* Annie has taken a couple more steps on her own!!!! Not when we turn the camera on of course, but she's doing it!
* We had our 1st garage sale. It was lame. I mean we didn't have very much and were just doing it because our neighborhood was doing it...we made $5...and then gave away a bunch of stuff for free before the rain hit! Once we got that stuff out there it just felt impossible to bring it back in the garage.
** Elizabeth was so mad at bed time when we turned off the light that when we left to go downstairs to get blankets she climbed/jumped/fell out of her crib!!!!!!!!!!! We heard a BIG thud, screaming and luckily nothing seems broken. But she was obviously upset and scared. We have seen Little Mark make it halfway out of his crib and we figured that the day may be coming soon that we would have to take down one side of their crib. And I know they are 2 years old so it's time, but I'll be crying when we take them down, sigh. My babies, my babies, are no more my babies:(
Here is our post from the last time we were at this park in October of 2011. We had just as much fun yesterday!! Well, I should say the twins had fun...Annie had fun the first 15 minutes but then got tired, fought her nap and then finally crashed. Meanwhile the twins and I wandered the park, played I Spy with excavators, pylons, red bike racks, big sticks, etc...it was a lot of fun and we stayed for nearly 1.5 hours!!
They were so excited about seeing the excavators that Elizabeth still remembered it this morning!!
Here they are discovering the fun in jumping on the bleachers by the baseball diamonds:
The other day the kids discovered a caterpillar for the first time with one of our neighbors and they LOVED it!!! The video is a must watch. They literally couldn't get close enough to it and every time one of them 'dared' to touch it they both giggled!! They do this with a lot of bugs. It is hilarious!!!
We have had a mix of sun and rain here so we've spent some time outdoors swinging, sliding and climbing at the park:
Looking cute in our new shades:
Eating our first corn on the cob of the season!
And doing some lame crafts, sorry all I could come up with was egg baskets colored and stickered. It was so lame that I had to fill them with a few M and M's just to make the project seem a little bit exciting:
The kids have been doing and saying some cute things lately that I must share. I was cleaning the kitchen and Elizabeth walked by and asked me what I was doing (she asks that question at least a hundred times a day!) and when I told her I was cleaning she said 'Robot do that'. As in our Rumba Robot that cleans the floors!!! It was hilarious and she has said it to me several times since then too. In light of this comment I have made it a point to not clean so much when they are awake:) Elizabeth and Mark are always repeating the last phrase or word that I say. I must say OK a lot because before I even respond with an answer Elizabeth will say OK! For example, she will ask for milk and then say OK!!
The twins have been waking up so early that I finally just strapped a basket on their crib with some ribbon and filled it with fun books and toys for them to play with when they wake up at 5:30 am! They love this and now Mark won't get out of his crib until he has looked through and played with every toy in his basket! They also will jump in their cribs and say 'Marching band, marching band' over and over ( I don't know why, it's on an episode of Bubble Guppies!) and then they will say to each other...'Yes Elizabeth? or Yes Mark or Yes Mommy?' over and over again. I think it's because that is how I respond to them when they call my name:)
Elizabeth LOVES to say the prayer at bed time. Mark will not volunteer but once we start praying he will also repeat the words. In fact tonight we forgot to say them and Elizabeth was trying to remind us by saying 'pray too' but we couldn't figure out what she was saying, it sound like blue too. Whenever you try to guess what word she is saying and your wrong she will just not reply but when you say it right she will say YES. Tonight she had to act it out by folding her arms before we figured it out! I've heard the word 'mine' starting to come out more:( Elizabeth loves to greet Mark and Annie when they wake up and sometimes she will just walk over to Annie and say 'Hi Annie, good morning Annie'! Little Mark loves to memorize books. Lately he has been working on memorizing the names of trains in his huge Thomas the Train book! It is amazing to us how many he knows!
You have to listen closely to the beginning but you can hear Mark yelling at Elizabeth 'SIT DOWN'....ya funny but not funny! You can also see Mark teasing Elizabeth...I'm sure Katie can empathize with Elizabeth right Katie?!!
Here they are being completely silly before bed!
And here is poor Mark falling asleep at lunch eating cheese!
And here they are doing one of their favorite things in the world, wrestling and jumping and playing in the crib!!! Note that Elizabeth is using her head as a weapon!
Annie is almost 1 and we can't believe it!!!! She is still a good and super fun baby! In fact sometimes when one of us is in a bad mood we go in a quiet room with Annie for 5 minutes and we come out happy as can be! She is truly a happy, silly babe and we love her so much! Lately she LOVES to stick her tongue out all day long...can you tell?!
She is still a crawling maniac but this month she has also learned to let go of things and STAND!!!!! She is so proud of herself that she gets too excited and falls. She has yet to take a step but we know she will be doing it any minute now! It's exciting since I know how badly she wants to keep up with her siblings. It makes it a little less sad for me knowing that:)
Annie loves to play with anyone, especially her siblings. She is also really good at playing by herself though. She will wander around the family room, stopping at all the toys, checking them out, dancing along if there is one that makes music and today she pulled herself up on the bookshelf and pulled out one of her favorite books 'Ten Little Ladybugs' and then sat on the floor and started flipping through the pages!!! It helps that Mark and I were reading a book too. I'm glad that she enjoys books as much as the twins. She enjoys being outside but I can tell it is frustrating her that she can't walk yet! It is very limiting to her but soon enough she'll be running and sliding and climbing. Yesterday Annie climbed all the way to the top of the stairs by herself!! She still has no idea how to go back down but she was proud of herself!
Annie is a good sleeper and even though she is currently teething (that will make 9 by the way, 8 up front and this one is looking to be a molar, ouch!)...she is still doing well. She takes 2 naps during the day and goes 11-12 hours at night. She will still wake up at 6:30 am (give or take 15 min) no matter what time she goes to bed at night!! She still wakes up once in the night every so often for snuggles or if she hasn't been feeling good or didn't eat enough during the day to nurse, but she goes right back to sleep. She likes to snuggle in to whoever is holding her and her lovey before bed and we sing to her and she sings back! It's very cute now because her singing has turned into babbling sounds like nanana, or babababa! When this girl is tired she will let out a little cry, start following me around and pulling herself up on my legs. Sometimes she will just stop mid crawl and lay on her stomach with her head on the floor to rest for a few seconds! It always makes me laugh, it's so cute!
Annie is such a good eater!!!!! She loves noodles of any kind and chicken. She really loves almost everything we have tried giving her. She still refuses to drink out of any kind of cup, I hope that she will want to soon! This morning she was sitting next to Elizabeth at breakfast because Mark was still sleeping and she was trying to steal her breakfast! Then when Mark woke up and came and sat by Annie she reached over and grabbed cereal out of his bowl! He gladly shared with her. When she is done eating she has started spitting out her food, ugghh! She likes to rub food in her hair too, just like her brother!
We love our Annie sooooo much and are so thankful every day that she is part of our family!!!
Here is some videos of our cutie:
And here is a cute video of Annie doing her FAVORITE thing!!!!
While Mark did most of the 'work' (parentheses added because taking care of 3 kids 24/7 all week was equally exhausting!!)...the kids PLAYED like crazy along side him!!!!! Here is the stud getting started on digging the trench. Side note: He worked so hard that he put holes in his brand new work gloves! What a man!
One morning the twins ate breakfast and then begged to go outside to 'dig in the dirt with Daddy'! It was 7:30 am, Daddy was not outside digging, but I let them go for it anyways! They LOVED it! Especially Elizabeth. She has turned out to be quite a sand/dirt lover. She can and has played in the dirt and sandbox for loooooong stretches of time!
Then I couldn't resist showing them how to make their first MUD PIES!!!!!! They didn't quite get it (maybe because I have never made or served them actual pie??).....but they had a great time dumping water, stirring it up and then transferring it to different containers!
They were both in SERIOUS concentration through out this mud pie excursion:
Annie however was not at all happy about being stuck in her pack n play:( Poor thing.
I rescued her and brought her to the little bit of grass we had left in the back yard....
She loves to rip it up and put it in my hands, or watch it fall or put it in something (she's very into dumping and putting things back in)....
And occasionally eating it!!
This backyard renovating is actually pretty fun! It's one home project that isn't annoying if it takes too long since we are having fun playing in the 'construction' zone anyway!!
