New Wheels

My kids are a handful. They keep me very entertained, but also on my toes. Today, we headed into the house after playing outside. I went to the kitchen with Arya and my mom, who was here, heard Eiley in the bathroom. She'd let herself in, climbed onto the counter and was washing her shoes. She did this in about twenty seconds. It's amazing how fast she moves. Sometimes she feels the need for wheels since she wants to move so fast.

Walking Tornado

A&E are a walking tornado, hence their twinado nickname. The house was clean when they got up this morning. We left home about an hour after they got up and didn't return until close to lunch time. Somehow between eating breakfast and getting ready, they managed to destroy my family room. This wouldn't be such an issue if my front door didn't open up into this room. We got home from grocery shopping, pulled into the garage and the neighborhood kids swarmed. I got out of the car and before I could get either kid out of their carseat, there were 4 kids in my garage already. By the time I got both kids out, one of those kids was already in the house. I don't mind this at all, but she walked into a field of toy landmines. I put away the frozen and refrigerated stuff and then decided to tackle the family room before finishing with the rest of the groceries. As I was cleaning the family room, the girls were happily tearing apart the kitchen. Of course I didn't notice until it was too late. By the time I saw them, they had pulled the diaper bag off the counter and emptied it, along with the last bit of pretzels and all the salt from the bottom of a pretzel bag. Fun times!

Later in the day, when I was cooking dinner, I turned around to find Arya trying to suck down almond milk straight out of the carton. This is definitely not something she's seen either Cork or me do. Thankfully, the container was empty or I'm sure she would have had it all over herself, the chair and the floor.

Dancing Shoes and Tippy Toes

Eiley put on her own shoes for the first time today. She's tried before, but never gotten her foot totally into a shoe and the buckle or velcro fixed. She did a great job. She dug the shoes she wanted out of the front closet. I'm amazed she did so well with the white one since it's a) on the wrong foot and b) a size too small. Ouch!

Arya has become the buhbuh police. She makes sure Eiley does not have a pacifier when she shouldn't. If Arya wants one when she shouldn't have it, then that's not an issue at all, she happily helps herself to one. I heard the kids screaming in the kitchen tonight and found Arya up on her toes yelling "night night buhbuh" while Eiley frantically tried to reach the pacifier.

Prefold Prep

I've been having issues with our night diaper inserts for a while. I can not get the balance of detergent right. Too much and they smell like ammonia once the girls uri.nate in them and too little and they still stink once the wash is finished. To get the ammonia stink you, I have to strip the diapers. I can do this by washing them with some dawn detergent or by boiling them on the stove. I'm sick of doing it and hate the microfiber fabric that's in our night inserts. I finally broke down and went to buy new inserts this weekend. I wanted to try some hemp inserts, but the store I went to didn't have hemp inserts that would soak up enough liquid to last all night. Instead, I bought prefolds. I had to prep the prefolds today before the kids could wear them tonight. I prepped them by boiling them on the stove for 15 minutes with some dawn and then washing them a few times. I'm hoping the 15 minute boil was enough to skip most of the washing cycles I should have done. I'll find out in the morning if the prefolds soaked up uri.ne all night long or if they repelled it still and I have to wash all the sheets and mattress covers. The oils in the fabric stop the liquid from soaking in, so that has to be pulled out of the fabric before it's used. I should have taken a before and after pic of the prefolds. They go from these very large flat pieces of fabric to smaller very puffy pieces of fabric.

After my prepping was started, we took a drive to the zoo. The kids were happily sitting in the van, making their babies dance. Do you notice that they are still rear facing? Yep. 24 months and I'm still in no hurry to face them forward. They still fit in the rear facing seats and they are so much safer riding that way. They haven't ridden forward, so don't know what they are missing.

I knew it was only a matter of time before the kids used their strollers for each other instead of their dolls. Today was that day.

Kitchen Kids

We spent the day at my in laws today. The girls played with this beautiful kitchen set that was their aunts. They had so much fun. Arya knew she shouldn't climb up on it, but after she figured out how to push the sink out from the bottom, climbing was just too irresistible. I turned these photos when I edited them, but apparently the rotation didn't stick. I'm too tired to care right now.

Winter's Coming

I've been sorting and washing clothes for this fall. I know it's a little early still, but I don't want a cold day to sneak up on us and not have anything for them to wear. I took the tags off their new coats today and both wanted to wear them. I wish I'd taken video of them. They were both huge goof balls.

Dancing Dogs

The kids played in their room while I showered today. I ran downstairs before jumping in the shower and came back up to find Arya in her crib and Eiley dancing with a big stuffed dog. Arya was cracking up and egging Eiley on. After my shower, I found them both in their cribs. Until now, Eiley hadn't climbed into her crib yet. I guess Arya showed her what she needed to do.

I let them into my room while I got ready and snapped these great pics of them. I told them to say cheese and love that they both did the same thing.

Stand Off

It's always the nights that I'm totally exhausted that the kids decide they need to stay up late. Eiley refused dinner tonight and then asked for something to eat at 8:20 pm. I gave her dinner. She and I had a little standoff at the table. She kept picking up her fork, licking it and then putting it back down. It was so hard not to laugh at. She was salivating the whole time, so she kept drooling each time she put the fork near her mouth. Eventually she broke down and decided the fork full of enchilada was not going to do her harm. She ate it and then asked for me. She didn't eat much. I'm sure she would have eaten a lot if I'd given her crackers, but the important thing is that she eventually ate what we ate for dinner.

Oops Paint Art

Cork and I are in the process of decorating a new bedroom for the girls. We didn't go overboard when we decorated their baby bedroom. I wanted it simple and somewhat unisex even though we knew we were having girls. Their toddler room on the other hand is all girl. I've been collecting stuff for it for a while now, so we haven't spent much, but it's going to be so cute when we're done. I made this for them so they could have some cute things hanging on the wall. I'm really happy with how it turned out. The most expensive part was the frame from IKEA. I even got the paint for $1 at Home Depot as oops paint. I love the oops paint. I have to admit that I have a lot of it in my basement, but it's so awesome when I find a color that I really need. A few of the things we have for their room is this bright green. I couldn't have found a color that matched as well unless I had them color match the things we'd already bought.

One Proud Mama

As a parent, there are so many things that you kids do that make you almost burst with pride. So many things that make you feel like you could never love them more than you do at that moment. So many things that make you smile. Those things are not always appropriate and sometimes shouldn't be encouraged so you don't get a repeat performance in public. Eiley put her legs up on the table today at lunch and ripped a huge fart. I tried my hardest not to laugh. Arya didn't hold back though and cracked up laughing "I-E Butt". We have a bit of monkey see monkey do going on around here, so after laughing, Arya put her own legs up and repeated Eiley's performance. I'm sure my getting the camera out didn't encourage them at all. I'm sure their forcefully trying to pass gas had absolutely nothing to do with me snapping pictures.

Pee.Pee Night Night

Yesterday, Arya figured out how to climb into her crib. I think the only reason the two of them haven't climbed out is because they always have a playmate at nap and bedtime and can goof off next to each other. They don't have a reason to escape. Arya wanted into the crib yesterday to jump, but I told her she had to wait until I finished putting her clean clothes in her dresser. She apparently didn't want to wait and climbed on in. The blog pictures show how my kids climb everything. I rarely get nervous about something they are doing because I know their ability. I was nervous when I saw her doing this. She is not good at it and it's like watching a drunken teenager trying a new stung he's never done before. She kept doing it today and I was less nervous each time, but she still looks drunk and unsteady.

We had a long day yesterday and the kids did not get to bed until late. Because of that, they were pretty tired this morning. We put them in their cribs to nap, but they had other plans. They played and squealed and were quite and then played and squealed again. Cork ran some errands and I took a shower. After my shower I decided it was time to check on them. When I opened the door I found that they'd thrown everything out of their cribs, which is typical. They had also chucked their pajamas and wet diapers. That wasn't it though. Eiley had urinated on her crib sheet. When I asked her about it, Arya laughed and giggled and yelled "I-E pee.pee night night". She definitely thought it was funnier than I did. Before I knew it, Arya was urinating in her own crib, laughing up a storm. I had to strip their beds, wash everything and explain to them, during their bath, why they shouldn't "pee.pee" in their cribs.

Clown Clothes

We drove into the Chicago area today for a wedding shower for my cousin and his fiance. I made these outfits for the kids and today was the first time they wore them. I forgot to bring my camera, so had to take pictures with Cork's cell phone.

I took a picture of the outfits back in May while I was still working on them. The girls have grown into them since then and they don't walk on the leg ruffles quite so much. I know the outfits are a little clown-ish, but I think they are cute. I won't be able to make things like this much longer, so I need to do them while I can.

Art and Water

After yesterday afternoon, the girls and I were due for a good day. We started our day with a play date. Arya and Eiley happily dragged out just about every toy they could at their friend's house. They dropped food on the floor and chewed on Mickey Mouse Club magnets they stole off the fridge. I'm lucky that we've invited back each time they run amok there.

I tried to feed the girls lunch after the playdate, but they had no interested. Instead, we played outside. We brushed the cats, played in the swings and on the slide, watched some deer, and watered our tomato plants. The watering quickly turned into me spraying the kids a little. And of course they turned into them playing with the hose for the first time. We all had a great time!

I decided it was time to dry off, so stripped Arya down, dried both kids off and brought them inside. I let them sign their birthday thank you notes and walked away for a couple seconds to grab my glass of water off the kitchen counter. I came back to them both drawing all over each other. I figured they were washable markers, so just let them continue their decorating.

Toy Mix Up

The girls have been doing a lot of fighting lately. They love to fight over the same toy, even when we have 2 of the exact same thing. They were fighting over this baby today. My solution was to take both babies, put them behind my back, then hand them back to the kids. Both Arya and Eiley were happy with my solution and walked away holding their baby.

Stamp This

The girls got stamps and a huge stamp pad for their birthday. The stamps are all animals and Arya and Eiley love them. They ask for most of the animals by the sound they make. They say "rar" for lions, tigers, alligators, bears etc. It can make it tricky for me to know which "rar" animal they are trying to find. Once they find it, they know exactly what to do with it. It's fun to watch them help each other put the stamps on the ink pad since they need a little pressure to soak up the ink. I'm impressed they figured this out.

Wake and Go

I got the kids out of their cribs this morning, changed their diapers, put them down and they went to work. Their little feet had been on the ground for less than a minute when they started this. They don't waste any time.

Potty Grunts

We took the kids to the zoo today and my mom snapped this photo of me carrying Arya.

Arya has been making grunting noises lately pretending she's pooping. Today, she sat on her new doll potty and started grunting. I immediately cracked up, which of course encouraged her to do some more grunting.

Two Wonderful Years

I'm sure I will never cease to be amazed at how fast my kids grow up. I'm amazed that my children celebrated their second birthday today. The last 24 months have flown by so quickly. There have been times that have been incredibly hard, but our days are generally filled with so much fun and laughter. I was thinking today about our journey to parenthood and how slowly the 21 months of trying to conceive went. My life is so different now than it was then and I can't think of one thing that is worse. I love my little family. I was laying the girls into bed tonight and didn't want to put them down. They were more than ready to sleep. To them, this was just another day, even though it was filled with friends, family, cake, singing and presents. They are old enough to tell people how old they are, but don't understand the significance of today's party. To us, as their parents, today marks the 2nd anniversary of the best thing that ever happened to us.

We started our day by taking the kids to Toys R Us to buy strollers for their babies. They knew we were going to buy something, but they didn't know what. Cork and I planned on getting them strollers and wrapping them like the rest of their presents, but a couple weeks ago I mentioned that I thought we should let them buy the strollers. They are very excited about buying things right now and were so cute at the store. Eiley was in the cart that I was pushing and spotted the strollers even before I could point them out. She started yelling "buy that" and pointing to the stroller. Cork pulled his cart up next to mine and Arya quickly chimed in. We took the kids out and let them pick their colors. Of course Eiley picked a pink stroller and Arya picked a blue one. We bought the strollers and set them up in the parking lot. Both girls were so excited about pushing the strollers around. Once home, the strollers kept them busy while we got ready for their party.

We celebrated their birthday with a cookout with friends and family. The girls got to eat their favorite food, hot dogs. When we took the kids to the state fair recently, both became obsessed with cows. At my baby shower, one of my friends gave me a CD with kid songs based on a line of kid books. The songs are entertaining and not too bad to listen to as an adult. The kids love the CD all of the sudden and beg for the cow song every time we're in the car. They can listen to that song over and over and over and...you get the picture. Anyway, I was going to make monkey cakes for them until they started this cow obsession. I took pictures of the cakes before setting them in front of the kids. We ended up taking more pics of the kids in front of the cakes and I had to remind them over and over not to touch the cakes. The poor girls were tortured with the cakes sitting right there and not be able to touch them. Arya kept getting as close as possible without actually touching it.

After cake we moved onto presents. Both girls were excited about opening their gifts and needed very little help. A couple gifts were wrapped with more tape than they could handle, but they managed to get almost everything open themselves. They are now the happy owners of lots and lots of baby stuff along with a couple Bitty Babies. Arya and Eiley love babies all of the sudden and their birthday couldn't have been better timing to load up on their new favorite toys. They are going to have so much fun over the next few months playing with all of their new toys.

We are so blessed to have these amazing children in our lives and to be able to share their birthday with so many lovely friends and family members. Before the party started, Cork brought their new Cozy Coupe car up from the basement. Both kids noticed the big package right away and Cork made some comment about it being the Elephant in the room. Both kids thought that we'd wrapped up an elephant for them and kept talking about the elephant and touching it.