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

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.

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...

So, things did get better this week. And if cleaning poop off the carpet is "getting better," you can imagine how run down I was by the end of Mother's Day.

Although, really the poop was my fault. They were waiting to get dressed after their bath when someone said "I have poop on my heinie," and I said "no, you don't." And sure enough, 5 seconds later, it was on the floor.

A pretty typical week here. We went to the gym again, and again Becca wanted to be the star. Apparently our teacher resigned, though, so we have a new one. Every week, at the end of class, they get a stamp on their hands, feet, belly, etc. Well, apparently my kids have also started asking for stamps on their backs. Greg and I didn't see the stamp the first time until after we got home. How trashy is it that we both immediately thought it was a baby tramp stamp?


We also bought toddler beds, which (of course) was a saga in itself. We've been planning a trip to IKEA for a while, intending to get toddler beds there, but some that we liked better (and wouldn't require IKEA mattresses and IKEA sheets only) were on sale at Target this week. The 2nd Target that we went to had exactly 3 left. We're not ready to put them together yet, but now we have them for when we are ready. It's coming soon, for sure, but we saved a bit of money by getting them at Target.

The girls are still full-on choo choo train lovers. This is a shopping cart choo choo train.



That's about it from here. Just the usual. And that's a good thing.

Personality and Developmental Notes 5/7/11

When the girls like to play with their cars or their purses, a lot of the time they like to "play" bye-bye. They say "bye bye" and we say, "bye bye! Have fun! Be careful!"

Another ritual at bedtime is to say goodnight to our toys on the way up the stairs.

Which leads to Julie saying "Bye bye toys, have fun" was we are headed for bed the other night.

The girls love trains right now. They like to see them (sometimes on the way home), and they have started playing "choo choo." They build trains with blocks, and they arrange their shopping carts in a line and push them and call it a train.

They are getting pretty good at dressing themselves. Usually they just need some help making sure things aren't backwards.

The girls say "do me's," which means "do mine." Typical usage is in respect to say, pig tails, or playing This Little Piggy.

They also say "he go" for "here you go." As in, "He go, Emma."

No progress on the potty training front, but surprisingly, Rebecca has become very insistent about diaper changes. She is also very specific. Sometimes too specific. Such as when we were at the baseball game last weekend, and in front of my coworkers, she kept telling Greg that she had "poop on my heinie." She has no interest whatsoever in actually using a potty, but I have to think this is a big step.

The girls are developing a sense of direction. They recognize intersections, they know the route to daycare. Even if we approach the main intersection in town from a different road, they start talking about the "fire trucks" since the fire station is half a block away.

And speaking of fire trucks, they love them. Especially Emma. We talk all the way to the fire station about whether the doors to the fire station will be open or not so they can see the truck. Once we pass the fire station, we start talking about whether the cows will be sleeping or not when we pass them.

They are starting to use the word "sisters" and it's just so sweet.

We went to The Little Gym again this week, and Rebecca was a little star. She wanted to be the example for all of the new activities, and at the circle at the end, she didn't see with us - she planted herself in Miss Kelli's lap.

The girls can count to ten now (though I think I've heard up to thirteen, but not reliably). They don't quite understand the concept of counting yet. Julie is close - we had a counting book she wanted to "read" last night, and I asked her to count things. She knew to point at them as she counted, but she kind of lost track of what she had already counted. Also, I've noticed that anything more than one ("how many dogs do you see?") is "two."

And the tattling has started. Emma spilled her milk the other day and said that Becca did it. If Julie accidentally bumps into Becca, Becca will come tell me "Julie hit me."

Julie has started saying "Yes Ma'am!," which is both cute and funny. And causes me to giggle every time she says it to Greg.

Emma is obsessed with "venshure" (adventure). On Friday morning at breakfast, she declared "I need venshure." I told here we didn't have any venshures planned for today, maybe over the weekend. Once we got in the car, she started again. " I wan venshure. I wan go to the beach." After telling her we weren't going to the beach, Julie started chiming in? "Tah git?" No, we're not going to Target either. "Cos co?" No, no Costco today either. My good little consumers.

The Little Gymnasts

I can't believe I hadn't posted these yet. Last week was a bit of a blur with Grandma and Grandpa here. But it also meant we had more hands at the gym... which meant I finally got to take some pictures.

Ok... Becca in blue, Emma in purple, and Julie in pink.

She looks SO big to me here.


If Becca's going to do it, then Emma's going to do it too. These stairs up to the beam are the ones that still scare me.


Parachute fun.



Monkeys. They were loving this bar this week.





Becca on the "risk taking" activity ... stepping down big steps and then tipping over at the end.


Julie thinks about trying the springboard.


Emma and the coveted purple ball. She had Grandma rolling her back and forth in this big circle for quite a while.


More beam for Becca.


She already has her "ta da!" pose down.

Well hello there, spring.

Whew, another weekend gone in a blur.

We did decide to try out the Little Gym for the remainder of this session, and then re-evaluate. The girls were totally at home this past week. They wandered all over and wanted to try out everything... including when they were supposed to be doing other group activities. They were particularly in love with these steps up to the top uneven bar. We're supposed to let them explore and wander but try to encourage them to come back to the group, but we were pretty much chasing them around all night. We had to drag Emma out of there at the end. She wanted to go play on everything again. Glad that it's a new experience for them to be exposed to, and that they seem to be enjoying it.

We've been trying to get to a bigger zoo for the girls to see some different animals, and just go on a family adventure, since Christmas time. We finally got a chance to go on Saturday. It was just a gorgeous day out - perfect to be outside - but a bit windy. The girls got to try out their new hats, but they didn't last all day because they kept blowing off.

I seriously did a double take when I saw this pic... Bec.. but she looks a LOT like Julie here.


"Em, do you climb like a monkey?"


Pretty smiley Becca


Watching the turtles.


Bec and the lion cub


Em riding the lion cub


Em watching the elephants with dad


We brought a picnic lunch, partly because there's a picnic in the ABC book and we've been trying to explain what a picnic ("pick-uh-nit" to Julie) is.

Grandma and Grandpa got here for a visit on Saturday evening, and met us for dinner. The girls are in heaven. I've noticed Emma in particular is kind of putting on a show. :) They took a trip to the playground on Sunday afternoon to enjoy another day of good weather.

Workin' Out

With our recent attraction to tumbling over our chairs (and even more recently over the arms of the couch), I signed us up for a trial class at The Little Gym. We went after dinner the other night. As usual, at first the girls were clingy, but they got over it pretty quickly. Very quickly, in fact.

Becca was the first to volunteer for a forward roll over a "log," and she did great. Once Emma saw that Becca got a round of applause, she suddenly wanted to try it. They loved the free play time, playing with a parachute, playing with balls, trying new things.

The question is whether we can fit it in our budget...