Twins Uncensored

Imaginary Friends and Family

2011-08-30T13:30:00.005-04:00

Avery's imaginary world is very prolific. She has a daddy, a brother and today when I heard them talking about these people Emerson said something about a baby in the tummy. I asked, "who has a baby in their tummy?" Avery said, "My daddy."
"Oh really?"
"Yep. Him is pregnate."

This pretend family lives in a house with stairs that Avery likes to climb. While in CA, our last night was spent with Julie's "Uncle Fuzzy's" house. When we got there there was a cat on the front porch that the girls saw for about 10 seconds. We never saw the cat again. Uncle Fuzzy's house was a two story house. The girls played on the stairs the. entire. time. we were there.

When we were leaving CA I asked the girls what they were going to miss the most in CA? Avery's answer IN THIS ORDER was:
The Stairs
The Cat and
Papa...

Yes...she has her priorities right on the money.

When in doubt...play

2011-08-29T22:44:00.004-04:00

We went to the grocery store today. The girls wanted to walk. I made a deal with them that if they listened to me and stayed with me they could walk. If not they had to get in the cart and ride. Didn't even get through produce before I had to ask Avery to get into the cart. She refused. I tried to physically put her in. NOPE not unless I wanted to beat her. Tried to reason with her. NOPE she started screaming at me and throwing herself onto the floor. I tried time out. She could have cared less and just kept getting out of it. So I thought I would just wait her out. I told her we were not moving till she got into the cart. We were there about 15 minutes and she was happy to stay right where we were. Then I thought...'what else could I do...playful? Well, we have pretended to be out running alligators more then once....'

"Hey girls!!! I see some alligators up ahead. You guys better get in the cart so we can get by them."

Wishing I would have thought of that about 15 minutes prior...

In the cart they both went...willingly, and happily.

California Vaca Take II

2011-08-24T18:15:00.006-04:00

We took our semi-annual vacation to California to visit the LGs grandfather and other friends and family there. This time I booked our flight out of Orlando (on purpose)

The flights this time were not nearly as bad. Only had one bad (short) flight were Avery was a pain in the butt. I highly recommend having a layover if you are taking a really long flight with toddlers cause they need the change in scenery and the stretching of the legs. We flew into Long Beach and stayed in Anaheim the first 2 nights and went to Disneyland. We had a blast!

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After Disney we went to the same place we stayed 2 yrs ago in Thousand Oaks. We got to go Grandpa and Nan Lisa's house. The girls loved Nan's bird garden and helped her feed them. They also loved the dogs and I could tell they missed their puppies cause they told every stranger they met about their pooping puppy and how she poops in their room (despite the fact that Leni has not pooped in the house in quite some time...not counting the accidents she had while we were away, of course) The other thing they told every single person they were near was how old they are. The amuzing part of this is that they told people they were every age from 4 to 16 and would try to hold up the appropriate number of fingers for the age. One would say, "I Avery, I 4 yrs old." and then Emerson would say, "I Emerson, I 10." Cracked us up every. single. time. Imagine how many people they talked to in the 4 different airports we were in!?!

We also got to visit the ranch where Nan's horse is kept. I got to visit Rowen again...

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We also got to visit Papa's work and the park team at the city of Malibu build, Legacy Park. It was really really cool!

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We went to one of Papa's good friends house for dinner and swimming. They had two girls one was going into 1st grade and the other was going into 3rd grade (I think) The LGs had a WONDERFUL time playing with them and they all put on a princess fashion show for us. Lovely family and a great time!

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Strange Love

2011-07-14T23:09:00.005-04:00

The first few times I took the girls to the aquarium we did not go up to the very top level, cause they were so little I did not want to take them up the stairs.

On the first visit to the 3rd floor the girls got their first look at the mermaid. The first thing they did was jump on her lap and start fondling her. Avery did her "boob whisperer" move. It's something she would do to me on occasion and I had never seen her do it to anyone else. I assumed it was because I was the only one who ever nursed her. "Boob Whispering" consisted of her running her hand about a quarter of an inch above the boob like she was massaging it or acquiring a signal from another world and she would whisper, "abbba dabba daaaaba...." with her eye almost closed like she in a trance of some sort. Well, she did this to the mermaid the first time she met her.

Today we went to the aquarium to meet another twin mom. The girls had a fabulous time petting the stingrays. We enjoyed watching the otters play. Both the girls got bit by a duck. We played in the sand box and in the water splash pad. Then our friends left. I told the girls we needed to leave too. They did not want to leave so I said, "How about we go up and say hi to the mermaid for 10 minutes then we will leave?" They were like YEAH!

It has been quite a while since we have been to the aquarium...the love for the mermaid has not died!

Petting the stingrays

The duck that bit BOTH the girls.
Why? Cause they both tried to pet it. They then told me to pet it!

The mermaid that has captured the girls hearts...

Avery took her love a step too far...

Dental BFFs? Um, no.

2011-07-08T09:56:00.005-04:00

Thursday was the girls 3rd EVER dentist appointment. The last 2 appointments I have had to go back with them (see post "Avey Does" ) I was not very good this go round at giving them ample notification of this visit. I was meaning to tell them a few days in advance and play "dentist" to get them used to the idea and to hopefully get them to go back by themselves so they could actually get their teeth cleaned. When I have to go back with them they only get an exam no cleaning.

Thursday morning came faster then I expected and when Avery asked, "What we do-inn today, Mama?" I said, "Oh!?! Today we have a dentist appointment." Avery immediately protested with her usual whine/cry, "Noooooo, I don't want to go to the dentist......" "sorry that's what we are going to do, but then we are going to get lunch at McDonald's and head to the zoo with your friend Kenzie!" This did not warm her up so I dropped it and continued to get us all ready. Periodically (like every 30 minutes or so) we would have THAT SAME conversation almost verbatim except sometimes Emerson would join in and try to convince Avery that it would be fine...Thank you Emerson! Oh and the other variation was Avery would ask if, "you go back with us. Right, Mama?" And I would say, "yes, I will go back with you if you need me to."

We finally arrive at the dentist's office and the girls are excited to play in the VW Bug in the waiting room. Yes the dentist's office has an actual VW Bug in the waiting room. While I am sitting there letting them play I have an epiphany: wonder if Avery will go back by her self if I ask the staff to not touch her without permission.... "Hey Avery. If you go back by your self you get lots of cool stuff. Stickers, coins to get a prize, coupons for free apple dippers at McDonald's, new toothbrush. If you want I can ask the staff to ask you for permission before touching you?" Avery says, "Ok." A few seconds later the door opens and the lady says,
"Avery and Emerson?"
I ask the lady if she can ask all the staff to ask Avery permission before touching her? Emerson too, but especially Avery.
"oh no problem. We always explain and then do."
"No, that's not good enough. You need to explain, then ASK 'can I____' and then wait for a yes, then DO."
"oh, ok. Yes. I will make sure I am the one who works with Avery so that happens."
And they headed in with her like they've done it all their lives.

Every time the door opened I was expecting to hear, "Avery and Emerson's mom?" but I didn't then this lady pokes her head out the window where you sign in and says, "Emerson and Avery are doing so good they want to get their growth and development Xrays. Is that ok?" um, yeah! Sure....who are these kids?

The staff said they did great and as long as you asked Avery she always said yes. They also said that the Dentist for got to ask once and Avery promptly schooled him on his error.

As I was leaving I over heard a tech talking about one of them. She said that one of the other techs was keeping Avery company while they were waiting for the xrays to finish. She was chatting with Avery and said, "so we are best friends now right?" and Avery replied, "ummmm, maybe tomorrow." Ouch!

"Water Party"

2011-07-01T20:45:00.006-04:00

The other day while Julie and I were getting ready I can hear the girls in the kitchen. As I walk toward them Emerson see me and comes running at me excitedly and tells me, "we having a water party, Mama!"

The girls have a long standing love of water as shown in this post.

Wanna know what a water party is? I was kind of worried as I could hear the fridge water running. As I rounded the corner trying to keep a happy face for Emerson cause I knew whatever I found I needed to not have a negative reaction.

A "water party" consists of taking any and all vessels capable of holding said water out of the dishwasher. Filling them about half way up with water from the door of the fridge. Then lining them up on the counter "Signs" style.

In this photo I think Emerson was counting them for me....she can only reliably count to like 13 so I'm pretty sure she was not able to count them...

When you run out of vessels in the dishwasher you then move on to the Tupperware out of the cabinet and when you run out of room on the counter you put the vessels on the floor...like this:

Pride 2011

2011-06-26T21:29:00.007-04:00

Julie works for New York Life here in Tampa and this year NYL wanted to participate in the St Pete pride parade. It is the biggest one in the state of Florida. I actually took the girls to it two years ago (Julie was working) with a friend of mine from Orlando. The girls had a good time and there were about 15-20 protesters. I thought that wasn't too bad for Florida. I was pleasantly surprised to see only like four!

So this year the girls, Julie and I (and some of her coworkers) were IN THE parade! It was a load of fun. We all "bedazzled" the jeep and Julie drove it. The girls had a great time throwing candy out (at) to the crowd. At one point Emerson was walking and she was going upto any kid on the parade route and gave them candy. If there happened to be a mud puddle on the way to the child ALL THE BETTER!

When Julie told me we were going to be in the parade my first question was, "Do the girls need to be in car seats?" Julie thought they needed to be in them I thought otherwise. I mean the vehicle would not be going faster then 2 miles an hour! Turned out I was right...but I was wishing I had those darn things at the end!

At the end of the parade they make the people who are walking go one way and the cars go another. I was walking (along with all the other NYL people and Julie and the girls were in the Jeep. Thankfully I managed to follow behind the Julie and hop into the Jeep. The route was kind of twisty and turny do it was not a straight shot back to the staging area and it was a long route. To make matters worse Avery and Emerson were DONE with the parade by the end. So now Julie is not knowing which way to go, I am trying to tell her which way to go. Avery is crying that she wants to go home. I tell her we are going to go home and she cries that we cant get home this way....she was tired and hungry! Poor baby!

Didn't Want to Watch

2011-04-29T10:23:00.007-04:00

I had had no interest in the Royal Wedding as a matter of fact I was actually annoyed by the attention it was getting....till last night. Julie was watching a show that was recounting the wedding of Princess Diana. I had had no interest in THAT wedding either. If I knew then what I know now I would have been glued to the screen!

A few days ago I walked into the bedroom and Avery was retelling the Revolutionary War: "He was bad. He trying to take our stuff, our candy, our Toy Story guys..." She was speaking of King George. Julie had been trying to explain the Revolutionary War to her.

This morning Avery came into our bed like she does every morning and asked to watch one of her shows. When I turned on the TV, I'm sure you know what was on, right? Yes, THE wedding was happening. Julie told Avery that that was a real live princess and she was marrying her prince. Julie then proceeded to tell Avery, who was VERY interested, who everyone else was. "he is the Queen." Avery, "the evil queen?" "No. Just the queen. That's Camilla, she is the wicked stepmother." I said something about the Abby, and Avery said, "No that is a castle!"

As I sat there and watched I thought it would be really cool to take the girls to England so they could see real castles. If nothing else I think the wedding will help the Brittish tourism. I found myself glued to the screen waiting for THE KISS. This is sooo not me!

The absolutely funniest thing I have seen this morning was a lesbian friend of mine posted a little conversation she and her partner had watching the wedding:
C-"I wish I could have worn that at my wedding."
L-"You would have worn a dress?"
C-"Not that. What HE'S wearing."

Strange Play Places

2011-04-28T22:14:00.008-04:00

My license expired and I tried to renew it online but for some reason I was not able to. The thing is I THOUGHT I had renewed it (my birthday is in March. We are at the end of April here) and I kept waiting for it to come in the mail. I finally looked into it and discovered that I could not in fact renew it online and I was waiting for a license to come in that was never going to arrive.

Unfortunately I had to make the dreaded trip to the DMV. I made an appointment, in the hopes that that would lessen my suffering. I also knew I would have the girls with me. The appointment was not for a few days so i thought I would stop by a DMV and just get it done. I get in there with the girls to find out that not only is the wait 1 and a half hours but I needed to have with me my birth certificate (short form is fine), social security card and two bills showing I live where I live. Oy Vey! Not having these documents I decide to wait for my appointment and chance it with my expired license.

So we get to the DMV on the correct day and at the correct time (despite going to the wrong one on the other side of town that was closed!) and the people of the DMV make the People of Walmart look like socialites. A lady with a really big wig leans over and is telling Emerson how pretty she is and Emerson starts crying and hiding her face. This did not bode well for our stay. I gave them a snack that they proceeded to drop and tried to pick up to eat. "NOOOOOO!!! give it here, it is now garbage!" I think I used an entire thing of wipes while there.

They started a game of walking along the wall (in front of ALL the people sitting and waiting) with their backs against it. They each went two times then were like, "mama, your turn!" Yep, I walked up, as if on stage, and walked along the wall to the end and back. They then called my number, THANK GOD!

As I am taking care of my business the girls start playing a game of "3 little pigs" with the blue back drop for picture taking. In the middle of getting my license renewed by the slowest clerk ever, Emerson announces she has to go to the bathroom. We take care of that then back to business for me and play for them. Now they have moved to an empty desk and are playing with a little stuffed patriotic bear. Emerson is putting it in her shirt announcing she has a "baby in her belly" then pulling it out the bottom of the shirt. Then they moved to the computers you take the drivers test with. They start touching the screen until the one Emerson is playing with has an error screen on it. Ok, time to leave!!!! "Nooooo!!!! 5 more minutes Mama!?!" "2 more minutes, and you cant play with the computers. " "ok"

Today we met some friends at a REALLY cool park right near the Glazer Children's Museum. We loved the Glazer Museum when we went last week! The first thing we notice are the love bugs. It is love bug season here in Florida. Emerson starts screaming, wailing and trying to climb me. I tried to reason with her. I tried to distract her. None of these things work. When there was a swarm of Love Bugs near her she would scream/wail/climb. Avery was ok with them but I could see she was starting to get a little freaked out too. I talked them into going over to the water area cause I was sure there would be less near the water.

I was right and Avery had a pretty good time for about 30 minutes. Emerson was not that into it and continued to ask to go home. I finally gave in and left with them.

While at the water area a group of older kids showed up and there was a girl who looked to be about 10. She was doing the exact same thing as Emerson. I told Emerson it was ok for her to be acting like this now but I hope she will not still be having this reaction when she is that age. When we left the girl had locked herself in a bathroom and was still crying and sceaming.

On the way home I stopped at Home Depot to get a few things. We went to the garden part to get some more vegetables for the girls garden. While in the garden area one of them says they have to go to the bathroom. We trekked all. the. way. to the other side of HD to use the potty. Then back to the garden center. About 2 minutes pass and Avery announces that she has to poop. So, back to the bathroom we went. We then went to another part of the store. As I was standing in aisle waiting for an associate to come and get some shelving for me the girls started playing with the carpets that hang. They were playing hide and seek. You could totally see their feet. It was very cute. The employee finished getting me my shelving so I tell the girls we are ready to leave and they yell, "nooooo! 5 minutes!?!" "Ok, 1 minute then we have to go." The employee and I stand there and watch them play for another minute and we leave.

Here you can see Emerson in her misery at the park:

Avery enjoying the water

Mermaid Man

2011-04-18T07:25:00.010-04:00

We decided to go to the beach on Saturday. Now the girls think that where ever we go on the weekend we have to take Mom's Jeep. That would be fine except there is virtually NO storage in it and I feel like moving car-seats has become a part time job. Time to buy 2 more car seats!

So we packed as much as we could into the Jeep. It looked like a clown car with beach chairs flowing out over the sides.

While there the kids that were next to us started to do a project.
The boy laid down and the girls (pre-teenish) started putting wet sand on him. they then asked us if we had any buckets they could use. We did so we gave them to them. They asked the LGs if they wanted to help them. They were making the boy into a mermaid.

It was the girls idea to add the "bling" on the tail...

Have you seen the photos people have of their feet on the beach with the sand and the water? I was trying to get one of those. I don't think I succeeded...

Avery saw me taking the pictures of my feet and asked me what I was doing. I told her and she said take one of mine! And this is how she posed:
LOVE IT!

Having a snack...

After the beach we headed over to Rick's On the River for lunch...

The girls made a friend:

Caterpillar Circle

2011-04-15T20:39:00.005-04:00

I signed the girls up for Caterpillar Circle at the place that they take gymnastics It is basically like a moms morning out pre-pre-school. One day a week they go there, do a craft or two, have a snack and they get an additional hour of gymnastics a week. SCORE!

Last Thursday was their first day at CC. When they got up Avery, like she does every morning, asked, "What we doing today?" I told her about CC and she started crying saying she did not want to go. I thought, "great this is going to end very badly." I told them we were not going to talk about it anymore till we got there then we could decide if we really did not want to go.

So we get there and the teacher (who is the first teacher that Avery let touch her in gymnastics) was sitting on the bench outside with a few other kids. Avery and Emerson ran over to her and were like , "Bye mommy!" I asked them for a hug and they each gave me one. The teacher then marched them all over to the other building and they did not even look back.

When I got back into my car I was watching them trot across the lawn looking so self confident and sure. I started crying. I was seeing them grow up right there. It made me sad and happy all at the same time.

When I went to pick them up they asked if they could come back the next day. They obviously had a great time.

Now for some fun...kind of...

The other night Avery said they wanted to color with markers. I told them they could go ahead and get the markers and paper out of the craft closet. It was after dinner and before bathtime so when Avery asked if they could draw on each other I said, "sure. Just take off your clothes so they dont get stains." These girls dont miss an opportunity to get naked so they ripped their clothes off and ran into the living room with the markers and one thing I did not know they had... these two big ink pads from a Melissa and Doug stamp set.

I was working on the computer so I was not paying attention to them. A few minutes pass. I decide to check on them....this is what I found:

Julie says she looks like a gay Braveheart

I had to put underwear on her to take the pictures.

Thankfully it IS washable so...

Garage Door Rides

2011-03-22T22:26:00.005-04:00

Today the girls did not take a nap so I thought we would take a walk to a neighbors house. I opened the door to the garage, pushed the button to the garage door and walked back into the kitchen to get something. The girls went into the garage when I opened the door cause they knew we were going to leave. We leave through the garage every. single. day.

As I was headed back toward the garage I heard Avery crying and Emerson calling to me to come. As I walked into the garage I saw Emerson first. She was standing just outside the garage looking up at the garage door (that was all the way up!). I followed her line of vision to see Avery hanging from the garage door crying. My first thought was "what the heck do I do?" I thought about pushing the button to get the door down again, and dismissed that as dumb cause the minute the door started moving she would most likely fall to the concrete below. Then I realized, "HEY! I can reach her!" Then I thought, "should I grab the camera?" I realized that if she fell while I was getting the camera I would feel like the WORST mommy ever. So I ran over and plucked her off the ceiling.

She grabbed me and cried and showed me her hands. They looked fine, but hurt from holding her entire body weight in the air via a piece of metal.

The minute she was safe I started laughing. I couldn't help it. I tried to joke with her about it, but she did not think it was funny. I was calling her spider-kid. She was less then amused. So I apologized and told her I was sorry she had such a scary thing happen to her, and I was glad she was ok. It must have been pretty scary for her cause she usually can see the humor in anything. Lets see if she can laugh about it tomorrow!

You know I always knew garage doors were dangerous coming down, but never thought I needed to warn the girls about them going up...

Spring Break

2011-03-21T22:00:00.005-04:00

I scheduled us a vacation through Priceline, not usually an issue, cause we know what area we like to stay in. This time though I added in Clearwater as an option. Had a total meltdown and booked for the wrong dates. Have you ever made a mistake with Priceline? When you call the recorded voice tells you about 1000Xs that you cannot get a refund for errors made etc. They did right though and refunded when I re-booked for the correct dates.

A few weeks later we finally realized it was at the same resort we had stayed at in Clearwater last August. Julie was less then pleased. She did not like that the resort is not ON the beach. The other issue we had last vacation was that the girls were NOT happy to be away from home and wanted NOTHING to do with the beach. We dragged them to the beach one of the days last vacation and it was the most miserable hour EVER! This fact stayed the same this vacation but everything else was different. Same hotel, but we ALL had a great time, even Julie! We did realize later though that the problem last vacation was that Julie brought Julie with us on vacation.

We opted to just go with it and not go to the beach. Instead we went to little beach (Cypress Point) when we got home. The girls were old enough to hang out in Lisa's Club house, the kids area where they do crafts and activities. They made tie dye shirts, stayed for a pizza party so mommies could go out to dinner, and made a bag full of crafts at Lisa's clubhouse.

The girls had a great time playing in the pool. One of their favorite activities was what they named the "Silly Game". Why? Cause Julie kept saying to them, "This is a silly game." So they asked her repeatedly to play the Silly Game with them. It consisted of them jumping into the pool, Julie catching them, Julie pushing them toward the steps, they get out and jump into the pool. Rinse. Repeat.

We also enjoyed "cocktail hour" the girls loved watching the bartenders make drinks. They got to sample some of the fun frozen drinks (virgin of course!)

Here are some of the photos from our vacation:

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Forced Cuddling and Other Stuff

2011-03-05T00:24:00.014-05:00

So they like to cuddle before going to sleep. Not a problem. Totally understandable. Most times I like to cuddle with them as well. Some nights however...I'm just tired, I have a head ache and want them to go to sleep and let me leave without rubbing their face (Avery) or their back (Emerson).

So one night when I was sooooo very tired and just needed some alone time. I was in the midst of forced cuddle time and Emerson said, "Rub my back." I obliged for a few minutes but I was tired and said, "Can we just cuddle?" and she rolled over onto her back and I rapped my arm around her and relaxed for the first time in about 12 hours....Then she did it...she pulled up the front of her shirt so I could rub her stomach...and she did it so obvious yet slyly.

We are planning a vacation, short vacation, to the beach. The other day we had some time to kill so I thought I would treat the girls to their first pedicure. They puffy heart loved it!

I let them pick out the colors they wanted. Avery chose orange of course, it is her favorite color after all. Emerson chose blue. Why? Not sure, but it looks so much better then I thought it would! The lady doing their nails did Emerson's first and put a little flower on her big toe. When she was getting ready to do Avery's Avery kept saying she wanted a "shark" I kept making her repeat it and repeat it till Avery finally said, "You know, hop hop hop." While making her hand go hop like a frog. She was asking for a frog. She got a flower cause the flower was free. Maybe next time I will see if they can draw a frog.

We had a twin friends party last weekend. Petting zoo and pony rides and beer...who could ask for more?

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Now for some entertaining thing that have happened lately.

Today Emerson said she had to go "tee tee" she went in the bathroom came out with no pants or panties on. This is not an unusual thing in this house. They do that all the time. She then asked me to lift her up to get something out of the high pantry. I picked her up and had her sitting on my chest. She decided she did not want anything and I put her down. A few seconds latter I was smelling poop. I asked her if she pooped and she said yes. So I told her to head to the bathroom so I could wipe her. We get in there and she has poop smeared up her back. I clean her up and am commenting on how poorly she wiped and that she needs to let me know next time so I can help her all while I'm preparing to wash her and my hands. I look into the mirror and see a thick skid mark on my sweater, my favorite sweater...
We took the car to get an oil change at Midas. They have a keurig machine there and the girls LOVE the hot chocolate so good times at Midas, but on this day they also had biscottis! WOW who could ask for more? I gave them each a biscotti and found out it was going to take an hour for them to just get my car in. I really needed to get this done before vacation so I figured we would also walk over to Office Depot while we waited. As we were walking into the parking lot Avery had one bite of her biscotti left. I grabbed Avery's hand and she went to grab her sisters hand (they know we all have to be holding SOMEones hand in parking lots. Well she couldn't grab her sister hand with the piece of biscotti in her hand so she handed it to her sister. He sister took it and pooped it into her mouth and started to chew and Avery started to yell. Emerson pulled it out of her mouth and put it in her sisters hand with out ever letting go of her sisters hand. Then Avery popped it into her mouth and ate it.
The other night Michelle one of our favorite babysitters watched the girls and had to put them to bed so that Julie and I had a much needed date night. She later told me that Emerson was very calm and relaxed for bed, but Avery was crying and upset. They were laying in bed and Avery was crying. Emerson reached over and held Avery's hand and Avery calmed down started sucking her fingers and they both fell a sleep.

I am constantly amazed at how well they get along, how much they love each other. They really genuinely like each other. I have never had to worry about one of them hitting the other one. I mean there has been the occasional sitting on her sister cause she wanted to sleep in the hole, but for the most part they never fight and always play well together. Is it an identical thing or am I just lucky?

Little Artists

2011-02-10T21:56:00.005-05:00

I have to share (and chronicle) some of the girls artistic accomplishments.

Avery makes some of the prettiest finger paintings I have ever seen:

This one is my favorite!

At the Y on Wednesday they colored with crayons and brought the papers home. I noticed that Avery had attempted to stay inside the lines. I was very impressed.

The other day Avery was drawing at her easel and I asked her if she was drawing a person. She said, "yes, here is the body..." Me, "cool. are you going to give it eyes?" She said yes and proceeded to give it 8 as I counted them out. Then she gave it 2 arms, 6 legs, curly hair (at which point I said, "oh, curly hair just like mom." Then she said, "and a hat like mom. This is mom." I'm sure you can see the resemblance!

Then Emerson wanted to draw me. She narrated what she was doing, "head, eye, eye patch..." I have since seen her do this numerous times and each and every time the person she was drawing gets an eye patch. Every time the eye patch consists of a her scribbling over the eye she just drew. Let's not discuss the lower half of my body in this picture... facebook friends have taken care of that!

The other day they asked me if I would play with them. I said sure and they said they wanted me to build a butterfly with their tinker toys...luckily there is one on the side of the bin so I used it as an example. I'm rather proud obviously...I took a picture and am now sharing it with you!

Escalator Issues

2011-02-10T14:27:00.007-05:00

Thought I would take them to the mall play area to burn off some energy cause it is rainy and yucky out. I usually park in the parking garage of Nordstroms', but on the lower level. The lower level is where the play area is. Today the lower level of the garage was packed (probably due to the rain...) I parked on the 2nd level.

When we got into Nordstroms we came face to face with the escalators. The girls and I have managed escalators before so I asked them if they wanted to take them down. They both said yes. Avery stepped on before I could think. So then Emerson and I are both at the top watching Avery go. I kind of panicked thinking I did not want Avery to be alone at the bottom. I hop on and and Emerson does not hop on with me. Now I'm headed down and Emerson is stuck at the top. She starts crying. I turn around and try to run up the escalator that is headed down. I can't do it. I had to have looked like a cartoon character getting no where. This very nice lady with a toddler and a stroller asks me if she can help Emerson on. I say, "YES, please!!! thank YOU!!!" Emerson immediate jumps away from the lady like she is the devil. The only option I had was to ride down, then ride up and retrieve Emerson all with Avery in tow as well. It was rather amusing. Thankfully this set of escalators were side by side. SO GLAD I cannot even imagine having to run to the other side of the store to catch the up one and then running to the down one again.

Needless to say We all took the elevator once I had Emerson. The nice lady that had offered to help stood there with Emerson while I made my way back to her. Apparently it was a memorable experience for others as well. About an hour and a half later we were headed through Nordstroms and this guy commented that Emerson wants nothing to do with the escalator now!

To add insult to injury as we past through the lingerie section Emerson ran up to the most slutty, loud nighty and yelled, "I like this ONE!!!" Praying her tastes change before puberty.

Gasparilla 2010

2011-02-06T22:55:00.005-05:00

Just realized I had not blogged our annual Gasparilla parade experience!

This year it was COLD!!!! The good thing though was I went out the day before and found us a place to park that was not 35 miles away... I only exaggerate slightly. We only had to walk .07 miles to the parade and we got there nice and early so we were right up front. The kids had a great time. Poor Graham fell asleep right before the parade actually started and managed to sleep through the entire parade. He did have a great time though before the parade...except when I made him cry! Mean Patty... Sorry Graham, I love you.

"Gasparilla 2011"

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To keep warm Pam and Katy came up with a fun little shtick that the kids LOVED!!!

Sleeping

2011-02-06T22:29:00.004-05:00

Do you remember back when Avery was scaling her crib and I would play "where did she end up?" Kind of had a week like that last week.

She insisted she was not sleepy at nap-time. Clearly she was not....

Here is the original July 2009...

Then the other morning when I got up here is where I found her.

She apparently was on her way to our room, which happens most nights between 3am and 4am... If I remind them they are not to come to our room till the sun comes up they don't. Unfortunately if it was JUST one of them I would be able to sleep with her in my bed, but because they both usually end up coming in they flank me and I feel claustrophobic and cant sleep restfully. Well, this night she did not quite make it... not sure what happened cause she was obviously walking, she had to open her door and our room is only 3 feet from where she is laying. She even has her blanket.

Here is her sleeping with Julie last weekend. I love how they both have the same position going on here.

Avery's Very Very Bad Day

2011-02-02T21:05:00.005-05:00

ok, it wasn't that bad, but it was rather funny how things kept happening to her today. I like to think it was karma cause she has been a hand full the last few days.

I took them to the Y today so I could do a spin class. On a side note, I really think this spin instructor is a sadist. She could possibly be evil... anyway, When they are in the Y daycare sometimes they get to go to basketball court and "exercise". The Exercise consists of playing tag, or running back and forth from one wall to the other. Well, when I went to get them the first thing Avery does is start kvetching about not getting to go to the basketball court. I hear about this for what seemed like forever. She was very upset that she missed the teacher's call out to go to the court.

Then we meet a friend at a restaurant that I WAS boycotting because they were giving funds to an anti-marriage equality organization, but they have since said they will no longer do that...the fact that they did this in the first place SHOULD keep me away but, I really needed to talk to my friend so we needed a play area and I have not given this company any of my money in sooooo long that I figure it's a wash. During the play time Avery came to me and was saying something about "baby pee pee pants" and I could not figure out what the heck she was talking about, but I could hear some of the other kids yelling this and giggling. Then we are on our way home and Avery tells me the kids were calling her this. (BTW, as I type this I am stifling back a giggle!) I did feel bad though. I mean who wants their kid to be made fun of???? Not me....most days... I did manage to make her laugh about it later though. I was getting ready to do some couch cuddle time with them and Avery was getting situated and I said, "here comes miss baby pee pee pants." and she laughed, really really hard. It became our running joke for the rest of the night.

The final bad thing that happened to little Avery today was caused by her love of fruit. It does not matter what kind of fruit, they both LOVE it! I actually have to cut them off each day when I have fruit in the house. Well, I found Avery sitting on the toilet this evening and she tells me that she has poop in her pants. Sure enough there was poop on her undies. (Enough that I had to dunk them in the toilet to clean it off)I asked her what happened and she said she farted and pooped. oops...

Boundaries

2011-01-18T14:52:00.015-05:00

Sometimes I'm a really slow learner... It has taken way to long for me to figure out how to get Avery to willingly go into her gymnastics class.

Last semester I did everything I knew to do to get her to go in. I tried EVERY. SINGLE. WEEK. Emerson would run into class like it was the funnest thing in the world. She loved it. Every week I kept thinking Avery would see how much fun her sister was having and want to join in. Nope. This class is the 3 yr old class where they go in and the parents wait outside. Every week Emerson would run in and Avery would say she did not want to go and she would wait outside with me. For a while there I thought it was that she just wanted some alone time. Nope.

This semester started a few weeks ago and the first class neither of them wanted to go in. I thought I was gonna go bananas. Then the following week Emerson was back to going in happily and Avery was back to refusing to go. Last week I even resorted to just putting her into the class and walking away. About half way into the class I looked in and she was still lying in the same place still upset. BAD MOMMY!!! I felt horrible. The only reason I even tried this is that she had went into the YMCA play area so willingly and had not cried.

Last Thursday she was watching a Sesame Street and there were gymnast doing flips and cool stuff. Avery yelled, "I wanna do that!" I said, "well honey, to do that you have to actually go into gymnastics class." Then they had a birthday party Saturday that was at the Y and they did gymnastics. When we all went into the gymnastics area she was happily with the class then she ran over and sat by me. I reminded her of the gymnasts on TV and she ran back to the circle to participate. After the party I took them to Target to buy leotards for class. As I was talking to them about the leotards and gymnastics I asked Avery if she would go into class this coming week and she said, "Yes." Cut to today....

I tell them what we are doing today, "going to gymnastics." and immediately Avery tells me she doesn't want to go. I get out the leotards and get them dressed and she is still telling me she doesn't want to go. We get there and she tells me she wants to stay outside with me. Suddenly it dawns on me, "Avery, if I tell the teachers not to touch you without your permission will you go into class?" "YES!" She ran in like a flash never looking back. I grabbed a teacher and reminded her that Avery does not like to be touched, so please ask her before touching her.

The teachers were AWESOME! One of them said she kept telling Avery, "Don't touch me!!! Don't you touch me" and Avery would laugh.

I know she just needs to feel like she trusts you before you can touch her. I don't think it's that much to ask. How would you like it if someone picked you up and moved you without saying a word?

I started really noticing this when we were going to the toddler transitional gymnastics classes. It is a little more structured then the tot/mom gymnastics, but mom is still there to help. Whenever the instructor would tell Avery what to do and then try to spot her Avery would say, "NO, I do it." Then if she needed help she would say, "NO, Mama help me." and I would spot her. Then one day at this same class I was on the other side of the room and Avery had picked up a toy the teacher wanted to put up. Instead of taking the toy from Avery she picked Avery up and carried her across the room to put the toy away. Avery FREAKED she was crying and I could see she was VERY upset, and it had nothing to do with the toy she was carrying. I was trying to tell the teacher that Avery was freaking out about her holding her not the toy, but I was across the room and she was not paying attention. After she put Avery down she ran to me and was in desperate need of recovery. I had to hold her for what seemed like forever for her to feel ok again.

So why did I not put the two together before? She assumed that if I was not going to be in there the teachers were going to grab at her willy nilly....

Yes, she will eventually need to be touched by the gym couches if she is going to learn to do any of the gymnastics, but they can at least ask first!

Public Urination

2011-01-12T08:01:00.007-05:00

As for potty learning...Emerson was the last to learn and the easiest. She (and Avery) can hold it for what feels like EVER. Like crazy bladder control for 3 yr olds! Emerson has been reluctant to go to the bathroom in public lately. And when I say bathroom I mean pee not poop. She hasn't had an accident in forever. The only accidents she had were the ones when she first started learning...until last Friday.

While we were out I saw her holding her self. I asked her if she needed to pee and she said no. We were out all morning and I did not ask her to use the bathroom before we left (my bad). I needed to make a quick stop at the grocery. I opted to let them walk instead of the double cart, only needed a few things. Saw her holding herself repeatedly. She asked to ride in the cart and I obliged. As we were walking down the condiment isle Avery stopped dead in her tracks and got this strange look on her face. I asked her if she needed to use the restroom. "Yes, I gotta poop!" Off to the bathroom we went. I asked Emerson if she needed to pee (again!) she said no (again!). I left her in the cart right outside the restroom(asking the closest cashier to keep an eye on her. The bathrooms are right in front of the register area) and took Avery in. Got Avery settled on the potty and checked on Emerson. Avery finished and we washed up. When I got back to Emerson she asked to walk. As I lifted her out of the cart I saw condensation on the seat. Yep, she had an accident. I did not have a change of pants in my bag only panties so she had to finish our shopping trip with a wet bottom. Then when we got to the car I changed her into dry undies for the ride home.

That same night was parents night out at the YMCA. We dropped them off at 7pm and picked them up at 9. Guess who had a wet bottom when we picked them up. On the ride home I inquired about if the sitters at the Y asked them if they needed to use the potty. Both Avery and Emerson said they had been asked and Avery said, "I go pee."
Me, "Emerson, did they ask you if you needed to go pee?"
"Yeaherm." (her weird way of saying yes)
"Did you use the potty?"
"No."
"Did you pee in your pants?"
"Yeaherm."

I was really kind of freaking out. Not sure what to do. Finally I did a little search online and found some suggestions that might work.

I was going to visit EVERY POSSIBLE RESTROOM when we were out and about to breed familiarity. There was one thing I read and didn't even pay attention really, but then in the spur of the moment I tried yesterday cause I knew she had to go. I did not think that the reason she was not going was the massive opening of the toilet. I thought it was noise and unfamiliar surroundings.

We were at Borders, it's becoming our regular Tuesday stop after gymnastics, and I saw E holding herself. I asked her if she had to pee and she of course said, "no." I said, "well, I have to so come on everyone lets go to the potty!" We went into the bathroom and I went first. After pulling up my pants I sat back down on the toilet really far back with my legs spread, and said, "OK, who wants to sit with mommy to go pee pee?" Avery was like, HECK YEAH! so she went first and Emerson was giggling at this sight of us together on the toilet. Then Emerson said, "my turn, my turn!" So I pulled her pants down and sat her between my legs. She went (giggling the whole time) and I told her how proud I was of her. I think she would have tried it if she did not have her twin there for her to laugh at but it sure did help lighten the situation and make her less nervous.

Today when leaving the YMCA I saw Emerson holding herself. Asked her if she wanted to sit on my lap and use the potty, and she said, "Yeaherm!"

Then when we were home she asked if we could do it "again!" as she pointed to the toilet in her bathroom. I told her that we "only do that when we are out. That will be our special way to go pee pee in a public restroom. OK?" "Yeaherm!"

Family Time

2011-01-09T11:53:00.007-05:00

We celebrated New Years eve a few times this year. First I took the girls to the zoo and celebrated at noon with their friend Graham and one of his mommies Katy.

This trip to the zoo was special, because for the first time the girls were old enough and tall enough to ride the banana ride. They loved it! I thought they might be scared cause I could not ride with them, but I was wrong. They had a great time. They're getting so big. Sniff, sniff.

At Noon the there was a count down with noise makers and cheering. Julie and I did this celebration 2 yrs ago with the girls look at the difference 2 years makes!

Avery two years ago:

Yes, she is in the bottom of Graham's stroller...

Then we rung in the New Year again at 8pm with the kids the LGs, Graham and Cameron. The all loved drinking their cider and playing with their noise makers. The next morning Avery came in the kitchen and asked me for more "cheers" she wanted more cider.

When the actual New Year rolled around we were all sound asleep. Such is life with kids. We like it like that though.

Graham and the girls have something very special in common. They share the same donor sperm. So in essence they are brother and sisters.

The way we found this out was kind of odd. I met Katy through a group she had started on meetup.com for gay and lesbian parents in the Tampa area. We got together for a few play dates. I liked her and she invited Julie, the girls and I to her house for a cook-out and swimming. We were all in the pool and chatting about random stuff. I said something about "donor 2610" and both Katy and Pam went pale. Katy said, "wait where did you get the donor for the girls?" I for some reason was thinking it was California. Katy said something to the fact that they used Fairfax. Suddenly it clicked, "NO, it was Fairfax that we used." Again it looked as if both Katy and Pam had been smacked with a brick. Katy, "and you just made up that number too right? Was it really 2610?" Me, "Yeah...why???" "That's who we used..." needless to say we all have a special bond now. We are family. We may not look like Ozzy and Harriet but who does?

"Avey does"

2011-01-03T23:16:00.004-05:00

Today was an interesting day. First I took the girls to the chiropractor. Usually all three of us get an adjustment. Almost every time without fail Emerson jumps at the chance to go first for the adjustment. Today however, when Dr Alexa said, "who wants to go first?" Emerson quickly said, "Avey does." And amazingly, Avery did go first and did great.

Oh almost forgot about us actually leaving the house! As we are driving out the drive Avery yells, "Mama! You no put Leni in bathroom!" "That's ok Avery she is in her house during the day now and only stays in her bathroom at night." Then we get down the street a little ways and Avery grabs at her head and exclaims, "MA!! You no do my hair!" "That's ok Avery (as Im giggling) I have your hair in a knot so I dont have to do it today." She looks concerned. I say, "Dont worry, you look cute."

After Chiro I had to take them to the dentist.~JOY~
This was only their second exam ever, and I think I may have done a bad thing. I keep telling the girls when they ask, "why?" to the "we have to brush our teeth." if they do not brush they will get cavities and will have to have dental work done that hurts. So every time I said we were going to the dentist today they would both start cry/whining they didn't want to it was gonna hurt...uhg! So we get there and they refuse to go back by themselves so cleaning is off the agenda. Just a check-up for today. Dr comes into the room the girls are playing with the stuffed animals and pretending the doctor does not exist. He is really great with kids and tries to engage them, but their were not buying what he was wanting to sell. The pretending he does not exist continued.

Finally he says it's time to do the exams and who wants to sit on mommy's lap first. Emerson quick as a bunny says, "Avey does." and shockingly Avery goes first and does an amazing job. No crying, no whining, and complete cooperation. She is finished and it's time for the other one... The doc and I are working all angles to get her on my lap. Offering stickers, showing her the instruments, showing her the tooth brush she gets, Im telling her about how I plan to take them to lunch as soon as we are done...nothing. If she ignores us (her back is literally to us the whole time) we will go away or forget about her. Right? Finally out of desperation I say, "Emerson, if you do not do this willingly I am going to have to physically restrain you." She looks up and excitedly says, "I want you to physiky restain me!" I dont think she knows what this means, based on that response! So I finally just picked her up and put her on my lap. Finally we did get her done with very few tears and no blood shed.

Better Off Then Their Parents

2010-12-28T22:58:00.004-05:00

The other day (before Christmas) I heard one of the Kardashians or some other person who is famous for being famous say something like that. But, the way she said it was like she wanted her kid to HAVE more then she has or had. I don't think that is the true meaning of the quote. And it sure isn't what I want for my kids.

Let me tell you about my first Christmas. The first one I remember, anyway.

I was around six years old. I did not get up early as a child and my stepmother, Beth woke me up. Or rather she bellowed from the living room for me to come out of my room. I was groggy and slightly confused. I remember walking down the hall, rubbing my eyes and suddenly my father was yelling at me. Yelling that I did not appreciate all that he did for me and that I needed to get back to my room and "DON'T COME OUT TILL YOU CAN SHOW SOME APPRECIATION!"

The following year there is a picture of me holding my hand to my chest gasping. I can see that picture in my minds eye as clear as if it were taken yesterday. I remember not seeing anything that morning, as I was just as groggy as the prior year. I surely was not going to get yelled at the same way I did last year. So I faked it.

As a child I walked on egg shells. I was always worried about getting yelled at or worse.

As a parent I try so hard to have patience. I am working daily on it.

I want my kids to have more then I had as a child. Not more stuff. Not more possessions. I want them to have more love, more understanding, more respect! I don't want them to have to experience a lot of the things I experienced and know they could careless about the material things, at least right now anyway.

Christmas "Presents"?

2010-12-28T22:41:00.004-05:00

Leni (our Christmas puppy) has been doing great with going pee outside, but we are having a difficult time teaching her to poop outside.

Today I was telling Julie about how I found Leni sleeping in the girls room hours earlier and Avery chimed in with, "And I saw POOP!" I said, "What? You saw poop in your room?" "Avery, you have to tell us these things!" Sure enough there was puppy poop behind the chair in their room.

Not to be to graphic, but the puppy's poop is really small and doesn't smell...from a distance...

The second night we had Leni she slept through the night and woke me up at 5 am. I took her out so she could do her business. She peed. I brought her back in and put her back in her bed in the bathroom. She started wining and crying so I figured I would let her run free for the next hour seeing as how she had already peed. Then Avery got up at 6. Usually she gets in bead with us, but the puppy was running around so she wanted to play with her. I said sure. (I just wanted like 30 more minutes!) I feel back to sleep and woke up about 45 mins later to Avery hading me something and asking what it was? It felt like play-dough and it was dark. It was also dark in the room so I could not really see....I wasn't sure so I smelled it. It was puppy poop!!! I began to have a visceral reaction complete with gagging as I am trying to get out of bed to fix the horrific situation. Julie in a huff gets out of bed saying "don't be so dramatic." as she stomps off to the bathroom to get TP.

I laugh whenever I think about this cause Julie's reaction was hilarious!

Christmas Chaos and Puppies

2010-12-26T15:25:00.008-05:00

We have a dog named Cooper, aka Pooper as the girls call him. He had a big sister and since she has been gone he has been lonely. I wanted to get him a companion but I really wanted to get him a dog younger then him, but already an adult. Julie REALLY wanted a puppy. She has a friend at work that has dachshunds who had a litter. The dad was cream like Cooper. I said if any of the puppies are cream we will get one. Lucky for me none of them were. Then they had another litter. This litter was born on October 31st AND there was a cream one born... I was doomed. Oh, and they would be available (be 8 wks old) on Christmas Eve... HELLO? How could I say no???

I picked her up Christmas Eve and brought her home. Julie told the girls that Santa had left them a package on the front steps early cause he couldn't travel with it. Her name is Leni, and I think she is going to be much more red then Cooper. Oh well.

Here is a video of the girls when they met Leni. Avery says, "I have two puppies mommy!" so cute!

As far as puppies go she has been pretty darn good. The first night she cried the whole night....it was complete torture! Then the next night she slept through the night. Since then she sleeps through the night I take her out to pee at 5am then bring her in and she goes back to sleep with us on our bed.

Christmas Eve (while I was picking Leni up) Julie, Nana and the LGs made cookies for Santa.

When we got up we made cinnamon rolls and tried to get the girls to open their stockings first. They were not interested in them they wanted to open the big presents. When we finally got to them Emerson was like an Elf in reverse. Nana called it assembly line gift opening. She would meticulously open a present look at it sit it aside and get the next present. It took a few presents to get through to her to let me read the tag FIRST! Avery opened a few presents then seemed to get a little overwhelmed and started playing with toys as Emerson opened them. For Emerson I think it was that she just HAD to know what the heck we were hiding under the paper. So she needed ALL the presents to reveal themselves before she could play with ANYthing.

There was one present they both asked Santa for when we went to visit him. They refused to sit on his lap so they stood about 3 feet in front of him and told him they wanted a Bullseye and a Stinky Pete. I got them the Bullseye, but they no longer make Stinky Pete. When Emerson got to that present from Santa she was ecstatic! Every yelled, "Where's Stinky Pete" DUH!!!

When the last present was opened Avery said, "all DONE!" walked around the christmas tree and turned the lights off on the tree. Talk about a kill-joy!

Short Order Cook?

2010-12-16T15:03:00.005-05:00

I always said I would never be one of "those moms". You know the ones. They make a meal for the grown-up and then a meal for little Timmy, cause he doesn't like green beans. Another meal for Jessica, cause she only eats white food. By the time mom actually sits down to eat her meal is cold and she is alone at the table.

Not only is this bad for the kids because it is teaching them that if they complain enough about something mom will fix it. It just reinforces bad behavior. My other issue with it is that it limits the kids palette. I love food and want my kids to love food like I do. If they are only exposed to foods they "think" they like then they will never get to enjoy all the flavors that different cultures have to offer. Oh and Im kind of lazy and selfish. I dont want to make 3 different meals and I want to eat with my family at meal time. (btw, that last sentence was a joke/sarcasm.)

This morning however I was one of them. I now can see how it can happen. It started innocently enough. I heated up some of our dinner from last night to give the girls for breakfast this morning. (It was this breakfast bake I make that is yummy) Emerson and Avery really had no idea I was doing that. Emerson came running in the kitchen and excitedly asked for oatmeal. I told her I was heating up some of the dinner from last night and she melted down. Suddenly in my head, I am justifying making her the oatmeal. "I should have given them a choice, cause I rarely give them choices for breakfast or at meal time period. It's not that big of a deal to make some oatmeal..." so I made the oatmeal. She happily ran into the other room with it. Then Avery came in. "I want cereal, mama." "um..ok..." so I made her cereal. Again my justification was the same as before with the added, "I gave Emerson what she wanted I cant NOT give Avery what she requested."

Guess what happened next? Emerson came running into the kitchen asking for cereal... yes, in the end they both ended up eating cold cereal for breakfast and I made 3 yes THREE different breakfasts.

What did I learn today?
I need to start giving them more choices for the good stuff too. I tend to give choices for the bad stuff and that works, but they need to be able to make choices for the good stuff as well. "Those Moms" are all of us. It can happen to anyone, innocently enough.

Him Not Nice Mama

2010-11-29T20:04:00.013-05:00

About 2 yrs ago I went into Apples to Zinnias with my friend, Wendy and the LGs. The LGs were still in a stroller. When we walked the man working there looked like he was going to blow a gasket. He followed us around and made us feel really unwelcome. I called the next day and talked to the owner. The owner was as nice as could be and apologize profusely. A week later I went in and bought the wallet I had been trying to look at when I was in there the first time.

Today I had A LOT of time to kill in Orlando so I met Wendy at Borders. After that we went to lunch, then I asked her if she wanted to go to A to Z with us. She said sure.

As we walked into the store I saw the employee behind the counter bristle as if he had just seen something that really makes him angry. I told the girls they could touch things with 2 fingers but could not pick them up. As we rounded a corner Avery came face to face with her first Christmas tree of the season. She was touch, touch, touching it. I repeated my touch but dont pick-up rule a few times. I noticed that the employee (who was still behind the counter talking to another patron) was visibly upset everytime one of the girls touched or even looked at something. He would lurch forward and make an audible noise, like he wanted to yell "STOP!!!!"

I saw that Avery was bending my rule a bit. She was taking two ornaments and "tinking" them together. Not pulling them off the tree but making them touch so that they made a pretty noise. I told her a few times to stop. She wasn't listening. In my head I thought, 'I could make her stop. then she would move on to something more expensive or I could take my chances with the $12 ornaments. ok, I would rather pay for those then something $100 that I dont want.' So I kept walking and the clerk was getting more and more upset. I was about 3 feet away from Avery with Emerson in between the two of us and the clerk yelled, "Hey, They are not listening to you!" I of course was already on edge due to the way he was acting so I turned around and realized he was the same guy from 2 yrs ago. Here is a paraphrased version of the conversation(yelling match) that happened next. I am not proud of my self for loosing my temper. I am trying to be a better role model for the girls...I do believe though that I did a lot less yelling then he did.

"Your the guy who was nasty to me the last time I was in here!"
"Probably, if you had them with you."
"Let me talk to your manager."
"Im the owner."
"I dont think so."
"I'll bet you $50, 000 I am!"
"whatever, If they break something I will pay for it."
"YES, YOU WILL PAY FOR SOMETHING IF THEY BREAK IT!"
as if the fates were listening my gentle little Emerson who was standing right in front of me picked up the ugliest ceramic reindeer ever and dropped it.
"OK, YOUR GONNA BUY THAT!"
"IT'S NOT BROKEN!!!" and it wasn't

"Emerson Avery, come on we are leaving."
"Good. (something I dont remember, but it wasn't nice)"
Avery looked at me and I said, "Come on we are not welcome here." and she started to cry (like a fit cause she did not want to leave) "No, Avery we are leaving...Wait actually cry, cry like you you've never cried before." She just looked at me like, 'what? you've never asked me to cry before...'

Im thinking I need to plan a playdate with all my Mothers of Multiples friends.

When we left I had to go sit to calm myself down and Wendy then told me he was talking about me and the girls to the other customer. Avery said, "Him not nice, Mama." I agree Avery, him not nice.

For those of you who own a business...here's a little customer service advice: If you are worried about a child breaking something all you have to do is engage the child. Talk to them about the things they are looking at. Show them other "shiny" stuff. It does two very important things. 1. It lets you keep tally of what the kid has it's grubby little hands on. 2. It gives the parent time to SHOP!!! SPEND MONEY!!!

I was in retail for over 10 yrs... I should know...

Birthday Palooza

2010-11-21T21:41:00.022-05:00

We had the girls birthday on Halloween this year. It was great but boy was I tired by the end of they day. Party in the morning then trick or treating that evening! We had a bounce house again this year and the girls had a blast with all of their friends and family.

Here is a slide show of the Birthday Party:

"Picnik Show"

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The girls got princess outfits from thier Tanta Deb. CUTE CUTE CUTE!!!

"Picnik Show"

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Julie's dad, the girls Papa, came to visit during Birthday Palooza and took us to dinner for Julie's Birthday. We went to the original Columbia Restaurant. The girls loved the dancers, but Avery doesn't like loud noises. The dancers make a realyloud noises when they dance. Avery held her fingers in her ears and enjoyed the show. Oh, and check out the tallent of my 3 yr olds? They can hand spoons from their noses!

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The following Saturday was Cameran's Birthday Party at Chuck E Cheese. I love CEC, really I do...I like ski-ball, I love collecting the tickets, I love feeding then to the machine that munches them up, and I love buying crappy toys with the tickets... But, after going to my first birthday party at CEC I have to say... I HATED CHUCK E CHEESE that day. They have the tables too close, they rush you through like its some sort of military drill. Some of my extended in-law family are not people I would ever choose to hang out with much less be IGNORED by... Let's just say it was not a fun time had by Patty, however I think all the kids had a good time.

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Life Lessons

2010-11-11T21:47:00.011-05:00

1. Potty Chairs should NOT EVER be put over your head.

This fact was learned a few wkends ago. I was sitting at the computer and I heard Julie say, "oh you have that stuck on your head." So I got up and started walking toward the bathroom. As I stood up I could see Emerson had the princess patty seat cover around her neck like a really big necklace. I walked up and tried a few times to get it off and was unsuccessful. I kind of started to panic a little and said I thought we may need to call the fire department. Emerson was completely calm and smiling the whole time, but Avery looked like she could loose it at any moment. So, Julie had us all go into the living room and sit down and try a few more times before we dialed 911. Wise choice Julie Brown! A few more tries and I was able to get it unstuck from her cranium.

2. Grab the camera EVEN if you think you may need to call 911!

I cant believe neither Julie nor I thought to grab the camera and get a picture of Emerson with the Princess Potty Seat stuck over her head!

3. Bars can be kid friendly!

I have a friend, she is also the girls swim teacher and mom of one of their friends Scout, she works at a bar as a bartender part time. She kept inviting us (kids included) to The Market on friday nights, saying it is "Kid Friendly". Another friend of mine went one friday night and reported back that they had a great time, Anna (the girls friend) included. So, I figured one friday night we could do that as our Family Fun Night. We've been twice now and the kids love it. They have live music, YUMMY pizza and the kids dance like crazy to the music.

I bet this is not the last time this photo will be taken... (no, they are not drinking anything stronger then juice)

This is Avery photo-bombing these people we do not know. Notice how they are looking at one camera and Avery is looking at ours!

The lead of the band and Emerson... Julie is concerned that this will be her future son-in-law...

4. When in doubt, wear walking shoes!

I got to go to my first NFL football game a few weeks ago. Julie's work owns like 4 seats and they give them out for rewards. We decided to take advantage of cheaper then stadium parking and park at a stripper club. One of many near the stadium. Well, the walk killed me. I was wear my usual shoes, one of my pairs of flip-flops. We got to see the Saints beat the tar out of the Bucs but it was still fun. There were some crazy people there though...one man gold leafed his whole body, a lady 2 rows above us kept drunkenly waving her boa and saying, "I can feel the breeeeeeze". Then there was the man who was wearing a flordelis on his junk...

When the girls say "Tampa Bay Bucs" it sounds like "Papa Day Ducks" cracks me up every time!

3. Dont take more kids to the bathroom then you can handle.

My limit apparently is two... Went to lunch with Christy, Randy, and Cameron at Brio a few weeks back. At the end of lunch all the kids said they had to "tee tee" so I volunteered to take them all. We get in there and I put Cam on the potty first. He is taking forever, and I notice Emerson is holding herself and hopping around, so I pull her jumper down and put her on another potty. I walk back to Cam and switch him for Avery (seems like everything is going great right?) After putting avery on the potty I turn to help Emerson off her potty and see that she has peed on her ENTIRE outfit. You see, commercial toilets are really big and little girls cant get very far back on them without falling in so the stream goes right over the bowl and hits the clothes around the ankles. She had on a jumper...neck to shorts, wet.

As I am looking through my bag I see Avery trying to open the exit door. She is buck-a$$ neked...why neked and not naked? Cause neked is being naked and upto no good! I tell her NOT to exit the bathroom and turn my attention back to Emerson who is now also naked and crying in ball on the bathroom stall floor. I tell her all I have is a t-shit and a new pair of underwear for her too wear. She cries more. I turn around to see Avery dancing NEKED in the middle of the bathroom. Cameron was just kind of sitting back and watching the show.

Emerson left the restaurant in panties and a t-shirt.

4. Smaller is sometimes better.

We took the kids to an organic pumpkin patch to pick out some pumpkins. We picked out 2 nice big ones to buy. On the way out the girls saw these "tiny little pumpkins" that they wanted. I told them we would buy some at publix cause they were too expensive and we dont need organic cause we wont actually eat the tiny ones. They talked about "tiny little pumpkins" non stop for like 4 days. Then Julie came home from the store with some TLP and you would have thought she brought them a pony!

Embarrassing But Funny

2010-10-24T22:39:00.006-04:00

I'm totally willing to embarrass myself to get a laugh...this is a good and a bad thing cause I'm also willing to share my embarrassment with the world.
Yesterday Emerson was getting "gawk" and I asked her if there would ever come a day she would not want gawk. She said no. I said, "so you will be going off to collage and still getting gawk?" She said, "no". So I asked if she was going to go to kindergarten still getting gawk? "yes"....oh, ok... I then started asking her other questions about her "gawk"

Is there still gawk in there?

yes

Does it come out pretty fast still?

yes

At that point I decided to see for myself so I hand expressed on the other boob and much to my surprise I squirted milk across the room.

Later that evening when the girls were getting their bath, I told Julie about this and she said, "really? prove it hit the wall." Not one to back away from a challenge I whipped em out and while I was concentrating on getting a good trajectory I looked up and realized the giggling toddlers in front of me were trying to catch the milk in their mouths like this was some weird fountain and they thought this was hysterical. Well, and so did I.

Hide & Seek

2010-10-24T21:55:00.005-04:00

I had the idea to teach the girls how to play hide and seek this afternoon. It was about the most fun I've had in years!

Firstly, let me just say that almost 3 year olds are really crappy at this game, but boy do they love it.

The first round I was the seeker (by my self) and Julie helped them hide. Then we let them hide them selves for a few rounds. This is what proved to be the most amusing as they hide in the same 2 places each time, but switched who was in each spot each time. The two spots were their closet, and face down in "the hole". After that we split them up one with the seeker and one with the hider. They loved doing both, but we had to help them hide for the above reason. So it was me with the hider and Julie with the seeker. I would help whom ever I had hide, then hide myself . I tried to do a pretty good job with the hiding of the little person I had, like one time I put Avery in a laundry basket and covered her with the stuff that had been in the basket. The only thing that made this a fruitless effort was the constant giggle coming from whatever clever spot I had hid them in.

The best was the times that the three of them could not find me. Because I would hide after I hid the other hider they would get found first (the giggling) then they would also help the seekers try to find me. The first time they could not find me I had hid behind their door in their room. Emerson walked right past me to look in her closet, and did not see me. I was laughing so hard I was crying and biting my finger trying not to make any noise. The next time I was in our shower stall up against the wall. Julie told Emerson to check our bathroom and she just poked her head in and said, "No" She didn't walk in and turn around. OMG we had so much fun!

After the games where over Julie said, "Did you know Emerson can count to 20?" "Um, no... I knew they both could count to 10 with no help" Julie said Emerson counted to 20 with no problem when they were seeking.

"Furniture is not for ????"

2010-10-10T00:05:00.004-04:00

If you say that to the girls they will enthusiastically say, "CLIMBING!!"

We learned this lesson the hard way, unfortunately...

The other day I caught them trying to climb onto their dresser. I told them that they needed to get down and that they should not climb on their furniture or they could fall and get hurt.

The very next day I put them down for their "rest" and they proceeded to play in their room. They do this every day for about an hour then they put themselves back to bed and take a 2 hour nap. If I hear one of them crying I go in to see what's happening, usually it is Avery and Emerson has a toy she wants or Emerson is laying on her because Emerson wants to "sleep in the hole" (the hole is the two to four inch space where the two toddler beds meet.) On this day I hear Avery crying and I head in there. When I open the door the first thing I see is Avery laying on the floor with one of the dresser drawers on her. The second thing I see is Emerson is sitting on the dresser. I start to scold them for climbing on the furniture while walking toward Avery to pluck the drawer off of her. I took two steps and said, " See, this is why we dont..." That's when Avery's head starts bleeding... A LOT! "OK, never mind. It will be ok, Avery." I tossed the drawer aside and scooped Avery up off the floor. At this point her head is a steady stream of blood. I ran her into the kitchen. This is when Emerson starts crying. I put Avery on the counter by the sink and put the kitchen sponge on her head... pretty sure this is not the most sanitary of wound care, but I was in a panic and this was the first absorbent thing I found.

Avery stops crying, the hole in her head stops bleeding, Avery started telling me, "It's ok, Mommy." You would think that this is where I would start to calm down, but I couldn't cause Emerson was STILL crying. She was scared so I was trying to get her to calm down so that I could get us all ready to go to the ER.

I ran into their room to get them some clothes, because these kids are ALWAYS naked when they are home. They had trashed their room so I just grabbed two outfits off the floor. Dressed them and threw them into the car. As I am trying to get the clothes on them Avery is now telling me, "it's ok, mommy. I just need some ice. Can I have some ice?" Oh, Emerson is still crying like she was stabbed. At one point I think I might have yelled at her, "You weren't the one that got hurt! The one that got hurt isn't crying. Please for the love of all that is holy stop crying!" then I felt bad... "I'm sorry, Emmy. Please stop crying I have to drive all of us to the ER. Your sister is fine. I promise." At this point I think I may have started crying...

They put a little glue on it and she is as good as new. The next time you see her say, "The furniture is NOT for what?" I will bet you ANYTHING she (and Emerson) will yell, "CLIMBING!"

Story Telling

2010-10-09T23:24:00.009-04:00

Yesterday we went to a party at Graham's house where one of his mommies did a dramatic reading of How I Became a Pirate by Melinda Long. She did a great job and all the kids had a great time. After she did her reading Katy (Graham's other mommy) took them on a treasure hunt in the back yard. The treasure was a small pirates chest filled with candy.

Stories have been a big part of our life lately.

Avery loves the story of Snow White. The other day she wore her Snow White costume when we went to a Le Lache League meeting and this morning she insisted on putting it on first thing. She was sitting on our bed and started telling me the story of SW. She said, "I Snow White, I eat apple, I goes to sleeps, I gets kiss, I wakes up." then she said, "I hear hi hoes." She calls the seven dwarfs Hi Hoes. How cute is that?

At night for their bed time routine now Julie and I lay with them and each of us tell one story. They pick what the story will be about then Julie and I make it up as we go along. These kids love stories. I love that they love stories.

They love for me to read to them when they nurse. Before they "take a rest" they each pick a book and I read them to them as they get their "gawk", then we do that again before our bedtime routine. What I think is cool is that they rarely pick the same book. Most toddlers have one or two favorite books and those are the ONLY books they will alow their parents to read. Not the LGs they pick different books almost every time. Emerson especially. Avery right now is in an Olivia kick and insist on one of the many Olivia books she has. That kid loves Olivia. Emerson love all books and picks a different one every time.

Why Oh Why?

2010-09-29T20:32:00.004-04:00

We have entered the "WHY?" stage with Avery. She can ask why until you want to bang your head into a wall. Emerson is still ok with whatever answer you give her and she moves on. Avery was like that too, till just this week.

Here is an example conversation between Avery and I as we were getting out of the shower:
Me, "I'm going to turn off the water now."
Avery, "why?"
Me, "Because we are done with our shower."
Avery, "why?"
Me, "because we are clean."
Avery, "why?"
Me, "We are no longer dirty."
Avery, "Why?"
Me, "Cause we took a shower."
Avery, "Why?"
Me, "Cause we were dirty."
Avery, "Why?"
Me, "Because...(sigh) we had a 24 hr period of non showering."
Avery, "Why?"
I think I lost consciousness at this point cause I really do not remember what I said next.

We have though, found a way to make this a little more amusing for us. At dinner tonight we gave the girls the option of sitting at the table with us or eating at the little table cause Snow White was playing on TV. Avery choose to sit with us and Emerson sat at the little table.

Avery, "Why is Snow White screaming?"
Me, "Because she was scared?"
Avery, "Why?"
Julie, "Because the woodsman tried to kill her."
Avery, "Why?"
Me, "Snow White's mother told him to."
Avery, "Why?"
Julie, "CAUSE GIRLS ARE MEAN!"
Avery, "Why?"
Me, "Cause her step mother was jealous."
Julie, "Girls are mean."
Avery, "Why?"
Me, "I don't know. Why don't you ask your sister."
Avery, "Emerson, why are girls mean?"
Emerson, (we could not see her, but we could hear her.) "I don't know."
Avery, "Why?"
Emerson, "I DON'T know, AVERY." in a deadpan but slightly annoyed voice.

I was almost falling off my chair laughing. Apparently Emerson has been dealing with this too. Poor Emerson. I feel bad for her, but I will be doing that again!

Positive Parenting Rubs Off

2010-09-14T22:03:00.004-04:00

So just when you think your kids aren't paying attention to anything you do or say, something happens to make you realize you were sooooo wrong!

Today we went to visit a sick friend of the girls. He isn't contagious so we thought we would give him some entertainment while he is house bound.

While there Emerson and he were playing independently beside each other and Emerson reached over and took something that was in his play area. It really pissed him off so he got a little aggressive and was trying to take it back from her. She was acting as if he did not exist. He mom removed him from the situation and told him to go apologize to Emerson. He promptly walked over to the toys and started winging them at Emerson. She still just sat there playing as if nothing was happening. I assumed she was unaware of what was gong on. His mom picked him up again and made him sit with her for a few moments then told him to go say he was sorry. This time he walked over and said, "Im sorry." and Emerson said, "ok."

She knew the whole time what was going on and she was ignoring his bad behavior. Funny thing is it did not occur to me that that was what she was doing till the other mom pointed out, "she's doing what you do. Ignoring the bad behavior."

She did not lash out at him, she did not even leave the room. He was not hurting her, so she just sat there and acted as if he was not even in the room.

Weekend Shenanigans

2010-09-14T21:17:00.007-04:00

Saturday we went to Lowes to do a project with the kids. They loved it! It was a little unnerving to have a bunch of toddlers wielding hammers.

When we got there we were the first to arrive...of course! We are always early to every.thing. So we walked around for a bit and then finally decided to get started even though the other families that were suppose to meet us had not arrived. The next group of parents and kids to arrive just happen to be another lesbian couple with their 2 boys. They sat at our table. Then Pam and Katy showed up. Now it looked like a lesbian parents meet up... Hey, great idea!!! What dyke doesn't love Lowes?

Finally Uncle Randy and Aunt Christy came with Cameron. Oh, well there went our gay theme... ok, maybe not. The girls do love to call Chris Uncle Christy.

Julie "helping" Avery. If you look closely you can see that she is trying to hammer two nails at one time...

Avery in her safety goggles

Total focus! Notice there is no nail though...

Avery showing off her ALMOST finished dog leash holder:

The finished products:

After our project at Lowes we all decided to go to Ricks for lunch. The kids had a great time and the grown-ups had fun too!

Emerson and Cameron:

Avery performing with her air guitar!

"I dont want to take a nap..."

2010-09-10T22:56:00.002-04:00

The other day I said something about it being almost nap time, and Avery started crying that she did not want to take a nap. After half heatedly arguing with her I finally said, "OK, you dont have to take a nap. Just lay down and rest." She instantly said, "OK."

Everyday since then when I say it's time to get ready for nap she says, "I dont want to take a nap. I just rest." and then they both take a two hour "rest" complete with snoring. Cracks me up!

Lost And Found

2010-08-18T21:57:00.004-04:00

Met some friends yesterday morning at the Aquarium. Katy with Graham and Meagan with Anna and her new little sister Charlotte. We had a great time looking at the fish, turtles, alligators and otters. I actually felt that this was the first time the LGs actually engaged in the observation of the sea life at the Aquarium. Us usually they look, but aren't that IN TO them.

After making our way through the inside of the aquarium we decided to let the kids play in the water outside. When we went to the area we were going to sit while the kids played Katy stood in a line of ants and was getting stung. She and I worked on getting her ant free. Once she was no longer being bitten by them she looks up and say, "ok, now I'm off to find my son." The rest of the kids are hanging around us or in the sandbox in front of us. She and I head out in search of Graham. What seemed like forever passes and no Graham. There are not that many people there so it shouldn't have been hard to find him. It was really scary. We actually had to get the staff to help and Katy finally went up these two flights of stairs to get an over head view of the play area...and that's where she found him. THANK GOD!!!

It was close to lunch time. The rest of our friends had left. The LGs and I decided to eat lunch there outside. When the girls finished eating they headed out to play some more. I saw that they went around this corner and I knew they were going to play on the stage back there. I knew where they were so I figured I would finish my lunch pay the bill then go get them and we would go home. As I was finishing up Avery wondered up without Emerson. I asked her where her sister was and she didn't say anything. I walked around the corner and Emerson was not on the stage.

With Avery hot on my heals I started searching for Emerson. Couldn't finder wasted no time asking for help. As an employee and I rounded a corner we see her walking and two other employees walking beside her trying to talk to her. She was eyeing them suspiciously. She ran and jumped into my arms. The employees said they could tell she was lost, but she wouldn't talk to them. So I told her that if she is ever lost again she should look for someone with a badge and tell them she is lost. As I was telling her this I am heading back to the table to pay the check. I turn around and Avery is no longer behind me. I look around and she is MISSING! You have to be SH!TTING ME!!! As I start my search for her (with Emerson IN MY ARMS!) A strange man walks up to be and asks if I am looking for the other little girl that looks like "this one" as he points to Emerson. He tells me she is in the gym slide area by the door...OY!

The Tortoise And The Hare

2010-08-18T16:07:00.003-04:00

After we got back from our vacation in Clearwater we had a few days home before Mom (Julie) had to go back to work. We decided to go to our little beach that Friday. It was great there was NO ONE there. We had the beach all to our selves and no one was whining they wanted to go home!!!!

Julie took them hunting for Nemo while I hung out under the umbrella reading. Then we looked up and saw black clouds rolling in. We started packing up slowly. As we got the last stuff onto the wagon it started raining. It was a combination of that hard sideways rain that stings and drops that were about the size of dimes.

It's a pretty good walking distance to the car from the beach. As soon as the rain started Emerson and I took off running like we were being chased. As a matter of fact Emerson screamed, "Get me out of here!" I realized that Julie had the keys so I turned around to get them from her cause I knew Emerson and I would be first to the car and it would be all for not if we had to stand there and wait. When I turned around I realize that Julie and Avery are not right behind us, but extremely far behind us. So much so that I had to run back to her. As I get closer to them I see (cause I couldn't see them for the sideways rain!) and hear Julie trying to convince Avery to step it up. When I look at Avery she looks like she is taking a walk in the park. She has a juice box and is literally strolling down the side walk as if nothing is going on. It was hysterical and I don't think words can describe how funny this scene was.

Yesterday Julie and I needed to have a serious "grown up" discussion. We needed to talk about what Julie was going to do with her new job situation. Our cousin Christy was her with her son Cameron. So she was trying to get all the kids into the house so Julie and I could be alone on the back patio to talk. Emerson and Cameron were happy to go inside for her, but Avery was down right refusing. She was kind of running circles around Chris while Chris tried to bribe her with candy, soda, movie, a new car? Finally Julie and I said, "Don't worry about it, let her stay out here with us." So Chris walks into the house and Avery closes the door behind her walks back out to us and says, "sorry guys..." complete with exasperated hand gestures.

Vacation All I Ever Wanted...

2010-08-13T20:56:00.008-04:00

This was NOT being sung by the LGs...

We went to Clearwater Florida for 4 nights. The first day we were there Avery kept saying she wanted to "go home". Um, sorry sweetie but this vacation is already paid for and we are taking it whether you like it or not.

On day two it was Emerson's turn to be homesick and continue her sisters anthem. We hung out at the pool for most of the day. The hotel was not ON the beach it was on the water but not on the beach. You had to take a trolley, car or hotel van to go to a beach.

Emerson not "happy" and wanting to go home:

Avery wearing her Mom's shirt:

We figured we would have a beach day on Monday. The girls had not taken a nap the day before due to us getting to the hotel so late. So when nap-time rolled around they were not happy about it. They were being crabby and ill tempered. After saying it was nap-time Emerson was saying she wasn't tired and did not want to nap and Julie said, "well, you sure seem tired cause your not happy." For the rest of the vacation whenever it was time to go to bed Emerson would start saying, yelling, screaming or (the best) crying, "I HAAAAPPPY!!!!" over and over again. Funny and cute the first time. Annoying beyond anything you could imagine the 10,000th time.

Emerson:

Mommy and Emerson:

On Monday we got up and started packing for our beach day. Avery promptly told us she did not want to go to the beach she wanted to go to the pool. We had it in our mind that despite her protests she would have a good time once we got to the beach...We have never been so wrong.

When we finally got to the beach Avery whined. the. whole. time. we were there. We only stayed maybe an hour before we decided it just wasn't worth it and went back to the hotel so they could swim in the pool.

On Tuesday we rented a cabana for the day and played in the pool most of the day. I think I only heard one or two "I wanna go home" statements on that day.

On Wednesday we told Avery, joyfully that we would be going home. She cried, "NOOOOOO!!!"

The best part of vacation was that Emerson potty trained herself while we were there. She told us she needed to "tee tee" so we set her on the potty and she went pee. We gave her a maraschino cherry (her favorite) every time she peed on the potty and since we have been home she has been wearing panties and has only had like 2 accidents. I'm so proud of her. I knew she would do it when she was ready and the weird thing is I remember thinking before we went on vacation that she would probably start wanting to use the potty while we were on vacation. So strange that I was right!

Avery:

Emerson swimming. You can always tell if it is Emerson cause she always has her goggles on:

Emerson coming up for air while swimming:

Avery swimming. This kid LOVES to swim!

Parks, Parks, and More Parks

2010-07-27T22:00:00.008-04:00

We have been very busy lately, so much so that Avery asked me if we could stay home today. So we did. I made it a "No TV" day though. This made the day harder on me then them...oh well, I hate seeing them parked in front of the TV.
We played with play dough, doll house, played in the little pool and colored.

They have 2 new TV obsessions right now. Monsters Inc. and Toy Story 1 and 2. They could watch either of those three movies all day every day.

Last week I took them to Dell Holmes splash pad with their friend Graham. They aren't as big a fans of the splash pads as they were last year. Now, if it isn't an actual body of water they are not as keen on it. I had to get in with them for them to finally start playing in the water. They enjoyed the jungle gyms though!

Then a few days later we went to Kate Jackson and they enjoyed THOSE jungle gyms... We were actually there to meet up with some other moms, but I was the only one that showed. The meet up was for the splash area.... I could not talk them into it. (you would think I would have figured out they weren't that into splash pads at this point...I didn't)

Last Saturday I took them to ANOTHER splash pad. This one was in Zephyr-hills about 50 minutes away. This is where I finally caught on... they wanted to play on the jungle gyms and not the splash pad. I could have saved my self about 45 minutes of driving and taken them to Kate Jackson park... Sometimes Im pretty slow :) BUT, it was nice seeing a bunch of our twinky friends.

Floss Is Very Important

2010-07-14T14:54:00.004-04:00

Especially when you want to give it to a friend...

Today we had a play-date with Graham. Katy and I planned to take the kids to a free movie. Of course it wasn't completely free as we had to get popcorn, soda, and twizzlers. That's how they getcha!

This morning when I was getting the girls ready to leave Avery gathered some floss sticks and announced that we had to bring them. Thinking to myself, the child is a genius cause we will be having popcorn. I said sure. She then proceeded to tell me who the floss sticks were for. "one for me, one for Emmy, one for Graham."

As we were backing out of the driveway about an hour later Avery started yelling, "My Sauce! MY SAUCE!!!" I continued to back out of the drive and head down the road trying to decipher what she was saying. "Your socks? Your sauce?" She would say no or yes but still continue to cry and pleading with me to go back and get her sauce. HUGE elephant tears streaming down her face. As we were getting on the Veterans it dawned on me...HER FLOSS! So I asked her, "your floss?" She said, "YES!!! go back and get it." I kept trying to tell her we could live without it and could have some when we got home. She was still crying. She wanted to give some to Graham... I finally calmed her by telling her that when we got home I would put a hand full of them in my bag so we would never be without floss. This is how my day started...

I am really bad about uploading my little camera into the computer. I will take pics with it for a few weeks or more and then finally remember to up load them. I did this today and discovered some interesting things on it. One thing is the girls have started taking my camera out of my bag and actually taking pictures. There were a lot of floor and wall pictures but there were some that were kind of interesting too. I thought I would share:

This picture is Avery taking a picture of herself in a mirror:

I did not take this picture... Avery did. Im pretty impressed!

Beach Day...NO PICS!

2010-07-11T14:48:00.005-04:00

Had to get the girls out of the house today. Yesterday all I did was take them to Walmart. That's not enough and their nap yesterday was non existent. I decided I was going to take them to the beach.

We had a really good time just me and the LGs, with the exception of some miss steps. I took them to the bay, just for convenience. It wasn't little beach (Citrus Park Beach) though. It was Ben T Davis Beach.

We got there and it was nice and windy so I thought we could try flying the kites. It was perfect kite flying weather! Avery was holding the kite and I wanted to get a picture...grabbed the camera, turned it on 'no memory card'. DAMN IT! Alas, no pictures were taken.

The girls made friends with an older girl and they played together for a while. At one point I thought I would get out the kites again so the 3 of them could enjoy them. I was getting the kite started (looking up, not paying attention to the 3 girls below) as I was going to hand it to one of the girls I looked down at the ground to see a pair of swim suit bottoms. Yes, one of my kids were standing there buck-ass-naked ready to fly a kite. It was Avery...as if I needed to tell you... The first words out of my mouth were, "who got naked!?!" The girl they had friended proceeded to tell me that Avery had peed. I washed her and her swim bottoms off in the ocean and made her put them back on.

Then as we were leaving I saw something orange on my windshield...PARKING TICKET!!! $30 Apparently you have to pay at this beach... crap!

Playdate 3 yrs in the making...

2010-07-09T22:43:00.004-04:00

I have a few friends I have made over the years that I have never ever met face to face. I have met them on message boards of one kind or another. One message board is Sheknows. There are boards for parents that have kids born in the same year. This one board I have been on since I was pregnant with the girls. So, some of these women I have known for about three yrs now.

One of the moms just moved a little over an hour away so we wanted to get the kids together for a play date.

This morning I was telling them what we were going to do for the day. I said we were going to meet new friends, Elise, her mommy Amy and Elise's brother Brody. Avery repeated every name back to me and when I got to Brody she said, "And Plex?" Plex is a character on Yo Gabba Gabba. Brody sounds a lot like Brobee, the little green one. No Avery we are not going to Yo Gabba Gabba land.

Turns out I had Elise's little brother's name mixed up with another little brother on this board... oh well, I'm chalking it up to twin mommy brain! For the record his name is Beckett... and he is a cutie!

The girls and I had a great time playing at their house. The swam, ate sandwiches and watermelon, spilt apple juice, had accidents, and wrestled over a doll. A great time was had by all...

July...already?

2010-07-09T21:47:00.006-04:00

I Cant believe it's already the 9th of July and I have not blogged ONCE! I have a lot to catch you up on...

Well, lets start with the 4th of July weekend. First of I cannot remember such a bad weather 4th of July...ever! It rained all weekend. We had invited all of Julie's family up for the 4th. I was going to bbq chicken and corn. Ended up having to cook everything on or in the stove. Making for a hot house with lots of extra body heat as well.

We had a surprise visit from my relatives also. Brenda, Kevin, Amy, Lila, baby Kevin and his great grandma went to Clearwater for a short vacation. The girls and I met them Thursday night for dinner at Crabby Bills. Friday we went to the Aquarium, then they visited Saturday with us. It was nice to see them. Although, Avery and Emerson were angry when Lila was leaving. Neither of them would give anyone a hug or kiss cause they were mad that she was leaving. I think they would pack their little bags and move in with Lila if they could.

Baby Kevin and his mommy, Amy:

One of Emerson's favorite things is to water color. I discovered this when we would go to swim lessons. The instructor has a little girl the same age as the LGs and she has water colors and sea shells on a table. EVERY. TIME. we go Emerson makes a bee line to the table and water colors until I make her head to the pool. So the other day I bought them some water colors and Emerson will sit for hours and paint paint paint. She has also taken to painting herself....Thankfully the paints are washable so it comes off really easy.

Here is one of her master pieces:

Just cause Avery's so darn cute in this pic:

There was break in the rain so we thought we would try some fireworks. We had about the same luck as we did last year. The girls were scared to death of them. Before we set any off though Uncle Randy opened up the back of his truck for the little people to sit on. We were trying to get them to do the hear no, see no, speak no evil and it was a huge FAIL cause when you would tell one to put their hands over their eyes they would all do it. It was like a failed game of Simon says.

This is the best we could get:

Here is what happened when the first (and last) fireworks went off:

Nana came and stayed the weekend. This made the LGs VERY VERY happy. Emerson make a full body print on Nana's lap. She was Nana's cuddle bug all weekend.

For dessert the kids had cup-cakes and it cracks me up when they hit the sugar coma. This is a video that I had to watch twice before I saw what Emerson did when she dropped the little trinket that was the cup-cake topper she was using as a utensil to eat the icing.

Ghetto Pool Party

2010-06-21T07:21:00.007-04:00

We have a new tradition. We call it Family Fun Night or FFN for short. Every Friday night we do something fun together at home. For a few of out FFNs Julie's cousin Christy has come over with her son Cameron. We call Christy Aunt for the girls just cause of the age difference.

Last Friday Aunt Christy came over with Cameron and we grilled chicken. The last few times that Chris has come over we have let the kids all play in the kiddie pool while we cooked. This week I had the genius idea to add the kiddie slide to the kiddie pool. OMG! did they have a great time with the slide.

The only problem with the ghetto pool what I felt like all I did was yell at the kids the whole time, "No jumping off the slide!" "Wait till everyone's out of the pool before going down the slide." "Avery wait your turn." "Emerson don't cut in line." etc. etc.

I keep finding panties in the back yard. If Avery wants to get in the pool she strips down naked. Emerson takes her undies and puts them in play house. If Avery goes into the house and sees a pair in there she throws them out a window...

On Sunday Julie took the day off and we had a great relaxing day in our ghetto pool. Julie got in with the girls. The LGs loved having mom in the pool. So much so that they kept trying to baptise her.

Birthdays and Beaches

2010-06-18T21:25:00.008-04:00

So I'm a week behind...don't ask!

The girls friend Graham had is birthday party last Saturday. It was a pirate theme, aaaarg! There were water balloons for a fight, pirate decor and a really cool pirate cake that Graham and one of his mommies (Katy) made together. I am in awe. I cant imagine making a cake with one or both of the girls without them eating it as we iced it.

Within minutes of getting there Avery broke a water balloon on her self and insisted on getting naked. Here she is while I waited for her outfit to dry. Notice she still has her shoes on? That's cause I didn't want anyone that came to think I let my kid run around naked at other peoples houses all the time....

The Birthday boy Graham:

Check out this awesome cake!

Yes, this is Emerson trying to blow out the candle...

And her trying to OPEN G's presents...

Ok, at least she is being cute here:

Sunday Katy and Pam called and asked if we would like to meet them at the beach. The LGs and G had a blast playing in the sand and water.

Here I am trying not to get burned:

The LGs and G headed out to sea:

A few of Avery being sweet and cute!

Emerson was the only one willing to wear the hat.

Swimming, Swimming, Swimming...

2010-06-05T21:03:00.000-04:00

Said in a sing song voice. This is what the LGs say when they are practicing kicking in any body of water. It can be a pool, bathtub, kiddie pool or puddle for that matter.

We have been taking swim lessons for the last few months. The girls are doing GREAT! They love the water. For a while they were going back and forth as to who would be brave and who would be scared. It seems as if every other lesson they would switch. Then one lesson it was Emerson and since then it has been Emerson. Avery is no longer scared but Emerson has surpassed her in the swimming capabilities.

They both can swim (not very far) under water. They both know how to "monkey crawl" around the edge to get to the steps. Emerson can jump into the pool and swim to me or the edge. Avery could do this but she is a little scared so she will ask you to stand right up against the wall below her and then she has you hold her hands and she kind of slides in. It cracks me up cause I always think of her as the carefree one, but she is very cautious. Emerson is starting to figure out how to come up for air and tread water. Avery is the master of the "noodle". She will swim around with the noodle for what feels like hours! She also really loves the kick-boards and tells you, "no touching." when she is on one. She wants to do it by herself. Emerson really just wants nothing between her and the water...except maybe the air she is catching when she jumps in!

We have 3 sets of neighbors with pools that have told us we can use their pools anytime we want. But, one set is out of town EVERY weekend ;-) They have practically begged us to use their pool on the weekends. Today we decided to go for it.

After naps we packed up our waggon with snacks, swim gear, Cooper and headed over there.

We had a great time. Watch Emerson jump into the pool and notice how Julie is keeping her eye on everyone (even Cooper):

Yesterday afternoon I let the girls play in their little kiddie pool while I was cooking on the grill. They told me, "mommy, swimming lessons!" I look over and they had one of their dolls in the pool with them giving her swim lessons. I thought 'how cute'. Then a few hours later I went to the pool to dump it and found this:

Dont think they are ready to teach swimming just yet.

Universal Truths... Land of the Mouse

2010-06-01T14:43:00.000-04:00

We took our first family vacation to Disney World last weekend. Julie worked for Disney for about 10 years so I have been there quite a few times pre-LGs. Some of these I already knew, like #4 if you are ever have body image issues head to WDW and you will feel like the skinniest hottest person on the planet. Some of these truths I learn, unfortunately while I was at WDW.

We stayed at the Fort Wilderness Cabins. It was really nice and different then what we have done in the past. The "cabin" is a fleetwood RV converted into a cabin. So we had a separate bedroom, kitchen, living room and it really reminded me of a single wide trailer. As a child most of my life was spent living in a trailer. A trailer makes a distinct sound when you walk down the hall and the cabin made that sound. It was kind of cool and creepy. The "resort" camp grounds had a lot of stuff there to do. The first day there we played at the water park area and rented a golf cart to get around in cause you cant drive in the grounds. You have to take a bus, ride bikes, skateboard, cart, walk or anything that is not a car. The girls (and I) really enjoyed driving around in the cart. We also went to the camp fire sing along. Chip and Dale were there and both girls got to meet Chip and both gave him hugs and got his autograph.

Universal truth #1: Even if your kid/s has no idea who a character is, once they are excited about characters (not scared to death of them) they will be over the moon to meet them. I know the girls have no idea who Chip and Dale are, yet they couldn't wait to meet them. Gave them hugs and kisses.

I had ordered the girls a plush Minnie and Mickey with 2 autograph books to have waiting for them when we got to the cabin. They were a HUGE hit and they traveled almost EVERYwhere with their Minnie and Mickey dolls. And they were VERY into getting autographs as well.

This is when we first got there and they discovered their present:

notice the mice that they HAD to have sit with them while they ate their snack:

Our second day we went to the Magic Kingdom.

Our goal was to meet Mickey Mouse. We did! Avery was way excited to meet him and Minnie. Emerson despite her excitement to meet Chip the night before was a little scared of them. I think she was a bit overwhelmed though. Disney can do that to a person!

I decided I really wanted to see the fireworks and found out that we could see them from the beach at our resort. I didn't want the girls to be scared of them so I thought I would prepare them for how loud it was going to be. The night before when I was trying to get them to sleep. We heard the fireworks and told them that's what it was. So, while telling them what we were going to do I said, "remember when we were trying to go to sleep last night and we heard the fireworks? Tonight we are going to go see them. It will be loud but very pretty." Emerson seemed to listen and take it in. Avery started telling the story of, "we sleep (hands to face) then boom boom boom!" We heard this story retold all weekend.

Julie almost deleted this photo! I love it. Not sure why....

Universal Truth #2: You are going to yell at your kids at Disney. I remember going to Disney pre-LGs and seeing moms yell at their kids and thinking, "jeez, you spent all this money on a vacation that is centered around your kid and now you are yelling at them. Give the kid a break..." Well, guess what I found myself doing...yelling! I think its a perfect storm of sorts. You want your kid/s to have a good time, you have to keep them safe, your HOT, you and the kid/s are in sensory over-load. If you get through going to Disney without yelling at your kid/s at least once then you must be a robot. Don't get me wrong I felt bad (although they could careless, I mean really, they were at Disney!) I just must apologize for judging all those moms of years past.

The third day we went to Epcot. We had wanted to go to Animal Kingdom, but Epcot was the only place we could get in that we would be able to meet princesses. Universal Truth #3: All little girls love princesses. Doesn't matter if they know who they are or not. Doesn't even matter if they know WHAT a princess is, they love them... If you are looking for a great place to meet princesses and cant get into the Castle do Norway!! Lots of food, ALL the princesses come to your table, before you are seated you get to meet Belle and they take a picture (8X10 and 2 4X6s)that are free with your meal!

Another story Avery told, told and retold was her version of Snow White. "She ate apop (hands to mouth with munching noises), go to seep (hands to face like she is sleeping), kiss (hand to nose), she woked up (hand gesture like no big deal)."

The princess lunch made quite the impression on them. When we got back to grandma's house they were pretending they were princesses coming around posing for pictures with grandma, Julie and I. They would come up to us say hi, pose for a picture and then give us a hug.

Our last day (check out day) we had one more quick service meal left on our dining plan. And I refuse to not use everything we paid for! We went to the Polynesian and ate breakfast before heading to Grandma's house. We ate out side and there baby ducks, along with mama and papa duck and a white ibis hanging around. I saw him try to take a piece of sausage off a little boys fork. A few minutes later I turn around and he jumped on our table and grabbed a piece of sausage off of Emerson's plate. I shooed him away, but Avery told this story again and again, "pink beak took sister's sausage." then Emerson would yell, "NOOOOO pink beak!"

Emerson was about the best behaved two and a half year old I have ever seen the whole trip. I was/am so proud of her.

I have tried to get some of Avery's story telling on video, but she has a tendency to clam up when she sees the camera.

Parental Guidence is Recommended

2010-05-23T21:12:00.000-04:00

Avery has the biggest potty mouth and she isn't even trying! This morning she was singing Ring Around the Rosie. Here is how it came out...

"Ring around the hoesies, cocky full of cosie, asses asses..."

A few weeks ago she was asking for gawk and was yelling, "Gawk!" Julie told her she needed to say please so she started yelling:

"Gawk TEASE!"

Say it a few times and you will know what it sounds like. Any word that ends in "ock" like clock, block, sock comes out cock. Today Julie was singing a song from Imagination Movers about sun block. Avery started singing:

"Sun Cock, the days get hot..."

We will be working on pronunciation ASAP!

Lost Keys and Teaching Gawk

2010-05-07T23:07:00.000-04:00

I am working for Healthy Start and am teaching breastfeeding classes every so often along with doing home visits to help moms who are having BF'ing issues. Tonight I texted Julie and asked her if she wanted to meet us for dinner. She came home instead so we could all drive together. When she got here I was gathering our stuff and looking for my key. I could not find them ANY WHERE! I looked and looked to no avail. Luckily I found my spare key so we could finally leave for dinner.

When we got home Julie put the girls to bed and I went to the grocery (using my spare key again.) While I was gone the girls looked for my keys again. Later this evening I was recounting what happened when I got home from teaching a class on breastfeeding on facebook.

Avery woke from her nap first and while I was finishing up a show I had been watching while they were sleeping Avery walked up to me with one of her little purses on her shoulder, a Le Leche League booklet in one hand and my KEYS in the other and stated, "I go teach gawk!" At the time I thought it was really sweet and cute and thought, I need to post that on facebook... As I was typing it I realized I knew where my keys were...they were probably in that little purse Avery was walking around with. Sure enough they were in there. I knew it the minute I picked it up.

Whenever I pick my keys up and there is someone else here Avery says, "Bye Mommy." She assumes I am leaving to teach gawk. And that's what she tells every baby sitter that stays with her. "Mommy teaches Gawk."

Things To Be Thankful For...

2010-04-30T11:43:00.000-04:00

Last weekend we went to a Teddy Bear Tea Party. It was hosted by our local Mothers of Multiples club. It was about the cutest thing I have ever seen. All the moms dressed their kids in their Sunday best and brought their teddy bear to a fancy tea party complete with real china. Only 2 pieces got broke too! I think that should be on the news!

Nana had bought them these dresses and I loved them, but for the life of me could not think of where we would go that was fancy enough for them. This fit the bill perfect!

The girls before we left for the tea party

We sipped cold peach tea and ate finger sandwiches with our teddies and then played at the park. It was a great time.

Emerson sipping tea

The group shot (as best I could do with what seemed like millions of twins running around!)

When we got home and was putting the girls down for their nap we were saying the things and people we are thankful for. Emerson for the first time decided to add her own in. They were; Swings, Tea, Slides, Cheese, and Shoes. I must agree those are some of the things I am grateful for too!

I take the girls to Gymboree play once a week and they love it. Emerson especially loves Gymbo he is this little clown mascot thing that they take out at the end and she is smitten. I am kind of creeped out by him, but whatever. Well, someone brought a Gymbo doll with them to the tea party and Emerson was stalking it.

Emerson stalking Gymbo

Lying For Her Sister Already?

2010-04-21T22:05:00.000-04:00

I'm getting trained to teach Newborn Care and Breastfeeding Classes for Healthy Start. Tonight was my first night of training. I had a sitter come to watch the girls till Julie got home. I wanted to make sure they were awake before I left so they knew I was leaving. This was a new sitter and the last time they woke up and neither Julie or I was here they FREAKED even though it was a sitter they LOVE.

Being woken up from their nap did not make them happy and they FREAKED when I left. Lily was able to eventually calm them down by just leaving them alone and sitting down reading one of their books. They eventually wondered over and sat down with her to hear the book. This makes her a genius in my book!

When Julie got home Lily told her that they had freaked out when I left and what she did to calm them. Julie said to Avery, "Did you cry?" "Yes." Julie looked at Emerson and asked her the same question. Emerson said, "No". Julie looked at Lily and she nodded yes. So Julie asked Avery, "Did Emerson cry?" Avery looked at her sister and Emerson gave her a look that would kill and Avery said, "No"...OMG did a 2 and a half year old just Lie for her sister????

Julie had to go to the doctor today cause she hurt her knee really really bad. She got home and had a leg brace on so she doesn't bend her knee. She was trying to explain it to Avery. She was telling her about how it keeps her leg straight and telling her about the velcro that keeps it together. The sitter said, "Your mom has a big boo boo and that's a really big band-aid." Avery said, "thanks!" Score one for the sitter!

Later in the evening Julie was telling them where I was. She told them that some mommies have a hard time giving their babies gawk and Mommy is helping them learn how to give them gawk. They were riveted. Emerson asked, "MY GAWK?" She was apparently worried I was giving away her "gawk"

When Julie was getting them ready for bed she let them pick out their own pj's they wanted to wear their fleece footed jammies....Julie tried to reason with them that this is Florida and it's hot. Footed pajamas are not going to be comfortable for long. They insisted and about half an hour later they both started screaming "I HOT!!!!"

Trellis Guy, Per Julie's Request...

2010-04-12T22:13:00.000-04:00

While we were at the beach enjoying ourselves Emerson took a biscuit with her out to the water. I was filming cause I was SURE she would get attacked by seagulls. While that did NOT happen what did happen was something very random...

Ay Chiwawa...What A Great Weekend!

2010-04-12T20:47:00.000-04:00

We had a busy and fun filled weekend. Julie finally had the weekend off so I think she was wanting to make the most of it after working two week ends in a row.

We started out the weekend by having a weenie roast in the back yard Friday night. Then Saturday we bought some flowers at Lowe's to plant with the girls. Saturday night we packed up some fried chicken and headed to little beach to fly kites and eat dinner. Sunday morning we planted our flowers, then headed over to our friends house for lunch and swimming. See, we were BUSY!

While at the beach we met some very cute little (big to the LGs) girls. I showed them all about hermit crabs. They were afraid of them at first. A few minutes in and they loved them. One of them took one to show her sister and when her sister saw it she screamed. The little girls told her to, "Calm DOWN!" this apparently left an impression on the LGs cause they recounted it over and over and over again. Avery would do a blood curdling scream and Emerson would yell, "Calm DOWN!"

Can you believe I have never flown a kite?

It was soooo much fun!

While we were planting our flowers Avery wanted more water in her watering can and how she said "I more water." sounded just like "Ay chiwawa."

Avery doing a great job of watering the flowers:

Emerson watering the sidewalk...

Sunday we headed to Katy, Pam and Graham's house for play time and lunch. The kids played in a kiddie pool, then we ate lunch and headed to the big pool. In the kiddie pool the kids were jumping and throwing themselves into the pool. We all concluded that if we did this we would have to call 911 and have an ambulance take us to the hospital...where we might not make it. The kids on the other hand had not a scratch!

They splashed so much the pool had to be refilled.

Busch Gardens

2010-04-10T08:12:00.000-04:00

Last week out of no where a friend texted me and asked if we wanted to join her at Busch Gardens for the day. I had nothing on the calendar for that do so WHY NOT!?!

The girls had a great time. I got us an annual pass so we can go whenever we want. They have a new Sesame Street area. The nice thing about this new attraction is there are a few rides that the girls can actually ride! There absolute favorite was this swing ride they could ride all by themselves! The totally loved it...they do have a passion for swinging.

For the first time ever they stood close enough to a costume character to have a picture taken! This has NEVER EVER happened before. Usually they are very excited at the thought of the Easter Bunny, Santa, Santa, Santa...I tried to get a picture with him like every day before Christmas. Never did it happen however.

The Cookie Monster and Abbie Cadabby were there and they cooperated. Maybe this Christmas I will get that elusive Santa picture! Did I mention they have never seen these characters?? Gonna have to start watching Sesame Street so that they have some frame of reference!

We will be making good use of our passes!

Individuality...Who needs it???

2010-04-06T22:49:00.000-04:00

Apparently not the girls...As I mentioned in my last post Avery has taken to saying, "Help US!" even when it is just her. I keep trying to explain that when it's just her that needs the help she should say, "Help ME!" Alas, my efforts are in vain.

This morning Emerson knew I was getting their clothes out to get them dressed. She came in and made sure I knew EXACTLY what outfit she wanted to wear. Then she wondered off. Avery came in so I grabbed the dress I actually wanted them to wear and Avery was happy to wear it. When I grabbed Emerson to dress her she was NOT willing to wear the dress I had picked she wanted the outfit she had picked. I thought, ok, well they can wear totally different outfits today. Got Emerson dressed. When Avery saw her sister she started taking off her dress and grabbing the other outfit that matched her sister! She insisted on wearing it. So much for that!

While Im on the clothes discussion... the girls have these dresses that are the same but in a different color. The other day I was dressing Avery first and let her pick which color she wanted to wear. Usually I let Emerson pick cause she cares and Avery doesn't and I am usually dressing E first for some reason. Well, when E came in and saw which dress A was wearing she pitched a fit. She wanted to wear the one that Avery was wearing. I told Avery she got to pick this time and Emerson was just going to have to live with it. Emerson was pulling on her sisters dress and crying like the world was coming to an end. I kept having to pull her off of Avery. Avery was watching her sister and suddenly started pulling on her dress as if she was trying to pull it off and saying, "sister". She wanted me to put that dress on her sister. SO SWEET!

Easter Weekend!

2010-04-06T21:03:00.000-04:00

We went to grandma's house for Easter. We left Friday and visited Uncle Kevin, Aunt Brenda, cousin Amy and he baby Kevin Saturday. Grandma and I took the girls to Borders Saturday morning. When I went to pay for the stuff that I was buying for some reason both the girls stood up in their chairs. Emerson started singing and Avery started dancing...They really do live to have a good time no matter where they are. Oh, and just so's you know Emerson can't sing to save her life!

Sunday we planned to do the egg hunt at 4pm. I had invited Brenda to bring Lila to the hunt. They unfortunately got there too late for the hunt but just in time for the photo-shoot! Avery LOVES Lila...then again tonight she told me she loves wawa (water). To say she loves things is her new thing...that and holler, "Help US!" even when it's just she that needs the help. Here are some of the photos from the sugar extravaganza that is Easter...as a matter of fact I think Emerson ate more chocolate Sunday then she has consumed in her entire life.

Avery decided to wear after her nap Saturday:

Emerson had to work for this egg!

Avery with chocolate face:

Cameron shared his eggs with Emerson:

Uncle Kevin and Baby Kevin:

Uncle Cush was the favorite toy Saturday!

Giving baby Kevin some love!

Fun Night and Truck-in

2010-03-31T20:59:00.000-04:00

Last Friday night Julie wanted to have a family fun night so we bought the makings for hot dogs and s'mores. We have a brand new grill, but I have yet to put it together so we roasted our dogs over the fire pit, ate them on our new patio and then made s'mores! I managed to get melted marshmallow in my hair, but that's not relevant. Have you ever tried to get melted marshmallow out of your hair??

Emerson was giggling the whole time we were having our fun night.

On one hand the girls are the bravest little devils then on the other hand they will be so cautious that they miss out on some fun stuff. Avery has some major "patrol monitor" tendencies. She made sure no one stepped too close to the pool on vacation and during the wienie roast she kept saying, "fire hot!" and neither she nor Emerson would get close enough to even hold the stick to roast their marshmallows. Emmy just wanted to eat the chocolate and could have lived without the rest of the s'more! Not me man, I love a good chared mallow!

I mean look at how far away Emerson is standing!

Saturday the plan was that Julie had to work (she is making me clarify that so people dont think she stayed home and watch TV while her kids were out having family fun. And we missed her terribly, but the bills have to get paid)and we (me and the LGs) were going to go with our friends Pam, Katy and their son Graham to an easter egg hunt in Oldsmar.

I have no idea what an Oldsmar is or where it is for that matter. But, when we got there it was this quaint little town with the cutest houses. To bad it's in Oldsmar.

As we were driving upto where the egg hunt was suppose to be we saw people leaving with baskets full of colorful plastic eggs...sadly we missed the "hunt", BUT the Easter Bunny was still there and we asked the kids if they wanted to go sit on his lap. Graham totally ignored the question and ran off to play on the jungle gyms. The LGs on the other hand both enthusiastically said YES!

Katy and I trudged through the mud with them waited in a long line only to have them start crying and yelling, "no mama!" once we got upto the beginning of the line... so off we went to find Graham and Pam.

The park was also having a small fair like thing happening too so we hung around till it opened up and Pam bought the girls their first very own softy serve cone. No, I did not make them share...then again Pam was buying ;-)

We then took them to ride some of the rides. The first one was this thing that looked like a train except it was trucks instead of train cars. We were not aloud to ride with them, but they LOVED IT!!! Emerson actually looked like she was having the most fun then she decided she was DONE and that was it. I had to get her out of that thing ASAP! The cutest thing was she was riding with her arm hanging out of the truck like she was a real trucker (pig tails and all!)

I am so excited that my girls like rides. I love roller coasters and cant wait till they are big enough to go on them with me!!!!

Zoo's Who!

2010-03-31T14:19:00.000-04:00

The day before yesterday after my shower I noticed it wasn't draining. I'm a pretty handy lipstick lesbian so I got out the Drano and let it do it's thing. The only thing is it didn't work...HUH? I have never had a clog I couldn't fix with Drano. I tried the plunger. NOPE. Did discover that the shower and the toilet are connected though. Not a thing you really want to find out when one stops up so does the other...ICK!

I have a neighbor that has been building things since we moved in. A few wks ago he built a shed. Then a gazebo. Then he put together a trampoline. He is always doing something. I went over to his house in search of a snake. Not the kind that hisses, the kind that helps remove icky stuff from clogged pipes. He did not have one but did have something he said was even BETTER! It was this thing you attach to the end of a garden hose put it in the drain and it fills with water then creates a really forceful jet of water knocking whatever nastiness is blocking the pipe right out of the way. Unfortunately for us this did not work. I had to give in and call a professional.

The plumber shows up and has to snake our main line. Meaning he had to go on the roof and snake it. Good thing we have a home warranty or this would have been some big bucks!

When he finally left I wanted to get the girls out of the house. More accurate would be out of the back yard. Since we had a new patio put in it is hard to get them to leave the back yard. I offered "wanna go bye bye?" "No" So being the great negotiator that I am I knew I needed to up the anti. "Wanna go to the zoo?" "YES!!!" So off to the soo we went.

We had a great time despite the fact that the zoo was more crowded then I have ever seen it. Crazy busy!

One of the first things we did was ride the carousel. They love the carousel so much! I thought they we would try riding this little kiddie roller coaster they have too. They dont meet the height requirement to ride it themselves and I wouldn't want them to anyway. We got up to the beginning of the line and I see that the cars only hold 2 people. The girls were so excited they had their little faces sticking through the gate to watch. Sure enough when it was our turn we had to do the walk of shame. So guess what we dis instead...rode the carousel once again.

We also fed the giraffe and they enjoyed that so much. Yet they were afraid of the little birds that you can feed.

"Picnic...COLD!"

2010-03-18T21:45:00.000-04:00

Julie has been on vacation this week. It's been colder then normal here in the sunshine state. The other day she decided that we should have a picnic at the beach. Sounds nice right? It was! Kind of...
She packed us a great meal of popcorn chicken, sweet potatoes, honey glazed carrots, wine for us and juice for the girls. We packed up the car and headed out for a fun family picnic at the beach. We even took the dog, "Pooper" AKA Cooper to those over the age of two. It was cool and breezy at our house so we were not prepared for how freezing cold and windy it was going to be at the beach.

Since this picnic if you say the word picnic in front of Avery she will start a complete dialog containing many many "No, Mom. Picnic COLD. Pooper, No Mom... COLD" It can go on and on... To say that is was cold would be an understatement. It was REALLY FREAKING COLD! I have to take some of the blame on our lack of preparedness. I had them dressed in short sleeved dresses and when Julie suggested that we go on this infamous picnic I put some leggings on them. That's it. I did NOT grab sweaters or jackets for them. Thankfully, we have blankets in the car for them. Blankets are their lovies. So we were able to have them wrap the blankets around themselves for a little extra warmth.

You know how they say a picture says a thousand words? Well, in this case a a video says it ALL...

At this moment we are on what I call "my vacation". We are staying at the beach with the girls. We have to have (at the very least) a one bedroom suite because the girls go to bed at 7:30 most nights 8:30 is actually really late for them.

We got here at like noon. AND, by the way, with in 10 minutes of getting in our room Avery managed to get herself stuck INSIDE the coffee table. She saw Emerson attempt it. Emerson stopped when I told her to. I missed Avery's attempt so I had to help her get out.

I wanted to get the girls some lunch and get them down for a nap. Naps are VERY important!

At home they sleep together. Here for some reason they want to sleep on separate beds.

When I put them to bed for their nap Emerson started to cry when I went to leave the room so I decided to lay with her till she fell asleep. She was happy about this and cuddled up to me. Avery on the other hand laid in her queen sized bed and yelled at me, "MAMA, GO AWAY!" At the time I thought it was cause she wanted to trash the room. I found out at bedtime tonight that the actual reason was cause she wanted her Ma (Julie) to lay with her. This is what we had to do tonight to get them to sleep. Emerson and I laid in one bed and Julie laid in the other bed with Avery. Our plan was to lay with them till they fell asleep then head into the living room enjoy some wine and go to bed a few hours later. I kept my part of this plan, however Julie fell asleep at 8:30 with Avery. I feel bad for her...sort of. hee hee. I'm enjoying my solitude right now actually!

Here are some pictures from today:

Here is the view from our room:

Headed to have a snack on the beach:

(Avery on the L)

Emerson:

Emerson's First Pony Ride

2010-03-12T21:57:00.000-05:00

Last Saturday I took the girls to a birthday party for a pair of their twin friends Abi and Bell. It was fun (hey there was beer there) they had a petting zoo and pony ride.

The only issue I had with this party was the time...2:30. 2:30 is right smack in the middle of naps, but I was pleasantly surprised that they held it together pretty well. They had a great time running around, petty the animals, and riding the pony!

Every time we have had an opportunity to ride ponies Emerson has sad no thank you! The last time was at the Twin MoMs holiday party. She was very excited till it was actually her turn then she was not so happy with the idea. This time her sister did it (her first ride WAS at the holiday party) and then when her turn came she let me put her on and she enjoyed it like she had done it many times before.

Before I had kids I had no idea there would be so many pony riding opportunities. It's crazy how many we have had...

First time riding a pony for little Emerson:

I think Avery was worried about her cause she tried to follow right behind the horse...not THE best place to be...

Avery looks bored...I mean she HAS done this before after all:

Not sure why Avery is petting the animals through the fence instead of going in...

Avery's action shot for the day:

Where Is THE Waffle Man???

2010-03-09T07:37:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine met me at Lake Eola a few months ago for the Farmer's Market that happens there ever Sunday. She introduced me to the most Heavenly Thing I have ever tasted...a waffle. It need no syrup, you eat it as is and it was about the best thing I had ever tasted! So a few weeks ago we went to Orlando to visit grandma. I started thinking about the waffle I had a few months back and couldn't get it out of my head. We made plans to meet my friend and some of our relatives at the farmer's market so we could all have a heavenly waffle.... the thought awakens my taste buds and makes me salivate. (of course when we lived just 4 blocks away from Lake Eola they did not have the Farmer's Market!)

We get there and let the girls and their cousin Cameron play at the park for a bit then head over to the market. First thing on our agenda was to find the WAFFLE MAN! We walked all the way around the courtyard to no avail. He wasn't there. I was crestfallen. We decided to get some lunch there. We found a nice place to sit and I headed back to get us some food. I went to the first place that looked good. Tacos...While the guy made our tacos I figured I would ask the taco guy where the H#LL was the waffle guy. He tells me he had to go back to Belgium to renew his visa...No freakin wonder those waffles were so good. The guy is from Begium! We still had a great time and some wonderful food...but no waffles...so sad.

Grandma bought them a little hair salon to play with and they LOVED IT!!!

Bear Building and New Foods

2010-02-15T21:57:00.000-05:00

For the girls birthday they each got a gift certificate to Build a Bear from their friend Mahogany. Today we met Megan and her little girl Anna at the mall and we let the girls build a bear. Anna is Avery's BFF...seriously, you may think 2 is too young to have a BFF but you would be wrong! One day at open gymnastics Anna and Avery were walking side by side and Anna put her arm around Avery and said, "You are my best friend." It was about the sweetest thing I have ever seen.

By the time we got to naming these poor bears the girls were tired and I was loosing patience so they ended up with the lamest names on earth. "Baby" and "Bear"...sad, I know...

Here is how BAB (Build a Bear) works. They pick a an animal they want to build. They have them on display all stuffed and looking cute, but what you get, that you need to stuff, is a pelt...and quite frankly kinda creepy looking. So they pick that out then a nice lady stuffs it and they put a heart in it. Then you brush it and clean it up. After that you can pick out lots and lots of different clothes and accessories that all add up-to BIG $$$. Lucky for me the girls had just as much fun brushing their new bear as they did picking out an outfit. After that you take it over to a computer and input all your info and name the new addition to your family. It really is quite cute.

After BAB we met mom at Queen of Sheba for lunch. It is an Ethiopian restaurant. I like Ethiopian food and I like to introduce the LGs to different foods. They love Chinese, and Thia. They liked Ethiopian but not as much as the 1st two... They had a good time though.

Here are some pictures from our Ethiopian experience:

Singing in the Rain... or the living room...

2010-02-09T20:35:00.000-05:00

There is a deep love of umbrellas in this house. The girls love umbrellas so Julie found the video of Gene Kelly Singing in the Rain and they loved that. The other night Julie decided to combine the two and the girls were dancing with their umbrellas while watching Gene Kelly actually sing in the rain. The cool thing is you can see them watch Gene Kelly and try to do the same foot work.

Julie started saying prayers with the girls before bed. Neither she nor I are very religious but we are actually both very envious of people who have faith. We want the girls to be exposed to all types of religion and if they are religious great if not that's fine too. ANYWAY... I am actually quite thankful for the prayers at night because the girls look forward to them and literally jump right into bed after them. It's a great way to get them into bed to be tucked in... I think what they like most about it is the saying of all our friends and families name. They will repeat every word. Tonight Julie was saying the prayer and they were repeating everything. Julie said, "and bless grandma, and grandpa, and ummm" and Emerson with out skipping a beat said, "ummm" I busted out laughing.

LET'S HEAR IT FOR AVERY!

2010-02-06T22:31:00.000-05:00

This morning, during naked time Avery came over to me and said something about poop and pointed to the bathroom. I asked, "do you need to poop? Let's go sit on the potty then." We walked into the bathroom and low and behold there was a pile of poop in one of the potties! I can honestly say I have NEVER EVER been so excited to see poop! I was so happy I took a picture. Gross I know, but I wanted to document her HUGE milestone. Dont worry, I wont make you look a the poop picture.

Later in the day. Emerson looked at me grabbed her crotch and said, "PEE PEE!" I asked her if she needed to pee she confirmed that she did. I asked Julie to take her diaper off and help her get on the potty. Seconds later I hear Julie exclaim, "You did it!!! You peed on the potty!!!" So we all praised her everyone got a Skittle and I went to dump the little potty into the big potty. When I looked into the little potty there was a little water in it from the earlier morning festivities, but no pee. She put one over on Julie. She sat down on the potty then hopped up with excitement and declared she had peed. Julie saw the water and assumed it was pee.... little sneak! She has tried to do this to me too, but I am on to her wiley ways.

Shy Pee'er...

2010-02-06T00:10:00.000-05:00

Someone is peeing in the potty but not telling me when they do it. I give them naked time every day. Every time they have NT I tell them if they need to pee or poop sit on the potty. 3 times I have found that someone has pee'ed in one of the potties, but I dont know who it is.

A few days ago when I took their diapers off I told them, "If you have to pee or poop sit on the potty and then tell me and you will get a piece of candy."

While I was in our bathroom getting ready (Emerson was in there with me) Avery came in and said something about pee pee and the potty. I asked her if she went pee pee in the potty and she said, "Ay Yah!" (Oh Yeah). We went in there to look and sure enough there was a lot of pee and a little piece of tp in one of the potties. So I praised her like she was a child prodigy then took her into the kitchen to give her a Skittle.

The other day I went to the bathroom and the seat was wet. I looked into one of the potty chairs and saw a little pee and a little tp. When I say a little I mean like 2 or three drops and the soft ring that they are suppose to pee on was on the floor... She had pee'ed and then dumped it in the toilet. So not only is she PT'ing herself she is also cleaning up after herself.

Then tonight after baths they were running around naked. Emerson kept asking for "Kay Kay" (Candy) Julie told them if they wanted candy someone had to pee pee on the poty. They both went running to the bathroom and Avery asked for a book. I went to hand her a magazine (one of Julie's gossip mags) and she said, "No, boo!" So I left the room to get her one of her books, get back to the bathroom and she had already pee'ed on the potty.

I think she is a shy pee'er!!! I think she needs her privacy to be able to pee on the potty. How funny is that!?!

Needless to say everyone got a skittle...

Well Coiffed Moms and TACO BUS!

2010-02-04T20:42:00.000-05:00

Today I took the girls to our monthly LLL meeting. I like going because there are other mothers there that are still nursing their toddlers and they are all nice. Today was an especially good meeting...but, it has nothing to do with nursing and everything to do with well coiffed moms and the best restaurant EVER! TACO BUS!

At the meeting there is this mom of a two year old. The child is never there, but she swears she has one, and she talks like she has one. This lady is actually pretty nice and funny. The problem with her is she looks so FREAKIN perfect! Her clothes are always crisp, linen that fit her as if they were tailored JUST for HER. He hair is long and straight, blond and beautiful. She was sitting next to me today. And I could not help but noticed she smelled fabulous and had on gorgeous shoes. Im sure her little girl is in the best preschool money can buy and that is why she is not at the meetings with her perfect mommy.

Today as I reached behind her to get my $1 coffee from McDonald's I accidentally picked up some of her hair with it. I apologized. Then I looked behind her head. When I picked up her hair I uncovered a HUGE knot! I was elated! I said, "I think you have a knot in your hair." She said, "it's probably just static." "No, this is a pretty big knot. Here feel." I pulled it around for her to feel. I proceeded to help her get it out as I explained to her that to me she is the "perfect mom" and I am so happy to see she is just like me. I was running behind because of my kids this morning so I skipped the make-up. She was dealing with her little lovely so she neglected to brush her hair completely. She and I are best friends now. Well, not really but I no longer am looking for a reason to hate her.

Twice I have driven past this place called Taco Bus. I was curious so I asked a girl at the meeting about it and she said it was YUMMY! So she, her kid, another two moms, their kids, me and the LGs headed their after the meeting. The kids had a great time. I think there favorite part waas saying, "Taco Bus!" on the way home Avery and Emerson were both yelling it in a chant. Then it got quiet. A few minutes later I heard Avery whisper, "Taco Bus." as she drifted off to sleep.

LG to Engish Dictionary

2010-01-29T19:53:00.000-05:00

Avery and Emerson have their own words for things. There are the obvious ones like wawa for water but there are some really not so obvious as well. I thought I would make this blog an ongoing dictionary for them. Some words they both use and some only one uses. Im sure that the spelling of these will not be to their specs but it's the best I can do...

Both
Gawk=milk=nursing
Joshish=my turn
Pooper=Cooper

Emerson
Key key=Candy
Chai chai=Chocolate
Ty ty= Tylenol (I think we have an addiction to the Tylenol melt aways)
I carry=Carry me

Avery
Ikey=Blanket
Nana=Banana or Grandma or Nina from Imagination Movers
Dots=we have no idea. She says this ALL. THE. TIME if I figure it out I will update.

We've Been a Busy Busy Family!

2010-01-26T21:39:00.000-05:00

So busy that its taken me a bit to update the blog... We're gonna work backwards today... Do you know what Gasparilla is??? No??? Ok, open a new tab, google it and then come right back!

Saturday was the parade for kids we decided we would give it a try this year cause we thought the LGs would enjoy it and if we loose one it's ok as we have another. Well, it was crazy, but we had a blast and we learned allot for next year...like dont park 2 miles away!

We went with our friends Pam, Katy and their son Graham and some of their friends.

We had to really make some big promises to get them to even consider the eye patches. Here is Emerson downing one for like 2 seconds.

Avery was willing to wear the scarf, but only for a minute or two.

There was this one float that royally pi$$ed me off. Keep in mind this was a parade for KIDS. It was crazy and the only place we could find to stand that we would be able to breath was a few feet past the end of the parade route. As the Molly Brown float went past the flags a lady on the float over a microphone said (very rudely) "THE PARADE IS OVER STOP MUSIC AND DONT THROW ANY MORE BEADS!" There were literally 100's of kids and adults just past the end markers. It was only the 3rd float the parade was no where near being OVER. Julie heard little kids asking their parents, "does this mean we dont get any beads?" "Is the parade over?" I wanted to yell some really nasty things at this lady. Instead I yelled some kind of nasty things at her. I mean, why did you have to do that over the mic? And why the nasty attitude? I hate her... Unfortunately its a foundation and not a company I can boycott... Oh and get this they enrich the lives of children!!!!

Monday the 18th was MLK day so Julie had the day off. That night we went to Acropolis with Pam, Katy and Graham. We had a great time. We danced, we ate, we had a blast!!

I love this family shot. Julie and I are looking all happy and look close at the attitudes of these girls! The teen years are gonna be a pain!

Earlier that day we went to zoo with Katy and Graham.

Emerson and Avery rode the carousel for the first time. Julie and I of course rode along beside. Can I just tell you I thought I was gonna hurl! WTF!

The kids always love to feed the birds Graham and Avery have something in common they let the bird land on the stick then they shake them off like a bad cold.

A Few of my Favorite Things!

2010-01-12T20:31:00.000-05:00

I got this idea from Brook (Hamilton Boys Blog) to post some of my favorite things that the LGs are doing lately. But first a few of my not so favorite things or THING as it may be!

After their nap today I heard them giggling, but thought nothing of it. I decided to let them play a little and make their way out when they were ready. Do this most days. Well, after about 30 minutes I heard Avery yell "Mama" so I got off the coach and headed toward her. As I made my way around the corner this is what I found:

They had pulled EVERY SINGLE piece of clothing out of their dresser and put most of it on the dog while she slept.

Ok, on to the things that make my heart melt...

We like to dance in the kitchen. My Ipod is in the kitchen and we dance quite often as a family. Emerson has taken to singing. She LOVES this song that was popular the year they were born actually. Its Fiest's 1,2,3,4 This is the best video. It has Emerson singing, and Julie and Avery Dancing behind us. I could watch this video over and over and never get tired of it.

A few weeks ago I slept with Avery and Emerson because Avery had a cough and I wanted to make sure she was ok. Neither she or I got much sleep that night. She was coughing and Emerson is a mix-master when sleeping. Well, in the morning I woke up to Emerson rolling her hand on my stomach saying, "Tee Tee Tee!" she was trying to tickle me! So flippin cute!

Avery is one of the funniest people I have ever met. She cracks me up. She is always trying to make people laugh. She likes to run like a cartoon character. She will laugh at ANYTHING! She loves to give hugs but not so much with the kisses. Emerson, on the other hand will give anyone a kiss.

Avery yelling "Pooper!" (Cooper our dog) She addores that dog. The other day it was really cold out and I could not get Cooper to come in. He had been out for hours. He finally came in, but Aver must not have seen it cause she was pointing at the door yelling, "Cooper!"

Avery loves to be read to. Her favorites right now are Olivia and If You Give a Moose a Muffin.

Emerson likes books but not as much as her sister. But she really likes to point out objects. She can sit for hours and have you ask her "Where is the ____?" I think I need to buy her some where is waldo books.

I found them sleeping like this the other night:

Tonight here is where we found them sleeping...on the floor.

Every night after the girls go to sleep Julie picks up the living room. She always leaves something special for the girls (and me) She will leave a doll riding a horse or a hat on the rocking moose. I love it it is so sweet. Julie calls them "Easter eggs" little surprises. Here is tonight's "Easter eggs".

Ringing In The New Year!

2010-01-06T20:13:00.000-05:00

New camera in ACTION!!! Took the LGs to Kate Jackson Park last week. How cute are these girls I ask you?? (Avery on the Left)

Emerson

Avery

Thursday I planned on heading to Orlando to spend New Years with family. Before leaving I wanted to get the girls out of the house and let them work off a little steam before that two hour drive. I found a little park called Friendship Park. It reminded me of KJ park but the little kids area and the big kids area are separate AND the biggest difference is I can bike there. Grandpa bought us a bike trailer so I will be biking me and the LGs to this park very much in the future!

My only worry with this park is the inappropriate behavior of the wild life....

Emerson on the big girl slide:

Squirrels doing the nasty:

When we got to Orlando I took the LGs to my cousin Brenda's house for New Years Eve. Cousin Brenda bought them Disney Princess Dolls. Apparently every year they have a block party for new years. The girls had a great time at the party. Unfortunately I had to leave early because Avery started wheezing. Thankfully we did not end up in the hospital with her.

New Years day we started a new tradition. Homemade pizzas! They were deelishis and the girls loved making them. They started out with clothes on but I made an executive decision to get the shirts off...good thing cause Avery ended up with Pizza sauce on her belly.

Avery enjoying the fruits of her labor!

Sugar and Toy Overload

2009-12-26T21:39:00.000-05:00

We had an awesome Christmas. Grandma came Christmas eve and stayed till Saturday. The LGs and grandma made cookies and I cooked dinner. Julie picked up the Honey Baked ham earlier that day. If you've never been to Honey Baked during Xmas DONT! Its bedlam. After dinner we went to see some lights. We went to a place on Rawls Rd in Tampa. It was AMAZING! If you haven't gone you must. The lights are set to music and there are thousands and thousands. When we first got there Emerson was a little scared and did not want to be put down. After about 10 mins she asked to be put down and a few minutes later her and her sister were dancing to the music and enjoying it thoroughly. When we went to leave Emerson cried the whole way to the car and did not want to leave. After we got home Grandma read The Night Before Christmas to the girls and they woke in the morning to a butt-load of toys. It took us about four hours to open all the presents. The main reason for this is the LGs had to play with every toy they opened and try on every piece of clothing before they would move on to the next. AND, before they could play with a toy we had to get it out of the box. To do this we had to remove about 500 twist ties. They people who package toys have to be just plain mean.

Some noteworthy presents:

Santa got them a play house that they ADORE!!! it has a doorbell that works and they ring the doorbell before walking in every. time. now. So cute!

Grandma bought them this FurReal puppy that barks and walks. Well, at first they loved it. Then for some reason Emerson is now scared to death of the thing. We had to hide it in a closet.

Uncle Ted sent them a gift certificate to Toys R Us and we took them to pick out some toys. Well, Emerson picked out this Microwave and she is in total love with it. It lights up and the table inside turns and it beeps. Too cute.

Bouncy horses they received from Grandma. These were a big hit and Avery likes to bounce with her Pink Hat (although in the video she is wearing both her hat and her sisters!) she received from her cousin Cameron. Her favorite thing is to make her hat fly off!

I got a small camera to fit into the diaper bag. Yes, that means even MORE pictures. I swear these are the most photographed twins since Mary Kate and Ashley! I also got a bunch of stuff for scrap-booking (Im only a year behind right now! YIKES!) My Aunt (in law) sent me loads of cut-outs. It must have taken her for ever to do them all.

Last night before bed Avery had to say goodnight to all her new toys. This meant that she had to hug each one too. This took quite a while.

Emerson has learned what chocolate is and calls it ChiChi. NOT A GOOD THING! She is asking for ChiChi every hour.

All in all a great Christmas. I haven't EVER had a Christmas THIS fun!

Sleeping Arangements

2009-12-17T21:50:00.000-05:00

About a month ago we moved the LGs into toddler beds. I call it the king sized toddler bed cause I have them side by side. They LOVE them. And the transition has not been that hard...with the exception of naps. Naps are another story all together. I have found that I have to do the opposite of what I used to do with the crib.

With the crib I had to put them in there. Cover them up with their blanket say "night night" and walk out closing the door behind me not to return unless ABSOLUTELY necessary. Like I just heard a bomb explode in there, should I go check???

The first few days I tried the same technique and close the door behind me. BIG MISTAKE! They trashed the joint like rock stars. They actually pulled the door OFF THE CLOSET! Its a big freaking wooden slider door! It could have killed them had it fallen on them.

I decided I should try leaving the door open till they fall asleep. As soon as I was out of site they started playing and they got smart about it. They learned to trash their room quietly. They never tried to leave their room they would just pull ever piece of clothing out of the drawers and every toy out of the closet. Their favorite thing was to pull all the rubber bands out of their box. These are little tiny rubber bands I use for their hair. Do you have any idea how f*cking tedious picking up hundreds of little rubber bands up is?

At night it seemed a little different. I could walk away and they would stay in bed if the door was open and go to sleep. Then the other night I heard the door slam shut. I went in there to see what was going on and they were both in bed. I walked away leaving the door open and a few minutes later heard it slam. Seeing as how last time I checked after the door was shut they were in bed I decided to let it be. About an hour later I heard something. Walked in to discover they had trashed the place. Back to bed they went and the door stayed open.

I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO VERY NOT ready to give up naps and I know they need them VERY much. So, something had to change or I was going to break out the duct tape and keep their asses in the bed that way. So I started sitting in front of the door with a book or the laptop. It worked perfect. They would stay in bed and fall asleep then I would get up close their door and go do my own thing. Then one day I grabbed a pillow and decided to lay on the floor while I was watching them and of course I fell asleep. So for the last 3 days I have been taking a 20 min nap in the hall on the floor. Then today I was awakened to a door slamming lass then a foot away from my face. Lets just say this is one of the absolute worst ways to wake up. I immediately opened the door to see Avery climbing back into bed. I decided to close the door seeing as how she was headed into bed she obviously would go to sleep. Right???

You guessed it! The room was TRASHED!

Here are a few pictures we took the first night in their new beds:

Then a few hours later:

Here's Avery...just being Avery:
Here is Emerson helping put the beds together:

"Other Side!" (said in a sing song voice)

2009-12-14T15:32:00.000-05:00

It all started one day when the LGs were nursing and decided to switch sides. I said "other side" and somehow it stuck in Their heads and now we cant go a nursing session with out someone saying "Other Side!" in a sing song voice. This has become somewhat annoying as it takes them a long time to coordinate the switch, therefore all nursing sessions seem to take longer.

The real problem is that this has become a game and it has bled into other aspects of our daily lives. When we went to dinner the other evening someone said, "other side" and they both got up and switched sides of the table. This for most people would not be a big deal, but because they are less then 3 feet tall they need help getting into their booster seats and you have to spot them when they get down. ANNOYING!

I really want this game to end soon. We are now in the ignore it phase and hoping they get bored with this game.

Last night Emerson decided to re-purpose one of their toys they have had for over a year. The Ball Popper is an annoying but beloved toy. If you are not familiar with the Ball Popper you will understand part of it's annoyance by the noise it makes...BUT, that's not all! It also launches balls across the room and you always loose them.

I must say this "New" use seems much less annoying.

Missing Mom

2009-12-10T06:17:00.000-05:00

Julie has been working really late for the last few weeks. Most of the time she only sees the LGs in the morning getting home after they have gone to bed.

Last night Avery was playing with her Magna Doodle and she handed it to me. She wanted me to draw her something. I started with a cat. She said "Mom." I drew another cat. She said "Mom!" So I drew "Mom". Curly hair, big eyes, HUGE smile... showed it to her and she seemed satisfied. (Julie is Mom Im Mommy or MAMA as they like to call me)She did the sign for more and said "Mom" again, so I drew her again. After doing this for what seemed like forever I suggested we call Mom. This suggestion was met with excitement so wee went into the Kitchen and called her.

Lately when someone is on the phone the LGs have been clamming up. They get all excited to talk on the phone then they act like they are afraid of it. The same was true this time except when I said to Avery, "say hi Mom." She actually said it, but very softly.

Julie decided to shut down her computer and rush home to see them before bed. When she got home I opened the door for the girls to run out and greet her. Avery gave her a big hug. Emerson went screaming down the driveway. It was the cutest thing.

Julie played with them and read to them. Avery kept kissing and hugging her. She is not usually the kissing type. She likes to hug but she's not that big a fan of kissing. You have to bribe her into it, or tell her NOT to kiss you. That works sometimes too. Needless to say Julie was very happy she came home and saw her kids before bed.

Avery will kiss her sister though...

Catching up...

2009-11-30T19:51:00.000-05:00

I have fallen behind on my blogs lately, I do apologize... These girls keep me busy busy busy... Let's see since the LGs birthday we have done allot.

We went to our cousin Cameron's birthday party. It was very fun. Cameron got a few vehicles and a helmet for his rides. Avery like the helmet and decided to wear it for almost the whole day. She looked like she belonged on the short bus. When she finally took it off her sister proceeded to put it on.

Avery Locked me out of my car two days in a row. Sad, but true. The first time it happened she was in the front seat playing while I buckled her sister into her car seat. I had already turned on the car and the A/C. As I closed the door I thought, "Oh, God. I bet she has hit the lock button." Sure enough it was locked. I tried to get her to unlock it but she did not understand what I was asking her to do. She kept pushing the side of the door where we were pointing. After a little bit of this game she proceeded to climb into the back seat and get into her car seat...I had already called the police. You see if there is a child locked in the car they will send out the police and "Pop a Lock" to unlock your door for free.

This lady who was parked in front of me said she just could not leave me and asked if I thought that Avery would come upto the window if she saw a toy? I said, "I have no idea." So she whipped out a toy and we started calling Avery to the front of the car. She came like a we were holding up a piece of bacon for a dog. So we started again with the "Push the button, Avery" talk again and she reached out and pulled the handle of the door, opening it.

The next day I took them to the park and as I was wrestling them into the car Avery went to the front seat and JUST. LIKE. THE. DAY. BEFORE. I closed the door thinking, "Oh, God. I bet she locked the doors." Sure enough she did. Only, this time she climbed right into the seat. She did not spend any time in the front seat at all. So, I called the police and tried to coax her to the front. She did not go to the front. Instead she climbed into the floor board in front of her sisters feet. She tried to open that door like she did the day before but it was child locked and did not open or unlock the doors. She got frustrated turned around and threw herself on the floor hitting her head on the way down. So now there was NO. WAY. she was gonna get up. She was hurt and frustrated so she stayed there crying till pop a lock got there and opened the door. As I drove away (after turning a few corners) I looked out and say my wallet sitting on the hood of my car. Yep, the same wallet I have lost about a dozen times.

About a week later I was putting Avery in her car seat after a fun day at the Aquarium and as I closed the door I heard the "THUNK" sound of my doors locking. My heart sank as I realized it had happen yet again, only this time it was Emerson on the other side of the window. I started to panic. Then I stopped and thought she pushed that button with purpose. I can get her to do it again. "Emerson, can you unlock the car?" she hit the clock side. So I said, "the other side of the button sweetie." And she did it. She unlocked the car.

Two weeks ago we (me and the LGs) took Julie for her birthday dinner. We went to Columbia restaurant and the girls loved the flamenco dancers. We all had a blast!

Avery's restaurant

2009-11-29T21:28:00.001-05:00

Over the Thanksgiving weekend Avery made up her own game where she served us food at her restaurant. Sometimes she wanted to be served but mostly she ran the show. When she wanted to play she would "EATS!" and point to her table. It was a little confusing because she would also do this when she was hungry.

Here is her at the beginning of the day and the service is superb!

In this episode of "Avery's Restaurant" Mom does the serving:

In this next episode you can really see the service going down hill FAST!
Everything grandma asked for was greeted with a "NO!" and then a maniacal laugh. She did eventually allow grandma to have some bacon and milk...

The kindness of strangers...

2009-11-12T19:57:00.000-05:00

Today I took them to the park...it was a little late and I knew I was pushing close to nap time. I did it anyway. What can I say, I'm a glutton for punishment.

On our way there I stopped and got us lunch so I could let them eat, then play, then home for a nap. It went pretty much like that except there were interjections of temper tantrums like every ten min.

One of the problems is that they both LOVE. LOVE. LOVE to swing. That is ALL they would do at the park if I would let them.

So, the first time they asked to swing I let them. I pushed them (actually on the big kid swings!) and they did great and were loving it. I told them that swing time was over and uncurled the death grips off the chains, plopped them on the ground and walked away. Avery followed and went to play on one of the jungle gyms. Emerson chose to stand by the swings and cry. I decided to ignore her, and went back to fighting the squirrel with the cleft lip for my iced coffee and cheese burger. (anyone that has EVER gone to Kate Jackson park knows how freaking annoying those squirrels are and the one that was viciously trying to get our food today was missing part of his lip!)

After a few minutes I no longer her the plaintive wails of my oldest. I look over to the swings and see 3 toddlers, a little boy and two girls, probably no older then 5 years of age trying to figure out how to get E into one of the little kid swings. It was about the sweetest thing I have ever seen. I went over and gave in. How could I deny the child a swing when these little children were trying to comfort her and give her it. So I put her in and we swing for a bit then I end it. This time I tried to give her more notice and let her get prepared for the end of her ride. It did not matter. She had another fit. So this time she ended up getting a time out. She sat in her time out and cried like she was being beaten.

As I sat their yelling at the squirrel I see the little boy going over to E and trying to see if she is ok. (How sweet is this little boy???) After her two minutes were up I went over and talked to her and we agreed that she would stop crying for me to swing her. She trots off happy as can be over to the....swings. She stands there, pointing and grunting. And there goes the little boy. He goes to her and holds her hand.

I looked around and said, "who does he belong to?" His mom said, "me." "OH. MY. GAWD. your little boy is about the sweetest thing I have ever seen."

If you don't have it... GO GET IT!!!!!!

2009-11-09T21:12:00.000-05:00

We now have the answer to the question, "what was the best birthday present to the girls got???"

The LGs had their 2 year well baby check up this morning. I was NOT looking forward to it. Most Doctor appointments pretty much go the same way. The girls are excited to be there till the Nurse shows up to get the party started. Also, Avery has been...lets just call it moody lately. This particular apt. was off to the same start.

When leaving the house I decided it was a good idea to put the mail into the mailbox on our way out of the house. I head toward the street and as I step toward the mailbox my left ankle rolls off the curb. Hurt like hell and now I'm limping... GREAT!!! this should make the appointment all the more fun...

We get there and my ankle is hurting more and more. I was actually having a problem putting any pressure on it. I choose to not put them into the stroller cause I did not want to lift it with my ankle hurting like it was. We get into the building and I get them into the waiting room where we eat some snack and read some books.

The nurse comes and gets us. She measures E and A's head. They are not happy about it but are being pretty good. Then she weighs them they are acting the same: reluctant submission. THEN she wants to lay them on the table to measure them. That's when they start crying like someone is trying to kill them...This is the usual M.O.

The nurse sends us into the next room to wait to see the Doctor. They stopped crying cause no one was poking at them. Doc comes in and chats with me and talks to them. (I Love my pediatrician!)She asks about their development and then tells me that she needs to do their exam and she can do most of it with them on my lap. We started with Emerson. I put her on my lap and the Dr listens to her chest, her back, looks in her nose her eyes, her ears, lays her back on me and checks her pulse, and makes sure all her girly parts are ok. All the while E does NOT CRY ONE TEAR!!! she actually seemed like she was having a good time as the doctor chatted with her about what she was doing. Then we did Avery and she was just as good as Emerson.

So, the Doc and I are totally impressed with the behavior the girls had just displayed. I told her that I think it is the Dr kit that they got from their friend Anna on their birthday. They play with it and sometimes I take it show them "Here's what the Doctor does..." and do to them what the Doctor does to them. I also give them a shot with the fake needle. They actually LOVE that part and ask me to give them many many many shots. Which, brings us to the last and usually the most dreaded of all pediatrician appointments.... THE SHOTS....

I decided to get them the regular flu shot and the MMR shot (I had delayed that one due to not being in daycare) So, the doc leaves and the nurse comes in with the shots. She takes A first and puts her one the table. As she is doing this I tell Avery "she's going to give you a shot like I did this morning but it is going to sting for a few seconds and that's it. The nurse then does some sort of judo maneuver and gives her the two shots in her arm. Avery did....nothing. She did not cry. at.all. I started praising her like she just wrote the Magna Carta, and got her a treat from my bag.

Now it's Emerson's turn. The nurse turns to E and says ok it's your turn. She hid behind the chair. Then she suddenly ran to the nurse and asked her to pick her up. The same thing happens....no crying. She did do the turned down lips that is the start of a cry. She maybe cried for a second. But, I was so busy telling her how brave she was and getting her her treat that the tears stopped in their tracks.

If you do not have one of these and your doctor appointments are dreaded GET ONE NOW!!!!

Sandboxes and Bounce Houses

2009-11-08T09:46:00.000-05:00

The LGs b-day was on Halloween. They turned two and I am in denial! I don't waaaaant my babies to grow up! Anyway...enough of my wining....here's what we did! We had their party on Sunday so they could go trick or treating on Saturday. The first exciting thing that happened was Grandma bought them a sandbox for their birthday. They LOVE it!!! They get sand in places I had no idea sand could get. The issue with the sandbox is that it gathers dirt, yes dirt not sand and the dirt is black and it looks like cat poo! It came with a cover so I know that it is not, but it's still disturbing.

For Halloween they were fairies and I must say, I think they were about the cutest fairies I have EVER seen! They were so crabby before I dressed them and the minute they saw themselves in the mirror they were giddy. We just went down our street but they were saying "triii o trree" It was so cute. They also would just walk right into peoples houses. Thankfully we had already introduced ourselves to the neighbors so they weren't too shocked! Here's a video of them soooo excited to go trick or treating:

True to forum Avery "vagrant style" took a rest on someones porch.

We had a party for them with just some family and friends. I cant believe my babies have friends!!! I got a steal on a bounce house for the day. It was a huge hit. All the kids jumped their butts off. Instead of a cake I got them cupcakes and we had pizza for lunch. One of the pizza's I got pineapple on it cause that's the LGs favorite topping. I was surprised at how many kids asked for that pizza!

For their birthday they got a Kitchen, some food for the kitchen, two dolls and strollers, a Doctor kit, and some books. They also got a gift certificate for Build a Bear. Im sure they are gonna love making their own bear. They really love one of the books and when I read it to them they ask for "more". It's the I Love You Book.

Here is the chaos that ensued during the party.

The kids loved the pizza and of course the cupcakes!

Here is the bounce house I rented. The kids loved it. It was such a deal too. If anyone in Tampa area needs one ask me for my guys number!

A video of the bounce house fun: