It Began with a BBFT

Whatever gene causes little girls to love all thinks pink and princess is a strong one. No matter how hard I try to raise tough little sporty girls they just want dolls, pink, dress up stuff and tutus. It's not that I'm against girls being girly, but not being a girly girl myself it just doesn't come naturally to me.  So, I decided to go outside of my comfort zone and have a girly Christmas. Their big gift this year was a dress up box. I stole the idea  from a friend (thanks Carrie) and started hunting and gathering for sparkles, sequins, old costumes, funky hats, beaded purses and jewelry when it was still 95 degrees outside. We made a day trip to ikea for the most important part of the dress up box--the box itself --and !poof!  we had ourselves one fancy dress up collection (I have to give a shout out to the Peacocks and my mom for sharing contents of their own dress up boxes, to Ryan's mom for lots of great stuff for the box and to Donna for making the tutus and aprons!).  They love it. We never know whether we will have cheerleader twins, princess twins, lion twins, or just really tacky sequiny old lady twins :)  They haven't gotten the concept of putting things on over their clothes quite yet so they are half dressed most of the time trying to wriggle into the next get-up. See pics below for a great visual.

Christmas was so much fun this year. They really 'got it'. They woke up every morning in December asking for 'advent chocolate' (the best 99 cents I've ever spent at trader joes). We sang a lot of Christmas songs in the car and Ryan even made our minivan into a reindeer mini van complete with red nose and antlers. I of course balked at this because let's be honest--I'm already behind the 8-ball in the coolness dept driving around a minivan--so antlers and a red nose really don't help the cause.

Benson, at 10 months, loved the paper and boxes of course. We got him a grand total of 2 presents, both of which were quickly stolen by the girls.

Again, a large amount of time has passed since my last entry. Such is my life. No apologies this time.

I keep a mental running list of what I want to post about and this one has been rolling around in my cluttered mind for a while, so might as well send it out into cyber space while I am highly caffeinated and Ryan has the kids for 'mommy's morning off' (have I mentioned what a great dad/husband he is?)



Pacifiers have been an integral part of the twins life from day one when the NICU nurse unwrapped the vanilla scented green pacifier from its plastic wrapper and placed it in their mouths when they were mere hours, maybe even minutes old (pacifiers are an important NICU tool, I know from experience). They took to them like a duck to water. As parents of newborn twins the pacis were like gold to us. They easily soothed our little bundles and helped keep peace in our household. When they would cry at night we would stumble into their room and feel around in the dark for the oh so familiar rubber texture of the pacifier, return it to the crying mouth and then peace would surely be restored.  We accrued quite a collection and were sure to always have one within reach. I am still finding them in the pockets of my jackets.  When they became mobile we tried to attach them with string and safety pins so that they were never more than 12 inches away from a waiting mouth.  We had paci buckets and paci baskets. We had pink and green ones (Lydia only wanted green, Grace would change it up).  They started chewing on them so some developed holes, this meant that every night we would hand them pacifiers one by one to 'test' the paci and let us know, if it 'was good' (kind of like what they do when you order a bottle of wine in a restaurant) When they turned two we limited pacifier use to the bed only. (Lydia would go into her room, sit on her bed and 'take a hit' on her pacifier at various times throughout the day) but it wasn't until their third birthday that we decided to ditch them completely. All 4 of us started to have apprehension about this transition about 2 months prior to their third birthday. We discussed it with the twins nearly every day, explaining that they are 'big girls' now and they don't need a paci.  We bought them paci gifts and everything. So, the night of their third birthday we had a big pep talk, Ryan loaded a brand new bag into the trash can (we weren't going to actually pitch all those great pacifiers!) and they 'threw away' their pacifiers. They were totally on board with it, and loved their paci gifts. However, when they climbed into bed, the lights were turned off and goodnights were said, reality set in and the tears started.  I am a tough skinned parent, but I nearly broke down and brought back the pilfered collection of pacifiers . . . but I stayed strong, and they did surprisingly well over the next several days. So, now we are paci free, but as with any transition, it was a tiny bit sad to see the pacifier days end, so this is a tribute to our pacifiers, complete with pics.

Oh, and guess what? Benson won't take one to safe his life. Ironic, isn't it?

Birthdays have been a hot topic in our house since about March. Lydia and Grace have talked about their various cake choices on a daily basis, they have focused intently on putting up three little fingers rather than the oh so easy two fingers, and when asked 'what do you want to do today?' they said 'have my birthday!' about three times a week.  So, this three year mile marker was a long time in the making.  I am not put together enough to plan a big party with a theme, animals, bounce houses, favors, etc but I did want to make it fun this year for them since the anticipation was so great. However, the nice thing about 3 year olds is that it takes very little to entertain them and make their year.  So I hit up the dollar store for balloons (I probably could have stopped there and they would have been content) and punch ball/balloons for entertainment. We dragged out our ghetto sandbox ( a rubbermaid storage container with sand in it balanced on two old milk crates), covered the picnic table with paper for coloring, tossed around some crayons, added some mini muffins, cupcakes, and coffee (for the adults of course to tolerate multiple toddlers with punch balls in hand) and Presto! We had a three year old party on our hands.

A friend from work made their cakes (props to Amanda!) and the cupcakes which were a hit. Each twin had her own "letter" cake and after blowing out the candles we gave every child a fork and let them go to town. As far as birthday party entertainment goes, I think that rivals a dusty old horse that walks in a circle and makes all the parents feel sorry for it any day in my book.

Now for a little recap of the last year, for posterity's sake since I did it for their previous birthday blog (I need to remember to do this for Benson or he'll have issues to talk to his therapist about).  They have definitely changed from stubby legged toddlers to long legged little girls. I feel like they have launched into a 'little kid' realm this past year where you can have conversations with them and see what is going on in their little minds.  Now, in an effort to have full disclosure, we did go through a challenging period that some might call 'the terrible twos' but I will not label it as such since my children might at some point in time read this.  This dark time occurred around 2.5 and was characterized by lots of passionate 'Do it Self!!' statements although they were not able to quite 'do it self' which caused further frustration for both parties. So you had to wait and see how long they struggled before finally giving up and asking for help or just going into full out meltdown mode.  It was fun.  Anyways, on to brighter topics. Grace is our bouncy gummy bear social butterfly. She does literally bounce everywhere it seems.  She is quick with a hearty "Hi!" and usually has a running commentary on life in general ("is that your bra mommy? are you going potty mommy? daddy has a beard, I don't have a beard", you get the idea).  She is officially in the 'Why' stage now. Lydia has not yet caught on to that game thankfully. Lydia can be a bit more reserved but when she decides you are worthy of her affection, she doesn't hold back.  She loves to read books, work on puzzles and stack just about anything. The twins have really started to interact more with each other this year. They chase each other around in circles shrieking and giggling all the while.  Pretending is name of the game these days. They have tea parties  (complete with starbucks coffee, pumpkin bread and breakfast sandwiches) and story time, taking turns being the reader.  They take trips on their trikes to costco, northstar, barnes and noble, sand park, grandma's house and starbucks to name a few. We started doing bedtime prayers this year as well which is beyond adorable. Lydia confidently rattles off a long prayer of thanks for multiple objects in the room with other random things thrown in (air conditioning, our minivan, the potty, northstar, big cookie, starbucks, just to name a few) and of course 'mommy, daddy, lydia, grace, benson and Bocce.'  Grace seems shy about it and won't go until everyone else has prayed, then she rushes through a quick 'Dear God thank you for . . .and adds one or two things to it and rushes to the Amen' but then looks up with a smile for approval. We started potty training and got rid of the pacifiers both of which deserve their own blog post when I have the time. So, that is the quick year in review of year two. We are thankful Lydia and Grace and their unique personalities. They bring us joy on a daily basis.

The two's are over for L and G (yes, I did cry--did you expect anything different?) We are ready for the year of the threes!