Lions and Gators...

Pretty darn cute, huh? Hey, when we first came home from China (and in China) they hated baths and water (as in why-are-you-doing-this-to-us?...) so much but we turned it all around with the bathtime magic markers. Bathtime magic-markers rock. And now...well just see for yourself...! :)


Nicki is the lion....Sammi the gator...

Monkey-Babies

Even though we try to keep the 7-7:30pm slot for "quiet-calm-down--time" in prep for their 7:30 lights-out, a lot of times it just doesn't work that way and the girls (chimps) end-up wrestling like a pair of crazy monkeys....Come to think about it, I think they are monkeys. They love-love bananas, they make monkey sounds (oop oop oop), they love to swing around on our furniture, they are now begining to climb on the furniture and their faces are kinda hairy. Yep, I have monkeys. See the resemblence.....

Please tell me there IS a Project Fairy?

It's turning out that all these things we've been hearing for years from our family and friends are kinda turning out...well, kinda true. I guess ya just really don't "get it" until you live it. Like this one: We just can't seem to make protracted solid (um, like any...) progress with our "projects" with two extremely active 19 month olds with a speciality of un-doing what we just do! :). Like big-time yard work and big-time house projects. We moved house before we went to China (brand-new house/new neighborhood/bare-ish looking lot, white walls...everything needs so.much.work...). We have all these cool grandiose ideas about fixing-up our yard and spiffing-up our rooms.,.and we just can't really get to it. And thinking up a design for our huge almost-acre lot that looks like an overgrown soccer field (with lots-o-dippy divet things that are oh-so-trip-able)...much less implementing it? Bwah ha ha!! Not a chance.
Our list:
(1) Design the landscaping....um, can't do it....so we had to hire someone (good move on our part...the plan is awesome!! )
(2) Actually do the landscaping...um, so so can't do it....so just hired a crew (thx Reggie and crew!....please please, Reg, come sooner than later...can't you just fit us in NOW?)
(3) Design a screen porch and patio....ditto on (1). Oh and hot tub (for me) and fire-pit thing (for Ed...guy thing/guy thing)
(4) Build the screen porch....we're still in denial here...yes, Ed is an incredible phenom carpenter and a real handy-dandy manly-man and could do all of it by himself but then we'd never see him all summer(s) long....so....I bet (hope) it's a ditto on the crew-people on #2 approach....
(5) Turn the study room space into a playroom....ugh, but then we need to get playroom things...well, we DO have a lot of toy-things but don't I need a really cute theme or something? I mean, what side of the room should the chalkboard go and what about the toy box? What colors? Where's the bookshelf go? (I need to ditto on #1 here.....)
(6) Turn the guest room we don't use into the study b/c it's smaller space....um, then what about the bed? Sell it? Keep it? Put it in the attic?
(7) Turn the "Cindy Room" that was supposed to be "Just-For-Cindy-And-Her-Library-Where-N0-One-Else-Is-Allowed-Unless-Cindy-Deigns-To-Give-Them-Egress" into the guest room/den with a pull-out couch...(oh my...it takes us a long.time.to.select.furniture....)
(8) Put back-splash in the kitchen (Ok, come-on, surely we can manage that, right....???Like on a rainy Sunday afternoon whilst they are napping...) I mean, honestly, how long would that take? Does it matter than we've never tiled before? Can ya just wing it or let the Lowe's guy tell you how to do it while you have 2 squiggly/squirming toddlers in the cart?
(9) I'm stopping here because it's too much to go into double-digits. I'll end with where we normally end.....Just stop everything and go to the playground and play with the girls before they get too big....and hope the Project Fairy shows up and just gets it done for us.....
(10) Oh, yeah, and while we're watching the girls run around, we also sit back and drink a nice bottle of wine and talk about how good everything will look when it's all done....

We spent the day outside yesterday trying to get to our yard projects but mostly playing outside (ok, Ed did outline some "islands" for the landscapers...we girls did the playing....)

Our Aussie, Buddy, is so awesome with the girls. They can basically jump on top of him, roll all over him, and he just takes it all. I actually think Buddy helps me keep an eye on them....the sweet doggie that he is....

Oh, yeah, didn't I start off this post blathering about yard-work galore...well, here are some pics of our yard. Come back and visit in a few months and see what Reggie's landscaping crew has done for us.....! :)

Take Care/Have Fun!!

Easter Pics

Had a really fun day over at our friends' house yesterday.....went to Mass together, had lots of food & spirits throughout the day, the Easter bunny came, had an awesome Treasure Hunt (thanks to "K", our talented young lady organizer / awesome script-writer), and then we had our traditional egg cracking , egg throwing, and eggspoon contest.
Family pic...not great lighting but at least we're all looking at the camera.....Sammi in blue....Nicki in pink....


Goofin' 'round...

First Easter Egg Hunt.....

Simply indescribable being a "Mom".....(just had to throw this one in....)...me and Sam-Sam


And, our eggspoon contest....

So What's a Mom to Do?

I love this kinda "problem"....(I know, not really a "problem"...that's why I like it so much....). I have a thing about messy hair....hair that's tangled and disarrayed, and "in the face" messy. It's not that I'm a prissy girl. In fact, I'm far from prissy...I couldn't be a more avid outdoors-y fan...name an outdoor kinda sport and I've probably done it. So, it's not a prissy thing. And, it's not a control thing...I'm not trying to have a showcase child(s!)...far from that, too. I just.don't.like.messy.hair that is running...well...messy. I'm always wanting to comb it. I chase them around the house with a comb. I comb their hair when they are eating. I always have a little plastic comb in my pocket. (What's up with that??) That being the case, how in the heck do I get through the "let their hair grow out so it can be long and flowing and girly-girly b/c that's what their Dad wants?" Me, personally, I'd keep them in pixies cuts (okay, who out there really knows what a pixie cut is? I do b/c I had one in 1965....) until they are....I know don't how old...just until.

That being the case, here's HairCut Day pictures from yesterday. And, if anyone has any ideas on how to get through this phase (remember, it.cannot.be.messy.in.their.eyes.and.face) then please let me know! :)

Here's us going into the Kids HairCut Place...


Ed and Sammi after Sammi's haircut....

Nothing like a little bribery to keep them still..
Nicki in foreground, Sammi in fuzzy background:

Simple Things

Used to be that the highlight of our day/week/month was doing a night on the town, hosting a dinner party, or going on a cool adventure skiing/backpacking/kayaking/sailing, etc trip. And, all that is still really great...can't wait to do our next one (avec enfants this time.....) but that's not what really makes me jazzed these days. Now, with our girls, the simple tiny little collection of moments is pretty cool, too...which kinda still stops me in my tracks. Our good friends visited us last night and it was so much fun watching our friends watching (and big-time playing with...)our happy, giggly, cute (oh so...), tumbly toddly silly toddler twins. Still brings a smile to my face more than a day later.....Life is good....conquering my first black diamond vs. seeing Sammi and Nicki blow kisses...I woulda never thought those 2 would rank the same... :)

As we do every night as part of bedtime routine (down at 7:30pm; up at 6:30am...yep, lucky us...hope it lasts!), we read them bedtime stories.....Or, should I say that we read 2 pages from one book and maybe 2 pages from another 17 books. And then we have a big stack of books. All. Over.The.Nursery...Piles and Piles.... They like picking books off the libabry shelf in their room more than they like "reading" but that's ok....


ok.....finished "reading 1.3 pages....time to move to next..."

Starting Off the Blog....

So it's better than we ever expected....and crazier, more chaotic, tougher, unrelenting (in a big good way)..and it rocks more than I ever could of imagined. "It" being insta-parents to two 19-month old twin toddlers. We're now five months into parenthood (our Gotcha Day was Nov 6, '06). Sometimes I feel like we've been doing this parenthood gig forever and sometimes it completely takes me aback that we actually have 2 amazing people...forever...in our lives. As anyone who has adopted knows so well, we have (at least once a week) strangers come up to us and say directly to our girls "how 'lucky' they are".....And, of course our retort is "no, no, no, WE are the lucky ones....!

Since I've truly been pretty abysmal at getting pics and notes sent out to family and friends, I thought it'd be loads more fun to start a blog...especially since I've been an avid lurker on some really cool blogs out there and I'm jealous that I don't have one.

Now for some pics....Sammi (Samantha) is the first pic with Nicki (Nicole) next. We try to reserve "pink" for Nicki and "stripes" for Sammi...These pics are right before Christmas so they are about 15 months old.

And now here they are just three months later. Pretty cute,huh?











And here's Nicki all upset because Sammi monopolized the toy cell phone that just came with their really cool Step2 playhouse. Wow, that little phone kept Sammi happy for 2 hours (it's all about the phone...) and Nicki is simply desolate that she didn't have one. What was I thinking? Gotta buy two...gotta buy two of everything......So what if the Step2 Playhouse cost hundreds of dollars and the phone probably cost 37 cents. Shoulda got two Playhouses so they'd each have a 37cents play phone....(just kiddin')