Dinnertime Fun!

(Is dinnertime a word? Looks weird to me)

So..it was just another regular dinner at our house. Nothing too exciting. Leah is contemplating what she is going to do after she gets down.....

"This meal is so boring, I could fall asleep".......

"Yep...just eating my dinner like I always do".....


"Hey...Bella...Check out this fun game..."

"Hmmm....let me try....."

And so the new "eating game" was established....

Hey...they ate EVERYTHING on their plate,

and nothing got thrown on the floor, so I'll take it!!

SLEEP?

HELP! PLEASE! SOMEONE!

I have no idea what is going on with the girl's sleep schedule and it is driving me crazy! Ordinarily, my babies are great sleepers and they sleep on a good schedule. For months they have gone to bed at 7, woken up around 5:30 or 6, and taken two good naps during the day. However, here was the schedule last week:

Monday: Up from 12am-3am (just wanted to hang out and play!)
Tuesday: Up at 4am
Wednesday: Up at 4am
Thursday: Woke at 4am, cried for 30 minutes, slept for a little while and then up around 5:00
Friday: Up at 5:20 (yea...thought we were getting closer to a good schedule
Saturday: Up at THREE AM! Ready to go for the day and didn't nap until 8am!
Sunday: Only took a 45 min. nap ALL day, so they went to bed an hour early..which was GREAT because it put them back on normal "time" based on the time change.
Monday: Up at 5:45 (yea! Back on schedule)
Monday night: Up from 9:30-12:00am (and Bella only went to sleep in our bed...Leah cried on and off all night).

WHAT IS GOING ON??????

Any moms or dads have any advice for me?????

Last week we tried to vary nap times (and length) which really didn't help much! Today, I told Kelly to only give them one nap and to try to push it back as far as she could. I don't know if that will work, but something has to or I WILL GO CRAZY!!!

Side note: These last two weeks have been MSA testing at school...great timing :(

WHEH! What a CRAZY weekend we had! It was full of fun, but very exhausting!
Friday night I played soccer with Christy (friend from high school)'s co-ed soccer team. It was so fun to get back on the field with her!! However, I didn't get to bed until almost 12 and the girls were up at 3am, ready to go for the day (their crazy sleep schedule recently is worthy of it's own post!).
Anway, they stayed awake from 3-8! I don't know what got into them! They went down for a two hour nap and then Deanna, Kai, Demi, and Mom came over right after they woke up. We had a really fun playdate (pictures to come later!).
Then, they left and about 30 minutes later my high school friends came over! That was AWESEOME! We have never all gotten together with our kids. There were 10 adults and 10 kids!! We missed a few of the group (Nicole, Lauren, Jason & Melanie), but it was awesome to get to see everyone with their families!
I actually went to bed at a reasonable time after all that...thank goodness because Sunday was another busy day! Deanna called at 8 and said her septic tank was messed up and so we had a fun, unexpected visit from our cousins! Actually, they were only there for about 5 minutes before we had to leave for church.
We went to church and came home to our care group already waiting at our house for our monthly care group party! People were there until it was time for the girls to eat dinner. They ate dinner, got a bath, and went to bed and I had to leave for my soccer game! I finally got home at 9:30 and I was EXHAUSTED.
Here are some pictures from the HS get together!!

The whole group

(except Karen's husband Mike whow was nice enough to take the picture)

All the kids...

except Bella who was crying too hard to even sit for it. I don't know why my kids hate group pictures so much!

Brian, Laurie & Brayden

It was a tight squeeze, but we all actually fit in the house

And one of my sweet girls at dinner!

This weeks pics

Love these two :)

My little rocker chick!

Climbing on the counter...fun times!

Notice Leah's hand here...she is such a bully sometimes. Kelly (or Cesar..not really sure) took this picture, but I guarantee that Leah was trying to pull Bella off of the chair so she could get to the keys.

Aggghh... I love this picture Cesar took. The girls have been on a VERY weird sleeping pattern this week. They have been getting up at 4:30 the past few days, and Cesar was AWESOME and got up with them the first day so I could sleep in another 45 minutes. Anyway, he took this picture after their morning bottle. How sweet does she look?!?





About three weeks ago, I started letting the girls eat with forks. They are getting pretty good. Kelly took some pics of it the other day.

A friend of ours gave us this really cute princess tent! The girls LOVE it. Cesar and Bella took the blocks into it and played forever.

Pics by Kelly

Check out this cute new hairstyle Kelly gave Leah. I love it! So girly! Too bad Mommy is the WORST when it comes to doing hair! I guess I better start practicing or my poor little girlies are going to look like little boys for the next two years until their hair grows out!

Yummy Blueberries!

Another reason to look forward to summer... Fresh fruit isn't quite as messy :)

Consignment Sales

Tis the season for consignment sales. Mom and I have a fun tradition (well...for the last two years) of hitting up the parents of multiples consignment sale in Frederick. This year, we decided to go to the Montgomery County one. Whoa! This was a whole new experience. I felt like one of those women going wedding dress shopping at the place where they mark down all of those name brand wedding dresses! You know..the one where people get trampled and get into fist fights over what is supposed to be a very happy experience! It was nuts!
Members of multiples groups are allowed to go in 30 minutes before the general public (at 8:30am). So, I pulled into the parking lot around 8:15 and there wasn't a single parking spot left! This is a middle school parking lot so there are TONS of spots! I finally just parked illegally (which I later discovered that the 300 people that came after me did too...so I didn't feel so bad) and went and got in LINE. The line for the members was crazy, but even more crazy was that there was already a HUGE line for non-members and they still had 45 minutes to wait (in the rain!). When they opened the doors everyone ran for whatever they were looking for and didn't let anyone get in there way. Thank goodness we were just about done shopping when they let the "public" in because wow...there was no where to even move once those people came in. Fortunately, there were no major fights and no one got trampled (at least while we were there), but...that was one intense consignment sale! I think I'll stick to the Frederick sale from now on :)
We did get some really cute spring clothes for the girls though! Here is a little sneak peak! I love these little hippie skirts! I can't wait for summer when we don't have to put on socks and coats anytime we want to go anywhere!

A few new ones..

Sunday workout!

Today it was BEAUTIFUL outside so we were able to walk to Ledo's for our Sunday date day. On the way home we stopped at the playground so the girls could work off all the pizza they ate :) Athletic scholarships here we come!!

I put these in the wrong order, so it makes more sense to watch the second one first.

Pasta for Dinner

These pictures were from a few nights ago...tonight we had Sloppy Joes. I wish I had a picture of that! They don't call it sloppy joes for nothing! We had tomato sauce ALL over...the walls, the carpet, the floor, the chairs..the Mommy...and of course...the babies! Makes for cute pictures, but NO FUN to clean up! Looking forward to when the girls can use forks and spoons!

Words

It seems like the girls have gone from two words to twenty overnight! They try to repeat everything we say. Here is a list of some of the words they use on a regular basis.

Up (this is probably the most common word they use since they always want to be picked up or to go upstairs!)
Down
Hi
Out
Eyes
Nose (sounds more like Naaaaa, but they point to their nose everytime)
Mouth (muuuuuuu)
Toes
Hot
Ball
More
Bye Bye (sometimes it's ByeByeDaDa)
Mama
Dada
Cheese
"what's that?" (whass at?)
Leah says "Leah" whenever Daddy says her name...sound more like yeeeaayaaaa though

They try to say I love you (although I am pretty sure they don't know what that means...just know we say it to them all the time),
They also try Belly Button without much success.

I feel like I am forgetting quite a few, but the best part is just seeing them try so many. If we really purpose to teach them something, they can learn it pretty quickly!

Fun times!

Bath time with Daddy! The girls love when Daddy is home to give them baths. He makes it much more fun than mommy does. Here are some pics of post-bath time!

Daddy & Isabella

Daddy & Leah...this picture cracks me up. He looks like a crazy man and Leah looks terrified.

The girls have finally decided coloring may be a fun activity. For so long they just wanted to eat the crayons (which they still do) but now at least they are also finding joy in coloring with them. I love this first one of them coloring together!

I let the girls play in the basement while I was cleaning up the kitchen and this is what I came down to. I think this picture captures their love for the computer. Bella will do anything to touch a computer and Leah is right behind her!

AND...it's been a while since I really did a good coupon shopping. I finally got myself organized and have been getting some good deals the last couple weeks. This was my trip to Weis last week. All of this cost less than $25. Not the best ever, but it still felt good to save more than 60% off of my bill :)