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It hasn’t been a really quiet “calm” before the storm around our house. There's lots going on but our list of things to do before the twins arrive is growing smaller by the day. Still, there’s no pause button on life that we can press as we finish prepping.

One of the more unique challenges that come with prepping for twins is finding matching “things” – like clothes, cribs and especially car seats. We’re fortunate to have some very nice neighbors (who are also in our Sunday school class) that have loaned us a baby seat they’re no longer using. Julie found an exact match on eBay so we’re ready for that trip home from the hospital! Graham has even done his part to test the stability of the loaner seat.

Graham was invited to a friend’s birthday party at one of the neatest new places for kids in Birmingham – Let’s Play. This place features ball pits, bounce houses and lots of other fun stations under one roof. Plus, Let’s Play offers side rooms that can be reserved for birthday parties. You may not believe this but it was actually difficult to get Graham to leave this place.

A bigger family is going to need more food, right? Julie has solved for this problem by getting us a pair of raised garden beds. They’re made out of cedar and were easy to assemble. They’re not overly sturdy but they’ll do the job.

Put some garden beds together this morning. I just need you to come help me plant them now. pic.twitter.com/nlWnmd9aqq

— Nick Baggett (@Nick_Baggett) April 9, 2016

Graham helped us plant two varieties of tomatoes, some basil, squash and cucumbers.

Do you think he likes cucumbers now? He sure didn’t a few years ago!

It’s not blazing hot yet so being outside is actually nice these days. However, when you’re outside at our house, it’s hard not to notice all of the carpenter bees burrowing into our shutters and other exposed areas. I turned to YouTube to find a solution and I learned that many people have had success with traps with pre-drilled holes and a container to catch the bees. Here’s the trap I made. No bees yet.

As we garden and attempt to trap bees, Julie and I noticed a problem that we’ve been putting off: our flower beds are in serious need of fresh pine straw. Through the wonder of Facebook, Julie arranged for a local guy to come by the house to give us a quote on delivering and spreading some pine straw. Friends, who knew the pine straw industry was so lucrative?? We agreed to a price and the next day, a partial shipment of the pine straw arrived as we were planting our garden beds. The gentleman that brought the straw had a long trailer on the back of his truck, which made a loud scraping sound as he drove up our steep driveway. There wasn’t enough room for him to turn his vehicle around at the top of the drive way so he had to exit by backing down to the street. I was impressed that it only took him 7 restarts to get all the way down!

As I said, that was only a partial delivery. We were told that the remaining straw would be delivered in the coming days and it would all be spread at that time. As of this post, we still haven’t seen the rest of the straw. But that’s not so bad – we haven’t paid for the first delivery. I’m sure they’ll be back soon!