I just wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year. I hope that 2009 is a good one filled with great and wonderful changes! I hope to be back in the swing of things here on my blog on Monday. The holidays are always a hectic time for people and mommies especially. I think I have been in fast forward for the past month now.

We are all down sick at the moment with the exception of my husband. Today we took Alexander to the urgent care because he had labored breathing and a high temperature. They had to give him a breathing treatment and put him on steroids for 5 days. I have already noticed a major difference. Poor thing was exhausted and so was mommy because we were up every hour last night. I hope this means we are turning the corner. It is just incredibly hard when they are sick.

So I am hoping that this is not indicative of how 2009 will be. I am looking forward to great things in my life and here on my blog. I am determined to stay really motivated. I don’t typically make any resolutions simply because it sets you up for failure on day one. I prefer to think of them as aspirations and ideals that I wish to achieve at my own pace. That way when I don’t achieve them I can look forward to continuing to try and meet the challenge. I think it presents in a more positive light and then you just don’t have that resolution looming and you don’t have to feel bad…I think it just has a negative effect on your self esteem. So here’s to all those great aspirations! Ive got lots to look forward too…how bout you?

We are finally back from our trip and I must say it was pretty uneventful in terms of travel hassles.  The boys did really well on our 6.5 hour drive both ways.   I had prepared myself for a lot of whining and complaining but it was quite pleasant and I didn’t arrive completely frazzled.   We got home early on Sunday and between now and then, I have managed to put away all their new toys, build their home depot work bench, just about finished my laundry, and managed to grocery shop and make a couple of meals in between.

It is always nice to get all the stuff unpacked usually it sits in a corner and mocks me for a few days  LOL!  The boys are doing well and love playing with all their new toys especially their tools!   They both have picked up a little “kung foo goo” as I call it, and have been struggling with stuffy noses.   They both had mommy up about 12 times last night but I am a veteran night waker now HA!   I know it isn’t any fun for them when they can’t breathe.   I am just keeping them hydrated, the humidifier on full blast, and nose drops at night.

So far so good…..returning back to normal.   What is normal anyway?????

Here I am sitting here with the windows open at my parents house!   We are in the dead of winter and when we left it was only 5 degrees!  Now it is a balmy 70 degrees here at my parents house and the heater is turned off.   It has been such strange weather!   It makes me want to get in my shorts and sit out in a lawn chair, but like all good things they must come to an end.   IT is supposed to be 30 degrees by this evening….so much for an early spring!

I am enjoying my visit home and tonight will be the big family gathering.   I am looking forward to seeing all the people that I don’t get to see.   My boys will get to interact with some of their younger cousins and well I get sample all the good food.   It’s amazing how much you miss these things when you live so far away.   For me a visit home means a little spoiling for mommy.   It is nice to be pampered….the food always tastes better when you don’t have to cook!

But, like all good things, I am ready to head home tomorrow.   I think you start to miss your bed and house.   It is always nice to see family and visit but with little ones it is nice to get home and get back into a routine.  They have been adjusting very well in their new surrounding so I cannot complain too much!

Next weekend Santa will be visiting our house a little early because we will be visiting family later on and want to sort of have our own Christmas!   The boys are so excited about Santa and it is all they can talk about.  When you ask them what they want Santa to bring them, Nicholas will tell you stickers, a Christmas Lion, and a skateboard   LOL.  I told him Santa will do his best to fulfill these wishes (although, I seriously doubt he will bring a two year old a skateboard!).  Alexander wants a scooter…which mean he wants a computer (LOL) he watches me on my laptop.  Nicholas says, “I good boy, Santa bring toys!”

So Santa has gotten them a bunch of things, because they were just telling us that they wanted Santa to bring them toys.  But then they started being specific and I thought uh oh  lol!   So Santa was out this weekend getting them last minute things that they had requested.  So here I was shopping this weekend for a skateboard, which ended up being a scooter because it was the safest thing, and Nicholas will think it is a skateboard.   It is the cutest thing!   It is “My FIrst Scooter” by Radio Flyer and I had to get them each one otherwise these will surely cause a fight  LOL.   I think they will love them, and I found two huge bows to put on them and cant wait to put them by the tree!

So here I was daydreaming about their first major Christmas where they actually are excited, and Christmas morning when they wake up to find all their presents under the tree.  So the big baby that I am, I started crying in the store thinking about my sweet baby boys and how excited they will be.   This is my favorite time of the year, and I just love to see their faces light up.

Here is the empty tree….Hurry Santa!

*Notice the lack of ornaments at toddler level….we are still learning not to touch!  LOL  I have lost a few ornaments!*

The boys are now starting to sing songs and it is soo adorable to listen to them. I thought I would share a little clip of Nicholas singing his absolute favorite song “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” Enjoy!

So, I have been contemplating whether or not this will be a baking year for me.   Ever since I had the boys, I tend to run out of energy to get anything etra curricular done.  I am a huge fan of baking however, so I decided to pick up some magazines and look at some cookie recipes.  If I do bake I will plan on making about 4 or 5 differnt kinds of cookies.  I have some favorites and one of them is raspberry chocolate chip cookies!  I also like to make a few of the more difficult cookies, but we will see how that goes with two toddlers in the house!  If you have a favorite recipe to share, leave a comment.  I love to see what it out there and what other people consider thier favorite cookies to be.  Holiday baking here I come (maybe).

This day and age everything is so fast paced and streamlined when it comes to the retail world.   You can do a lot of your shopping in your pajamas in front of the television (which I love!).  I think with these many conveniences, you tend to lose track of what it is like to personally deal with people as a consumer, and it makes it easier for retailers to avoid working with them when a problem arises.

I recently ran across a great deal on a couple of car seats for the boys.  We currently have car seats for the boys but they seem to be outgrowing them and the things appear to be falling apart.   They will be in them for at least two more years, and I am afraid that they won’t last.  So I popped online when a friend told me that Target was running a terrific deal on Britax car seats ($42.99), so I rushed over and purchased two of them online.   Well come to find out, they were mispriced and they wound up canceling my order.  I was pretty bummed to say the least and felt a bit jipped.   Most places would typically honor the priceif it was a mistake on their part.

I was informed in my cancellation notice that, if I still wanted these seats that I could purchase them at the regular price of ($280) per seat!  WOW!   Now I can understand, that they made a mistake, but as a customer I feel like I am really the one paying for it.   Whatever happened to actual “customer service?”  Instead with this email, it felt more like welcome to “TARGET we are at our service.”   So basically their policy is in place to protect only them so only they profit or don’t lose anything?  Something seems a little backwards about that…don’t you think?   How is this anything remotely akin to customer service?, not only that, if you call, you more than likely will get someone in India!

Several of my friends had called about this mishap and were reassured that the price would be honored, then their orders were canceled, and a few lucky people…so I hear, had their seats shipped.   I am totally irked by all of this, and I am not usually one that complains much about this sort of thing, but I guess it just struck me as very seedy like practice.  How convenient it must be not to follow through, or just be able to send out a cancellation notice and poof your problems are over.  I usually have to deal with the mistakes I make, and their isn’t any way I can erase them….why should it be any different for Target or anyone else?  If I showed up and didn’t have my receipt, it would have been I am sorry but we can not refund your purchase.  I would seriously reconsider where you shop next time…I definitely won’t be shopping at Target anytime soon!

Here is the email I got in response to my letter I sent through their online help.  Notice the letter is from Sinu and none of the other responses I have read that other folks posted were from names I could pronounce.   Wow, what a way to do your customers…send out a general letter and not address the issue at all.  Not much different from the cancellation letter they sent to everyone.

I’m sorry, but we had to cancel your order with us for Britax marathon car seat. Because of an error, our website showed the wrong price for this item, and we can’t sell it to you for that price. If you’d still like to buy the item for the correct price, you can go ahead and place a new order.

We work hard to make sure that all of the prices on Target.com are right, but the rare mistake does come up. That’s why we always double check prices when we ship your order. In this case, we cancelled your order when we found the mistake. In other situations, we may choose to contact you for instructions before cancelling or changing your order.

Everything we did is in line with our posted pricing policies. If you want more information about those policies, you can look them up here: http://www.target.com/help

I know that you count on more than just great products from Target.com, and that having the right information on our website is just is important. I hope we haven’t disappointed you, and that you’ll continue to shop with us.

Best regards,

Sinu Thomas

Target.com Guest Service

http://www.target.com

Well after the site being down for half the day, I am finally back.  Apparently my hosting company decided to do some upgrade that they never mentioned to anyone.  Anyway, my husband was able to get my back and running…thank goodness.  Sorry for being gone so long!

So I decided that I needed to get milk and a few other things this morning from the grocery.  Nicholas has had a horrid diaper rash from the antibiotic he is on for his latest ear infection.   So I get us all ready and out the door and up the street.  I have twins, so the grocery store can sometimes be a challenge when you don’t have a cart to hold both of them.  Usually they have these little bench carts available and stupid cars that have videos that you have to pay for, well not today… so I put Nicholas in the seat part and Alex in the basket, because I wasn’t buying too much.

I gave each of the boys a few of their favorite mini pretzel rods and off I went.  Alexander decided to stand up and I am busy telling him to sit down when you guessed it…..he flopped right out of the cart and hit the floor.  It scared the crud out of me, and well, when I got him up, underneath his eye was all bloody.  He had fell and the pretzel cut  his eye.  So I leave the store and head home to see the damage and we decided to take him to urgent care.   Thankfully he didn’t need stitches, but imagine me telling them that he got cut by his pretzel!  Im just glad hes ok and I guess I will be paying for a cart next time when there are none of the free ones available.  I think its crazy that more places don’t have these and the ones that do have them should have them in good repair.   Half of them are broken!  Im sure all the twin moms can relate!

Did you ever just have one of those days where you just wanted to stay in bed and hide? Both of the boys are sick again and I am just beat.   I was trying to get out a post here and just fell right to sleep.   We are due to get ear tubes for Nicholas next week and it appears he may have another ear infection.   Neither one of them can breathe at the moment which makes sleeping next to impossible.   Hopefully by tomorrow,I will be up and running again.   When the bubbas are sick it seems the days get longer and I run out of gas a lot quicker.  I feel like superwoman some days!