Happy Easter

We had a great Easter. The bunny brought the twins a tooth brush, toothpaste, a book, bubbles, side walk chalk, dental floss, seeds for the garden, and some jelly beans. The bunny figured they get enough candy at school and egg hunts, so they didn't need much. The seeds mean we have to try to figure out how to keep the deer out of our garden. Last year the deer at every single plant. We got two tomatoes and some green beans before they ate the plants. We've never had them jump the fence before. I don't know if the herd is too big to be supported by the regular plants in the area or if last year's summer was just especially bad so they braved the fence for a meal.

The twins talked about poop for most of our drive home tonight. "Bob the Builder, he don't have feet. Bob the builder Poopy". While I would usually tell them that is bathroom talk, I just tried to get it out of their systems. They both think it's hilarious and apparently never tire of it. Letting them talk about poop as much as they want does not get it out of their systems, they just keep going.

Rotisserie Barbie

The girls went on their second Easter Egg hunt of the year today. They were pretty funny to watch. They could each pick up ten eggs. Both knew which eggs she wanted and would purposely step over an egg if it wasn't one she wanted. Arya picked one up when we walked outside of the church, but the egg hunt hadn't started, so we told her to put it back down. When the hunt started, she went right back to that egg and made sure it went into her basket.

The girls would not go to sleep tonight. They played for a long time. I went up to check on them just after 9:00 pm and Eiley was still awake. She told me "Arya won't stop saying poop." I looked over at Arya, who was fast asleep and told Eiley I didn't think Arya was saying much of anything. "Well, she was saying poop."

Who knew a plant stand could be so diverse. It can be a walker and a rotisserie for a barbie.

Poor Barbie did not have a good day. She had a run in with a rowing machine and lost.

It's a Zoo Out There

The kids and I spent some time at the zoo today. Eiley spent the entire time running away from us and Arya spent the entire time trying to climb everything. It was Good Friday and one of the first nice days of the year, so the zoo was packed. The combo of a runner and a climber with a packed zoo made things interesting.

Twinado 2013

I asked Arya and Eiley to start putting their clean clothes away today while I put Zia's away. Usually I sit and supervise, but decided today that I'd speed things up and leave them unsupervised for a bit. Bad choice. I came back to find this. I took them about 90 minutes to clean it up. I told them it made me sad that we couldn't play together since their room was such a mess. Their room is rarely clean, but it doesn't usually look like this. Arya tried throwing a fit, Eiley tried telling me that Arya said she'd clean it all up. I wasn't buying either acts. They were hungry and I said they could eat as soon as the clean clothes were put away. They can cram them in the drawers if they want, they just couldn't leave them scattered. Once they finally decided to do it, the clothes were cleaned up super quick. I had the hardest time not laughing when I walked in and found the dolls covered in underwe.ar and socks.

Easter Eggs

The twins had their second dental appointment today. We had a very rocky start to our morning and I wasn't sure Eiley was going to let anyone near her mouth. Arya went first this time because Eiley did last time. We're all about taking turns right now. We've had plenty of discussions about how an only child doesn't get to take turns and always has to go first. These discussions usually come when no one wants her hair brushed, but apparently it applies for the dentist too. Eiley warmed up to the idea of having her teeth cleaned while Arya was in the chair. Eiley wanted nothing to do with the chair while it moved though. The chair had to be put in position prior to her climbing onto it.

After the dentist we dyed Easter eggs. I felt like the best place for that was in a shower where the dye could be washed own the drain. Based on the amount of dye on the floor, I was probably right. Arya and Eiley dyed two dozen eggs, that weren't hard boiled, and they didn't crack even one. They were very careful and their hands were covered in dye when they finished since they didn't use the little wire tool to put the eggs into the cups.

While we dyed eggs, Zia helped herself to a little toilet paper.

While I cooked dinner, the twins built houses out of books.

Not Diswasher Safe

The dishwasher can no longer be left open for more than a few seconds at a time.

Sing and Dance

The twins' Sunday school class sang at the front of church today. I wasn't sure what the girls were going to do, but both did a great job and sang. The song was pretty basic, but we didn't practice it with them at all. I had the words on a sheet, but had no idea what the music was. Both were dancing around a little bit and swinging her palm leaves.

Before church, they were dancing around the house singing their version of "It's a Small World." I'm not sure of the exact words they were singing, but I took video because it was so cute.

Sledding, Rolling, and Angels

We took the kids sledding at a real hill for the first time today. This was the one and only sled run either of them did. Eiley wouldn't get on the sled. Arya got on, it turned around and she freaked out. We were at the very bottom of the hill and thought they'd be okay with it.

The girls didn't mind the fact that they weren't sledding. They both made lots of snow angels and rolled down the hill instead.

Tongue

We went to Madison after school today. The girls had an awesome time. Zia had fun trying to ransack a house that is not baby proofed.

I love her little tongue. Both of the twins used to do this too, but Arya especially.

Somersaults and Cartwheels

We had a playdate scheduled for this afternoon. The family was pretty late, for a good reason, but I still was left entertaining the girls for a couple hours while they were bummed their friends weren't here. We spent a lot of time doing ballet, which if you know me, you know that I don't have a clue how to dance ballet. The girls don't know that and had a great time. We moved the family room table and did somersaults. Do you know that it's pretty much impossible to get a nine month old to do a somersault? Zia would not tuck her head and just kept laughing when I'd try to get her into a ball to roll. I showed the kids how to do cartwheels. I haven't done one of those in years. I'm glad to say I can still do one. My kids can't though. I don't know if they or I was more entertained with them trying to do cartwheels. We finished with a little wrestling match. Even Zia got in on that. I was laying on the ground with the twins. She dragged herself over to us, got on her knees, slammed herself onto me and yelled. The twins and I cracked up.

Yesterday the twins ran around in just unde.r.wear all day long. Today Eiley had on two pairs and Arya had on three. Over that they wore leotards and then pants and a sweatshirt. I think they were plenty warm.

I Quit

I wonder at what age my kids will stop running around naked all the time. We got home from school today and they took their clothes off. I told them that their unde.rwe.ar had to go back on before they could sit on anything. They ran around in just unde.r.wea.r then for about 6 hours. We were getting ready to eat dinner and I told them that they weren't allowed to whine and complain during dinner about being cold if they chose not to put clothes back on. Both quickly got dressed again because they know it's cold by our kitchen table.

Speaking of the table, I started to feed the twins lunch today and both were screaming at me. They were super angry that I had put their grilled cheese sandwich on a regular plate and not a "special plate." I was done with their outburts directed at me, so I told them I quit. I said they could get the rest of lunch themselves and that as long as they were going to yell at me I wasn't going to help. They both immediately stopped yelling, but I was D-O-N-E! They wanted water and I said tough! Not really, I just told them they could get it themselves. They were pretty shocked. They can get their own water, from both the sink and the fridge, but they forgot that there are a few cups in a low cupboard. Their regular cups are up high and they can't get them unless they climb onto the counter, which they do all the time, but for some reason today was different. They wanted strawberries and I wouldn't help. They tried to get them out of the fridge, but neither is tall enough to get stuff out of the fruit drawer when it's toward the bottom. They didn't think about pulling up a chair, even though they've been moving chairs around the house since they could stand. My quitting didn't last long, but they really got the point and there was no more yelling at me the rest of the day.

Worn Out

Lots of families do Sunday Funday. The girls and I do Tuesday Funday. Which of course doesn't have the same ring to it, but we still love it. We spent four hours at the kid museum today. We spent most of the time by ourselves, but we did run into one of the twins' preschool teachers and her two young daughters.

The four hours at the museum really wore them all out. While most parents would consider this a win, I definitely do not. They didn't sleep long, so I only got a couple things done, and they woke up cranky! I had a couple juice boxes in the basement for emergency use and needed them today. I filled them full of juice and then a smoothie, trying to get their blood sugar back up. It worked, but it took time.

No Lunch Time Peace

At the library story time today, the librarian tried to give Arya and Eiley both the same animal puppet. Eiley wasn't having it. She wanted a cow, not the pig that was offered. The librarian had offered every other kid a different animal from the kid next to them. I think she assumed they would want the same animal. Nope. They are two different kids with their own likes, dislikes, and opinions.

Arya: Eiley what is Bowtie's name again?
Eiley: BOWTIE!

Assisted Walking

Zia has moved on to pushing toys across the room so she can walk behind them. She uses her play table and the bumbo the most.

The twins asked where Sikozu was. I wasn't sure, so they went off looking for him. A few minutes later, Arya came back to report that they'd found him in Zia's room. I didn't think anything of it. Later I saw the cat and asked Cork when he'd put the cat's collar on. He hadn't. That's what the twins were doing when they went to find the cat. Poor cat. He hates the collar. The little bell drives him nuts. He's constantly looking for the sound, which makes him move his head, which makes the bell sound, which makes him look for the sound. See the pattern? He looks a bit schizophrenic.

My Buddy

Miss E is not feeling well today. She was my little buddy tonight after she decided she couldn't stay in her room without sobbing.

Time for Baby Proofing

I left Zia on the family room floor today and came back to find her like this. She has gone from totally immobile to all over the place in a matter of days.

The girls had a St. Patrick's Day party at school today. They had made rainbows earlier in the week. The parents taped the rainbows around the gym with little pots of gold chocolate coins under them. Then the kids got to have a snack of veggie pizza, fruit, and juice. The veggie pizza was not a big hit. Most of the kids wouldn't try it. Arya and Eiley both tried it, but neither liked the cream cheese type layer. I don't blame them. I was thinking that the veggie pizza would be much better made with a good bread, like focacia and hummus instead of crescent rolls and cream cheese. I'm sure Arya and Eiley would like it then.

It looks like we are going to need to move our fireplace tools when we aren't using them.

9 Month Check Up

Zia had her 9 month appointment today. She's 17 lbs, which puts her at exactly 2 lbs heavier than Arya and almost a pound heavier than Eiley at this age. I was supposed to fill out an evaluation for her before the appointment. I did most, but not all of it. I didn't do a few of the things, like putting a cheerio in a plastic bottle to see what she would do. Because of my not finishing it, she failed parts of the evaluation. The pediatrician is super laid back and didn't care at all. She knows that kids vary so much at this age in what they can or can't do. In the past week she's learned to crawl, move from laying down to sitting, pull to stand, and sign the word milk. If she'd had her appointment last week I couldn't have said she did any of that. So she didn't really fail it and because I have no worries her pediatrician was fine with her development. She's right where she needs to be, even if I didn't see what she did with a cheerio and a bottle. Somehow I don't think the course of her life is going to be changed by my not taking the time to do that. The evaluation was pretty involved and she was pretty uncooperative. I was supposed to see if she could hold a toy in each hand for a minute and then what she did after that. I said she could, but honestly don't know. Each time I tried to do the exercises with her, Arya or Eiley would appear and she would be done with what we were trying to do. She loves them so much. She just wants to play with them.

I sort of mentioned it above, but Zia crawled on all fours for the first time today. I was in her room with her and my phone was across the room on the floor. She was sitting, then just leaned over and took off. She didn't have to go too far, but far enough to see that she was actually moving her legs and she didn't drop to the ground and drag herself. I got the video camera and tried to take video of her doing it, but she kept dropping back to her belly and would not cooperate.

Sometimes we do really cool projects around here and other times we do totally pointless ones. Today we did a pointless one that the twins will never want me to get rid of. I mixed up water, flour, and food coloring. I then let them dip cotton balls into the mix, put them on a cookie sheet, and I baked them. The outside hardens and the inside stays the soft cotton ball. I had to tell them over and over that this was not something we eat. They looked very appetizing to three year olds. They understood that what we were making wasn't edible, but it was still hard not to take a taste. The girls made a giant mess with the colored mixture. It was all over the counter, their clothes, the floor, and my clothes. The end product was fun, according to them. We each made caterpillars because the cotton balls would stick together if baked while touching. They had a great time playing with the caterpillars once they came out of the oven.

Nine Months of Z

I don't know about you, but the first couple times I got this stuck on my leg would be enough to convince me to STOP PUTTING IT ON MY LEG. If Eiley would stop, it would stop her from needing to freak out every 10 minutes today. Ha. I keep putting it away and she keeps digging it back out of the toy chest.

Miss Zia is 9 months old today. She pulled herself to standing today. Guess she wanted to give herself a 9 month birthday present. She's just as goofy now as she's always been. She's dragging/pulling herself all over the house. I left her in the living room today and came back a minute later to find her in the hallway. If there is a piece of paper on the floor, she will find it and try to eat it. She loves paper more than anything else. She's starting to eat a few more solids. Still not much, but she enjoys it. She eat mushrooms sauteed with wine and garlic tonight. She refuses to eat plain veggies steamed and pureed. I don't blame her, as I find that pretty bland myself. She likes things with flavor.

Swimmers

Zia doesn't eat more than a few bites of solids per day, but she eats well. Today she ate a smoothie with banana, blueberries, cherries, raspberries, blackberries, almond yogurt, kale, spinach, and chia seeds. Yum. All of us enjoy smoothies around here and it looks like she'll like them as much as the rest of us.

Arya, Eiley and I went swimming today. Eiley decided to lift her feet from the bottom of the pool and swim. Arya saw her and did the same herself. I was so excited for them. They were super tired this afternoon and we had a rough day. It might be a good idea to start bringing them right before bed instead of in the morning.

This is how I workout when the kids don't want to go to the gym. Eiley took this of me. I knew she was playing with my phone, but didn't know she was snapping photos until I was done. This was the only decent photo. I had to delete about 50 of her hand, the floor, the ceiling, and just about everything else that makes a bad picture.

Cabinets

Zia isn't really crawling, but she is pulling with her arms and her feet are now in on it. She pushes herself along as long as she has her leather shoes on. Her feet just sort of slip when she has socks on. She discovered the kitchen cabinets today and helped herself.

Time Change

The time change is not nice on little kids. We got everyone to bed only about 15 minutes after the new bed time, but Zia decided to not sleep. She was much happier sitting on the couch, crying. She has become a little mommy's girl at night lately. I took her from Cork and she instantly stopped crying. I put her on the ground to play and she sat there, happily playing, for awhile. She let us know when she was done and then demanded she nurse to sleep. It's a horrible habit she's trying to form. We had to break her from being rocked to sleep a few months ago. It looks like we may need to break her of this too. Based on the quantity of solids she eats in a day, I think it's going to be a long time before she stops nursing, so maybe we have time to break her of this.

Girls' Night Out

I had my first girls' night out in probably two years tonight. It was much overdue and much needed. The twins of course did fine. Zia was not a happy camper. She went to bed fine, but got up a few hours later and was beyond mad that I wasn't around. Poor kid. I left her a bunch of milk, but she did not want it.

I overheard the twins playing with their dolls. Eiley said "I have no idea. Your birthday and my birthday can be on the same day."

Graham Crackers

We made graham crackers today and the are good. I'm not sure I'll ever want to buy graham crackers again. I buy graham flour all the time, so I don't know why I hadn't thought of doing this before. Of course we treat them like a cookie and not a cracker. I don't know who named them crackers, but they are wrong.

So Polite

I have a girls night out on Saturday, so I've been pumping some milk and did a trial run today. Zia thought the bottle was fun and drank some. Hopefully she thinks it's as fun on Saturday as she did today.

The girls and I were eating dinner tonight. Eiley was very pleasant when she asked me "Momma, next time please you not make this." I couldn't help but laugh. I had made a pasta sauce that was really good, but put it over spaghetti squash and apparently no one in this house, myself included, likes spaghetti squash. I won't be making that again.

After dinner we were doing a clean up time. Eiley told me "I think I need to go to bed." Good try, but no. It was about an hour before bed time. The clean up turned into playing legos with Cork. I walked into the room and saw that the girls had each built a butterfly all by themselves. This isn't something I've built with them before. I wanted a picture, but both butterflies got destroyed before I could take a picture.

Zia pulled herself to standing on a table for the first time today. She isn't crawling yet, but she is dragging herself from place to place. I left her in the living room to switch laundry and came back to find her in the hallway. It's pretty funny to watch how she drags.

Poop

The twins and I were looking through a booklet today, trying to figure out what classes they might like to take this summer. They have seen a cooking class at the gym and asked about that one. I don't really want to sign them up for this as we do lots of cooking here and I'm sure I cook things that are healthier than what they would cook in a class at the gym. They both decided that we should do cooking class here, so we did. They helped me make gluten and dairy free muffins and a dessert today. Neither would look at me for a picture, so I yelled "poop" and got both of their attention pretty quickly.

A Toy Nook

Poor Sikozu has lost one of his sleeping places. The twins have claimed it as a nook for their toys.

She may not eat much when we give her solids, but she sure is interested in checking out everything anyone else is eating.

Sleep Like a Baby

We are back to normal life today...sort of. The kids had school, but Cork didn't have work. He was able to help me start getting the house back in order. It's not there yet, but it's on its way. We were also able to go grocery shopping because the was no food in the house. Arya fell asleep in the cart at the store. She was arguing with Eiley one minute and completely out the next.

The Aftermath

We painfully finished our drive home today. We didn't get a super early start, but had less stops than the first half of our drive home. We had an amazing vacation, but were all happy to be home by the time we got here. Zia wasn't feeling well, so slept more in the car today than she normally would. While I don't want her feeling sick, it was sort of nice to have her sleeping and be able to sit in the front seat instead of the seat next to her.

George

We spent the day in Knoxville. We spent a little time walking around their downtown, went to their Mast General store, and ate BBQ. All in all it was a fun day. It was great to spend some time with my cousin and good to get the kids out of the car for the day. I know he's hard to see, but this is the wild goat, George, that lives at my cousin's house. We made a big deal about going out and feeding the goat and then about ten seconds after the feeding started it was done. The kids didn't seem bothered by this at all though.

Homeward Bound

We were back in the car today. We got up after less sleep than any of us would have liked, loaded into the van and drove to Knoxville. We stayed with my cousin and her husband. I forewarned her that the Twinado might be a bit out of control after spending the entire day in the car. When we left this morning, our GPS predicted we would get to her house around 5:30 pm. We got there around 8:30. We had more stops than we would have liked and got stuck in traffic around Atlanta, but we got there safely.