The Christmas 2010 blog....settle in now

It's going to be a long one! BEST CHRISTMAS EVER!!! I know, I know, I said that last year too. Well it was even better this year. The girls loved presents, Santa, the Christmas spreads, being with their families (especially all of the cousins: Haley, Mariah, Shaylah, Olivia and Owen....oh especially little "Ownen"). I've spent the past two weeks of Winter Solstic and Christmas celebrations overjoyed. It's true what they say, seeing Christmas through the eyes of a child is almost better than it was when you were a child.

Pre-Christmas - the tree. Not exactly Charlie Brown but we tried to thin it out a bit and we made it work. My friends know my idea of a beautiful tree is a stick with a few branches on it. The girls helping decorate:




Two weekends ago we celebrated Christmas with Royce's Brother, Chad, Mimi, Haley, Royce's Mom and Ken. It was fun, the girls LOVE Mimi and their little french bulldog, Lokki. Chad and Mimi have a "love nest" at their house which is like a massive bean bag chair without the beans and the girls love climbing on it and being thrown into it. They love going over there. Haley (8) is growing up quickly and is as beautiful as ever, sweet as can be too.

Winter Solstice my parents came over to celebrate with us. We ate by candle light and burned a yule log as part of Solstice tradition. We enjoyed good food and drinks and let the little girls entertain, which they love to do. The girls were initially afraid of the big candle at the dinner table until I told them it was safe and it symbolized light which is a very good thing. Now before dinner every night Adia insists that I light all of the candles so we've been eating by candle light every night since!


So this pic is like take number five. I just had my old camera (aka Royce's new camera) and the battery was dying. Every time I took a shot my Dad was like "my eyes were closed!" while trying to stop laughing and the girls were squirming out of their arms. Rasa looks like a mini-granola like her Momma with that hippy band she's got on. Love it. Gotta give a shout out to Chris - thanks Hun for the birthday packages for the girls which, to the girls delight, included two Birthday Girl t-shirts, one of which Adia had to put on immediately over the top of her other shirt. Thanks Chris!

Christmas with my family is always a mess of good food, drinks, lots of conversation and laughter and enjoyment for everyone. The little cousins are wild and love chasing each other all over the house so you hear constant squeals and screams. You can't sit there without a smile on your face. Everyone has fun and hours and hours pass like minutes. This year we got there at 5 and left at 11! The girls had fun playing with Shay in their new (and amazing) wood kitchen my parents got for them. Shaylah loved it and showed them how to use everything. They played dolls in Nana's doll house, colored, stickered up everything and got to spend lots of time with their favorite baby cousin Owen. For about fifteen full minutes Rasa and Owen were both on their bellies on the floor, face to face, mimicking what each other was doing, both laughing and smiling like nothing better had ever happened to either of them! It was hysterical! Rasa is a momma bird to the core. Adia loves Shaylah and watches her every move and Shaylah is wonderful with her. Olivia likes to play along with everyone both kids and adults.

Royce, Me and the Girls spent Christmas inside, cozied up and enjoying each others company. We were all so tired from all of the excitement the days before. The day after Christmas we had a wonderful evening out as a family. We went to our favorite little stretch of NE Minneapolis on E Hennepin and shopped at my favorite baby boutique, Pacifier and then ate at our favorite little restaurant, Pizza Nea. We had brick oven pizza's and of course wine! Pizza Nea is very special to me. Royce and I have had many, many moments there. We've celebrated big birthdays and anniversaries there. We've dined over the heartache of our first failing attempts at starting a family. We also celebrated my pregnancy there and the girls first taste of pizza! I love those walls, the food and the fact that when we go, even with the girls now, it always feels like the only people who exist in the world are sitting at our table.

On Sunday we went early for dinner and we were the only people there. Adia's pick was the cheese pizza with garlic and basil and Rasa's was mine; chevron, artichoke hearts and sun dried tomato = heaven in a slice. The girls are SO good at restaurants and after they finished eating we let them run around the place and burn off some energy before we sugared them all up with a cupcake from Lunds next door :) Rasa & Adia please forgive me for the major static hat hair you are experiencing in the next couple of pics.




To put a cap on the Holiday festivities and start off a new week properly my Mom and I brought the girls downtown Minneapolis on Monday and did a tour of The Mill City Museum. It was FANTASTIC! Royce and I go to the organic farmers market outside of the museum in the summer and have been in the lobby of the museum but I had never taken a tour before then. It was really cool to take this massive elevator up eight stories all while real footage of the Mill and sound bites from former workers play when you stop on each floor to see a simulation of an event take place. When you get to the top you go into this enclosed glass patio and look over the Stone Arch bridge and the river. After that there's a big children's area where they can explore, play in water tables and even eat bread or cookies baked fresh from the kitchen lab. It's a lot of fun and my girls were completely captivated for an hour and a half.

After our museum adventure we headed to my favorite co-op in Uptown for lunch and then homeward for nap time. It was another beautiful girls day, they ALWAYS are.

I can't resist mentioning that Royce gave me the most beautiful and thoughtful gift I've ever received (aside from my girls of course!). Royce calls me Momma Bird so it's very fitting that he got me a beautiful handmade locket necklace that has a Momma bird stamped on the front and inside is a nest with two fresh water pearl eggs symbolizing my two little egss, Rasa and Adia. A momma bird and her two babies. It makes me a little teary every time I look at it and it's so very precious to me. I will cherish it forever.




You might have noticed the lack of Christmas pictures and to be honest I intentionally left the camera at home. Fall was a long photo season for this Momma and sometimes you just have to sit back and live completely in the moment allowing yourself to just be.

Love to my family and friends who give me the motivation to continue blogging for my girls. I love sharing moments with you. Telling the story is living it twice.
Hope you all had a wonderful and blessed Christmas.

Wordless Wednesday 43 - good bye 1 hello 2!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Wishing peace and joy this season and always. Happy Christmas!

Wordless Wednesday 42 - Happy Winter Solstice!

Wordless Wednesday 41 - mirror mirror on the wall...

Cheese

Rasa's running around here scolding Adia "no cheese in boots!!" with her index finger straight up in front of her face. She likes to mimic me and poor Adia gets the brunt of it. I had to tell Rasa that we do not put cheese in our boots this morning (the things I'd never thought I have to say). We were eating string cheese after breakfast and unbeknown to me Rasa was taking a bite and then hiding some in her boot for later.
About a half an hour later she walked over to me, handed me a boot and said "In it". I stuck my hand in it and the toe was filled with cheese.

There is something very wrong about the whole thing.

"Go away icky mouse!!!!!!"

I've got to give you a little background into my severe little critter fobia. Wild animals are not afraid of me. They love me. I have had squirrels in Loring Park try to run up my leg. I've had a chipmunk stalk me to the point where I couldn't get from my front door to my car parked on the driveway. That chipmunk stalked me for a week!!! Royce would walk out of the house and he would be no where to be found but the second I took one step out the front door -BOOM! there he was running at me!!!!!! No I do not feed the animals. My first visit to my parents cabin I asked if there were any type of small rodents ever to be seen at or near the cabin and my parents swore up and down they had never seen anything of the sort. I drive five hours up north and just as we turn into the long drive up to the cabin a big fat mouse darts out in front of the truck! They hear of my visit and they spread the word....Misses Dolittle is coming! Misses Dolittle is coming!

What does this all have to do with anything you ask yourself. I'll tell you.

I brought the girls to Eagle's Nest indoor playground on Friday after visiting Royce and some friends at McAfee. We go in, play, have a good time and then we leave. I scored the first parking spot next to the doors so we're only about ten feet from the entrance. As we're walking out I get the girls two feet from my car and I see a fat, furry, nasty little shrew hanging out right next to my car, like right next to my car!!!!! I of course scream and stomp my feet, scaring the life out of my little girls but not having any affect whatsoever on this dirty rodent that is not afraid of people! The shrew is erratic running in circles with it's nasty skin face and eyes closed darting at us over and over! It takes every ounce of courage that exists in me but I push Rasa in between me and the shrew and toss Adia in the backseat of the car (all while screaming and starting to cry....me not Adia). Rasa is dancing up and down as this freak of nature runs up to our feet circling around over and over! I'm pretty sure it touched my shoe. She screams in the most assertive voice I have ever heard come out of such a tiny body "GO AWAY ICKY MOUSE!!!!!" He doesn't listen! I grab Rasa, run around to the other side of my car, throw her in and hop in on the passenger side slamming the door. I crawl into the back seat, strap the girls into their car seats - stop crying - shake out the heebie geebies and peel out of there praying I will run that son of a b&*% over! I look over as I back away and that freakin shrew is following my car as I drive away!!!!! OMG! The only thing that I can wonder is did that thing have babies that are somehow attached to the underneath of my car and somehow they will mature lightening fast and chew their way through the floor of my car and get up in here while we drive home?! Well that didn't happen thank God but I was legitimately worried about it.

On the way home the girls were screaming "SO GROSS" and "EWWW ICKY MOUSE"!

How will we ever recover from that?!

The art of pooping

I have never talked so much about poop in my life since I brought the potty chairs home. The girls sit on them every ten minutes and tell me "I'm pooping on the potty". They're not. Lately Adia's taken to stuffing things in the potty bowl and telling me she's pooping on it while her and Rasa laugh hysterically. "Momma I'm pooping on Big Bird!" Adia screams. "Hahahahahahahah I'm pooping on Monkey!!" Rasa replies. Last week one of them dumped a bowl of crackers in the potty and sat on it and when I walked in Adia jumped up and said "LOOK! I pooped on the potty!!" It's a taunt. They will sit in their diapers on the potty and poop but when the diaper comes off they don't want to sit on the potty. I'm not pushing the potty training because to be honest I'm lazy and I think diapers are easy and convenient. I'm no longer embarrassed to admit that I love to take the easy way out when it comes to this kind of thing and while it usually back fires at some point I just surrender to the process so it works itself out.

Adia was playing with Monkey (a Curious George doll) and she was pointing to his body parts naming everything out loud. She flipped him over and said "back" while pointing to his back and then she points to his butt and says "butt! monkey tooting!!" Rasa walks over, sticks her nose on Monkey's butt and while laughing says "PEE EWW Monkey tooting!!" Of course the two of them think it's so funny they giggle and carry on for five more minutes about monkey farts.

In the tub last night Adia grabs one of her animal squirters and holds it up against her butt. "I'm pooping sheep!!". Rasa grabs the monkey and shrieks "I'm a pooping monkey!!!!" which is all followed by roars of laughter. I'm getting the overwhelming feeling that the might have their Dad's sense of humor. They laugh when they toot now and insist on telling me every time they toot so they can laugh about it. I'm not a fart joke kind of girl. I don't like poop and farts. It's all very icky to me. The girls don't seem to be deterred by the look of disapproval I give them when they're pooping sheep and monkeys or when they're laughing at themselves tooting.

This is only beginning.

dumb dog!

This morning Rasa was trying to put a watch around Adia's ankle. Adia didn't want the watch around her ankle so she tried to get away while yelling at Ra. Rasa gave up but not without a fight and ended up yelling to Adia "Go away dumb dog!". Yikes. Where has she ever heard that before??? I'm pleading the fifth.....ok well it's winter and yes I admit to getting frustrated with our dumb dogs...I mean our dogs because when I let them out they poke around trying to find the perfect place to go to the bathroom while I fight off frost bite. Clearly the girls are always listening.

I told Rasa she needed to apologize because it's not ok to call Sissy a dumb dog when in fact she is neither dumb or a dog. Rasa's first reaction was to say "NO!" while running away (she might have a little of that Gordon girl feistiness in her) but then I reminded her she loves Sissy and doesn't want Sissy to be sad. Rasa then walked up to Adia and said "love you Sissy" while signing and saying "Sorry".

Lovers = 1
Haters = 0

Wordless Wednesday 40 - Fishy Face

23 months pops up in an instant

That's right the girls hit the big 2 a month from today! The first year went by week by week but the second...WOW it's just been a blink.

The girls are really into Santa right now. They love Christmas books and we're reading them all the time. I asked Rasa what Christmas means and she said "Santa, cookies and presents" Um maybe we should run over the whole baby in the manger thing just in case my parents ask ;) When Adia sees something with a picture of Santa her face gets this glazed over star struck look and as she smiles you can almost hear the choir of angels singing "ahhhhhhhhh" as she whispers "Santa".

My parents and I brought the girls to Macy's downtown Minneapolis to see the 8th floor display and sit on Santa's lap (see yesterday's WW pic). They loved the display. Rasa kept asking to touch everything and Adia was happy perched up by her Grandpa's shoulders. They weren't too excited to see the real Santa until we were walking out of the room but they did better than I expected. We had a fabulous lunch in the Skyroom and when we got home the girls slept for 3 hours! Something they never do!

We put up the real Christmas tree last weekend and the excitement in the room threw me into Christmas mode! I almost forgot what it was like to be that excited about anything. What a joy this Christmas is going to be for our family! I'm very tired of putting all of the ornaments back on the tree five times a day but I'll get over it. I've let go of being a scrooge and telling them not to touch it every five seconds even though they are destroying all of my stuff!!

The girls are talking like crazy using sentences all the time. They are still learning new sign language, something I intend to continue with as they grow. They love to do it and Adia has gotten so good that when I forget a sign I ask her what it is and she's always right! Rasa is memorizing songs and will just start signing them out of the blue. Last week she sang a song we sing occasionally in circle time at school, "tick tock, tick tock, I'm a little cuckoo clock, cuckoo!". Toddlers amaze the heck out of me.

They're growing like crazy. I pulled out all of the 24 month clothes and Rasa is already fitting into most of them. Adia has finally graduated out of 12-18 month clothes and is just now fitting into 18 month pants (little peanut). They love to eat and eat a wonderful variety of foods. Neither one of them seem to be picky at all. In fact they compete over who can eat more broccoli (baby trees). I love sharing my food with them, things I make or ethnic dishes we pick up. I love good food and think it's great that they seem to as well.

We've had a rough fall and winter with coughs and colds. The girls had a persistent cough for 12 weeks and after bringing them in three times our Pediatrician says asthma is to blame in both girls. Royce and I both have asthma and we knew the chances of one or both girls getting it was very high since there's actually an asthma gene. Adia's tends to be worse as she gets coughing fits that last a long time. We're currently nebulizing both of them twice a day (up to every four hours) and we'll get it down to once a day once this current cold passes. They are good sports about the nebulizer which makes my job easier. The mask looks like a fishy so they get kind of excited about putting it on.

Last night as Rasa sat on my lap with the mask on I looked at her little legs hanging over mine and how she sat up concentrating, holding her hand over mine to keep the mask on her face. She's so responsible and mature. She wants to be a good girl and is always a good helper. I don't know how to put into words my love for her. Her big blue eyes melt my heart as she looks up at me with a half smile that tells me she knows way more than she can say right now. She is my classic beauty.

Adia gets swirmy and doesn't like to sit for the full four or five minute treatment. I have to keep her distracted but sometimes she cries and gets upset. It's hard because she doesn't understand she has to have it. She's good if I put Elmo on tv and talk to her about what she sees. She is a tiny sweet love. So silly and fun. She LOVES attention and to make us all laugh. She is also a snuggler and I love that she wants to be held really close and really tight. She really is my sunshine, my joy and my heart. I love her with every piece of my heart and more. Her face looks like an angel and her blond curls are as soft as silk.

Right now I can say that the past two years I've spent raising my daughters full time has been an experience that I will look back on and remember as the best time in my life. Cheers to the next year and the excitement, joy, frustration and change in store for all of us! May I still be standing at their 3rd birthday!

Wordless Wednesday 39 - Macy's 8th Floor

Wordless Wednesday 38 - the start of the Christmas card shoot

They things they say

So there are somethings I write on the girls blog and somethings I forget or I don't want to include ;) I decided to start keeping track of the funny things they say even if If it's not something I love to hear because this is, after all, the girls blog.

Lately Rasa's in a kissing phase. She sees pictures of things on my laptop (babies or animals) and wants to kiss them. She sees babies or animals in person or in books and wants to kiss them. She sees just about anything and wants to kiss it. The past week or so she's been asking us to kiss her. "Kiss my elbow", "Kiss my nose", "Kiss my tummy". Last night she told Royce to "kiss my butt". Now I'm unsure how this evolved but today she stood in front of me, pointed to her butt and said, "Momma kiss my ass". I can promise you I don't point to my butt and say "kiss my ass" well ok I can't promise you that but I don't recall the last time I said something like that. Royce has never done that in front of me but I do have to tell you that the girls were with Royce for a few hours alone last night so anything is possible (kidding Royce!).


I had a shoot on Saturday and then after took some time to myself. When I came home at the end of the day Adia gave me a hug and then pointed to her hand to show me a tiny little scratch. She looked at me with a very serious face and said "Rasa owie" while pointing to her hand. I figured her hand must have gotten caught in-between Rasa's teeth and I gave Rasa a sad face and said "Oh Rasa that's not nice. Be gentle".

Today we were downstairs and I was cooking lunch in the kitchen. Adia walks in holding her hand up with the now almost invisible scratch and says "Lucy bite-en me". I said "Lucy bit you??" knowing that Lucy had been by my feet catching food scraps as I cooked the entire time we've been down there and she is the most docile little dog ever. The girls have tormented this poor dog and Lucy just takes it. Five more times Adia says that Lucy bit her.

Now I know why Rasa had that puzzled look on her face when I was telling her to be nice the other day! First she was framed and now Lucy!

Tonight after dinner Royce and the girls were up in their playroom and Adia walked up to him with a piece of a broken baby doll stroller. Royce asked her what happened and she said "Elmo broke it". When he questioned her she stuck with her story. A moment later Rasa started chiming in "Elmo broke it, Elmo broke it" backing up her Sister's story. Is this a look into my future?

Wordless Wednesday 37 - Soup on rice, no spoon required.

Wordless Wednesday 36 - Adia's gift to me.

Wordless Wednesday 35 - Itsy bitsy spider with Taylor (aka the girls big "Sis")

Change is a brewin'

About three years ago Royce and I decided we wanted to buy a new home in St. Paul. We loved the house, the neighborhood and the fact that it was only blocks away from both of our work. We found a Realtor and he came over and drew up the paperwork to sell our current home. After the inspection came back on the house in St. Paul and the apprasial on our house was done we just didn't have great feelings about it. We decided to wait until the spring and look for something else. Luckily for us we did because the market crashed only a couple months later and the house we would have bought then would have dropped in value by $100k! Talk about an underwater investment.

Fast forward three years and here we still sit in our little two bedroom house that's now filled to the top with our expanded family (and the toys....oh Lord the toys!). Royce and I bought this place a year after we were married with the intention that we would sell it when we wanted a family. That was over 8 years ago now. While we're trying to make due we're finding it harder every day. The girls want to run and play and it's hard to have to drive or walk them to a park just so they can run around. Our "yard" is a plot of grass the size of our dining room with a rock bed and a tree. They run and play in the street (it's a dead end) for the most part which while it seems sort of sad they have plenty of fun! We are talking about moving again in the not so distant future. This time it would be much harder. We have more "stuff" and less time. It takes me four hours to do what used to take me a half an hour (thanks to you know who x2). My Parents, Sister and her family, Brother and his family all live within five miles of our current house. We drop by my parents house two or three times a week. I should add that that plan is to move across town back to Minneapolis or closer so that we can get in the district for the magnet school we want the girls to attend. It's a lottery out of district (assuming there are any spots left) so if we tried getting in from here our chances would be extremely slim.

Right now I'm just looking for direction and to honor my and Royce's feelings of what the right thing to do is. We really do have two years to move as far as registration is concerned but right now I'm feeling like I'd like to move within a year to get settled in and get the girls (and myself) into their new ecfe community and preschool.

Big decisions seem even bigger when you have little ones to think about. Of course the forefront for all of our decisions is doing what is the very best for Rasa and Adia. It's also a good reminder for me of something I've learned over and over again; things will work out just as they are supposed to.

Happy Halloween!

It's funny looking back to last years post here of our Halloween adventure and my almost 10 month olds in their fluffy chicken costumes. They don't seem too terribly different now from then. Their personalities are still very much the same. Of course this year they can walk on their own which is huge and almost as good as that they can say "trick or treat"! That can only mean one thing........we're going trick or treating! Better yet, my parents are having a Halloween party and all of the little cousins are coming so the kids are going to have a great time!!

So without further a-due I present to you my "pussy cat sleek and fat" x2 (Music Together "5 little mice")!
Well you knew they LOVE LOVE LOVE kitties and what could be cuter than two little twins in pink kitty outfits?

Wordless Wednesday 34 - tutu