26 months

Natalie's first ice cream cone

Piper's first ice cream cone

The last month has been a busy time full of travel (Minnesota and Nebraska), birthdays, singing and playing.

During spring break we traveled to Minnesota to celebrate Brendan's birthday and Spencer's baptism.  We got to see lots and lots of family there and had a great time playing with so many of our cousins.

Lots of cousins!  Piper, Natalie, Haven, Spencer, Brendan, Ira

The first week of April we got to visit DeAnna Rose Farmstead.  We look forward to going there more this spring, summer and fall.

Piper, Natalie & a buffalo

For Easter, we traveled to Nebraska, saw more family and got to experience Easter egg hunting for the first time.

Decorating eggs

Piper sleeping with Grandpa

Another new experience is Gymboree.  We joined a twins Gymboree class in March and look forward to it every week.  We do lots of crawling, climbing, and singing there as well as enjoy getting to see and play with 9 other sets of twins.  Piper loves Gymbo the clown so much and talks about him during the week.

Both girls, though especially Piper, are becoming so independent and trying to do so much on their own.  It's hard for Piper to ask for help and it's difficult to see her get so frustrated.  It's amazing the things she can do now after lots of practice - climb into her high chair on her own and buckle the seat belt, put pants on, climb into her car seat and more.

A little bit about the girls' personalities at this point in time:

Piper is very willing to meet new people, go up to adults she hasn't seen in a while, and try new things.  When faced with conflict (Natalie wants a toy, etc.), she's usually the first to give in and usually doesn't mind so much. She's still our daredevil and wanted to jump off a 3 foot platform at Gymboree on her own last week.  She really wants to do things on her own.  'I do it my own' is heard a lot from her.  She gets frustrated/mad when she's not able to do something she thinks she should.

Natalie is more shy with new people and less willing to try new things, including food.  She wants her way and will cry/push/yell until she gets it.  She wants to do things on her own as well, but is comfortable asking for help.  She has definite opinions about the music we listen to and which episode of Signing Time we watch.  She now stops us from singing to she can sing songs on her own.  She's also gotten good at ordering us all around - 'Mommy, stop', 'Sit there', and so on.

Both girls are very loving with us, family and each other.  There are lots of kisses and hugs which are so sweet.  They're also very empathetic to other's feelings now and get sad when others are sad, including when watching videos of things they think are sad.  We've had to stop them from watching this one on YouTube now because they both cry every time:

And more pictures and video from this month - enjoy!

Natalie hiding behind the tree

Piper hiding behind the tree

Natalie & Piper playing dress-up

Mom, Natalie & Piper

Natalie, Daddy & Piper

The mind of Natalie:

The girls are obsessed with seeing themselves in the picture.  =)

2 years, 1 month

New and exciting things the girls have done this month:

• Asked to go potty at school while still dry
• Drew two letters and named them (C and V) - who taught them that??
• Stuck a cheerio in an ear (That was a fun morning...)
• Survived 4 days on our own without Daddy around
• Ran around at a twins Gymboree class
• Got better at fistbumps (Thanks, Uncle Keith!)

• Got better at tap dancing - Circle step = Shuffle step

• And just overall had a good time!  The girls really are generally in good moods as long as no one's teething, tired, hungry, or had a toy stolen.  =)

Trying out our new shoes from Aunt Brandy

Natalie rockin' some sunglasses

Piper going down the slide, looking cool with sunglasses on her head

2 Years Old

Piper & Natalie showing how old they are

Piper & Natalie, posing for Daddy

As this blog is our online baby book (some day we'll fill out the real ones!), I like to list the things the girls can do:

• Say their ABCs
• Count to 12
• Identify 12 colors
• Identify about half of their written letters
• Identify almost all of their signed letters
• Produce over 100 signs (not including letters) - I'm now asking them to remind me of some of them!
• Sing songs 
• Run, walk, do stairs, walk backwards
• Jump with both feet off the ground
• Slide on their own
• Kick a ball
• Throw a ball overhand (and lots of other things - ouch!)
• Scribble in lines and circles
• Know almost all of their body parts
• Follow instructions - most of the time.  I've found that instructions in songs work so much better though.  The clean up song from school is magic!
• Play with each other rather than side by side play
• Speak in sentences and ask questions - I answer 'What's that?' many times a day, especially from Natalie.
• The girls are also starting to think about their answers to questions which is really interesting.  I'll ask one of them where something is, and she'll tell me 'I don't know.  Maybe downstairs.'

We also went to the doctor this week so we have our official weights and measures.

Piper:  24.8 lbs, 33 1/4 inches

Natalie:  25.4 lbs, 33 1/2 inches

And some videos, since the girls are sometimes shy and visitors don't always get to see their silliness or the things they can do:

23 months and counting

It's been a long week with the girls getting past their first really bad stomach bug.  Robert and I learned some survival skills for next time and had some wonderful help from Gam, but it's not an experience any of us want to go through again anytime soon.

We had four Christmas celebrations this past month and had a wonderful time seeing family and friends.  Here are lots of pictures from our many celebrations, visits and new experiences:

Natalie modeling her tutu

Piper modeling her purse, necklace and gloves

Christmas morning

Enjoying snacks in our new tent

Figuring out how to take pictures of ourselves with Mommy's iPhone

5 kids and an iPad

Tutus, flowers and new books

Driving at the grocery store

Natalie playing dress up

Piper with a dress and tiara

Changes this month include more directed drawing - trying to draw circles and triangles, saying all to most of the words of a song rather than just the last one of every line, increases in vocabulary and 4-5 word sentences, and the new phrase 'I do it my own'.

At daycare, the most recent change is being separated at naptime.  The girls used to be across from each other but now are around the corner from each other so they can't see each other when they wake up.  Apparently, if they don't catch them right away, the girl who wakes up first (usually Natalie), will run over to the other bed and wake the other up.  Natalie will do this at home too - we usually hear calls of 'Piper, Piper, Piper, Piper' at the end of naptime.  And before naptime, we hear and feel jumping enough to shake their bedroom door and lots of giggling.  What I wouldn't do for a video monitor!

A Home Improvement Update

We've been working on the house again as we'd like to move into something bigger in the next year or so. It's been forever since I've done a house update  - May 27, 2010, to be exact, so here are some of our completed projects since then:

New siding, paint, windows & landscaping - June 2010

New house numbers and outside lighting - July 2010

Pantry added in the garage - May 2011

New flooring in kitchen, dining room and hallway - December 2011

New light fixture - January 2012

Old (like the paint splotch?)

New

With kids, projects take a lot longer than before, plus require more hiring out rather than doing everything ourselves.  It's still fun to update the house, even if we don't plan on staying here forever.