When they do this kind of stuff I forget that they were ever naughty this week

When Ro and Ree walk along holding hands while (loudly) serenading anyone within earshot, well the adorableness just about kills me. See for yourself. Oh, and please ignore the fact that I didn't know the words to Twinkle Twinkle. I was trying to walk backwards, hold the video camera, and not trip—lyrical knowledge was apparently beyond me at that point. This one's just plain fun. We went on a hike and found a huge old oak tree with a rope swing. Oh yeah! Ree and Ro just think it is the best thing ever. I thought they might be a little scared at first (it's hard to tell from the video, but we're on a pretty steep hill and they swing way far out into the air), but, uh, nope. Hey, I just noticed this will make two weeks in a row of posting videos on a Friday. Maybe I should make it a weekly tradition. Hm... Maybe if someone could come up with a clever name for it?

Nothing says summer like sitting in a bucket of water

PS: Thank you SO MUCH for your comments on the previous post. Wow! What a wealth of insight and personal experiences. Group hug!!

In which I bombard you with questions

Do you have answers? Hope so, because I have a few questions and I'd love to hear what you think or what's worked for you on any of these things. 1. For parents of kids with fall birthdays, what did you do about kindergarten? (educators please comment as well) Did you start your kiddo when she was four-turning-five, or redshirt her and start when she was five-turning-six? Some of the key background stuff: In California, kids must turn five before Dec 3 to start Kindergarten that year, and Ro and Ree have early October birthdays. So they could start in fall of 2010, when they turn five about six weeks after school starts. Our kindergarten class is half-day, and we can either choose morning or afternoon session. Ro and Ree have attended preschool two to three mornings a week for a year and a half now and recently moved up to the Pre-K class. Ro and Ree can do everything on this kindergarten readiness list except for buttoning clothes and bouncing a ball (both of which will probably be remedied about two seconds after BobBob and Wela read about these egregious oversights, heh heh). 2. For parents of twins, did you place your children in separate classes or the same class? (educators please comment as well) Ro and Ree play really well together, constantly flip back and forth on who's the dominant one, protect each other, are much braver and less shy when they're together, and just generally lovelovelove being together. I truly think that they could face anything together. They do play with other kids; right now there is a group of three girls that they play with at preschool, and they seem to play with those girls whether they are together or separated. They're a little bit competive with each other, but in more of a "hey, cool, if you can do that then I'll give it a try too" way, rather than a "you're going down, sister" way. But... they can create chaos in a classroom if the teacher doesn't have really strong skills or if they're bored. They can feed on each other's energy and are easily able to rope other, previously angelic kids into their shenanigans. 3. What's your favorite thank-goodness-it's-friday alcoholic drink? I love mojitos, mmmmm. No secret there. (And ice tea, for my everyday drink, in case anyone's curious.) But it's really hard to find a place that can make great mojitos (actually the only two places where I get consistently good ones are at our neighborhood pool on summer weekends and at the Cheesecake Factory). I don't get to go out very often, but would really like to have a backup drink that I can ask for if the place just can't make a good mojito. Any suggestions? 4. Has anyone triumphed over varicose veins? Ugh, I know, sorry to bring this up. Feel free to just skip ahead if the subject grosses you out. So, has anyone dealt with varicose veins (not spider veins) successfully? Is there some magical non-surgical solution that I just haven't stumbled across? Has anyone had the surgery, and was it as unbearable as it sounds? Specifically, what was your pain level and recovery like? Ugh again. I've always had an annoyingly visible vein on one leg, but it was never too bad. Once we came home with the girls, though, and I was on my feet 99% of the day, the thing got big and bulgy. It's just gross, and clearly ignoring it (my favorite treatment plan) isn't working. Great, now everyone I meet is going to be ogling my leg trying to see what's going on there... Oh well. 5. Does anyone have any good ideas for a 4th-birthday photo shoot? As mentioned, Ro and Ree will be turning four in early October, and TubaDad will be slaving away to set up the photo studio in the garage for me. Hopefully we'll get all the lights working perfectly this time, and I'd love to try some of your ideas on creative props, poses, backgrounds, outfits, etc. So, lay 'em on me. Please! 6. When exactly are you supposed to transition your kiddo from a carseat to a booster seat? Is there a federal or state law or is it just up to the parents? The last time my pal Catherine visited, she asked me what the law was here in CA, and I'll be danged if I knew. We spent about 5 minutes surfing around on the internet trying to figure it out and couldn't find the legal answer (then we got distracted by some Ghirardelli chocolate that she was trying to hide from me and never got back to it). I'm curious because the girls will probably get too tall for their Britax Marathon carseats before they exceed the weight limits, and I'm not sure if we're supposed to buy a bigger carseat (is there a bigger one?) or go to a booster seat thingamajig. Can anyone give me a link to the official answer? Alrighty, I guess I should just wrap this up and stop pestering everyone with endless questions. I already know this is going to be one of those posts where TubaDad says "Uh, that was a little long, sweetie" and my mom says "Not one single, lousy picture of the girls?" Heh heh. Thanks so much for your opinions and experiences!

Cooking parties still work with kids

We've been getting together with two other couples to do these awesome cooking parties for years now. Our last one, a Kabob Party, was just this weekend, and I had to laugh at how things have changed over the years. We still rotate houses each time, with the host choosing the menu and each couple buying the ingredients for one or two of the dishes, and we still spend a lot of time laughing, cooking, and eating, but... We used to have six adults and only one kiddo, and used to arrive around 3pm and cook until about 9 or 10 at night (the cooking was seriously delayed by all the talking). Now we've got seven kids between us (yep, outnumbered!), and we have to work around afternoon naps and chasing happy kids the whole time. So we've adapted things. The host still chooses the menu and the recipes, but now each couple prepares their assigned dishes ahead of time and brings them ready to be cooked. We choose plenty of things that the kids can help with during the party. And the parties start a smidge later and break up a little earlier (I chuckled when we were all on the road before 8:30pm this time). But the main things haven't changed a bit: we have incredible amounts of fun and cook (and eat) some really great food. For this weekend's Kabob Party, our host picked these awesome recipes, most of which were cooked on the grill: Cowboy Kabobs Chicken Satay Skewers with mango relish (this one was my fave) Pizza Pull Kabobs Cheese and Fruit Kabobs Grilled Vegetable Kabobs (yum!!) Dessert Kabobs (This one was brought unassembled, and then the kids got to make it for everyone.) Here are a few pics, taken with the purse cam. Ro and Ree like to help with everything in the kitchen. It can get a little tricky when mama is making things like mojitos, heh heh. So we changed gears and let them make virgin mojitos for all the kids. Ro was jumping so high it was crazy! I could barely hold the camera I was laughing so hard. Enjoying one of my custom mojitos. Mmmm, I've finally figured out how to make them. I'll share the recipe in another post. They all loved making the Dessert Kabobs. Quick, easy, and fun, fun, fun. Little Ree always makes this face when she's cooking. The girl is deadly serious about her cooking. Hm, Ro just might, perhaps, have gotten a teeny bit on her face: Am I clean, mama? Did I get any on me? Hee! Someday (maybe) I'll get my act together and take a group shot of everyone at our cooking parties. Wouldn't those be fun to look back on?

The coolest ride at the park: Italtrike review

Ro and Ree recently got to test drive the fancy ergonomic Italtrike from All Modern Baby. Check out our family's Italtrike product review to see pictures and hear firsthand what the girls thought.

Videos, videos, and more videos

Folks just don't do enough blog posts on the weekends, do they? I swear, sometimes I check Bloglines on a Sunday morning and think it must be broken because it's not showing any new posts. Oh well, if you're checking in this weekend and wishing for something to read or watch, here are a few recent videos of the girls. Enjoy, and happy weekend! First, here's a little short of the girls practicing their swimming. Starting last week, they've been comfortable enough to try jumping and swimming sans vests (as long as their grownups are nice and close). They are so dang proud of themselves I think they're going to burst. Go little fishies! (oh, and sorry for the high squeaky voice, I guess I'm just a tiny bit excited too, heh heh) These next two were taken on Wednesday, which is the morning that my dad always comes over to play with the girls. First we took the girls to the dentist, then the girls and my dad had a big water fight in the backyard (my camera and I got blasted with water at around 2:43 of the first video and I didn't even teach the girls any new words, can you believe it?). Then I took the girls over to my folks' house after naps to have dinner with them and my Grandma Shulse who is visiting for the week. Everyone had loads of fun and Ro and Ree even got to frolic on a huge trampoline in the neighbor's yard. Kind of a big day for everyone (especially my dad, who my mom says fell asleep at about 7:45pm that night—hee!) Here's a quick little video I snapped of the girls' unique method for riding one of the rides at Chuck E Cheese. It's just a smidge too big for them, and won't go up in the air unless your legs are long enough to pedal—not a problem for the wonder twins... Then there's a short clip of the girls vigorously popping the packing bubbles that came in some package. I don't remember what package it was, but the bubbles were sure a hit. Ro and Ree were quite serious about their popping, which kind of cracked me up: And finally, here's a vid of the girls driving the little cars at Gilroy Gardens (man we love that place). As always: I'm in the backseat with my camera, Ro (in the french braids) is driving, and Ree (in the crooked ponytails) is talking. The girls want an electric car sorta like this for their birthdays, and I've told them that the grandparents are the ones to talk to about that. Um, perhaps a conference call is in order? Whew, now I'm hopefully all caught up on vids. Been meaning to post those for awhile now. If you can't see the videos in your browser, you can always go direct by clicking "Videos" in the blue bar across the top of our site. Alrighty, off to watch a little tv before the girls wake up from nap. Thank you SO much for the tv suggestions a few posts back, by the way. Now our recorder is full of really cool shows and there's always something fun to watch when I get a few minutes of downtime. PS: A question for the eagle-eyes who are reading this: do you notice anything different between the dentist visit and the trampoline video (both from Wednesday)?

First official dental visits!

My dad and I took Ro and Ree for their first dental visits this week and they passed with flying colors! The funny thing is that TubaDad and I had actually been coaching the girls for a week, telling them that the dentist might ask them all sorts of tough questions, like "do you chew ice" or "do you brush your teeth twice a day" and they just needed to tell the truth. ("Yes, but we're trying not to" and "No, but we're trying to" would be the unfortunate answers to those two questions, by the way.) But their dentist was mostly concerned with getting them comfortable with dental visits and didn't grill or drill 'em. Phew. Ree was pretty apprehensive. She was nominated (by her sister) to get in the chair first, and just wasn't quite sure about things. Ro was originally sitting across the room in BobBob's lap, but apparently felt the need to be in the midst of the action because she soon moved over right next to Ree. It was really cute when Ro held Ree's hand and also when the dentist would say things to Ree like "Is it ok if I tip the chair back now?" and Ree's eyes would widen and she'd shake her head no at the same time that Ro was vigorously nodding her head yes and saying "I do it! Lemme up there, I want to do it!" Ree is in the pink skirt (and was first in the dentist's chair), and Ro is in the orange skirt: (thumbnails, medium-sized pics, slideshow) Both girls were happy in the end, especially when they got goody bags filled with toothbrushes, toothpaste, floss, stickers, and dentist tattoos. And both got the thumbs-up from their dentist, who said that their teeth looked excellent and we were all doing a good job of caring for them. Ro's old tooth stains (most likely from liquid vitamins she received in China as an infant) are completely gone, and Ree's two fused bottom teeth are just fine and don't point to any problems now or with her adult teeth. Little sweeties did great. And my heart just melted when I said to Ree "See, that wasn't so bad. You can face anything with your sister by your side," and she replied "Yeah, and your mama." Awwwww.

10 things in 10 minutes

The girls and I were killing some time before dinner yesterday, so I proposed this fun challenge: we grabbed our cameras, set the timer for 10 minutes, then walked around and took pictures of the first 10 things we saw that we liked. It was just a quick little exercise, not the end-all-be-all list of our 10 favorite things in the world, rather the first 10 things that caught our eyes and made us smile. The results were kind of fun. Here's what I captured in my walk, which was pretty much just around my kitchen/family room: 1 Love my Old Navy pajama bottoms, seriously, love... 2 The Nordstrom Anniversary sale (wanna guess whether this bag is full of clothes for me or the girls?). 3 My laptop desk—a bean-bag bottom so I can readjust every few seconds (yeah I'm fidgety like that). 4 Lipton family-size teabags for brewing a big 'ole pitcher of ice tea, mmmm. 5 Mac Viva Glam VI lipstick, oh man, this stuff is just the best. 6 Our Ontel Swivel Sweeper (how unsexy is it that I love a swivel sweeper? They're sold at Target if you need one. I'm just sayin'...) 7 Crazy Eights—the girls are mad for this game. (We had a surprise visitor last night and made him play. Here I am winning one game, and Ro won the next one—can you believe we didn't let the rookie visitor win?!). 8 Come on, how cute are these fun little sandwich holders from the dollar bin at Target? 9 Neat mosaic prints from BigHugeLabs.com. This company has great programs that work with Flickr. 10 Archer Farms generic cereal from Target. Wowee. The Blueberry Granola has whole freeze-dried blueberries and the Multigrain Cereal is a dead ringer for Kashi cereal but a little better. Here's what Ro came up with and what she said about it: 1 My lieberry books, I yuv da lieberry, 2 Our bootiful chalk painting on the patio, 3 Oooo, my chalk handprints, 4 I took a picture of my grass, 5 Here's da lid of da sand table, 6 I got really close to my water squirter, 7 The door, 8 My PolliWalks, 9 Our baby peeshurs and da Kleenex, 10 My mama. (Ro also ran upstairs and took a picture of the pink piano in her room, but that picture didn't come out) And here's what Ree shot and what she said: 1 Da tv looks pretty, 2 My seester taking a peeshur of me (giggle giggle), 3 Xena (heehee), 4 My lieberry book bag, 5 Da outside, 6 My dolls and da mirror, 7 Our playhouse, I yike our playhouse, 8 Da yight (light), 9 Our flamly peeshurs on the wall, 10 Mama's feet (giggle giggle) Fun stuff! It ended up being a neat challenge to do, especially with the kiddos, it was just so interesting to see what everyone picked. If anyone else wants to do the 10 Things in 10 Minutes challenge, I'd love to see what you come up with!

1000 days. Wow.

When we got up this morning, we said "Hey little girls, did you know that today we've been together as a family for 1000 days?!" Ree said "Wow!" Ro was more interested in counting how many Donettes were left in the bag, so she didn't say anything, but I'm sure she was impressed as well. Happy 1000 Days, little sweeties, we love you.

Comments

Do you guys ever go back and read comments on someone else's blog? I know, I know, I rarely do either. My computer time is just so dang limited that when the girls are asleep and the washing machine is running I hop on the computer and race against time to post pictures, answer email, maybe write up a blog post, and read my friends' new blog posts as fast as I can. Because once Ro and Ree wake up, well forgeddaboutit. But the comments on the previous Mean Girls post were just so interesting that if you have a free minute (trust me, I know how rare those are), they'd be great ones to read. I just feel so lucky to have you guys in my corner. I appreciate each and every attagirl (so nice to hear, oh my gosh so nice!), each offer of hugs (thanks Johnny!), each personal experience, and each tactfully worded offer of an alternative opinion or option. Truly. Anyhow, if you have a few minutes, skim through the comments, and I think you'll be as interested as I was to read personal stories of encounters with mean girls, school programs to encourage nice behavior that are started as early as kindergarten, and also some really valuable insight into behavior and realistic expectations for how five and six year olds can and cannot communicate. Loved the info! If you don't have time to read all the comments, here are a few possible insights that folks offered into the mean girls that really made me think (I didn't specifically highlight the "You go, mama!" or "We ran into the mean girls too" comments, but there were many, many of those too, and all are worth a read): ...Next time some clique of girls is mean to them, find them a group of little boys to play with! At our community pool the little boys are always in a big ole' group having fun, splashing around and they will let any little girl join in that asks!... ...I wonder if these young girls just didn't have the advanced social prowess to "ease out of a situation" like adults do. Maybe they didn't know how to gently leave the girls with the right vocabulary (ie. it was nice meeting you, we're going to go now...)... ...It was good, however, that M3 spoke up like she did. Many times it's another parent's correction that makes the most impression on a child. If my daughter deserves the verbal correction by another parent, I will most certainly allow it and will reinforce it. ... ...In a situation like this, another idea to consider might be talking directly with Ro and Ree in front of the girls... saying something along the lines of "sometimes people need space, but they forget how to ask for it nicely. Let's give them some space." ...It's likely that they didn't want to play with "little kids" but didn't feel comfortable telling an adult so. Instead, they picked up and moved away, probably hoping that Ro and Ree would stay with you. That strategy didn't work so they regressed to little-kid behavior themselves... Great stuff, and really informative to read! Seriously, you should just read the comments instead of reading this. :-) In any case, I just wanted to say thanks for all the strong support and also for the advice. I feel validated and also feel like I learned alot about the situation (at least with really young girls) so I can be an even better MamaBear the next time this type of thing happens. Bring it on! PS: I did have to laugh at the anon commenter who said "...for the life of me I cannot figure out why you would not take an opportunity to explain to the young girls that what they said could hurt someone's feelings and instead chose to retaliate..." Really? Seriously? You can't for the life of you figure out why I didn't say something wonderfully wise and elegant to those little girls? Well, to set the record straight once and for all, the reason I didn't is because (insert big dramatic pause as I'm about to admit a shameful little secret): I'm not perfect. Oooooo, the shock, the horror. Heh heh. Anyhow, I learn new things and better approaches every day on this parenting journey, and hopefully if I write about my experiences, then other folks can learn from this blog too. I guess that's why I wrote these posts.

Mean girls

I hesitate to write about this, it's just a minor thing, but it got my hackles up, mostly because I know it's going to happen again and again and I won't be able to do a thing about it. Ah well, I'd better back up and tell the story...

I took the girls to the pool on Tuesday. The three of us swam and then had a little dinner. Ree jumped back in the pool for a few minutes while Ro just sat next to me drying off and relaxing. She kept looking at a group of three little girls who were playing with some small toys on the nearby grass. So I said to her "Why don't you walk over there and introduce yourself and ask if you can play with them?" She walked near them, stood there for a while, then looked back at me. So I went over and helped her. I introduced ourselves to the girls, and asked if Ro could play with them. They said their names, their ages (they were 4½, 5½, and 6), and then said Ro could play. Later Ree went over too. I watched them and noticed that the girls were kind of bossy with Ro and Ree—they told them exactly where to sit and wouldn't let them touch any of their toys. But Ro and Ree seemed content to just be near the group and weren't bothered by anything, so I just let it go.

At this point, I should have gone over and gotten Ro and Ree and casually brought them back over near me to do something else fun. They wouldn't have even noticed anything, and I would have been listening to my instincts that said these girls were not going to be nice. Anyhow, I did nothing, just watched, and sure enough, a few minutes later the little brats (oops, did that just slip out?) packed up their stuff and moved to the other side of the lawn and started shoving Ro and Ree saying "Go away! We don't want you here. Go!!!"

Are you freakin' kidding me?! I bolted out of my chair and ran over there and hugged my little sweeties (who were looking confused at this point since no one is ever mean to them) and quietly hissed at the girls "What are you doing?!" The biggest one, the six year old, said "We just want to be alone, we don't want them here." And I looked right in their eyes and said "Oh you don't have to worry about that—you're going to be alone for the rest of your life if you don't learn how to treat people nicely!" (I can think of plenty of really calm, tremendously wise things to say now, but oh well, it was the first thing that popped to mind.)

Then I held Ro and Ree's hands and we serenely walked away. I was steamed. Still am. Now maybe this was a random occurrence and those girls are usually sweeter than sugar. But probably not. I was painfully shy as a kid, and remember being tortured by mean, cliquey girls like that back in grade school (as early as first grade!). Frankly they just got meaner as they got older. Ro and Ree never knew anything was happening. They were a little confused for a few seconds, but the mean girls weren't even really a blip on their radars. For now.

The thing that kills me is that I know this type of thing will happen over and over as they're growing up. My heart aches because I know that at some point they'll lose their sweet, innocent view that everyone likes them and be hurt by the fact that there are cliques, friends, and groups who don't want them. I hope it doesn't happen for a while yet, and I hope that when it does they're strong enough and confident enough to shrug it off. That's what I'll keep working on. That, and teaching them to treat other people like they want to be treated. They've already got a headstart because they are truly sweet, caring, happy, beautiful girls—plus, as twins, they'll always have each other. No matter what happens, they'll face it together, their own little club of two nice girls.  

* Please note that comments on this post have been closed because I have written a subsequent post endorsing the comments and encouraging folks to read them. In order for that endorsement to ring true, it seems to me that it can only apply to the current set of comments, so that's what I did. :-)

Cutest little western girls on the range

The girls' preschool brings in a sweet old pony every year who patiently lets the kids saddle up and pose on his back for pictures. Last year when I picked the girls up and saw the pony being loaded into his trailer I gushed "Wow, did you guys get to ride that pony?!" And Ro scornfully replied "I no ride dat pony. I sit on dat pony, den I cry." Heh.

It looks like this year's pictures went a little better. Ree is in the first three, and Ro is in the last four.









Yippee ki yay!

A stunning lack of willpower, luckily the three-year-old was there

This morning, I ate so many peanut M&Ms that I skipped lunch and wasn't even hungry again until about 6pm. And then, what did I really want to eat instead of the pork and snap peas I'd made the girls? More peanut M&Ms! Luckily I got a grip, closed up the huge bag, handed it to little Ree, and asked her to hide it somewhere that I wouldn't find it. And she did. I'm not sure what cracked me up more: that she didn't ask any questions and just understood what needed to be done, or that she didn't even consider snitching an M&M out of the bag and eating it herself while she performed her important duty. Funny kid. Now I just wonder where she hid them...

Home with our babies, the loves of our lives, who we didn't miss at all

We're home, safe and sound and so excited to be with Ro and Ree again. I have to be completely honest, though, and tell you that we didn't miss the girls at all while we were gone. How horrible does that sound?! It's true, though. This was the first getaway TubaDad and I have had since we met the girls in October of 2006, and it was pure fun from beginning to end (even the flying, because, seriously, flying without twins is CAKE!!!). Ahhhh. And even if the trip had been a disaster, it would have been worth going away just so I could hear the squeals of "Mama!!!!!" and get knocked over with tiny precious baby hugs when we returned. The mini set of Cancun trip pics is here. There aren't many, we were just too lazy and happy to take more.

Oh man, it is so warm here

We're having lots 'o fun here in Cancun (maybe even as much fun as my folks and the girls). We just got back from a nighttime swim and TubaDad is already asleep. I'm feeling kind of peppy, myself, hence the quick blog post. The internet here is el stinko, so I'm not sure if I'll get all of the pictures in or not. Spent MANY hours here today (pic taken with TubaDad's blackberry because I forgot the camera card in the room). I think I can still see my backside imprint there when we walk by. I'm not really that white, it's just his blackberry washing everything out. Seriously!: My BFF Trisha is here and I couldn't be happier. Her hubs (Rick) works at the same company as TubaDad. Rick, Trisha, my old boyfriend, and I came to Cancun in 1996, can you believe it? My old boyfriend (who shall remain nameless) had kinda longish hair. And one day he snuck away from all of us and got his hair braided and beaded. It was horrible. Everyone called him Bo Derek for the rest of the vacation and our relationship ended shortly thereafter. Some folks say those braids were the straw that broke the camel's back. Heh. I think we've spent the entire time in bathing suits so far. I didn't participate in this volleyball game, it was way to rowdy for me (those boys are crazy), but TubaDad sure had fun. Oh yeah, we did get dressed once to go eat dinner. We have this neat grippy tripod, so we sort of hung it from a banana tree and snapped a quick pic. It's so humid that when we break out the camera it immediately fogs up and we can't take pictures. I guess that's why we don't have very many. Well that reason and the fact that it's hard to remember the camera when you're drinking mojitos and drifting around in the water. The pools are closed at nighttime, but it was so warm that we couldn't resist sneaking down for a late-night swim. Shhhhhh, don't tell anyone. We visited my favorite hammocks during the illicit swim. It's a good thing we don't have these at our pool at home or I would never, ever, be able to get out of them. Geez, I just noticed that I'm in a lot of these pictures. That never happens. I guess that's just another thing that changes when the girls aren't around. (They're doing great, by the way, and so are my folks.) When I saw all those pics, I was tempted to delete them all and only leave up scenery shots or ones of TubaDad. I hate most pictures of myself, getting all hypercritical and picking them apart. Ugh. Allright, I'm backing away from the keyboard and leaving the post as is... Adios!

Got this email & picture from my dad's account today

"Wela and BobBob are doing just fine. Where is the candy kept and where are the keys to the car? ~ro and ree"

They kill me, seriously kill me (and I'm not talking about the three-year-olds). We arrived safe and sound in Cancun after a long travel day. The first leg of our flight landed in Houston, and let me tell you, that landing was HAIRY. Bad turbulence for the last half hour. I had serious motion sickness by the time we finally got off that plane. So much so that I had to purchase two forms of immediate relief—Dramamine and Texas BBQ. Whew. PS: An update on Ro's pediatrician visit this morning: she has walking pneumonia and a double ear infection! Lovely. She's on antibiotics now and will hopefully be full of her regular piss and vinegar by tomorrow.

Yes, I bought all of the school pictures, and I'll probably do it again

I'm a huge sucker for school pictures. I'm sure those people can see me coming a mile away and just start rubbing their hands together and thinking "Let's see, a sitting pose of the first kid, a standing pose of her, one of each of those for the second kid (I have no delusions that they can tell the girls apart), one of the two sitting together, one of the two standing together, a close-up of them together, wallets of everything, and uh, we'll just make up a few more combos as we go along. She'll buy them all, mwah ha ha!" Yes, I buy them all. And no, it's not like we don't have any other pictures of the girls... Oh well, here are the girls in their school pictures, on their first day of big-girl preschool. (Oh man, I just know Catherine is going to squeal on me here, so I'd better confess right now. Actually the portraits were taken on Ro and Ree's second day of big-girl preschool. It's just that I picked out these awesome, fun outfits for the first day of school. And then, when Catherine and I were dropping the girls off, we saw the notice about pictures the next day—so I dressed them in the exact same thing again the next day. Fine, now the whole world knows the truth.) The girls are looking a little rough in these shots, no one brushed their hair beforehand so it's a little stringy, I can tell by Ro's disheveled hair flower that she's been in a skirmish (probably, hopefully, with her sister), and the picture quality isn't that great (even before we scanned them in). But they're pretty true-to-life pictures of how the girls look about 15 minutes into any preschool day, and I love them. If the pictures had been taken an hour or two into preschool, by the way, you'd have seen the girls splattered with food, paint, mud, or water, and they'd have been minus their cute hair accessories (which would have been ripped out and discarded somewhere in the playyard). I don't even know how many hundreds of times I've picked them up from school and said "Well girls, it looks like you've been through a war, so I'm guessing you had a fun day." * Note: By the time you read this, TubaDad and I will be on a flight to Cancun, and my folks will be a few hours into their twinsitting adventure, which started with a visit to the pediatrician's this morning since Ro has a bad cold with a sore ear. Nothing like starting out with a bang, huh? I pre-wrote this post a couple of days ago and queued it up so my mom would have something to read late tonight. Lord knows she's not going to have any time to read during the day. Please cross your fingers for my folks and send them good thoughts for nice, calm, happy, healthy three-year-olds, ok? If they email me any pictures and/or updates I'll post them...

Oh now the little varmint is just taunting us

TubaDad got another really good picture of our nighttime visitor. This time he was lounging on our fence—perhaps waiting for his supper to be delivered? We're going to get one of those humane traps and relocate the little fellow. But it will have to wait until next week, because TubaDad and I are heading off on Thursday for a brief trip to Cancun. It's an adults-only resort (a work-related thing), so the girls are going to spend some quality time with my folks. I don't know who's more excited. In the meantime, does anyone have any good naming suggestions for the varmint?

Recap: lots 'o fireworks, food, family, fun, and more food

It was a really great 4th of July. Maybe the best one yet—it even rivaled those ones we used to have when I was a kid, and that's saying a lot. My dad would set off a whole mess of completely illegal fireworks in the driveway. It was awesome. For some reason I really remember the Screaming Pete towers of fire, those cardboard whirly sparking things we'd nail to a pine tree, and the weird black pellets that would ooze into short fat sooty snakes when you lit them. One year he even made a homemade acetylene bomb with a balloon that scared the buhjeezus out of us. Ah, good times. Anyhow, I think this year was so great because the girls were so into it. The weekend was a three-year-old's dream from start to finish. On Friday, the whole family and some of the girls' BFFs from the early Gymboree days went to our huge neighborhood Independence Day party. We had burgers and popcorn, margaritas and beer, jumpy houses, face painting, balloon animals, an everyone-wins-a-prize tennis game, and then, at nightfall, camped out on the grass and watched the fireworks show. I'd guess Ro and Ree would have a hard time picking a fave between running on the grass with their friends, seeing the fireworks (during one huge explosion Ro said "Ooooo, dat one red, white, and blue, just yike da Texas flag!"), or staying up past MY bedtime. Saturday, we went to the local 4th of July parade and watched my folks and all of their friends drive around in decorated antique cars. Everyone knows the girls, so every single Ford that went by threw copious amounts of candy to them (oh so much candy!). We were dying laughing. The girls were in heaven scurrying after all that sugary stuff, and they ended up coming home with an insane three pounds each. (I actually weighed those bulging little purses. Then I took a picture of them.) My folks pulled over to the curb near the end of the parade and Ro and Ree climbed into their 1919 Ford Runabout and got to ride and wave. When we caught back up to them, the girls kept yelling "Mama, we was IN a parade!!" What a thrill. My dad had an awfully good idea for next year, by the way. He said we should let the girls collect candy for the first half of the parade, and then, when the parade cars double back, put them in the car and have them toss out all the candy for the rest of the parade. Brilliance! Sunday we went over to the cousins' house and let all the kiddos run around and just have fun. The rest of the pics are here. Nothing special, just a few quick snapshots taken with the purse camera, but enough to capture a really great holiday that we had with the girls. It'll be hard to top it next year. Hey I know, we'll just have my dad make some of those acetylene balloon bombs—it will be a 4th to remember for sure!

This ought to be easy... (TubaDad's famous last words about the seamless white background)

M3 has been wanting to take pictures of the girls with a seamless white background, so we set out a few months ago to figure out how to do it.

We originally bought a white muslin backdrop and tried to make it work with a couple of strobes, but it was dang near impossible to get the background to be totally white or smooth. I read a bunch of books on lighting and saw a few articles in Popular Photography on the white background shots, but it never came together for me until I decided to Google it and found a really informative series of blog posts by Zack Arias. He explains exactly what to do with clear instructions and examples, so I just tried to follow his lead.

Like anything related to photography, we had to go procure some stuff before getting started. The key components were a roll of Savage 9-foot white paper from Amazon.com, a few sheets of Thrifty white tile board from Lowe's, and a couple of 4x8 sheets of 3/4 inch white styrofoam insulation that were split in half and taped back together with gaffer's tape to make two bifold screens. A few months ago I bought a couple of Elinchrom Style RX600 studio flash units with the EL-Skyport studio control system, and we had to pick up one more before doing this project because it really takes three strobes to get the full effect. The front strobe was modified by a Westcott 24x32 softbox with a silver interior, which makes a nice soft light.

One of the challenges was figuring out exactly how to get it all set up and optimized. We originally thought we'd try this in our family room, but it wasn't nearly big enough. I then moved out to our garage, and even then I had to set it up twice to get enough room. When Zack says this needs a 20x20 foot space, he isn't kidding - this really requires the capability to spread out. We wound up using a 16x18 foot chunk of our garage, and probably could have used even a little more. Unfortunately we can't leave it set up all the time because we park our cars in the garage, so we will have to do the setup/teardown whenever we want to shoot with the seamless white background. Now that it's been done once, I'm optimistic that the next time should be MUCH quicker.

Another big hurdle was getting the lights in balance. The background is basically overexposed, which is what makes it pure white. In our 4th of July shots the girls were standing about 6 to 8 feet in front of the backdrop, and were exposed about a stop and a half less than the backdrop. The placement of the lights, screens, and subjects are all critical factors in getting the effect to work properly.

One other factor I almost forgot to mention is the camera itself. When shooting with these studio strobes, the camera is in full manual mode. For these shots the shutter speed was 1/250 in order to sync with the strobes and the ISO was set to 200 to get the highest quality image. This just left the aperture to be adjusted, and that was set to F9 to get the depth of field M3 wanted. The strobes were then adjusted to get the proper exposure, and our Sekonic FlashMaster L-358 light meter really helped to get everything in the right ball park. All told it was about six hours of setting up, tinkering and tuning before the photo shoot started. We'll try this again when D2 and family come for a visit later this summer, and I'm looking forward to D2 having lots of good ideas on perfecting the setup!

Here's what it all looked like:

M3 was also dying to to try connecting the D300 directly to the laptop via USB, which is shown above. I downloaded a trial copy of Nikon Camera Control Pro 2, which allows the camera to be controlled from the laptop and also stores the images there for instant feedback. The small monitor on the camera didn't give enough feedback on the setup so we tried the software. It's a lot slower, but that may just be the old laptop and slow USB. We'll see if we decide to buy it.

Once it came time to start taking pictures of the girls, M3 and her creative instincts took over. While I was setting up the "studio" she had gathered up a bunch of props and developed some ideas about what to do with the girls. She kept them moving and changed the props (she called them "toys" to the girls) out very quickly (maybe only a minute and a half per prop). The wireless shutter release we have for the camera let her get away from the camera body so she could keep things moving. Her idea was to just get the girls in and out quickly before they got frustrated or stopped cooperating, which is really hard to do at a studio somewhere else. She also wanted "normal" photos where the girls were interacting with each other or their props without having to stand in one place and smile. She talked to them the whole time (using the camera remote so she could maintain good eye contact with the girls), asking questions, telling jokes, doing funny things, asking if they'd like to do a certain thing, and frequently reminding the girls that the last shot would be a "candy shot." This type of control, and the resulting happy girls who are comfortable and willing to play around and show their true personalities, is what got us started originally on wanting to do all of this ourselves, by the way.

The actual photo shoot probably only took 8 or 10 minutes, and the lighting was set up well enough that the only real post-processing was cropping the photos and making little tweaks to exposure and compensating for the strobes that didn't fire in a few of the shots. This is what a couple of the more technically correct shots looked like straight out of the camera:



While we had everything set up, M took a great shot of me and my tuba.



After doing this, I broke down and ordered an EL-Skyport USB transceiver for the flash control system. It will enable us to adjust each strobe from the laptop, so tweaking the strobe levels will involve a lot less running around. It also saves the configuration and settings, which will make it easier to get set up the next time we do this. This was a pretty big investment in time and money, but I think we've gotten some shots we wouldn't have gotten anywhere else and we'll continue to use the equipment for years. Plus, it was a fun project to figure out and we've learned a lot about lighting and exposure!

PS: M says she doesn't have on any makeup in the above photo and her wet hair is scraped into a ponytail, so please realize this photo is included for informational purposes only, and not because she has any delusions of hotness (her words).