Saturday, December 22, 2007

John's 1st Gallery Showing

John created a few portraits I thought I would share. He has started drawing people and is finally giving them eyes and noses (although not always in the right place) and they usually get arms and legs too! :) Here are his latest works of art.


Natalie



Rebecca



Daddy



Mommy



an alligator



I don't have a scanner, so I had to take pics of them with my camera. I hope they show up okay. Here are a few other pics of the kids eating dinner. Natalie & Rebecca are devoring waffles and John is showing me the apricot in his soup. Really it's a tomato, but he said doesn't like tomatoes so I told him it was an apricot....funny how then he liked them. :) Oh, and notice that John has his shirt off. I have never met a little boy so worried about getting dirty at dinner. He could care less about falling in mud, or playing in dirt, but he dodes NOT want food on his clothes.


Friday, December 14, 2007

Gotta brag

I'm so proud of myself! I just finished John's birthday cake and I had to post a picture. Shameless bragging, but I think it turned out pretty cute! :) I don't think my hand is steady enough to write Happy Birthday on it, so I think I'll just put candles in the middle.

Friday, December 7, 2007

Mommy Mode

You know you are in "mommy mode" when you hear the song Juke Box Hero by Foreigner and you sing "Juice Box Hero" without even thinking about it. Thank goodness Mike and I have a date tomorrow night! Adult conversation! Thank you Grandma June for offering to babysit! I need it! :)

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Sing, sing a song...

Natalie is on the road to walking. Yesterday she got ahold of John's stool in the kitchen and scooted it around walking behind it for quite a while. So, today I got out one of John's old walkers and she pushed it around the living room. She needed a little supervision, as the wheels move a lot faster than the stool did, but she loved it. Rebecca just watched her and laughed.



John told me his Christmas list today and it was pretty comical. He wants, Ho Ho (Santa), a Christmas Tree, a snowman, reindeer, a choo choo, and "all the presents". Hmmmm, guess I better get back to the store! :) John has started a new thing at dinner where he is worried about getting his shirt dirty, so he wants to take it off. It should be interesting the next time we go out to eat! He also has been telling me he is scared of his closet. It is usually at nap time that he brings this up, so it isn't like it is dark in the room with strange shadows. I close the doors for him, but when I go to get him up from his nap the doors are back open and he tells me he slept on the floor because he's scared of the closet. I don't know if he is trying to keep me in the room, or just delay his nap, or if he relaly is scared of something. It doesn't happen at bedtime though. I don''t know.
We have been trying a new form of discipline. He was getting time outs in his room, but we have since moved to standing in the corner facing the wall. It seems to be working a little better than going to his room. Today I had him stand in the corner, for not listening...AGAIN, and he started crying and singing his alphabet song. "Sob, sob, the A says Ahhh, wimper wimper, the A says Ahhh, sniff sniff, Every letter makes a sound, boo hoo, the A says Ahhh." I don't know if the song was comforting to him or what, but it was hard for me to keep a straight face. Some friends from playgroup and I have been discussing how none of our children seem to hear us anymore. It is crazy that so many of our kids are doing the EXACT same thing at the EXACT same time. I wish John was old enough to understand the whole Santa is watching you thing. Maybe the jolly old elf would have a little more impact on him than I do.

John was so proud, he put his button down shirt on all by himself! In case you can't tell from the picture, it is upside down and the collar is around the back. He was so happy to have done it without any help that he wore it like this for a majority of the day.

Sunday, December 2, 2007

Things I never thought I'd have to say

"It is not polite to pinch your nipples at the dinner table. Please go to your room if you want to pinch your nipples."

8 month pics

Here are the girls 8 month pictures as well as a few others we took today. I can't believe they are 8 MONTHS OLD!


Natalie - 8 months

Rebecca - 8 months

Natalie pulling up to stand on her exersaucer

Rebecca hanging out with Daddy

Look! We got new big girl carseats today. Now the fun begins, when Mommy can't tote us around in our little carriers anymore.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Just one minute!


All is well in the house of many children. Natalie is officially crawling and pulling up to stand. Rebecca is still scooting around, but man, she is fast! Much faster than Natalie crawling. Rebecca will stand if you set her up, the same with sitting, but she can't get her chunky self into the positions herself yet. Natalie has 2 bottom teeth, and Rebecca has 2 bottom and 2 top. They have starting eating little finger foods like Cheerios and these Gerber puff things. We are working on waving, but instead of waving back, they just crack up and wiggle around when we wave at them. Very cute.

John is loving preschool. His best friends are Nicholas and Ellie. I love that he is starting to come home with little stories about what they did each day. Apparently today they took a train ride to the zoo. John drove the engine. And Kathryn stopped crying. I don't know why she was crying, but he told me she stopped. :) He is really getting into imaginative (is that a word?) play. He will tell me that he is Natalie and I am Rebecca and then we lay on the floor and crawl around. He has lengthy pretend phone conversations that are hysterical. It really sounds like he is talking to someone. The other day GG asked him a question while he was on his play phone and he put his hand out and said "Just one minute!" Whooops! I guess he's heard that a few times...I can't imagine from who though... For his birthday in a few weeks we are dropping the babies off with my mom and sister so Mike and I can take John to dinner alone and then go to Build A Bear. I think he'll really like making his own stuffed animal. I also think he'll really like having some alone time with us. Whenever I tell him we are going somewhere he asks "Just Mommy and John?" Keep your eyes open for some super cute Christmas cards in your mailboxes soon. But until then, here are a few pics.

Kind of an odd expression, but it's not often that John requests I take his picture, so of course I complied.


Rebecca helping me decorate the house for Christmas.

Natalie was crawling around, and when she sat up she found herself under the tree. It was really funny watching her look around and try to figure out where in the heck she was!

John moving the ornaments he put on the tree up a little higher so his sisters would stop taking them off.

2 seconds before I took this picture they were both smiling and babbling, but the second I stepped back to take the picture they freaked out. Don't you just love Natalie's drool bib on her shirt? Lovely.

Saturday, November 10, 2007

Moving all around

No pictures today. Sorry.

Natalie is ready to crawl! She has crawled a few feet so far, but then she flops back down on her belly. She pulls herself up to her knees, and has tried pulling up to her feet, but only tries on things like her saucer, so when she gets up off her knees the saucer spins and she goes with it. Rebecca is almost sitting up by herself from laying down. I guess we'll have to put the gate back up soon. John is starting to get a little annoyed that the girls can get to his toys now. He seems to spend most of the day patrolling the living room and snatching his toys back. I'm trying to stay on him to tell them, "Natalie, that is my toy. Here, you can have this one." but it doesn't always work. I've also been telling him that if he keeps his toys in his toy box they cacn't reach them, yet our living room still looks like a Toy R Us exploded in it. With Christmas and his birthday coming up soon, I am going to be doing a LOT of clearing out of old toys.

Everyone has been sleeping through the night and I am LOVING it! I am probably jinxing myself by posting that, but oh well. I get to sleep until 7:00am! 4 years ago I never thought I'd be so excited about getting up at 7am. How times change.

It seems Rebecca is becoming a bit of a bully. :) As soon as Natalie picks up a toy, Rebecca will put hers down, scoot her way over to Natalie (seriously that girl can move!) and take it away from her. Natalie will then throw herself on the floor and dissolve into tears. Poor baby.

Rebecca hurt herself today. I had just gotten her up from a nap and layed her in living room while I went to go get Natalie. I heard a boom and then a cry. When I got in there her poor little mouth was bleeding. I am assuming she somehow hit her mouth on the leg of the coffe table? I'm not sure how. She was fine after sucking on a cold wet washcloth, and I was fine after a reassuring call to my mom. :)

John is doing so well with his letters. He can recognize and name all the letters of the alphabet and give the sounds of almost all of them. Now our drives consist of "Look Mommy, A. Look Mommy, Q. Look Mommy, R." as we pass signs. He is trying to write them too, but we have a ways to go on that front.

If anyone is wondering about Christmas / John's Birthday presents I have a few ideas. John needs long sleeve shirts and khaki pants. He wears a 3T, and a 8 1/2 or 9 in shoes. The girls are wearing 6-9 months and size 2 shoes. They would love some winter dresses to wear with tights, or plain jeans. I'm hoping to get John a DVD player for the car for trips to the Lake next summer, so some kids DVDs would be nice. He has lots of tapes, but not many DVDs. Things like Toy Story or Cars or something like that. He is really into Little Einsteins, Mickey Mouse, trains (please no Thomas the Train toys though - too many recalls for lead in the paint), firetrucks, and dinosaurs. The girls aren't really into anything yet. :)

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Giggling Babies

Okay, so these aren't my babies, but this video is just great. People always tell me they don't know how I do it with twins, and I admit, we do have some "off" days, but times like this make it all worth it. Enjoy.

Saturday, November 3, 2007

7 Months Old

The girls are 7 months old! Here are their monthly pics, plus a few more.

Rebecca - 7 months old

Natalie - 7 months old

No more pictures, Mom!!

Tub Time

Just a few pics of my little bathing babies. This was Natalie and Rebecca's first bath in the big girl tub. Ahhh, there's nothing like relaxing in a 1/2 inch of tepid water after a big day of scooting around the living room.

John

Rebecca

Natalie

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Trick or Treat

Here are my little trick or treaters. The Cat in the Hat along with Thing 1 and Thing 2. John had so much fun and SO MUCH candy!

Thursday, October 25, 2007

6 month stats

The girls had their 6 month check up today. They are getting so big!

Natalie - 26.75 inches long and 17lbs 9.5oz
Rebecca - 28.25 inches long and 20 lbs 3.25 oz

They are both all over the place. They roll and scoot around the room backwards. Natalie can get herself into a sitting position from her belly. Both have moved forward here and there but no crawling yet.

Here are a bunch of new pics of the kids.









And in closing...



Saturday, October 13, 2007

I'm not a dinosaur

Yesterday, the girls were in their saucers and John and I were dancing to a little Mickey Mouse Clubhouse when all of the sudden he ran over and bit Rebecca on the forehead! I grabbed him and took him to his room (while he is screaming "it was an accident! It was an accident!"). After calming Rebecca down I went to get him out of time out and he went and told Rebecca he was sorry and gave her a hug. I told him, "We do not bite!" Then he said "Dinosaurs bite." "Yes" I replied, "Dinosaurs do bite." After a moment of thought he looked at me and told me "Dinosaurs bite, but I'm not a dinosaur." True. Very true.

Thursday, October 4, 2007

The one that wouldn't smile

Things are changing around our household lately. The girls that were once so quiet and happy to play with each other are now going through some major separation anxiety. If Mike or I leave the room they are in they will immediately be in hysterics. It is making it VERY hard to get anything done around the house. I can put one of them in a sling, but then the other one gets mad. Also, Rebecca has decided to give up sleep. :) She was always my good sleeper, and now she only naps for 30 minutes or so and is waking up once or twice a night too. Luckily Natalie will sleep through her fussing.

John is having a lot of fun at preschool. He's finally starting to answer questions about what he did during the day with specifics like "colored a picture, played on the red train" instead of only answering yes or no to specific questions. It's fun to hear about what all he did and who he played with and see his art projects every day.

He has also started a new thing where every night before bed he wants to go outside to see the moon and stars. See the side bar about his quotes to see what he requested of me last night!


Rebecca and Natalie playing on the couch in their skivvies.


Rebecca - 6 months

Natalie - 6 months

It is VERY hard to get a good picture of Natalie. In person she'll smile and giggle, and then as soon as a camera comes out she will close her eyes, cross her eyes, stick her tongue out, or just stare. It's driving me crazy! :) It took me 2 tries to get a cute pic of Rebecca, and that was only because the 1st one was blurry. I took 17 of Natalie and she's not even smiling in it! Here are a few of her "outtakes" so you know what I'm talking about...

Thursday, September 27, 2007

new pictures of the kids

While I was taking a shower, John got into my jewelry.


The necklaces he couldn't fit over his head he wore as bracelets.


After 2 days of refusing naps, he FINALLY passed out on the couch 1/2 an hour before dinner!


Natalie looks like she's ready to crawl! AGH!


Natalie smiling


Rebecca smiling