I'll tell you my favorites if you tell me yours (please) *now enhanced with memes*

I need recommendations on a few things and thought I'd share some things I'm loving lately in return (ha! You are so welcome! I also included memes to help you make it through to the end. Memes are one of my many love languages.).

But seriously, help.

I'll go first.

If you eat Greek yogurt and haven't tried Greek Gods Vanilla Honey Greek yogurt yet, you are seriously missing out. I am not even a huge honey fan, but whatever these folks put into this yogurt make it taste like a vanilla cupcake and Steve and I have to restrain ourselves from eating an entire tub of it at a time. I like to mix in strawberries and bananas (and maybe yellow cake - stop judging me) and eat it after the kids go to bed. Sadly, I'm out of leftover birthday cake, but the strawberries and bananas still hit the spot. Target regularly has this on sale, it seems.

THIS CHOCOLATE CAKE. I have spent countless hours and calories testing out all of Pinterest's self-proclaimed "best chocolate cakes" and this one is it, folks. I even wrote the recipe down on a recipe card and stuck it in my recipe box, so I think that speaks to how much of a winner it is. It is moist, chocolatey, and honestly, better than any bakery chocolate cake I've ever had. Doesn't take much time to make, but seems kinda intense the first few times until you get a rhythm down. (Also, it calls for buttermilk and I do not keep that on hand, but if you fill up a liquid measuring cup just shy of one cup (what the recipe calls for) and then add in white vinegar until you get to the one cup mark, let it sit for a few minutes (while you mix everything else up), and add it last, it is magically transformed into buttermilk. Voila. You are now a magician on top of The Best Chocolate Cake Maker.)

I pair the above cake with this buttercream frosting. Your love handles will curse me while your taste buds praise me.

Now that you pretty much know all of my baking secrets, let's go 180* in the opposite direction.

Cloth diapering. Yes, we just went from chocolate cake to poop. These two things seem to encompass most of what my life is filled with these days (although I could stand for more cake and less poop). The yin and the yang, the good and the bad, the hot and the cold, the chocolate and the doo doo, baby. If you are cloth diapering and don't have this pail, I urge you to consider buying it. In the past, we always had bathrooms with windows in them so if things got a little too, ahem, ripe, I could always crack open a window and the smell escaped. But in our current (and previous) house, the bathroom NOR the washroom has a window, so the stink was strong. I found this odorless cloth diaper pail that has a magical activated charcoal disk inside and it seriously traps it all. I'm not gonna lie, you open the pail and almost die, but when the pail is closed (which is 99% of the time), it is golden. I thought it was kinda pricey for a poop holding pail, but it has been worth every cent and I'd recommend it to anyone.

I know I've recommended this before, but it is worth repeating- if you have Amazon Prime, Prime photo storage is something you need to take advantage of. It not only stores unlimited amounts of photos, but it also organizes them by date!!! It has an "on this day" feature, which just slays me daily at how fast everyone is growing. The fact that it is free with your Amazon Prime subscription is like icing on the cake. (It doesn't hurt that all the memes I screenshot pop up too and give me endless chuckles.)

These fridge magnets - I was so sick of school papers flying off the fridge every time I ran the vacuum anywhere near it (which happens quite often throughout the day) while using big alphabet kid magnets to hold them up. These magnets are tiny but strong. They are no match for Will of course, but for thick papers and schoolwork, they are great.

Trying to entertain tiny people in small spaces is never a fun time, but sometimes you find something that helps make it easier. Melissa and Doug toys are great, and recently, Sam and Molly have loved the Melissa & Doug Scratch Art Color-Reveal Pad. I will warn you, when they start scratching, it creates little flakes, similar to eraser dust. I don't mind this in the car because the floor of the car is already littered with busted up goldfish and granola bar wrappers and empty water bottles rolling about. Inside the house it tends to make me a little nuts, so if Molly wants to do it, I suggest we do it while out on a walk (if she's riding in the stroller) or she can sit on the back deck and scratch to her heart's content. When Sam and Molly were younger, they would spend a lot of time using the Melissa & Doug On the Go Water Wow! pads. Essentially, it's how parents like me (freaks! hand-wringy over messes!) allow their children to be exposed to some sort of art creation at home. Bonus is that once the pad dries, the colors in the picture disappear and they can start all over. No mess, no fuss, no cleanup, and it's reusable. Win, win, win, win.

Ok now that I've gone and told you my favorite things from lately, I need your help. We got a call from housing at Ft Bragg and have a home reserved. (YAY!) It is approximately 2.5 times the size of our current home (!!!) with a much different layout and lots of carpet..... I am choosing to focus on the square footage and multiple bedrooms and bathrooms instead of the carpet situation. Deep breaths. I really need recommendations for the following things:

• a washer and dryer (specifically big top load washers with no agitator!)
• a mattress that does not cost an entire mortgage payment (we are considering upgrading to a king size bed and putting our current queen size bed in the baby/guest room in NC, but I am still weighing the options here)
• an area rug to go under a dining room table (The kitchen has a little breakfast nook area but our big dining table will not fit there- the "official" dining room is carpeted (!GAH!GROSS!) and I am already dying envisioning the food stains. I am thinking an outdoor rug, but nothing too crazy color-wise because, food stains. It just needs to be big enough to encompass the table AND the chairs, which seems massive. I'm also worried about chairs getting snagged up on the carpet because it's carpet sitting on carpet. Someone who's been in this situation, please chime in and tell me it'll be ok.)
• babysitters who have access to Ft Bragg (My mom will be nearby when I go into labor, but will still be 2 hours away, so I need to find someone who can hang out with the other three in case I need to get the drugs and have the baby and drink the wine before she arrives. A date night more than once a year sounds nice as well, so if this chick is up for four kids 6 and under, please send her my way. I will compensate her in cash and baked goods, and maybe a bottle of wine the first time I get to escape without children on my person.)
• does anyone have a DockATot? I am super curious to know if this is worth the money or if it works on some kids and collects dust for others. I will do almost anything to guarantee some sleep on this fourth kid. I'm still reeling from Will and his sleep strike (since birth).

I think that's it. Spam me with any and all recommendations you have!! I'm all ears!!

This post contains affiliate link(s) and might earn me enough pennies to one day justify a tiny fraction of my Amazon purchases.

Well the vacation is over

I used my last disposable diaper yesterday. Back to cloth. (*sob*) We used disposables while we were traveling and over Christmas and then Will had to take antibiotics for his double ear infection so we just continued using them because things were a little, ahem, messy, and our house still felt chaotic with the unpacking and painting and arranging. But now it's time to face the music. I've finally got a handle on laundry so it won't be a huge deal to add diapers back into the mix. It was just kinda nice to chuck diapers in the trash whenever there was a massive turd in them, not gonna lie. On the flip side, what's nice today, is that I will not be spending any money on diapers when I waltz into Target. (Oh yes, we are going to town today!)

Christmas is almost over for these two hooligans. They received some fleecy bathrobes in the mail from Steve's mom the other day. Molly was over the moon. Sam played it cool but loves to wear the robe to bed.

Part of me thinks we need a griddle so I can cook more than one pancake at a time (and not stand over the stove for an hour and a half) and the other part of me is like, my winter body is doing really well, fluffy enough, thanks.

This feels way too real. I don't feel it as much here (since many folks have commented on how we are "dressed like it's freezing out" when in reality is it NEGATIVE TEN DEGREES), but I felt the judgey eyes in NY. It would be 49* and folks had their kids dressed like a snowpocalypse was upon us. I hate getting them dressed in full on winter wear just to run seven feet to the car and take it all off again so they can buckle up. Repeat in reverse when we arrive somewhere. As Steve would say, these are some hashtag momprobs. Ha.

Now let's move onto a prob that was more of a STEVE PROB.

IS VERY BAD, RIGHT?! Horrific even. Steve and Sam went to the local salon in town (because there is no barber shop). And when he first got back, I didn't even notice anything to be completely honest. I guess I just assume he gets the same haircut every time like he has the entire time we've been together so what is there to see. But later that evening, as I was supervising the painting (heh) I was staring at him and suddenly noticed that there was a massive weird patch missing in the back!! And turn to the side- omg. Turn to the other side- OH MY GOSH it is like she did not even have her eyes open while this haircut was taking place!!! It was at this point that Steve mentioned her hair was purple (as in, she is so old that her hair isn't even blue anymore). We were supposed to go to mass the next morning but I had to put the kibosh on that plan because there was no way we could present ourselves this way for the first time in such a small town. That probably sounds vain, and it really is, but LOOK AT HIS HAIR. We are already being talked about around here. I don't wanna add more fuel to the fire. ("Crazy New Yorkers and their weirdo haircuts!")

In happier news, bye bye yellow!

Luckily for us, Rick is something of a master barber and fixed Steve up the next day while we were over visiting.

The next day was Monday and both big kids were in school for the day. Willie and I stayed home all day and it was so fun to just hang out with him. I do not think I fully appreciated Sam's baby days when I look at them next to Will's. I had no idea how fast it would go or how precious our time alone was. I guess having a comparison is nice as far as knowing that I should be savoring every chance of alone time I get with him! He is not a snuggly baby at all, so when he curled up on my chest, I vowed to sit there in that uncomfortable position without moving a muscle for as long as the snuggle would last (approximately 48 seconds).

We got a lot of stuff done around the house and just did everything at our own pace, which was nice.

I got a call that afternoon at 3:05 from the school secretary asking if I was picking Molly up and forgot to send a note. Seeing as I pick them up at the bus stop at 3:25 (and the school is 15 minutes away) (and I was still in my pajamas...), I said nooooo..... But I remembered that Molly does not like riding the bus. The first day she rode it was her first day of school here. We didn't anticipate they'd be able to ride it home that afternoon so we didn't prep them for that. But the school insisted they ride home and I guess I figured what better time to jump in with both feet. They gotta do it sometime. But Molly got on and did not see Sam and Sam did not see Molly and some boy called Molly a baby and asked where her brother was, and by the time she got off the bus, she was about to burst into tears (which, she did once she got home). Naturally, I was ready to fulfill the stereotype that we are New Yorkers (lololol we are not) and MAKE THIS KID PAY for making my sweet Molly cry on her first day at a new school, but I decided against that. I asked the secretary on the phone if she could please make sure that Sam and Molly got on the bus together because her first ride was slightly traumatic and she happily agreed. Her bus experiences since have been very fun for her and lots of the older girls want to sit with her and touch her hair and talk to her, so I think she has overcome the initial bad bus ride.

Since she only goes to school on Mondays and Wednesdays, we tend to adopt a slower pace for Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. (I am seriously jealous of her life. I want to be 4.) Today is Thursday and it is a little after 9am and she is still sleeping. I am pounding coffee and kinda green with envy after Will decided to wake up a little before 5 for no reason, not gonna lie.

Yesterday I made this coffee cake to take over to Monica's house and not only was it quick and easy, but it was amazing. Not particularly pretty in my old 9x13 stained up pyrex dish, but I think I'm going to try making it in a bundt pan next time and see if it bakes ok in there. While baking it I realized that I probably need to find a hobby or something. If not I am probably on track to gaining about 600lbs. We just bought two 10lb bags of flour at Costco though so I guess I feel the need to make some stuff. My winter body is fully winterized at this point though so gaining another 600lbs is probably not in my best interest.

Speaking of hobbies, it has always been a pastime of mine to browse the local craigslist of wherever we live. It is no secret that the majority of our furniture has come from craigslist as I see almost no point in buying something brand new when there is something a bit more unique (and cheap!) on craigslist. Sure, you sometimes take your life in your hands when meeting a shady person, but when you walk away with your life AND a bedframe for $15, you usually forget about the losing your life part of the equation. Well I've gotta say that the craigslist here is THE most boring one I have ever encountered. To summarize: farm equipment, snow plow, snowmobile, old refrigerator, old washing machine, old beat up car, snow plow, hay, more farm equipment, snowmobile, $400 wedding dress (either a size 14 or a size 0.5- there is no in between if you're looking for wedding dresses on craigslist FYI), fishing huts, and Peter, who clearly won in my eyes last night.

He might be socially awkward, but I am willing to bet he's delicious. His new companion could be scrambled eggs? (Sorry not sorry, I love bacon.)

Insert witty title here

Some bloggers aspire for multiple posts per week. I feel like a success if I can throw up 2 posts a month. Will naps with some regularity now when the big kids are in school and that is SO NICE, but unfortunately I don't just get to lay around and do whatever the hell I please. Because if that was the case, I'd be blogging a lot more. And eating bon bons. And maybe shaving my legs with more regularity. But I have to do things like laundry and cleaning the house and making grocery lists and researching winter coat$$$$$. That is all anyone is getting this Christmas- cold weather gear. Maybe I'll throw in a sled or something so the kids don't think I'm a complete Grinch, but special $15 mittens that won't fall off their little hands and get lost in the snow means that there is no Barbie Dreamhouse in our future. Back to the biweekly recap- I saw my first car while walking the kids to school one morning.

The Low Rider

Immediately texted the photo to my entire family so we could all marvel over this glorious find.

Going through some of the papers Sam's teachers sent home and I literally laughed out loud when I saw the dog he drew.

He always draws a heart on people's and animals' chests. I think it's so sweet and wonder where he picked that up.

Just another day at the park. These children need a backyard something fierce.

And this little babushka.. 10 months old and 400th percentile in weight and still can't be bothered to sleep through the night. I've tried sleep training this one but it turns out that I really like this one a lot and can't stand listening to him cry (it also doesn't seem to wear him out one bit- it's almost like he's energized by all the screaming). He takes a nice solid nap once we get back from our school drop off walk which allows me to drink an entire cup of reheated coffee and empty the dishwasher. Bless him.

Attempting to destroy Sam's Chutes and Ladders setup

This game was a very good purchase. Sam will set the whole thing up himself and then ask who wants to play. Molly and I usually volunteer but then Will tries to smash it to pieces, so inevitably I have to remove him from the general vicinity of the game. I tell Sam to go ahead and spin for me and move my piece for me too while he's at it. Molly loses interest the minute she hits a chute. So Sam continues spinning and moving pieces "for me" until there's a winner (usually him). Never knew it would be such a great solitary game but it's worked out nicely.

Someone attempted to do her own mascara.....

This was a week where I was inspired to cook. Like something other than the stuff that is in heavy rotation around here. This was obviously met with much resistance and I was left wondering why I wasted half a naptime prepping the food for dinner if I was going to have to work like a dog trying to convince people to eat it. Such a waste. Back to the basics.

Will turned 10 months old and my brain couldn't get it together enough to get a real picture that day. People joke about mom brain and ha ha ha I am so scatterbrained but let me tell you- it is a very real condition and I am suffering from a severe case of it.

Everyone wears SO MUCH SHIT. And our washer can only do tiny half loads because it's one of those really inefficient apartment-style stackable washer-dryer combos so I literally have to do multiple loads of laundry every day. (Not to mention THE DIAPERS.) I just want to put a dresser in the kitchen so I can take the clothes out of the dryer and throw them right into the drawer. There is such a breakdown between getting them out of the dryer and then getting them upstairs and unloaded where they need to go. I threw in a load of diapers today while Steve and the kids were at church and wondered if I passed out on the floor from the fumes, how long would I lie there before someone found me? Our poor landlords are so used to heavy thumps on the floor that they would surely think it was normal. Sam would probably walk in and be like, ugh she's napping. Lazy. Can you open this cheese string for me? Nowwww????

Willie and I dropped the big kids off at school and then made the L-O-N-G drive (not really- only 11 miles, but it took us over an hour) down to the cool part of Brooklyn where Casey lives. She made this awesome quiche and we had mimosas while watching the latest Baby Einstein and catching up on all the gossip. Somehow we text all day (and sometimes all night if both babies are up) and still get together and talk nonstop. I highly recommend everyone have a Casey. But not my Casey because I called dibs on her first. Plz find your own.

In this episode of Art By Sam, he drew himself and Molly walking Odie and Marci. He also repeatedly said, "Look at the details," which I can't help but find hilarious. He sounded out the bottom part which says "I am in Pennsylvania." You probably already knew that but I figured I'd clarify.

Then, shore nuff, we ended up in Pennsylvania. Dreams do come true! We went down to celebrate Sam's "PA birthday" and get our winter stuff out of Steve's parents' basement. My poor children were the only ones wearing fleece jackets and no mittens on the playground and I was starting to look semi-neglectful. Now we are officially prepared.

We went to Linvilla Orchards on Saturday morning for a hayride and to see the pumpkin patch. I thought it would be a madhouse being the weekend of Halloween, but getting there early proved to be a good move!

We saw the animals and played on the playground before calling it a day and going to get lunch at CHICK FIL A!!!!! Happy day all around. Then Sam got to help Steve's mom make his birthday cake.

6!

He modeled this cake after Steve's grooms cake from our wedding. After looking through our wedding albums, he saw the cake and was really taken by it apparently. The strawberries on top were delicious! I support his decision to switch things up!

Molly is so obsessed with Odie. No interest whatsoever in baby dolls or Barbies, but start talking about animals and she is all ears.

We got back on the road Sunday morning and headed home, hoping to beat the traffic. It took us an hour and a half to go 11 miles trying to get out of the city the Friday we left. We were hoping to beat that time by a lot.... and luckily we did! And car naps for everyone!!!!!

Can you see me popping confetti and champagne bottles?!

Monday morning came around- Halloween! Guess who had a note taped to her cabinet for three weeks that said, "HALLOWEEN COSTUMES!"? Yes, that would be me, good guess. And guess who did not round up or order or make (hahahaha) Halloween costumes for anyone? Also me. They were allowed to wear their costumes to school so I had the brilliant idea of having everyone try on their costumes from last year. And lo and behold, they fit! And the angels rejoiced!

After dropping the big kids off at school, I put Will down for a nap only to get a reminder text from my landlord that the window guys would be coming in 30 minutes to replace the front windows in our house. Ahh and here I thought I was going to drink coffee and pat myself on the back for not failing at costumes. Mad dash to clean the house and get everything away from the windows. Will miraculously slept through most of it but when he woke up, the house was freezing!

Make it warmer but please leave that nice open view!

ew I did not even know dried jelly fish skin was a thing

first Halloween!

That evening we went to our friends' house to trick or treat. They live in an actual neighborhood so the trick or treat experience was more authentic there.

HOW CUTE ARE THEY

Gahhhh I can't take these cute Aubies!

I didn't take too many photos while trick-or-treating. Was focusing on making sure no one was hit by a car or wiggled out of the stroller and was on the defense against possible clown strikes. One can't be too careful.

Matching and organizing his candy- never enough Reeses

At some point Casey and Riley and Will and I went to the mall to pick up an order for some winter stuff for Will. Then we stopped at a Shake Shack and it was delicious.

I am half-horrified, half-proud of myself for letting go of my psycho tendencies when it comes to controlling the kids and their food. I can't even tell you how old Sam was when he first ate a french fry. I can, with 1,000% certainty though, tell you that it was nowhere near the vicinity of TEN MONTHS OLD. But since I give Will a bit of everything that we're having, age appropriate or not, he tends to try just about anything. Hopefully this works in favor of him being a more adventurous eater later on down the road. Sam was strictly monitored and is still gagging at broccoli drowned in ranch dressing. (insert my eye rolls here please)

Riding this bike might have been the greatest thing that's happened in Will's life so far. He was in heaven.

We celebrated surviving until Wednesday (or something) by going out to our favorite local place for lunch. We sat right next to the kitchen and Will was mesmerized by all the activity and waitresses flashing him smiles.

My friend has snapchat and showed us the filters. This one is the one that is most likely to not send you into convulsions or give you nightmares. The rest of them made me laugh so hard I actually cried and then the rest were so scary that I cried. If you want to see any of the others, please text me and I will give you nightmare material for the next three months.

Korean bbq..... so messy, so fatty, so friggin delicious.

My blue eyed boy

We are still working on the kimchi peace sign pose. Bless his heart, he doesn't know it's required.

Fully in the kimchi spirit, we went to a gimbap place nearby that makes it fresh while you wait. Obviously we needed something to eat with the leftover KBBQ. I saw this "cinnamon punch" they were selling and it instantly reminded me of the drink they'd give us after every beef and leaf meal. I would give just about anything to go back to Korea. Anyone who thinks Minnesota is far away, please know that I was begging Steve to apply for jobs in Korea so we could move there instead. I'm dead serious. I feel like I'm missing an arm half the time, I'm so lost not living there. I'm thankful that we have such plentiful Korean options here in NYC and now I'm scratching my head as to what we're gonna do about that in breezy ol' MN, but I guess being near our Korean neighbors will ease that a bit.

Our eyes were way bigger than our stomachs- we got three rolls and couldn't even finish one of them.

Beautiful day at the park!

Steve took the kids to church this morning while I stayed home with Will so he could continue his sacred nap schedule. While he still doesn't sleep through the night, the gaps are getting bigger, so I'm really trying to do whatever I can to make sure this keeps happening. I really thought third babies were a bit more go-with-the-flow and not so high maintenance when it comes to sleep but that's what I get for assuming, I suppose....

Now off to wake up Molly from a nap that she violently refused to take for a solid hour. This should be fun... wish me luck!