playing pretend

The girls imaginations have taken off and they are now playing more pretend. They still like to play with their toys, but they now spend a lot of time making things up. The best part about they pretend play is they talk their way through it so I know exactly what they are doing. It is so fun to watch!

One of their favorite things to do is play "elegator" (elevator). They pretend that our laundry room is an elevator and gather up their favorite "guys", put them in their strollers and take them for a ride in the "elegator".

It's funny that they play this because for the longest time, Little Pie has been very afraid of elevators. Only recently has she stopped panicking when we ride in an elevator (which is not very often!). I think this pretend play has helped her get over her elegator fears. 

 

Walking their guys to the "elegator". You can hear them saying to each other, "come on, let's go!"

"OK, follow me!"

"Let's go S! Let's go in the elegator!"

Are you coming too mom?

After they go in the laundry room, they close the door and I can hear them say to each other, "we going down now." "OK, we going up now". "OK, we all done!! Let's go!".

Of course they do this over and over and over again. Daddy and I are getting quite annoyed with the constant opening and closing of doors, but it seems to be one of their favorite activities as of late.

Another favorite pretend game that Little Bird especially likes to play is putting her baby to bed. She lays her baby down in her little cradle, tucks her in with blankets, gives her a stuffed animal, says goodnight, walks out and closes the door. Less than 20 seconds later, she opens the door and proclaims, "good morning baby!" and gets her out of bed only to repeat the activity 20 seconds later. This too is done over and over and over again and all we hear is the door opening and closing over and over again.

Some days I want to take all the doors off their hinges, but I think it is just too fun to watch the girls make up their own little play. They look like they are having so much fun and I just love it!

Little Bird needed me to take a picture of her baby which meant that Little Pie needed me to take a picture of her bunnies.

haircuts!

It seems sort of silly considering the lack of hair the girls have, but we spontaneously went to get the girls' hair cut. At first we were just going to get Little Bird's cut, maybe just a bang trim, but when we left both girls had a trim complete with a little braid!

Little Bird's hair had been really out of control lately. I didn't know how to comb it and it was always in her eyes. She wouldn't let me put a barrette in so I figured we should just get it trimmed so she looked a bit more presentable.

We walked into Kid's Hair without an appointment, hoping to get someone good. We fortunately got the sweetest woman who did the best job with the girls. 

We watched a couple of kids get their hair cut while we waited. When Little Bird's name was called, she wasn't scared at all to jump into the chair. 

Little Bird ready to go. See that long hair in her eyes? And she was starting to develop a mullet. eek!

A very good girl! She sat still really well!

Little Bird even got a little braid in her new hair.

Beautiful hair!

Little Pie came over to check out Little Bird's progress and proclaimed, "Beautiful hair S!". I asked if she wanted her hair cut too and she initially declined. But after she saw Little Bird had a sucker, she was ready to give it a try.

Little Pie's "before"

Sitting very still. She kept saying, "I almost done!"

A braid for Little Pie too!

All done! She said "I have beautiful hair cut!"

Front shot.

Back shot. Curls!!

I was so proud of how the girls handled this new experience. It was kind of hectic but they handled themselves so well. They were quite proud that they were such big girls. I'm so happy we decided to do it!

music prodigy

About a month ago I downloaded the new Adele album. I instantly fell in love with it which means I played it morning, noon and night. No more kids music. The girls and I listened to the album at home, in the car ... anywhere I could plug in my iPod.

The girls never complained, they just went about their business.

Then one morning it was silent in the house. I guess I reached the point where I didn't need to listen to my new music anymore.

I noticed Little Pie quietly standing by our iPod, looking up at it with curiosity. She turned to look at me and said, "Mom, I want to hear Rumor has a Moo". 

?????

Then it dawned on me. One of the songs on the album is called Rumor Has It. During the chorus, the background vocals sing "Ruuuuumor" where they drag out the word rumor. It does in fact sound like Rumor Has a Moo. 

I played the song. She got a huge grin on her face and started dancing. "My favorite song Mom", she said.

Now, she requests the song repeatedly. Every time we get in the car and when we sit down for a meal. I oblige but stop at playing it on repeat. We have to listen to the other songs too.

Then yesterday we were at Barnes and Noble for story time and I was having the hardest time getting Little Pie to follow me to the back of the store. She kept stopping and looking up in wonderment. Then she said, "I hear my favorite song Mom." 

Sure enough Rumor Has a Moo was playing over the B&N sound system.

This girl has an ear for great music. That's for sure!

no more Nuks

June 2010

I've been hesitant to write this post because I was afraid it would come back and bite me; but I think we can now officially say that Little Bird has given up her Nuks. And she did it all by herself!

Little Bird typically only used her Nuks for naps and bedtime, but she occasionally needed them during the day. As recently as Christmas, she went through a phase of needing it all the time. I always thought it was because she was teething and needed the extra soothing. I kept thinking we could wait a few more months before taking it away.

Christmas 2010

More recently, she was back to using them just for sleeping. I had a plan that we would have her give them up around the time Auntie B's baby arrived (end of April). We talked and talked about how she would give the baby her Nuks because baby's need Nuks, not little girls. She was all for it.

But all of a sudden last week when we were putting the girls to bed, Little Bird looked at her Nuk in disgust and said she wanted a different one. We only had 3 in the house so I gave her a different one. She didn't like that one either and asked for the last one. That one was no good as well and I told her that was it. She told me, "put them on the table". I kissed her goodnight and walked out the door fully expecting her to call me back within 10 minutes to give her a Nuk. Much to my surprise she went right to sleep and slept the WHOLE night without a fuss. 

I couldn't believe she had given them just like that! I had been dreading the whole process and it turned out I had nothing to worry about! I'm so proud of her for doing it on her own.

She has only asked me about them once since she gave them up. She didn't necessarily ask to have one, she was just wondering where they were. I said they were all gone and that reminded her that she must have given them to Auntie B's baby girl.  

She is such a big little girl for making the transition on her own and I'm so proud of her. She is our little miss independent and now that I think about it, I'm actually not surprised she was able to do it so easily. I think that if she can make a transition when she is ready then the transition is very easy.

happy birthday daddy!

Yesterday (the 22nd) was Daddy's birthday. We tried to celebrate with lots of cheers and excitement but Daddy and I must be cursed this round of birthdays.

The girls have been sick with a viral cough for almost a week now. We brought Little Pie into the doctor on Saturday only to have them tell us it was just a virus and give her Tylenol and fluids. Well, 4 days later it's still here. The girls are getting better but still not 100%. I called the doctor on Monday and she said this could last for 2 weeks. Great.

The weather has not cooperated either and is making us reconsider why anyone would live in MN. After almost all of the snow had melted, it sleeted all day yesterday and has been snowing all day today. The girls and I didn't leave the house at all yesterday because the wind and sleet were so ridiculous. We were all extra crabby and nobody, including me, was on their best behavior. Everybody whined and was generally grumpy. 

I tried to get the girls interested in making something for Daddy for his birthday. I was planning on making his favorite fajitas for dinner, but we needed some sort of craft to get us through the day. The girls were not interested. I cut out letters to make a Happy Birthday Daddy sign and thought they would have fun running around and finding the letters to add to the sign. They didn't have fun. I put the sign together myself after they gave up after they found the second P.

Pathetic sign hanging in front of the pathetic freezing rain.

Fortunately we were all in a better mood when Daddy got home and we actually enjoyed our dinner (hasn't happened in a long time). Little Pie actually made it through a whole meal without whining about something and even ate some of Daddy's fajita instead of her plain quesadilla. (a what!?!?!). We all enjoyed some birthday cake, Daddy and I enjoyed some (much needed) wine and we played a little soccer in the living room when we were finished. Both girls went to bed without a fuss and Daddy and I enjoyed a nice evening watching Mad Men. 

We woke up this morning to several inches of snow. I guess I didn't realize my reaction was so obvious but Little Pie said, "What's wrong Mommy?". I said "it snowed". Little Bird responded with "ohhhhhhhh no." I decided we were going to brave the weather and go to story time at the library. I couldn't stay in the house all day again. When we got home we got stuck in the driveway and I had to try and dig us out. The girls sat in the warm car for about 30 minutes and watched me fall on my butt 3 times. The driveway is completely covered again.

Can we please fast forward a week or two?

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OK, so this weather has me absolutely depressed and while I know I live in MN and this is quite possibly *normal*, I'm still not happy and am having a hard time dealing with it. I swear it wasn't this bad last year. In fact it wasn't this bad last year. I did a little research and this was what we were doing this week last year...

3.17.10 - Fleece vests and no hats on the bald heads.

happy st. patrick's day!

Little Pie is a little under the weather today. She woke up with a cough and runny nose. She spent most of the morning snuggled up on the couch watching Sesame Street, but I convinced her to get up and try a "project". She loves projects and will drop everything to work on one.

Since it's St. Patty's Day today, our projects centered around a rainbow and shamrock theme.

A great St. Patty's project for toddlers is to practice applying their color knowledge, so I had them make a rainbow. (I wish I would have had gold wrappers of some sort to put in a pot of cold, but I didn't think that far ahead). I drew a rainbow on a piece of paper and then cut out little shapes in the various colors. The goal was to have the girls glue the colored shapes in the "correct" ray on the rainbow. Since they loved our last gluing project, I thought they would enjoy this...

The girls understood what they were "supposed" to do and had a pretty good time gluing the shapes on. Little Bird focused mainly on the yellow triangles and it took some convincing to get her to add some of the other color shapes. Little Pie was really into it and narrated every detail of what she was doing. It did end up being quite a challenge to get the shapes to stick where they wanted them too and not get stuck on their fingers. I had to help a little bit, but they mostly did it themselves.

After the gluing got to be too much of a challenge, we switched to coloring and painting shamrocks. I was informed by one of these little artists that shamrocks are in fact not green, but brown, Little Pie's favorite color.

Project time ended when Little Pie spilled her cup of water and I had to put her pants in the dryer. (See that cup practically teetering on the edge of the counter right near a jerky little elbow? That's my fault...).

The finished projects...

The girls enjoyed a good ol' Irish lunch of mac n' cheese and headed off for a nap. Little Pie is snoozing but I can hear her coughing quite a bit. Little Bird is pretty quiet but I don't think she is sleeping. Whatever! Our new arrangement seems to be working really well!

fun with h&m

Today H&M came to play ... without their mama! She had to see a client today, so it was just me and the  four kids. Everyone had a blast!

At first we did the usual play with toys upstairs. That only lasts about 5 minutes before everyone wants to go downstairs and play. Today each kid wanted me to carry them down the stairs, so I got my exercise in going up and down 4 times! They must have thought I looked like I needed a work out...

We played with blocks...

Everyone was very into their towers...

When it was decided that everyone wanted to go upstairs, we started cleaning up the blocks only to find that one block was missing. I seriously couldn't find it and all of the kids were SO into looking for it. I think they thought I was teasing them that I didn't know where it was, but I honestly couldn't find it. That got them more interested in finding it and they were all going crazy looking around. Little Bird concluded that "maybe it is lost". I almost gave up, but finally H saw a piece of it sticking out from under the rocking horse. Everyone was so proud that the block was finally found!

We went upstairs to play Little Bird and Little Pie's favorite "game". I hide circles, squares, rectangles and triangles around the house and they have to find all of them. The best part of the game is when I tell them they have to sit down on the kitchen floor and not move while I go hide the shapes.

Nobody move!!!

All of them thought it was really fun to run around and look for shapes.

So much excitement!

After all of that work it was time for a snack. Everyone picked out a chair at the table (without a fight!) and we enjoyed a snack. We also got a little coloring in too.

The kids had a great time together (as they always do!) and I was really impressed with how well it went. Very few arguments and no meltdowns. I had a great time and while it was only a couple of hours, it gave me a glimpse into the world of an at home daycare provider and I can say for certain that those people are saints!

----

After H&M left, Grandma stopped by for a quick visit before she returns to AZ tomorrow. We met Uncle Rye for lunch at Broadway Pizza. The girls had a blast.

Grandma brought the girls some goodies from her trip to Hawaii...new Crocs (yellow and pink!), t-shirts and super cute Hawaiian dresses. Can't wait for summer to put those to use!

Little Pie was very tired so she went down for a nap and Little Bird played quietly in her bed. I'm so happy with our new arrangement. I think we made the best decision at the best time!

a big change

This weekend the girls got their own rooms. 

For most of last week, I cleaned out the guest room, prepped the room for paint, primed, painted 3 coats, put up new curtains, moved clothes, and prepped for Little Bird's big move into her own room. Every day she asked me when she could sleep in her room. Saturday would be the big day(!) I told her again and again.

Both girls seemed very excited about getting their own room. They would run back and forth from each room declaring which one belonged to who. I knew that Little Bird "got it" since she had spent a few nap time/quiet times in there, but I wasn't sure about Little Pie.

Friday night before bed we talked about how this was the last night that Little Bird would sleep in their room. Tomorrow would be the big day and she would finally be able to sleep in her room. Both girls were giddy.

Then Saturday morning came. Daddy woke up early. I slept in and finally got up around 7:30. The girls were still asleep.  Then it was 8 o'clock. Then 8:15. Then finally at 8:30 I peeked in their room to see what was up. Both girls were lying there so quietly yet so wide awake. For the first time that I can remember they weren't chatty upon waking up. 

Did they know it was their last morning together? Did I just make the wrong decision to separate them? Is my heart breaking that they are sad to be losing each other? Is this still the right choice?

I began to have doubts (but then again, when do you ever not have doubts when it comes to parenting decisions?). 

Little Bird's side of their sweet baby room.

Little Pie's side of their sweet baby room.

Despite going back and forth in my mind about what to do, we went ahead with the change and Daddy and I spent the entire morning taking down cribs, moving and putting up toddler beds. I moved the rest of Little Bird's clothes. I hung pictures and voila(!) each girl had her own room, unique and specific to her.

Their baby room is now Little Pie's Little Girl room!

The guest room is now Little Bird's yellow Little Girl room.

Someone was very excited to try out her new bed!

There are still a few things to do to make both of their rooms perfect, but for the most part both girls LOVE their own rooms. Actually, they were more impressed with their "new" beds than they were with their new rooms. 

So Saturday afternoon was our first test. We put the girls down for a nap. I didn't think they would nap since they got up so late that morning, but we were not going to deviate from our schedule. Both girls stayed in their beds and talked quietly to themselves and their babies for more than an hour. I would say that was a HUGE success!

That night was our second test. Each girl got her jammies on in her own room. They each picked out a book to read from their own room and we finished our normal bedtime routine. This time, however, we said our prayers together in Little Bird's room. Then the girls gave each other the sweetest goodnight hugs and kisses. Both went down in their beds happily and slept the night away.

I didn't sleep much because I was waiting for a little girl to wake up and get scared or wake up and leave her room. Thankfully everyone else in the house slept peacefully!

The next morning I got up and while I was making my coffee I heard Little Bird wake up and start playing quietly with her buddies. I waited a little bit and went in to get her up. She was patiently waiting in her bed and was so proud of herself for sleeping so well in her Little Girl bed. I was so proud of her too. 

A few minutes later we heard Little Pie rustling in her bed and Little Bird was so excited to go in there and get her up. They gave each other the sweetest good morning hellos! I'm so proud of both of them for being such big girls and handling this big change so well.

I knew that this change was going to be good for the girls, but I also expected that Little Pie would have a few problems with it. At first she seemed very excited and accepting of the change, but yesterday while I went to the store, Daddy tried to put the girls down for a nap. Little Pie wouldn't stay in her room or in her bed. When we put them down for bedtime, Little Pie called for me a few minutes later. She talked about how Little Bird was in her own room. It was almost like she was trying to see if things were going to change back. I gave her some reassuring hugs and kisses and told her I was so proud of her for being a big girl. But I knew she sort of missed her sister. The rest of the night went fine (I didn't sleep again!), and she woke up the next morning so excited to see Little Bird.

Today at nap time/quiet time Little Pie wouldn't stay in her bed or her room again. I laid down the law though. I told her she had to stay in her room until I came to get her. She could read the pile of books I gave her, but she couldn't get up until I came to get her. She got out again and I heard Little Bird tell her to go back in her room (little miss bossy!). She wasn't happy when I put her back in her room, but I reassured her again. A few minutes later I heard her crying for me. I went back and gave her lots of reassuring hugs and kisses (which is much easier to do now that they are not in cribs) and told her I'll be back in a little bit. 

Both girls are now asleep...during nap time. It's a dream come true! I knew there would be some bumps in the road, but overall I think the change has gone so well. I think it was perfect timing for all of us and I'm so proud of my BIG Little Girls!

...

Now on to the next big change....POTTY TRAINING! ugh!

spring, we know you're out there!

The sun came out this afternoon, so we got outside to enjoy it. 

I thought we could walk down to the park and check out the condition it was in. Maybe we could go down the slide too. 

First we had to splash through some puddles.

While the girls look adorable in their winter gear, I'm getting sick of it. Shorts and sandals are so much better! And so much easier!!

Both girls thought it was really fun to be walking to the park again. It sure takes us a long time to get there! They have a lot to say about everything they see along the way.

The girls don't like to walk in the snow. Little Bird said multiple times, "it's too hard to walk in the snow". She cried while we walked across the snow to and from the slide. I don't blame her. The snow is still pretty deep and hard for little legs to walk through. Plus it's that crusty, icky snow that isn't even any fun to play in.

She was really thrilled when we finally made it to the slide!

Of course we had to leave before the girls were ready!

We can't wait for summer but right now we will accept spring!

sneak peek

We (I) made the decision that Little Bird will get her own room. 

The girls sleep patterns have changed and having them in the same room has been kind of torturous a challenge lately. The new nap routine bombed so it's time to make a drastic change.

We've been going back and forth about putting the girls in their own room, but I finally decided that it's worth a try. They aren't able to sleep when they want to because they are either too distracted by having the other in the room, or the other wakes them up too early.

I would say Little Pie needs a nap 2 or 3 times a week while Little Bird needs a nap 2 or 3 times a month. When they are in the same room, Little Pie is too excited and entertained by her sister to fall asleep. If she does happen to fall asleep (happens rarely) she doesn't get enough and then wakes up super crabby.

Little Pie also wakes up early in the morning and is ready to play with Little Bird whether she is awake or not. Little Bird could use a little more sleep (since she doesn't nap), so I'm sure she would appreciate not having someone start singing the MN Rouser at 6 am. 

I tried to have Little Bird "nap" in the guest room on her nap mat, but she wouldn't do it and recently started to get into things. I stopped trusting her in that room.

So it's time to turn the guest room into Little Bird's room! (We never have guests sleep over so the room is basically storage).

Last weekend we (I) cleaned out all the junk and this week we went to Home Depot to pick out the perfect shade of yellow paint. After a coat of primer and THREE coats of paint, the room is almost ready for Miss Little Bird.

This weekend we will move her bed in and convert it to the toddler stage. Since Little Bird also likes to climb/fall out of her bed, it's time for her to graduate out of the crib. 

We've been talking about this transition for a long time. Both girls seem really excited about it. I'm nervous about it actually working out. I'm hoping that we can all be better rested after this change.

And if it doesn't work out, we can always move her back in with Little Pie.

future gopher

Lately the girls have started calling me by my first name. I think they just realized that other people don't refer to me as "Mommy". 

One night at dinner, Little Bird called me by name so I thought I'd take the opportunity to go through our household "stats". They girls already know their first, middle and last name (although Little Pie sometimes thinks her middle name is the same as Little Bird's), so we talked about mommy and daddy's first names. 

Then we started talking about where we live. 

Then the request to spell everyone's name was made, so I obliged.

Then the request to spell Minnesota was made, so I obliged.

After I spelled out M-I-N-N-E-S-O-T-A, I thought it might be fun to sing the MN rouser.

The girls LOVED it and started clapping along. 

The next night at dinner, we had to sing again.

It only took a few nights before Little Pie had the song down! Go Gophers!

lotion on the face time!

It was a LONG day today. The girls were up before 5:30 and didn't go back to sleep. I wouldn't let them get out of bed until 6:30, but the whole house has basically been awake before the crack of dawn. This happens every once in a while but it totally took me by surprise today because yesterday they slept until 8:30! 

I obviously didn't have time to shower before the girls were up so I tried to get a quick one in after we had had breakfast and played around a bit. The girls are always usually very good while I shower (I mean I'm barely in there for 5 minutes so what could they possibly get in to?!). 

Today was a little bit different. While I was getting dressed and feeling sorry for myself that I was once again putting on a wool turleneck sweater, I heard the beginnings of a fight. I walked into their room to find...

Lotion on the face!

Rubbing it in really good.

It's no secret the girls are obsessed with lotion. There is a lot of it around the house because I need it really bad for my incredibly dry skin. They see me putting it on all the time, so they want to too. At night, they can barely say Amen to the end of their prayers before they yell, "lotion on the face time!". There is a jar of Aquaphor in their room that we use on their chapped lips and cheeks before bed every night. The jar is now empty. The large jar in my room is almost empty too. Thankfully (I say that loosely) it only ended up in their hair, on their face and on their pajamas so a bath cleaned most of it up. I'm just glad I didn't have to scrub the carpet on this already challenging morning.

H&M came over to play this morning and we had a really good time. After lunch I put the girls down for a nap and they actually fell asleep. I was hoping to go to the gym when they woke up, but they didn't wake up until 3:30 and Little Pie was Inconsolable having woken up too early. She didn't calm down until after 4 and I knew we wouldn't be able to get to the gym and back, have dinner and be in bed before 7 (yes, they went to bed early tonight!!). I'm quite disappointed we didn't get to the gym today, but there is always tomorrow.

Inconsolable Pie after she finally calm down. Look at that messy hair! I guess all the lotion didn't come out yet; it's still pretty greasy. Little Bird's hair is actually way more greasy. I guess another bath is in order.

olivia!

The girls LOVE the Olivia books so it's only natural that we would go "meet" her at the MOA today!

BFF loves Olivia books too so we met her and Little Buddy as well. We had to wait longer than we had anticipated, but such is the way with these things. Fortunately as we were waiting in line, they showed the Olivia cartoon to entertain the kids and keep them from going stir crazy in line. 

All the girls were really excited to meet Olivia. They were ready to give her a hug or a high five, say hi and take a picture with her. Except, when it was finally our turn, Little Bird and Little Pie were really shy. BFF went up to Olivia, but was kind of unsure. Little Pie didn't really want to even look at her and Little Bird just stared up at her in awe. We couldn't get the three of them to go up to her and turn around for a picture, so the moms had to jump in too!

why are only the mamas smiling?

We had a really fun time having lunch together, shopping and playing at Lego land. 

Another successful trip to MOA!