From babies to toddlers.....

It has just dawned on me after looking at these recent pictures that the twins are officially no longer babies but have seemingly morphed into toddlers right before my eyes (sniff, sniff).  They are looking more like little boys every day and have really begun to take on personalities of their very own.  They are fun-loving little guys who laugh easily and are almost fearless climbers. Look out world!!

They ADORE cars and seem to always have one (or two) clutched in their little hands.  They eat with them and even insist on sleeping with them!!  I guess there really is no doubt who their father is. :)

I looked at this picture and was taken aback by how OLD they look!!! It's very bitter sweet to me because these are my last babies and while it's been tough going at times it has also been so wonderful having TWO babies to hold and cuddle.

Fiesta!!

Today was Fiesta day at Jack's preschool complete with a candy-filled pinata (made by the kids) which induced so much excitement you'd think they'd never seen candy before!  I suppose the free-for-all nature of gathering pinata candy created such sheer joy.  The twins were major party-poopers, however, with one or both of them crying at any given time.  Oh well, the rest of us still had a good time and Jack even discovered a new food - taquitos! :)

Ole!!

Botanical Gardens

Last week my friend Sharon and I hauled our children over to the Norfolk Botanical Gardens for a fun morning of exploring their children's garden.  Sharon shares my love of a good adventure and is so patient with me and all my kids...let's just say we don't move very quickly nor do we ever arrive anywhere on time.  Our little corner of Virginia is in full spring bloom right now (which was clearly evident by the literal blanket of pollen we woke up to not long ago) and the botanical gardens were spectacular to say the least.  Full of ponds and meandering paths it was a pleasant walk back to the children's garden complete with a sighting of a real live bald eagle and nest!  And the children's garden did not disappoint!!  Filled with all kinds of areas to explore it proved to be fantastic for both the older and younger set!  Normally, the highlight of the park is a large area filled with fountains of shooting water just waiting to be played in but the fountains were off for repairs the day we visited.  Thankfully there were many other areas to uncover and Jack is still asking for a return trip!  They offer summer camps too which just may be a great option for my little nature lover.

Welcome to the Norfolk Botanical Gardens!

Entrance to the children's garden. Isn't it charming?

This is the area where the fountains are....obviously not working on this day.

One of many paths just waiting to be explored.

Jack manning the tree house.

I let the twins out of captivity and, as expected, they proceeded to head in opposite directions! Here is Matthew climbing the rope ladder - he made it to the top with no assistance!

We had just a fantastic day!

This is pollen....I've never in my life seen anything like the layer of pollen that covered everything in sight for about two straight days.  I haven't stopped blowing my nose for about two weeks now.

Playhouse

Right after Jay came home we bought a new playhouse for the kids and they LOVE it!  Since it's kind of a production for us to pack up and go other places to play, it helps to have lots of fun stuff in our own backyard to keep us entertained!  In all honesty, we probably could have just bought a door and set that up and the twins would have been just as happy.  Their favorite part is going in and out and opening and closing the door....over and over again!! Actually, Nathan tends to leave the door open which irritates Matthew (my OCD door closer...shades of a toddler Jack) because Matty likes to have the door CLOSED, thank you very much. :)

Homecoming - Part II

Okay so most of you know by now that the Easter bunny brought us the most wonderful present this year.....JAY!!!!  YAY!!!  The ship pulled back into Norfolk on Saturday, just in time to have a fantastic Easter spent as a family.  Sorry for the delay in posting pics but we've been busy re-acclimating ourselves to life as a whole family again!  Thankfully this time around the twins were not as reluctant to welcome Jay home again so our transition was fairly seamless.  It has been WONDERFUL to have him home and I'm finally not waking up just as exhausted as when I fall into bed.  :)

Easter....Preschool Style

Today was the Easter party at Jack's preschool and kudos to the party moms who put this one together because it was FUN!  They had yummy snacks which included a nice smattering of both sweets and healthy stuff plus a cupcake with more green frosting on it than I have ever seen in my life!  Added bonus - the mound of green cupcake frosting held a bunny ring!!! By far one of the coolest finds of the day for Jack. :)  Then an Easter craft was followed by an Easter egg hunt outside.  A super savvy twist on finding the eggs - the kids all had to find 13 eggs with their name on them!  How smart.  And each child received an adorable little Easter bag to put all his/her treasures in...too cute!!  The weather was beautiful albeit a little windy but we had bright sunshine and warmer temps.  Wonderful!

Jack with his adorable Easter bag which I believe was hand-made by one of the party moms.  My children will unfortunately only possess items this crafty because someone else made them!!

Found one!

Found another!  See his name on it?

And the twins had a ball playing with all the toys in Jack's classroom...especially the kitchen!

Twin Escapades

So keeping up with two curious and fearless (which equals ornery!) toddlers is proving more difficult by the day!  I literally find something new each day that they can now scale (as in furniture) or get into (as in they're not supposed to and are causing trouble)!  It has been said to me so many times...."what one doesn't think of the other one will" and boy is it the TRUTH.  Two heads are better than one and certainly more mischievous!!  But they also love to laugh and have fun so it's hard to stay cross with them for very long. :)

Why would we need the toys in the basket when WE could be in the basket!!  Shortly after I snapped this picture, they climbed out of the basket, took out the liner, and started stripping pieces of the basket off.

(Matthew in blue, Nathan in brown)

Look Ma, we can climb up on the sofa now...together!  And above the sofa hangs a painting done by my grandfather during the Depression which quickly became fair game for tiny hands.  It has since been removed.

This must be a much better vantage point than the sliding glass door right next to the window.  I had to raise the blind all the way up because that was just too fun to resist.  And see that latch on the chest?  They figured out how to get that off too!!!!

Soccer In The Rain!

Today was the first practice and game for Jack's soccer team - the Fever!  Jack has decided that he does NOT like this name and would "rather prefer" the name of his team last year, the Mustangs.  Oh well, sometimes we must endure that which we do not like. :)  An added bonus this year is that one of his good friends, Conrad, is on his team so this makes it WAY more fun to sort of pay attention to what's going on with the game. 

Today started bright and early with pouring rain but the YMCA was undeterred and soccer went on as scheduled.  What was to be quite an ordeal with an "opening ceremony" and such was thankfully shortened to just a quick practice and then a game.  It rained off and on the entire time which made most of the adults quite miserable, but at least the kids didn't seem to mind too much.  Of course, after everyone had pretty much wrapped it up and were heading out the sun came beaming through the clouds!

Go Fever!!

Jack and Conrad doing what most preschoolers do when you ask them to smile nicely for the camera.

(photo courtesy of Conrad's mom)

Just Because They're Cute

Happy Birthday Valentine!

Valentine's Day in our house is full of celebration....because it's Jack's birthday!!!  And this year was no exception.  I simply cannot believe my first baby is now FIVE!!!  It really sounds cliche but time does pass by right before your eyes.  I feel like all I did was blink and my little baby (the wonderful child who slept through the night at 10 weeks old!!!) is now a little boy.  Okay, before the tears start to flow, I'll stop.  :)

Jack was a little sad that Daddy wasn't here for his party, but we were lucky enough to have plenty of family around to take away the sting of Daddy's absence.  My parents flew in and my Aunt Lynn, Uncle Ed, and cousin Jennie (aka "Aunt" Jennie) drove down from DC to join in all the five year old fun!

This year I had Jack's party at a place called The Little Gym where he had previously taken a preschool tumbling/gymnastics class (which he loved).  They throw one heck of a birthday bash and it was totally painless for me - all we had to do was show up with the cake.  Literally!  All Jack's preschool classmates came (all 13 of 'em!) as well as several of his friends we know outside of school.  Yet another reason NOT to host his party at our house; 18 little people + lots of sugar = a whole ton of mayhem that I didn't have to clean up after!!

Most of the pictures have other children in them so I'm unable to post them here but I'll share a few of the many I took that afternoon.  Surprisingly, the twins were completely unfazed by the slew of crazy preschoolers bopping around and instead joined them running around exploring the gymnastics equipment.  I guess that's the benefit of being the second and third born children - they are completely acclimated to the craziness that is a house full of little kids right from the start!!

Jack on his "throne" at the start of the party.

The party room.

The twins quickly tired of the toys in the lobby and made a break

for the gymnastics room!

And they were fearless!!

"Look out Mom - I'm on a mission."

(Nathan)

Balance Beam!

More exploring.

Crazy Jack at age 5 (above). 

Compared to crazy Jack at age 2 (below).

Jack fell in love with this WALL-E cake and do you think I could find matching paper goods?  Of course not.  So, against my nature to have everything match,we had Scooby Doo plates, napkins, etc. to go with our WALL-E cake.

Happy birthday to you!!

Yum.