Zoo Lights

We took the entire crew to Zoo Lights tonight.  Mark, Ceyriss, and Amryn met us at the zoo along with Claire, John, and Phoebe.  That was in addition to our 5 plus Nana and Papa.  Big crew.

We had a beautiful night for the lights.  Dry, cool (but, not cold), dark, with a cool spooky moon.  We arrived early (tip: if you plan to go, go early; parking was a mess as we left).

There aren't many animals out and about at the zoo during Zoo Lights, but we did get to see the tigers.  They were out wandering around and playing which is big change from their usual sloth-like behavior during the day.  We also had another treat, seeing the new baby elephant.

Livvie's favorites were the gingerbread house and the little submarine inside the rotating fish pond (we have no pictures of these things, though).  She spent a lot of time looking for the peacock and we finally had to explain (again) that the peacock doesn't live at the zoo anymore (it wasn't being very nice to the children, story here).  We did spot the peacock in lights, actually two peacocks in lights.

The twins enjoyed themselves and were exhausted by the end.  They chose to skip the second nap today, but stayed awake for the entire trip by eating goldfish and pretzels the whole time.

Olivia's room

Oops, I think it's time for Olivia to get a haircut!

Luke and Violet like to get on to Livvie's bed and bounce (no doubt emulating what they see her doing).  The bedrail that Luke is holding onto is remarkably strong (and thoroughly tested). 

We're not out of the small objects in the mouth stage yet.  Violet has been caught a couple of times this week with Olivia's jewels (small plastic irregularly shaped objects) in her mouth.  Olivia has been incredible about not leaving anything small where they can reach it.  Both times this week, the jewels  showed up in her mouth after we had other kids come over and play in her room.

Livvie has been warned about the jewels and other small objects (i.e., Polly Pocket anything) and how they will become "ours" if we find them on the floor.  Once they are ours, we leave them on the counter and she has never tried to take them back.  After a couple of days, we usually get a very polite, "is it time for the crown (or whatever object was taken) to be mine again?"  Naturally, we've forgotten the item was even present by this time.

The Twins' 1st Birthday

Luke and Violet enjoyed their 1st birthday celebration yesterday.  We waited for this special day to introduce them to chocolate.  Jen made banana cake with dark chocolate buttercream frosting from scratch, and it was a big hit. Here's the before shot...

Violet got a little more excited about the chocolate.  The texture was just right to smear into the hair.  Perfect.  Bath time!  Despite the fact that they each had huge pieces, they felt compelled to steal cake from each other.  Ah, siblings.  Needless to say, the post-cake-sugar-high was something to behold.

There's a little more of this on YouTube.

 

We'll slowly start adding some more goodies to their diet over the next couple of weeks: whole milk, cheese, butter (technically, not new to them), eggs and berries.

Naturally, the wrapping paper was the favorite new toy.

The paper or the boxes...

 

Luke put on a show with their new walk-behind toy.  Thanks Grammy and Papster!

Too much Love?

More videos today.  Livvie loves the twins.  Here's a little example of just how much she loves to hold Violet.

 

You can catch a glimpse of the cut Luke gave himself on the nose below.  Well, maybe he gave it to himself.  It's hard to tell.  There's lots of yelling that goes on upstairs when they go to bed and we let them work most it out on their own.  You've got to stay on top of those fingernails, they grow fast.

Barriers don't work very well with the twins now (Violet is climbing over one below).  They attempt to climb everything and are getting pretty good at it.  They are both getting more demanding about being picked up and held, too.  I guess the view is just better from above.

They are both actively trying to figure out how to go down stairs.  Up is easy, but the technique is trickier in reverse.  Violet tries to finesse her way down, Luke likes to lead with his head.

Finally, here's a short video of Luke's dismount from the couch.  Violet had a similar smooth exit earlier in the day (not caught on video) when Jen let her play on the couch and got distracted. 

Serendipity

We've been having a good time dancing around the house with the kids for the last couple of days.  It started with an odd rock band, with a lead singer from Ukraine, called Gogol Bordello.  They sing a song called Start Wearing Purple (click to hear the song online) that is kind of catchy and the kids enjoy the accordion (who doesn't - Michael also has a soft spot for nacrocorridos, but we're not talking about that right now). 

Completely unrelated, we put a movie called Everything Is Illuminated about a Jewish kid's (very rigid) search for a woman that saved his grandfather during WWII.  It turns out that one of the main characters is actually the Ukrainian lead singer and the purple song makes an appearance during the closing credits. 

The movie is premium (You have to see it get the two inside jokes in this post).  We'd definitely recommend it, but it does mix crazy and weird with a darker side at the end.  The back story of the grandfather is a little thin and apparently explained a little better in the book.  Alex (this lead singer guy) is such a funny character in the movie that it's hard to imagine some of that in print.  It's worth seeing.  You never know what can happen with a Netflix queue!

Movie Night

Last night was movie night at Rich and Erika's.  Yes, cheesesticks and popcorn were basically what all of the kids ate for dinner.  We've given up trying to enforce proper nutrition during playdates, it doesn't work.

The kids watched The Sword in the Stone and then Shrek the Third.  We've been hearing all about what Shrek did all day today.

The end of night is always hard.  Livvie typically breaks down with inconsolable weeping when we leave tell her it's after midnight and the party's over.  Karsten ended the night upright and asleep on the couch with the movie-music blaring.  That's a kid who knows how to party right there.

 

Luke and Violet went to bed without any fuss at 8 o'clock and let us enjoy adult time.  They are great about sleeping while we're out as long as we put them in two separate pack n' plays.  At home they sleep together at night, but most naps are done separately now (one up and one down).  The pack n' plays are smaller and there's just too much mauling that occurs in close-quarters.

I know there are some kids that wake up at 6am, but all three of ours slept-in until 9am for us.  Wahoo!

Entropy

Olivia loves putting things together: puzzles, dresses on dolls, home-made bears (ha! another story later about that one).  She's been doing that sort of stuff for so long that I forgot about this whole disassembling phase that the twins are currently in. 

With the twins, towers must be immediately demolished, toys must be removed from all containers, and the air table is very popular for the two minutes it takes to rip all of the pieces off of it.  I know it's just how they learn, but it gets a little old picking up the same toys every night.  I wish I could remember when they switch and start trying to put things together.

It's hard to begrudge the cleaning up too much.  Every day they wake up surprised to find everything put back together (usually in a different spot).  It's like Christmas everyday!  In fact, this is roughly what their Christmas will look like this year.  We'll wrap up some of their existing toys and admire how well they play with the wrapping paper.

Meanwhile, Olivia is reaching new creative heights.  She has gotten pretty good at using each of the cameras.  Despite nearly destroying Michael's noise-canceling travel headphones (not bitter, no, not at all), she has never damaged any of the cameras and we (correction, Michael, not Jen) even trust her with the big SLR now.  She was sitting and taking the picture of Violet above and liked the way that her dress looked, so she snapped this abstract little gem (ok, to be fair, she snapped about 10 of these, but it's digital).

The Salad Days

The salad days of child-rearing are upon us as Luke and Violet are nearing mastery of the snack trap; here pictured filled with mini-goldfish and attendant Beagle.  This marks the start of them feeding themselves.

 

Luke is the current odds-on favorite to start walking first.  He can successfully stand un-aided and did a no-handed power squat today. Violet walks well with arms raised and hands clasped firmly on your fingers, but she doesn't like the repeated forced-attempts at walking one-handed.  Violet remains the champion climber with several impressive displays up the stairs this week.  It'll be nice to get their hands off the floor since they find every piece of dirt that Sadie brings into the house.  Housekeeping has never been a favorite of ours.

Michael just picked up two new snow sleds for this season.  We went looking late in the season last year and missed the short window in Portland for buying sleds (this window also applies to children's snow apparel, particularly mittens).  We've got some nice ones now and are just in a waiting game with the snow.  In the meantime, Livvie likes pulling Violet around the kitchen and living room.  Luke and Violet together on the sled are a little too heavy, though.  As always, Livvie's dressed as a princess, today it's Ariel.