Hip to be Squared

As of yesterday, I am once again, a perfect square! Yay 25! It was a good birthday. After doing some morning chores while the babies slept, Paige and I made banana muffins, and ate lunch while feeding the babies and watching Despicable Me. Paige is such a good helper lately.



 Jeff came home from school with pretty flowers, and a fun ice cream cookbook I'd checked out from the library a couple weeks ago called Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams. We really liked the lemon cream ice cream, and lime cardamom frozen yogurt. We're thinking of trying the roasted strawberry and adding basil or balsamic vinegar into it. We're also interested in the salted caramel. For the record though, the chocolate curry ice cream is fun to try, but not one I'd crave.






After dinner, Paige came running up with these candles she'd made out of bristle blocks. What a sweetheart. I also got calls and presents from my family and my visiting teachers!






Plus, Jeff and these two girlies let me sleep in this morning. What a good birthday!

Before School Starts

Realizing that summer is coming to an end, we've spent the last little while trying to get out a little bit before all our playmates are in school and the weather goes sour. Our activities include, but are not limited to...

The county fair!

 They had pig races and a petting zoo that were way fun. Paige's favorite was the cows. My favorite was this charming and valuable animal:

Yep. Charming is the first word I think of when I see a shaggy llama.

We also went to a water party, and to pick peaches at a local farm.

 The farm had this really cool slide that all the kids loved.

 Not pictured is our trip to the fabric store, which was a result of my own very poor judgement. For some reason I thought it would be a harmless, easy place to test taking all three kids out for a bit. And it might have been, except that we missed a nap because of our timing. Oops. Two screaming babies and a crying toddler do not a happy (or productive) trip make.

Luckily, these kids are pretty quick to forgive. And they're so smiley that they're easy to forgive too. Plus they put up with being dressed up in silly headbands. Jeff says she looks like chiquita banana baby.

Spot the Difference

We get asked a lot if we can the twins apart, and over the last couple of months, we've found a couple little things. How many can you spot? (different outfits don't count, since those change a couple times a day.)

Da back a yo' head is ridiculus

Ready for the answers?

It's not just the angle, they really do have different head shapes.

In case you're curious now, here's a close-up of Anna's scar:

And...here are other pictures that I love this week:

I love that gummy smile!

What *kind* of books?

Paige just told us that she's going to the library to get some new books.

We're Okay With Rain

It was really rainy this week, and one of the things we decided to do was decorate the corner where we usually keep the babies' rockers during the day. We got to spend the afternoon using scissors, colored paper, and tape, and now the babies have something besides white walls to look at.

We also did another little photo shoot, since it's been a month and these kids grow like weeds.

Bah! They're so cute!! Anna's on the left, Emma's on the right.

C'mon, Mom. Even I know this is cheesy.

Ninja pose!

T is for...

I mean J is for...

High five! Well, almost.

Umm, time to wrap up, I guess. Paige, can you help?

Nevermind. Stinker.

On a side note, this one is going to be a thumb-sucker, I fear.

Paige in Real Life

Most of the time, there are enough adults here and relatively free enough to take on the babies man-to-man. But every once in a while, someone will have to run an errand, and another will be busy. In case you were wondering, this is what those times generally look like:

Paige tries to help and be affectionate with the babies when she can. Sometimes are more successful than others.

I love to watch her during the times when everyone else is busy and she has to entertain herself. She comes up with some great stuff. She likes to play hairdresser with her ponies.

Play super-hero with my ruler.

Or play Mommy and Daddy. I always laugh when I see these peaking out from underneath her shorts or shirt. She won't let me take them off; "No, Mommy! They're my underwear! I have to wear them so I can go to the temple and get married!"

Rainy Day Musings

Paige and I explored a new grocery store this week and when we got there, we discovered that it was a very Jewish store. All the women wore long skirts, and long sleeves with their long hair in shawls. All the men wore their kippahs and prayer strings. Paige and I--strangely enough--both happened to be wearing maxi dresses that day, but I felt keenly aware of my short sleeves, short (uncovered) hair, and sandaled feet. I'm not a very good Jew.

During our trip to the library this week, we saw a man there with his kids. His kippah and prayer strings marked him as obviously Jewish, but his pants were kinda baggy and he wore a t-shirt with a stick figure playing a video game and the phrase "Not now, I'm busy" across the front. It was a funny combination.

Anna's in the clown ruffles, bombing Emma's couch time and photo session.

We have a little dress that I put Anna in for the first time this week. It has strawberries and flowers, and says, "organically grown" all over. It's a sweet little dress, but I couldn't help but feeling all day like it was false advertising; with the fetal surgery and all the medical intervention that's gone on, I don't think that she could be considered organic.  

The girlies are getting to a stage where they are much more awake and aware. Anna especially wants to be up and seeing everything and does not like to be left in her rocker if she is awake. The word 'restless' is an apt description of them, but every time someone says the babies are restless, I can't help but hear, "the natives are restless." Hopefully it will be a while before I'm being chased by these angry savages, since I know I'm the white woman that's going to end up being sacrificed. For now, I think everyone around here is pretty restless.