The above photo was taken of our youngest son earlier this week. You can see the rest of the series on our Flickr account.

I'm finding it increasingly hard to update this site more than once a week these days. I honestly don't know how other blogging-mommies do it! With two who are mobile, I'm constantly on the run — even though we rarely leave the house without daddy. Seriously. I never sit down and I'm lucky to eat before 4 p.m. every day, if then. I'm dropping weight so fast now (wearing sizes I haven't seen since the 1990s) that I constantly get asked what my dieting secret is. There is no...secret. Unless you call that secret having two boys who are 16-months apart. Yes, my arms are "toned". But yours would be, too, if you were doing curls with a 23 and 33-lb. weight in each arm. Don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. I'm just...very frazzled. And very behind on e-mail (again).

I was telling a friend this afternoon that by the time our second son arrived, I had literally filled FIVE photo albums with photos of our first son. I have yet to even start a single photo album since the birth of our second. In fact, photos from his birth through week two of life are still sitting on a DVD waiting to be edited, uploaded and printed. I haven't sent any 'candids' for print since Halloween. I haven't sent any home-sessions for print since Valentine's. And yet I keep taking pictures. If anything, there are probably more photos of him than of his brother at the same ages. I just don't have time to do anything with them once I take them. I'm honestly doing my best to just let it go - archive as best as I can - and plan for a major season of photo-making once the boys are both in preschool and I have that elusive thing called "free time" once again. As for now, I'd simply like to remember what it was like to use the restroom without two observants / attendants.

One thing I did manage to tackle / accomplish in the last week is finalize our plans for the month of June. We had originally planned on spending our youngest's first birthday in Oklahoma, but our 10th wedding anniversary is also in June. (Holy cow, that's just as strange to type out as it is to say outloud!) We really wanted to take a decent quick get-away, just the two of us — considering thanks to grad school, our actual honeymoon consisted of two nights at the Holiday Inn Express in Foley, AL. We spent our time in Pensacola, but that was as close as we could afford to stay there... Anyhoo, it became a logistical nightmare trying to plan a trip where the four of us flew back to Oklahoma - then the two of us flew off for a couple of days - then the four of us returned home to Florida. We felt like our entire trip would be spent in baggage claim. So... My mom and her husband are going to fly here instead in mid-June. We're going to have a combined first birthday party with the twins (go ahead and envision those cake-smash photos in your head) at Gymboree. And then daddy and mommy are taking off SANS CHILDREN for four glorious days and three fabulous nights in the Savannah Historic District. It's not too far to drive, yet racks up enough miles that we'll feel like we actually went somewhere. And since the French Quarter isn't really an option for us right now, it's as close as we can get to recreating our wedded bliss elsewhere.

Now some of you might be sitting back and saying, "Hey wait. Aren't you 2-2 in the baby department when you vacation in Georgia?" And that answer would be, "Yes." The follow-up answer would be, "And I'm taking my own water with me, thankyouverymuch."

In other random news... We finally broke down and tried Super Suppers this month after seeing segments on the Today Show and Good Morning America. We purchased the 6-meal plan (which quantity-wise breaks down to 12-18 meals because they're prepared to serve 4-6, and they can package them in servings for 2). We also asked them to prepare it for us for an extra $15. You aren't allowed to bring children to the meal-prep sessions, and we'd pay that in sitting or more - so why bother? Anyhoo, for what we'll call "15 meals" we paid a total of $125 including all food and their prep-fee. That breaks down to just over $4/person, which - I'm not sure if you've ever purchased fast-food in Florida - you can't even get a McValue Meal for that price. And believe me, we've been eating a lot of McCrap for the last 10 months!

Basically what it boils down to is you go through their monthly menu list and select however many meals you plan to purchase (6 or 12). You submit your order, pay for it, and then show up during your scheduled time to either make up your dishes (everything is pre-cut, pre-washed and ready to assemble according to their recipes) — or pick them up pre-made, toss in your cooler and take them home. Everything is labeled with detailed cooking instructions and you just keep it all frozen until it's time to throw it in the oven for dinner. Since we had everything prepared in advance before our arrival, all I have to do is take the aluminum casserole dish out of the freezer and toss it in the oven. Voilà!

Our only real complaint thus far is that the 3 dishes we've tried of our 6 have been somewhat 'bland'. I think this is intentional for first-timers. We're supposed to give our seasoning-requests to them if we order the same thing in the future (and they can also do requests like "hold the onions" or "no salt"). But we're of that rare-breed of people that actually prefer to taste our food which may be complicating things somewhat.

The first two dishes we've tried ("Crunchy Baked Chicken with Seasoned Noodles" and "Turkey Monterey Strata") we'd definitely order again. Although I'm cooking a different pasta mix with the chicken the next time - it needed a creamy-alfredo sauce to compliment it, not just plain pasta. And the turkey dish begged for hot salsa and sour cream. The "Italian Chicken and Pasta" we had last night left little to be desired. But then again, I grew up in a family of Italian cooks from Long Island. I know Italian. This was more like what you'd get if you hit the Golden Corral on pasta-night.

It's still nice to have a hot-cooked meal you can pretend you made yourself, avoid juggling 2 carts at the grocery store, and not say "thanks but I do NOT want to super-size it" at the end of a meal plan. So we'll see how the last 3 of our 6 choices go... If nothing else, it's made Todd appreciate just what a damn good cook I am when I actually do have the time to whip things up from scratch.

And to close, a couple of giggles for your weekend...

1. Ever wonder why FARK gives Florida their own tag? Wonder no more. Seriously, wasn't this a bad e-mail joke everyone's mom forwarded to them like 18 months ago?

2. A loose translation of the Japanese manual for the Nintendo DS Lite that literally made me snort Coca Cola out my nose.

Have a great Earth Day!
-Robyn