We've Been Booed!

On Sunday we returned from church to find a plastic pumpkin on our doorstep full of all kinds of goodies. We had been Booed! While it contained all kinds of yummy goodies, the twins couldn't have most of it (partly because of allergies, partly because I don't like them to eat a lot of - or any - candy, mostly because it was full of daddy's favorites and he didn't want to share!), it also had this fun, decorative trim inside. As you can see, this provided endless entertainment and took on various forms!

Then we had 24 hours to secretly Boo a few neighbors! So much fun!


Head on over to beenbooed.com to see how you can start some similar fun in your neighborhood. Feel like it's too late? No worries, wait until December and give someone a jingle instead!

Pumpkins!

I feel like I go a little hot and cold with the blog - a week or two of nothing and then a bunch in a row. With apologies for the droughts, I also want to warn you to prepare for the next "bunch" :)

Those who have followed the blog for a while (i.e. since last year...) know that I LOVE fall and I LOVE pumpkins :) Failure to bring home pumpkins to carve/decorate is practically sacriligious (fall is almost a religious holiday for me. The sight of God's creation arrayed in vibrant colors inspires joy and praise in me like no other season). While this year's attempt was slightly less meager than last year's, until the twins are old enough to really appreciate the fun, I'm not willing to pay that much for a pumpkin picking experience at a farm. So, we found a local farmer selling their pumpkins with the honor system by the side of the road ($.50 per small pumpkin!!). Good enough for me! Unlike last year, when Allie screamed and Ryan sat contendedly in the pumpkins, this year Ryan screamed and wouldn't go near them (more the pain of his molars coming in than fear of the pumpkins), while Allie hugged each pumpkin, carefully chose her favorite, and then found a seat in their midst and refused to budge :)

No one here but us pumpkins!

The pumpkins needed to be decorated (of course!), and again I thought they were a little too young to appreciate carving (plus we were too cheap to get the $2 big ones!), so I decided we would paint again! Last year I painted their pumpkins. This year I decided to let them!

Ryan immediately got into the gooey paint.

Allie was a little more dainty.

Note the difference in mess on their respective sides...

Ryan eventually decided that it would be best to just roll the pumpkins in the paint!

Allie thought the paint would look pretty on the floor!

I thought it would be a good idea to use homemade fingerpaint for the pumpkins (because the twins inevitably taste the paint), but it turns out that the flour based fingerpaint, while gorgeous on paper, fades dramatically on a pumpkin and also refuses to stick. So we have drab, flaking pumpkins. Which is ok, because then I'll get another art session out of the pumpkins when we try again with the other paint!

The Trip that Almost Didn't Happen

We were planning a trip to spend an early weekend with Uncle Grant and Lala. We were supposed to leave Thursday morning. 8 hours before we were supposed to leave Ryan woke up vomiting - and it didn't stop before it was time to leave. So we called and cancelled. But by the afternoon Ryan had been vomit free since right after breakfast. When I worked at the nursing home, the policy was vomit-free for 24 hours and you were no longer contagious, so we called and said that if no one threw up before the next morning, we'd come for a shorter visit. The twins had one of the best nights of the recent past, and we left the next morning!

One of the biggest highlights of Uncle Grant & Aunt Lala's house is their dog Indy - a Great Dane! The twins had never before met a dog who had to stoop just to be at eye level, and they were thrilled! They loved being so close to such a big dog!

Feeding Indy their graham crackers - these pictures do not do a great job of showing her size...

Another highlight of the trip was going to the Columbus Zoo for "Boo at the Zoo." Not only were we going to see another great zoo, but it was going to be an extra opportunity for the twins to wear their costumes!

Brief tangent to talk about the costumes: I have always wanted to be one of those moms who makes their kids' costumes. I've never been especially crafty or even been able to sew, but I've wanted to have those abilities. Last year it just wasn't feasible, but this year I was determined. I decided they would be Pebbles and Bam bam (because Allie frequently rocks the 1 center ponytail look). My first challenge was figuring out how to make Pebbles and Bam Bam outfits that fit our October climate. So I decided to go with Pebbles and Bam Bam meet the Ice Age :) I sewed the pants and vests (without patterns and using my sewing machine for the first time!), made bones out of clay, glue gunned everything that needed it, even made a little hat for Ryan (that he refused to wear). Previously I would have said that their Christmas pjs were my favorite things I had ever made, but now it is most definitely these costumes! The bonus? The total cost for these costumes was less than $10 for BOTH!!! Ok, that is the end of my brief bragging tangent :)
The best pictures I could get of them together...not sure why they both have 1 leg up...

The zoo was PACKED, but we didn't wait in line long before we were in and having fun! The Columbus Zoo is a really great zoo with some fun, interactive places like the hands-on tide pool where they were able to touch some cool creatures.

The play area was a big hit, and we ended up spending a lot of time there. My favorite part was when the twins got some of the shy-er kids to go down the slide by clapping and getting everyone else to clap for them. It made me happy to see them enthusiastically encouraging others (granted, that was after they pushed them out of the way when said shy kids blocked the slide for too long...always something to work on...)

Ry-guy celebrates another successful slide :)

Another fun stop was the toddler straw maze. Ryan and Allie went through the maze with Uncle Grant and Lala.

Ryan dragging Uncle Grant through.

Allie took forever because she kept wanting to stop and touch the straw.

After the maze they took some time to play in the straw...

Ryan decided to continue throwing handfuls of straw in the air...

While Allie enjoyed Uncle Grant throwing her up so high!

Uncles are awesome.

Of all the animals we saw, the highlight happened to be our last stop: the Polar Bears. They were exceptionally active and the 2 sisters were playing with and fighting over a ball. We got to see each of them jump in the water...

it may not be obvious but this bear is mid-air!

...and they both played in the water right in front of the twins - even bouncing the ball against the window near them! They ran and jumped and stole the ball from each other. It was a blast, and a great way to end the day!

We are so glad we were still able to go and spend some time with Grant & Lala! We had so much fun! Thank you so much!

All Boy

Conversely, Ryan has, since birth, been all boy. He was born with a bottomless stomach (a trait that I hear tends to be very prevalent among the male population).

While his sister loves accessories, his favorite toy and first word (other than "mama" & "dada") is a ball. Any ball. He loves to throw balls and kick balls and is working on catching balls. He distinguishes between a football ("fball"), baseball ("b-ball"), and our myriad of beach balls (simply "ball").

While his sister loves to dance and twirl, he loves to jump, tackle, and climb. This isn't to say he doesn't enjoy dancing, he does, but his sister could dance all day, and he'd rather spend some of that time jumping on her. Occasionally she likes being tackled and tickled (as he says, "ticka-ticka!"), usually she is upset that he interrupted her dancing. This tends to be why Ryan loves the penguin (who lets him jump on him all he wasts), and why I love our friends who have children who are just enough older than Ryan to know to be careful so he doesn't get hurt, but young enough that even if something happened accidentally, they aren't strong enough to hurt him badly! It is the time he spends with these friends (especially B, who is his favorite "older" guy to hang out with), that helps him get out all of that pent up need to wrestle that is apparently innate...

We play "Ring Around the Rosey" and Allie never stops twirling, while Ryan only wants to fall down...over and over and over. In fact, he loves anything that falls down, and frequently throws things (his bowl when he's finished eating, his stuffed animals, and once mommy's computer) just to see the delightful crash...

Ryan's favorite noises to make our low and grunty. He is constantly growling, grunting, or doing this low, throaty laugh that (in all honesty) sounds like the laugh of an evil villain. Granted, he doesn't know that as he has never heard an "evil villain" laugh. He just likes it because it sounds funny!

The biggest thing that completely shocks me, though, is his sense of humor. I know people often use the term "guy" humor, but I thought it was sort of peer driven. Guys get to a certain age and suddenly find potty jokes funny. But Ryan thinks that burps and toots are the funniest thing (and I swear Lucas and I have never laughed at them), and will try to recreate the sound to keep laughing. All someone has to do is look at him and say "poo-poo. pee-pee" and he will fall over laughing. At first I thought it was the face or the funny voice Lucas made, but he tried it with other words and they didn't work! I'm so shocked by the innate attraction to such low comedy, but Lucas reassures me that it's perfectly normal. He is just All Boy!

All Girl

When the twins were in the NICU I made the comment one day that Allie was surprisingly "girlish." I had just assumed that all babies came out characteristically the same and then sort of evolve into being "boyish" or "girlish" as they get older, but every noise she made was soft and sweet while Ryan made lots of loud grunts. She loved to throw her hand up against her forehead like a damsel in distress and purse her little lips. There were so many, some indescribable, attributes that were so incredibly "girlish" - especially compared to Ryan's similar "boyish" characteristics - that I was dumbfounded. The nurse just commented to me "You would be surprised how much of that is innate." She was right.

Friends, I am not the girliest girl. My clothes are not what anyone could consider fashionable. In fact I often stick to neutrals (a.k.a. black & khaki) with a few pops of color so I don't have to worry about matching. I don't often wear accessories (I LIKE them, I just don't often have time for them), or makeup, or do my hair. I don't necessarily like shopping. I can't figure out what I would possibly do with more than 1 or 2 handbags (and have 6 or so in my closet that I try to remember to rotate through, but often forget). I do love shoes, but have never had the money to spend and so generally avoid their siren call. And this is how I can attest to the fact that my daughter has not had a particularly fashionable or accessory laden example to emulate.

This said, my daughter has an intense love of all things accessory. The first thing she does in the morning is find shoes to wear (usually her rain boots or her new boot-like slippers since her few other pairs are kept in the mudroom). She is convinced that just about everything can be turned into a hat, and (in fact) her very first sentence was "isa hat!" Mixing bowls, building blocks, felt shapes, and even her almost empty oatmeal bowl all become hats on a daily basis. And bracelets are the new thing. The links that were once purely practical, and primarily used for me to attach toys, snack traps, or sippy cups to the stroller are now purely ornamental as they make perfect bracelets. Daily she brings me headbands and bows to put in her hair. She will choose shoes over toys in a heartbeat, carrying them around and hugging them. Necklaces, scarves, even stickers ornament my daughter daily.

"But," as the Cat in the Hat would say "That is not all, oh, no! That is not all..." She loves to dance

and twirl - often on dainty tiptoes. She loves to sing in a soft, high voice. Her sounds of excitement are squeals and trills. She is drawn to all things sparkly, and the other day she got so excited when she saw a picture of Tinkerbell and some other fairies (although, as far as I know, she had never seen a picture of Tinkerbell, or any fairy, before). I certainly wasn't keeping her from these things, I just didn't think she would have an interest quite yet, but now I'm wondering if I should be suggesting princess dresses and play jewelry for her for Christmas... She is, most definitely, ALL girl!

I must confess that her love for accessories has made me want to wear them more often, and she certainly has begun to influence my daily appearance...slightly...and for the better. But, I'm not sure that I will ever be able to keep up with her intense love for accessories. I think we may be calling on auntie Min for backup in the future :)

Silly Mommy!

I've been a mom of twins for a little over year and a half now. And a mom of mobile twins for somewhere around a year of that time. I've had quick, curious toddlers for several months. I'm no rookie. Yet, somehow I made the biggest rookie mistake of them all. The number one rule is that QUIET = TROUBLE, but today I somehow forgot that rule.

I was checking my e-mail. Trying to get out one last reply. I was so focused on quickly typing said e-mail that I didn't notice that ry-guy (who had been playing, with his sister, right in front of me in the living room) had snuck off to their room. I didn't notice him come back. I didn't even notice any lack of sound until there was a cough. I looked up, at the sound of the cough, and saw this:

Since I had been baking bread all day (a total disaster, but that is another story for another time), I thought he had somehow reached the flour. It was as I was getting up to check that I saw this:
and then followed a trail of white powder to their bedroom where I found this:

I frequently use cornstarch in my battles against their diaper rash, and often forget to put the lid on the container (or don't get it on very tightly). I'm still not exactly sure how he managed to reach it, but he knocked it off the dresser, carried it to the living room, and proceeded to dump it on himself, the carpet, and his sister. Thank goodness it won't kill them because they both tried eating it (see the white powder around her mouth?)!

My response? Initially it was sort of a breathless, panicked "No! Oh, no!" But looking at my powdered pair, I knew that it was my fault (THIS is the reason why I try to stay off the computer when they are awake...), and they did look pretty cute. So we laughed!

I wish I could say that I learned my lesson and this will be the last time something like this happens, but I feel fairly positive that my next "silly mommy" moment is probably not far around the corner!

Family Pictures

As I was looking through our family pictures (to get some prints to put on our sad, bare walls) I realized that our last family pictures were taken a year ago...while we were still in MA...when the twins were tiny...it was definitely time for some new family photos! I enlisted a talented friend to take some family pics at a nearby park, but we discovered that it was a LOT easier to get good photos when the twins were immobile...Here are a few of the challenges we faced.

Not great at listening to directions - we often had pictures where the twins were looking in the OPPOSITE direction.

Our family is so cool that we had someone trying to join us (do you see her?).
The apples I brought to keep twin tummies full (and therefore happy) ended up being TOO enticing, and Allie stuffed her mouth full and screamed when we took them away. Resulting in pictures like this.
(note: yes, Ryan is pushing E away from joining another family picture. Poor girl!)
A fun picture in the leaves resulted (multiple times) in one kid trying to run away while the other one screamed (and they took turns).

A cool photo of us walking hand-in-hand down the sidewalk turned into this...

And then when we decided to switch to chasing them down the sidewalk they raced for the football - not on the sidewalk at all...

...and when Allie was the first to the ball, it ended like this!

We finally gave up and let the kids play football...

Did we get some good photos? Yes...hopefully they will be better after some photoshopping (you know, to get 4 smiling faces in 1 picture...). Although, I have to confess that I like some of these better. A perfect picture would be nice for the Christmas card, but these pictures have personality :) Stay tuned for the official family pics...