Dozer-Doodle

I don't give nearly enough credit to Dozer.  Since the day the girls came home from the hospital he has been the picture of perfection regarding the girls.  He's protective of them but not too protective. He loves all over them but not too much. His tolerance level is through the roof! He lets them literally hang all over him, pull on him, push him around where they want him, the list could go on and on.  He might drive me crazy eating hummingbirds and coming in the house muddy but that dog would give up his life for those girls and I don't doubt that for a second.  So today's post is dedicated to our unofficial 5th family member:

Hodge Podge

Things around here have been a little crazy with some remodeling we've been doing.  A few weeks ago we had a closet built in the big bonus room in preparation for moving the girls into that room.  Then we had the A/C and water heater worked on and currently we are having the master closet remodeled to make it more space efficient.  Our house has been LOUD and that's saying something because I'm used to yelling and screaming!  Unfortunately, the "loudness" has not gone over well with the girls so I've been busy trying to keep them occupied.  We've been going on lots of walks, swimming, doing lots of coloring, and we've been taking a gymnastics class with Reaghan and Ryleigh. Can I just pause and say that watching a bunch of 2 and 3 year olds attempt gymnastics is hilarious?  All mine did was run away and jump on the trampoline or refuse to get out of the foam pit.  I feel like the world's biggest idiot PAYING for that kind of chaos but the girls enjoy it and they definitely need to socialize with kids besides each other and their cousins.

Back to the title of this post: Hodge Podge.  This post is just a compilation of all the randomness going on in our lives the last few weeks as well the unloading of numerous photos off my phone :-)  Below I've included some notes on the girls at this age (I jot down the date and these notes in my phone for their baby books):

26 Months

Olivia:  Loves to say "Oh gosh!" and "Good God!" Randomly busts out singing the Happy Birthday song on a daily basis except her version goes like this:  Happy birthday LuLu, happy birthday LuLu, happy birthday Dear LuLu, happy birthday LuLu.  We don't correct her because even when we say "TO YOU" she still says "LULU!!!" Could swing all day on the rope at gymnastics and knocks other kids down when they try to play on the balloon obstacle course with her (eeekk).  Not a single 2-year molar yet (which is weird because she got all her teeth before Emma in the past).

Emma:  Begins most of her sentences with "Ummmm"= drives me insane, it's like living with a teenager already.  Recently learned to catch a ball and is pretty darn proud of herself.  Also loves the rope above the foam pit at gymnastics but especially loves the trampoline (where she too knocks down other kids....see a theme here?  We're working on not pushing in this house, ugghhh).  Her bottom left 2-year molar came in and has made her a terrible sleeper and angry kid in general...only three more to go, only three more to go....

Current favorite song of both girls: Olly Muirs "Dance With Me Tonight"


*I may have already explained this somewhere but it's recently come up a few times...why do we call Olivia Lu?  To me, I think, "Duh, she's totally a Lu!"  But I get that to others it seems a far stretch from Olivia.  So here it is--you take a simple formula + lazy parents: Olivia-->became Livi-->became Livi LuLu-->became LuLu-->became Lu. Ta-Da!!  Now I just can't imagine calling her anything else because I think Lu fits her quirkiness 100%.*

My photos ended up having a theme--the 1st set are all about hair and the 2nd set are all about sleeping...

She's developed a weird love of wigs...

Begged me to give her pigtails...I struggled to manage this but she was THRILLED

Curly Sue

Those are Emma's feet hanging out of her crib on the left

Aloha!

We recently took our first big solo vacation since the girls were born.  Up until this point we had never been away from the girls for more than 48 hours so I was quite nervous planning our 8 day trip to Maui.  We chose Hawaii because Alex and I had both been to parts of Hawaii separately but never together and for our first big away trip we wanted to stay fairly close to home so Hawaii it was!

As luck would have it, we landed in Maui 3 days before Hurricane Flossie hit.  Since we knew it was coming we spent those three days doing as much as we could and it was good thing we did!  The whole island pretty much shut down during the 2-days of Flossie (room service for dinner on the night it hit hardest took 2 hours at 8PM!).  Then of course, after everything cleared up I got sick :-(  We spent the remaining days of our vacation lounging in our room watching movies.  So while it didn't exactly go how we planned, we made the best of it, as we always do.  I also realized I can NEVER be away from the girls that long again and that our next big vacation will have to be a family one.  I'm sure Alex has been sharing with everyone my complete emotional breakdown the night before we left for Maui and how I cried after every time we FaceTime'ed with the girls...

Best breakfast: Kihea Caffe

Old Lahaina Luau

The start of Flossie

Windy!

My Little Readers

There is definitely something to be said about exposing children to literature as early and as frequently as possible. While the girls prefer me to do the reading, lately they've been more interested in reading to me.  We've been on a "potty book" binge in preparation for full on potty training but yesterday we just did some fun reading after an unfortunate pee-on-the-kitchen-floor incident (I'll just let that sink in....).  *Can I just point out that you have to have an incredible sense of humor to raise children?* Anyhow....this is Olivia reading me her "Minnie's Bowtique" book:

2-Year Photos

Even though doing planned/organized photos with the girls is exhausting we still like to punish ourselves :-) This time around we decided to do something from home in hopes of controlling the girls a little better and having them feel more comfortable.  Whether it was a maturity thing or simply better planning on our part, photos this time around went much smoother! We used a long-time girlfriend of mine, Taylor, who I went to school with and competition danced with--we owe a lot of the success of the shoot to her! Her attitude and style totally flowed with the girls making the whole experience that much better for us.  We love how they all turned out and are something we will treasure for many years to come!