Christmas 2014!

Merry Christmas Eve!

After nap, we headed over to Yia-Yia’s house for our Christmas Eve party. There were a lot of people and it was a lot of fun! My mom throws great parties and cooks delicious food! Our favorites are her Italian sausage and meatballs. They’re baked in her homemade pasta sauce and delicious on a roll. There were quite a few kids because Ted’s grandkids came too. His daughter’s boyfriend’s daughter was so sweet with the girls! She said, “Violet is just like Cindy Lou Who!” which is so funny because we say that all the time. The girls even point and say, “Violet!” when we watch the cartoon Grinch. The girls loved looking at all of the beautiful presents under my mom’s little tree. Before we knew it, it was time to go! The girls were excited about Santa coming tonight!

 Shiny presents! Which ones are ours??

 Andrea made a delicious chocolate cake!

Merry Christmas!

Santa came! And it snowed!! The girls must have been good this year! Santa brought new coats, mittens, shoes, coloring books and crayons in a train box, and the big gift was train tracks with circus trains and two Thomas trains! They got a bunch of smaller stuff on their stockings like Thomas socks, maracas and whistles for their music set, “canny” m&m’s in a candy cane, and a few other things. Santa found these cute owl and bird bags and put a Burts Bees chapstick inside. They always want mama’s so I’m glad they have their own now! Lily says, “Lip, Mama, lip,” when she wants some. We gave the girls Magformers, a peg puzzle block train, a multi-sided puzzle, and a little fishing game! Violet loves the fishing game! We knew she would. They opened the presents from Mary and Val, too. They gave Violet the mouse from If you Give a Mouse a Cookie with the book attached and Lily got the bear from Brown Bear, Brown Bear with the book attached. The books are soft, made of fabric. They are so cute! They’ll love snuggling with those! Mary knows them well!

By 8:30 we were on our way to my dad’s house! We decided to make it a jammy day and not get the girls dressed. We just didn’t have time! We are happy we have four-wheel drive. When we got to my dad’s street, Grandpa and Neil were stuck in the snow. Matt was trying to help and my dad came out too. My dad started driving his car and almost ran over Ryan! He fell and bruised his hip pretty badly. Eventually we all made it inside! The girls and Addy helped pass out all the presents. We opened a few presents and then went in to eat breakfast. Mindy set the table beautifully! We have our traditional Christmas morning breakfast of frittata and Mindy bought pastries from Gourmandise. We had mimosas made with hand squeezed orange juice! Mindy is amazing!! After that we went back to the living room to finish opening presents. The girls made a haul, of course! They got a mini-trampoline and sit and spin thing. I gave everyone their blankets! I had everyone open them at the same time and they loved them! Yay! Mindy liked her scarf I made too.

Back at home, my mom came over and they got to open more presents!! They got little leapfrog ABC laptop things and velvet track suits. My mom loved her blanket! She wasn’t feeling well, so they didn’t stay too long.

After lunch they were READY for a nap!!! We needed one too! What a morning! It’s been so fun and the girls have loved every minute of it.

Last year, we didn’t really plan a nice dinner for Christmas day. We didn’t make that mistake again! We brined a turkey the day before and put it in the oven in the afternoon. We had asparagus, bread, and gravy with our turkey. It was delicious! We hope to do the same every year. I love new traditions!

One last Christmas gift for the girls, we put their toddler rails on their cribs! We were really nervous, but it went very smoothly! They don’t nap in cribs at Mary’s anymore, so they were used to it! When we went back in to check on them, they were sleeping so peacefully, but in awkward positions! Violet laid sideways with her head against Elmo, right on the edge of the toddler rail. Her feet were sticking out the rails on the other side! Lily was laying on top of all of her blankets. First night was a success! We hope naptimes go just as well!

Santa came!

Fun Magformers!

It's a Thomas whistle!

Hooray! A train set!

Going fishing!

Look Poppy Jay! Santa Bear!

Passing out presents

Blankets!

Mama said we can jump on it!

Twin Spin!!

Daddy has the best holiday sweater!

All the cousins on Poppy's and Mindy's laps!

Sweet cousins! Addy and Violet

Mindy and Lily being silly!

Yia-Yia and Ted gave us fun books!

ABC Laptops! Lily likes dancing to the music!

The pink one says, "V is for Violet!"

Yia-Yia loves her blanket!

lip

Violet was too tired for one more picture with Mama!

First night with the toddler rail! Elmo for a pillow and feet out the back rails.

Does that look comfortable? :)

December 2014 - 23 months old

12-2-14 When I pick up the girls from Mary's, I ask how was your day? Lily says, “Sammeli.” (Sammy, Eli) Who did you play with? Sammeli. Any question about Mary's the answer is Sammeli! When we get home, she pretends to talk on the phone. Sammeli.

They both say a rooster says, “Cock-a-doo!” Lily finds the Grinch on the Dr. Seuss blanket and makes the Grinch face. If we watch The Grinch, they both make the Grinch face!

I love how Violet scrunches up her eyes and nose when she laughs. It’s so cute!

12-3-14 I have the sweetest, funniest girls! Violet had owls on her sockies and she would look down, say "Whooooo," look at me with a surprised face like she didn't know there were owls on her socks, and then smile her giggly, scrunchy smile! 

Lily is always the last one sitting at the table. She is sloooow like daddy and she doesn't want to get down! She'll often sit there a while with daddy even though she's done eating (or not done)!! Then, she leans her head all the way to one side to see me in the living room and says, “Hi Mama!!”

12-5-14 Violet peed on the potty!!!! We were all so excited and jumping around! All night, we said, who went pee-pee on the potty? Lily said, “Sissy!!” and Violet smiled her proud smile! She was dry when we got home this afternoon, so I sat her down. She read the special bathroom books and when she stood up, there it was! Wahoo!!!

12-6-14 Daddy's been gone for work the last 2 days, but he's coming home tonight! Yay! The girls have asked about him a few times. I’m glad it’s only a short trip.

Earlier today we went to see Santa at Jack's house. They wanted nothing to do with him! (Yesterday we saw Santa at Discovery Gateway and it took them a while to even look at him!) Jack’s parents throw a fun party. It’s too bad Ryan wasn’t there too! He has an epic playroom so they were plenty busy. At one point I looked up and saw Margaret, the girls’ dietician! She’s been a neighbor to Rusty’s family (Jack’s daddy) for years! It was great to see her and catch up. She said the girls look great and healthy! When it was time to eat, despite all the toys, the girls sat at the kiddie table and ate lunch. Of course Margaret noticed how well they ate!

That night the girls and I went to dinner with Demi and Danny at a pizza place in Sugar House. It was a lot of fun and the girls behaved and ate well. It’s nice when restaurants provide crayons and something to color on, but if not, I’m always prepared!

12-10-14 When I picked up the girls this afternoon, Mary gave them a nice compliment. She said that she loves how the girls are so good at exploring their toys, and playing with musical instruments. They’re always reading books or playing with blocks and they love the tricycle outside. It was nice to hear they play so nice and are inquisitive.

Lily dumps the blocks out of the bucket and puts it on her head. Then she comes to me and says, “Knock,” and I do and say, “Who is it?” She pushes up the bucket and says, “Lily!!!” Violet likes to play that game too! They also like us to tie blankets on their heads like old lady scarves. It’s actually pretty sweet!

12-13-14 This is going to be the last sequential date in our lifetime! Kind of neat!

We went to see Santa at Trolley Square. The line was a little long so we walked around a bit first, looking at the craft market they have there this time of year. We were upstairs looking down and we were talking about Santa and how the kids are so happy sitting on his lap. We asked if they wanted to go down and sit on his lap. They said, Yeah! When we got down there, we had to wait in a short line and we kept saying, “Look at the little girl! She’s sitting on Santa’s lap! Is she happy? (yeah) Is she crying? (no)” When it was our turn, did they want to sit on Santa’s lap? NO! They wanted to climb into his sleigh, but not sit with him! We got a few pictures standing near Santa. He said that kids don’t really like sitting on his lap at this age, until they’re 27 months. I guess he would know!!

We went to a neighbor’s birthday party later that night. Violet was protecting Lily from a boy stealing her balloon. She was whacking him with both of her balloons, and shouting, “Noooooo!” hahahaha!

12-15-14 Lily grabbed some of my yarn and said, “Come on sting (string)!” She was pulling on it and getting frustrated because it was caught and then she was just pulling on a short length of it and getting frustrated that the rest wasn’t moving! I was laughing so hard!

12-16-14 They are both starting to sing Somewhere Over the Rainbow with me. It's the sweetest thing ever! They'll sing meeee or hiiiigh. They love being rocked and sung to at bedtime now.

There are many things I want to record: reading 123 to the Zoo, reading th Elmo pet book with hidden sheep (they point to the sheep and belt out baa, baa, baa!), bath time, how quick they are going up and down the stairs, and doing their favorite puzzles.

12-19-14 They made jingle bell bracelets at Mary's today. They love them, especially Violet who put them all on one arm! They were singing Jingle Bells pretty good with me too. I guess they were practicing it all day at Mary’s!

12-20-14 They love singing!!! They sing anything with me all the time. They catch on to the last sound of the line and then sing it. Violet often hums along with her thumb in her mouth. Silly girl! They'll sing anything with me, but especially love Somewhere Over the Rainbow, Jingle Bells, Twinkle Twinkle (Lily requests that one), Doggy in the Window, Wheels on the Bus (Lily says, "Move on back!" and Violet says, "Beep, beep!"). Lily belts out “someWHEEEERE over the rainBOOOWW,” and closes her eyes and shakes her head a little. She really gets into it!

12-23-14 Lily will do something silly, like stuff her doggy in her dollhouse, then say, “Ta, mama!" (Ta da!) They are so different at breakfast. Violet eats one puff at a time and bites them in half with her front teeth first. Lily grabs a handful and stuffs them in her mouth. They love the purple berry puffs the best!

Lily wiggles from side to side when she likes something a lot. (Daddy sometimes does that too!) Sings “Happy!!” (Pharrell Williams song)

Christmas will be in its own post!

12-26-14 Since it snowed yesterday we’ve been dying to go outside! After nap we got all bundled up to go outside and play in the snow! They loved it! They ran around and Daddy built a snowman! The girls had fun with Bella and then it started to get dark. Time to go in, but no, they laid down and made snow angels! Did they really know that’s what they were doing? Probably not, but it was so cute to see them laying in the snow together, giggling!

12-27-14 Happy Birthday, Ryan! After breakfast we went to the Natural History Museum! We always start at the top and make our way down. After we left the Native Voices room, Ryan said, “There’s Ty Burrell.” He’s Phil in Modern Family and we love that show! We knew he lived in Salt Lake, but didn’t expect to ever see him. He was there with his family so we didn’t bother them at all; we just went around the museum like they were any other family. It’s funny because we pretty much went through the whole museum with them. Sometimes we were ahead of them, and sometimes they were ahead of us. At the end I thought I should ask for an autograph because I’d regret it if I didn’t! He happily signed Ryan’s ticket and told him “Happy Birthday!” We went to have a yummy lunch at Toasters and then headed home to get the girls down for nap. Ryan chose to go to Bombay House for dinner. We stopped at Nordstrom Rack on the way and Ryan found the boots he was looking for! Yay! At dinner, the girls were really good and Lily ate soooo much! She loves the veggie biryani! After I put the leftovers in the box, she got the big spoon and cleaned the rest of the sauce out of the bowl! She would have kept going if we would have let her! Overall, Daddy had a lovely 33^rd birthday! We love you!! 

12-28-14 Violet must have rolled out of bed onto the pillow and then onto the floor. When we went to bed she was all curled up on the floor. I picked her up and put her in bed. I love them in their toddler beds now. I can give them kisses when they are asleep!

Lily is still singing “Santa Comin' to Town!!!” She belts it out!!

We’ll be sad when we have to take the tree down. Probably after their birthday. The girls love the tree, and so do I. They say, “Tee on!” for us to turn on the lights, and at night they say, “Bye, tee!” Violet carefully pulls the soft bird ornaments off the tree and wears them on her wrists like bracelets.

 Santa at Trolley. This is the best we could do!

 I finished the blankets just a few days before Christmas, on the 20th!

Wow, I made these.

Cutie posing!

 Yoga babies!

Jingle bells!

First gingerbread house! They made it at Mary's house!

 

Busy coloring

 Snoopy dog!

 Violet in the snow!

 Lily in the snow!

 Helping Daddy make a snowman!

Bella kisses!

 Is that a mini snowman?

 It is a mini snowman!

 Mama's Snow Angels!

 Natural History Museum!

 Ants! (and Ty Burrell!)

 My little rock climbers!

In the Horse exhibit 

 She was so nervous about walking on the glass floor!

 Happy birthday, Daddy!

 Yummy Indian food!

 Gelato!

Cheese!!

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!