Beach Vacation!

We survived our first beach trip of the summer! It was a good week, although the boys really started showing their fight for independence. Oh the joy of 3 year olds, so when will they be four!

We spent the week with Andy's side of the family, cousins and uncle from Ohio, his brother and his family and Grandma, Peepaw was is the Middle East with work which was probably more peaceful than being around Cale and Carter. There were 18 of us in all and 7 were children under the age of 7.

We went to Ocean Isle Beach in North Carolina and it was so beautiful and always had a nice breeze. The house we rented had a little pool that was great, except for the fact that the boys wouldn't wear their float suits. They got to the point where they said they would just watch rather than wear them! How stubborn, and I have no idea where they got that! The boys loved the sand, but were scared of the ocean after it took them down a couple of times. Hopefully by the end of our third beach trip they will like the ocean, who knows!

Overall, the trip was good! No throwing up or accidents or major meltdowns in public. We did drive down to Myrtle Beach one afternoon to visit the Alligator Adventure. The boys love alligators and crocodiles, like the one zoo scene in Lady and the Tramp. They were very good there and really seemed to like it. Carter seemed a little scared. We think he thought they were going to snap him like in the movie. He would only look at them for a second and then was like lets go! We also saw snakes, frogs, turtles. It was pretty good and I highly recommend it for something different to do while at the beach.

Our next beach trip will be to Topsail with no pool, so hopefully there will be less resistance!

Fruits and Veggie Time!

We LOVE to garden at our house! When we were searching for a house we really wanted a big backyard and fruit trees, well we got both with our house. It is a nearly 65 year old house built by an Agriculture professor at NCSU, so there is an awesome pear and apple tree in the backyard. Since the year we moved here, 2005, we have not had a good fruit crop. This year it is great! Below is just one of the many loaded branches on the pear tree.

We also have our usual garden. Which so far has produced a squash and zucchini, that were very tasty. We have a few cucumbers and green beans about ready. As well as the starting of an eggplant, some watermelon and tomatoes. There are two plants that are huge but have nothing yet and that is the cantaloupe and pumpkin. The pumpkins just keep voluntarily, and never really do anything, growing along with a ton of tomato plants, mainly cherry tomatoes. So once the tomatoes start coming we shouldn't have to buy any of those for a while. I may try to start making my own salsa!




The boys love the apple tree, probably too much as they keep wanting to pick them. I think the apples are a cross between a golden delicious and a crispin, at least that is what I found on Google. Hopefully I will have my act together enough to do something fun with all these like baked apples or applesauce.

Our wonderful garden! The bags and pie plates are hopefully there to keep some birds and such away and the fencing because we have about a dozen rabbits in our yard. At our old house we didn't really have to use anything and my parents who live in the country just have their garden around the outside fence of the pool and nothing ever touches it, so odd.

Not Much Happening!

Not very much exciting stuff has been going on around here. I have been very busy sewing and getting ready for some local craft markets, more on that later, and the boys have had a few days of camp at their preschool. I haven't had to work at it this week, so that has been a nice break for me (boy does 4 hours go by way too fast!). Some good news, Carter is 100% potty trained! I feel like I stressed about this for months then in one painless 4 day period it was over! Cale on the other hand is not really getting the pooping thing and he doesn't stay dry overnight, but it will all come in time. Carter will even wake us up at 3 in the morning to go to the bathroom and usually when he does this he sleeps in a little later. Andy said he was going to start waking him up at 3 every night so that he would sleep in, but has Andy actually been able to wake up and do that, no.

This week has been a rough one as far as behavior goes. I have always heard that the 3's were way worse than the 2's and so far they seem about equal. It is kind of weird because the older the boys get and the more independent they get you would think you could answer the "does it get easier?" with a resounding yes, but you can't. It has its easy points and hard points. Some days I really miss those days when they didn't talk and walk and you didn't ask the question, "Why won't you listen to me?" 400 times a day. Some days I think I would love to trade the not listening in for the witching hour, but I can't and if I was really back to listening to them cry on and off for 2 hours every afternoon I would hate it and wish they were 3 and just not listening. I think that what is so hard about parenting and about twins is that I feel like some stages you wish away, but then later you think, wait that wasn't so bad compared to this. We went and visited a friend today that is having twins and I couldn't help but think that I wish I was in her place, I wish I could do it over again because there is so much I would do differently. I guess everyone says that, right? I really think if we were to have another baby it would be easier. Andy totally disagrees. He says it would be like when it is 100 degrees and the weatherman says there is a cold front moving in meaning the temp goes down to 95 degrees. That it is not going to be drastically easier. Who knows if we will ever find out, because we are both too scared to chance it.


Here are some pics I ran across today and they were actually taken 3 years ago today!
Try and see if you can figure out who is who.

Crazy Boys!

We haven't really been up to anything spectacular hear at the Warnke household. Last week we had our first full week home since last August! It was a nice and much needed break from the racing out the door every morning to get to school, Ah only 15 more years of this. The boys and I start summer camp tomorrow. I only have to work this week, YAH. The boys are excited about going back to school. I am excited about being a lead teacher again and a little nervous, you know all those lost brain cells still haven't quite been recovered.

I have been super busy with my business. Which is a blessing! My Key fobs have been selling like hotcakes, so a big thanks to everyone who has bought them! I hope they are as loved as I love mine! This pics are of the boys standing outside my sewing room. It is off of their playroom so that I can sew a little and they can play but also bring me yummy hot apple juice. They do surprisingly well when I have to do some work. They have stopped taking naps, since the pacis broke a month ago, so that is their quite time. There is no TV in the playroom just a CD player and they listen to their Baby Genius CD, which is their favorite and play with their cars or lately the big hit has been puzzles. I am hoping after having camp this week they will nap everyday (I am not holding my breathe). The no nap thing hasn't been all bad. They are back to going to sleep at 7:30 or earlier if Andy isn't at home. We have been trying to work on the appropriate time to wake us up in the morning. I got a digital clock and they now know when it is 7-0-0, but they are not being quite until 7-0-0! I have been trying to explain that when they wake up they get a book and go get back in bed until the clock says 7-0-0, not happening. When does that start to happen? Although, I think if they didn't wake us up until then Andy would be even later for work everyday.

Well, that is all for now. Hopefully I will have some cute camp pictures or something up this week. We are getting close to vacation time too, so I know there will be LOTS of pictures up by the end of the summer!

Enjoy and have a Blessed week!