What are they up to now?

Hi again all you with stamina, able to go long periods between posts and still keep checking this site. :-)

We are digging ourselves out of a snow storm here in eastern Ontario. Over the last couple of days we've gotten a lot of snow... I'm not sure how much, but I've heard other people say something about 40 centimetres. I'm not sure if we got that much, or if that was what was forecast, but looking outside I could believe we got 40 centimetres. I don't really mind since it puts me a bit more into the Christmas spirit, but I think come January I'll be ready for all the snow to disappear.

We have had our Christmas tree up for about a week now. I put it up in November, even though I generally try to avoid it that early. But this year I decided that whenever I felt like putting up the tree, I'd go for it. The girls are quite enjoying it. Or should I say they're enjoying taking ornaments and tinsel off of the tree and spreading them around the house. And they like the lights. Every morning when we come downstairs, they insist that we turn on the Christmas tree lights.

I've realized lately, when I've gone back and re-read some of our posts, that we have been resorting to putting up pictures of the girls, and not really saying too much about what they have mastered, or what they're doing these days. That's fine, since I know that most of you are really only here for the pictures, but I do want to save this blog for the girls when they're older, and I think it might be nice for them to know a bit about what they were doing as two year-olds. (This is my excuse for not having created baby books, or life books, for them.) So I'm going to try to give a bit more information about them in the posts.

So, where to start? Well, they are both turning into chatterboxes. We only understand about half of what they say, but it's getting better. They are now speaking in phrases or short sentences. Most common are:

• "Doin, daddy?" (i.e., what are you doing, daddy?),


• "where's grandpa/grandma" (my folks left yesterday after a short visit),


• "no! me do it!" (i.e. hands off, I want to do it myself), followed shortly thereafter by "I did it!",


• "where's the baby (or whatever other toy they are hiding behind their backs)?" followed closely by "there she/it is",
  
• "I got it" (when they drop something, and want to pick it up themselves, or when they are willing to pick up something for their sister -- note: this does not translate into picking up their toys when it's time to put them away),


• "I find it" (note: they play pretty loosely with the word "I". It must be like the royal "we", since whenever they can't find a particular toy and DoT or I find it for them, they run around proudly proclaiming "I find it!" (meaning "I found it"),


• "Have fun", and


• "Hold tight".

They are also quite physical. They love racing around the house, and scream at full volume if daddy chases them. They are also into climbing these days. A is still a bit taller than E and can just manage to get herself up onto the couch by herself. E needs a bit of help usually, but will occasionally manage it herself. They also both get themselves up into their booster seats at meal time. But unfortunately instead of climbing up into their chairs and sitting down in them, lately they've taken to standing up in them and bouncing up and down.

A has pretty much mastered her colours. E seems to have more trouble with them, but sometimes I think she is just playing with us. Most time's she'll confidently shout out a colour if I ask her what colour her shirt/pants/a picture is, and 99 percent of the time she's wrong. But then occasionally she gets them all right. Maybe it's luck, but when she rhymes off three or four correct answers in a row, it seems like she's getting it. But then the next day we go back to getting them all wrong. I must say though, it's pretty cute when she shouts out "blue" for almost everything. It seems she fully expects that she's right, no matter how many wrong answers she gets. I hope that confidence stays with her.

They are both very much into slides, school buses, garbage trucks, fire trucks (note: anything with a siren is a firetruck to them), snowmen, and (still) the doodlebops. Oh and airplanes - as long as they're not flying over when they are in bed, as this seems to be a problem for them. Go figure. Oh yeah, and helicopters. And they like to sing -- favourite songs are "Twinkle, twinkle little star", the abc's song, and "Oh, Canada". I'll try to get a video of them singing sometime. I took one a few weeks back, but I was singing along with them and all you could hear was me, since I was also holding the camera. And there was no way I was putting that up on this blog.

Well, that's all I can think of right now. I often think, when they do or say something funny, that I should put that on the blog. But then I forget what these cute/funny things were. I'll try to post more regularly (I know, you've heard that before), and maybe more of them will make it onto the blog. For today, though, I'll leave you with a few pictures...


We're trying to make the girls into Dr. Seuss fans. Check out these cute shirts which you might think DoT brought back from his recent trip to Universal Studios theme park. Go ahead and ask him about it. :-)

Evidence of A's climbing ability, and poor Abby's loss of a peaceful napping spot. (Don't let looks fool you. It may appear A was being "gentle" with Abby, but it didn't last.)

A, taking after her daddy, at the breakfast table.

And finally, a shot of the snow in our backyard. Makes you just want to come and visit Ottawa, doesn't it. :-)

Happy Christmas shopping, everyone. K.

P.S. For those who note the date and time of this post and may think that I'm slacking off on taxpayers' time -- I'm home sick today. And now I'm going back to bed.