2 Two Year Olds

Apr 22

Everyone,

When Butterfly turned two, we gave her a cool little trike. So when the boys were nearing their 2 year mark, I knew I wanted to get them trikes too. I convinced Butterfly of giving one of the boys her old trike, and then I got another matching one at the twin sale. We had one in the house for awhile (they fought over it, pushed each other around, and Professor cried when he had to put it outside). Tonight we finally got both the boys out and on them at the same time!
Guess which bike was in my house?

Don’t you love their helmets? They are a gift from their Nana. Pirate’s has skull and cross bones on it (hello, Pirate theme!) and Professor’s has fish on it. They look SO cute in them and wore them 80% of our walk.

So we took them to the baby park up by our house. We didn’t go far because it’s cold, windy, and looked like rain. About half way there, I was pushing Professor and he started going crazy, “Bike! Bike! Bikebikebikebike!” I kept saying, “Your riding your bike!” or “Yes, a bike!” I figured it out though, he was excited that there were 2 bikes. And it is really exciting. It means that I don’t have to make them share the bike.

That doesn’t mean I don’t make them share other things though.

Safire

Safirebikes, P and P, P and P birthday

How To Scare Your 2 Year Old for Their Birthday

Apr 19

Everyone,

Tonight we decided that we would go out and celebrate the boys turning 2 (again…it’s been a weekend of celebration) and go to dinner. Now dining out with 3 little kids is always an adventure. This one did not disappoint. We took the family to the same place we took Butterfly to celebrate her 2nd birthday. It’s a fun little steak place called Bugaboo Creek Steakhouse. They have good food and are very kid friendly. They also have animatronic animals that talk and move there! Butterfly barely ate when she turned 2, and the boys were no exception.

We sat right underneath the huge talking Bill the Buffalo. I had Professor next to me who did not move a muscle the whole time we were waiting for food. I could see him looking around suspiciously, without moving his head. First, a fish moved. All the kids jumped and stared at the thing flopping around on the wall. Then a raccoon jumped out of a barrel. Professor pointed it out (the other kids had their backs to it) and just sat there pointing. And then the buffalo started to talk.

The first time he started to chat with us, both boys stiffened up and then bolted into our laps. Butterfly just laughed. We were trying to order food at that point and it was pretty comical to the waiter to see their reactions. They sat in our laps the whole rest of the time. Pirate would not let Juice take his arm from around him. The moose on the other side of the room was cause for concern as well, but mostly the talking buffalo.

This meant that Juice and I were waving to the raccoon in the barrel and responding to the buffalo head. Butterfly got a kick out of it. The boys still looked at them suspiciously. Professor would stop whatever his was doing and watch the raccoon. He even paused with a spoonful of macaroni and cheese to his mouth to watch it look around.

By the end of the meal, I had Pirate and Juice had Professor and Butterfly. They give out ice cream cups as part of their kids’ meals so the kids were enjoying some ice cream. Pirate wanted to do it himself. Fine. But then the fish started to flop around again and he flung the spoon, full of ice cream, right at me. Luckily the ice cream did not come off the spoon. But I grabbed his hand just to be sure. Then he and I started struggling to gain control over the spoon. I see the ice cream start to slip off the side. I eat the ice cream. There was a huge scream and a flinging back with the hand I just let go of. The one with the spoon. Then the spoon hit me in the eye. Pirate started screaming louder. We left the table mid fit. The entire restaurant was watching us go. I heard, “That kid has some lungs!” and “Listen to that banshee wail!” as I was exiting.

I put him on a stool and told him to calm down. I sat down on the bench next to him and counted to ten. He and I looked at each other and smiled. Then the owl moved. I swear he launched himself into my arms so fast he broke the sound barrier. Time to go, I think.

Seriously I don’t know why we do these things to ourselves but we do. Butterfly declared it the best meal ev-ah and wants to go there for her birthday dinner. I think we can handle another round there! Maybe.

Safire

Safireeating out, P and P birthday

Happy Birthday Professor!

Apr 18

Dearest Professor,

My sweet sunshine boy, you are a momma’s boy. You’ve been a little needy lately, but it’s understandable. Since you’ve fallen on your face (badly) this past week. This morning you and Pirate were running towards each other in the hall and met in the middle. With your heads. While your brother came out okay, you split your lip open (again) and have been rather cranky since then. Poor kid. And since your mouth hurts, you can’t suck on your binkie as much as you’d like. So you wake up every few hours crying. And I wake up, almost crying. It reminds me of when you were a baby and you were so loud. You were always the more vocal.Your favorite things to say right now is anything and everything! You repeat almost everything we say. The most memorable things you say are: “Where Mommy go?” which I have yet to hear. (Obviously, you only say it when I’m gone.) You have also learned the joy of ‘yeah’. You are so cute with those head bobs coupled with your ‘yeah’. You are so close to saying everything. I love your little voice.
You make sure that I notice things on the road while we are driving. You LOVE big trucks. “Mommy! Tuck! Bi Tuck!” You are also learning your sense of humor. You will point out anything you think is funny and then do a little laugh after it. It’s not your really happy laugh, it’s just a laugh to show that you think something is funny. A fake (ish) laugh. It’s really funny to us.

You still will still not eat a whole lot of healthy foods. You will, however, eat anything sweet. Candy, cookies, cupcakes. You also love Doritos and popcorn. Taking after your Mommy, that’s for sure. Mommy is being sneaky though and making good tasting smoothies and putting in veggies for you to get them.
You love shoes. I don’t know why, but you love to try on every one’s shoes that come to visit us. You also really love to wear Butterfly’s shoes. “Mommy, shoe!” you will tell me whenever you see a really nice one. You even love to wear your own shoes and know which ones are yours and which ones are your brother’s. Even though they look exactly the same. (They are a half size difference.)

You are one sneaky little guy though. You are often caught doing something you shouldn’t, mostly because you’ve seen brother do it. Those beautiful blue eyes sparkle when there’s trouble around. You cry a lot louder than Pirate does. You also cry a lot more than he does. And sadly, disciplining you is something we’re having a hard time doing. Time outs don’t phase you. Taking away your favorite toy seems to get you upset enough to cry for at least a half hour after I’ve given it back to you. It’s a work in progress.

Thanks for being in our family Sunshine boy!

Safire

SafireP and P birthday, Professor

Happy Birthday Pirate!

Apr 18

Dear Sweet Pirate,

You are so sweet. And yet, you are so ruthless. My little imp in sheep’s clothing. You who boldly take your brother’s bike and make your brother cry. Then you stand up and pat the seat, inviting him to sit so you can push. Because it was only when Daddy suggested to Professor that he push, that you got up. And yes, you can push your brother around on your new bike (there are 2 but one was outside).Speaking of outside, guess where I found you yesterday? Outside. Out front. And the door was shut and locked! How did you get out front? Did I mention that I left our front window open? Yeah. The screen was pushed kind of neatly over in it’s tracks. I can’t believe you climbed out. I really shouldn’t be surprised. You are the one who climbs out of the dog door. You are the one who climbs onto the kitchen counters. You are the one who makes the most trouble.
You are also the one who is so super sweet. You give out a tiny scream every time you hear a car when we are walking across the road. You have the sweetest little “Hi!” and I love how you find things and say, “A-ha!” You don’t say many words. You do say car, boon (balloon), puppy, Nana, MINE, roora (brother), sissa, Mommy, Daddy, uh-oh, stuck, monkey, and a lot of grunting and pointing. You are so expressive though. I seem to understand you a lot more than I understand your brother. You also do a lot of sign language. It’s hard to mistake what you want when you throw a covered bowl of macaroni and cheese at me and say, “uh! uh!”
Speaking of macaroni and cheese, you love it. You are one good eater. But you really don’t like breakfast. You love any kind of noodle. You also love hot dogs, crackers, chicken, strawberries, actually any kind of fruit, and cheese. I think cheese is your favorite. You also love bread and fruit snacks. You go bananas over fruit snacks.

Your favorite game right now is to run away from me. You pound away on those long sturdy legs, laughing. Your big wide mouth open and your big hazel eyes sparkling back at me as I go chasing after you. Crazy kid. For as much as you love breaking the rules (see the window escape above) you love following the rules. Everything has a place and everything in it’s place. You get upset when things are out of their place.

What a fun kid you are. I am so excited to see what next year will bring!

Safire

SafireP and P birthday, Pirate

Birthday Eve!

Apr 17

Everyone,

I can’t believe tomorrow I will have 2 two year olds. Crazy! Tonight we had a little party with friends to celebrate their birthday eve. We had cupcakes, ice cream and opened a few presents.

2! They are going to be 2!

Safire

Safirebirthday parties, P and P birthday

Birthday Parties

May 12

Everyone,

Now that all birthdays are done until next year (except my own, but that’s low key) I thought I’d talk about the parties.

Let’s start with the boys’. It was a great party, although stressful at the beginning. (There was a food issue. As in, the lady who took my food order forgot about it. It all worked out though and there was too much food!Yay for leftovers!) Because of the food problem, we didn’t get started until later than I wanted. The weather was perfect and we had so much fun visiting with friends. Thanks to my good friendLolli for taking these pictures so that I could enjoy their party. The boys each got their own 1 year old shirt to wear (Butterfly had one for her birthday too). Pirate’s was blue. It says, “I think it’s been a good year. But I don’t have anything to compare it to.” And Professor’s was yellow. It says, “Put down the cake. This is my first one and it looks like you’ve had plenty.”

They each had their very own cake to smash compliments of my good friend Lavender. Pirate’s was blue and Professor’s was yellow. Professor dug right into it. Pirate took his own sweet time. But in the end, they got cake all over themselves like they were supposed to. I had everyone sing happy birthday to each of the boys individually. Pirate first, and then Professor. It was somewhat emotional for me to see these boys sitting up so big in their chairs getting sung to.
After everyone ate sandwiches and had cake (it was really good cake! I recommend Safeway bakery.) we moved inside for presents. They boys were very spoiled and got some great gifts! It was also really fun to haveLolli’s kids help me open all the toys and take out all the little twisty ties, etc.

We got them the little people pirate ship (for Pirate, of course) and Noah’s ark (for Professor). Both were a big hit, especially with Butterfly. She asked to sleep with them the 3 weeksin between her birthday and theirs. They also got some crayola stuff from Lolli’s family, a tug boat and a train and cups from my parents, cars from Grandma and Grandpa, a fish bowl and a drum from Butterfly, a shape sorter fromLala and her family, dump trucks from Anie and her family, $20 each from Nana and Papa Great (which went into their college fund), trucks from Uncle MusicMan and Aunt Angel.

We had a great time and I can’t believe they are 1 year old!

Butterfly’s party was fun. I made a bunch of pizza crusts in small baking pans and had all sorts of toppings on the table. The kids were able to make their own pizzas with their own toppings. Butterfly put a ton of cheese on and some pineapples. One of our friends put a bunch of mushrooms on (which she then picked off). Each one was really unique. We played a few games (freeze dance andSimon says) while the pizzas were cooking. Mostly everyone wanted to play with Butterfly’s toys and go down our indoor slide. That slide was a huge hit. At one point, there were 3 on the slide and 4 waiting to go down.

Once we had lunch (pizzas and fruit salad) we had Butterfly’s ice cream cake. She wanted Cinderella on it because Cinderella is blue. After cake, we played a very fun treasure hunt game where I hid little toys around the house and took pictures where I put them. This was fun except Butterfly INSISTED on getting all the blue stuff (see a theme here?) and that caused all her friends to want blue stuff too. I had 7 little things and I think it was a little too many. Or I would just take the blue stuff out of the pile and then there wouldn’t be a problem.

We opened presents next and she got some really fun things! She got 2 horses, an I Spy game, Little Miss Giggles book, and a princess magnet booklet thing.

On her actual birthday, we had fruit tart (which we sang and blew out candles again), and she opened all the presents from her family. From us she got an electronic work book, from Pirate a singing dog, from Professor a little people van and twin boys, from Nana and Grandpa a little people camping set, birthday motorcycle set, and a cup, from Grandma and Grandpa a magnetic fish puzzle, from Uncle MusicMan and Aunt Angel a sing along book, from Lavender a princess towel, a pink piggy bank, and a princess car toy tote. (My personal favorite present…thanks Lavender!)

4 years old is turning out to be great! Easier than 3.

All in all, I think the birthdays were a hit. Butterfly has been sleeping with ALL her presents for the past few days. She is very entertained and I’ve been able to get some emailing done. But for now, I’m glad I have one whole year to enjoy these kids and plan the next parties. :)

Safire

Safirebirthday parties, Butterfly birthdays, P and P birthday

12 Month Update

Apr 24

Everyone,

The boys turned 1 year old last Saturday. I just can’t believe it. The party was fun (more about that later) and I loved singing happy birthday twice…once for each. They smashed their cakes beautifully and the rest of us enjoyed sandwiches, cake, and chips.

On Monday they had their 1 year old doctor appointment with the evil MMR shot. I’m seriously going to delay that one for the next baby…it was awful. We had a nice doctor and my mom got to come with me and help undress and dress babies. She needs to come to every doctor visit because it’s SO much easier with another person.

Professor weighs 18 lbs, 8.5 oz and is 29 3/4ths inches long. He gained 2 lbs from last check up so at least he is growing! His head is 18 and 3/8ths around. He climbed all over the room and kept trying (and succeeding) to climb onto the shelf under the exam table. He has to be moving all the time. He is still trying to stand by himself, although he doesn’t stand for long. He learned how to climb onto the couch by himself while my parents were here and I find him sitting quite happily on it by himself. He also learned how to turn around and go down the stairs (thank you Cappy!) and now I don’t worry about him AS much on the stairs. His dimples have stayed (yay!) and I love making him giggle. He has such a deep chuckle and those impish dimples together are just too much sometimes.

He is serious about his food and especially about his Cherrios. He loves anything that he can eat himself. Bread with jam and butter is a particular favorite. He also loves his oatmeal in the morning, and macaroni and cheese for lunch. Bananas are always welcome, as well as avocados, pizza, noodles, sweet potatoes, anything really. He eats a lot as long as you don’t try to feed him. We went to our favorite ice cream place for the boys very first ice cream and he cried when he ate it because it was so cold. He can drink through a straw (yay!) so we get to start in on milk and juices. This past week with him being so sick has been unusual for me and he’s been serious about snuggling. He’s normally my sunshine boy, always so happy and shiny. He still has a love affair with his binky that I banish to his bed. Lately, he’s been going up to his room while we are all downstairs and getting it out of his bed if he can reach it. He still loves balls and shaking his head no. He gets his feelings hurt easily and gives me the cold shoulder when I have done something wrong. He loves to play pass the baby (back and forth between someone) and is my great explorer. His skin is always so dry and sensitive but nothing that some apricot/coconut oil doesn’t help. Besides, it makes him smell divine and I think he gets annoyed at me always sniffing his head. He has charm when he wants to, and still cries the loudest.

Pirate looks so much like a little boy these days. His jaw is still unhinged but his happy little kick is back sometimes. He has such an injured crying face when he is unhappy. His facial expressions really make me laugh. He said his first word on his first birthday! I was trying to put them up to bed for a nap so they would be happy for the party and Juice was holding Pirate. I held out my arms to him and he pushed my hands away and said clearly, “Daddy.” We both laughed and asked ourselves if that is what we heard. I held out my hands to him again and he pushed them away and said, “Daddy” again. Juice was glowing. Butterfly was a huge momma’s girl and to have the boys be interested in him makes him happy.

Pirate weighs 19 lbs, 1 oz and is 30 3/4ths inches long. His head is 18 1/4 inches around. He waves, dances, and points. He loves to push buttons. He also loves to give me things and have me give them back to him. I thought I heard him said “Out” the other day while we were standing by our storm door looking outside. He loves to eat and cries when it takes too long between spoonfuls. He has started to like to snuggle and will climb into my lap and put his head on my chest and suck his thumb. Just to be there. I love it. He babbles very softly, mostly trying out new sounds right after he nurses. We still call him Mr. Grabby because he grabs everything. Grocery shopping with him is entertaining because he is always grabbing at all the stuff on the shelves. We think he got Juice’s skin because it rarely gets irritated whereas Professor’s skin is always more sensitive.

We had friends over this weekend and they were asking who the baby was on my wall. I have a one year old picture of Butterfly up. My little fried said that she thought it was Pirate but wondered why I put him in a dress. Butterfly and Pirate look so similar. There is no doubt that those two are siblings. They remind me of each other.

Everyone said that the first year with twins was the hardest. I actually think we did pretty good. Of course, we had help for the first 5 months or so. It also could be that I’m not remembering those newborn days very well. No sleep, no time, but so much fun and love. We absolutely adore these boys. I can’t imagine our lives without them. I look forward to seeing what the next year is going to bring!

Safire

PS- Thanks to my friend Lolli who took these amazing pictures of the boys!

Safiremonthly stats, P and P birthday, P and P pictures

Random Thoughts

Apr 07

Everyone,

The mouse is dead! The mouse is dead! Icky too. Juice put it in the dirty diaper pail outside. It creeps me out every time I have to put a dirty diaper in there but there was no where else to put it until garbage day. I’m just glad it’s not summer.

It is SO not summer. In fact, it snowed today! It’s crazy cold for this time of year. Thanks Mom and Dad, for bringing winter back with you. :) The flowering trees do look enchanting with all the snow drifting down. Sadly, no pictures as I was driving furiously home from the park. Too cold to play today!

I am thinking of getting a few blueberry bushes to live in pots for us. Anyone have experience growing blueberries? Anyone?

I spent the afternoon on the phone with different people setting up stuff for the boys’ birthday. I am so excited to celebrate one whole year! And I’m so happy we survived it.

I had to change Butterfly’s clothes 4 times today. That girl is pushing the potty limits. She obviously doesn’t know where the potty limits are since she went over them 4 times today. She is also pushing MY limits because this is driving me crazy!

Even though the conformation email says that my White House Easter Egg Roll Tickets will be emailed to me April 6-8th, they have not come yet. I am slightly worried. I guess they still have about 28 hours left to email me. I will probably call the company tomorrow and check because that would suck if I didn’t actually get any tickets. Especially since I have a conformation email and number.

Only 52 hours until my parents get here! (Give or take a few hours…I kind of got side tracked around hour #40.) I’m excited to see them again and have a week of fun filled exploration. Weather permitting, the airplane park, the cherry blossoms, the zoo, and the Lincoln Paper display are all on the list. Weather not permitting includes a few museums and probably the mall.

I have been so wrapped up in Operation Destroy Mouse and All Available Entrances To Warm House for Rodents that I haven’t done any cleaning. Mostly I am cleaning to find my metro pass. It’s around here somewhere…I’m just not sure where.

More on ODM&AAETWHR later, including cement. This should be fun. (Know what else would be fun? Playing godfather with the mice…putting their little feet in tiny cement blocks and pushing them off the pier of the local lake. Too cruel?)

Safire

SafireButterfly, my family, P and P birthday, pests and critters, plants and flowers, randomness, snow, spring, White House Easter Egg Roll

Things To Do

Apr 02

Everyone,

This is going to be one boring list of things that I need to do in the next few days. Feel free to skip it if you want.

So, one more busy day in our life. Do you ever get bored of reading what I do every day? I do sometimes. I’m amazed anyone besides my parents and grandparents still read.

Safire

Safiredaily list, P and P birthday