It's finally today

We're here, we're in Oregon. Did anyone guess that was our destination? We're visiting the fabulous K2, D2, and twins S2 and H2. Ro and Ree knew they were going to see their pals and have been asking if we were getting on the airplane "today" for the last two weeks. Ahhhh, finally we got to say "Yes, TODAY we are going, finally it is today." Here's the first moment when our twins saw their twins -- it was a whole lot of chaos and movement. Actually that's what it's been ever since, come to think of it. The girls thought that riding in the car together was just the bomb and then Ro and Ree hit the no-nap wall and nodded off. This pic cracked me up: The girls all jumped right into playtime. Apparently Ro was dusting H2's face here, a fact that escaped my notice until picture review. Oops. More pics later when I can figure out how to download the fancy pics from the new camera that D2 rented for the weekend. In the meantime (mom this is for you) just check D2's blog No More Work Than One because, judging from past history, he'll be doing a WAY better job of posting than I.

No, girls, you are not getting bunk beds

We don't care how piteously you ask, or how often you mash your bodies into the babydoll crib and pretend that it's a comfy bunk bed. Maybe, and that's a huge maybe, when you're 5. But first you need to learn to sleep in the same room without jumping off the furniture and trying to fly. The next time we post, we'll have pictures of two sets of twins. Any guesses where we'll be? In the meantime, here's a quiet, soothing lullaby to send you peacefully to sleep. I jest, please turn down the volume before viewing:

Oops, had a slight wardrobe malfunction so it's back to Plan A

The little pink outfit ripped from stem to stern today (our girls are kind of rough) and we had to do a last-minute wardrobe substitution for the Chinese New Year's dinner. Ro was pretty upset at first (the girl really does like her pink) but rallied quickly when she tried on the beautiful red dress: "Ooooo, I yook yike a princess, mama!" Yes you do baby. And little Ree was amenable to anything as long as she got to wear her sparkly red shoes. I think she looks awesome in jewel blue. I don't know why Ree's ponytail is sticking up, by the way, while Ro's is lying flat. They had the same hairdresser for goodness sake. Also, if their mama had any pride, she would have either picked up an iron or photoshopped out the fold marks in their dresses. Sigh... Everyone got to pick a fave dish at dinner. Ro ordered three-flavor sizzling rice soup then squealed with delight when it came with shrimp and scallops. Ree ordered lettuce wraps, then folded hers expertly (and a bit smugly) and sucked it down. After we got back home, the girls shucked off their shoes and curled up with the latest Oriental Trading Company catalog. They love that catalog. LOVE. Every page is meticulously inspected, each item evaluated and exclaimed over, and favorites are chosen and hotly contested. Over and over and over until the thing falls apart and we secretly throw it in the garbage and hope they forget about it until the next one comes in the mail.

Happy New Year!

I had splendid plans to deck Ree and Ro out in the beautiful new red and blue dresses my parents bought when we were in China in 2006. The girls (as usual) had other plans. So instead they're running around in these little outfits today and will also wear them tomorrow when we'll be kicking off our Chinese New Year celebrations with a family dinner. They last wore these sweet pink and purple ensembles on the famous red couch of the White Swan in Guangzhou, China, when they were 12 months old. Awwww! It's funny, this photo reminds me how their expressions and personalities were already so distinct, even back then. I can't even count how many times we've seen that same serious little look from Ro (in pink) and that same impish little smirk from Ree (in purple). Oh, and if you look closely you'll notice that even with six adults we only managed to get one button closed for each girl. They were so squirmy we were all sweating just to get that one button done! Happy New Year from our family to yours. We wish you joy, luck, and prosperity in the year to come.

They have fun whatever they're doing

We haven't taken many pictures this week -- I'm just not feeling that great and TubaDad is stretched pretty thin and averaging about 3 hours of sleep a night. But the girls are still raring to go, even without their paparazzi. We did manage to catch a few camera-worthy moments: Tonight the girls were so amusing prancing around in their little jammies that I actually heaved my tired body up off of the floor, trudged back downstairs, and retrieved the camera. Ree is on the left (she will only wear summer jammies) and Ro is on the right (she will only wear winter jammies). Earlier at dinner, the little stinkers refused to eat the tomato soup I made them, giggling and agreeing quite vehemently that the kind the preschool gives them is "Way better! Yeah, yots better mama!" And yesterday, they made beds inside a tuba case while daddy was practicing. They were so tickled with their little nests that we had a pretty hard time getting them out. Bribery might have been involved, if I remember correctly. Hope everyone has a wonderful time celebrating the Chinese New Year tomorrow.

Mall rats with attitude (and gum)

We hit the mall tonight, bought new sunglasses, and grabbed a little "chicken on a stick" for dinner. Ree wore her pink glitter belt as a headband, which raised a few eyebrows, and both girls slung their purses around their necks "just like mama." Ro kept saying she had gum for everyone after we ate. And I'll be danged if she didn't open some secret purse compartment and pull out 4 little sticks of gum at the end. When I told her that was really sweet to share with everyone, she admitted "I eated one piece in the playroom but I maked sure I have four left for my family." Hee! A few more pics are here.

A blog change and a chili recipe

The girls turn their noses up at television, but are still obsessed with YouTube. TubaDad and I spend a fair bit of time prewatching and approving videos because Ro and Ree aren't allowed to watch anything that we haven't given the green light on. So I made our favorites list public and if you have a kiddo who's just dying to watch YouTube, you can rest easy that this list contains only kid-safe videos. You can get to it by clicking Videos in the top navigation bar up there. It'll take you to our YouTube page that lists our own videos on the top and Ro and Ree's Favorites down below. There are 5 or 6 pages (or maybe 10 by the time someone reads this) of favorites videos. And now a few pics. TubaDad and Ro snuggle on the couch and watch (what else?) YouTube: Ree assembles a few of her friends and bellows "Mama, take peeshur!": The girls get enough friends together to block the stairs and make going up and down for laundry dang-near impossible: Who likes daddy's chili? Me, oh me, meeeeeeee! Both girls thought it was dee-lish: And who likes tomato juice (shudder). The girls have been begging for more of this vile stuff. I guess we'll have to stock it from now on: Here's the recipe TubaDad used to make his chili. It was nice and mild and definitely a kid-friendly dish. I think he skimped a little on the beans (those crazy Texans think chili shouldn't have beans in it at all), but other than that it tasted pretty darn close to my mom's chili. There was a bunch of tomato juice left over and Ro and Ree just think it's the best thing ever to drink (bleh!). 2-Bean Chili From: Campbell's Kitchen, Prep/Cook: 25 minutes, Serves: 6 Ingredients: 1 lb. ground beef 1 large green pepper, chopped (we left this out because the girls detest green peppers) 1 large onion, chopped 2 tbsp. chili powder 1/4 tsp. ground black pepper 3 cups Campbell's Tomato Juice 1 can (about 15 oz.) kidney beans, rinsed and drained 1 can (about 15 oz.) great Northern beans, rinsed and drained Sour cream Sliced green onion Shredded Cheddar cheese Chopped tomato Directions: Cook beef, green pepper, onion, chili powder and black pepper in skillet until browned. Pour off fat. Add tomato juice and beans and heat through. Top with sour cream, green onions, cheese, and tomato if desired (we used only cheese for the girls' bowls).

Do your kiddos suck their thumbs?

When we first met the girls, they would pull their tiny t-shirts into their mouths and gum on them until the fronts of their shirts were sopping wet. Pretty quickly though, Ree decided she liked "chewies" (cut up white Gerber undershirts) along with her thumb, and Ro decided she liked "Dreas" (the yellow bear-head blankies we sent to China) and "Baba" (her purple terrycloth octopus). At bedtime Ree would snuggle up with as many chewies as she could find, pop her right thumb in her mouth, and happily drift off to sleep. Ro liked to stuff as much Drea or Baba into her mouth as she could and then keep rotating it in search of the best spot. We'd wait until she was asleep and then sneak in and pull the sopping wet lovey out of her mouth because we were afraid she'd choke during the night. A couple of months ago Ro developed a nasty persistent rash on her chin. We were convinced it was because she basically had a gross, wet cloth plastered to her face all night and the pediatrician agreed. So we explained the problem to Ro, told her we needed to take the loveys away, and prepared for the fight of our lives. Only it never came! She accepted our explanation, gave up the habit cold turkey, checked the mirror every morning (along with her sister) to see if the rash was going away (it was), and transferred her love to a posse of stuffed animals that she'd hug when she was sleeping. (The four animals she now can't sleep without, in case anyone's curious, are Hammy the snowman, Beary the small pink bear, monkey #1, and monkey #2.) Whatever... That was a pretty long-winded way to get to my question, sorry. Anyhow, the question involves Ree. She still sucks her thumb every night. Is this a problem in any way? Do kids just stop sucking their thumbs naturally, or are you supposed to encourage it to stop, or is it even something you worry about at this age or any age? Does it affect the teeth, guarantee you'll need braces, or lead to any other kind of problems? Just curious. Any advice or been-there-done-that stories you've got would be appreciated. Particularly those along the lines of "you don't need to do anything at all, this is totally normal and will take care of itself." Heh, I'm kidding. Any advice at all. Oh, and since my mother complains if I put up a post without any pictures, here are a few gratuitous cute kid photos: Riding the crazy train with BobBob (I knew something was up when he came in the house looking for rope and duct tape) Wait for us, we're coming (yeah they're wearing PJs, dress-up clothes, and snowboots again, I guess it's just the thing to do this winter) Trying to cover our entire patio with chalk (hey they actually changed out of PJs at some point during the day) Ree's arm on Ro's back just killed me -- SO sweet Beautiful little artists (they told me they had drawn Gilroy Gardens, China, the pizza place, the grocery store, the candy store, the ABC store, and the rocket place -- it's a funny glimpse at what's important to them)

Oh it's so terribly sad, snowman has the stomach flu

For the record, the girls were pukey back on the 4th of July, over SIX months ago. And stomach flu is still, for some reason that escapes me, one of their favorite games to play. * Yeah they were playing outside tonight in t-shirts and flip-flops. It has been oddly hot here lately.

Have you heard of that new band called "Buckethead Monkeys on Scooters"?

Yeah these girls sure do have their own special way of having fun. It would make a good name for a band, though, wouldn't it? Heh. When I see this kind of stuff going on, by the way, I sometimes wonder "Who's crazier, the monkeys racing around the kitchen on scooters, or the slightly deranged mama who laughs instead of stopping them?" Don't answer that question. PS: TubaDad just got back from taking the girls to dinner. I opted out because it was a baaaaaaaaaaaaad migraine day, which is better now that the second Imitrex has finally kicked in. Anyhow, he took the girls out to McD's to get happy meals, and said that after ordering them Ro wanted to know if they had sad meals. Heh. A few more pics are here.

Is there anything cuter than toddlers in tights?

Can you believe we suckered my mom into this?

First official iceskating lessons for the girls, and my feet (and more importantly, my butt) never touched the ice. Woot! Instead, TubaDad and Wela risked life and limb to take the girls out on that treacherous frozen rink. Ree loved it, thought the whole thing was a grand adventure, and is already a thousand times more surefooted than I'll ever be on that confounded slippery surface. Ro enjoyed it, but was a little dubious at times. She's excited to go again next week though. Ree was pretty insistent that NO ONE hold her, and she took off on her own as often as she could. Ro, on the other hand, stuck to TubaDad like glue. She ventured on her own for a few seconds at a time. After the lesson, my mom, dad, and TubaDad flew into action removing skates, finding shoes, wiping noses, you name it. It looked like an Indy pit crew. Here are a few more pics from the lesson. In most of them, Ree is either skating with my mom or by herself and Ro is skating with TubaDad. Now y'all just need to keep your fingers crossed that we can make it through all of the lessons without ME ever getting on the ice. ;-)

Babies and YouTube and fish and more (yeah, a bunch of randomness)

Coupla things (and I do apologize in advance for the length of this post, goodness gracious I guess "pithy" is just completely eluding me tonight): - It's a boy!!! Eliza's mama has a new baby boy. Oh my gosh this is the second best surprise news I have EVER heard. (The first best was finding out that our referral was for twins.) Congratulations to T and to new big sis Eliza. By the way, when I screamed and told TubaDad the news, he whipped his head around and looked at me really sternly and said "Now don't be getting any ideas, you hear?!" Oh no, of course not, wouldn't dream of it... - The girls are now 100% capable of operating a computer. They can open the laptop, wake it up, use the mouse touchpad screen to navigate, click on the YouTube Faves link, scroll up and down, hover over something and then click enter to select it, change the volume, go backwards with the back button, use the escape key to get rid of any unwanted menus that accidentally pop up, and mute the computer. It's kinda freaky if you ask me. Is this normal for three-year-olds? Probably. But man I shudder to think what they'll be doing by the time they're 10. I guess my new mission in life is to pester YouTube to develop a restricted "kid-friendly" channel. Do they have this already and I'm just unaware? We have a whole page of approved vids the kids can watch, but we can't control the related content that YouTube pops up after each video ends. - TubaDad's folks were in town this past week. We had a blast and also grabbed the opportunity to take our annual Team Salsa photo. The locale isn't quite as exotic as the Great Wall, but I think the two little cutie patooties in the middle more than make up for it: - Ree locked herself in the bathroom, a first for us. TubaDad had to take the doorknob off to get her out (the tiny magic key thingamajig that we have on top of the doorjamb didn't work). Everyone, including Ree, stayed pretty calm, but I'm awfully glad it didn't happen when I was home alone with the girls. - We took the family to the Monterey Aquarium and the girls just thought it was the best time ever. They sprinted from exhibit to exhibit, grinning from ear to ear. They ran and ran, until they could run no more: Good times. The full set of pics is here, but I'm warning you, it's a big one. I'm just worn out and apparently photo editing skills are as elusive as pithy writing tonight.

Famous last words: "They're probably fine downstairs by themselves. What's the worst thing they could do?"

It's just that TubaDad and I were REALLY tired this morning. The girls woke up dang early (as usual), and they wanted to go downstairs and play, while we just wanted a few more minutes of sleep. What harm could there possibly be in letting them go downstairs by themselves? Yeah, we don't know how we could be that naive either... Hm, not too bad so far, a couple of suspicious items on the floor, but nothing hair-raising yet. Coming around the corner -- oh crud. The girls said "Mama, we made a terrible mess." Oh yes you did... Is that Metamucil?! All over the floor and in the cups and in the corners of their mouths?!!! And where did they find that Pedialyte? Well, see, um, this is what happened, mama... First we did that, and then, um, yeah, um, next we did this... See it was really easy, we just dragged this chair over and reached way up into this cupboard, and then, oooo what else is in here? Wait, why do we have to get down? And what do you mean we have to clean up this mess, this stuff is fun! Gee, man, I don't know what all the fuss was about, that stuff was really tasty and fun to skate in. Oh well, sister, let's relax with a little YouTube.