STIR CRAZY...as of Thursday

So we have not left the house since Monday...and we are going crazy. Fortunately we did have fun on our outings Monday. We went to 2 playdates - crazy! Here are pictures from the second one:


Brooke and Ellie (we were at her house) and Kiera and Brooke (with Lorelei and Ellie in the background). Audrey was actually there, but she seemed to miss the pictures!

Since Monday we have been stuck inside. Tuesday it snowed. Wednesday it was going to warm up, and we thought, melt the snow. Instead what actually happened is that it barely warmed up and the snow melted some only to refreeze into ice. Apparently we should have shoveled off our driveway and sidewalk. It is super duper icey today - D fell going to work this morning. Therefore, the girls and I have not attempted it. We are hoping to go somewhere later today (as it is now Friday, I can report that we were able to go to Kohl's and Target in the afternoon.)

So here is a little recap of how we spent our time indoors:

We groomed...

watched some TV...

colored...

practiced with our silverware...

and climbed!

SNOW

So we are finally having our first real snow of the year! I am quite excited by it, but the girls do not seem to be that impressed. Today we were supposed to go have our pictures done (D says that we can't keep up the Halloween pics all year long and Audrey's head is finally looking much better) but we decided that there would be no driving for us today. It has been snowing non stop since 7 am (I was not awake before then so it may have been snowing longer) and it is now 11 am. Since our real photos go canceled, I decided to do a little photo shoot of our own in the snow. We have two snow suits that we have borrowed so neither of them really fit the girls....the shoot was not overly successful...and my jeans and shoes are soaked!

WHAT A WEEK...

Today is Friday and it seems like this has been an incredibly long week.

This week, my van wouldn't crank and Audrey had a fever...wait that sounds like last week!! Apparently we are repeating last week. Though on the upside, the van appears to be fixed...just took 3 trips to the Honda place. No upside to Audrey yet. Poor girl has a major cold with lots of sneezing, coughing, and a gigantic amount of snot. Brooke and I are fortunate to just have a minor cold.

Little Buddies

All of a sudden this week the girls, especially Brooke, started climbing. They now can get on and off several of their little cars/toys. Brooke can climb up and stand on top of her pooh activity table...great! And if I am sitting on the floor by the couch, Brooke uses me as a step to climb up onto the couch. So it seems like we are getting into some very interesting times!

Pretty in Pink

Also this week the girls, especially Audrey, started throwing things....which would be fine if the didn't throw hard things or if they had any aim to their throwing at all. I have been pelted numerous times by the little peek-a-blocks. I may inadvertently be to blame for this throwing. Now when I get them out of their cribs, we make a big show to throw down their pacifiers into the crib (which since they each have one in their mouth and one in each hand actually is a big production by the time 6 are thrown). On the upside, they seem to take this pacifier limitation very well.

Audrey getting a ride from her friend Grayer
(never mind he is 4 months younger!)

So just recently I feel like parenting has gotten more challenging...how do you discipline/teach your child how to be nice and considerate and share and not drop your food or drink from highchair? how do you teach them what is acceptable and what is not? It is so much easier with 9th graders since I know what they understand. Much harder with 14 month olds - especially little Brooke who wants everything Audrey has and will scream mercilessly until she gets it (which usually is soon cause Audrey will just move on to something else...so is Brooke learning that she just has to scream to get her way??) And Audrey has certainly shown that she has a little temper too.

Again in the interest of equal air time to each, here is Audrey on her Rocking Horse:

MORE WALKING...

By request, here is a quick little video of Brooke toddling around. An update on Audrey: she will stand without holding on to anything and she has taken 1 or 2 steps...but those are really just as she is falling toward us. I predict by the end of January she will be in full walk mode.

THIS AND THAT...

So this is just a rambling of things in my brain...

This morning we missed our little music class cause the van would not start!! D is going to come home early and see if we can jump it. Talk about annoying....we were all decked out in our heavy winter gear and strapped in before we tried cranking it.

It is cold here. I realize that we really aren't all that north, but it is cold. The low is supposed to be 6. That is crazy! I don't understand the Canadians...their very most southern parts are way more northern than I can handle.

Audrey got another fever this week. It seems to have broken yesterday afternoon. By last night she was back to all giggles. I think we have been sick since October. We are ready for spring!

We have finally transitioned to NO BOTTLES!! The doctor said that by our 15 mo appointment we needed to be off bottles and using sippy cups. The girls are not drinking as much as with the bottles, but we are off....now what to do with 16 bottles?

The girls are being such good little eaters...though occasionally they protest getting fed as they like to do it themselves. For the most part their dinners are the same as ours - though generally a day later. I just have not figured out how to have dinner ready at 6 pm, so I make it for me and D around 8:30 and then the girls get it the next day. My biggest food surprise was with stir-fry. I made some beef with broccoli and snow peas. I was worried the girls were going to refuse it, but they scarfed it down! Very exciting! They truly are little carnivores as they inhale their meats!

Unfortunately Theodore has made another appearance. This is gross, so readers beware. We keep a bowl of dark chocolate beside the couch. Well last week it was empty so I refilled it and we ate maybe 2 pieces. The next day after lunch, I though I would like a piece of chocolate. What a shock to discover that there were NONE left in the bowl. We found most of the chocolates hidden in our couch (EWWW!). I immediately bought more traps and we put them around the room (using chocolate and peanut butter as bait!) The next morning brought success - 2 little guys were trapped! We think that those were the only invaders as our bait chocolates left out have remained untouched.

NOT THE REASON TO GO TO CHURCH...

I just realized that the girls are 14 months old today! Hooray! So here are even more pictures to commemorate that....they are just really starting to look like little girls rather than babies. It is also amazing how many words they understand. For example, we will forget and say something about a hair bow and both girls will reach up for their hair where we put in the bows (not good if this happens during dinner!). Or we can ask them where their baby doll is, and off they go to get it and hug it!




So D and I have resumed our search for a church up here. This past weekend we went to what I would call a "mega-church" (think 2nd baptist in Houston). We both liked it and it is certainly on the short list of churches that we are actually going to go back to. Success!

Another reason this Sunday was so successful was cause the girls got to wear some of their "dressy" clothes which they just look so cute in! They have these little dress corduroy coats which are just beyond adorable. And they were wearing little jumpers with dots...precious. Therefore, we had a little photo shoot when we got home (which is hardly ever successful anymore) and here are the best:

STAND in the place where you live...

Brooke continues to toddle around. She is quite cute with her walking. She will walk across a room, but if you talk to her while she is doing it, she will plop down and crawl! She is very funny lately because she has transitioned from her toothy, scrunched-up face smile to this sweet little sly smile. And throughout the day she will do something and smile this little "I am so proud of myself" smile and look around to get praise from someone who saw her.

Brooke wearing my puffy vest. (this just cracks me up for some reason)

Brooke's new trick is standing up without using a prop to get up. It is cute to watch cause she pauses for a moment to check her balance, then smiles, and then toddles off. This is a trick that she chose to master while in the bath tub...it is always an adventure at bath time....thank heavens it is winter and we can just do every other day!

Audrey is a speed demon with her crawling and while pushing a walker. As yet she has not transitioned to solo walking, but her new feat is unassisted standing. Much more frequently she will now let go and stand on her own. She also will crawl with her legs straight like a monkey. I think that by the end of January she will be a walker too.

Audrey knocking over the block tower...with quite a bit of glee!

I have several other humorous/disgusting stories, but they will have to wait until tomorrow!

CHRISTMAS PART 5...the last one

D's parents came up to visit us on New Year's Eve so that we could have Christmas with the Haddens. So on New Year's day we pretended it was Christmas day and opened presents in our pj's once again...and by this time the girls were pros, even wanting to help open other people's presents. The girls got several fun toys, including a little rocking horse and a little play kitchen that they love!

On a nice sunny "warm" day we all went to lunch in Old Town Alexandria and walked along the Potomac river. Another fun activity (at least for me and D) was date night! The grandparents babysat and we went to dinner and a movie....such pressure picking a movie cause it may be the only one you see for 6 months so you want it to be good. We saw Frost/Nixon and really enjoyed it...two thumbs up!

Presents are so much fun!!


Giddy-Up!!

Grandma - I think that you got the drinks backwards!


This is us on the "warm" day at the Potomac

CHRISTMAS PART 4 aka Christmas with the Mitchells

So I continue to post about Christmas....

Our final Christmas celebration in MS was with my entire extended family on my dad's side. Our family is rather small, so that totaled 12 adults and 6 kids (all under 7). The day was quite warm, but a good time was had by all. As is our tradition we dined on steak and potatoes and it was scrumptious!

As a funny side note to the end of the MS Christmases, D and I decided that on the way home from the airport we would stop for Mexican food as our meal of the day. So we ordered the girls a cheese quesadilla kids plate. The waiter brought it out on two plates and we decided that we would try using the plates rather than our usual just dump on the table method. So we were very careful the whole dinner to hold on to their plates....just to set the scene, the manager had already been to our table twice due to a small issue with my food and had ended up comping us my entree. Then at the very end, I let go for just a second, and wouldn't you know it, Audrey hoists it into the air and throws it overboard. As the plate shattered to the floor, I thought I guess now is not a good time to ask if we get the ice cream that came with the kids meal.

Here are a few pics of the cousins playing together:


and of course here are the pictures of all the kids - posed for posterity :

CHRISTMAS PART 3

I realize that no one is really interested in my family (other than family) to read multiple posts about Christmas. However, I still have 3 more to do...unfortunately I have zero memory these days so the posts will be shorter and shorter!

Christmas morning...how adorable!!


Getting Christmas dinner ready - with "help" from Will. Great excitement that the turkey was DONE!


Not yet Brooke....Go Audrey!!


We have been working on body parts...they have mastered BELLY!!

CHRISTMAS PART 2

Christmas Eve Day was spent with my dad, his wife Jane, my sister and her family. It was lots of fun to hang out together and open presents. It was extremely warm - which we were not totally prepared for. Audrey was still a bit puny, but she was quite a trooper. They both enjoyed opening presents - but it took them quite a while on each one. Here is a little photo montage of the day: