It's a.....

We had our 20 week ultrasound today. While that ultrasound is supposed to be used to measure and check anatomy, many people call it their gender ultrasound. Our little one was extremely cooperative for the anatomy part of the ultrasound, but no so much for the gender part. The baby was sitting breech, with its legs crossed and its heels right next to its crotch when we started. This gave the stenographer great shots of the heart, arms, and brain. We needed baby to move to get good pictures of its spine, so I drank some cold water and as usual that got baby going. It turned to give great shots of its legs, spine and diaphram. We were getting toward the end of the ultrasound when the stenographer thought she might have gotten a good shot. I thought I'd seen the same thing. She played around a little more and we finally got a somewhat decent shot. I wouldn't say we are 100% like we were with Arya and Eiley, but I would say we're probably 95% sure that baby number three is a girl. I am so excited, but also a little disappointed. I knew this would happen either way. If we were having a boy I would be excited, but would also be disappointed because I have loved having girls and another little girl in the house will be amazing. I'm excited to have another girl since we have so much fun, but I'm disappointed knowing that we won't have a little boy in the house.

We came home and I told the girls that the baby is a girl. Arya was excited, but Eiley was not thrilled.
E: "my no yike baby guwl" "my no want baby hih-her".

Poor kid. At least she has time to adjust. I think Cork and I may need until June to come up with a name. We used our two favorite names for Arya and Eiley and I honestly have no idea what name we'll use this time. Thankfully there are lots of websites and books at our library that can help with this search.

Mail Call

A&E got a package in the mail today. They were super excited to open it up. I'm glad I remember how much fun it was to get mail when I was a child because I feel like I can share in their excitement.

Tracing Names

Arya and Eiley's preschool teachers work with them almost every week on how to correctly hold a pen/pencil/marker etc. and how to trace their name. It's always with a fun activity since they are 2 and don't need anything super structured yet. Their teachers have asked the parents to help their kids with these activities. I've tried at home, but they never want to do it. Today, I told them that Miss Laura and Miss Michelle would love it if they traced their names. Of course they both did it right away to make their teachers happy. Arya traced hers in the same color I wrote it in, so it's harder to see, but both kids did a pretty good job for being two.

Frisbee and Trifle

Cork and Uncle Greggy's ultimate frisbee team was having a party at our house today. I decided to make a cake for this party. As always when you only have a certain amount of time to get things done, my cake stuck in the pan. It was a really good chocolate cake though, so I didn't want to throw it out. Cork suggested I cut it up and make a trifle out of it. I think a second chocolate cake would have been faster, but the trifle turned out really good. The kids happily helped clean out bowls full of vanilla pudding and raspberry coulis.

My Day Off

Today was sort off a day for me. I took the kids to the zoo this morning. Cork had half a day off work and I took full advantage of it. I went to lunch with friends and then came home and took a much needed nap.

Swearing Toddlers

The kids always get into something while I clean up the kitchen from lunch. Today it wasn't so bad though. As I cleaned, Eiley came running through with no pants or diaper on. As she passed me she yelled out "my peepee poopoo on poppy mama". I chased after her to get some clothes back on her. She said she'd washed her hands, but Arya ratted her out that she hadn't used any "oap" (soap).

We were going into a store and Arya was telling Eiley "No shit Eiley, okay. No shit" LOL. She was telling Eiley not to throw a fit, but I think her way of saying it was pretty appropriate too.

Tonight, they were arguing about chips at dinner.
A: My no want big tits.
E: My want big tits.

Of course Cork and I couldn't stop laughing, so now they both are walking around saying these sentences. They have no idea which word in the sentence is funny.

Japanese Steak House

Kids make things interesting. Eiley was busy throwing one of her gigantic tantrums today. I heard her stop, so went upstairs to check on her and see if she was ready to come back downstairs and join us. I came back down to find Arya doing her best Japanese Steak House Chef impersonation. And the great mother that I am decided to snap a picture before taking the knives away.

Egg Hearts

The girls are hit or miss when it comes to eggs. Most of the time it's a miss. I try to get them to eat eggs for breakfast once per week, but that doesn't always work. I decided to make them heart shaped scrambled eggs this morning. It was sort of a success. They were both super excited at first but Arya quickly got bored with it. When Eiley offered to feed her, she was interested again. They both at almost a whole egg, which was pretty good for them.

Somehow, Eiley manged to get stuff in this open frisbee today. I had to take her pants and diaper off to get her out of it.

Sand

We had a fun day today, despite being inside most of the day. I made the girls "sand" out of flour and baby oil. What a mess! I figured it would get messy, but I didn't anticipate how much fun they would have...which translates to how hyper they would get. I couldn't keep both in check at the same time. We got the sand all over the kitchen and it was tracked through the hall and onto the front rug. I needed to clean the kitchen floor anyway, so I didn't mind. The girls played with this longer than they have done any other activity in a long time, so it was definitely worth the mess.

I found this bag behind the living room couch. I dumped the stuff in it so I could see what a 2 year old collects. In doing so, I found some things I had been looking for. They had Christmas ornaments, my first shoes, a small pot from the kitchen, a shovel, a handle to a plastic container, cards, one of their baby shoes, a pair of slippers, plastic cheese, mega blocks, and a my little pony brush in the bag. Very important stuff.

Arya was holding Eiley on the couch today. She must be practicing up for baby #3.

Hold 'Em Up

Poor Eiley isn't feeling well. I'd rather she feel well, but she sure is cute like this.

I asked Arya to hold up her juice boxes so I could see them. She obviously listens a little too well.

Safe?

No one is safe from these two. If someone goes into the bathroom and shuts the door...they will follow you.

Line Them Up

We went to bed last night and saw this. The girls did it again tonight. I guess baby does not need to be in bed with them, which means their pacifiers also don't need to be in bed with them since the pacifier is attached to baby per their wishes. While they weren't really sucking on the pacifier anymore, there were nights when they cried for us to put it in their mouth. They'd clamp on it with their teeth and be happy to chew on it a little. Thankfully that is done now too.

I'm not sure if Eiley's baby spends more time in or out of this plastic bin. She's can do all sorts of things in the bin, like ride in her stroller, take a bounce in her bouncy seat and be carried around in Eiley's arms.

Do Pot Now

And it begins...one of the girls spilled water today.
V: Arya, did you spill your water?
A: No!
E: Arya spill my wahwah.
V: Arya, did you spill Eiley's water?
A: Yeah!

We ran to the store today to buy a couple things, including pink emmy emmies for the kids. They were so happy on the way home, making so much noise and then suddenly it was quiet.

I have been renting a DVD or two for the kids from the library each week. This week they have a Barney one and a Spot one. Arya wanted to watch them today, but they watched enough tv yesterday, so I told her no. She kept pushing for Spot and I told her "No, we aren't watching Spot right now". Her response "Yes, mama do pot now". How do you not laugh at that?

Signature Please

Poor Ingogh is showered with love in this house. He might look a little angry here, but he's actually just sleepy. Eiley quickly shoved him aside, making room for herself, and read some books sitting next to him.

This reward system for using the potty si working pretty well in my favor. I haven't had to change a poopy diaper in a few days. We did have to fish a poo out of the tub last night though. Yuck!

Some ideas I have, like the M&Ms, are good ideas. And then some really aren't. I let Arya and Eiley sign my belly today. I walked away to take a picture and Arya signed her own belly. As a side note, my belly looks gigantic in this picture, but it's really not that big yet.

If You Give a Kid a Cupcake

I started giving the girls M&Ms for peeing on the potty. I thought they were getting close to being ready to potty train, so figured we'd give this a try to see if it gave them the little kick, push, shoved etc. in the right direction. The M&Ms might be working a little too much. The girls are asking to use the potty more often than they probably need to, but Eiley went all day today without a wet diaper and even pooped in the potty. Arya was playing upstairs with Eiley and a neighbor kid. The neighbor kid came down with Arya's diaper and told me that Arya had peed in the potty. She's never peed on a potty by herself, so I figured she'd just taken her diaper off. Nope. She'd actually peed. I asked her to show me how she'd climbed onto the toilet. She's a little monkey and used the cabinet and scaled between it and the toilet. She then held onto the cabinet and sort of squatted on the toilet. I am surprised there was no pee on the floor. Apparently the neighbor kid had given her toilet paper and she'd even wiped herself. I'm not ready to go without diapers yet, but they are getting closer.

If you give a kid a cupcake...

Fashion Sense

This is what happens with 2 year olds dress themselves.

And since I haven't done a comparison picture in a year. This is me at A&E's age and Eiley today.

Yute!

There is a new obsession in this house and it's for cupcakes. Arya and Eiley both point out cupcakes everywhere they see them, which is mainly in books. I decided to make them some cupcakes today. They "helped" more than I needed. My frosting skills are not very good to start with, but trying to frost cupcakes with two 2 year olds is extremely challenging. I don't know if I had one cupcake that stood still while I tried to frost it. We had lots of mouths on cupcakes before they were frosted, fingers in frosted cupcakes etc. After they were all frosted, A&E got to enjoy one and were so excited about their "yute". I don't think I've talked about their twin vocabulary recently. They've added the word "yute" meaning dessert. Every time they say it, I think of the movie My Cousin Vinny, when Joe Pesci is in court talking about the "two yutes".

Rough Life

I think I may have to apologize in advance to baby #3. Poor kid is going to have a rough life.

Manicure

The girls very late (9:30 pm) bed time last night made for a very rough day today. As always, their late to bed does not mean late to rise and they were awake by 6:30 am. We had a nice melt down at Target and Arya kicked her shoe off twice while we were there. The first time an employee returned it to us. The second time I had to go back and look for it after we had checked out. Of course I couldn't find it. I heard another mom, with a screaming 2 year old, say something about losing his shoe. I could see his shoe in a part of her cart that she couldn't see while pushing and told her where it was, then mentioned we were looking for the same thing. She had run over Arya's shoe, so picked it up and put it on a shelf. I would not have found it if she hadn't shown me where she put it, even though I knew which area Arya must have lost it.

Back home, we I tried to keep the kids occupied all day. We were supposed to have a play date this afternoon, but it got cancelled. Instead, we painted, watched some Barney, played with stickers, drew, read books etc. I was running out of things to do and asked if they wanted me to paint their toe nails. Both agreed that was a fantastic idea. Arya picked out blue and Eiley picked out pink. When I was done painting, Eiley said "Eiley paint mama toes". How could I say no to that. The spent the next 10 minutes happily passing the nail polish back and forth, giving me an amazing manicure.

Wisconsin Winter

It snowed today. Our first real snow of the season. Yesterday we walked around the zoo without coats on and today we got bundled up in snow boots, snow pants, hats, gloves and winter coats to go outside and play in the snow. It takes longer to get everyone dressed and undressed than we actually spend outside when it's cold out.

Our short time outside must have worn the girls out. They fell asleep while I cooked dinner. They were only out for ten or fifteen minutes, but of course that means they didn't go to sleep when they went to bed. Around 8:30 pm, we heard them come out of their room, giggling and then they threw one of their baby doll pacifiers down the stairs. They took off running back to their room cracking up. The little partners in crime didn't stop there. By the time we checked on them, they'd also thrown pillows, water bottles and blankies down the stairs too. Nut cases! It's really hard not to laugh at them doing stuff like that, even when I know they're not going to sleep in tomorrow and will be exhausted and cranky all day.

Sticker Fun

Having two year olds means finding stickers in your dryer almost every time you run it.

It was a gorgeous day today, in the mid to high 50s, so we spent most of the day outside. I walked all over the zoo, carrying Arya in an Ergo, per her request. I'm impressed with how comfortable the Ergo is to wear while pregnant.

During one of our small stints inside, Arya and I had a conversation while I changed her diaper. She is talking about her butt lately, which of course is funny, but I have to get her to stop doing it in public. She put my tea travel mug on her back side at the zoo and said "my put dat on my butt" which seems to be one of her favorite sentences lately. So, during this diaper change she was talking about touching her butt while hitting the side of her leg. I know she's young for it, but she and I had a conversation about how only daddy, she and I can touch her butt. Of course she informed me that Eiley touches her butt in the bathtub. So, I changed what I was saying and explained again how no one else should ever touch her butt. Then I asked what she should say if anyone ever asks to touch her butt and she responded "tease", as in please. I couldn't help but laugh. She just proved that she is too young to understand the conversation we just had, but it can't hurt to start young.