Best doctor's appointment ever, except for the lollipop situation

The girls had an appointment scheduled last Friday afternoon for a recheck on their ear tubes. It was a quick appointment - Becca and Julie are each working on losing one tube, and Emma still has hers, and all ears looked fine. The girls were ok until the doctor came in, and then no one wanted to go first. They all did fine, though ... until we went to leave and Emma found out that the ENT didn't have lollipops. Can you say meltdown?

We decided to celebrate by going bouncing! The place was nearly empty - so nice! The girls tried out some things that they hadn't been brave enough to try before, and I think they even surprised themselves sometimes. They were struggling with the climbing up a the hills - generally, there are staggered "left" and "right" steps, and I think their legs are still short enough that they try to only use one side... and then the gaps between steps are too big. It's so hard to watch them keep falling down and getting upset.

J sliding

J climbing

Partners in crime

After we burned off some energy, we went to Chick-fil-A for dinner. In this family, you can't go wrong with chicken nuggets and juice boxes. Actually, we had to order a 2nd round of juice boxes. (Hm, maybe Old MacDonald needs some juice boxes on his farm...)

And we finished off the day with frozen yogurt. Mmmm, chocolate. With sprinkles. And a Groupon. Double yum.

Emma, with a oh-so-very-Emma look.

Julie

Oh Becca. Her interesting spoon technique (kind of using it like a lollipop) resulted in quite the mess.

That Old MacDonald was a Strange Fellow.

Bet you didn't know about the following things he had on his farm.

• a squirrel
• a car
• a truck
• a house
• chicken nuggets

And yes, I've been forced to come up with verses for all of these.

Personality and Developmental Notes 6/23/11

The girls had chocolate milk for the first time last week. I offered them hot chocolate back over the winter and they didn't like it, so I had given up on it. But they all chose chocolate milk at dinner, and I think it was Emma who started it, but they call it "ice cream milk," probably because the only ice cream they've ever had is chocolate.

The girls have this comedy routine that they do at bedtime now. After we read our stories, they get up from the couch and run to each others' cribs and say "my crib!" and we have to pretend to put them in the wrong cribs. They actually get fairly upset if we get them all the way in to the crib without "figuring out" who it is.

The word "down" has become southern-ized now, into "day own."

On our way to daycare one morning this week, Julie say the moon up in the sky, and said "silly moon!"

Any little scratch or bump is now a boo-boo, as in "I have a boo-boo, kiss it."

A lot of times, when we're in the car, the girls (usually Julie) will say "Where are you, (wherever we are going)?" and "We're coming, (wherever we're going)!"

The girls have started singing Ring Around the Rosie. Mostly "Ashes, ashes, we all fall down!" They made us do it with them while we were waiting for the gym to start this week.

There are no bunnies anymore. They are ALL "Easter bunnies" now.

The girls are somewhat insistent about who they want (mommy or daddy) in certain situations. Emma and Rebecca usually insist on holding mommy's hand, but when we were walking down to the waterfall, as we got closer, nobody wanted to hold mommy's hand anymore. They were clinging to daddy. And apparently, mommy is no good at putting straws in juice boxes, either.

'Venture, part 2

So, we made it back from our hike to the waterfall and just as we got the blanket laid out for our picnic lunch, the wind picked up and it started raining ... so we moved our picnic to the car. We got back on the road to head home, even though we went home a different way, the roads were just as bad.

Remember when I said they're not good for a weak stomach?

Well, Rebecca had a weak stomach.

And her lunch was all over her, her carseat, and the back seat of the van. Greg and I managed to pull it together and get her cleaned up, and clean up the car as much as possible. Luckily, I had some extra clothes in the car, but they were winter clothes, so yeah, in my later pictures, Becca's dressed in long pants and a long-sleeved shirt. (Julie ended up in long sleeves, too, after getting wet... still not sure if she spilled her apple juice or she soaked through her diaper.) And I'll have to say, I'm impressed - the van does not smell like puke. We initially wiped it out with baby wipes, and once we got home, Greg wiped everything out again with soap and water, and then we left baking soda in the car and the carseat overnight, and just vacuumed it up the next day. I was afraid the car was going to never smell quite the same again, but honestly, I think we got this one beat.

We ended up coming into downtown for dinner. I was a little shocked to realize that the girls have never been downtown in their 2.5 years. They're still a little ... scattered... sometimes, but we managed. And I didn't hyperventilate when we walked over the suspension bridge over the big waterfall downtown, despite the girls trying to stick their feet under the cables.

E, R, J

Look at how much taller Becca is than Julie!

Julie kept following Becca up the bridge and hugging her. So. stinkin. cute.

Craziness.

The exposure's not quite right, but this, for some reason, is one of my favorite pictures of them.

And after all of those horribly twisty roads, which was their favorite waterfall? The one downtown, of course.

We've been having thunderstorms nearly every day lately (hello, summer!), and I was shocked when we got into downtown and it was only like 75 degrees out. It was a little muggy, but it was just a gorgeous night to be out, and to not have to feel terribly guilty about having 2 kids in long sleeves and pants.

After stalling for a bit looking at the waterfall, we went to a bar for dinner. Of course it was early enough that it wasn't really like a bar. The girls each had a big side of sweet potato fries (which was essentially all they ate). It came with a side of ketchup, and Emma kept making faces. I couldn't quite figure out what was going on, since she LOVES ketchup. Julie was going non-stop, though. Greg finally tasted the ketchup, and it was spicy - peppers, or something. Apparently, Julie loves spicy ketchup. Emma and Becca preferred the regular stuff... once mom and dad figured it out...

And in iphone news, LOVE the Camera+ app that I just bought. Much less shutter lag!

A Daddy Day 'Venture

Hope all of you daddies out there had a great daddy day (because 'daddy day' is a lot easier to say than 'father's day. When I tried to get the girls to practice saying "happy father's day" this morning, they looked at me like I was crazy.). Based on the forecast, we celebrated Daddy Day on Saturday, with a surprise adventure.

Based on a recommendation from a coworker, I managed to keep our 'venture secret all week. We packed up early, and headed up to the North Carolina to see some waterfalls.

Our first stop was nourishment (of course. I took a slightly different route through town than I had originally planned - mainly so the girls could see all the balloons at the car dealership, which, honestly, may have been all of the 'venture that they needed. But the point of my story is that we went by Krispy Kreme, and I was reminded that my next 'venture MUST include Krispy Kreme.). We stopped at a bakery at one of our favorite places near where we pick apples.

Lots of chocolate all around.




After that, we headed out some mountain roads... twisty, windy, so curvy back and forth that the GPS shows the road as a straight line... Not good if you don't have the stomach for it. It wasn't too bad for me, since I was driving, but I've had problems on similar roads around here before.

Anyhow, the girls fell asleep in the car, so when we got to the first waterfall, the girls were underwhelmed to say the least. They weren't interested in the water, and weren't interested in having their picture taken. They're actually standing behind the waterfall here - there's a little road that you can drive on to drive "under" the waterfall.


The next waterfall was bigger, and just down the road. First, we just went to the overlook.


We decided to hike down to the waterfall - it wasn't a hard hike at all, just some wet stairs and lots of down ... and then back up. The girls totally rocked the hike, though, and Greg and I were relieved that we didn't have to carry anyone.

On our way down:





You could also walk behind this waterfall - it was a much bigger waterfall, and much louder. We got all the way down, and the girls got scared - not sure if it was just the noise or what, but they had no interest in walking behind it. We coaxed them to the point where they let us carry them a few feet behind it, but that was it.

More on our 'venture later - - I need to get some sleep!

From the gym

Just a few pics from the gym this week. The camera phone has really come in handy lately. Still love my real camera, but the phone is always in my purse.

Julie went straight for this bar - the next step after this position is to actually take their legs up and over the bar and they do a flip. The love it!


Here's Becca after she flipped. :)


Emma hanging out.


J sitting around


J and E

Personality and Developmental Notes 6/16/11

The girls have started putting their stuffed animals and baby dolls in time out. (Can you tell we've been working on discipline issues?) When we ask what the offenders did, it's usually biting or hitting. So I guess that means they know it's wrong?

Emma has also started saying "I bad" or "I not bad" depending on the situation. Which is really funny, because one of the lines from my youngest brothers' childhood that we always quote is "I not bad."

We still have some issues with staying dressed at nap time. One time, Becca told me, "My pants fell off!"

They love to sing ... we here bits and pieces of Happy Birthday, You are My Sunshine ("You.. sunshine, you make me HAPPY, you make me HAPPY, HAPPY, you make me HAPPY), and a song I remember from Girl Scouts - I think it's called Baby Bumble Bee or something. It's about finding, squishing, eating, and puking a baby bumble bee. The only part the girls sing though, is "Won't my mommy be so proud of me?"

There's one stretch of road that we go down between eating dinner and the gym (on gym nights), and the girls always say something about a green monkey. We have no earthly idea what it is they are seeing.

They also issue these edicts in the morning when we're leaving for daycare. "I wanna see fire trucks." "I wanna see cows." Those two are reasonable requests, based on our route. But now they've started saying "I wanna see a gah-bidge truck." And Becca says, "I wanna see yellow car."

I'll have to admit, sometimes going out in public puts me on edge. The girls still get a lot of attention, though not as much as when we were carrying around 3 baby carriers, or 2 strollers. But still... it's unnerving, knowing that people are already looking at us (and not so subtly talking about us). So when the girls start acting up, yelling, making a mess, crying, etc when we're in a restaurant, it's tough to manage. But we've gotten a bunch of really sweet comments on the girls' behavior in public lately, and it almost makes up for the times that I want to crawl under a rock.

Family Breakfast

It's been hot and we haven't felt like doing much. It hasn't helped that, for the last week or so, it clouds up around dinner time, when it finally starts to cool off. It's been thwarting our plans to get out of the house. On Friday, it kept us from "going to see the water." And, on Saturday, we were headed to the park after dinner, and just as we turned down the road that the park is on, we saw lightning. (Luckily, Greg was able to turn around before the girls figured out where we were.)

We had bought a coupon on Living Social recently for a local bagel place that we haven't been to in ages. (And, by bagels, I mean REAL bagels.) So we decided it would be a good chance to get out of the house. The girls loved it, and we had a great time. New places are always a little scary... how kid friendly will they be, how will the girls behave, etc. But this was one of our better ones.

Daddy cutting Becca's bagel in half.


E. She loves this outfit, but it's starting to come apart at the seams.


One of my favorite pictures ever of Miss Julie.


R eating some cream cheese off her fingers.


Emma enjoying her cinnamon raisin.

Story time

We went to story time at Barnes and Noble the other day. The girls didn't quite know what to make of it - there were a lot of kids there, and they all seemed older. I know that the girls do "circle time" and stories at daycare, so I guess they were just out of their element. Anyway, they were really quiet during the stories, which was good, because the other kids kept interrupting, and you could tell the lady reading was getting annoyed.

Becca wandered away at one point and came back with a book. Emma finally managed to wrestle it from her. What's hot in toddler lit these days? Why, horror stories of course.


They also found a Dr. Seuss book to read during story time. This is Julie reading.


A blurry shot of 3 kids running away from me. Just another day.

It's been a pretty quiet week around here. It's been hot, so we've mostly been hiding inside. I'm so thankful when it clouds over in the afternoon because it keeps the upstairs from getting too hot. We've had lots of cloudy afternoons this week, and heard lots of thunder, but we still haven't gotten a drop of rain.

The girls are apparently having "water day" every Tuesday all summer, and the ice cream truck is coming every Friday. Great. And tomorrow is a big Luau, and apparently the two year olds are going to be tie dying.

I really don't know who could think that is a good idea.

We started the summer session on the Little Gym this week, and there were some new kids in the class. It's so strange that now our kids are the "big" kids.

My hives are technically cured, but I'm still really itchy.

Ladybugs

We didn't do much this past weekend. It's gotten so hot that we have gone into hibernation mode. I did take the girls to Costco on Saturday, and then to the grocery store on Sunday again.

Oh, and I got a new app called Pocketbooth for my phone, so pics from the weekend:

Julie in the car

Becca at the store

My co-pilots at the store

We did pull out the sprinkler and water table on Sunday afternoon. At first, we just had a small lawn sprinkler going, but then the girls spotted the "bug" sprinkler. Greg hooked it up, but they still aren't fans... I think it's too unpredictable for them, and you have to have some pretty good water pressure for all of the arms to move around. So we switched back to regular lawn sprinkler, but then Emma wanted to carry the bug sprinkler around. It was like her new best friend. I asked her what her new friend's name was, and she told me "Ladybug!"

Emma and Ladybug


This series just cracks me up... they're completely 100% sequential on my camera.

And the gold medal goes to...

This was the last week of school here, and therefore the last week of our Little Gym "semester." They were supposed to show off their skills, but mainly it was just running around and playing. And then getting to stand up on the medal podium.

Oh, and then cookies.

Typical... my 3 off doing their own thing while everyone else is doing warm ups.

R

The beam routine is *much* easier when you sit down.

J

E tackles the high beam. That's about as far as I let her go without holding on to her.

a Julie roll

Becca doing some cross training, trying to figure out if the ball fits through the hoop.

Popping the bubbles on Julie's head

Miss E. Poor thing needs a haircut.

R during the medal ceremony.

J

E

The closest to a group shot

What is wrong with this picture? Why, that's Emma! And she's eating ... a strawberry! She refuses them at home...