20 months

Lexi, Keira, Zara

Zara, Lexi

Lexi, Zara

Zara

Lexi

Lexi, Zara

Well, its February and the girls are 20 months old. I am actually starting to think of 2 year-old birthday party ideas. Craziness.

Big news this month is that the girls have molars! They went many months sporting their eight front teeth. Then we hit a rough (and long) patch of cranky kids and slowly out came the molars. They had several colds during that time too. So glad that is over with for a while.

A&Z are both getting better at using a spoon and fork. I guess eventually I will work with them on drinking out of an open cup, but maybe I'll wait until summer. Summer is really my procrastination plan for everything these days. We'll just hang out in the backyard naked drinking lots of water out of open cups and peeing in the little toilets. No mess and we won't come back inside until they are potty-trained and cup-trained. Hmmm, I think it just may work :)

Their favorite activity is still reading books. Marcus and I read at least 50 books a day, each and I'm not exaggerating. I confess that we sometimes hide books we get really sick of. Both girls really like doing puzzles (the basic wooden ones) lately and also love to color with coloring books. They ask to color at least once a day, but usually spend most of the time trading the crayons back and forth with each other and less time actually coloring. A&Z also spend a lot of time playing in their kitchen. Pretend play is in full-swing with cooking eggs or soup and serving each other tea. One of the biggest squabbles is fighting over pretend washing their hands in their kitchen sink.

In the pictures above, you might notice that the girls are often missing some clothing. They are starting to develop opinions about not wearing clothes, what they wear and want to dress themselves, especially Lexi.

Like all kids their age, language skills continue to explode. It seems like we hear new words and phrases every day lately. Of course, "no" is the most popular! Lexi is very good at pronouncing all of our friends names and names all of our family members in photo albums. Zara recently started saying "no thank you" and "excuse me" - its a little off on the pronunciation.

We started letting the girls watch a little TV a few months ago and they are really into Elmo and that's about it. His voice gets annoying, but I like the 20 minutes of free time enough to tolerate him. Oh my do they love "Meemo". They both sing "la la, la la" along with the opening song and shout and wave, "HI MEEMO" and then later when Mr. Noodle comes on Lexi says, "Hi Mr. Noonle". We recently introduced them to Yo Gabba Gabba and they like to watch that one and dance along to the songs. Those are the only two shows they will watch so far.

What Kids?

I kid. I kid. Marcus and I took a getaway to Hawaii in January. THANK YOU to our awesome in-laws/parents/grandparents for taking care of the girls in Yakima while we were gone. We had an amazing time together relaxing. We stayed in Princeville on the island of Kauai and highly recommend it.

As you can see we enjoyed paradise - swimming, hiking, eating and exploring. So much fun!

Toddler Busy Bag Swap

A "busy bag" is a ziploc bag containing an activity (can be educational) you can give your kiddo to keep them busy, on their own or with minimal help. Each activity should be:

• Self-contained. Something that you can grab and go, no added materials required. Great for home or on the go (doctor appointments, airplanes, restaraunts, etc)
• Convenient. No major set-up or clean-up required (no paint, liquids, sand, dirt, etc).
• Re-Usable. Should be able to play with many times without added materials, use lamination if needed.
• Inexpensive. Aim for under $1/bag to keep this budget-friendly (brainstorm about re-using materials you already have or recycling containers, etc).
• Easy to Make. Should not take hours to make.
• Toddler-appropriate. Avoid small choking hazards like tiny beads. 

This is a toddler busy bag swap so all activities should be appropriate for toddlers ages 12-35 months. This is a wide-range so young toddlers may need supervision with some activities.

Each person will choose one activity and make 15-20 sets of that activity. I will update you with the exact number depending on how many kiddos we have, but will cap it at 20. If you have twins (or two toddlers) and want a duplicate set of busy bags, you should sign up to make two activities (or three if you want three full sets). Some activities use similar materials so you can make it easier on yourself if you like.

See below for a list of suggested activities. You can make one of these or feel free to google or Pinterest "busy bag ideas" and find your own. (As people sign up, I will cross out the activities that are already chosen)

I will host a dessert get-together for the swap (details to follow). If you can't make it that day, I'll make arrangements with you.

Want to join this swap?
Comment on this post with  a) the number of complete busy bag sets you want and b) what activity/ies you will make and c) your email address.
Please comment to sign up by next Wednesday (February 1st). I will send you a confirmation email to give you the exact number of bags to make and other additional details. We will swap on or around February 15th.

Suggested Activities:

1. Button Snake  (Emily)
2. Mini Reversible Felt Board (Jill)
3. Matching/Memory Game (Natalie K)
4. Plastic Egg Carton (Kelly)
5. Pool Noodle Stringing
6. Pom Pom Stuff it In (Nicole)
7. Color Sorting Pipe Cleaners
8. Sponge Lacing  (Marki)
9. Color Wheel (Shoshana)
10. Cupcake Magnetic Puzzle
11. Pom Pom Bottles (Ashley)
12. Laminated Flip Book
13. I Spy Bottle (Marki)
14. Wooden Bead Lacing (Tricia, w/ pasta)
15. Popsicle Matching (Natalie S)
16. Clothespin Drop (Erin)
17. Homemade Playdough'
18. Colorful Flowers (Bec)

Have additional questions? Feel free to email me.

Ho Ho Ho

Maybe I should call this post "On the Road Again" because Christmas weekend kicked off four consecutive weekends of road trip travelling. To all the friends we haven't seen in ages: we will be home in February. No travel plans.

When A&Z hear people talk of Santa or even say "Merry Christmas", they both say "ho, ho, ho" 

Before we left town, the girls tested out some new present that were just too big to take with us. (They are not in their right named chairs)

We headed to Yakima on Christmas Eve and stayed through the weekend. As always, we had a great time with the Yakima Shirzads (aka Bebe Jan and Grandpa). The girls were spoiled with tons of presents and new toys. They definitely knew how to unwrap the presents this year, but the paper was just as exciting as whatever was inside. 

Christmas Eve tradition - new Christmas books before bed

Christmas morning - eating Cheerios was more exciting than presents apparently?

Lexi (the twin who is not doing a tights boycott)

Speaking of Ho, Ho, Ho, we visited the Providence Festival of Trees earlier in December and said hello.

Christmas at the Zoo

Zoolights is a big deal in Portland. Marcus and I have been a few times before with nieces and nephews, but it was a first for the girls. We didn't see the point of taking them as infants last year. It was a quick trip because it was really crisp and cold that night, but we got there right when they opened and didn't have to deal with parking and crowds. Our friends K and P were there with us too. We finished the night off with dinner at our favorite Thai restaurant: 4 adults, 3 high chairs, 1 booster and a partridge and a pear tree.

I need to get a) a better camera and b) some better photography skills because taking pictures of lights at night is really hard.