November 2014 - 22 months old

11-1-14 When Lily hears Bella barking she says, “Bella, Poopy Bella.” Once she saw Ryan scooping in the back Bella has her new name! My dad and Mindy came over today. Lily calls him Poppy which is very cute. After they left, Violet got the hiccups. I said, “Where’d you get those hiccups, Violet?” Lily said, “Poppy.”

Violet stopped biting, which is a relief! Lily says a lot of words with the /u/ sound, like pullow and Bulla. She says, “Bulla barkin’!” They now do raspberries for the bee sound! It’s so funny!

All of their incisors are coming in! Eight new teeth all together!

11-2-14 Violet is a little ballerina! She balancing on one foot and stretching her other leg out to the side on the stairs to their slide. So precious!

11-3-14 In the morning we can hear the girls singing with each other while in their cribs waiting for Daddy. Violet loves her new coat and her new jammies! She loves putting her hands in her pockets! Lily has to have her hood on when she has her jacket or coat on. She says, “Hood, mama,” and, “Zip.” They use the Halloween baskets/bags Mary gave them as hats and they can barely see! They also put their dollies in them and carry them around.

They have grown out of their jammies and are ready for the next size: 18 months. We have lots of fleece ones from Quincy that are sooo cute! Violet wore the leopard print one that has a hood, pocket, and little cat ears. She came up to me with her hands in her pocket and said, meow!

11-4-14 Lily won't hug Ryan when he gets home until he takes off his jacket. She says, “Daddy, jacky.” If he picks her up she'll hold her arms stiff so he can't hug her. As soon as the jacket is off, he gets a big hug!

11-5-14 Violet is a great little yogi! She does a beautiful downward dog. Lily does the splits and pretty much goes all the way to the ground. Yoga babies!

11-7-14 We've been reading Dr. Seuss' The Eye Book and one page has a man on it. They always say, “Daddy!” and point to the picture, then to Ryan. It's funny because it is a picture of an old black man with a white beard!

11-8-14 Lily is so funny in the morning. Ryan gets her up and changed then she comes to our room to say hi to me. She says, “Lip,” for some chapstick, and, “Sleepy, me,” so she can pretend she’s sleeping in our bed. She won’t cuddle with me at all. I can’t even touch her without a, “NO, Mama!” She has to lay on Ryan’s pillow, too. Then Violet walks in with her hand in her pocket, hood on, and her thumb in her mouth.

Lily likes putting her blocks in a straight line. Her new favorite phrase is, “Look, mama!”

The burp cloths that were put away in a basket are now blankets for their dolls. They’re the perfect size for sleepy Elmo!

Violet is so funny at restaurants. She’s always busy watching people and smiling at them. She’s a little flirt! We had gelato after dinner at Settebello tonight. The girls were hilarious! I wish I would have been able to record it! They have wide, benches at Capo and the girls were busy getting up and down until they had a taste. Then they were on their tummies with their mouths open as wide as they could go. They reminded me of baby birds. Violet would shake a little bit too! It was so funny! Usually Lily is jabbering about something nonstop, but as soon as she swallowed her mouth was open again as wide as it would go! She didn’t make a peep!

11-10-14 Lily counts to 2! One, two!!! Tonight Violet told Lily to sit down! She did. :) It’s usually Lily doing all of the talking and telling all of us what to do!

11-12-14 I made some yummy roasted zucchini and squash to go with our pasta tonight. I hid one of each color under their noodles and sauce. We asked if they can find the yellow one or the green one. They didn’t get it at first, but then they loved it and wanted more!

11-13-14 Violet has been sitting on the potty!! At first we'd just pull down her pants, but the last few days she's had her diaper off too! No action yet, but she loves sitting on the potty and reading her special sound books!

11-15-14 Violet throws a ball really well! She loves throwing it back and forth with you. Lily is so silly. She puts her stuffed animals on her head in the car then says, turtle hat, monkey hat, or doggy hat!

11-19-14 Violet has been our little wrestler the last few days! She loves piling on top of Lily! They laugh, run to the pillows, and then either fall down next to each other or on top of each other! Lily loves to get her bag or basket and then say, “Bye! I shoppin!" They love puzzles, blocks, balls, books, dollies, and cooking in their kitchen.

11-23-14 Violet is counting to two, too! Sometimes they both count to three!

11-26-14 Violet says I love you, “Ahloo.” She likes to sit on my lap at night and help me crochet. She holds the end of the hook while I am crocheting or she'll hold the hook side and poke the other end in and out of the blanket. I was raking leaves after I picked them up from Mary's today. They loved running through the piles. Lily picked up leaves and threw them in the air. Violet sat down in the middle of the pile looking at individual leaves and then I looked over and she was laying in the leaves on her tummy! So fun!!!!

11-27-14 Thanksgiving was really fun this year! We went to my dad’s and Mindy set the table beautifully! The food was all delicious and the girls ate well and had a great time. Mindy brought construction paper and we made feather hats for the girls. They were so cute!

11-29-14 Lily proclaimed it an “Elmo Socky Day" today!! Violet woke early from nap and talked a ton, lied on her tummy playing with the doll house, chatting away!

We bought a Christmas tree today! We got it from the family from Montana that sells them at the Nibley Park Golf Course. I love our tree! It’s beautiful! We chose one that isn’t as full as most trees. I didn’t think to ask what kind it is though. It smells so good too! We turned on Christmas music and the girls danced around while we got it all set up and plugged in the lights. The girls loved it, especially Violet! They helped us put on the ornaments and were able to put on the candy canes by themselves. When we were done, we went in to watch “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” and Violet went back to look at the pretty tree again. We have the baby gates up still so they can’t go right up to it unless we lift them over it, so Violet was standing at the gate gazing at the pretty lights on the tree. So sweet! We put on the cartoon version of the Grinch and they loved it! They were so into it! We remembered putting it on last year and they couldn’t care less. Lily made the Grinchy face and Violet kept saying, “Uh-oh,” when things were going wrong. She was very concerned about Max! Violet is just like Cindy Lou-Who with her blonde hair, blue eyes, and mousy little voice. I said, “Is that Violet?” and Lily said, “Ya.” Then I asked, “Violet, is that you?” and she said, “Ya,” and smiled. They watched the whole thing and didn’t want to go to bed! Then they both wanted to look at the tree some more instead of going to bed! We are definitely in the Christmas spirit now! Tomorrow we will put up their stockings!

October 2014 - 21 months old

10-2-14 Violet loves the 1-2-3 To the Zoo book. It has a lion on the cover and a little mouse to find on each page. She roars like a lion, but it sounds like the noise you'd make for static! She wants to read it over and over again! Lily says “pillow” and “blankey” now and takes them to various places to go night-night! She lays still for about 5 seconds before she's up and moving again! She says pullow.

10-3-14 Lily yells, DADDY! When she needs him or when he walks in the other room. It's like she's singing it, DAD-DEEEE! And she’s soooo loud! haha

10-4-14 Our sweet cousin, Abi, lost her battle with cancer this morning. We are heartbroken. She will never be forgotton.

10-6-14 Violet is so funny when she's really happy. She'll get so excited that she'll shake! She has done this with her doggy in her mouth and tonight it was at The Dodo restaurant with a crayon in each hand! She's also done it when she finds a particularly great flower or leaf. It cracks me up!

10-7-14 Lily is a parrot! She copied me saying damn! Not just once, but 4 times!!!

Lily loved the Indian food tonight! She's doing really well with a spoon!

10-8-14 We can't believe how many words the girls know, especially Lily! We started writing them all down and Lily knows 115 words and Violet knows 55!! Lily is a chatter box and is ALWAYS talking. Violet knows a lot of words but doesn't say them all day long like Lily so it was harder to get a count on hers. Lily knows quite a few phrases, the funniest being “it's working" or “it's not working" and she's always touching the bottom right corner of the TV. I asked Mary if she picked it up there. Yep. If the TV remote isn't working the kids tell Mary that then she turns it on (it's up where the kids can't reach) and tells them it's working. Mary thought it was so funny that Lily picked up on that! Violet knows a lot that Lily knows plus a few that are her own words. She says elephant and the snake sound, hiss, and Julian from Olivia. Oh yeah, she also says off, as in take off my special thumb bracelet because I want to suck my thumb! Lily tries to say Hoggenmuller, the teacher in Olivia. It's pretty funny! They are learning new words every single day!!!

10-10-14 Lily is so funny with the cat ears headbands we got at Target. She puts them on her eyes like glasses and walks around! Violet is always finding the smallest fuzz or little piece of grass on the floor, picks it up with thumb and finger, then brings it to me. Thank you, Violet! She pays so much attention to details!

10-11-14 Violet got Lily's jacket for her. We said, “Lily, tell Violet thank you!" She said, “You're welcome me."

We went to The Tracy Aviary after nap. There was a little hay maze and the girls loved it! Violet tried to pick up every pumpkin in the maze. Lily ran around like a wild woman! Great fun! There were stuffed scarecrows that you can sit and pose with and the girls weren’t scared of them at all. They kept looking at their pumpkin heads with a confused look on their faces.

10-13-14 My mom watched the girls today and they had a great time! She brought the dress up bag and they got to be Hawaiian princesses today! They must have had a lot of fun because Violet was so hyper all afternoon! She was playing with Lily and kept saying Lily, Lily in her sweet voice! Lily was saying, “I got it!" when my mom was here. We went out to swing and we saw a cool bug, probably a beetle, on the slide. They were both fascinated by it!

10-17-14 Lily has been saying “Here you go" to everyone. It's so cute! Violet has been saying “Lily!" in her high, sweet voice. Sometimes it's when they're playing, sometimes it's when she's upset, usually because of Lily. Violet will walk around and sing quietly to herself. It's so sweet!

10-18-14 We went to a Halloween party at Nina's house. The girls were Elmos and everyone loved their costumes! They had a keyboard on their fireplace mantle that was the perfect height for them. Violet was in love with it! She was having so much fun and dancing to the music she was playing. She was bending her knees and bouncing around! Lily came over and liked playing the piano too!

10-20-14 I had the day off, well my last of 6 days off, and I wanted to do something special. At first I thought the park, and then I thought, “We do that all the time.” I took them to the zoo instead! It was mostly a lot of fun! We saw the lions at the perfect time. The trainers were giving them a check up on the other side of the fence. We were all in awe at the lions when they went on their hind legs! Those are some big cats! When we went over to the polar bear area, I let them out to walk a little. Lily just wanted to push the stroller! I have these great handles for them to hold on to when walking next to the stroller and Violet did a great job holding on to it and walking! It’s great because I have a hard time pushing the stroller and holding their hands. The bad part is that Lily didn’t want to get back in the stroller. She had a fit or two when we got to the hill to go see the tigers. Before we left, I wanted to take them on the train. I brought one of the carriers so I could strap one on and then hold the other sitting next to me. Violet loves the carrier so I strapped her on facing out. Lily was so upset when we didn’t make the first train. She was starting to get kind of cranky and tired. I thought we were going to miss the next train too, but there was one bench left so we got it! Lily did not want me to hold on to her at all on the train! Of course I did, but she wasn’t happy, that little stinker! Next time we’ll do the train first before they’re tired, but overall it was a fun morning and I’m glad I tried out taking them to the zoo myself!

10-21-14 Violet calls all crayons “lellow" and roars (her static lion sound) like a dinosaur. Lily is so independent. She can put her own shoes on and is really good at eating with a spoon. They are both pretty good at cleaning up and putting things away. I think we might try out the toddler rails on their beds soon.

10-25-14 We went to a pumpkin patch this morning! It was really fun! There were rows and rows of pumpkins. Violet kept saying, “Apples! Apples!” Lily walked around with a purpose like she was searching for the perfect “punkin.” Soon she was pushing the wheelbarrow. We bought two toddler sized pumpkins that the girls picked out. Mama picked a cool white pumpkin (I’ve never seen one before!), and Daddy bought a dark orange, almost red, flat pumpkin! Once the pumpkins were in the wheelbarrow, the girls had to get in to! When we left, we drove around Farmington Bay a saw a bunch of awesome birds and a few big bullfrogs. We had a very busy and fun morning. As Lily says, “Busy day!”

After nap, we put on their Elmo costumes to take some pictures outside. They are soooo adorable in their costumes! They really look like little Elmos running around. We went to Charlotte’s second birthday party and then to Kristi’s house for the India reunion party. It was so fun to see most of the people we traveled to India with! The girls were in my tummy at the time!

Violet calls every pumpkin she sees apple! There are a lot of little pumpkins around and pumpkin decorations. She points every one of them out and says, “Apple!”

10-27-14 Violet has been biting. Mostly she’s biting Lily. Let’s hope this is a short phase!

Violet loves wearing the teething necklace I used to wear when they were little. She puts it on as soon as she wakes up or as soon as we get home. It has a quick-release closure so I feel ok with her wearing it all the time. She’s a very fashionable girl!

The girls have been playing together so much lately! They make each other tea, cook in their kitchen together, throw the balls back and forth, and love stacking blocks together. It just melts my heart to see them play so sweetly together.

10-28-14 They can go up and down stairs only holding on to the railing now! We like holding their hands unless Lily says, “No help!" She's so independent! Her bottom left incisor is coming in and Violet's bottom right is coming in. We are so excited for Halloween! I’m thinking about bringing them to my school for the parade!

We decided to wait on putting up the toddler rails in their cribs. They’re not trying to get out anymore! We’ll keep the pillows on the floor around the crib though. We’ll wait on potty training too. Sometimes they seem ready, sometimes they don’t!

10-29-14 They are so funny! They pick up so much cute stuff from daycare. Now when we say, “Let’s go to the table for dinner.” They say, “Me!!” and raise their hands! They’ll do that for other things too.

10-30-14 Lily took the last step down with no hands today! She was so focused on getting where she wanted to go that she didn’t even realize she wasn’t holding on to anything! She’s also saying sentences like, “No mama, not Lily turn!” when it’s her turn for a diaper change. She’s been saying, “Book sit, book sit,” when she wants to read a book. It took us about a day to figure that one out. It sounds a lot like bullshit!

10-31-14 It’s Halloween!!! We had a super-fun day today! As Lily would say, “Busy day!” First Daddy brought the girls to my work and they stayed for the parade. I took them to Mary’s and they had a blast with their friends eating donuts and playing all day! At home, the trick-or-treaters starting coming before Daddy even got home from work. We ate some chili and then went out trick-or-treating! We went to our new neighbors first and they did great with knocking on the door. They got their candies and then wanted to go inside! They did that at the second house too and after that they got the hang of it! After the first house, Lily stopped to look in her bag. She took out the candy with a look of, “what is this?” on her face! Priceless! They had so much fun walking up the stairs, knocking on the doors, and getting their treats! Everyone loved seeing two cute little Elmos! Before we were done they both stopped on the sidewalk and started taking everything out of their bags! Once we got home, they dumped everything out of their bags and then put it in and then dumped it out again! We gave them their first sucker and they loved it!!! Their reactions were so funny! Violet was super-hyper and kept putting her sticky sucker back in her bag. Lily pretty much devoured hers and wanted another one. They are so funny! They ran to the door when the doorbell rang and greeted the trick-or-treaters. When it was bedtime, they were at the banister looking down and smiling at the trick-or-treaters. What a fun, busy day!

September 2014 - 20 months old

9-1-14 The girls are getting really good at walking up and down stairs by just holding on to the vertical railings! It's nice that I don't have to take two trips carrying them very often!

9-2-14 Violet is definitely teething, but I can't tell which teeth are coming in. She's been chewing on her fingers, has had a small appetite, and a fever. Lily might be teething too; she's a little crankier than usual. Poor things! It must really hurt!

On our nightly walk up and down the street, Lily has been stopping, turning around, and walking backwards! It's so funny! She'll go a few feet and then turn around and go forward. Now she says, walk!

9-3-14 Lily says “I la la!" for I love you!

I just found out our girls are sororal twins! "Sororal Twins" is another and more accurate term for fraternal girl twins. Sororal stemming from the Latin word “soror”, meaning “sister”, where fraternal stems from “frat”, meaning “boy” in Latin. I think it sounds nicer too!

9-5-14 Opa! We went to the Greek festival tonight! The girls ate really well! They ate chicken souvlaki right off the stick! They loved watching the dancing and would dance right along with the music. After we ate, we walked around a little and Lily wanted to help push the stroller. Suddenly, it feels different and I looked down to see Lily hanging on to the stroller, but being dragged! Luckily it was just a few steps. She wasn't crying at all! It's a good thing she didn't let go!

The girls have been saying things are "hot" and they don't want to eat them. Now we say, "Blow on it!" and they do then eat it right up! I'm glad that works!

9-10-14 They love chasing each other around the column by the living room and the front door. They giggle and smile! I love hearing them play together and laugh together!

9-12-14 Violet was talking to Lily today. I can only understand a few words, but Lily must really understand her because she kept saying, “ya."

9-15-14 Daddy was playing with the girls and Lily said, “Silly Daddy!"

We usually wash the girls together in the tub, but tonight Ryan washed Lily first. While they were upstairs, Violet was cooking me all sorts of stuff in her kitchen! She was talking up a storm and bringing me mushrooms, cabbage, apples, and a drink. It's so cute to see her walk over to the little cabinet and squat down to find her play food. Then she tries to balance it on a plate and laughs when it falls off. She bends over and grunts while she's reaching for it. When it was Violet's turn for a bath, I gave Lily two books to read in her crib. When I came back 5 minutes later, she had the Olivia book open and she had her head resting on it with The Going to Bed Book under her arm! She stood up and I read her The Going to Bed Book. It has a nice rhythm and she was rocking back and forth. Then she read her Olivia book again before she went to sleep.

They loooove books! In the car! On daddy's lap! After work with mama! At bedtime! Books! Books! Books!

9-18-14 The Happy song by Pharrel Williams came on and the girls loved it! They were dancing and singing Happyyyy. Lily kept singing happyyyy the rest of the day! (and weeks later!)

9-20-14 Violet has been saying “Ya" a lot like Lily does! Lily says “I want more!" all the time! It sounds like “ahwah more!"

9-24-14 Lily is quite the character! She can now pull a chair out and sit up at the table. She wanted her water and said wawa. Ryan said it's on the table (their little table), and she sighed ah. She got down, pushed in the big chair, got her water and took a drink, put it back on the table, back to pull out the big chair again, and then sat on it at the dining room table!

In the mornings she'll get her clothes when daddy says it's time to get dressed and then sit down in front of him and flops back! Ryan has to catch her! When it's Violet's turn, Lily kisses her head! If I'm standing in the kitchen she'll come up to me and kiss each of my legs!

Violet gets so hyper at night! It's hard to describe, but she goes a little crazy! She jabbers and climbs up her slide, and giggles like crazy!

Stairs.....oh my, they're getting fast! Up and down. If they want to go really fast, they'll snake down backwards on their t

9-25-14 My mom watched the girls again today. They had so much fun! She brought jewelry for dress up that they loved! This afternoon BOTH girls started saying “mine!" Uh-oh. Yia-yia said she didn't teach them that! Lily started saying “why" and daddy admits to teaching her that one! Violet says “book" all the time because she loves reading!!!

9-27-14 I was sitting on the couch crocheting when Violet came over to sit with me. She was happy sitting on my lap watching me work and then she grabbed my hook and dropped it between the couch cushions. I said, "Shit Violet!" and I hear it again from Lily across the room! Uh-oh, we now have a parrot on our hands. We better watch what we say! 

It was a rainy Saturday so we went to the big library downtown for some new books. I was happy because I was one of the winners for the summer reading program and won a gift card to the Natural History Museum. We went downstairs to the children's section and Violet was super excited! She started squealing in excitement to see all of those books!! It was so sweet! We read and then checked out a sack full of board books to take home. We often go to the library near us, but it was such a different experience going to the big one and riding the glass elevators. What a perfect rainy day outing!

9-28-14 We went swimming today at the rec center! The girls had a great time! They've got a nice kiddie area that's shallow and fun for the girls to play around in. There were only about 5 other people there other than the water aerobics people. Sunday morning is a great time to go to the pool! Violet loved playing in the bubble/water jet things and Lily loved being chased by Daddy and going down the hippo slide! 

Violet started saying no today! Ahhh!!! The girls were making the funniest faces at dinner tonight! I love it when they're being silly girls! Even though I thought they were teething earlier in the month, no new teeth have come in. I think I can see some getting close though. I hope when they do come in, they come in quickly. I'm sure that really hurts!

 Violet at Red Butte Garden

 Lily at Red Butte Garden

 Greek Festival!

 Yummy Souvlaki!

 Mama and her girls!

 Sharing apples

 Silly Violet!

 Cheese! What a ham!

 Sweethearts

Yia-Yia brought dress up stuff! My princesses!

Great sadness

My sweet cousin, Abi, has been battling brain cancer for over a year. Things were looking better, but then an MRI showed that the tumor was growing and spreading to other parts of her brain and her spine. After many chemo and radiation treatments, ups, downs, hopes and fears, Abi earned her angel wings this past Saturday morning. She will be greatly missed. It's hard to understand why this happens to a young girl, but I'm glad she no longer has to suffer and be in pain. That's just too much for a ten year old to bear. From Abi's diagnosis until now, I try not to, but can't help thinking of my own precious girls. I know I can't think about the "what ifs" and I need to focus on the fact that they are healthy and happy and growing. My heart aches for Abi's parents, grandmother (my great aunt), and her little sister. Even though I'm not religious, I strongly believe we will be with our loved ones after we die. As my friend said to me, "There's either nothing or there's something. If there's nothing, we won't know. If there's something, it's got to be good." I hope it's more than good for you, Abi. We miss you and love you.

Read more here and http://www.donationto.com/team-abi.

Sometimes I'm crafty

I've always loved projects. I stayed busy with my girls all summer, but I think I was missing something for me. I needed my brain to be working a bit harder. I read a TON of books this summer, some really good ones too (The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry was my favorite), but I just needed something else. I needed a project or two. Lately I've been working on a few that I'm really excited about. 

I started making a growth chart for the girls a while ago and I made a lot of progress on it this summer. I stitched the numbers and the measurements in black thread that I got from my Grandma Joyce (she loved working on projects too). I wrote their names out on paper first, in cursive, and then traced it on the fabric. Then I stitched their names. I love how they turned out! My next step is to sew up the sides, hang it with a dowel, and then add a whole bunch of crocheted flowers up the entire chart. I have about a dozen flowers done and I'll be able to attach them as I make them. In my mind it looks awesome, but it's not quite there yet. I think I'm going to buy some oval shaped wooden buttons for writing their heights and ages, then I can sew them on as they grow. I found a bunch of fun colors of yarn, I just need to get those flowers made!

I found some really soft, chunky yarn and thought, "I should make a blanket out of this!" Well, I ended up making TWO blankets so they can each have one! It's only been the last few months that I've been getting back into crochet. I think the flowers for the growth chart got me hooked. Ha! Hooked! (You crochet with a hook, in case you didn't know.) I've never crocheted granny squares, but wanted to try them. I ended up going a little crazy and now I'm making two blankets! I have all of my squares finished, and I finished sewing one together today. Now it needs a border. I'm very excited to be done with these and hope the girls love them for many years. 

 Lily loved the blanket! She grabbed it to her face and then said, "Purple!" and pointed to a purple square.

Violet just woke up from nap and wasn't too happy! Sometimes you just need to cry!

I'm just barely starting another blanket, but this one I'm going to take it slow, especially now that I'm back in school. I bought a crochet book a while ago that has really helped me with stitches and techniques. I made some funky coasters from the book and I've always wanted to make the blanket (afghan) on the cover. It's similar to granny squares, but the shape of the "squares" are hexagons. I found some amazing acrylic/wool blend yarn that I absolutely love. The colors are so vibrant and just perfect for this project. It's called Sheep(ish) since it's 30% wool. What a fun name! The colors are red(ish), plum(ish), robin egg(ish), etc. I've made two hexagons so far and I can't wait to make more. I'm going to try not to get too obsessed and rush. It's actually quite relaxing to work on these after the girls have gone to bed and Ryan and I are just chillin on the couch. 

Now my mind is going crazy with other project ideas: scarves, gloves (with that sheep(ish) yarn!), baskets, pillows, gifts. We had a funny idea that I should crochet a cactus and take it to my class. I should have students "water" it and every few weeks make it "grow" and even add a cactus flower one day. It could be pretty hilarious, especially if they buy into it as a "magic" cactus. Maybe they're too old to have fun with that, but it might be fun to try!

August 2014 - 19 months old

8-1-14 Summer is almost over! We’ve spent so much time together, and it will be hard to adjust to going back to work. We’ve spent many mornings at Liberty Park walking and swinging, and we’ve visited the Tracy Aviary and Hogle Zoo several times. We’ve visited Great Grandpa Jay a few times, too. We’ve been to the aquarium and went on a few hikes. We’ve played outside and gone on walks. We’ve been going to the library every Wednesday for Book Baby/Toddler Time. I will miss doing all of these fun things together, but will look forward to spending quality time together every afternoon and weekend.

8-1-14 When we went to check on the girls before we went to bed, Lily was lying on her back on all her stuffed animals and she was up against the side of her crib with her arm out. I moved the animals and Ryan touched her hand to move it. Lily opened her eyes, clapped her hands, said, “Yaaayyy!" and then went right back to sleep!

8-3-14 We scheduled our pictures to be taken this afternoon in the mountains. The skies were dark and as we were taking the first family shot, it started raining! It didn't let up so we went to Murray Park instead. We had so much fun! Violet had to hold a flower, in fact every time we are outside she looks for flowers! At one point Lily had a flower too, and when she was done with it she dropped it and stepped on it! We hope the pictures turn out!

8-5-14 We love playing with the chunky Lego blocks! We have a base with wheels and they stack the blocks as high as they can. Then they say, “Choo choo!” Violet especially loves the blocks and says, “I did it!" every time she adds a block! Lily loves dumping the blocks out of the bag! Luckily they both help clean up!

8-7-14 They are talking so much! Lily says Bu-bu for blueberries, and Violet says Uh-puh for up. Lily's good with animal sounds. She says Mau for cats, moo for cows, and woof for dogs. She says Bi-bet for Violet. Also cookie, Ah-no for I don't know (or Oh no), hat, pees for please. Violet says down, and she'll try to say a lot of words if you ask her. She gets really close on them too! She's said thank you, bird, flower, and she says woof every time we see a dog! Both say all done, swing, outside.

8-8-14 We went to Murray Park again to play with Grandma and Caryn and the kids. Violet found the one dried leaf on the playground and held it the whole time!!

8-12-14 Violet said “I love you" today! It was so sweet! I just got them home from Mary's and I told the girls that I was happy they were home and I love them, then Violet said I love you in her sweet little voice. Before we got in the car at Mary's, I asked how their day was and Lily immediately started jibber jabbing away in baby language! I said, “Really!?" And she just gabbed some more.

Violet has been talking so much! A lot of it is jibberish, but even that is more frequent now. We've been putting her thumb bracelet on so her mouth is freed up to try new words! Lily has been cracking us up, as usual. She’s talking up a storm, and dancing. When she dances she tilts her head to one side, looks slightly down, and spins in circles. Sometimes her hands are behind her back. It’s adorable.

8-13-14 I've been reading a little about potty training lately and found it interesting that many cultures train for poop first because people usually go at about the same time every day. When we got home this afternoon, Lily hadn't gone yet so I thought I'd try it. I stripped her from the waist down and brought her potty out to the main, uncarpeted area. She was eager to sit on it, which is great because she hasn't been interested for a few weeks. I had a bunch of new books from the library that kept her engaged. Violet sat on her potty a little bit too! The last book was a train book and they LOVED it! I read it three times in a row! There's a big picture of the conductor on one of the first pages and Lily kept going to that page shouting ductor! By this time I was making dinner, she'd been there on the potty about 30 minutes, but still happy about it. She kept kissing the conductor and it was so cute! I grabbed the camera and was recording when Ryan got home from work. She stood up and we were surprised to see a lot of pee pee in the potty!! Yay, go Lily!! She was so proud of herself and we were very proud too! She sat on there with daddy a little longer, but still no poop. Ryan and I talked tonight and decided we're going to try training her over the next few days, at least for daytime. It would be crazy to train them both at the same time so we're glad Violet isn't quite ready, although she is comfortable sitting on the potty which is a good sign. We have the girls' 18 month appointment tomorrow so we might ask the doctor what she thinks, although we might change our minds considering our experience with her.

As for Violet, she's been wearing her bracelet most of the time, and I've noticed that when she's not wearing it I can tell her to take her thumb out and she will. I think she doesn't even realize she's sucking it so the bracelet has helped her do other things. She's still talking a ton and said I love you again tonight, this time to Lily.

8-14-14 This morning Lily was not interested in sitting on the potty. We went to the girls' 18 month appointment and the doctor thinks they are doing really well! Violet weighs 18 lb. 5 oz. and Lily weighs 19 lb. 10 oz. Violet is a half inch taller than Lily! It's funny that Lily was taller when they were born, then Violet passed her up, then Lily was taller again for a while, and now Violet's in the lead! Dr. Cox said most people don't potty train until 2-3 so we shouldn't try, but Ryan and I know Lily and we think she's ready. The girls just got one shot each and didn't cry at all! Amazing! They had silvery Band-Aids and each got an Elmo sticker. That made their day! Ryan had to go to work and I took the girls to the store before we went home for lunch. At home, I said, it's time to go pee-pee on the potty! When I got her diaper off, it was dry! It was from first thing in the morning before breakfast! She sat right down and peed! After lunch, she sat again, and this time went poopy! We all get so excited when she goes. We take it to the toilet and they both wave bye-bye as it flushes down. Then they wash their hands and turn off the light, which is their new favorite thing! I have to turn it back on for the second baby to turn off. After nap, she was wet and wasn't too interested in the potty. She sat on it, but not for long. We went outside to swing and had puzzle time. Violet is really good at the shape puzzles! I got dinner ready and just sat down when she started screaming, “I pee pee, I pee pee!” and was pulling at her bib. I quickly got her down and she peed! I think going 3 times in one day is a great start! We'll see what tomorrow brings! If she's not interested, that's fine, we don't want it to be a power struggle, but if she's willing and it's a positive experience, we're going for it!!

8-15-14 Lily said “I love you" to me today! J Violet is so funny when she's hyper. She’s been getting hyper and so silly, mostly at night! We went to The Dodo restaurant tonight. They always eat really well there. Anyway, I thought Lily had a big piece of cheese in her mouth and I asked Ryan to get it so she didn’t choke. He pulled at it, but it wasn’t cheese, it was the wadded up straw wrapper! Ryan pulled it out of her mouth like a magician pulls on a scarf! It was hilarious!!!

The girls are really good at saying Yia yia for Grandma, and Lily says poppy for Grandpa!

8-17-14 Today we took trax to my mom's house for dinner. The girls were super excited to ride the choo-choo! We waited at the platform for our train. The girls were in their stroller. We watched one or two going by before ours came and the waved at every one. The platform was under construction so we didn’t have to pay on the way there! Once on the train, they kept saying choo-choo. The train operator came out of the front at one of the stops and smiled and waved at the girls. Then they kept saying ductor, ductor. My mom met us at the station and we walked to her house. It was hot and uphill, but we made it and were relieved to have a yummy picnic dinner outside on the deck. The ride home was nice too! They were so good all night!

8-18-14 Lily gives lots and lots of kisses to everybody and everything. She was kissing Daddy through the glass on the back door while he was out grilling. She clicks her tongue when she gives a kiss so she opened her mouth and clicked her tongue against the glass! Violet was busy “cooking” in her kitchen and serving it on a plate. Sometimes she’ll bring it to us to try!

8-19-14 Lily calls Mary Me-me. As soon as we got home from Mary's, Violet sat down to read.

After bath I was holding Violet and we were looking in the mirror. I said, “Who's that?" and she said, “I-let!" She said her own name! Now they can both say Violet, but not Lily yet.

8-22-14 They loooove books!! We are reading every chance we get! Animal books, Elmo books, baby books, train books. Board books are still preferred. They've ripped a couple of paper books, but nothing too much. They love their Olivia books!!! They are always asking for those! They say, “O-lia!” Those are paperback too, but they love them! Lily's favorite is the last page where Olivia is going to bed. She says, “night, night.” She points to Olivia's family and shouts mama, dada, baby! Violet loves Olivia just as much!

This was my last week off! I worked 3 days and was home with the girls for 2 days. They were perfect. Monday we went to the park and played in the backyard. Wednesday we went to the library and shopping with Grandma and Andrea, Addy, and Harrison. I'm ready and not ready to go back to work. I think that's just how it should feel.

8-24-14 Today is Sunday, I start school tomorrow and I'm in bed with a cold!! Yuck! Violet has it too and Lily has sneezed a few times. I have a feeling it's going to be a long week.

Lily has been walking on her tippy toes. When we read the peekaboo book, Lily says all of the animal sounds. At the end there’s a mirrow, we ask, “What does Lily say?” She says, “Ya.” She really does say that a lot! Haha!

8-27-14 They both learn so many new words every day! Today Lily said her own name! She sticks her tongue out and says it! So funny! Now at the end of the Peekaboo book she says “Lily.” They both know A LOT of animal sounds too! They love the animal magnets on the fridge and they'll pick an animal and say the sound, but Violet's favorite is the gold fish! She always brings it to us to show. Maybe because Elmo has a goldfish named Dorothy.

8-30-14 I wore my Where the Wild Things shirt today and Lily pointed to the monster and said, “Dada!" When I told Ryan, he said that she points to the monkey in Eric Carle's book From Head to Toe and says, “Dada!" I asked, “Lily, is Daddy a monkey?” and she said, “Yeah.” Violet said Apple today at lunch and continued saying it this afternoon. She likes practicing her new words!

8-31-14 We got our pictures back and they are soooo cute! There are over 150 of them! It’s funny because Violet has the same unsure look on her face for the first shots and you can see her slowly warm up to Natalie and start smiling more and more. I can’t wait to get the disc in the mail so I can print some and share them!

Now they both know a lot of animal sounds! We have a Clifford book that has animals on a farm. They know all of the sounds except the mouse. They both know eyes, ears, nose, mouth, hair, head, and belly button, and they say them all too! I really think they are learning one or two new words every day! It’s so hard to keep track of them all!

 Book Baby/Toddler Time and Miss Lisa. We'll miss you!

 Everybody loves Liberty Park!

 I love sleeping baby pictures. They are my sweet angels!!

Elmo says, "Ah, help me!" Lily ALWAYS gathers up her dollies and sleeps on them.