School Party

It's Halloween today. The girls are done trick or treating, but they got to have a party at school today. I volunteered to arrange it when the teachers asked for someone to help with a project, snacks and a game. I did not realize that I would be running the whole party. It's a good thing I enjoy doing things like this. The party went really well. We made jack o lanterns with painted paper plates and shapes I had cut out. The kids got to gorge on home made treats that moms made and they got to bowl with pumpkins at toilet paper ghosts.

Zia stayed in the gym daycare for about 2 hours and 15 minutes while I helped with the party. This was by far the longest she's stayed there. I brought her some milk and a sippy cup. Of course she did not ask to eat the entire time she was there. The second I showed up she was starving.

Arya and Eiley are obsessed with making castles from their legos. We make at least 3 castles a day right now. They want me to help, but do awesome on their own if I'm not around.

Zia's Too Big For Dat

I tried to fit Zia into the seat of this shopping cart today. While I did this, Arya and Eiley kept telling me "momma, you're not sposed be doing dat" and "momma, Zia's too big for dat." Guess the three year olds are smarter than me.

Trick or Treat

It's trick or treat day around here. Arya and Eiley had so much fun trick or treating. I think they might have had more fun handing out candy at our house once they were done. I took them out first and went to a few houses and then Cork took them out. They made it to more houses than last year and have more candy than they'll be able to eat. I've decided that Halloween is definitely the devils holiday, but only because of how my kids act when they aren't allowed to eat all the candy they want. Zia stayed home and enjoyed a nice fire instead of braving the cold weather. If it had been nice, I would have put her in a carrier and taken her with us since she enjoys being outside.

Can you see the "A" on my window? Can you guess who wrote that?

Wolves

Poor Sikozu doesn't have enough sense to run away from the lint roller.

We took the kids to the zoo's trick or treat event today. They had a blast. Arya and Eiley were completely uninterested in the animals today. They just wanted the candy.

We made the kids stand by the wolves for awhile. I could have stood there a lot longer than we did. In the few years we've been members at the zoo, I've only seen the wolves out once before and they weren't very active. Today, they were all over their area and right up by the glass. A couple of their keepers were in the cage with them. I asked a zoo volunteer about that and she said that the wolves were raised by a german shepherd and the keepers are in there with them a lot. When someone is mowing the grass, the keepers are there with the wolves. Most of the animals at the zoo do not have direct contact with their keepers, so I found this very interesting.

Olsen Twins?

I think they might be trying to be like the Olsen twins.

She's trying so hard to grab toys now. I love that Zia's tongue is always out of her mouth. She has so many facial expressions and vocalizations that remind me of Arya at this age.

Them Are So Cute

All three girls and I ran a bunch of errands today. One place we stopped was a grocery store. As we're walking out a woman told me "Them are so cute" about the twins. I have to agree with her, but I don't think I would have phrased it quite like that. Then, she said "he's such a pretty boy" about Zia. I'm not sure where she's from, but pink socks and pink pants usually mean a child is a girl. So I'm walking out with Zia in the Ergo. I'm carrying 3 plastic bags of groceries and I'm holding Eiley's hand. Eiley was holding Arya's hand. The same woman who has been talking to me as I walk out the door finally asks if I have change for her for the bus. Nope. Even if I did have it, I was not putting everything down to dig through my diaper bag to find change. Does that make me a bad person? I'm judging her since she was shopping at one of the more expensive stores in the area, but maybe she was just picking up a couple sale items like I was.

Zia has gotten really good at spitting out the pacifiers her sisters put in her mouth.

Running Out of Bubbles

Arya and Eiley wanted to wear the same clothes to school today. I'm sure their teachers appreciated it. I did put different colored rubber bands and barrettes in their hair so the teachers had something they could use to tell them apart.

The girls know when I'm busy and tend to get into trouble while I'm doing something. Today, I was sweeping the family room. We'd raked outside and they'd tracked a bunch of leaves in. When I was finishing, I heard Eiley in the living room say "I'm running out of bubbles." Horrible images flashed through my mind as I tried to figure out where they'd gotten bubbles. I ran in there to check on them and saw that they'd unzipped a couch cushion and were pulling all the stuffing out. I was so mad, but also was trying not to laugh. They were being pretty creative. I did make them clean it up after I took a picture.

Writing and Tracing

This was a conversation I heard between the twins today while I was feeding Zia. 
A: Eiley you look at my butt?
E: Shoot! You still have poop. Arya, I think you have poop on your bagina.
A: Oh!!! My bagina?
E: All over your bagina!

How do you not laugh at that? I was feeding Zia when I heard this. The two of them were in the bathroom together. Arya yelled that she was done and I did not know she'd pooped. I told her to wipe herself. After this conversation she walked out into the family room without pants on, bent over and asked me to tell her if there was still poop. I'm not sure she wiped at all. Ha! Thankfully Zia was done then and I could put her down and go clean Arya up.

The girls are doing an awesome job writing the first letter of their names and tracing all the letters. Arya scribbled on hers after tracing, but besides that it looks great.

We baked pies today. Every time we bake apple pies, we make one for our neighbor. After dinner, we got ready to go drop it off at his house. Eiley showed up in the kitchen wearing one of my hats.

Hi Friend

I was looking at a blog today and saw stories from a mom who has identical triplets. One of the stories was about how kids at school always mistake one of her girls for another. This reminded me about how none of the kids in Arya and Eiley's class has a clue who is who. We hear a lot of "hi friend" and stuff like that. The teachers told me last week that the girls switched on them halfway through the class and started telling everyone they were the other child. I can't blame the kids for not knowing who is who when the girls don't always stay the same. This does make me wonder when Zia will know the difference between the girls. I think I wrote about a wedding we were at 2 years ago where we met identical twin girls who were probably about 10. Their younger sister was maybe 3 at the time and still had a hard time knowing which sister was which. Arya definitely spends more time playing with Zia and soothing her when she's upset. Eiley still plays and soothes, but not as much.

I was feeding Zia today and Eiley came up to me and said "Mom, I made a mess." That's definitely not something you want to hear from your child. When I was done, I went to check on her "mess". She'd decided to comb out and style the hair on her dressing table thing. After the detangler spray she tried didn't work, she grabbed the water spray bottle we use for Zia's diapers and used most of it on the doll, the table, the floor etc. At least it was just water. She had also grabbed a rag towel out of the kitchen and was wiping up the mess for me.

Sippy Cup Win

Since Zia won't take a bottle, I decided to try a straw cup with her today. She gets a big FAIL. She kept gagging just with the straw resting on her lips.

So, I tried a sippy cup and that went much better. She actually drank some milk out of it. Yay.

I'm impressed with Arya's drawing recently. She's purposely drawing things that look like something.

Basket Cases

We spent the day in Madison today. The girls were all over their grandparents' house. They love being there and had a ball. I walked into the house at one point and found them with baskets on their heads.

Haunted Gingerbread

Arya was attacking a stuffed animal today.
V: Arya what are you doing to the monkey?
A: No, dats a gorilla mom.

Ha. At least I know she's listening when we're at the zoo and I'm explaining about greater and lesser apes vs. monkeys.

We decorated a haunted gingerbread house today. It was a lot of fun, but very messy. The girls picked out what design they wanted and we spent about 2 minutes decorating following that. Then, they decided to improvise.

Rainy Day

Almost! Hahaha. Most days they do a great job dressing themselves. Eiley can even put tights on all by herself now. Some days they need a little help though.

No, she's not eating solids yet, but I think it's funny.

It was cold and rainy here today. I needed to get a lot of things done, but Arya and Eiley were craving attention. I saw a friend post about this on FB and decided it was perfect for today. I put them in their swim suites and let them play with water in my shower. They were so happy for a really long time. I even got a chance to clean my shower while they were playing.

And then they took a turn cleaning.

Poor Zia always has a sibling putting a pacifier in her mouth. She still has no interest sucking on them, but today she decided it was fun to chew on. She would chew on it and then spit it out, really hard, so it would fly away from her. Of course she got laughs when she did it the first time, so she kept doing it. My child who has no interest in a pacifier kept trying to put it back in her own mouth. She couldn't figure out how to keep it in by sucking on it, so she would try to hold it in with her hand to suck a little. Since she was doing such a great job with this one, I decided to try the other couple kinds of pacifiers we have. Apparently she still hates the silicone tips as much as she did. She prefers the rubber ones. She also still gags on every other kind we have.

Tinkerbell

Every morning, the girls have the choice of picking out their own clothes or letting me pick them out. Sometimes I let them wear whatever they want. Sometimes I have to redirect a little. Today, they picked out their own outfits with no help. Eiley then picked out 4 rubber bands to wear in her hair and told me how she wanted it. It was beautiful! Ha. She wanted 3 piggy tails. I convinced her to let me do 2 up front and a third in the back, holding the hair from the other 2. I figured that would look better than 3 totally separate pony tails. I did have to discourage her from wearing the tinkerbell dress to school.

Monster

Miss Zia is very worn out today from her shots yesterday. I took full advantage of her sleepyness. The older 2 and I cooked soup, muffins and cookies. I got nothing done in the house, but we had a lot of fun and even went swimming this afternoon. Of course Zia's sleepiness earlier in the day meant she was up later than usual, so I couldn't play catch up tonight. She rode in the Ergo on my back for the first time today and LOVED it. She doesn't like it that much on my front, but was perfectly content on my back and stayed there a long time.

Her monster socks crack me up. I know I'm biased, but she's so stinkin' cute.

Glitter on the Floor

Eiley is all about dressing herself lately. Today, she put tights on all by herself. I have to say that I'm pretty impressed.

I posted on Facebook today stating that I have no clue how anyone with kids keeps a clean house. I was trying to clean up lunch, which sounds simple enough. In the time it took me to put away food, and do nothing else, the twins had found and spread confetti all over the living room and dining room. It was in the couch and EVERYWHERE! I asked them to clean it up and they refused. I decided to vacuum it, which of course made them really mad. I then asked them to clean up all the stuff that goes to their kitchen and they refused. When I told them that if they didn't clean up I would move the kitchen to the basement, I got a "so what" type of response. So, their kitchen is in the basement and their attitudes are still just as bad. They really don't care if I take anything away since they always have each other. A couple other twin moms know what I'm going through. I got a lot of comments on my Facebook status. Basically it sounds like people either have a spotless house and don't play with their kids at all or have a messy house and play with the kids. I'd much rather have the chaotic house I have and play with my kids than have a spotless house that looks like no one lives here.

I did get through to the twins in one way today. Eiley kept chewing on a balloon that she'd gotten at school last week. I asked her over and over to take it out of her mouth. Finally I got so fed up that I took the balloon and popped it. Wow! That was apparently the worst thing that has ever happened to them. Arya sobbed so hard that she couldn't catch her breath. Eiley was fine at first, but Arya's crying set her off and she started as well. It took a long time for Arya to calm down. She was so upset. This afternoon, the two of them were talking about how they can't bite balloons and how it's dangerous, so I think I finally go through to them.

Arya was in the bathroom tonight and was yelling "MOM I'M DONE!" Eiley was in the kitchen with me and wanted to know if Arya wanted "Mommy Mommy" or "Mommy Eiley". The two of them have been playing house where one of them is the mom and they clarify who they are talking about by calling each other "Mommy Arya" and "Mommy Eiley". I went to the bathroom and wiped Arya. Eiley came in just as I finished. She was wearing a rubber glove and said "but I got all ready". LOL! I laughed so hard. I have no idea why she wanted to wipe Arya so bad or why she needed a rubber glove to do it.

My Little Helper

Arya is my little helper. If she's not whining herself, when she hears Zia whine, she goes to entertain Zia. I love to watch Zia laugh at her.

Shake Your Booty

We took the girls to the apple orchard today. Like most orchards this year, this one is usually not letting people pick apples. There were signs up saying that today you could pick apples. I would have loved to, but it was raining and cold and just dreary out. We had lots of samples, looked at all the stuff they sell in the barn, and ate doughnuts and drank apple cider.

Later in the day, I found the two of them dancing in the bathroom. They'd turned the light on, pulled their pants off, climbed onto the counter, were dancing and were singing "shake your booty." I wasn't sure if I should laugh or be embarrassed.

Art

I got so fed up with the girls spreading art supplies everywhere, that I moved their art stuff in to the back room. Today, I looked on the fridge and saw these. Apparently yesterday when they spread feathers EVERYWHERE they actually were doing a project. I think this is so cute. This is not something we've done together, so they weren't just copying. They made this project up on their own.

They are so cute when they sleep together.

Chop Chop

Bye bye hair. I decided yesterday that it was time to say goodbye to a bunch of my hair. It's thinned out so much since I had Zia. I feel like I can cut it short right now without getting too much body since it's thinner than normal. I love it so far, but it needs some touch up. I left the front longer than the back since the front curls more. I left it a bit too long. It's also a tiny bit lopsided. I would have trimmed that up, but the older 2 were having a very 3 year old day today and I wasn't sure any of us would make it to the end of the day if I took more time to finish my hair. I'll fix it this weekend. Yes, I keep saying "I", because I chopped it myself. I don't know if I'm brave or stupid, but I pretty much always cut my own hair now. It's pretty forgiving since it curls and you can't tell if it's straight. It also looks exactly the same if it's thinned out, layered etc. So, I can't justify paying someone $50 to do exactly what I can do myself.

Arya versus broccoli soup and a watermelon popsicle. I think the food won.

Ha. I got good use out of the hair I cut.