scary movie 7 and others

It always freaks me out to watch them in their climbing skills.  They have yet to fall from this and Whitney even did it in a dress.  I couldn't film that one calmly, but here is Tucker.

The next one is a day at the beach, including Tucker doggie.

the last one is of them in the pool singing Row, row, row your boat, but I only caught the fight scene instead of the song.  It's really hard to get video of them singing.

back from a long blog vaca before the next blog vaca starts

The other day a deer came down into our driveway area.  He happened to come while Jim was playing with the kids in the play room.  We were all admiring the deer until it started eating the strawberry plants, so I rushed to the door and let Sammy chase him off.  Jim was sad.  Whitney said "no, no, deer.  no eating the strawberries"  Yeah.  No, no, deer.

We've been generally having a good time in this sun.  I'm absolutely whooped, but that's ok.  I have 10 months of winter to rest up again.

Jim decided the kids "need" trikes.  So trikes we have.  We have a rojo one for Tucker and a pink one for Whitney.  Hers has a very important feature of a hiding place to stash her collection.  We decided to try one particular style first, to see if it would take.  Tucker didn't let Whitney touch it at all for 5 days.  Until Whitney got hers 5 days later.  Now it's a regular fight.  Whitney's is better because you can push it without having the skill of pedaling.  I have no fear, though.  Tucker's will become popular at a later age when they figure out to use it like a scooter.  He has a big wheel.

Another skill they've learned is blowing bubbles.  Tucker has more patience, and thus, more skill and ability in this department.  Every time he gets a string of bubbles, he proclaims "Tucker did it" and smiles.  Whitney can do it too, but she's not as persistant at getting bubbles out.  She also is happy to draw bubbles on her legs or cement, pop the bubbles on the wand before they are even 3-D, etc.

They've also learned the I-pad.  I let Daddy be in charge a few nights these past few weeks.  Yesterday I realized just how much practice they've gotten.  Tucker more than Whitney of course.   He is bigger and thus beats her up or pulls her hair if she gets too close to his toys/i-pad.  What happened yesterday took me by surprise, though.  He got the i-pad off of Jim's desk, walked into the playroom and proceeded to turn it on and push all the buttons in the right sequence to get to his favorite games, "drums" and "piano".  It's that kids phone app thing where you can play instruments. He's got it down pat how to get to that thing.

Hey, Auntie Jill.  They have figured out how to make those bears sing and they love them!  New favorite toy now that they get them.

Grandma Ieva visited again with more toys.  We got a basketball hoop and golf clubs.  Whitney loved the golf clubs because they are just like Daddy's.  I had to quickly confiscate them, though.  Perfect driving irons for hitting.  I'm sure all you parents saw that coming as soon as Grandma Ieva brought them over.  But the basketball hoop is a hit and Mommy is very excited about that one.  I have been making my arms a hoop for a couple of weeks now because Tucker likes basketball so much.

Whitney really likes mimic play at the moment. She does all sorts of things "just like Mommy" or "just like Daddy".  Very humbling at times.
They are both learning tons of songs, but Whitney knows words better.  Girl skills, of course.  The one that I didn't realize, though, is that she can quickly memorize books and put the idea into her normal life.  Or maybe the other way around.  I read somewhere once that kids can't really tell the difference completely between reality and fiction until they are 8.  So maybe she thinks those books really happen.  We've been reading If You Give A Mouse a Cookie.  On Monday Whitney took the broom from me and proceeded to "sweep every room in the house" with the broom as well as repeat the phrase over and over.  By that time we'd only had the book a couple of nights.

In the past 3 weeks we've only had a few cold rainy, days.  I know the rest of you are totally jealous, but I have to laugh.  None of us really are fans of those days.  One of the rainy days, I pulled up the blackout shade in the morning and Whitney said "It's raining again.  The apples are all wet."  I had to laugh at her voice influction of "again".  It made me laugh.  Now she uses that word a bunch for repetitive activities throughout the day.  And I'm surprised she notices that she has an apple tree out her window.  This is the first time in two years it's even had apples.

Another connection she made was last week.  I might have misunderstood her, but it sounded like she said "mom, I'm older".  It was used in the right context, but she hasn't repeated it since.

With the good weather we've been going to the beach or playing in the water almost every day.  I love how Tucker says swimsuit.  He leaves the first s off.  Whitney's skill for make believe transfers over to her use of sand.  She made me a pillow of sand for me to use right next to my towel.  She has also made me cupcakes with her shovel and likes to draw in the sand in addition to her mounds.  The beach has been good but an adjustment for me.  Up to this point, amazingly, my kids stick really close by to me in new situations.  This makes for my ability to go in public on a regular basis.  Except last week.  Whitney gets too cold in the water too fast, so she prefers to create things in the sand instead.  Tucker gets too hot playing in the sand too fast, so he wants to be in the ring in the water, for like, and hour at a time.  So Whitney plays on the shore while I'm arm's distance to Tucker in the water.  Stresses me out to have them be in opposite directions.  I've never had this really until now and I'm started to feel a little bit what it's like to have two kids.  Can't imagine more.  How do you possibily have more than two?  I feel like my head is on a constant swivel when they are like this.  And they aren't wild in the water or the sand and follow the rules.  Although Tucker does like to see how deep he can go before I pull him back.

 Dad, this is sooooo good!

 Dad in charge of bathtime

 I love it when Dad is in charge of bathtime!

 Camping with Rocky under Dad's desk

 Licking the bowl and the spoon.  mom's idea

Yep.  These brownies are going to be good!

All this fun, fun, fun is starting to get a little tiring, though.  Since it's been light out and they switched out of cribs, they haven't been going to bed until between 9 and 10 pm.  It makes for a really long day without naps.  I'm feeling whooped, yet I sleep through the night.  One of the nights I let Daddy be in charge, he picked to watch a movie.   It was kind of cute that Whitney has a routine for movies.  She got everyone situated.  She made sure both her and Tucker had their chairs, a bag of fish crackers (we keep pepperidge farm in business) and blankets for everyone, including mommy and daddy.  Daddy had also gotten a helium balloon for each of them and she made sure hers was by her chair while the other was with Tucker to watch a movie.  She is very good at taking care of us.  She also is very intent on whatever a nurse is doing when we go to the doctor......  We'll see where that takes her.

Even with the constant care of, sometimes cranky, 2 year olds, I've had some fun myself as well as Jim.  A friend treated me to my first pedicure.  never had one, but I'd go back for the foot and leg massage bit.  Lovely!  What cracks me up, though, is that Tucker and Whitney love my pedicure.  Every morning for thepast week, they comment on it.  Look!  Mom's toes!  Pink!  Look, mommy has a flower on her toe!, etc.  I've also been kayaking a few times and made raspberry jam for the first time.  This is the first time making jam with berries can be economical.  I got the raspberries for free!  A friend has a garden bursting with them.  Jim played in a golf tournament for work and is back to SCUBA diving for crab every week.  This year he has a buddy, which makes me a lot happier in that department.

Tomorrow we're going blueberry picking and Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt B and Ryan are coming.  I'm very excited for the visit.

summer is here!!!!!

They put themselves to sleep in this position.  Just lik in the hospital!!

Tucker is in the closet, asleep like this.  I don't get it either.

At the playground.  Happy 4th!

Another 4th playground shot

Tucker chillin' it with his leg crossed with Jinglebells

Happy together with the hose

Whitney talking to Grandma.  She talked to grandma for about 3 minutes!

the new "bunks"  I moved the changing table into the closet to store it and to use it to store stuff, but this is it's really purpose.  Jingle bells is in the middle.

last cold day of summer.  Whitney can push Tucker a bit in the bucket, but doesn't like it when Tucker pushes her.

If it's going to be cold, at least it should snow.

Pulling the sleds on the snowy landscape.

More purple shirts, please grandma!!

Eating watermelon on the 4th.

One of Whitney's favorite playground toys

Adding "gas" to the car

Spinny spinny!

Up close of Whitney in the bunk

Tucker biting a ball.  Better than other things and people!

I had a friend ask me today how the weather was.  I said it was miracuously not rainy.  She asked if that meant not raining clouds or actual sun and I'm pleased to say it was sun and blue skies.  Absolutely beautiful 10 days an counting.  I haven't been very good at blogging on time because the last thing I want to do is be inside.  It's finally dark out.

We were invited to someone's house that has a pool.  Why they have it is beyond me, but they do and this is the day to have the pool.  Tucker loved swimming.  Whitney really liked floating on her back and using the mini squirt gun.  Swimming means holding on to mommy with a death grip while both babies use life jackets. When I got out of the pool, I was dripping wet of course.  Whitney took note and said "Mommy is peeing!  Gross!!"  I had to explain it was the water running off of me, not anything else, but it cracked me up she said exactly that sentence and made the connection.

This morning I faced reality and stayed indoors long enough to do some bare minimum cleaning and cooking.  While changing the laundry, I pulled out the superman pjs.  Tucker was holding Piglet while watching me pull out the clean laundry.  I pointed out to Tucker that superman was clean and dry again.  Tucker moved Piglet up and down like Piglet was talking and said " I want Superman".  That's the first time I've seen him pretend make something talk.  It made me laugh pretty good.

I don't really have any new photos from this week, so I'll just fill you in why I haven't read emails or called anyone back.  The babies go to sleep around 8:30, but don't really fall asleep until 10, but I wake them up at 7:30 anyway, hoping that they will get tired sooner.  And there is a lot of monitoring to make sure they stay in their room until they fall asleep. A new world for me that apparently ends when they move out.   I've been doing lots of stuff during the day to wear them out.  Not to mention I still can't believe it is still sunny this many days in a row and refuse to miss any of the rays.

This week we have gone to the pool twice at the friend's house, gone to the beach twice, gone to the playgrounds at the beach, played in the yard when not gone, had a back yard fire with s'mores with some friends (girls night) and then the usual and constant feeding of the mouths.  Most of these activities have needed both my hands, so I haven't been able to take pics.

Tucker loves the water.  He loves to jump, splash, kick, crawl up Mommy's legs (not an option, but he likes to try) and go in up to his neck.  But not get anything wet above the neck.  If someone splashes him, or a squirtgun mist hits his face or neck, time to freak out.  He smiles the entire time he's in the water unless there is water on his face or hair, of course.  Tucker had a blast throwing a sieve in the water, because it squirts water up through the holes when it lands.

Whitney loves the water also.  She doesn't like it as long and prefers the sand once she is so cold she is shivering and has blue sand.  She really likes smashing the sand castles she builds.  She enjoys the water from the comfort of her floatie, where she can kick toward or away from Tucker and Mommy at will.  I had bought them life jackets to use at the pool, beach and on a boat, thinking a one time purchase for three purposes, but not so.  They don't play on their own in a life jacket.  It's a bit like a snowsuit for the water.  They can't quite bend to get to the sand.  So the floatie with legs for one kid and holding the other works the best.

Whitney has started saying Tucker instead of Tucky.  It's pretty dang cute.  She is usually taking care of him.  Today when he was in the floatie, not really liking it, she gave him a ride around in the water while he floated, kind of like how she gives him a ride in his mop bucket.  But then later today she threw a heavy toy at his head, so who knows.

When I was preparing the deck for the ladies' night, they had a blast throwing the outdoor pillows around and down the stairs.  It was apparently hysterical.  Why, I don't know, but it was.

Whitney likes to paint everything with pink chalk.  I've only had to tell her to stick to her toys a couple of times.  Once she tried coloring my car with it.  She does it so much that Tucker has started asking her to do another coat when the pink rubs off the toy.  He asked for Ruff Ruff to be pink again.

Tucker really likes basketball and basketball hoops.  He looks in the church gym every time we go to church to see if "basketball down", if the hoop is down.  He also really likes playing with any type of hoop he can invent.  Mommy won't let him play with the one in the street.

Anyway, I will blog in maybe another 10 days from now.  Rumor on the street is that next week will also be straight sun.  I'll believe it when I see it, but I've been loving this!!

Hmmmm.... Where to start? I am wondering, though, how much longer it will be so entertaining to pull all the clothes off the hangers and stay up until 9:30 or later every night.

They still love copying Oliver's bad behavior and playing doggy that jumps up on everything. He even did it going back to the chapel after a potty break duruing sacrament meeting. He jumped up on the door to get in.

Eating.  This is great!

Whitney eating chips and keeping and eye on the duck

my beach babe

Whitney burying my foot in sand.  If it looks like I'm half asleep, I wish.  The shutter just got stuck open

Tucker smashing his castle

my other beach babe

Tucker snuggling on his towel for warmth and Whitney smashing another castle.

Whitney wanted to walk back to the car with her towel on.  She put it on herself and kept it up high enough to make it there walking the whole way.

Snuggling with woof woof and tortuga

Whitney did actually push Tucker in this pretty well.

 We had a lot of fun the day and a half of sun we had this week. We went to the beach. I guess the whole duck thing the last time we went the park really scared them.  Every time there was a duck on the beach, they freaked out, so I had to be on duck duty at this park too, even though these ducks weren't aggressive.  Whitney discovered sand as a medium for her art projects and spent lots of time making sand castles and smashing them.  Tucker just smashed them.  But then Tucker had a blast in the water for a long time.  Long enough for even him to get cold and he snuggled on the towel from being cold just like my siblings used to.  We went home when Tucker Doggy couldn't stop flinging sand behind him on other people while digging.

Monday they were most excellently behaved babies.  I made a ton of food for my upcoming week.  I made salsa, bread, chili rellenos, spanish rice and cookies in one day.  Whitney helped me a ton, which freed up the toys for Tucker so there was minimal fighting.  Jim came home from work that day hobbling after playing soccer at work.  His mechanism of injury is perfect for an ACL tear or major meniscus issue, but he hasn't gone to the doctor yet.  Hmmmmmmm...... I really hope I'm wrong in this instance.

Tuesday and Wednesday was Activity Day camp in the afternoons, so the babies were off to some friends.  Man.  Those babies lucked out.  My friend's project for the time they were there was to clean out the toy closet.  Her youngest is five.  They scored.  This is how she determined what she wanted to send home with them.  The amount of fighting and time spent with the toys.  She said she went to go help her son.  When she came back upstairs, she said she heard some "scuffling" in the toy closet.  They were fighting to get out a foam chair they could see (just like the one's at Sue's house!).  Apparently there were two and they hauled them around the house all day.  So those came home with me.  Score!

The other thing was a huge my little pony collection.  Apparently Whitney spent some serious quality time with those things with purple and pink hair.  They all look the same to me, but today Whitney was a little upset.  She dumped out the entire collection looking for the "pink Whitney pony".  There are smaller and bigger ones and she wanted this smaller one that has all pink hair and all pink body.  Different from the small pink pony with purple and pink hair. Pony, by the way, is pronounced, mony.

Friday was a catch up day, but we did have "jinglebells" over, which made all of our days.  Us parents played games while the kids played on their own.  It is AWESOME!  Jinglebells plays with Tucker and Whitney and their baby do their own thing.  It's great!

Saturday we tried raspberry picking.  We didn't get a ton of raspberries, but that's in between a lot of stuff.  Tucker and Whitney each had to go potty 3 times in 2 hours.  They also ate berries as fast as we could pick them.  It was a challenge to go fast enough.  The berries  just started ripening, so there weren't a lot in one location, but the best ones were actually at Tucker and Whitney's height.

Yesterday some friends and their twins came over, which was a great break, too.  Those kids play fairly well together and the dads made them race and traced their "dead" bodies with chalk on the driveway.  Whitney loved the racing and Tucker liked being traced.  There were three of him and one of the rest of the kids.  Lots of overlapping.

The best part of this week is that, with all that midnight practicing of putting clothes on and off, they can pull their pants on and off fairly well, so they are starting to go the bathroom on their own without telling me AND not having accidents.  I'm really liking this bit.