Are we having fun yet?: What happened to December???

We've been having a great time living it up with the Christmas cheer to blog. I've also decided to do Valentine's Day cards instead of Christmas cards this year.

We haven't seen much of Papa. Work, work, work. But he often gets home around 8 to tuck them in. He invented a game with them. It started with making them burritos with them in their blankets. Now they won't go to bed if he's home without him making them a burrito. One time he came home after Tucker fell asleep but before Whitney did. Whitney called out to him from her room to make her a burrito. It has also evolved into tacos and potstickers. The first night Jim made Whitney a potsticker, she was too excited to sleep and kept saying "I'm a potsticker!" with glee every three minutes. If they aren't super tired they play "burrito in the morning" where they stay in their burrito, but sit up and then fall back over and over.

Another girly girl trait Whitney has is her love of beautiful things. For some reason she loves plain white shirts. Probably because I never buy or let her wear them. For some reason I let her have a plain white one on. The minute I put it on her, she exclaimed "It's so pretty!" She says that about a lot of things she likes.

Apparently she loves nail polish. This is not something I taught her. It is purely her. On Monday night she spotted my non- nail polished toes. Only a bit remained of the summer job on my big toes. This distressed her. She pointed to the other toes and said "Mom! This toe, this toe, this toe and this toe need more pink on them" Then she asked for some on her toes. I told her we would do it tomorrow after lunch because she was about to take a bath and it would wash off in the tub. After lunch on Tuesday, she went in her room, took her socks off, rolled up her pants and waited for her nails to be painted. She giggled gleefully and wiggled her toes after each one. But then that night she didn't want to get in the bath for fear the paint would wash off. Took a bit, but she finally got in. Ever since she looks at and admires her toes.

She also loves dancing. Tonight I asked her want she wanted to do with Mommy and she requested to dance. I told Jim this and he said she asks him, too. Except he talked her out of it and showed her Curious George instead. He's not fond of dancing. And she's hooked on Curious George.

A big box arrived last night. It is perfect for a dancing stage. Whitney"put on her tap shoes" (her socks), danced around on the box a bunch, then sat down and said she was done dancing and took off her socks. Just like Mommy does!

Tucker loves to make things talk. Mostly Thing 2. Thing 2 is his toy of choice. The other day he was holding Thing 2 by the tummy and having him talk to me. Then he gave me Thing 2 and said "I want him to talk to you"(you meaning me). I was apparently doing it wrong because he said to me "No Mom. You do it like this" And showed me how to move it front to back instead of side to side by holding its belly. He also plays this game with Snowflake, a very small white Christmas bear. When he wants them to talk to him, he brings me either one and says "I want Snowflake to talk to you". Another favorite sentence is to have his Thing 2 say to him "I have a shirt like you!"

Tucker likes to be a birdy. He has figured out how to wrap his blanket around his stomach for his "nest". It is pretty funny because the blanket he has for his nest is one of those fleece tied ones, so it does look like a nest.

Tucker is quite a ham. He likes to repeat things that I find funny. He goes around the house, often coming up close to me and saying "Hey Mom. Got some grapes?" since I laughed so hard at the first time. The first time we were riding in the car home from church when he says to me, "Hey. Hey, Mom. Got any grapes?" with the same voice intonation of a teenager teasing me.

They both really like to find and identify numbers as well as count. Whitney really likes to count items. Tucker really likes finding 2's.

We went up to a field of snow just to play for a bit. Whitney thought it was sooooo funny to crunch through the snow. Tucker really enjoyed his sledding ride. Papa didn't enjoy it as much as Tucker. It was on flat ground, no hills to help. They were both fascinated by the previously made snowmen and did their best to flatten them. Tucker liked snowballs more than Whitney. Whitney never complained of getting snow in her boots.

For Activity Days we were talking about exercise and I decided to show them an exercise video, 15 minutes, of beginning Yoga stuff. 2 out of 13 girls liked it. Not a do again activity. But in the process I had checked out 4 different exercise videos and previewed them with the babies. They normal jump around the room unless it is one of their shows, but surprisingly they were somewhat interested. I was laughing pretty hard because, once they saw that I was doing what the video was doing, they started copying the video, too. I picked the Yoga video because out of all the videos, Tucker and Whitney followed it the best, so I figured the girls would, too. Not so, but it was still so very entertaining for me to see Whitney and Tucker doing the various poses. Whitney even made herself a Yoga mat out of the blanket thrown across the couch. Tucker was more amused by going through all the "Mommy tunnels" I made moving into different poses. Whitney also made me laugh by saying exhale a few times after the lady said it. She said that word a bunch, so I guess she figured it must be an important word to learn.

This week while cleaning Tucker and Whitney figured out that Tucker can easily push Whitney around the house in the mopbucket. I don't know why they haven't figured that out before. Tucker really likes pushing that thing around the house. It's how I get a bunch of housework done without them fighting. It was pretty cute. He could only push her on the hard floor, so when he came to the doorway of their room he said "This is where we park!". They also pretended it was their shopping cart.

I wrapped a bunch of presents the other night and put them under the tree. Whitney was the first to notice them there. It happened to snow a bit, just a dusting, the night before. We were looking out the front window at the snow when she saw them. She peered over the edge of the couch and, as soon as she saw them, she had a very slow, reverent tone about her. She crawled over to the edge of the pile on her hands and knees and didn't touch a thing, as if touching would make them disappear. She said "Presents!" and continued to inspect them. Then she came back to me and informed me they were all full of cookies. She is still convinced they are all cookies and talks about how she can't wait to unwrap all of her cookies.

The night before I had made Jim help me wrap half of the presents. I made him wrap them individually, thinking the fun part for them will be the unwrapping, not necessarily what's in them. After wrapping about half, he pronounced they were sure getting a lot of presents. I'm pretty sure he hates wrapping gifts. I told him we could return a bunch of them. He said "No. It will be fun giving them to them" The next night I told him we were definitely off the hook and could return them all. Whitney is convinced they are all cookies anyway. He didn't go for it.

Whitney thinks all presents are cookies because of Joy School. For Joy school, they wrapped up cookies for their mom and dad. Who ate the cookies? Yeah. Anyway, then next Joy school, we wrapped up candy for the other kids as gifts. Whitney was enthralled with gift wrapping. She was actually quite the helper and seems to already understand where the tape needs to go.

I'm not sure what the benefit of having a fake tree is this year. Everyone keeps asking me if it is real. I think the pile up of "pine needles" underneath confuses them all. Or maybe it's the couple of branches that are bent at funny angles. Or maybe the spot that looks a like a hole in the branches. It has been about as difficult keeping them away from that tree as it is to keep a cat out of one. They really like to throw their toys at it. Hence the needles falling. They think it is especially funny when a toy sticks fast. I should have left Thing 2 in there. Then maybe they would have learned. The bent branches are from Tucker stepping on a few a couple of times. The hole is an optical illusion. it is created from the fact that all ornaments front and center have been relocated, including the garland. That's where they usually throw their toys into.

I'm also going to have to invest in plastic ornaments next year. Tucker plucked the "apples" from my garland on the staircase and threw them down the stairs, shattering them instantly. He got three good shots in before I could get off the toilet and get out to him. Grrrrrrr.

One of their favorite past times is prying the heater vents off (we have floor ones) and throwing stuff down them. Usually it's not that big of a deal, but one day, when Jim came home, I threatened to do whatever job it took to screw those vents to the floor. I was sick of it. I had rescued ornamants (and another broken glass one) out of there, pulled their blankets, pillows and pants out, and was unable to rescue about 5 plastic balls that are now a permanent fixture of our heating system. That pipe slopes down and turns. When I told Jim they threw all his plugs for his phone, MP3 player and his ipad charger as well as his MP3 player down, too, he was ready to take immediate action. Funny thing, though. The only one that he was actually able to secure was the one in their room and for some reason they think they are all fixated to the floor. Fine by me. I was sick of the heater vent game.

Thank heavens most of their other favorite past times are less destructive. Whitney loves to color. Her pictures are charactorized by complete and full color. She colors in her entire paper with different color. Her favorites are pink and purple. Tucker likes circles and lines. She is really good at matching. She doesn't like to use a spoon or fork that isn't the same color as her bowl. This can be a serious problem lots of times. She also was pointing out in the Go Dog Go book that the red dog should be on the red tree and the blue dog should be on the blue tree, not the other way around like it is written. Color also relates often to ownership. Anything pink or purple is hers. Tucker knows this well and automatically gives her anything of those colors to her immediately without question. Whitney does the same for blue, green, orange or red for Tucker. I didn't realize they had designated towels. I have put a green and tan towel on the chairs in my kitchen to protect the pad. One day when I cleaned, I accidently put them on different chairs. So, they switched places.

They invent lots of games, like uh-oh pillow and mountain, which include stacking and making furniture items with the couch and outdoor furniture cushions.

They also continue to love play dough. I usually give it to them when I'm working in the kitchen. The other day Tucker smashed his play dough all over different body parts and looked at the shapes and textures. His lips, closed eyes, his hair, his belly button, and last but not least, his chin. What cracked me up was his description. He held out this cup looking thing to me and said "mom! look what I made!" I turned and looked and didn't know, so I said, "what did you make?" He said "My chinny chin-chin" quite matter of factly. That got me laughing pretty hard. I have no idea who read him the three little pigs, but they remember it.

But then, a scare. Tucker discovered the discomfort of shoving something up his nose. Thank heavens it was play dough and easily dissolved with nasal spray. But I'm sure I'll get the rock up the nose later.

One of the nice things of them doing imitation play is that they can also be very, very kind and sweet to each other. Every time Whitney coughs at the table, he asks ever so concerned "Whitney, are you OK?" since I usually ask him that when he's choking on the food he's trying to swallow whole. He also very nicely put on chapstick on Whitney's lips while in church. Someone spied him doing it from across the room and thought it was so cute. Good thing because it was totally melting my heart, too.

The rain stopped for an afternoon last week, so we went to the park for a bit. Even Whitney loved it. More on that later. They hunted for sticks or reeds to "go fishing" in the puddles and openings in the plants over the wetland. When they pull their sticks out of the water, they give me their "fish" to eat, saying "it's ready". They like to throw rocks in the puddles. We also discovered the indoor ranger visitor center at their favorite park. Ok. Mommy's favorite park. Whitney absolutely loves playing with the floor puzzles. She is starting to get stuff on her own.

We went to our ward Christmas party. It was a breakfast. Whitney licked every inch of frosting off a huge cinnamon roll. Hopefully the lady that made the roll didn't see it go to waste like that. That was after two full bowls of generic captain crunch. Whitney ate out all the berries first and Tucker ate out all the orange squares. When Santa appeared, they were fascinated, but didn't go see him. They both said no to that idea. But then, what's the draw of a small candy cane compared to the amount of sugar they both got for breakfast? I didn't even bother trying to feed them lunch.

We went caroling with some friend the other night. I think they liked it, but maybe not the same reasons I liked it. I borrowed a double jogging stroller from the friend and they thought that thing was a blast. They would bang their heads back and giggle at the top of their lungs. Tucker got everyone smiling (and annoyed) with his loud belly laughs, while they were singing or not. They also liked looking at everyone's lit snowmen. Costco special this year, I think. Almost all the houses on this particular street had them. One house had the reindeer with the heads that move. They've probably had those reindeer for awhile. The heads move very roughly, like they have arthritis and all this cold humidity gets to their bones. But who knows. Maybe they are only a few years old. Things outside age very quickly here. We had a cloud break while we were out caroling and the babies were fascinated by the stars. Whitney more than Tucker. Toward the end of caroling, Tucker started to pass out, so I decided to just drive him home and get him in bed. Whitney wasn't tired. And she really wanted to stay. She said she wanted to "do it again". I told her Tucker was tired. She opted to bring him home to sleep and then come right back. I told her Papa wasn't home, so we couldn't do that. She wasn't concerned about leaving him alone in his warm bed. What was really upsetting to her, I think, was all the cookies she missed out on by going home early.

Whitney is really grasping this Santa thing. I think it started with the Santa video she received through my email. Tucker doesn't really get Santa, but he also has not been interested in watching the video. When we watched Whitney's video, Tucker wanted to eat noodles. So I didn't have Tucker watch his. But Whitney kept reminding me over the next 2 days that we needed to watch Tucker's video. So we finally did. She watched it, totally glued to the screen and fascinated. Tucker played with Mommy instead.

She has quite the memory. She tells me different parts of the story often. Another thing that tells me about her memory was when she spotted the clown balloons in a parked car. There was a car in the grocery store parking lot that had a basket fashioned out of those thin balloons clowns use to make different things. She said "I like my flower balloon. Tucker got a nose." She was right. In July, for my hubby's company picnic, she got a flower balloon from the clown. Tucker got a sword that did kind of look like a long nose. Those balloons soon popped and she hasn't mentioned them since until the day she saw those balloons in the car. Amazing to me.

Tucker has this huge affinity to being outside and Whitney has a huge affinity to being warm. Sounds like Jim and I. Jim loving the cold, me liking outside. I have a feeling Tucker will be my hiking buddy until he's about 8 and I hike too slow for him. I've lately come to a compromise. Tucker can play in the driveway riding Whitney's pink bike while Whitney plays quietly just inside the house. This has been much better than listening to Whitney fuss about wanting to go in because she is cold or Tucker literally bouncing off the walls because he hasn't gotten enough energy out. I just open the door and check on her every 5 minutes. She is usually pretty good at telling me where she is and she isn't destructive on her own. One day, though, even I had my limits. Tucker rode "the pink bike" outside in the pouring rain for a half an hour until I told him I was too cold and he had to come in. It felt like it was 33 degrees out that day. And he was totally content. He couldn't get his boots off that day, but he was happy.

He has this huge fascination for playing "bump, bump". If it isn't outside on the driveway with the mopbucket or bike over the speedbump, then it is on the dishwasher with his tow truck. He does it for hours and has still continued to like it for, um, about a year and a half.

Whitney likes to make me soup. Usually she does it with the stuff in her kitchen, but one time she used the bucket and filled it all with her favorite toys for me.

Tucker put the butterfly wings on his Thing 2. Took some effort.

They are getting much better at clean up. They know how to sort their toys, even counting them or calling out the colors. But I still have to work hard at keeping them on track. I'm sure I have about 15 more years of that or more.

They really like to cut play dough. It keeps the play dough playing going on for a lot longer.

Tucker seems to really like little kids. He was very intent on feeding a baby that I watched the other day. He was also very kind to a little kid at the playground today. The kid was about 15 months old and has zero respect for personal space. Whitney said "I don't like you" to him and ran away. Tucker let him touch his bright orange snaps on his jacket and said "That's right! That's a button!"

Every time I give either on of them two of something, they automatically assume that the second thing is for the other. This even applies to cookies. I gave Whitney two cookies and told her to go sit at the table. I went over to check on things and she had put one of the cookies in Tucker's spot, waiting for him to eat it.