

I also got us in for chiropractic appointments.  Todd took some time off work on Wednesday so he could drive us into Kansas City, and the babies and I got adjusted.  Good heavens, I am so glad.  I feel a million times better!

Other than that, I don't have much to report.  I feel like I am finally getting caught up on the house mess that accumulated during late pregnancy and those first postpartum weeks.  I'm hopefully getting a sustainable system in place that's allowing me to tackle most of the bigger things so the baseline state of our household is not quite so grungy.

Speaking of grungy, our garage has gotten out of control.  It wasn't great before, because we use our garage for a lot of things and I haven't gotten adequate storage systems in place out there, but it was getting really bad with the chickens out there.  They kick up shavings that go everywhere, and the kids would spill food or water when trying to care for them.  Plus the stench that they developed once out of that cute little baby stage has been unreal.  But they were still pretty young to put outside in the coop, even if it had been secured since the racoon busted in, which it hadn't yet.  

So yesterday I put Atticus to the task of troubleshooting what needed to be done to secure the coop.  He planned out how he would rebuild the door, we went and grabbed a few supplies, and I left him out there to execute his plans.  He got it done in under an hour; I was so impressed.  And the door he built is way better than the one that I had built before.  We got an extra latch on the inner coop door as well, so things should be safer now and we officially moved all the chicks out there last night.  You might say they flew the coop and we are now empty nesters.  You might say that if you were a dork.

Um, what else?  The big kids have kept up with school, Atticus has continued his mowing jobs and farm work.  We're headed to a pool party tonight for a friend's birthday.  I've also been diligent with my Ab Rehab workout program and am starting to see a bit of improvement in the mirror. And other than that, not much to report!  I have been exhausted, so I'm going to head to bed now.  

Enjoy these sweet photos of the kids playing together this week!

Sunrise bubble machine.

Never too old to play G. I. Joes.

Have a great weekend!