Taking Care of Babies

Gillian has been more into playing with her babies in the last few weeks. Mostly she likes to feed them, take them shopping, change their diapers, and put them to bed. Her favorite place to play babies is on the stairs though.

All ready for a bite to eat.

Oh wait, now it's time for bed! Think this is like bunk beds?


What a girl.

Life is Like a Box of Raisins.

The other night at dinner, Gillian asked for raisins as her fruit. We usually just have a big container of raisins and I give her a handful. But I had bought boxes of raisins to send to school for a snack at some point, but I never sent them, so I gave her her own box of raisins. She was stunned. She looked at the box. She looked at me. She said, "This whole box is just for me? To eat out of?" Umm, yep. It made her much happier than a simple box of raisins really ever should have.


Hopefully you can find a small pleasure in life this week.

Macaroni Penguin Monster Truck Hair

V-Day Rundown

We had a nice, sweet little Valentine's Day last week. In the morning the kids and I went to our indoor play center, The See Saw Center, for their Valentine's Day party. They had their usual fun toys and then had some crafts and snacks set up in the back room. The kids had fun making Valentine's for me and Daddy. And having a cookie. We even took our favorite See Saw lady, Miss Thelma, a Valentine we had made her!






After nap we watched our new favorite movie, Rio. What a great movie! Not sure if the it's the kids or me who like it better! Anyway, we had decided to have "brupper" that night (breakfast for supper) since the kids absolutely love it. Seriously. If Colin knows it's brupper night, he'll talk about it all day long. Special for Valentine's Day, we had some heart shaped pancakes and waffles!




After dinner we let the kids open a few treats from Daddy and me. They went over well.


Thomas lunch box!



JEWELS! (And the Cinderella dress from last V-day!)


Princess lunch box too! And poor Colin got a bummer gift to go with his lunch box. I had picked out a cool looking flashlight for him. Then forgot to get him batteries for it. Once we GOT the batteries, the thing worked once. And never again. Boo.

A very nice holiday. Colin was even my Valentine all day long!

Sending Valentines

Last year we made a big batch of Valentines and sent them out to some of our family and friends. And I thought the kids would be excited to do it again this year. And, they talked a good talk. In January I started asking them who they wanted to make Valentines for and they came up with about fifteen people! Well, in that case, I thought we had better get started early!

Good thing we DID start early. Umm, let's just say that enthusiasm was lacking in the worker bee department. So it took us a while. Doing about two cards a day a few days a week. For WEEKS.


Gillian working hard. In her swimsuit. What? Don't you make your Valentines while wearing a swimsuit?

And pose?


Our results:



We certainly hope the recipients enjoyed them.

A&P

"And that's poop."

Cheesey Valentines.

Daddy took these before the kids' Valentine's Day Party on Friday.








Oh my. That's a lot of cheese.

Little Fishes

We FINALLY found a place for the kiddos to take swim lessons! Before they were three we could only find "Mommy and Me" type classes and that really didn't work with TWO kiddos at the same time. But, now that they are over three, more options opened up for us!

Luckily our friend, Miss Laura, knows all the good info and told me all about Miss Jessica the local gym! I gave her a call and we were quickly signed up for some private/sibling lessons! For this first set of lessons, I am getting in the water too, since two non-swimmers at once would be a bit much, I think. Plus this way, the kids get more chance to practice and don't have to sit as much!

The kids were really, really excited. They love the water. Colin even told me before the lesson that he was going to swim underwater without his swimsuit. I'm not sure if he meant he wanted to swim naked or if he just meant without a life jacket! Either way, it was pretty funny!

So last Wednesday we had our first lesson. We hit the locker room and all three of us got changed (no small feat, really). I think the kids were pretty impressed with the locker room too!


All ready to go!

We were a bit early and it was hard to contain C&G from getting in the water all by themselves! Once Miss Jessica was ready, we practiced blowing some bubbles in the water, kicking with the kick board, and scooping ice cream with our hands. Gillian was pretty darn funny; she kept yelling, "Let me go! I can do it myself!" And, really, when she uses the noodle-thing for buoyancy, she really CAN do it almost by herself! They both worked really hard for half an hour. And were shivering so hard they could hardly stand it! It wasn't really cold in the pool, but they are just SO skinny that cannot stay warm in a pool!

Overall, swim lessons were a huge hit! Especially since Miss Jessica gave them lollipops! And Colin discovered the swimsuit spinner......

Tea Time

You're invited too!

Babysitting Job

Last Monday we had our little friend, AJ, over for a few hours while his big brother and sister had swim lessons. Colin and Gillian were beyond excited. Before AJ arrived, Colin kept telling us that he was going to build a track with AJ. I'm not sure what Gillian thought she was going to do with him, but I'm sure she had plans. Anyway, when AJ got here, the kids went kinda crazy. The dragged out every toy they own, showed it to him, told him to play with it, showed him how it worked, talked non-stop at him, and, in general, were incredibly silly.



What did AJ choose to play with? Well, he DID play trains a bit. And with our farm. But he really like our play asparagus. And our kitties! He really liked our kitties. He doesn't have any of his own.


Then we all watched an UmiZoomi.

Umm, yeah, AJ didn't sit there for long! He was off and moving again. And after the kitty again! We had a great time with our little friend. He is such a sweet, happy little man.

Snowmen

For the past year and a bit (or perhaps longer), the kids have wanted to build a snowman. Alas, during that period we have not had good snow for snowman making. This past weekend, all that changed.

On Saturday morning it started to snow. The news said that there wouldn't be much accumulation, and as it had been relatively warm I gave the news the benefit of the doubt. Not thinking much about the weather, we packed up and headed off to the Seesaw Center. As we headed the short distance north to the seesaw, the light dusting of snow on the ground faded away. We played at the seesaw for about 45 minutes, and when we were done there was no snow at all outside the Seesaw.

Driving home, the trend reversed and by the time we got home, the ground had about 3/4-inch of snow cover. After lunch (and a nap), the kids and I headed outside. I shoveled the driveway, and the kids ran around. While shoveling I noted that the snow had the perfect consistency for snowman making. Given our drought of snowman snow, we had to seize the opportunity.I rolled the bottom ball, and started snow balls for each of the kids. Lea provided a hat, scarf, and carrot for a nose. Result:


Of course the snowman needed a hug (they wondered if the snowman would move while they slept):

Usually Gillian gets cold when we play outside and wants to go in early, but this time it was Colin. Gillian wanted to stay outside and build another snowman - so we did:

Snowman fun!

More Fun than a Costco Box?

I think Colin's end was a train (of course) and Gillian's end was not a train, but I can't quite remember what it was! We had a fun run to Costco last week. The kids love to go there. They like the big, double carts and the fun stuff to look at. And the free samples. Oh, yeah, and there are two tracks that have very heavy freight train traffic RIGHT outside the front door of the store! We saw three, YES THREE, trains last week!

Out Like a Lamb

January is supposed to go out like a lamb, right? Actually our whole winter has been downright sheepish. Hardly any snow or cold. But the last day of January it was practically spring like! I think it was about 60 degrees in the late afternoon. So, of course, we had to get out and enjoy it! The kids requested some bike time.






It was pretty funny, as much fun as C & G had on their bikes, they were just as interested in going up to each and every kid there and chatting. Asking them about their bike. Asking them if they wanted to play and be friends. And after a while, they started asking if the other kids wanted to race. They raced for about half an hour with one little boy on his scooter. C&G don't really quite get the whole "racing" concept, but they sure had fun.

Fantastic way to end January. Although just a LITTLE snow would be nice! Seems darn right unnatural around here!

My Precious.

We have an serious addiction going on here.