My Concert Pianists

Little sidenote: Bree picked out this outfit today!

Full of It

An excerpt from an email to a friend that I recently sent - thought some of you may enjoy it, too....


It seems we are full of it around here. My two year old son's latest fascination is reaching back and digging in his diaper once he's dropped a load. (Perhaps he gets that from his father's side.) The other day when I was on the phone, he ran up to me excitedly saying "poop, poop!", and I thought surely he was telling me he needed to use his potty chair. But then I realized he really just wanted to show me what he managed to extract from his diaper. The next day, I got my hopes up once again when he actually asked to get out of the tub to use his potty. But the celebration was cut short when, less than an hour later, he presented me with yet another brown finger. Having twins only complicates matters. When my nose senses someone in need of a diaper change, I ask the kids straight up "Did you poop?" Without hesitation my daughter will say, "No, brother did!" This is her standard response regardless of who the perpetrator is. So then I have to resort to other measures. Never in my life did I envision uttering "Let me smell your butt" on a regular basis!

Border Patrol

Hi All,
Let's just say border patrol is now in effect. It's been a week since Drew got his "big boy bed". Sure, things started out on a good note (kids settled in to sleep for nap and bedtime with no problem on day one). But, from there, we quickly moved to "bad" and maybe even a little ugly. Keeping Drew corralled quickly became an issue. He figured out pretty immediately that getting out of his new bed was even easier than the crib. I tried the pressure mounted gate we use for our laundry room in the doorway - he knocked it over on his first attempt. I spent time holding the door closed while he tried over and over again to open it. That got old in a hurry. I tried returning him to bed time after time of him getting up. That was pretty exhausting. Sunday evening, after a long line of antics, the kids got to sleep sometime after midnight. After some hair-pulling, I came up with the latest weapon in the bedtime war.

The play yard fence meets the bedroom.....

It ain't pretty, and I hate the hurdles I am forced to do to get over it while border patrol is in effect. But, it's doing the job at the moment. Sure, Drew still shakes and rattles on it, but he can't climb it, and it keeps him form opening and shutting the door. And, witness the sleeping child in this picture. For that reason, I snapped this picture of my boy with a larger than usual amount of delight. Hopefully, we'll continue to keep things in line south (or technically "west") of the border.

Happy Easter, Happy Birthday!

Hi All,
We held a dual celebration today, for Easter and my Grandma's birthday (plus all the other family birthdays on or around this time).
So, I guess that makes my first official Easter hosting experience, although we got a lot of help from family members. (Everyone brought food, including my parents' huge and delicious ham.) So, I can't take all the credit. :) All in all, I think it went well. Most importantly, my gram (our guest of honor) said it was perfect and really enjoyed being surrounded by family.

Drew and Bree enjoyed some outside time with the grandparents and some Easter eggs. Thank goodness for the nice day!

Bree, Papa, and the eggs - Papa tossed, Bree retrieved, and they repeated again and again.

And Drew enjoyed some reading time with Aunt Diane.

When it came time for cake, my amazingly talented cousin-in-law Hillary had us covered once again. The cake was beautiful, and tasted incredible (Bavarian creme = delicious!)

The birthday line-up! Once we started looking, we found lots of April/May birthday people in the crowd to join in on the fun.

Our family shot for the day; many of us were pretty worn out by the time we took this picture.

And the last picture of the day; yes, the kids were officially done at this point. At least my parents are still smiling!

Thank You Easter Bunny

Hi All,
The Easter bunny made his annual stop at our home. Here's the spread....

Drew wasn't sure what to check out first. The golf clubs ended up being fun, but a little dangerous. The fishing poles were the big winners.

Here is a little video footage. You can see the "boss lady" directing her brother to his basket. :)

The Hunt is On!

Hi All,
We started our Easter celebrations a day early with dinner and festivities at Jim's parents' house.

First, there were a few more eggs to be colored. I love the "moment" that Cooper and Bree are sharing here. (Cooper claims Bree was giving him the evil eye!)

Before long, it was time for the egg hunt.

And here is the video coverage of the egg hunt. I laugh every time I watch this and hear Drew and Bree frantically shouting "Eggs, eggs, eggs!" And then I see Conner in a mad dash after a very sought after egg - too funny!

And, we also had a birthday celebration to make the day extra special. Happy 8th birthday Carter!

The Eggs of Easter - Round 2

Hi All,
Just in time for Easter Eve, Drew got his chance at some egg coloring.

But first, Bree had to show him the ropes. I think everyone's expressions speak for themselves here.

Here's Drew dropping some eggs into the coloring. Nice form, buddy!

Video cut of the egg masters...

Welcome Logan!

Hi All,
My cousin Lisa and hubby Eric had their son Logan Michael on March 31! We got to meet the little guy today. Drew and Bree didn't have much of an opinion (perhaps a little case of jealousy from all the attention I was giving him). But I think he is just wonderful!

 Lisa and Logan

Waking Up is Hard to Do

Hi All,
I happened to get a wake up video this morning. My twosome ended up in the same bed last night after some middle of the night "fun" with their dad. Drew is a bit more bright eyed and bushy tailed here than Bree. But hey, waking up is hard to do, wouldn't you agree?!?

The Eggs of Easter - Round 1

Hi All,
Bree got a special treat tonight and got to color some Easter eggs all by herself. Okay, Dad helped a little bit! Drew wasn't up for the challenge and headed off for bed early. But my girlie was so excited about dipping those eggs and seeing them come out a different color - it was a joy to watch!

Here is a video clip of the action.

Children's Garden

Hi All,
We had a fun time with our friends at Meijer Gardens today. After a quick run through the butterfly exhibit, we headed outside to explore the children's garden.

Let the fun begin!

As usual, Drew and Bree were enamored with the wettest exhibits!

Not sure what there is to see in here, but Colin had to find out.

Checking out "the tongue". Claire, we are loving that tutu, girl!

A giant sandbox - oh boy!

 The moms got to sit and chat while the kids moved dirt.

Bye for today - we'll be back!

Goodbye Crib!

Hi All,
Here is Drew showing off his crib scaling capabilities....

Up and over

"And I'm out - easy as pie!"

So, we did it. We made to move from crib to toddler bed for Drew, due to his climbing abilities. Once he started up again, he pretty much didn't stop. He was climbing out of the crib repeatedly at will. So the crib was only serving as a safety hazard at this point.
We decided to transition the crib to a toddler bed, which is a feature that the crib came with. (There is a bed rail that replaces one of the crib rails, and it's a very simple installation.) Jim happened to take the day off, and the kids and I watched as he switched out the rails.

Both Drew and Bree wasted no time getting a few jumps in on the new bed, but were still more comfortable jumping on the old.

We asked Bree if she wanted her crib to look like Drew's did, and she said no. I was pretty surprised by that. But I was more than happy to oblige in keeping her crib intact for a while longer, as she is not at risk of climbing out yet.

Inspecting the big boy bed

So far, so good!

To my amazement, both nap time and bed time went off, pretty much without a hitch! Right on schedule, Drew announced he wanted to go "night, night" at nap time and ran off to lay in his new bed. We got Bree into her crib, and that was it! At bed time, we got a very late start for a few reasons. But, once we all got serious about it, the kids both piled in to Drew's bed for story time and then it was time for bed. Bree claimed she wanted to stay in Drew's bed with him, but also got up out of his bed a couple times. So, I cut her off at the pass and quickly moved her to her crib. The only protesting I got was they wanted the big light on in their room, which I kept on for them. We ended up having a pretty big rain storm as the kids were going to bed. I was a little surprised the lightning and loud rain did not bother them, but they made it through the night without a peep! They are still sleeping as I type.
I'm sure we'll have our hiccups along the way, but "Day One of the Toddler Bed" was a success!

Water Park! AKA Avalanche Bay

Hi All,
Tax season is finally over! As a little celebration for all of us for surviving yet another one, we headed up to Avalanche Bay, which is the indoor water park attached to Boyne Mountain. The kids had a blast. Apparently, you can't go wrong with a water park at this age. On our last day, Bree was yelling "water park, water park!" as we left the park area for home, in an all out attempt to summon us back.
Now that I've been to two indoor water parks in the past few months, surely I'm an expert! Maybe not, but I do have some critiques and comparisons of Great Wolf in Traverse City and Avalanche Bay at Boyne.

First, since we have two year olds, we spent almost all our time in the kiddie area. Avalanche had a "splash area" which opened up to a wading type pool with a few basketball hoops. The kiddie area seemed smaller to me at Avalanche that Great Wolf. There was only one slide for kids this age (vs. I think three or four at GW). The wading pool was nice, but we didn't spend much time there, as there were too many four to six"ish" year olds pelting basketballs all over the place. This brings me to another issue, which was purely circumstantial. We went to AB on a Saturday, and it was insanely busy. On a less busy day, we may have been more comfortable exploring the wading pool. Since we didn't, I felt a little confined to the splash area. It didn't help matters that Drew and Bree did not take a liking to the one slide that was available there. Nonetheless, Drew and Bree loved it.

The kiddie area, where we spent 99% of our time

Waterworks at the kiddie pool

One happy girl

Next issue at AB, associated with the "crazy busy" issue, all the crazy, impolite kids seemed to be out and looking to steal balls from toddlers. I know kids will be kids, and it's awhile before they really know any better. But where are the parents? It was unbelievable how many times Jim and I had to step in to make sure D and B didn't get their balls stolen.

A little game of catch

A few more issues with AB, which again may be associated with the level of activity. One, where were the lifeguards? At GW, they were everywhere. There were always a few in view from any vantage point. At AB, you had to search a bit to pick one out. Maybe not a big deal if you have bigger kids, but the lifeguard coverage at GW was more comforting for me.
And lastly, the lazy river at AB was more of a crazy river on Saturday. There was so much bumping of tubes and other action that it truly scared D and B.
With all that said, I did like some aspects of AB. They had a surf simulator and a climbing wall, all cool things for older kids. Aside from the water park, Boyne also had an indoor resort pool that opened up to an outside pool which was heated year round, kind of a cool concept.

Furthermore, we liked the nightlife at Boyne.

Bree and Daddy admiring the fish on our way to dinner

They had pre-packaged smores kits fireside in the lobby. What's not to like?!? We grabbed a few (or more than a few) packages to snack on before dinner. Not sure if it's legal to eat raw smores, but we did it!

Unpackaging the smores

Enjoying the smores "raw"

We grabbed dinner at the onsite pizzeria - pizza of course! It didn't exactly cater to children, but we made it work.

That's a cheesy grin if I ever saw one!

And I think Bree is literally in the middle of saying "cheese" here

As we left, the waitress told us there was another set of twins about the same age on the other side of the restaurant. When we made our way back to the lobby to cook smores and enjoy storytime, we ran into them. Interestingly, we already knew them from my multiples group back home!

We got pack n plays for the kids brought to our room by the hotel. However, Drew had no intentions of sleeping in his. Instead, he crawled in bed with me and spent most the evening wiggling around and sleeping sideways. Jim relegated himself to the couch, rather than be subjected to that. This is how Jim found us in the morning.

Drew, all snug as a bug

And Bree slept like a champ in the pack n play.

The view from above

We awoke to this in the morning - snow falling and a good deal of snow on the ground. Not all that exciting when it's the middle of April! There were still people skiing the slopes. The resort offered some sort of golf AND ski package deal for the weekend. Umm, I think we'll stick to the indoor water park, thank you very much!

Missing

Hi All,
Well, it's been close to two weeks now that our Sampson has been missing. Of course, I feel horribly responsible. At the height of frustration, I put him outside after he had peed for what seemed like the millionth time on our clothing and carpet. There was presumably a medical reason for this (crystals), and he got plenty of medical attention and special treatment around here. He had been on medication (3rd round) which helped him temporarily in the past and a special diet that was supposed to cure him. Still, it didn't stop.
Anyway, I didn't want him to run away, or wander off and get lost, or simply not come back. I didn't expect any of that to happen. Blanca and Cue didn't have issues coming and going outside as they pleased. Why would he? He stayed outside at my parents' farm for months. He even had jaunts of days away and returned. He had a collar with our phone number on it. So, I spent the first week waiting and fully expecting a call, telling us to come pick up our cat.
What's kind of weird is I have literally taken no pictures of him (the few I have are from my mom). It's like somehow I knew he would be a short-timer with us. The kids thought he was barrels of fun, and he was a real cuddly guy, which I enjoyed. But he really rubbed Blanca the wrong way, and he seriously got in Riley's face too (nothing she couldn't handle). And I won't mention how many times he "disregarded" Riley's bed (a favorite target!) And maybe this sounds silly, but I hate the fact that the last time I saw him I was angry with him.
I don't know; maybe we just weren't a fit. I still look whenever I am walking and driving out around the neighborhood. I'm hoping the fact that he hasn't come home means he found a nice place to settle in. Perhaps he wandered and someone else took an immediate liking to him, so much so, that they did not want to return him. Perhaps he is living in one of the barns nearby and enjoying an outdoor life again. There is one very close by that I highly suspect. Maybe "missing" to me is simply "relocated" to Sampson.

Open Wide

NOW THIS IS SERVICE!

The Return of the Escape Artist

Hi All,
Well Drew is up to his old tricks. Back in the beginning of February, he was climbing out of his crib. It happened on several occasions, and just as I was thinking it was time to make a change in the bedroom setup because of it, he simply stopped.
Today, I knew he had no interest in sleeping when I left him and Bree in their cribs for nap time. Not too long afterwards, I heard some louder than normal noises in their bedroom. Sure enough, I entered to find him out of his crib and putting toys into Bree's crib. The rocking chair was up next to his crib (NOT where I left it), so it must've been close enough for him to reach and grab, then perhaps step down into it after getting his leg over the crib bar. So, I put him back to bed and moved the rocking chair out of reaching distance. Sure enough, he made his way out again. Nap time was officially over at that point.
Bed time rolled around, and about forty five minutes after I put them to bed, Bree started crying loudly and uncharacteristically. I opened the door to find Drew standing in front of me on the other side. (Surely, he had woken up Bree with his antics.) I sat down and had a talk with Drew, which may have been more for my benefit than his. I said "Drew, when I put you to bed, it means you are supposed to lay down, shut your eyes and go to sleep. That way we can all be well rested and have energy to play tomorrow, okay?!?" I expected no response, but instead, he looked right at me and said in his sweetest voice, "Okay, mommy!"
The sucker that I am, I spent the next half hour reading books to them before insisting it was time to head back to bed.
So we are back to "wait and see". But I have a feeling this time change is going to be necessary to get it resolved.

At the Car Wash

Hi All,
Drew had fun hanging out at the car wash, also known as our driveway! The sponge and bucket were simply fascinating.

And with a nice warm up in the weather, it's only appropriate to break out some yogurt pops.

Complete with yogurt pop beards!

And why stop at beards - how about throwing some wolf ears into the mix? Howling good fun around here!

Two Year Molars for my Two Year Old

Hi All,
Well, it didn't take long for Drew to work on his two year molars. He's been drooling and chewing on his hand for a week. I convinced him to let me reach my hand in his mouth, and I found top and bottom two year molars on the left side.