I'm Sorry!

So, yesterday the girls were playing in their room.  One of their favorite games is to climb under their beds and play like it's their own little fort.  Hence, I am making a felt playhouse for Christmas with a roof that should be a little taller than it is underneath their cribs.  The one below is just a cute example I saw on another blog. 

We are going to do a farm house with an apple tree they can pick apples from, a horse they can saddle, chickens, a dog, a kitchen inside, a cow they can milk, and a little nursery for them to play with their babies while I play with my new one in February.  (Thank you Marcie for the ideas! :)  I was planning on making it about 4' X 4', but Christian wants me to spoil our children and make one 6' X 4' with a pitched roof and everything!  I'm excited to get started! 

So anyway, they were playing in their make-shift fort yesterday when I heard Ashley scream bloody murder.  I ran in there and pulled her out from under the crib and looked frantically for blood.  I spotted DEEP bite marks in her arm.  No wonder she was crying! 

I looked over at Elysha, who had an astonished look on her face.  I took her arm and told her, very seriously, that she could not bite, that she had hurt Ashley.  All the sudden, she burst into tears.  She climbed onto my lap with Ashley and they both bawled into my shoulder for a good ten minutes.  I just sat and rubbed their backs and told them it was okay and tried not to smile a little. 

Finally, Ashley climbed off my lap and grabbed her blanket and just lay on her stomach, flashing her hurt face at Elysha.  Elysha stopped crying and stared at Ashley with her guilty face.  I asked Elysha "would you like to tell Ashley you are sorry?"  She said "ya" and climbed off my lap. 

She knelt next to Ashley and started rubbing her back.  She brought her face down to the floor and looked her in the eyes, still rubbing her back, and started rambling.  I don't know what she was saying, I just heard the words "Ah - Eee (Ashley)"  and  "Oh- ay  (okay)".  

It made everything better, and Ashley started smiling.  She went to get up, but Elysha held her down and kept talking and rubbing her back.  She was giving quite the speech!  I let Ashley get up and they climbed back under their fort and started playing again.  I only pray they can always give that sincere of an apology and forgive each other that quickly through the rest of their lives! 

PS I apologize for the lack of recent pictures!  My computer won't read my memory card anymore for some reason, so I'm going to have to get a cord for my camera to transfer pictures over.  I will post pictures as soon as I can!

Personality

I just have to write a quick dedication to the girls budding personalities.  They are changing so fast and getting so much spunk.  Elysha likes to head bang to Disney songs, hide under blankets, escape into rooms and shut the door, and she loves to swing.  Ashley loves to tear things into pieces, play hide and seek around corners, play patty cake and be chased by anyone.  My current fascination with their personalities comes up during our bedtime routine.  Elysha hates being left in her crib, as does Ashley, they just deal with it in completely different ways.

When I put Elysha to bed and walk out of the room, she tried to make as much noise as possible.  I don't mean crying, I mean banging her feet against the side of her crib.  She knows that if I hear a noise, I will come in to make sure she didn't fall down or hit her head or something like that.  Therefore, I have started to notice a dull thudding noise followed by a delayed "AHhh!  Momma!"

Ashley takes advantage of these situations as well.  Usually, she will shriek or giggle when I come into the room.  She has also learned that if she entertains me while I am in there, it is harder for me to leave.  The best moment, however, was last night. 

Elysha hit the side of her crib, and I came in to make sure she was ok.  When I could tell all was well, I looked over at Ashley, who was being unusually quiet.  There she was, sitting with an open-mouthed grin on her face, staring at me.  It was the biggest, most faked smile I have ever seen- she looked like the chestier cat.  Then she did something I have never seen her do, she raised her eyebrows at me!  I thought it was the funniest thing I burst out into silent laughter.

Christian jumped of the couch and started running down the hall.  He thought I was crying because I was laughing so hard and trying not to make any noise.  He thought maybe one of them was really hurt.  When he looked over and saw Ashley's animated grin, he just chuckled and turned away.  After that, every time I have looked at her in her crib, she will put her huge fake smile on and raise her eyebrows, like she is the funniest thing ever to crawl the planet. 

2nd Anniversary

I was so excited to celebrate this years anniversary.  I knew that we wouldn't be able to do much because Christian's family was vacationing in Hawaii (yes, on our anniversary :), but I thought I would make him the best dinner ever and we could spend a few hours together that evening gazing into eachothers eyes or something like that. 

I decided to include Christians remaining siblings in our dinner because they didn't have a lot of time to cook either.  It would be really fun to all spend some relaxing time together after a crazy week! 

I spent several days planning out this dinner.  I decided to have bbq ribs because we never eat bbq ribs, and I spent hours searching for the perfect recipe that I could make.  I also googled a perfect twice baked potato recipe and spent hours the night before making a delicious white chocolate raspberry cheesecake from scratch in a springfoam pan and everything.  I was thorough!  I even bought real parmesan cheese for the asparagus.  It would be a night worthy of our anniversary, I was sure.  I mean, what could go wrong?

Well, Ashley, Elysha and I had been visiting family for the week while Christian worked crazy hours.  We got back Saturday morning, and almost immediately went over to Christian's family's house.  Ashley has a really hard time with change at this point in her little life.  She likes her consistency and was very onery by the time we got there.  I'm talking tantrums and throwing things.  I have never seen her like this before!  Elysha was a little frightened.  Nevertheless, I wasn't going to let this stop me.  I cooked and tried to play and entertain and let them sleep as much as they wanted.  By the time I was ready to start cooking the ribs, I was just ready for it all to be over.

Abigail, my sister in law, helped me figure out how to start the grill.  I placed the meat on the grill and went inside for a moment to help change diapers and check on the potatoes.  Four minutes later I opened the door to a cloud of smoke.  All of the ribs had caught fire.  Shad, my 10 year old brother in law, asked me if this was normal?

We extinguished the fire and Christian arrived.  I asked him if he would rather me order a pizza?  But everyone claimed they would much rather have these ribs than pizza.  Shad had never tried ribs before, and he was so excited for the new experience.  I begged him not to base his opinion of ribs off of tonight. 

I had been feeling sick for a short while, but I thought it was just pregnancy.  However, I soon found out I had the flu.  A few minutes later, I also realized I had entirely forgotten about our perfect twice baked potatoes. 

Everyone sat at the table eating bones covered in charcoal and crispy potatoes.  Despite their great attitudes and gratitude, I laid on the couch and vowed never to put that much effort into a dinner again!  No one dared to venture to the cheesecake, so it sat uneaten in the fridge. 

John, my brother in law, thanked me and offered to clean up, which I gratefully accepted.  Then he and Christian were off to the farm on some emergency pipe line problem.  I laid on the couch and tried to figure out what to do.  I was more sick than I can ever remember being before.  Throughout that evening, I lost 5 pounds.  I think it was a mix of pregnancy and just a normal flu.  Needless to say, I was exhausted and not in the mood to chase my girls around or run to save them from falling down the stairs (which I did).  By the time we got home 2 hours later, I was in tears.

After the initial shock reaction to me being upset, Christian was able to help me calm down and we talked about our week and everything that had happened for hours.  I decided it may have been the craziest and (hopefully) worst anniversary we will ever have, but at least we have every day to spend together and make up for it. 

Confessions of a Twin Mom

1. Sometimes I go to Walmart just so I can see / talk to someone that isn't 1 year old.
2. When I am talking to people who aren't 1 year olds, I have a hard time not playing peek-a-boo or making strange noises to surprise them.
3. There has been the seldom (ha) occasion that I have let my girls eat off of the floor, simply because I don't have time to pick them up and put them in the living room and sweep the floor before they come back and start eating dirt out of my pile instead of food.
4. Yes, they have eaten dirt.
5. Ashley puts her finger in her nose like most babies suck their thumbs.  Sometimes I tape her fingers together to make her stop.
6. I get bored if they take naps for longer than 2 hours.  Once, I puposely turned up the radio a little bit louder in hopes they would wake up, just so I could have some entertainment again.
7. I already have nightmares about taking them to kindergarten and having to let them grow up.
8. We waste an incredible amount of food at our house.  1/3 goes into their mouth, 1/3 gets smeared into their hair and clothes, 1/3 gets thrown at each other or on the floor.
9. My house is a walking disaster zone.  I clean it several times a day, but somehow it always ends up looking like no one has clean it in days.
10. I am in for a lot more fun because... I'M PREGNANT!

I'm Not Fond of Fondant

Ashley and Elysha's birthday party is coming up on Sunday.  I thought, since I am going to have a lot to do Saturday, that maybe I would make the cake a few days ahead and freeze it. 

It was a good idea. 

My plan was to make a beautiful fondant cake from scratch to show off my crafty-mom skills.  The only problem is, I don't really have those. 

First, I made the cake.  I forgot to adjust the recipe to low altitude and the center fell in.  I made a double layer cake.  As you can see, the center of the top layer is perfectly even with the edges of the bottom layer.  This is the point that I knew this cake would be for Christian.

When I pulled the cake out, I realized my heavily applied Pam wasn't enough to keep the cake from clinging to the pan.  After violently shaking the pan upside down, most of it finally came out.  Hence, the huge hole you can see in this picture. 

Well, I thought, I can just make the fondant and try again on the cake later. 

Another great idea. 

I decided I wanted to make buttercream fondant.  It would taste just like buttercream frosting, so I couldn't see any downside.  I mixed up all the ingredients except for the powdered sugar.  I added the powdered sugar a little at a time.  I was supposed to put 2 lbs of the sugar in, but my the time I got to about a half a pound, I figured it looked about right.  I know a lot about these things, you know.  I tried rolling it out, but it stuck to everything.  So I decided maybe I should put the remaining pound and a half of sugar in. (I now know you are supposed to roll it between two sheets of plastic) I scooped the fondant back into the bosh and added a few cups of sugar. 

After kneading that in, the fondant was so dry that it cracked every time I even looked at it.  I finally decided this would make a perfect topping to my holy cake.  Or maybe I should call it a crumb cake. 

But, something good did come from this!  I used a cookie cutter to make little letters for their (now normal frosted) cake.  I figured that would be a whole lot easier than trying to draw letters with icing. 

Because their names both have the same six letters, I just had to make two of everything, something I am pretty comfortable with.

I just hope the rest of the party plans work out a little more smoothly (no pun intended).

I also hope Christian likes dry fondant and sunken cake.

What? First Steps and Fine Motor Skills.

Ashley and Elysha will be turning one in a few weeks!  I can't believe so much time has gone by so quickly.  They are changing so fast and becoming a little more independent every day.  They learn the same words around the same time.  They know Mama, Dada, yes, what, and Ashley can say Elysha (or something like it).
They have a new game they play in the car to keep themselves busy.  They can't really see each other in the back seat because of their car seats.  On Monday, on the way home from the farm, they were being unusually quiet back there.  Then I heard Elysha yell "Ah!".  Ashley quickly replied "Wha?"  (or What?).  They repeated this over and over for the remainder of the car ride, with some spontaneous giggles here and there. 

Then yesterday we were at home and Ashley was feeding herself some cheerios in her high chair.  I had just read a magazine article about how around 12 months, babies tune their fine motor skills and learn to use each of their fingers individually.  This helps them to pinch, pick up small items, and, unfortunately, pick their noses.  I looked up at Ashley and she had her finger in her mouth.  She slowly moved her finger up until it ended up in an unexpected place. 

The look on her face was priceless.  She was really confused as she explored the new hole in her nose.  How could she have neglected to notice something so important before?  I tried to tell her not to do that without smiling, but for some reason she got the idea I thought it was funny to poke herself in the face.  I'm not complaining, it's better than her thinking it's funny to pick her nose.  So, now she will poke her cheek and forehead and wait for me to laugh at her. 

Elysha took her first step a week or so ago, but she hasn't ever really walked on her own until Monday.  For the first time, she was able to walk from me to Christian by herself!  She was so excited, she was like a wind up toy.  She would stamp her feet and lean forward until we let her go, then she would shoot off, trying to get as many steps in as possible before she fell over again.  Ashley sat and watched her as if she were jealous and trying to figure out how she is walking without anything to hold onto.

I am excited to throw them a fun birthday party and see how much they are going to learn this next year!  Being a mom is more fun and more work than I ever dreamed, and I love every minute of it!

Baby's First Flu

I just realized why I have cleaned up spit up and dirty diapers every day for the last year.  All of that was simply a way to desensitize me so I could handle these last few days of throw-up and REALLY dirty diapers.

My sweet babies have the flu.  It is the first time and they are dealing with it fairly well.  Elysha got sick when Grandma Olsen was holding her at an Easter party two days ago.  It's a good thing Grandma has had 10 kids and has been desensitized a lot more than I have.  I attributed her sudden sickness to letting her eat chocolate that morning.  We took our babies home and let Elysha lay and stare at the ceiling.  That poor girl was sick all day!  Ashley, always wanting to be like her sister, got sick that afternoon.

I was so grateful Christian was there to hold them and keep a cool head while I ran frantically around the house changing Elysha's clothes, changing Ashley's clothes, changing my clothes, making bottles, changing diapers, scrubbing the carpets and basically worrying in general.  Finally, we set up the play pen covered in towels so if they wanted to play and we didn't get there in time, everything would be ok.  That play pen must be magic because they never once got sick in it.  For some reason, they only felt sick when one of us was holding them or when they were on the floor.

Elysha seemed better by that night, we figured it was just a 12 hour virus.  Ashley was still sick, so I had her sleep in the play pen and I kind of slept on the couch.  Christian said it was the best night of his life, he had our whole bed to himself and didn't hear a baby cry once!

The next day, figuring all was well, I fed them a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  They ate it quickly and happily.  I watched in approval, glad they were feeling better.  However, as I lifted Ashley out of her high chair, I realized my mistake.

I spent the next two days in clean-up mode, wondering how they are so happy through all of this and when it will stop.  I have literally gone through a half of a box of diapers in 2 days.  They giggle and laugh as I load the washing machine for the 5th time that day.  Maybe they just like to watch the clothes being washed?

I could never ask for better babies.  They just smile at me and are content even after two days of the flu.  Elysha learned to click her tongue and now does that instead of crying when she wants something.  She simply clicks her tongue and claps her hands and looks concerned.  I complain and joke, but I know I am lucky to have these girls!