#stuffElliesays

My parents are in town and Grandpa built the girls a little robot toy.

Nana E: "Do you want to name it girls? George? Seymour?"

Ellie: "No! See-well!"

#thingsmykidsdo

I don't know if my second set of twins is just more exciting than the first or if I've blocked out the memories at this point, but here was a series of events from yesterday:

We were getting ready to go to swim lessons when I heard Lily's "uhoh. UHOH." Theo had climbed onto the bathroom sink and plopped his butt right into the wet soap dish. He apparently thought this was hilarious because he started using the soft soap to paint all over the mirror.

I should note, this is not where I found him.

I found him in the living room, where he had plopped down several times on the floor, leaving perfect soap-butt imprints all over.

A few hours later, this happened:

Somebody (-coughDavecough-) apparently opened our 10lb bag of popcorn kernels and left it unsealed right at Lily's height. A quick note: Ellie was immensely helpful cleaning these up - go Ellie!

That kicked off 20 minutes of excitement that I'd rather not repeat: the babies were decidedly unhelpful in cleaning up the popcorn so I kicked them out with toy distractions. Because I was caught up in cleaning, I didn't think about how quiet it was.

Finally finished and went looking for them - they were both up to their elbows in our toilet, splashing water everywhere and licking their fingers. I kicked them out of there to clean up all of the water, and when I came out it was quiet except for Lily again: "uhoh, uhoh, UHOH!"

Theo had climbed onto the changing table where there was a bounty of super full wet diapers I hadn't thrown away yet. He had proceeded to throw them all off the table. One was, probably a tad overfull: it exploded all over the floor.

And, because of course Lily has to get in on the excitement, as I'm cleaning that mess up, Lily very helpfully picked up the now-unwrapped wet diapers.... and put them on my back.

I'm going to start a family comedy show - my life is enough material.

Just a quick insight into the actual sausage-making process: it's not always cute ;)

Birthdays

Since the girls' birthday falls on a Tuesday this year we opted for an earlier celebration so Daddy could participate. Daddy bravely volunteered to make a birthday cake with the kids.

The butter wasn't soft enough. What does an engineer do? Get out the heat gun...

Dave to me: "The kids have drank their coffee, they're eating the cake batter, and the puppies will be here soon. I'm going to go shower." :|

The final product! Good job Dad :)

Sunny days

Are here to stay, according to the forecast! Finally.

We took the big girls' bikes to the park, but with middling success: each bike has its own problems which came out in full force at the park, with no tools to fix.  Still, they got really good at braking down hills before the bikes threw in the towel.

I offered Lily a sunhat to wear outside but she preferred to choose her own. At least she'll be... warm?

Avy got towels for everyone.

Apparently Lily started a trend.

Smoothies!

This sequence just cracked me up.

Love those toes!

More fun

The big girls love their swim lessons, and they're getting ever more confident about putting their faces in the water.

And after, the park! The water bottles are a hit, can you tell?

After the littles go to bed we typically do an activity and then read. This evening we had a couple of toys that had stopped working, so we took them apart and identified the components. The girls got really good at undoing screws!

A montage

Lily and Theo have started getting into dressup. The cutest little elephant!

Symmetry!

The littles are pretending to swim.

I got tired of having the littles fight over a shared water bottle so I got them their own. Success!

3's have been the hardest for Avy, but she has tried and tried and not given up. And look at that!

Recognizable play: they set up a rest station for trains and a forest for them to drive around.

We were building structures from marshmallows and toothpicks, and I gave a handful of marshmallows to the littles. Theo inhaled and asked for more ;)

"Ok well I'll take yours then..."

Wrapping up the week

Granted, this was last week. I just rarely sit infront of a computer anymore.

The girls can now write all their numbers! I tell them that they now can write 100% of all the infinite numbers in existence, now that they've got their 1-10. It was a good motivator when they struggled :)

Zoom in on Avy - this cracked me up.

Lily found a helmet, and was super proud.

Daddy gets the best wakeup calls.

The girls started a band. The video is kinda awesome, too.

Theo finally got a turn with the helmets.

The writing is everywhere now.

Oh finger, you ruined a perfectly nice shot.