Watch My Show

We have a new phenomenon in our house - putting on shows. I don't know how or why it started, but in the last month, I've been hearing, "Hey Mom, watch my show!" a lot.

I had the video camera handy when the first show aired. Emily was in a dancing mood. Maybe it was the music, maybe it was the swimsuit, but she felt like putting on a SHOW.

"Hey Mom, watch my show!" The arm moves, the hip wiggling, the serious "I'm so cool" face...it all made for fantastic fun. I asked her to do it again for the camera, and she happily complied. Addie got in on it too, and their cool moves had tears coming out of my eyes as I tried to suppress the giggles.

April Randoms

We had lots of fun in April....

Broccoli Beard...Don't you wish YOU had one?

Wrestling with Dad

Indoor Picnic

Washing Dishes

Bedtime Snuggles

Baby in a Bag

Please, come to Addie's store. I think I've bought everything in it. She needs new customers.

I planted a bulb garden out front. Sometimes I force my children to stare at my work.

Naked shopper! Aisle 2!

Beauty Salon...a current favorite. Don't worry, the scissors are for playdough.

My Dishwasher Unloader

Kitchen Mischief

January Favorites

We had quite a few snowy days in January. One warm snowy weekend day, Chris took the girls out to build a snow fort. Addie didn't stay out for long, but enjoyed watching Emily and Dad through the window.

Elizabeth has been watching her sisters play ever since she was born. Now that she's on the move, she is able to get in on their play more and more. It's always fun to watch all three of them playing together.

Being on the move, one of Elizabeth's favorite family room obstacle courses goes under the table and through the woods.

Addie's a big helper around the house, and in January, she became obsessed with "fixing" the chairs after every meal. She would gather her "tools" - a rag, a fork, and a spoon - and work hard fixing all the screws.

Found a piece of food in this one

Proud Helper

This was quite a sweet moment. It had snowed and I put Elizabeth next to the window to look out at the white landscape. Emily and Addison both got so excited to tell Elizabeth all about the snow. They got down on either side of her and told her all about it.

Peek! Love this girl's little tongue. She's showing it off a lot these days.

Emily found that she was able to shimmy herself into Elizabeth's snowsuit and enjoyed sliding around the floor pretending to be a baby.

We got a mini trampoline from the neighbors a few months ago, and the girls have taught themselves to flip over the bar. It's been a great source of indoor exercise on all these cold winter days.

Tunnel play with Dad!

Believe it or not, the girls were almost three years old before they got to experience the messy fun of finger painting.

One of Addie's favorite things to do is play with her box of dress up dolls and My Little Ponies. She likes to line up the dress up dolls after getting them all dressed and ready to go, and then plays pretend with them. Sometimes they're going to a party, sometimes to school. It's pretty cute when it's school, because then Addie's the teacher and she'll read them a book.

I just love the smiles on these gals!

And we'll end with Emily, showing me her injured finger. Ouch!

November Fun

November was a busy, fun month for us. Here are a few of the fun things we did...

Painting! Many works of art were created during this painting session.

MumMums! Last month, Elizabeth was still content to munch on a MumMum for a snack. Now that she's tasted more solid foods, MumMums are a bit bland for her taste.

Riding Bikes! These bikes have been sitting in our garage for over a year. They were a hand-me-down gift from another twin family. Lately, Addie has been really into watching big kids ride bikes, and when she noticed that there were bikes in our garage, she started requesting a ride daily. Finally one weekend, we took the bikes down and rode around the back yard. Addie and Emily were so incredibly excited to ride their bikes. 

 

Elizabeth had a great time watching her sisters ride.

Addison is a bottomless pit these days, constantly asking for food. She'll come into the kitchen shouting, "EAT!" and when I tell her it isn't time for breakfast/lunch/dinner yet, she'll start jiggling the handle on the pantry saying "SNACK!" Within the last couple months, she learned to open the door to the pantry, and would go in and root around the bottom two shelves. I rearranged the food so that the bars and snacks were up a bit higher because she was getting in the habit of helping herself to a granola bar, either biting through the wrapper and spreading bar crumbs all over the kitchen or running up to me with a bar in her hand shouting, "BAR!" After Halloween, I bought myself some candy corn and had it stashed on the very top shelf, sure that it would be safe there. I was wrong...

Three girls in the tub!

We had some great warm weather in November, and started going on daily walks around the neighborhood. Elizabeth is big enough to ride in an umbrella stroller now, and when the girls saw that I was bringing their baby sister in an umbrella stroller, they decided they needed to start walking with strollers too. We had a little stroller walk scheduled into our daily routine for awhile there.

 

We made "Bottle Babies" from The Out of Sync Child Has Fun, a book Addie's speech therapist recommended for us.  The girls got to choose what color their bottle baby would be (naturally, Addie chose blue and Emily chose pink) and then they got to put googly eyes, sequins, seashells, buttons, and glitter in their bottles. I topped them off with a little mineral oil and sealed the tops shut with plumbers tape. They've had a good time carrying their babies around the house, pushing them in their baby strollers and grocery cart, and Elizabeth has had a fun time crawling to the bottles and rolling them while she studies the contents.

 

Really, what month would be complete without some good dress-up play?

Elizabeth got ahold of my sunglasses, and Addie showed her how to put them on.

And then showed Elizabeth what they look like on her. 

We had a picnic in the backyard.

We spent some time at EB Rains with Bree, Enslea, and Judah.

We spent some time up in Fort Collins with the Rices. Wendy and I got some amazing coffee at the Little Bird Bakeshop, and then all of us girls had did some great Old Town shopping while Dale was at school.

We had a visit from Jennica, Kaia, and Teeny Baby Boy Emmons ;)

Kaia's getting ready to be a big sister!

We spent lots of time with DeeDee, our number one all time favorite babysitter! Thanks for all the time you devote to this family, DeeDee!!

Elizabeth started standing to play. She still needs to be propped up (doesn't pull herself up yet) but she really enjoys being on her feet.

We had a little apple-themed fun. We cut a couple old mushy apples up, did some apple stamping, and then made applesauce!

 

Back in October, our favorite big kid neighbor, Berlin, who has given us some great hand-me-downs, gave us a Sesame Street nightgown. Addie immediately laid claim to the nightgown, and she wears it almost every night, unless it is in the wash, in which case she usually cries.

Elizabeth doesn't take a bottle often, but she surprised us in November with the skill of holding the bottle all on her own.

We had a bit of snow in November, and the girls loved getting all bundled up to go outside. The first day it snowed, Berlin came down to borrow a couple eggs, and she brought with her a pair of boots (to trade). The boots are three sizes too big for Addie, but she loves clomping around in them. I had found one pair of snowboots at a consignment sale a few months ago (Emily is very happy with these boots as they are PINK), and had been waiting to buy a second pair. I'm glad I waited, because when we get something from Berlin, there's no stopping Addie from wearing it.

 Elizabeth did not enjoy purees for long, and started eating lots of finger foods last month. She also learned the art of smearing food in her hair during meals.

Emily came down one morning with what I thought was blueberries smeared all over her face. As she came closer, I realized it had actually been a nighttime bloody nose, and I asked her to pose with the finger culprit.

The girls have been picking out their own clothes almost every day lately. Addie started picking her clothes all on her own, and always looks for something with blue. The best days are right after laundry has been done and there's a blue shirt to match with blue pants. She'll usually hunt through the sock drawer to find blue socks, too. One day she actually picked out blue undies too, so she was very literally blue from head to toe. Emily isn't as insistent on picking out her own clothes, but if she's in the mood to, she'll pick something completely pink. We own more pink than blue, so Emily is able to be pink head to toe even when we're getting close to the end of the laundry cycle. This picture was taken mid-laundry cycle, so Em had plenty of pink but Addie had to settle for her ballerina shirt (which she loves even though it's lacking blue), with her blue and purple striped pants.