Happy New Year! I hope this year bring great things your way. I can’t believe the girls rang in the year as three year olds. That saying that, the days can be long but the years are short, is so true. We celebrated their birthday in Iowa this year which was nice because they got to celebrate with aunts, uncles and cousins. The only problem was that it was so cold and snowy our options were limited. We wanted them to have something special to do so we rented a hotel room that night for the sole purpose of having a pool party.  Noone even stayed in the room overnight. It was a big hit.  The hotel was pretty empty so we had the pool to ourselves. The only downside was that they didn’t have a hot tub and I think the girls would have loved the bubbles.  We played about a hundred rounds of ring around the rosie.  Instead of all falling down we all jumped up and threw them in the air.  They also loved jumping off the side and having us catch them.  Surprisingly, Emi was more fearless than Taya.  She’s usually the more cautious of the two.  We stayed there for a couple of hours and then went back to the house for cake and presents.  Minnie Mouse is still their hero, so they each had a cake decorated with her.  Taya was all about the frosting but Emi likes a proper bite of frosting and cake combined.  We also had pizza and both of them only eat the topping, no crust.  It’s so weird but neither one of them really likes bread of any kind.

 

 

The reason we were in Iowa for their birthday was because Christmas fell on that Monday so we got to Clinton a couple days before the 25th and stayed through the 1st.  The girls did get to go sledding for a little bit on one of the days it was a bit warmer. It took them a little bit to decide if they liked it but once they got the hang of it they were all in. They did not want to ride with us though.  They wanted to ride together or with a cousin.  One of our traditions is that my sisters and I go out for a full day of shopping while the kids stay home with Tim and Uncle Russ and they make gingerbread houses.  Last year they were too young to really care about it but this year, they each got their own house and did it up.  Once again Taya was pretty excited by the frosting. Tim said she was just scooping it out of the can and shoveling it in.  She managed to put some on her house but more went in her mouth than on the house.  Christmas was really fun with them this year and they were excited by Santa and presents. This was the year they really “got” that aspect of it.  They got some dolls, and playsets for them as well as dress up clothes and play food. They’ve been serving meals to their babies while wearing princess dresses everyday since then. They also each got the children’s edition kindle tablet.  They’re more techno savvy than I am. It’s loaded with all these preschool apps and you can take pictures with it and put shows or movies on it too.  They were a big help on the long drive home. Their favorite app is one where Daniel Tiger had to go to the bathroom and they put him on the potty and flush, wash hands and then go play until he has to potty again.  I’m hoping this means they’re getting ready to give up the diapers.  We’re about to really start putting an emphasis on potty training.

Before we went to Iowa for the holidays, we had plenty of Christmas activity at home.  They loved  having the house decorated and would wave hello to the giant inflable Mickey Santa from last year that we have on the dock. Tim decorates the outside with a bunch of lights and we have a 6 ft lighted snowman that I put on the front porch. The girls had to hug the snowman every time they walked in or out of the house.( I decorate his little corner on the front porch for all the holidays and I have these stuffed pilgrims that I put out for Thanksgiving and they were obsessed with them. Not only did they hug the pilgrims but they would pat their backs and tell them they love them. It was really cute but I had to add time into our schedule for this or we would be late for school because it could go on for a while. 😂)  We went to the  Christmas parade, drove through the lighted display at the local park, and went to a couple parties.  My favorite thing was their Christmas program at school. They had been running around the house singing their songs at the top of their lungs for weeks but once the show started, no one sang. Then they came home and sang the songs again.  Emi did do the little dance the class did during the program but Taya turned her back to the audience, because she liked watching her classmates do the dance.

Preschool is going great. They are in different classes because I want them to get a sense of self and get treated as individuals rather than “the twins”. As I’ve said before they can be each other’s worst influence and I was worried that them being together would be distracting and keep them from growing as much. They have really thrived. They have made up for all the delays that they had beyond speech. They have a lot of words but are still difficult to understand.  We are continuing speech therapy but that will come. They do still learn differently and need a little repetition but they are smart.  They know all their abc’s and can recognize them. They can also tell you if it’s a vowel or a consonant.  This is because we found a music video that we play at our nightly dance party and they are obsessed with it.  It has a song for each letter of the alphabet and goes on for over an hour and a half if you play the whole thing. We don’t do that nightly but if I’m cooking dinner or need to get something done without distractions I’ll play it. They watch it like it’s the greatest film of all time.  The only other thing that they will sit and watch is Toy Story 3.  Not 1 or 2, just 3. Tim will cave and let them watch that on the weekends.  I hate it.  I want Woody and the gang to die at the end.  I hope they open their minds to something else soon, or I may go crazy.  We took them to a Disney live show, not on ice, and Woody and Buzz were in it.  I thought their heads were gonna explode, they were so excited.

 

I’m really looking forward to how much they’re gonna grow during the rest of the school year. I’m sure I’ll have much to report on my next post.  Take care.