Candy is sweet...

Splish splash, I was taking a bath!

Rainbow Goblins

Alice chopped up all her playdough and distributed it into the containers.

Simon and Zac reading the Rainbow Goblin book.

Where's Alice?

Zac's Happy 36th Birthday

I think the best part of Zac's birthday was when he went in to get Alice up and her first words, in that sweet groggy sleepy voice was, "Happy birthday, Daddy!"  Alice had been laser-focused on Zac's birthday since she knew there would be cake involved and presents to unwrap.

I revealed the cake in the morning and Zac was able to figure out what it said.

Since the kids, the best way to have a birthday supper is to get take-out, since cooking is just work and chaos with the kids underfoot, and going out to eat is no fun with the kids.  This time I got Zac a chicken pot pie from Whole Foods and cooked up some fresh green beans.

Simon loves green beans!  Watch how quickly he gets his arm back out after grabbing the first bean.

After supper, we had cake.  Simon absolutely loved the candles and kept saying, "Fire!" long after the candles were blown out and the cake was consumed.  We did sing happy birthday, but I started the video afterwards.

Cake colors

Alice wanted to help decorate Zac's cake, but I didn't do it until she was in bed, because I had a plan.  I always love colorful cakes, and I wanted to do something with the idea that 36 was a square number.  I finally settled on making 6 squares with six colors in each square, for 36 units, spelling out "ZAC 36!!!"

Zac was in bed by the time I finished, so he had to wait until his birthday morning to see it.

Bednight and bath

Our bednight routine continues to consume way too much time, but we're having trouble paring it down.  One thing we tried on the trip to Ohio that worked well was giving the kids a bath together in the big tub.  So far we've never done this at home because we always used the little tub insert.  We always thought we'd do this, but then it took Simon forever to be able to sit up sturdily enough for a big bath.  Once we got back from Ohio and Zac cleaned the bathtub we tried it, and the kids are even happier at bathtime now.  It doesn't really save us much time though.

Parade

I suggested Alice make a parade with some of her vehicles and she got right on it, creating a lot of floats and babbling away about how much candy they would throw.  I'm always amazed at the inverse correlation between her high obsession with candy and her low consumption of candy.

Jewels and janitors

Sliding and toddling

Simon loves going down the slide at the park.



And here he is walking around the living room this evening.  It has been exactly two months since he took his first steps.  He's still pretty uncoordinated, and can't get up on his own yet, but his default now is walking.

Happy New Year!

Simon was happy because daddy was letting him brush his hair with the little plastic princess brush.

Alice blessed us with an appearance as her basket monster incarnation (without pants).

Simon was all smiles.

Alice looks possessed...

And then she strung up some dinosaurs...

******

We had ham-bone soup with black-eyed peas for supper, and when Alice sat down and looked at her bowl, she immediately started making demands.

"Daddy give me more broccoli juice. I want more broccoli juice. You only gave me a little bit of broccoli juice."

Zac says, "You mean broth?"

"Yeah, more broth."

*********

And then she danced the night away, wearing some new dress-up clothes from her cousin Kaelyn and mismatched ballet shoes.

She likes to pretend the dress is a hula skirt sometimes...

Krispy Kreme to end 2014

On our drive back to NC, we made our now-traditional stop at the Charleston Krispy Kreme.  It's a good break, about three hours into the trip, and they have windows where you can watch the donuts being made.  It was in this shop that we had a big breakthrough--we hadn't brought Simon's water bottle in, so when he seemed thirsty we gave him some of Alice's milk with a straw.  He gulped some down (this is the child who has refused to drink cold milk his entire life so far).  Thanks, Krispy Kreme!

The rest of the drive was pretty uneventful, except that I had some cheap glow sticks for the kids to play with in the dark, and Simon bent them in half, causing them to leak.  The only other eventful thing was that I gave Alice an apple to eat in the car when it was dark, and this is what we found when we unpacked.

how Alice eats an apple

Aunt Taesen's

It works out well to stay at Aunt Taesen's on the last night of the trip.  If the kids are bonkers by then, it's ok because she has her own kids and understands.  If the kids get even more bonkers from being over stimulated and staying up late, that's ok too because we drive home the next day and they can sleep a lot in the van.

Alice likes her cousins in theory and she talks about them a lot, but when they're around each other they don't really know how to play together.  Kaelyn likes to be in charge, and sometimes Alice will follow her lead, but sometimes she does her own thing.  Braeden seemed a bit perturbed by Alice and Simon, and tattled on them a lot.  It's always fun for me to see the kids interact, no matter what they do.  Simon played a bit, but mostly walked around or tried to climb up the stairs.

Again, it was so chaotic that I barely had the presence of mind to take pictures.  By bedtime it occurred to me, so what you're seeing here is the attempted "sleepover."  We normally sleep in the twins' room with both of our kids, but this time we tried having Alice and Braeden sleep in Kaelyn's room.  They all appeared OK with it, until we went downstairs and then heard little feet running around for an hour or two.  Eventually Alice came downstairs, and Zac decided to just put her in our room again so she could get some sleep.  We're not sure who the ringleader of the insurrection was, but my guess is that it was Kaelyn, and then Alice realized she too could get out of bed, and so she just followed along.

We tried to do a group photo of the kids the next morning, and took a gazillion photos. This was the best one.

Last day in Mansfield

On Tuesday, we spent the morning in Mansfield, then headed to Taesen's after Simon's nap.

We all enjoyed our visit in Mansfield.  Simon was shy when we were here over the summer, but this time he had warmed up really quickly.

Monday in Mansfield

On Monday we mainly stayed around the house playing.

Mansfield mud and mayhem

Sunday in Mansfield was the big family celebration.  It was so much fun and chaos though that we failed to adequately document it.  Simon spent most of the time walking around, and both kids enjoyed using some of their new art supplies.  We took Alice out for a walk on the muddy trails for a break in the middle of the day, and she enjoyed stepping in every single mud puddle.  Alice warmed up to Aunt Taesen right away and wanted her to read her the book before nap and to be the one to get her up after nap (when I went up to get her she stayed in bed until Taesen came).