Hooray and other random ramblings!

We will start with the Hooray!  Last night as always is tradition (I married into a big tradition family and my kids have already picked up on that), Claire sat on her little potty before getting in the tub.  This time she actually went peepee in the potty!  Hooray for Claire.  I am not really sure she is ready for all out potty training yet, but it was a great first victory and she was so proud of herself.

We went to an all  you can eat pizza place last week, our kids love pizza and they still eat free there.  While we were there we got the kids some balloon animals, they loved them.  Above you can see how intrigued Claire was with the balloon twisting.  Below you can see the results, a bear on a heart and a monkey on a tree.  About 30 seconds later Jacob drug his tree along the sidewalk and he suddenly only had a monkey.  On the way home Claire decided to be a pest and kept hitting Jacob with her big heart which he was really unhappy about and he couldn't really even fight back since he popped the biggest part of his balloon sculpture. (It was a little funny though because Claire was laughing really hard and Jacob was whining).
This is one of the things I did this weekend, it was for Jared's little brother's prom date, I didn't see it on her but I sure hope it ended up matching her grape colored dress and his gold tux.  
This is another thing I did this weekend.  Yep, I scraped the frosting off of almost an entire box (or package I guess) of Oreos, then I crushed the Oreos.  I only resorted to this after trips to 4 different grocery stores to find the boxed Oreo crumbs which apparently don't exist anymore since they have started making their pre-made crusts.  All of this was for that chocolate mousse cake, but despite all of the work (even outside of the crust) it was delicious and I am sure I will make it again someday.

Murder! Oh My!

It is July, 1940. The German troops are about to enter Paris. The roads south are a hopeless snarl; the trains are full and one cannot find space aboard them. Yet to remain in the city and see her brutalized by the Nazis will not be a pleasant thing. An anonymous letter arrives, offering you passage aboard a government train heading for the relative safety of Southern France. During the trip, murder is discovered and the passengers must decide who amongst them has committed the crime.


Here are the suspects:
Mary K. Trairie (the American reporter) and Malcolm R. Conntint 'Mal' (the gangster) (and their little girl, even though their characters are not connected). Mal also took on the nickname of K-Fed for the night.
Barbara Z. Enhussie(daughter of the French Perfume King) and RAF Group Captain Weyland W. Awfcorce 'Wey' (The Pilot)
Princess Idelle Chattre (Princess) and Khover T. Ageante (Secret Agent)
Duke Swazhe B. U. Klare (Duke) and Belinda Screete (American dress maker)
We are so glad that we have friends that are not opposed to getting all dressed up and pretending to be someone else for a night. (For any friends who didn't get in on this one, but would love to be someone else for a night, I am already searching for the next mystery, we may have to try a double cast party next time.) I have to point out that my amazing dress actually once belonged to Jared's Granny, it was perfect! We had quite the time trying to unravel the mystery while eating our French menu of crab quiche, french bread, salad (not so french), and chocolate mousse cake (worth all of the work). It was fun to learn the dirty secrets we all had and eventually uncover the murderer. So whodunit? ...I will have to keep that secret in case you ever have the opportunity to solve the mystery yourself, but you tell me, who do you think dunit?

Climbers

We took these videos of our kiddos climbing on their birthday at the park by the bike trail.  They  did a pretty good job and Claire's "WHOA" makes me laugh every time.  Jacob always jumps when he is excited about something.  We thought uncle T would be so proud of his climbing niece and nephew.

Holy Cow! Happy Birthday!

Ok, So I tried to post on their actual birthday but blogger was not cooperating, so we are a few days late, but here it goes!  I can't believe that this picture was 2 whole years ago, when I woke up Friday I told Jared "at this time 2 years ago I was going 'owie owie owie owie'".  

I also cannot believe that Jacob was ever this tiny, two years ago he also had the tiniest little voice (anyone who knows him now would never believe it).
Claire was tiny too, but she always had big cheeks!  
We celebrated all day on Friday; it was birthday number 2 for 2!  We started with the special breakfast sent from Aunt Peepee (my sister Kaci).  I thought it was so funny that she spent this much on shipping to send them powdered Hostess donuts for breakfast.

She insisted that we give them to Jacob and Claire for breakfast since they have NEVER had donuts, she thinks I deprive them, but they are just as happy with plain old oatmeal.
They got Go-gurts and powdered donuts for their birthday breakfast and they were all smiles because they knew it was their birthday!  These pictures are for you Kaci!
We spent the morning with Sesame Street while mom decorated cakes and Dad helped our neighbor fix our back door (that the kids broke, another story for another day), yes Dad took the day off.   We spent the late morning and early afternoon on the bike trail, so much fun and we even stopped at a park along the trail to play for awhile.
We had Nana and Papa and our friends the Browns over for the birthday party and Jacob and Claire really cleaned up (there are a lot of presents when there are 2 kids turning 2).  This wagon from Nana and Papa was a popular gift, their little friend Abigail really liked it too!
This is my birthday cake attempt and I am actually quite happy with it since I think that the characters are somewhat recognizable.  For those of you who don't recognize them, this is Bob and Larry, the tomato and cucumber from Veggie Tales.  Jacob and Claire really love Veggie Tales.
They both blew out their own candles.  Happy Birthday to are two little two year olds, we can't believe that 2 years have passed (and at the same time we really do believe it).
And today in church it was obvious that they are 2, it was like someone flipped the 2 switch (not that they were calm in church before) but they really could not sit still and were very bossy!  We sure do love them though and we have really enjoyed watching them play together and their big personalities in their little bodies.

In Case There is Any Question Who He Looks Like

Hilarious, almost scary!  Need I say more?

Leelou Blogs

My great friend made us the best blog and custom header.  I love them and she just did them out of the kindness of her heart!  She has a lot of templates, I put a link button on the sidebar, you can also order her custom headers too, I think there is a small charge because they are a big time commitment for her, but they are worth it!

Best Buddies!

Sometimes my kids actually get along really well.  This morning they spent over an hour running between rooms upstairs (the 2 rooms without doorknob covers) laughing hysterically with each other.  They made a pretty big mess too, but I got quite a bit done when they didn't need me to referee.  I think this is a cute picture of them, they love to get in this chair and go "wocky wock, wocky wocky wock"  (rocky rock, etc...).

They especially love to be naughty together.  This was one of those moments where they had be at each others' throats all day and I was just leaving them alone because they finally seemed to be getting along, when I checked on them I discovered why!
They emptied everything from both drawers of the coffee table and they were each sitting in one.  They were so proud of themselves for finding the perfect chair.
They were having quite the conversation and reading their magazines.  For me it was a get your camera or get upset moment, and you can see the choice I made.  But after the pictures were taken the kids were removed and told not to sit in the drawers, then I made them help me clean up (which makes for very messy drawers).  Speaking of which, Claire really really loves to sing the 'Clean Up' song, it is hilarious; she also seems to be getting bossier, so if she is singing a song, you are not to sing that song!
Here is the whole scene from the front.
I love this picture, they really love giving kisses (especially if Claire is in the mood for them).

More Joys of Twins

We went to get the kids' 2 year pictures taken last weekend and those experiences are always and adventure.  Getting pictures of 2 two-year olds that don't want to be too close to each other is actually very challenging.  I will save the good pictures for later when I can send them to some of you, but I thought I could share some of those priceless twin "get away from me" moments here.

This is the I just can't get up fast enough pose.
I love the look on Claire's face here, she is in the middle of a "I don't want to be close to him" squawk."  
Jacob just couldn't wrench his neck far enough away from her.
This is my very favorite though...we made of the huge mistake of trying to sit Jacob in front of Claire, you can see from the picture how well she took it.

To the credit of the photographers, there were some pretty good ones, and these two girls of taken pictures of my kids together before--they seem to have limitless energy and ideas, they are really great with my kids and so patient.

PS

I just needed to write a little P.S. to yesterday's post (if you haven't read it, read it first).  Remember how I said that they were talking quite nicely at the time...what I soon discovered was another twin phenomenon--'Partners in Crime.'  My kids were talking so nicely to each other because they were doing one of their favorite naughty activities together.  This particular instance they had unloaded an entire new container of baby wipes onto the floor and coffee table, luckily I discovered it before they got to the scattering and ripping into pieces stage.  (I know that some of you must be thinking well, why were you not supervising their every move...to you I can only stick out my tongue!)  Anyhow, I would hate for anyone to miss out on the full story of the nice talking, so it had to be posted, plus the 'Partners in Crime' moments seem to be some of their strongest bonding moments, so they should probably be documented.

P.P.S.  To those of you I was sticking my tongue out at,  you will be happy to know that they are just waking up from naps as I type the last words.

P.P.P.S  To Amber, I am sure that this post is full of punctuational (pretty sure I never have before and probably never will again type/use that word) and grammatical errors because as I was typing it I kept forgetting rules that I know I have learned and second guessing my self.  Oops!  Hopefully what you teach your students will stick better than what my teachers taught me.

The Built in Playmate: Blessing (and Curse)

My kids love playing with this door, I am always trying to remind Jared to close it when he comes through it because I am certain that someone will get smashed and it is hard on the wall.  They really have a fun time though.  I have to watch videos like this sometimes on days like this to remind myself that they don't always fight with each other.  Today the drama has been particularly high and I assume if they could speak in sentences I would be hearing things like this:

"Jacob came close to something I was playing with"

"Claire is playing with something I was thinking about playing with at some point"

"Jacob walked in my general direction"

"Claire kicked me very lightly and it was clearly on accident"

"Jacob said E-I-E-I-O when I was playing with the barn" (totally unacceptable)

"Claire told me NO"

"Jacob told me NO"

"Claire squawked at me"

"Jacob screamed at me"

and so on and so on, but instead of hearing these things today I just hear a whole lot of screaming about these things, plus witness the throwing of the body backwards followed by kicking.  Like I said, sometimes I need these videos to remind me...actually right now they are talking quite nicely to each other and it is close enough to my oboe lesson that I can start on nap time so things are looking up!