Happy 2nd birthday, sweet Emily and Caroline! The girls turned 2 on March 2, and after the birthday party on March 1st and our trip to Chicago the 4th and 5th, I am just now getting around to posting about the girls' birthday. Actually, their real birthday was a pretty low-key day since we had just had a party the day before. After our 80 degree day on Saturday, a cold front came through overnight and the girls celebrated their birthday with sleet and temps in the teens. Typical bipolar Texas spring weather! So while we would have loved to do their favorite thing and take lots of walks on their birthday, we decided on a cozy day inside instead. We started off with a few presents. After Christmas, Will's birthday, and their birthday party, I'd say that these kids know how to open a present! As always, Will loved helping open the presents, even if they weren't for him.
We made a big breakfast, and the girls got candles in their biscuits. They LOVE biscuits.
As I mentioned, there wasn't really much to photograph that day. We just enjoyed hanging out at home, and the girls loved playing with their birthday presents. I did get a couple of pictures of them eating cupcakes after dinner.
{Shhhh, don't tell them that I gave them un-frosted cupcakes left over from the party. They didn't notice, and it was much less messy without blue frosting!}
This made me laugh, because it is exactly how Will tackled his cake at 2 years old...face first!
These girls were super pumped to move from high chairs to booster seats recently. Will never wanted to sit in a booster chair, but the girls LOVE them. And I love that they are still strapped down during meals, but they can eat at the actual table with us.
The girls recently decided that they want to dress themselves. Always. This includes not only picking out their clothes most days, but also putting them on by themselves. If I try to help, they usually snatch the arm or leg that's sticking out of a head hole away from me, saying, "no help mama!" It's great practice, but we have plenty of occasions when pants or shirts are worn backwards, inside out, or both.
And these are their FAVORITE pants in the world. They came as part of two adorable outfits that my cousin gave the girls last summer. So we didn't wear them during the winter, and a few months ago, the girls noticed them in their pants drawer and immediately yelled, "DADDY PANTS!" I have to assume they call them "daddy pants" because some of Matt's boxers, which they see when I fold laundry, have dots on them. The smiles on their faces here show just how much they love these pants, and they would wear them every day, with every shirt or no shirt....doesn't matter.
We love daddy pants.
Emily and Caroline have always been a little {a lot} dramatic. We joke about how most people who have 3 kids have at least one laid-back, easy-going child who just goes with the flow. Apparently we don't make that kind of kid. I love all of their spicy personalities, and we really never have a boring day. The girls are still very attached to me, especially around new people, and even around friends if we are in a new or different place. Sometimes they will both sit on my lap for the first 2 hours of a playdate before they warm up enough to get up and play. {This is ok, except that usually playdates don't last much more than 2 hours, ha!}
I do totally believe that if Emily was an only child, she would have a chance at being that mythical laid-back kid that I've heard so much about. But sweet girl has to speak up around here to make sure she doesn't get trampled by the other two. We definitely go through phases of which twin is more independent, more needy, more attached, etc, and for the most part, when one is being super-dramatic, the other will give me a break. This is a good thing, because I can say from experience that it's hard to get much done when you have a wailing 25 pound 2-year-old clinging to each leg.
Drama Exhibit A: Caroline got dressed up in her new swim cover up, requested that I put the hood up and zip it up...and then decided it was just too much. TOO MUCH.
Exhibit B: Emily demanded to wear this enormous hairbow, and then got mad about that darn giant hairbow clipped to her sweet baby hair.
Speaking of hair....Caroline has taken her version of the girls' DNA and turned it into much longer hair than Emily's! If you ever need to tell the girls apart in pictures, Caroline has hair. Emily has sweet baby feathers.
We finally got to turn the girls carseats around, and WOOHOO - they all still fit! I was afraid they would be too wide when facing forward, but they actually fit better this way. So here are my backseat drivers:
The girls LOVE it, and are much less fussy about car rides now.
I'm happy to report that I still get lots of snuggles every day. I wouldn't have it any other way! {even though unfortunately, this one was on a day when C had a bad fall on our walk and scraped her lip and nose}
Walks are the girls' FAVORITE activity. {second favorite, for the record, is definitely bouncing in the bounce house} On nice days, we always take at least one walk down to the little pond at the end of our street to see the ducks.
{these next few are from one morning when Will was at school...we didn't forget him!}
These two are just the best of friends. It's so sweet! They certainly have their moments of snatching toys away from one another, refusing to share mama's lap, or pushing sister out of the way by her face, but they also have moments that are SO SWEET. They hold hands, share food, fetch pacis and dollies when the other is upset, and as long as they have one of a toy, they will go out of their way to make sure sister has one too. And I love that when they are in their cribs before nap or bedtime, and also right when they wake up, they have the best time playing. They run around their cribs, talk back and forth, pass dollies to each other, and shriek in happiness. I think having a buddy in there makes them wake up happier {
usually} because they're not alone, and it gives me a few extra minutes too! I don't know what it's like to grow up with a sibling, so I can't even
imagine what it's like to have an identical twin. So fun!
Here are our three cuties watching a little tv together. Their favorite shows are Team Umizoomi and Paw Patrol {recent addition by Will, because he saw a preview and loved it}. There will still be a request for Fresh Beat Band every once in awhile, but Paw Patrol is the big winner these days. Our kids still have zero interest in movies. Matt and I watched Frozen while they napped the other day because we wanted to see it and couldn't get them to watch. Not kidding.
The girls are still great sleepers for the most part, praise the Lord! This is Caroline at about 9:00 one morning. Emily was bouncing in her bed about 6 inches away, I had the lamp on, and she still snoozed away.
I have to add one story here, just so I won't forget it. I know I've mentioned before that Caroline wakes up much more during the night than Emily does. Matt and I have deemed her the worst roommate ever, because she will just scream out randomly throughout the night...some nights it's not much, and some nights it will be every hour. {However, hopefully I won't jinx us by saying that we haven't had a night terror in over 6 months...so hopefully they've outgrown those!} Usually Caroline wakes up and screams out for just a few minutes and then goes back to sleep on her own, but poor Emily {and poor mama and daddy with a monitor next to the bed} wake up too! So one night recently, Caroline was having a night with lots of wakeups, and about 4 am, she got really loud and wasn't going back to sleep. So I switched on the video screen on the monitor to see if something was wrong, and I heard her call out "CACA" in her most distraught voice.
*Side note- the girls sleep with their bunnies and dollies. Most loved is "old bunny," which is one of their original 2 ballerina bunnies, of which one has been forever lost. {Unfortunately, old bunny was a seasonal Easter toy 2 years ago, and is impossible to buy now unless you want to pay $100 on ebay for a $6 bunny.} Emily has claimed old bunny for the most part, although Caroline will still try to take her every once in a while. But for sleeping, Emily almost exclusively gets old bunny. Second on their love list is a sweet little dolly in a yellow dress, named "caca" {I know, I know...}, which we have 2 of. And finally, we now have 3 "new bunnies," which we found recently at the Carters store, and are very similar to old bunny...but not quite the same.
Sooooo...on this night, when I looked on the monitor, Caroline was wailing for caca, who had apparently fallen out of her crib. Right after I started watching, I saw Emily sit up, look around her crib for her own caca, and then stand up and hurl caca into Caroline's crib. She then promptly laid back down and went to sleep. It was hilarious! So sweet that she was taking care of her sister, but mostly I think she just wanted her to be quiet so we could all go back to sleep!
Look closely...they asked me to paint their nails for the first time the other day! {LOVE}
The girls are talking so much now. I remember this with Will...somewhere between 18 months and 2 years, the switch just flips, and suddenly they can remember and say words when they hear them! I just love being able to hear what they're thinking, and I love their sweet little voices. They pronounce most things fairly clearly {to me, although I'm sure other people don't know half of what they're saying}, and they can put up to 3 words together right now. I love how they say, "yes." It comes out as, "hesssssssss" in a really breathy tone. So funny!
One other thing that cracks us up is that they both call each other Emmy. If you ask Caroline what her name is, or if you ask Emily what Caroline's name is, they can both answer correctly. But on the fly, they always use Emmy to mean either Emily or Caroline. I guess I can't blame them....it IS easier to say. As far as pronunciation, Emily is always, "Emmy," and Caroline usually comes out something like, "Caaaah-ieeeene." They still call Will, "bubba" most of the time, but they will sometimes call him, "Hua-eeeeeeel."
The girls LOVE to dress up and accessorize. It never ceases to amaze me how different boys and girls are, even at such a young age! The girls love to dress up in their own clothes, Will's clothes, or even Matt's and my clothes. And they always like to pile on the purses and accessories when we leave the house. It's awesome.
Off for a walk!
Emily dressed herself completely for this particular walk, although I did ask that she wear her pants correctly, instead of inside out and backwards. Details...
Actually, they all dressed themselves for this walk. Notice Will's backwards red shirt and orange shoes. I love these little people.
Just another day watching the ducks. Their favorite duck is a big white one they named GaaGoo. {
actually it probably isn't a duck, but I don't know what it is}
{be still my heart!}
Since the girls were born 2 months early, we said from day 1 that they are our perpetual newborns. Now, we call them our giant babies, because they are the size of 2 year olds, but still have baby hair and definitely some baby tendencies. But just in case I happen to start thinking my girls are growing out of the giant baby stage, I have this picture from last week to prove that they aren't there quite yet. This is the night after Matt and I got back from Chicago. Sweet Caroline wouldn't sleep anywhere but right here until about 2am, after a LONG conversation to convince her that I wasn't going anywhere, and she could sleep in her crib with no worries.
Sweet baby!
Time flies as a mom. For real. The past 2 years with 3 kids under age 4 have been nothing short of the most challenging, most educational, most hilarious, most sleep-deprived, most humbling, most silly, most noisy, most thankful, and most FUN years of our lives. I so love each new developmental phase we reach as we watch the kids grow up, but I can always feel the previous stage tugging at my heart as we leave it. I know they can't be babies forever, and let's be honest...I don't think I'd be able to stay awake for it if they were. But I know I will miss the snuggles with three littles on my lap, carrying two babies while chasing a toddler, days of playing at home with no one in school, being so very needed all the time, and being able to make everything right in the world with a hug and kiss.
Happy birthday, sweet babies!! And let's take this next year a little slower, ok? ;)
