Belated Bathing Beauties

Seven days ago we began the Big Boy Bed Bonanza.  (Yesterday was better and today's nap has been the best yet.  I think that's because my fantastic twin mom friends wore them out a the twosies twinsies playdate today!  I'm grateful whatever the reason.)  My genius brain concocted a plan: take them to the pool so they are absolutely exhausted come bedtime.

It worked!  Aunt L was visiting and snapped some really cute shots of the fellas at the city pool.  Next time we'll take lifejackets and swim toys so the fun lasts even longer.

My favorite shot of the day!

My other favorite - I can never pick just one, you know!

There you have it - our belated bathing beauties. 

Choo! Choo! Now we're TWO!

"Choo-Choo is coming!  WHAAAAHHH!  WHAAAAAH!"
That was how Hubs and I woke up at 5:30 this morning.  Think the boys were excited for their Thomas the Train themed birthday party?  The "WHAAAHHH!" sound is my sons imitating the noise the REAL trains make as they blast the horn going through our new town.  They already know trains don't say "chugga-chugga" or "choo-choo" - they know they are LOUD and startling!

Our two families gathered at a nearby park and shared a picnic together this afternoon.  Despite threatening weather, the rain held off until the chicken, salads, baked beans, and three delicious cakes were eaten and all the presents were opened.

What cracks me up about toddlers is that really, they just need ONE toy for a holiday or birthday.  They simply aren't interested in the clothes (that I'm THRILLED they're receiving)!  Or they just need some dirt and sticks, like they found at the park! 

Thank you to our parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins who braved the storm clouds to celebrate our sons' lives.  We love you and are grateful that you can be a part of their special day!  Enjoy a few of the lovely photos taken by our amateur photographer auntie:

M is all smiles, welcoming our guests.

3 fantastic cakes!

"I'll help you, brother."

Thanks for the presents!

Make a wish!

Best Friends Forever

Yummy!

Up, up and away!

For You!

Our son, Goldilocks

Happy Birthday, boys!  You are the answer to our prayers.  We love you and are proud to be your parents.  So please sleep in tomorrow.

Happy Second Birthday!

We celebrated two years in style tonight with the best deal in town: Nickelodeon Universe at the Mall of America!  You can register your kids' birthdays on their website and receive a FREE unlimited ride wristband valid on the birthday!  Thank you to the MVMOMs who told me about this deal - it was a stellar idea!

The boys love being BIG and they tell us every day now that they are, but if you ask me, they're still convincing themselves - I know they're still missing the pacifiers a bit.  Today, though, they showed us they really ARE big by riding lots of rides at the amusement park.  Can you tell they enjoyed it?

M LOVED the "Big Rig" ride - he's not smiling here because it's NOT MOVING!

My favorite shot of the night; N and Daddy on the last ride, Blue's Clues.

They were a little nervous on the first ride, though - the carousel.

Choo-choo!  Our little conductors on the train ride.

It's SO HARD to wait for our favorite, the Big Rig ride.

We broke for dinner at Ruby Tuesday's, where the boys gifted US with a peaceful meal and very good behavior (for two freshly minted two-year-olds, they were great!) and were rewarded with their OWN birthday sundaes afterward, a real treat!

"Ice cream is cold!" M says.

N and his big birthday ice cream.

What a fantastic family night to treasure forever!  The boys are getting to be so much fun and (knock on wood) a bit easier to go out with.  (I know, I know, don't burst my bubble, okay?  They were so good tonight!)  We have more celebrations planned in the coming days and will keep you posted on the smiles.  In the meantime, enjoy being two with our little guys.

Let's roll!

Keep on truckin', baby!

Kids Say the Darndest Things

My boys are turning into chatterboxes!  Even N, who has let his brother do most of the talking until this week is getting in on the action!

N all dressed up for Mother's Day

N started talking this week!  Here are a few of the things he's saying:

• "Silly Daddy," when Hubs told him he was a silly boy in the bathtub last night.  I'm so glad I got to hear it!
• He counts the stairs as we go down together (there are 17 from the deck to the backyard) and it's so funny to hear which numbers come out!  "One, two, five, nine," One of these days, he'll call, "Hike!"
• "Baseball shirt," he said when I was dressing him one day after I said, "Let's put on your baseball shirt,"  
• "Jesus and Bibo" N LOVES his children's Bible and is often found reading it quietly in his bedroom.  All of the illustrated  characters look the same(with different hair colors!), so every page has a picture of Jesus on it.  There's no convincing him that that's Noah or Daniel or anyone else - they are ALL Jesus!
• "Door open!" it's the magic word to get the garage door to open when we return from our walks and key in the code. But today, he decided to open the interior garage door while I was putting on his brother's shoes.  "Door open!" and he turned the handle!

M is a REAL chatterbox!  He's been speaking in complete sentences for weeks now and he talks NONSTOP.  I actually told him to be quiet last night so I could hear what Hubs was trying to tell me when he came home!

• "Bee is coming," because one of our neighbors has a plastic bee in her flower garden.  It's so small we didn't even notice it the first time, but now when we turn that direction on our walks, we hear "Bee is coming, bee is coming, bee is coming, bee is coming...." until we get there. 
• "Big semi-truck!" every time we see one.
• "Two busses!" We often see busses when we drive to church on Tuesday mornings, so we count them together.
• "Silly Daddy...Mommy...Brudder..." or whomever!  I didn't notice that I said this often, but apparently, I do!
• "Mommy (or Daddy) drive the car." "Get the keys!" I buckle them into their seats and then run inside to collect our gear (can't do it all at once) and tell them I'm going to get the keys.
• "Moomie?" when he wants a DVD movie played in the van. N calls it a "mee-moo!"
• "Yes, Jesus loves me," he sings when we sing "Jesus loves me" at bedtime.  Amazingly, he's right on key - something he learned from his father, not me!  Then, "Again?" We wind up singing it several times.

Good News! Bath Night!

I found my phone!  It wasn't lost long, but I have a terrible habit of misplacing it when it's on vibrate, I'm alone, and it's nighttime. 

I received my new bedding!  I've never had a problem ordering anything from Amazon, but I didn't realize I was buying this item from a vendor selling through Amazon, so (dun-dun-dun) it took a MONTH for the right item to arrive, complicated of course by the fact that I MOVED during that period!  

AND, I found my camera's charger!  You, poor readers, have been paying the price all month because I've taken no new pictures.  Once it was charged, I took pics of our first activity - bath night.  My boys get a bath every other night whether they need it or not (they always do).  Just eating they get dirty!  If you look closely I think you can see guacamole under M's nose - or it could be a booger.  Either way, they were really funny tonight in the tub.  Here are my little hams:

N's curls rinsed out - look how long his hair is!

N's curls, before the wash

Cutie Patootie Peeking N

Smiley M - I think he looks so big here!

Blue, green, red, blue...choo! Choo!

No, red, then, green, then blue

Okay, N, but I'll make it two blues.

Whatever.

Cute Kid

If you stand on your head, you will see my adorable little boy and handsome Hubs petting a 4 day old goat kid at the MN Zoo on Sunday.  For the life of me, I can't get the picture to flip.  I can only assume I was holding the camera upside down?  When stuff like this happens, I can only say, well, self, if this is as bad as it gets today, you're doing pretty darn good!

The (Mostly) Cute Things They Do

Please excuse the lack of photos.  Packing house does not lend itself well to...chargers, for example.

• Learn how gravity works: for example, if you push your Cozy Coupe car up to the top of the driveway then get it and patter a few steps Flinstones-style, gravity will take you all the way to the bottom!  This is outrageously fun, but something we'll have to put the kabosh on next week, since then the driveway will end in a REAL road.
• Say "please,": Whining, yelling, and the like ensue for the desired item, then we remind them to say please.  They will stop and politely say, "please," after which we usually give them the item...not sure if that's the greatest parenting method, but it works - kind of.
• Ask for a diaper change: M will usually squat, grunt, and say, "poo-poo," calling out for anyone willing to change him, but N is more sly.  He hides while doing the deed, unnoticed, then crawls up into your lap with a toy or a book.  The "victim" is happy to cuddly with cutie pie, then a whiff wafts up to his/her nose as if to say, "I chose YOU for this diaper change."
• Alert us to reversing vehicles: we live on a dead-end drive so the garbage truck backs in every Friday going "Beep-beep-beep," as well as a certain Tonka truck toy that says, "Beep-beep-backing-up-backing-up!"  One day out of nowhere, M said, "Beep-beep!" when I put the van in reverse!  Now they both do it...EVERY TIME.
• Read the Bible: every night we read from an Illustrated Children's Bible which stays in their room.  They say, "Bi-bo! Bi-bo!" and bring the HUGE hardcover to us to read it.  N is especially in love with it and we often find him "reading" it alone in his room.  It melts my heart, especially when he points to an illustration and says, "Jee" (Jesus).
• Open doors: I know they've gained a couple inches because now they can reach doorknobs previously inaccessible.  So twice N has escaped out the garage!  Now I have to turn the lock while putting on my and M's shoes and have locked Hubs out of the house this way.
• Learn their colors: M is "blue" and N is "green" and we have coordinated many things this way, but sippy cups in particular is a big deal suddenly.  I CANNOT give a boy the wrong color cup or will hear "bro-bro-jew," "bro-bro-mewk" (brother's juice/milk) endlessly.  Seemingly, this does not apply if THEY share or steal with each other - only if I give them the "wrong" color.
• Identify each other: we look at photo books of ourselves and family members often.  They can identify all of their grandparents and aunts and most of their cousins (mostly) accurately.  They can identify each other with "bro-bro," or sometimes, "Nay-Nay," but they can't identify themselves! 

They do a thousand other adorable (and less so) things, but we're off to deliver some brownies to some very special people.

(A few hours later.....) The brownie delivery went well!  The boys LOVE going to visit Daddy at his office, and his co-workers (say they) love to have us visit, despite that it's really me and Hubs chasing and retrieving them through a labyrinth of cubicles.  The guys really worked it, batting those big blue eyes and giving high-fives and getting, in return, brownie bites!  I thought of a couple more while driving this morning:

• Identifying animals: At the zoo yesterday, N said, "eee-eee-eee-oooh-oooh-oooh-aaah-aaah-aah!" when we approached the monkey exhibit. M pointed to an enormous pig and said, "Big pig night night!"  By the way, Farm Babies are at the zoo during the month of April and are ADORABLE! 

• Go to bed: They kiss us and each other good night with puckered lips and a big "moowah!"

Wordless Wednesday: Friends

Coping Skills

We bake brownies. 

"Pweeze?"

We were working on "please" tonight. Because this afternoon, they were snatching the Nilla wafers out of my hand and running away! 

When they came back for another, I told them to be polite and say "please."

Much whining ensued.  "Cooo-kie?  Coook-kie? Coook-ie?  Waaaahhhh!"  Then running away. 

This went on for just a minute until M said, "Pweeze?" like it was all his idea. I handed him the cookie, and said, "thank you, Mommy.  You're welcome." just reinforce that that's how the communication works. He smiled and bit the cookie, running away to play. 

N watched the exchange, then....

lunged at me, trying to grab the cookie out of my hand, then pitched himself onto the floor with a big, "WAAAHHHHH!" 

He's a little dramatic and I did not fall for this. 

An hour or so later, when they saw me sneak a Nilla wafer, maybe or maybe not on purpose, we tried it again.

"Say please," I prompted.

"Pweeeeeeze?" M asked.  I handed him the cookie and he scampered away.  Then I prompted N, who'd again seen how it works.

Once more, I was attacked by a frantic toddler, desperate for a Nilla wafer.  No cookie.  He was quite upset with me.

Half an hour later, one of them spotted the Nilla wafer box on the counter and immediately M said, "Cookie? Pweze? Cookie? Pweze?"  Seriously, who can resist THAT?

N must have been pretty desperate because, after a little prompting, he said, "Pee."

That was the sweetest cookie in the box.

Helpers

 Perhaps I was bragging a bit too much in my last post about having the best kids in the world?  Sorry.  I don't mean to rub it in.  But I do.  Have the best kids in the world, I mean. For instance, they are becoming BIG helpers:

While skyping with "Gamma" two nights ago, N slid his little hand between the cupboard and the fridge, grabbed the broom, and "swept" my kitchen and living room.  he was swiping it all over the carpet, cupboards, toys, etc., and whacking me and M in the heads with it.  Did I take it away?  Nope.  I wanted to talk to my mom, and taking the broom away would have resulted in one of his toddler temper tantrums (oh, that's its own post!).  I just waited till he was done, then placed the broom behind the "fence" in our living room that "protects" our computer and entertainment center.  (Seriously classy decorating skills.  I'm thinking of consulting.)

I have two munchkins permanently glued to my legs when I'm in the kitchen.  Or underfoot.  Or in the oven drawer.  Or in the fridge, if I can't shut it fast enough.  So when it's dinnertime and they're hungry, they're there.  Here's another confession: I don't cook when Hubs is traveling (shocking, right?!) and we eat Standard Toddler Fare.  Still, they want to help with even that.   Here they are, "helping" me "cook";

They're totally frozen!  They loved this part.  Awhile back, I let them put muffin liners in the pan, which was also exceedingly fun.

Letting my twins help is like doing the bunny hop all day: two steps forward, one step back. Or, more like one step forward two steps back? But we're having fun and attaining a modicum of cleanliness and health (see how it says 100% all natural ingredients!?) so it's all good!

Come on over for dinner.  You can lick your own nuggets.

Snowed In!

What do you do when you're snowed in with two 18 month olds?

Brush your teeth in the tub!

Snuggle and read!

Try on Grandma's reading glasses!

Play 'n' Poop

Pray

And take the plow driver cookies and hot chocolate when he clears your driveway! Fun times tomorrow, here we come!