I'm a terrible blogger

I've been running out of blogging steam - I hope to take it up again after I'm done with my writing class, but for now pictures will have to suffice.  

A Day at the Zoo

It's been feeling like winter here in the mountains - it's snowed a few times and been in the 20s at night.  This meant it was finally time to officially say goodbye to summer and clean up and put away all the outdoor toys and deck furniture.  I was very sad to put the inflatable pool away, stack the water table up, and put the outdoor table and chairs away.  We had such a lovely summer - swimming at the pool, hanging out at the beach and playing in the park.  I'm excited that ski season looks to be getting off to a good start (opening day for the resort we have season passes to is November 20th!), but besides that the winter is looming long in front of us.  Anyways, the girls thought it was great fun "helping" us clean up the backyard.  Here's a picture of Kate in her cute hat and sweater.  (Grammy - those are the pants you gave them for their first birthday!  They finally fit into them!)

We woke up today feeling to 20 degree weather and overcast skies and nothing much planned.  I checked the weather and saw that it was supposed to be 75 and sunny in the valley, so we packed everyone up and headed down the mountain to the zoo.  It's a two hour drive to the zoo, but time flies when you have a DVD player in the car (whoever invented in car DVD players is a genius!).  After a Wiggles and Curious George DVD, we arrived at the zoo and parked next to an amusement park that seemed to be designed for two year olds!  Maya was a little apprehensive  until she saw the teacups - she knew right away that was the ride for her.  Kate remembered the Merry-Go-Round from the County Fair we went to in August, so ran up to that and had a grand time.  After the toddler amusement park, we hit the zoo where things went pretty well considering we were chasing two two year olds who were missing their naps.  

This trip to the zoo was more successful than our last trip.  The girls were more engaged and interested in the animals.  It was kind of funny, though, because they were fascinated by the turtles and ducks and didn't seem to care too much about the exotic animals like the orangutans or giraffes.  All in all it was a beautiful day and the girls did great.  Josh and I were seemed much more tired at the end of the day than they were.  

More random ramblings...

Kate has hit some sort of developmental milestone and suddenly is talking clearly and coherently.  For a long time, she struggled to form words and I was the only one who could understand her.  This made her very frustrated and I think contributed to a bit of crankiness.  Now that she figured out how to enunciate she's like a ray of sunshine - a very talkative ray of sunshine.  She wakes up talking and keeps it up all day long with barely a pause for a breath.  "This is mama's phone, not Kate's phone.  Maya's jumping.  Mama's sitting.  Daddy's making toast.  Ow, hot toast! Careful! That's Mama's kitchen, this is Kate's kitchen.  No climb on couch - big owie."  Etcetera, etcetera.  It's very cute and it makes her so happy that we finally understand what she's saying.  It also makes me realize how much they both understand and how good their memories are.

Kate has also taken to stripping down naked, ripping her diaper off and then running around screaming "BUCK NAKED!".  For some reason, she doesn't seem to get cold and I figure it helps with potty training, so I guess I don't care.

Maya has evolved into a slightly more reticent and thoughtful toddler.  She loves her puzzles and books and can spend long periods of time playing with a toy.  She doesn't talk as much as Kate does these days - probably because she can't get a word in edgewise.  She's been having trouble sleeping at night and wakes up howling "MOOOOMMMMY!" several times a night.  I'm not sure what the issue is, but I'm hoping it gets resolved soon.  Our friends just gave the girls "pillow-petp" for their birthdays (it's a pillow AND a pet) and I'm hoping that Maya will bond with hers and it will comfort her enough at night that she doesn't need me.

We had a great Halloween.  The girls had their first lollipop which was the highlight of their week.  Maya keeps asking hopefully for "more pops?"  Maya was totally fascinated by the Halloween parade we participated in on Friday and they both loved "trick-o-treating".

Almost 2 and a rambling blog post...

It's a gray, rainy day here, the leaves on the Aspen trees outside are window are yellow and I'm sitting by the fire.  The girls are napping after a lunch of chicken noodle soup and toast.  The house is stocked after an epic shopping trip yesterday where I went to seven stores in four hours while Josh watched the girls at home. I'm feeling ready for winter, but wishing summer could last a few more months.  

This time last year I was writing this time last year posts reminiscing about being pregnant, having the girls, dealing with the NICU and all that.  This year, I am just thinking about when I'm going to find time to practice making fondant for the fancy jungle themed cake I want to make for the girls' birthday party, doing homework for a creative writing class I'm taking, and trying to figure out what we are going to do for the next six months of yucky weather.  In short, life moves on and thank god for that!  

The girls are turning the big T-W-O on Wednesday though we are not going to celebrate until November 6th when they are having a big party with their friends and family.  I'm wondering what I was thinking having a big party since Kate hates crowds.  I know Maya will have fun, but I have a feeling that Kate will spend her birthday party in the car watching videos.

Here's a cute picture of Kate eating an orange.  She continues to be the messiest eater on the planet.  I keep waiting for her to grow out of the messy eating stage, but then think of my brother who was a pretty messy eater until about 35.

Oh, and mom and dad, hope you're having fun in Vietnam.  Kate keeps saying "Nana on a big plane!".  I've been trying to get her to say "Nana and Grandpa are in Vietnam", but she's hung up on the plane thing.  (When Josh was in Texas for business last week, Maya kept saying "Daddy's in Texas!".  Of course, she must have no idea what Texas is, but she likes saying it.)

End of An Era

I finally decided that it was time to permanently pack up Kate and Maya's bottles and make the leap to just drinking milk with meals and for snacks out of cups.  They've only been having two bottles a day for the past six months or so and for quite a while Maya really didn't care one way or the other if she had a bottle. Kate was getting to that point, too.  It was actually very easy - they were excited to drink their evening milk from an open cup "like Petra" (their six year old friend), and didn't even seem to miss their bottles.  It's kind of strange and nice for me to have the whole bottle thing behind us.  Bottle feeding was such a royal pain in the neck when they were little and I'm happy we've moved on to bigger and better things.

Like baking...

Being the big, bottle-free girls that they are, I let them "help" me make a cake this afternoon.  Kate took her cake making responsibilities very seriously and actually listened to what I told her to do.  She spooned the pumpkin into the bowl and stirred it as if her life depended on it.  Maya, on the other hand, was more interested in making designs in the spilled flour and trying to lick the spoon, although she did do a good job turning the mixer on and off.  

Morning at the Pumpkin Patch

Nana and Grandpa are heading to Vietnam and Cambodia for three weeks tomorrow, so they came out today to spend a last day with us before their trip.  Since it's October, we decided to head to Reno to visit a pumpkin patch.  Now, when I was a kid,  pumpkin patches were pretty much just that - a field with some pumpkins.  You'd pick out the pumpkin you wanted, pay for it and that was that.  The pumpkin patch we visited today was much more than just pumpkins - they had a bounce house, hay wagon rides, farm animals, corn maze, etc.  Kate and Maya, of course, instantly headed to the bounce house and, had we let them, would have spent all day jumping around like crazed monkeys until they passed out from exhaustion.  However, we forced them out of the house at a certain point and made them do other things like look at pumpkins, sit on an antique tractor and take a hay ride.  We all had a lot of fun, though Kate, of course, got totally overwhelmed towards the end and needed to once again be extracted from the pumpkin patch to sit in a quiet car and watch Wiggles videos.

Anyways, here are some pictures.  Josh isn't in any pictures because he was home working on plumbing and lying on the couch groaning in pain.  Poor guy has had on and off severe abdominal pain for over 2.5 years and it's very much "on" at the moment.  The doctors are still working on a diagnosis, so in the meantime we've been spending a lot of time googling his symptoms, which, in case you're wondering, is not the best idea in the world.  So far Dr.Google has informed us he either has colon cancer, stomach cancer, stomach ulcers, pancreatitis, diverticulitis,  Crohn's disease or about 10 other things.  At this point, Josh is hoping the cure doesn't involve giving up beer or coffee.

 

We're still here

OK, so two people besides my mom have asked if I'm ever going to post again.  I honestly was thinking I was done blogging, but since "my public" is clamoring for more, here you go...

I can't possibly recap all the cuteness that has been going on in our house since my last post.  Suffice it to say that we had a really awesome summer hanging out at the beach, the pool, the park and various and sundry places in between.

The girls are both talking a lot - using full sentences, multi-syllable words, etc.  I still consider myself a Kate&Maya-ese  => English translator because, though they are both enunciating pretty well, I frequently am the only one who knows them well enough to get what they are trying to communicate.  For example, Kate's  recently been telling everyone "Gon-do-la not running".  Most people would just think she was babbling incoherently, but I happen to know that she's talking about the time last week that we tried to take a gondola ride at a local ski resort and it was closed.  Apparently, this made a big impression on Kate.

Today we went to a birthday party  for a friend's daughter's 3rd birthday party.  It was kind of a crazy at the venue with tons of kids, parents and lots of chaos.  Kate was just completely overwhelmed by it and was obviously distressed.  She seems to absorb and internalize other peoples' energy and it then comes rushing out of her in frantic, ADD-like action.  After about an hour of Kate bouncing off the walls,  I was beginning to  contemplate  future Ritalin prescriptions.  Josh wisely decided to remove her from the party and let her watch videos in the car.  The videos in the car were clearly the highlight of the party for her.  Maya, on the other hand is much more Zen about everything and quite enjoyed the party despite the chaos.  It made my heart melt a little to watch her sitting with about 10 other little kids at a kid-sized table quietly eating her cookies and cupcakes.   She seemed like a real kid  - not at all baby-like anymore.

Speaking of cupcakes, the end result of going to two kid birthday parties (we had one on Saturday, too) in two days, is that the girls are now thoroughly obsessed with these super sweet, completely nutritionally void confections.  At dinner today they were asking for cupcakes instead of my healthy, homemade split pea soup and they've been pretending that their Lego blocks are cupcakes.  Sigh - they are definitely my kids.  I'm not big on cupcakes, but I'll eat pretty much any other sweet you put in front of me.

Oh, while I'm at it, there's one other little thing I should probably write down for posterity since it was so hilarious to me.  I hate taking the girls grocery shopping these days because it inevitably ends in someone screaming and crying at the checkout stand.  However, you have to do what you have to do, so last week I found myself in Safeway with Maya in the cart and Kate in the backpack.  It was the end of the day and Maya was hungry and cranky, so by the time we reached the produce section, she very ornery and whiny.  Normally, the whining is really irritating, but this time it cracked me up because she was whining for all the vegetables as we passed them ("PLLEEEEZ BROCCOLLIIII!  CAAARRROOTTTS! LEEETTTUCCCE, PLEEEZ!")  Even though it was cracking me up, I thought she was probably disturbing the other shoppers, so I finally gave in and let her have a head of raw broccoli.  This made her happy and she spent the rest of the shopping trip nibbling on her broccoli (this definitely garnered a few double takes from other shoppers).  Ah, two year olds.

Finally, here's a picture of Josh and the girls last month on a sunny, beautiful late summer day at the lake.

Backyard Fun

Can we go to the pool now?

Ah, Summer

It's mid-summer and I'm still appreciating the warm weather, trips to the pool, the beach, walks in the woods, the park, the Farmer's Market and all those other great summer activities.  On August 1st, I feel like the summer both just got started and is also almost over.  The winter for us was very trying as it was so long, cold and dark and we all seemed to be sick for most of it, so I'm trying to enjoy every moment of our warm, sunny and illness free days.  I think we live in the absolutely best place in the entire country to spend the summer - the weather is warm and sunny (but not generally too hot and never humid) during the day, cold at night and lots of great activities and beaches nearby.  I can't think of anyplace I'd rather be right now. We had a fun Sunday today.  We took the girls over to a local ski resort and rode a shuttle bus around a bit just for fun.  I know it sounds strange, but it  was probably the highlight of Kate's week - she sang the "Wheels on the Bus" the whole trip.  Maya loves buses, too, but was a little scared of actually riding in one.  We also walked around the resort which has some great features for toddlers including multiple sand boxes, a toy store with a drawing table, hammocks and other things like that. In the afternoon we went to the pool for the third day in a row.  The girls love the pool and never seem to get bored of it.  Kate loves to put goggles on and hang around in her rubber ducky.  Maya is the ultimate water baby and has been very busy teaching herself to swim.  She is very good at holding her breath under water and is working on floating and kicking .  I'm feeling very lucky to live a block from a great pool (even if it doesn't have pool side drink service) and am dreading the day that it closes in the fall!  It's such a low key, easy activity to do with toddlers and we always seem to meet people we know there - which makes it more entertaining for me. On the way to the pool - Kate's all set with her rubber ducky (she walked around with it for a half an hour before we left for the pool). Maya's laughing at her Dad being silly.

Kate goofing around at the pool.

Kate playing with my sunglasses.

Enjoying a nectarine on the front deck before bedtime

Of Poop, Play and Pens (I'm feeling alliterative tonight)

Poop
One would think that the first year with twins there would be a lot of focus on poop considering that newborns poop every few hours and new parents are supposed to be obsessed with their kids' poop. I never really got into the poop obsession (I think I just didn't have any extra  mental energy to waste on poop) and, except for a hand full of times, the diapers contained it nicely and easily.  Most importantly, the girls didn't have the coordination to mess with their diapers. So, until recently, poop just happened and it was no big deal.

However, I'm beginning to think that the second year will be all about the poop and it's going to be messy. In the last few days we've had at least one poop incident every day and each time it gets grosser and messier. I'm thinking we'll have to replace the carpets after the girls are potty trained - or stop giving them colorful food like blueberries (blueberry poop is hard to clean off of white carpets). I'll spare you the details (for now - hehe), but suffice it to say that Maya has taken to digging around in her diaper to see if there's anything "STINKY" in there and Kate just won't keep a diaper on. She can whip off her pants and diapers in about 10 seconds flat. I think I need to go out and buy a bunch of onsies to try to contain the mess.

Play
Maya has recently begun playing "imaginatively" and will play for long periods of time with her plastic animals, dolls and trains. It's very nice and when she wakes up from her nap early and Kate is still asleep I can just sit around and read a book while she plays. It's very refreshing and pleasant. Then Kate wakes up and the chaos begins again.

Pens
I'm afraid that in a few years Kate may sneak out of the house and come home with a tattoo.  She loves to draw on herself - behold her latest masterpiece.  I was pretty psyched that she didn't suck the ink out of the markers and then chew on the tips like she used to do - drawing on herself is much better.  I just hope she never gets her hands on a Sharpie.

A Day at the Zoo and More

Maya and I on the seesaw at the world's best park for twins - it's fenced in!

Maya and her favorite animal - "MEERCATS" (she was yelling that while running around the zoo)

The fake animals were more exciting than the real thing because you can climb on them!

Maya and Kate riding in style at the zoo - and holding hands.

The highlight of Muir Woods for Kate and Maya was the visitor center. How can giant redwoods compete with snacks and wooden bears?

Kate climbing on bear

Ah, snacks.

The Good, The Bad and the Pretty Darn Cute

The Bad - Grocery shopping with two toddlers

I knew our trip to Safeway wasn't going to be easy when five minutes into our trip, Kate started yelling "ALL DONE ALL DONE ALL DONE" and wriggling around in the backpack she normally rides in when we are grocery shopping.  I kept telling her that we really aren't "all done" and we still had a bunch more shopping to do.  (In case you're wondering - this kind of reasoning doesn't work with an angry 20 month old.)  By the time we reached the pasta aisle, I couldn't ignore her yelling, so thought she'd be happier if I switched her to the grocery cart seat and put Maya in the backpack. This sounds simple, but in a packed grocery store it's not really so easy.  

I extracted Maya from the grocery cart, put her on the ground and got Kate out of the backpack.  Kate was happy about this until she realized that instead of the freedom to run amuck that she was yearning for, she was going to get strapped into the cart.  So, while trying to follow Maya who was running down the aisle, dodging carts and grabbing for cans and jars, I'm trying to strap a screaming, fighting and squirming Kate into the cart.  I'm not sure what the reaction to the people around me was, but I'm sure it was either - "poor mom, she looks like she could use some help" or "what kind of mother lets her toddler run free in a grocery store?" or maybe "what kind of mother takes two toddlers grocery shopping at 4:30 PM?".  Maybe this is just what I was thinking to myself.  

I did finally manage to get Kate strapped into the cart, wrangled Maya into the backpack and continued on shopping. Kate was even somewhat happy because I let her chose the produce and put it in the bags.  She likes to be helpful, after all.  Unfortunately, she had an even bigger meltdown in the checkout line - which ended in a full on kicking and screaming tantrum while the checker, bagger, people in line and other passer byers were trying to placate her.  "Want a sticker?  Want to play with the pen? Want to smack your mom in the face?"  Needless to say none of this worked and just made things worse.  I ended up walking out of the store with her in my arms screaming at the top of her lungs and kicking and hitting everything she could reach and every eye within screaming distance on us.  Maya, in the meantime, seemed to feel a little sorry for me and was patting me on the head and giving me hugs from the backpack.  

The Good -  Sitting on a bench

After yesterday's grocery store debacle, I decided we all needed some calm, quiet time together.  I think part of the tantrum was because we've been running around like crazy for the past few days and Kate was just tired, cranky and desperately in need of some down time.  So, this morning we just hung out at home and then went on a quiet walk to the neighborhood store.  We live in a kind of remote suburb that requires a minimum 12 minute drive to civilization.  However (thank goodness) we have a lively neighborhood store within walking distance that sells all sorts of things - like diapers, milk, cold sodas and beer, snacks, ice cream, etc. 

Anyways, we walked over to the store, I bought a bag of goldfish, a cold diet coke and then we sat on the bench in front of the store and ate our snacks and watched the people and cars go by.  The girls actually sat calmly and ate their goldfish for 20 minutes.  Kate was in heaven as she was sitting in the middle between Maya and me and had control over the bag of goldfish.  She spent the whole time handing out goldfish to Maya, to me and to Rosie and then to herself.  I love times like these - when everyone is relaxed, calm, and happy.  Alas,all good things must come to an end, and Kate was very unhappy when Maya decided it was time to go and started running away at full speed.  Kate kept trying to herd us all back to the bench so she could continue to feed us and keep her special time going.  

The Pretty Darn Cute - Josh and Maya enjoying the 4th of July parade.  (Yes, those skies are really that blue - I love summers in the mountains.)  

Some random cuteness

I've decided that it's finally time for the girls (especially Kate) to face their fears and start vacuuming the house again.  They've been terrified of the vacuum cleaner for about a year.  While it's nice to have an excuse for our dirty floors, I am getting a little tired of having to pay a babysitter so I can vacuum the house.  True to form, Kate freaked out when she saw the vacuum cleaner yesterday and started crying and yelling "no! no! no!".  The cuteness started when Maya walked over to Kate, gave her a hug, a pat on the back and then sat down next to her and played with her while I vacuumed.  This calmed Kate down and she stopped crying and seemed reasonably happy during the whole vacuuming process.  She even went over to the vacuum cleaner afterwards and touched it - something she's been too scared to do before.  It was so cute and heartwarming - I think the girls are finally discovering that beautiful human characteristic - empathy.  Here's to hoping they discover that their mama deserves a little empathy once in a while, too - maybe that will stop Kate from screaming "MAMAMAMAMAMA" for as long as it takes me to cook dinner.  

Oh - another cool and excited thing happened today.  After lunch Kate was driving me crazy trying to climb up onto the kitchen table via Maya's chair - while Maya was still in it trying to enjoy her strawberries.  I yelled at Kate to stop it and she looked at me and then actually stopped!  Wow - normally she'd look at me, laugh and then keep doing whatever she was doing.  Don't get me wrong, I don't expect her to suddenly be a little, non climbing angel (that'd be boring anyways), but it is nice for her to listen to me once in a while.  

It's good to have an older (2nd) cousin to hold your hand...

Potty Humor

Josh and I were feeling a little depressed and irritable this evening after picking up our 11 year old dog from the doggie hospital where she was being treated for a really bad stomach flu (I didn't even know dogs could get the stomach flu...).  The vet had assured me when I dropped her off a few days earlier that the treatment would cost about $500 which seemed like a lot to pay for an old dog, but not totally unreasonable. Well, the bill when I picked her up was for $1,000 - twice what we were  expecting.  $1,000 for a case of dog diarrhea - ugh - the thought of it upsets my own stomach.

Anyways, we had just picked up the dog, paid the huge bill and I was getting the girls dressed after their baths.  I was putting lotion on Kate and getting her diaper on when Josh walked in and sat down next to us.   I noticed a naked Maya streaking by in the hallway and mentioned to Josh that Maya still didn't have a diaper on.  Not 15 seconds later I heard Maya exclaim "I poo-ed!".  I was about to ask Josh "did she just say 'I poo-ed'?" when Maya came running in and again said "I poo-ed" and then held out her hand to proudly show us her "accomplishment".  This just sent Josh and I over the edge and - after we disposed of the evidence and did a thorough hand washing - we just collapsed in laughter.  Maya was just so proud of herself and it was so startling to see our sweet little girl holding a load of poop in her little fist.  Ah, parenthood...

If at first you don't succeed

Kate is kind of at an interesting developmental stage right now in that she is pretty obsessed with figuring things out on her own and will spend 30-45 minutes doing something like trying to thread the velcro strap through an opening on her shoe or pulling on a pair of shorts.  It's interesting to me because normally Kate is a non-stop walking tornado of activity, so it's refreshing to see her sit down and focus on something so intently for such a long time.  Once she succeeds at whatever she's practicing, she'll undo it and try it again.  Maya will focus on books, toys and such but doesn't have such an intense desire to do things on her own and she's perfectly happy still letting me dress her, put her shoes on her, etc.

Maya painting.  I think she got more paint on her face and hands than on the paper...

Every time I bring the camera out now, Kate puts on a cheesy smile.

Kate is trying to figure out how to open the paint container.

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