Our Favorite Song

Here is a video of the girls singing their favorite song - "The Wheels on the Bus" - while participating in one of their favorite activities - swinging. I apologize in advance that you can mostly hear only me singing!

Silly Girls

The girls have been very silly lately. They have been getting into moods where they just sit and giggle at each other. They love eating apples off of the apple tree in our yard. When we get home in the evenings, they walk around to the back of the house, point to the tree and say "apple" until they get one. They usually manage to have a few bites before dropping the apple in the sandbox or on the ground. They don't quite understand yet that they shouldn't pick the apple up again and take another bite!

They don't watch very much TV, but lately they have been asking to watch baseball (bay-ball) on TV. Daddy is pretty happy about this! I couldn't believe it the first time they said "TV" and then "bay-ball." They are really starting to string words together. At supper the other night, Olivia said "more banana" and then gave a reluctant "please." I think it was the first time I've heard one of them try to make a sentence. We've also been contemplating investing in Kemp's or some other milk-related company's stock. Our girls drink so much milk, it is unbelievable. Sometimes they will each drink 3 or 4 glasses of milk at one meal.

Their current favorite song is "The Wheels on the Bus." They will do the actions to all of the verses (wheels going round and round, kids going up and down, wipers going swish swish swish, horn going beep beep beep, etc). They also try to sing, which consists of mumbling through each verse but clearly saying the word "town" at the very end.

Last Saturday night, we were pretty close to some severe weather. A funnel cloud was spotted about 1/2-mile north of our house, so we all took cover in the basement for about 30 minutes. We kept the girls entertained with puzzles. Luckily the storm ended up going just north of us, but we were pretty nervous about it until it passed our area.

We went to the beach on Sunday with my sister Terri & her son William. The girls had an absolute blast. They loved playing in the water, and they just adore their cousin William ("baby, baby, baby") so they were in heaven. Here are a few pictures from our beach trip.

Violet & Olivia sitting on the beach:

Violet playing in the lake:

Olivia standing in the lake:

Olivia & Violet playing in the lake:

Olivia & Violet loving their baby cousin William:
Violet:

Family Day

This past Sunday, we had a family day with just the four of us. It was such a great day! We walked up to the nearest Caribou, and Jamie & I sat outside and read the newspaper while the girls played around us. Then we went for a long walk, pulling the girls in their wagon, ended by a trip to the park. After the girls' nap, we rode bike to a beach on Medicine Lake near our house. Jamie pulled the girls in a cart behind his bike. The weather got a little cloudy, but it was still warm. The girls had an absolute blast playing on the beach. We brought buckets and shovels for them to play with, and they even went in the water. Violet was much more daring than Olivia. She walked out into the water a long way with Daddy! We had to leave earlier than we wanted to because we thought it was going to rain, but it never really did.

As I watched the girls play on the beach, it made me realize how much they've grown up. I just can't believe they are nearing two years old. It is already difficult for me to remember the baby stage, even though it doesn't seem like it was that long ago. It's true that time really does fly, so it was wonderful to have a day to just relax and enjoy the girls.

We have been working with them on counting, and it is so funny to hear them count to ten. Violet usually skips the number one, and goes straight to "two, three, four." She likes the number four and usually gets stuck on it over and over until we prompt her to say "five." Then she will get up to number nine and revert back to number two again. Olivia's favorite numbers are seven and eight, so she usually skips right to those.

Here are some recent pictures.

Violet & Olivia's feet in the sand:

Olivia: Violet & Olivia playing on the beach:

Olivia & Violet: Violet splashing in the lake:
Olivia picking up pinecones:

Violet picking up pinecones:

Violet & Olivia: