We Love Our Airplane!!!

Mommy and daddy surprised the girls today with a handcrafted wooden rocking airplane!! We are more than happy with how it turned out and the girls were absolutely thrilled with it!! The father-in-law of a friend of mine makes them as well as beautiful wooden horses. He has made lots of horses for lots of kiddos, but ours is his very first airplane and I am amazed at the quality and know it will be a favorite of the girls for years to come!!

If anyone is interested in more information on the horse or the airplane, I will include the website link (they do not know I am doing this ... but the product is definitely worth passing along to friends):

http://www.eckmandesign.com/handmade-wooden-rocking-horses/

Love & Hugs -

Amy

Happy 29th & Happy 1st Birthdays

Last Thursday, the 24th, we all headed over to Tammy's house to help her celebrate her 29th birthday (umm, yeah we graduated together ... in 1987 ... you do the math). The kiddos got treated to chicken fries and tater tots and topped it all off with some yummy chocolate peanut butter ice cream cake from Cold Stone. They had a great time playing with Christian and all his toys, which gave us a nice opportunity to enjoy our Vietnamese food at the adult table. We all had a GREAT time and left with very fully tummys!!

Then, on Sunday, the 27th, we headed up to Maple Grove to help celebrate Sophia's 1st birthday. We had fun celebrating "Elmo Style" and were heaven again being able to play with another child's toys. After the party, we headed back South for a visit with Grandma and Grandpa B before collapsing in a pile in our beds for the night!!

Birthdays are fun but a lot of work to attend ... but we are looking forward to celebrating daddy's big day next week on Cinco De Mayo!!

Happy Birthday Tammy & Sophia!!

Love & Hugs -

Amy

Toddlers + Water = Fun!!

After the girls' nap today, daddy surprised them with a Step2 Water & Wheel Table. The girls spent the afternoon having a great time playing with it and their sandbox, until the cold front and the rain hit us ... I know, baby steps to spring ... but we are still getting there!

Spring Fling

Our local ECFE (Early Childhood & Family Education) hosted its annual "Spring Fling" tonight after a dinner of pasta and fruit at home, mommy and the girls headed out to enjoy the fun with Tammy and Christian. We found an empty gym and let the kids run around in there for a few minutes and then headed over to the other gym where the DJ was playing. It was a free for all with kids running and dancing everywhere you looked. The kids had a great time running around and dancing. They even did the hokey pokey and the chicken dance!!

Here is Madison running to mommy:

Here is Alyssa busting some major dance moves and shaking her caboose!!


After running and dancing off some serious toddler energy, we headed to the lunch room for a sundae with sprinkles, which everyone, including mommy enjoyed!

What a fun way to help welcome spring ... even if it was a cold and rainy day ...

Love & Hugs -
Amy

Toddler Bed Update

Nap #3 (Tuesday) was a 40 min fight and then two sleepers. Night #4 (Tuesday) was perfect. Nap #4 (Wednesday - pending) ... I am hoping for less then 30 minutes of resistance ... maybe??!! All in all though, they are doing extremely well.

Their cribs have both been sold now and oddly enough, I do not feel that "sick to the stomach" feeling that a lot of moms do as their baby's (babies') stuff is given away or taken out of the house. I still think that I suffer from the lack of sleep and all the stress of those first 6-8 months, other people's babies crying do, however, give me that sick to my stomach feeling ... like Noooooooooooooooo, I need to sleep, even 2 years after the fact. I know I loved my girls as babies, I just honestly do not remember the majority of it and that is likely why I am so okay with their stuff leaving. I am, however, extremely proud of their recent progresses and my heart swells when I look at their beautiful little faces ... I guess the blurriness of the early days is a side effect of being a multiples mommy ... at least I am assuming so as I do not have experience with a singleton.

At any rate, back on the subject at hand, the toddler beds are going better than I expected them to. Maybe my eternal skepticism and terror at these developmental milestones actually helps to realize ... hey, it is not so bad after all ...

Love & Hugs -
Amy

Big Girl Beds!!

Well, my babies are officially "little girls" ... when did all of this exactly happen? They are potty trained days and naps and actually haven't had a wet diaper at night for over a month now so are likely ready to go diaper-less at night time as well AND now they are in toddler beds.

Night #1 (Saturday) was smooth sailing ... so much so that it worried mommy. Nap #1 (Sunday)was a disaster. After 55 minutes of messing around and mommy getting angry, Alyssa finally went to sleep but Madison remained awake for two hours in the room. Night #2 (Sunday), went smoothly ... Nap #2 (Monday) is pending and I am hoping will go better than yesterday. Miss Madison and I have talked, and talked, and talked, but she definitely has a mind of her own so I am not sure that she accepts my theories on the benefits of napping yet.

The girls both selected "The Backyardigans" as their big girl bedding of choice and they seem pretty pleased with their new "Pablo Bed" and "Moose Bed" as they refer to them. Keep your fingers crossed for mommy that we actually get to have a nap today ... trust me ... they NEED them and more so, MOMMY needs them ...

Love & Hugs -

Amy

What would you do?

Okay, you are sitting in a line of cars waiting to "free cycle" your old printers and PC equipment. You have been in this line for 45 minutes and you have at least another 30 minutes to go yet. It is sleeting out and you are snaking your way in s-curves through a large and very open parking lot waiting your turn to off-load your e-waste in an environmentally friendly way ... all is going well until a little voice from the backseat announces ... "poop mama", "poop, poop, poop" ...

Do you:

A) Leave the line and find your child a nice bathroom to use and try to e-cycle again next year.

B) Leave child #2 and daddy in the car while you and child #1 hike across the icy parking lot to a port-a-potty (about a 20 minute walk with a toddler).

C) Tell them to hold it and hope they were kidding.

D) Pull out the handy-dandy Fisher Price "Potty on the Go" and set up camp in between the car seats in the back seat.

Obviously, we chose "D", otherwise this story wouldn't be bloggable (is that even a word???). Yes, mommy wedged the fold able potty chair with the plastic baggie wedged between the base and the snap on seat cover between the two car sets (barely fit), stripped Miss Madison down from the waist and hiked her up on the chair. Daddy helped by rolling down the window as our little car quickly began to smell like what I imagine the Port-A-Potty likely did.

Before Miss Madison was finished Miss Alyssa announced that she too would like to use the car potty ... wonderful ...

Two girls done, back in the car seats, one bag of waste tied shut and one fold able potty chair returned to it handy carrying case and we were still 20 minutes away from the end of our line ... but we got the job done and are e-waste is now on its way to becoming something else, useful, rather than landfill ...

Thank you Fisher Price and daddy for handling window duty ...

Love & Hugs -

Amy

Fun Times ... Our Weekend Wrap Up

50+ degrees F in Minnesota brings out the kids in people. Mommy and daddy headed out for a dinner on the town (literally as the entire $110 meal ticket was taken care by the restaurant but that is another story) on Friday night to celebrate a week or so late our 7th anniversary and to celebrate daddy passing the first two tests for his new airplane. The girls got to stay at Christian's house for a few hours of fun with Tammy, Chris and Christian (thanks again so much guys)!! Obviously things went well there as mommy and daddy barely got a hello from the girls when we returned to pick them up and they both wanted to stay longer.

Saturday morning mommy and the girls then met Tammy and Christian at the Minnesota Zoo to visit the Baby Farm Animals. We attended a dolphin training session, had a nice walk through the zoo the barnyard and got to pet a baby bunny, lamb and chick. Maddie even got kissed by a baby goat ... which she absolutely loved!! The morning got kind of long for the girls so we left Tammy and Christian behind to finish checking out the sharks and we headed to the car to get some lunch and head for home.

Sunday mommy and the girls went to visit Granny M after their naps and enjoyed a nice visit with her and cousin Alexia.

We have been really busy with daddy in training, mommy trying to her her work hours around every one's schedules and trying to get the basement finished for our final inspection in the next few weeks.

Hopefully I can find more time to better update this blog ... sorry for the absence!!

Love & Hugs -
Amy

"Balls" or "Circles"

Two fairly innocent words typically, unless you are speaking of a males privates or a tired mommy's eyes ...

or ...

if you are Miss Madison and you have discovered mommy's breasts ... yes, apparently to her 2 1/2 year old eyes, they are indeed balls and, yes, even circles ... and apparently somebody other than daddy thinks they are fun to touch.

I guess it is better than having her refer to them as ovals or broken balls ... right??!!

Love & Hugs -
Amy

Here Comes The Sun ... Do De Do Do ...

All we can say is 55 degrees F baby!!! After a long winter with lots of snow, 55 is like 85 in June around here!! The girls were more than happy to head outdoors to run some much needed laps around our trees and blow some much anticipated bubbles from their new Dora and Pablo bubble sets.

We also had some fun drawing all over daddy's driveway (he love it when we do this ... hee, hee). Today's theme was "The Backyardigans" and Miss Madison decided to lay down next to her favorite "Moose" aka Tyrone:

The weather is supposed to near 60 this weekend and mommy and the girls are planning on meeting up with Tammy and Christian to check out the "Baby Farm Animals" at the Minnesota Zoo Saturday morning ... should be lots of fun!!!

Love, Hugs & Sunshine -

Amy

Our Big Day at the Library!!

Today we decided to venture out of the house and through the latest fresh coating of snow (yes, on April 1st ... not a joke ... at least we here in Minnesota are not laughing). Our destination today was our very first "Story Time" at our local library. The theme today was "Under the Sea" and the girls really enjoyed visiting a new location and getting to explore the library. We listened to three books about fish and sang a couple of fishy songs as well!

While we were there, the girls and mommy filled out some paperwork and after we were done, we each received our very own LIBRARY CARD!!

Alyssa picked out the book "The Grouchy Ladybug" by Eric Carle and the DVD "The Tigger Movie". Madison selected the book "The Very Busy Spider" by Eric Carle and the DVD "Pooh's Heffelump Movie". Both girls stood in line with their book, DVD and library card and successfully checked out their first items from the library.

I think back to the many hours I spent as a kid at the local library and I hope that our girls are able to even spend even half that amount of time enjoying books at their local library ... what a big day for a couple of "big girls"!!

Love & Hugs -
Amy