Car funny

Scene: the girls in the back seat of the car, each holding a teddy bear, talking to each other as the bear.

Maddie: Aaaah! My shoe!
Lizzy: Oh no! It got eaten by an octopus, and he swam away!


(at no time before that had an octopus entered the conversation, just one of those random leaps that three year olds' brains take)

Merry Christmas!

Eleventeen!

The girls play hide and seek with each other!





...sort of.







I love how Maddie waits for Lizzy to run off, then proceeds to check the drawer to see if she's hiding there.

A few Random Videos

My favorite part of this video is 38 seconds in:

Maddie, pointing (note, she's pointing to a flamingo): What's that?
Lizzy: Birdy!
Maddie: Nope. Chicken.
Lizzy: Chicken!

Playing with Cody's Bowl



And a picture from Christmas - lots more in the Flickr album!

Holiday Wrap-up, Part 1

Happy New Year! Time to unwrap the holidays and share some pictures with you.

Halloween (yes Halloween, sorry) was a special treat for Madeline and Elizabeth, pun intended. It was probably the last time we will get to dress them up however we want, but they were still old enough to appreciate the wonders of asking complete strangers for candy. Who could pass up the opportunity to go trick-or-treating with Thing 1 and Thing 2 from Dr. Seuss? Erica made the felt patches and used fabric glue to attach them on the front of plain red onesies. Had I thought about it a little bit more ahead of time, I could have gotten one of those really big red and white striped hats like the Cat in the Hat. The girls were getting all the attention anyways and we got a lot of compliments on the costumes.

We later joined up with Nicholas, the firefighter, and our good friends Carey and Reid Moreland for more trick-or-treats! We ended the (rather cold) evening with quite an impressive stash of candy which the kids were all too happy to devour. Finished off the day with Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin.


We managed to pull off another successful birthday party this year. Maddie and Lizzy are now 2 years old and we are loving it. Not quite as much fanfare as the previous year, but there was a delicious cake made by Erica and the girls had a lot of fun. Thanks to everyone for coming and making it a memorable occasion. Looking forward to number 3! Honorable mention goes to the fabulous new kitchen from Grandma and Grandpa.

Almost Two? You're kidding me!

Our little monkeys are almost two years old. Since I have spoken to you last we've been on vacation to the beach, had fun visits to see all the Grandmas and Grandpas and took a trip to the zoo.

Every time Maddie and Lizzy see or hear an airplane in the sky, we ask them where it's going. The obvious answer is... to the BEACH! All planes end up at the beach (and occasionally Grandma and Grandpa's house). This is the kind of lasting effect our recent vacation to Holden Beach, SC has had on my girls. They got to meet so many new family members like Great Aunt Gail and Great Uncle Jerry, cousins Sophie and Lily, plus Aunt Tara, Uncle Jamie and cousin Olivia. Playing with their cousins, building sand castles near the edge of the ocean, taking trips down to the local ice cream shop or just hanging out on the porch and swimming in the kiddie pool. There was non-stop excitement for them at the beach and we can't wait to go back again. Oh and note to self: do NOT get one of those double bike trailers for the girls... bad bad bad.

Trips home to Long Island are always eventful. We took an extended weekend and had the opportunity to visit with everyone this time. Pop Pop's house is always a big hit, lots of toys and things to get into. Grandma and Grandpa took the girls on a Blydenburgh Park adventure. Nothing like getting a little dirty to put them in a good mood. Grammie took us out to eat at Smokey Bones and who do you think was waiting tables that night? That's right, Scooby-Doo! Our main purpose for going home was to attend a wedding so that gave Erica and I an excuse to leave the kids with the grandparents and enjoy an evening to ourselves. We even managed to find time to visit with all our friends and their kids.

Halloween is right around the corner and we've got a special surprise in-store for you. Keep an eye out for pictures of what they will be dressed up like this year!

A few Mispronunciations

Buga = bug (this used to be bugabug, which was even cuter)
flopbop = flip flop

Lizzy has issues with M sounds - she can make them - she says "mommy" perfectly - but for some reason, on some words, the "M" gets lost
Monkey = cookie (or really more like "cuck-ee" - rhymes with luck)
Maddie = Daddy (this is very confusing at times)

Maddie calls Lizzy "Tizzy"/"Sizzy"

And somehow, the girls seem to be convinced that Asparagus is french fries (shhh, I'm not going to tell them yet.)

Aunt Gail sent the girls dolls for Christmas, and lately they've been in the car, and the girls LOVE them. Maddie will spend a good portion of our trip babbling away to the doll. You'll have to turn your speakers way up for this, my phone doesn't record video sound very well.



The girls have also started to notice their shadows. Here are a few videos of them bouncing on their (empty at the time) pool (don't forget to turn your speakers back down if you turned them up for the last video!!)

Just a Few Words

mommy, daddy, more, snack, kiwi, banana, please, cat, doggie/Cody, silly, dirty, go, outside, pool, car, block, box, socks, shoes, "See-See"(Casey at daycare), Nick (sometimes "Nock"), "Mimi"(Amy at daycare), cheese, water, truck, toys, book, Pop Pop, ball, flip flops, balloon, bird, uh-oh, potty, duck/quack, yay, NO, rain, wind, cloud, sun, wet, stinky, baby, Oso (special agent oso), tree, bug, star, mine, stuck, slide, swing, keys, bubbles, bye-bye, milk, cookie, I don't know, hat, snow, day, pretty, beads, hot, moo, baa, roar(like a lion), seat, "Momo"(Elmo), sticky, coat, let's go!

Say "Cheese!"

Just when we thought our daughters could not possibly get any more adorable. They do something like this: Maddie and Liz were excitedly streaking around the house in their diapers. Some unspoken signal was conveyed between them and it was suddenly time to climb up and play on Cody's chair. As in most occasions when they are being extraordinarily cute, I plucked the camera up and pointed to shoot. At first sight of the camera, both girls began smiling wide and saying "Cheese!", as clear as day!

Now, we have never encouraged the use of the word "cheese" in any prior photographs. (Besides, what is the likelihood they would even humor us at their age?) Our technique usually revolves around some sort of tomfoolery or wild antics to get the girls to smile. Nope, don't ask me where they pick up these behaviors... probably day care.

Official 18 month photograph for your enjoyment.



Grandma came for an extended weekend and spent some quality time with us and the girls.



Activities included the Children's Museum, lots of outdoor playtime due to the beautiful weather and even a night all by herself with Maddie and Lizzy. Erica and I went to a graduation party for one of our neighbor's kids and Grandma stayed home to watch the girls. Despite our cautions as to how the girls can become very dramatic and cranky, everything went very smoothly and they had a wonderful time together.

We have made some noteworthy discoveries this month. Not least of which is that dancing can be really fun, especially if you can shake your thing on the dance floor!



Erica and I are installing new floors for the dining room and office area later this month. Throughout the process of choosing which to use we brought home samples which the girls delighted in dragging out and stomping around on. They are going to go bonkers when they realize that we will have wall-to-wall dance floors!

Summer is in full swing and what collection of "fun in the sun" toys would be complete without a pool and a water table?



Just to get a feel for how they would react, we put everything up on the deck first. Setting up the pool turned out to be quite an ordeal. (Thanks to my mom for insisting on getting us an electric air pump to inflate it. I think I would STILL be pumping had we used a manual pump.) Next came the water and let me tell you that you're not going to want to swim in it right out of the hose. CHILLY! Many, many pots of hot water later we finally decided to give it a try with the girls. Daddy loved the pool. Madeline was OK with the pool. Elizabeth, ehhh, not so much. She did stop crying long enough to take this picture though so I have some hope for the future.

Who knew that corn could be so delicious and enjoyed in so many ways?!



You are not imagining things, they have discovered the joy of eating corn on the cob. Sometimes you really just have to throw caution to the wind, sit back, and be amazed at the results. You would think humans have some sort of innate ability to eat corn on the cob the way they skillfully handled those.

Plenty of additional pictures over on Flickr from this past month. See you soon.

Dropping off a few Movies!

This is an older one, but still cute!



Lizzy chatting with Daddy - this must have gone on for 10-15 minutes:



Maddie playing outside:




And here we are at 17 months old! I can't believe they're almost a year and a half old!