Last days before we start our play group, ie “school”. Is this the face we make when we think about going to school??

We have such big imaginations. Watching us play is pretty fun. This pile of rocks is actually a cake that we carefully made.

 

Looking fly at the library. We visited the top this time.

We got our letters from Miss Christina! She sent one to each of us, and it was pretty special. She had a cartoon picture on the top of all the kids in the group, with their names listed- including us! She told us what we would be doing, which included fun things like playing inside, playing outside, baking, and eating snacks and lunch! Look how excited we are!

Enjoying the pool while it’s still warm. We only last about ten or fifteen minutes before we want to get out.

The weekend before school, we went for a walk on Mt. Vernon. Avery found some flowers.

And Aurelia found acorns! She said “mommy, A is for Acorn!” Smarty.

Then we got a little ice cream treat.

Mommy just loves these little feet, with the little dimple!

Burning off some energy in the house…

The Monday before school was the solar eclipse. Mommy didn’t trust us to be outside, so we stayed inside. And even when we were driving to Omi’s after the eclipse, we made sure to wear sunglasses.

Our lunch is all ready!

It’s here! First day of school!

Outtakes!

Our first day of school went great! Mommy stayed for a long time, but by the time she came to pick us up, we didn’t want to leave!

She had a treat for us though- going to visit the helicopter in the new STEM building at ERAU!

Second day of school. We no longer really care if mommy leaves.

And look at what we made!

Here are some pictures of Christina’s amazing backyard, which we love so very much!

Treats for the baby cheetahs after a very successful first week!

And look at the art we’ve done at school! This first one is by Aurelia. You can see her face and body and especially her feet with red shoes on. She has said that the brown things are the jelly beans.

Avery- his house looks pretty busy.

While mommy was helping Avery trace, Aurelia was doing this all by herself.

This is an accurate representation of the scene every night at bedtime after school… obviously it wore us out. We can’t wait to go back next week!

Here we are showing off our new backpacks, like big kids.

We love library days!

Weekend with mommy starts with chalk art…

Then whipped cream while mommy has her coffee. The “baby cheetahs” call it ice cream, though.

New shoes for school!

Painting our treasure chest for treasure hunts, since we left our old ones somewhere at the farm.

He just had to have his Ninja Turtles. He doesn’t know the show, but knows them from the phonics books we read at the library.

When the Wild Iris is out of macaroons…

Fun with Omi and Papa!

 

How we fall asleep 🙂

One more time at gymnastics. We’ll be sad we won’t be able to go to open gym anymore!

Just keeping us busy. And keeping us busy usually involves a mess.

Playground time

Baby cheetahs kind of fighting…

Playing with our new puzzle. We like to pretend to find each letter’s home. It’s a fun way of playing with letters!

To the Wild Iris and the new fancy chocolate shop! We picked chocolate covered orange strips. And clearly, someone got stickers at Trader Joe’s. Typically, Aurelia’s stickers were entirely peeled off and put on her dress, while Avery saved his (and saved, and saved, and then peeled a few off only to put them back where they go).

Bedtime snacks in the bath = genius.

Nothing but love for the library.

Daddy made this t-rex and Avery insisted mommy take a picture of it!

Looking at the garden while visiting the farm to get some fresh sweet corn.

Avery was so happy to find that stick/pole/whatever. Aurelia was into examining the peppers.

Farm kids

Back home to bake peanut butter cookies!

 

 

 

This weekend we were THAT family. The family that has matching outfits. Well, the girls anyway. It’s harder to find matching outfits for the boys, but mommy is pretty determined. Matching Christmas pjs, maybe?

This is how we (don’t) go to bed…

Time for the zoo!

This is Avery’s “laser” that he made all by himself. 🙂

We are really enjoying playing with the gymnastics equipment!

Avery was really brave this time! He kept counting (in most cases to 12) and jumping into the foam pit!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhAVhqv4ETY

Buddy on the balance beam.

He needs a little work on his form…

And she sticks the landing!!! (Applause)

Future Olympian?

Okay maybe she also needs some work on her form.

Aurelia checking out the crying kid in the background. Somehow there are lots of crying kids here… and sometimes it’s one of us.

Then off to play in the creek by aunt Denise’s!

Mommy and Shannon and Anna used to play in this creek. Keeping traditions alive.

We earned these blueberries!

We are getting good at going to the potty. We have a sticker chart even!

We know letters (pretending to be baby cheetahs)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPyALCxo41Y

We sing!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAnaerSjUjQ

We love the library.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTXqGMXB2xc

At gymnastics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOkElqudFig

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSzSYwROESw

Costco trips in our nice clothes

We are so good at hiding.

Having so much fun at our week of dance camp. Took us awhile to get into it, but we liked it.

Trying out gymnastics at the Y!

Fourth of July fun. We saw Despicable Me 3!

We really like gymnastics at AZ Dreams!

Fun at the playground, right before another kid threw up and freaked mommy out royally.

Playing at Omi and Papa’s.

This dude knows how to rock the shades.

Aurelia looks pretty cool too. And look at those cute piggie tails.

Playing at the zoo. We like the splash pad, and we were playing around with letters in the sand box.

Trip to Flagstaff.

Chocolate squirrels after dance from the Wild Iris.

Loving the library

Practicing letters

And geography.

Lots of monsoons today…

Power might even go out, so we’re dining in candle light.

Fun playing with Grace.

 

 

 

We are three!

A few days before our birthday, mommy went to Pennsylvania to defend her dissertation. It was our first night apart, but we did great with daddy! See the cute picture daddy sent of us while mommy was walking around campus?

We were happy to have mommy back, especially because she brought us a toy airplane and a stuffed kitty.

She also brought back some nifty flashlights that project planets and dinosaurs!

Then we went out for frozen yogurt on our birthday. Countdown to party time!

Let’s get nostalgic for a moment 😦

Our party day is finally here!

Lots of wonderful friends joined us at the farm, including Heather all the way from Oman!

We are so ready…

The facepainter was a huge hit.

The barrel train was also popular.

We had bubbles, cupcakes, a pinata… and presents. Lots and lots of fun!

Now we are talking non-stop. We come up with all sorts of excuses for things…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fu18mx7hsv4

More about our adventures as three year olds to come!

 

 

Now that we are almost two, we are doing all sorts of big kid things.

Here’s a pretty typical situation. Aurelia awake and eyeing my drink, and Avery passed out.

Helping mommy pick out flowers. No crocs with socks, unless you’re a cute baby.

Trying out the community pool.

Hiking

Summer activities wear us out!

Wearing one of mommy’s old dresses 🙂

Almost birthday time! We are eating the necessary ingredients for our Monsters Inc cupcakes.

Our birthday present from mommy and daddy! We love it!

Cupcake time

Opening presents at Omi and Papa’s

Not sure what’s going on with this face…

Here we are on our new present from Omi and Papa! Now we can really be involved in the kitchen!

Opening our present from Anna!

The real party begins! Macaroons and splash pad, then butterfly wonderland!

Typical family picture

Pictures from our “two years” photo session!

 

https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1001230770221089028#editor/target=post;postID=6560417396285815904;onPublishedMenu=editor;onClosedMenu=editor;postNum=1;src=postname

We are talking so much more and doing so many cute things that it’s hard to remember them all!  Avery loves to say “hug”, especially as a diversion from something he doesn’t want to do (it’s a tactic that works well).  Aurelia will find two toys, one of which is bigger than the other, and promptly declare them “mommy and baby”.  We still love Pixar, particularly Buzz Lightyear.  Aurelia loves the bunnies and will hang out by their cage for extended periods of time.  Avery loves seeing doggies and other animals (and bugs), and will demand “mas” once the interesting thing has gone on it’s way.  We love chocolate and will beg mommy for chocolate chips that she keeps in the fridge, saying “cockate”.  We like to be involved in everything and we often say “help help” when we want to help with something.  We love painting in the bathtub and say “paint” when we are excited about that.  We’ll have another blog post soon with videos of the other things we are doing now.

Tomorrow we turn two- there will be another post about that before long!  For now, here is what we’ve been up to!

We went to San Diego for a quick trip to visit Nana and Pop.  Here we are making the best of being in the car.

 

Finally arrived!  Having sooo much fun, especially with the Nemo hat.

Can you tell we were worn out?  This almost never happens!

Beach day!  We had a lot of fun in the sand, although the water was really cold.

Mommy taking pictures – that’s what mommy does.

Two beach babies!

Aurelia really loved the sand.  That is an understatement, as you can see here.  She also tried to stalk the seagull.

More fish hat fun later that night.

We will miss this view!

Ms. Aurelia being a ham.

And Mr. Serious looking handsome.

Always have been obsessed with the rocks.  Mom and dad don’t even know why they buy us toys…

Fashion statement 🙂

Daddy caught us in the sweetest moment when we were on our way home.  Avery was upset and Yaya comforted him.  So precious.

Still doing okay in the car, despite the heat and the long drive.

After we got home, Avery took a spill when he was with Omi and Mommy getting a coffee.

 

 

Battle scar!  Mommy learned one thing about this- this kid will RAT YOU OUT if you are with him when something happens.  He still points to his lip, and then says “fall” and “Omi”.  Omi says she saved him 🙂

Here we are trying to get our friend Patric’s attention while he is trying to ignore us (has never been around kids and isn’t sure what to do with them.)

Notice our socks 🙂

We are doing all sorts of new and cute things.  Avery loves Buzz and makes him fly around.  We are both learning to climb up things.  Oh dear.

When we play outside we love to find sticks.  We also love to look for doggies.  One evening we saw a nice golden retriever who stopped and let us pet her and feed her some of our apples and some sticks.  Avery still says “doggy…apples…sticks”.  He was also really excited to come home and tell daddy all about it.

We love raiding the cupboards.  Avery has also figured out how to open the child safety locks on them.  Uh-oh.

Sometimes Aurelia will wear a headband if she doesn’t realize it’s on.  Avery will gladly wear them and pose for mommy.

Eating macaroons at one of our favorite places.

We are really interested in our train set now. We also have a dump truck and we say “dirt” and point to the back of the truck, because we are so smart.

Love sleeping babies!!!

We love to climb up on the couch and jump and cover ourselves with pillows.

We love playing outside (notice the upper left – she’s crying because Avery touched her.)

We love our visits with auntie Denise, and sometimes she even lets us cook with her.

Beauty.  Look at those lashes. 🙂

Funny buddy, wearing Morgan’s shoes.

Helping mommy bake cookies, and then helping her eat them!  Aurelia was eating sprinkles and looks like she wanted more.

Breakfast outside.  Mommy had to capture this “UP!” because one day we will be so big that we won’t need anyone to pick us up. 😦

 

Hanging out at the bookstore.  A nice man said we were so cute that he gave us $10 to buy books!  We bought one about Dinosaurs and a Little Pookie book.

Daddy works a lot, and we miss him.  To make ourselves feel better we try out different cafes around town, and we have fun.  This time we went with Omi.  Aurelia heard another customer laugh and it sounded a little like a horse.  She quickly pointed at the woman, said “neigh neigh” and then said “horse horse horse!”

Now that it’s hot sometimes we go get treats to stay cool.  Typically, Avery fell asleep right away and Aurelia is up and ready to party.

Decorating cookies like pros!

Last swimming lesson for the summer!  Now we have our own pool to go to.

We still look like babies sometimes when we are sleeping <3!

We went with mommy to get flowers.

While mommy was planting them, Avery picked a flower for his sister.

We are beating the weekend heat at one of our favorite places- Omi and Papa’s house!

Early birthday presents – thank you so much Nana and Pop!  We love them!

At the kiddie pool with mommy.

Getting gelato!

Back at the Wild Iris.  No falling this time.

We are sitting in chairs like big people.

We love to hug.

We’ve been busy as usual!  We’ve been talking more and more, and can imitate lots of words.  We love Pixar movies and we also like to listen to songs on TV.  We started our first swimming lessons, and Papa comes with us to take pictures.  Here we are all ready for our first lesson.

We had lots of fun playing in the water, and learning how to climb in and out of the pool.

We both like the water, but Avery is especially good with the instructor.  He floats on his back and even goes under water!  Aurelia stays with Momma.  🙂

 

We still love to cook.  Here we are helping mommy make chocolate chip cookies.

We’ve had some nice weather, which is great for playing outside.  Avery brought this over to Momma and said “nut!”, because right now we LOVE the squirrel (Scrat) in Ice Age, and he is always trying to get the nut!

We have started practicing using the potty, although it’s a little hard to share a potty.

Avery went pee in the potty for the very first time in April, three day shy of being 22 months old, and two days later he went poo poo in the potty!  He got a chocolate chip both times!

Mommy’s sleeping angels.

Fun at the library.

Boxes are still a great source of entertainment.

Our Easter baskets!

We had fun opening the eggs and eating the yogurt covered raisins inside.

Avery is finding multiple uses for his Easter basket from Omi.

Easter hike.

Enjoying our drawing boards.

There is almost nothing better than mommy catching us sleeping peacefully.

As usual, we have been having fun at Omi and Papa’s!

And of course we love to visit with auntie Denise.

Peekaboo is still entertaining.  Mommy finds it especially cute when we peek through our fingers.

Some of our lunches and dinners.  The plates may or may not have ended up on the floor.  We have been liking salad lately!

In April we flew off on another adventure!  This time we were headed to Denver so mommy could present a paper.  We were soooo good.

Here is a video of Avery before we left in the morning.  It’s dark so there is no picture, but he is saying “Buzz” because mommy told him we were going to fly to Denver… and of course, Buzz Lightyear also flies, so he thought he was going to fly like Buzz. 🙂

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK3kbSxCrxs

Here we are fortifying ourselves with a snack before the flight.

Landed and waiting for a rental car.

We are finally at our hotel!  It’s fancy, and has a great view.

We liked walking in the hallways and riding the elevator.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hvlz5v9ilEU

Conference time!  This is the view from outside the conference room that mom presented in.  We stayed in our hotel room with daddy.

Hotel furniture isn’t exactly baby proof.

Eating breakfast at a local bagel place.

Walking in downtown Denver.

Little hipster

Fun bookstore!

We had dinner with cousin Shannon!  Here is Aurelia getting hyped up on chocolate milk.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nxl-j9Yqec

Avery is in this picture, but sister was squirming so much that she hid him.

Avery saying “Shannon”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLR_kkTbNrA

Back at the hotel, doing a little number from Gallina Pintadita (about a pollito amarillo – el rasca el piso con sus piecitos).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1jgoPjE8X4

I think I’ll just chill here in my stroller and eat some cheese.

Avery being a clown.  Laptop bag right over his head.

Breakfast again.  Avery likes to feed sister.

Denver zoo!

Here we are looking at the peacock.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vi1w3_Dm4tM

Aurelia has a bit of an obsession for soft cuddly things.

Beautiful Denver.

We got to meet Meriah, one of mommy’s friends from IUP!

Time to leave already.  We managed to escape Denver with a moose and a hippo in tow for Aurelia.  Avery got a plastic alligator, which he loves (especially all the teeth!)

Fun on the plane.

Daddy is tired!

In flight entertainment, times two.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fO9kabianPc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCY4-EAnO1E

Back at home again, and being the cutest with hats.

Playing in our room.

And watching Buzz Lightyear in the morning while riding our cows.

Aurelia wanted to wear a headband AND a bow!

Getting dirty.

Silly boy!

This picture is to document Aurelia’s current favorite toy, which happens to be an old bottle of baby lotion…she carries it around all the time.

Helping mom in the kitchen, being clowns.

Baby yoga?

We had fun with aunt Momo and our family from CA.

But we were exhausted.

Siblings day!  We love each other!

Aurelia roaring.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QC7LOdKWRtM

Playing in the rain and loving it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QC7LOdKWRtM

Having gelato and singing one of our favorite songs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9M7zX62Tdc

Aurelia strung two words together for the first time ever!  She is saying “hi bug!” to the cricket on the floor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYbMlMb-FwA

After moving, we clean. Boo!

We’ll end this post with sleeping beauty 🙂