Yo Gabba Gabba

Ethan and Mia were invited to their friend, Rhea's, 2nd birthday party a couple of weeks ago. She also loves "Yo Gabba Gabba" and it was her birthday theme. I thought I'd share some of the pictures from the party. I was working that weekend, so Mike brought Ethan and Mia. They had a blast and especially enjoyed the punch. Riley even received a "Yo Gabba Gabba" shirt.

I think I'm going to have to put a lot more effort into planning Ethan and Mia's 3rd birthday party!

Ethan has Muno on his shirt.

Mia has Foofa on hers. I think Foofa is Ethan's favorite which cracks me up because she's pink and girly.

"The Dark One"

A few weeks ago, my dad told me that he thought Mia had a "dark personality." Slightly offended, I immediately asked what he meant. He said that he thinks she's very mischievous (I agree) and that she acts innocent but she's behind a lot of the stuff they do (I agree.) Here are some of the "dark" things she does:

-if Ethan wants a drink of their sippee cup, right before he grabs it, she'll throw it
-she'll take his blankie (his most prized possession) from him and throw it down the stairs
-she'll walk up to us and scratch or bite us with no warning or reason
-if Ethan is trying to grab something to eat, she'll take what he's grabbing and crumble it into a million pieces
-she'll sit on Riley as she's trying to crawl (ok, this one makes me laugh)
-she knows she gets in trouble when she takes her diaper off, so she'll stand directly in front of me and grab one side of her diaper and take it off and as I start to get up, she puts it back on
-she'll purposely push Riley over
-she'll grab the remote the second you get up and will throw it if you try to grab it from her
-she'll take Riley's bottle and purposely drip the formula out (one of my pet peeves)
-she torments our dog, Elsa, by taking a dog treat and pretending to give it to her. Right before Elsa snatches it, Mia picks it back up and laughs. Poor Elsa will follow her around for a good hour waiting for her treat.
-when they're taking a bath, she pours water over Ethan and Riley's heads

Maybe she has earned her new nickname, "the dark one."

Jaffra Body Oil

Ethan and Mia were quite naughty yesterday. I put them down for their naps and I knew they weren't sleeping because I could hear them playing. About an hour passed when Mia started crying. I went in there and Ethan was in her crib with her. They had gotten ahold of body oil and poured it on their heads. They were grease balls. Not to mention, they also got into Mia's hair clippies. There were a million tiny pieces all over their room. I was starting to get irritated. I put Ethan in his crib and told him to go to sleep. I walked out and 5 seconds later, I heard a huge bang. I walked back in, and he was trying to climb up his dresser via his dresser drawers. The dresser fell over and thankfully, the crib blocked it from falling on him. I could tell it scared him because he ran straight for his crib and climbed in.

Nap Time

Ethan and Mia sleep about half the time I put them down for their naps. The other half, they spend the time destroying their room and getting into stuff. I usually gasp when I walk into their room because of the destruction they've caused. They've gotten into the hand sanitizer many times. For some reason, they like putting hand sanitizer and lotion in their hair. I keep it on the corner of Ethan's dresser, but they always seem to get ahold of it. They also like emptying the clothes from their dressers.

Yep, that's half a bottle of baby lotion on his head. That was fun washing out.

The baby lotion incident from a different angle.

Both crashed out on the floor after making a huge mess!

Ethan sleeping on the floor.

They took the changing pad off the changing table.

They took all the sheets, diapers, and wipes off the changing table.

Mia sleeping on the floor.

One day, I found him laying under his crib. He wasn't sleeping, just laying there.

Sleeping on the floor behind the door.

Mama

Riley said it! There was actually no prompting from me. Though, I've been trying to get her to say it on video, and she will not do it!

Ethan and Mia

I haven't decided if I'm going to keep doing the "scheduled" update on Ethan and Mia. (They're 25 months, by the way.) I think I'll do more random updates on them. Not a whole lot changes from month to month.

We never did take Ethan to the speech therapist. I swore the nurse told me that they were going to contact me. Maybe I was supposed to call them? Anyhow, his speech has improved TONS over the last couple of weeks. He is now copying things we say and has added quite a few new words to his vocab. He says, "up" when he wants to be picked up, "yo gabba gabba", "Riley", "Mia", "Grandma", "Grandpa", "one, two, three" etc. You can't understand a lot of what he says, but at least he's now trying to talk! We're so relieved that his speech is picking up!

Mia is also saying a lot of new words. She copies everything we say, and you can understand it for the most part. She says, "up" when she wants to be picked up, "Mark" for Uncle Mark, "Grandma", "Grandpa", "one, two three".

The terrible two's are becoming more terrible. I often wonder why God made two-year olds the way he did. Is it to teach their parents patience? :) Both kids tell us "no" when we ask them to do things, they're throwing more temper tantrums, fighting more, scratching more, hitting more. Mia is the scrappy one. Ethan ALWAYS has scratch marks all over his body. Ethan is the hitter and pusher. He can take quite the scratching from Mia and he won't even cry. Half the time, I don't even know she's scratched him until I see the red welts down his face. One of these days, he's going to get revenge on her!

They both sleep awesome at night. Naps are still hit and miss. I still put them in their rooms about the same time each day. They have quite time if they aren't going to nap. More like, I have quiet time! I've got to keep my sanity somehow, right? :)

Playing my violin. Maybe he'll be into music. He doesn't have violin hands though. They're a little too short and thick!

She's got her baby and her purse. She's ready to go!

Uncle Mark bought them a finger paint set for their birthday. They both love it and fight over it like cats and dogs. As you can tell, Mia is pretty ticked off that Ethan is using it. He screams if Mia uses it. I'm going to have to get another one!

GO DOLPHINS! We're Dolphins fans by default. Mike is probably one of their biggest fans. He bought the twins a sweatsuit set for Christmas.

Eating peanut butter off of a spoon. He won't eat the bread. He usually eats the peanut butter off the top. Why waste a piece of bread each time?

Pretty Mia.

10 Months Old

Happy 10 months, Riley! The biggest change with Riley is her ability to crawl ALL OVER THE PLACE. For the past year, I've had to keep my garbage cans on the bathroom counter because Ethan and Mia would get into them, take all the toilet paper out, and shred it into a million pieces. In the past couple of months, I've been able to put them on the floor because they now leave them alone. Guess what Riley does the second she's in the bathroom? Goes immediately for the garbage can, knocks it over, and takes the toilet paper out. I guess here goes another year of keeping garbage cans on the counter! I often wonder what people think when they come over!

Her one and only word is still "dada." Every day, I tell her to say "mama" and she immediately starts saying "dada" over and over and over. It's pretty cute. I'll get it on video one of these days!

She is enjoying table food more and more. She is starting to prefer it over her bottle. She's a good little eater. Her favorite foods include Gerber Little Crunchies, Gerber fruit strips, Gerber yogurt melts, any type of cracker but especially graham crackers, yogurt, bananas. She still nurses when she's tired, but she's starting to bite. I don't know how much longer it's going to last!

Her sleeping pattern is still a little unpredictable. She's slept through the night the last couple of nights, but tends to wake up once during the night. We usually have to get up and give her a bottle to get her to go back to sleep. She takes one nap during the day and it usually lasts a couple of hours. We still lay her down when she's sleepy but awake. It's going well. She is usually asleep within 5-10 minutes. If not, I go get her and rock her to sleep.

Getting into the satellite dish. She also likes getting into Mike's PS3. She's all ready turned it on and ejected the game a couple of times.

Being goofy.

Packed in the car like sardines.

Sporting her winter garb.

Loving her Johnny Jumper.

Hanging out.

Look at this body!

The girls got some thighs!

She can now pull herself up on stuff.

First Potty for Mia

Mike said he was getting the kids ready for their bath tonight and Mia sat on the potty and "squirted one out" as he put it. And then he took a picture of her poop and texted me the picture. It's funny what becomes exciting when you become parents!

Weekend Away for Ethan and Mia

My mom offered to help Mike with the kids this weekend as I have to work. Mike gets a little overwhelmed taking care of the three of them. I can't say I blame him! Ethan and Mia have a birthday party to go to Saturday and then my mom is going to take them to Watertown. I'm a little nervous. This will be the first time they are away from us and away from home. I hope it goes well. If not, Mike can always meet my parents half-way to pick them up. I'm sure they'll do fine. They really like playing with my little brother, Nathan. And my mom pumps them full of sugar. They probably aren't going to want to come home!

Mike is keeping Riley here because she's such a handful. She's still a major mama's girl and the stranger anxiety is really kicking in. She'll let Mike hold her, but she tends to cry if anyone else has her. We'll have to wait until she's a little older before we send her away!

If all goes well, we might send them to Grandpa and Grandma Schmidt's in a few weeks. I think we'll pick a weekend I have off so Mike and I can have a semi-quiet weekend.

What Are We Going To Do With This Hair?

Riley's hair pretty much sticks up like this at all times! Poor girl! And add a cowlick on top of it all. We're going to have to find her a good hair dresser.

He Peed!

I've been having the kids sit on the potty-chair for about three weeks now. They LOVE to sit on it, but don't really know what they're supposed to do. One of them finally peed in it! It surprised me that it was Ethan! I want to train Mia first because I've heard it's easier to potty-train girls. Ethan still likes to sit on the potty-chair, so every time Mia does it, Ethan does it. He actually sat down and peed in it today! I did a little dance and song for him. He was pretty excited himself! Here's one step closer to getting rid of diapers!

Crawling

Here's a short video of Riley crawling. She still doesn't do it a whole lot, but if she really wants something, she goes for it!

She Crawled!

Riley crawled today! Yey! There was a toy cell phone just out of reach and she went for it. She did it the one time and wouldn't do it again. Stinker!