Nope!

Ever since falling in love with Froggy Goes to Bed (which they've had for a while) and reading it numerous times a day, they no longer say no, it's always "nope!" They think they are absolutely hilarious. I'm going to have to capture it on camera; it is pretty funny, except when they're doing it to be bad/disobeying/responding to everything I say with nope!

Another favorite negative - "no happy" for not happy. They love to point out when any and everyone, including in books, is "no happy." We have to go back at the end and see those pages again.

Their vocabulary is growing enormously quickly, though they still are relatively unintelligible for many words, and they have started repeating and saying a lot more 2 and 3 word phrases. Favorites are naming the color and the object: like "pink pig," "purple flower," etc. They surprise me a lot with their phrases - most recently by saying "bubble bath" (also from Froggy) and "love you bushel" (they like when I sing "I Love You a Bushel and a Peck" from Guys and Dolls). We also taught them everyone in our family's whole names, so they say "Kara Pierce," "Anna Pierce," and "Andrew Pierce," "Kristan Pierce" is a little harder. They say Little Mister's tentative name too. Finally, I love when they say "both," since they use it appropriately. Very fun.

PS - My blogging will be less prolific the next couple weeks. I'm behind in grading for my class and grades are due in a couple weeks, so I have to catch up, in addition to grade all the end-of-semester stuff that's coming in. Ugh.

Rounding Out the Week

Just some more fun times we had this week...

Anna kissing Kara on the couch in response to the fact that she had some scratches on her arm from the bushes. Pretty sure Kara's pointing at me because she's saying "no, Mommy." They only like me to kiss their "ows." An attempt at eating a meal at the table. This lasted very few minutes since they both kept getting up, with the excuse being they had to go potty (they never did).

Our Saturday fun in Tower Grove Park...making me very nostalgic, since we used to live walking distance from there (and the Botanical Gardens, where we were hoping to go, but weren't interested in the hubbub of the Chinese Culture Days), it's my favorite park, and we wanted to live in the same neighborhood, but couldn't find a good house to rent. The girls have decided (since the last time we went to the park, months now) that they don't like to swing. However, there was a baby boy in the swing on the other side of them, so they sat in the swings and looked at him, then just sat there forever, and cried when it was time to leave. Strange.

An attempt to capture a new dance move of Anna's, which cracked me up, and involved some serious arm swinging. This is a far lesser version, but this video still makes me laugh. They do usually end their dances with wild jumping and throwing.

Driving

Our Parents as Teachers group hosted a "vehicle fair" Thursday night and so we went to check it out. They had what seemed like everything...fire truck, bus (which gave rides), garbage truck, semi, limo, police cars, cab (with hydraulics), motorcycle, trucks, even a ride-on lawnmower. I guess if we lived anywhere near the country there'd be a tractor (and maybe no hydraulics), so they did miss out on that.

Happy to drive the garbage truck. They drove the semi, too, otherwise just wanted to look around more than get in every vehicle. They do love driving our car, though.

The big hit was the water table with bubbles. Anna and Kara dumped out probably half of the water between them. Anna ended up dumping water on a littler girl, and when I asked her if she did, said "yeah," I told her not to, then she poured water on her head/face and made her cry (then wouldn't tell her sorry; I apologized profusely to the mom, who took it very well). That's become a popular story of Anna's - we've been working on the fact that it was mean and when you make someone cry you should tell them sorry. This is not an issue with sister, generally, thankfully. The bigger problem is the offended accepting the apology - kisses proffered usually elicit more tears, pushing, and "no"s.

A last highlight - our first popsicles. They loved them, but gave them up for the water table. Another first Thursday - jumping in puddles - we didn't make it to the vehicle fair tear-free, because they had to be torn away from the puddles to go.

PS - Shame of shame for dietitian mothers, I let my children try hot dogs for the first time tonight. They each had 1/2 a hot dog and loved them for the first couple bites...but I was not disappointed that they fed the rest to me. We'll stick to our healthy stuff, thanks, with a few sweets here and there.

Enjoying Beautiful Weather

We've been enjoying being outside this week with gorgeous weather (though low 80s seem hot to running toddlers and pregnant moms; we're in for a long summer). A new favorite word and place to play is bushes. Between our house and the next is a big row of tallish bushes that they love to climb in and hide in.

Neighbors' flowers are fun to look at and smell too. Apparently smelling this flower wore Kara out, as she lay down in this tall grass directly after. :)

As a side note: if you haven't noticed by now, the girls ALWAYS have a Little People person with them. When they don't they realize pretty shortly and look at their empty hands and say "people" until we find them one. Outside it's usually a person and a stick, or sometimes 2 sticks and the person in the mouth.

Being "David"

The girls love the book No, David! and especially love the part where he gets in trouble and has to sit on a stool in the corner, mostly because he has a tear (much like the second picture).

While I was doing dishes, Kara pulled a stool over into the corner of the kitchen and sat on it - she thought it was so funny when I asked if she was being "David." She and Anna proceeded to take turns being David and saying David over and over - that is, whenever one got off the stool for too long, the other one stole it. :)

Saturday Adventures - Part 1

Since we're done with Saturday morning swimming, we wanted to go on an outing this past Saturday morning. It was supposed to rain, so we decided on the Science Center, since the girls loved the dinosaurs last time. It turned out to be sunny and nice, so Andrew and I wanted to go to the Botanical Gardens instead. Unfortunately the girls were stuck on the idea of seeing the dinosaurs, so Science Center it was.

Most of what they say is still pretty unintelligible to most people (Kara is generally more intelligible than Anna)...but they were saying over and over that they wanted to see dinosaurs and I wanted to see flowers (both new words), so I tried to capture that on the car ride over there. They're still telling me about it, actually. They've become obsessed with those 2 dinosaurs, even though...

They HATED them. Cried as soon as we got near them and acted really scared (they're having a lot more fears lately...the dark for both, heights for K, elevators for A). They did like this perspective room (as a slide), and a life-size stuffed polar bear.

So happy to be looking at the polar bear.

And here are the girls on the way back from the Science Center, talking about the dinosaurs.

Anna especially hated them, hence her scared responses.

And here are the girls giving their dinosaur recap the next day. They talk about the dinosaurs all the time, telling me they don't like the tall one that roars, he's mean and scary, etc. It has since grown in detail. Tonight they started telling me he has a tail. They do still tell me they liked the one with "ows" though.

It's so funny what they remember and what stands out as important to them.

Saturday Adventures - Part 2

After the dinosaur debacle we decided to go to the Turtle Park down the street from the Science Center. Kara liked climbing on the turtles - Anna preferred picking up and throwing all the little tiny gravel rocks. We made her pose too, though.

Climbing up the hill to one of the big turtles - Kara wanted Andrew to come rescue her. And yes, here is my 30.5 week belly - it's huge, I know, made huger looking when I slouch, which is always.

Not really fans of the top of the tall hills. They did like the one big turtle they could poke in the eyes and nose.

A better pastime was throwing rocks on these turtle eggs. After that we had walked to the end of the park, and I showed Anna that the zoo was across the highway (we could see it). She indicated she wanted to go and a few minutes later was up another big hill and started walking herself across the bridge. We had a little time before their nap, so headed to the zoo for a few minutes. On foot and with not much time (the zoo is huge) we just went to the reptile and monkey houses, which were by the entrance we went in. We also stopped to smell these daffodils, very intently and individually.

What a busy day - we all slept well that afternoon! Here are the zoo and turtle park recaps...notice how the dinosaur makes an appearance. :)

Song of the Week

I asked the girls what song we should sing one day and they said "bagel." So I asked them how the bagel song goes and they sang it for me. Here's a version a few days later. It's become a family favorite - haha.

A Trip to Pine Bluff - Family Fun

Shots with some of the family that we saw. Uncle Derek, Aunt Beth, Uncle Stuart, and Mandy came down, so we saw them the most. Then there was Courtney's baby shower (she's having a baby girl and is due on the girls' birthday) and the Pierce family March birthday lunch that Mimi hosted at the country club with many aunts and uncles and cousins. Mema and Granddad came down for a day too. The girls did well with everyone with the exception of at the club, where they were more than overwhelmed by the number of people trying to interact with them.

With Nana and Stu.

With Mema and Granddad, with Mimi.

And just for fun - Kara put her bowl on her head and the girls got bowl hats. We had them do a little shimmy dance with their hands under their chins - very cute.

A Trip to Pine Bluff - Backyard Fun

We went to Pine Bluff at the beginning of March to visit Andrew's family and celebrate his birthday. We only left the house a couple times, since there was so much planned at home and the backyard was so fun for the girls. Sorry for some nudity - we went outside for just a couple minutes between potty training time and nap.

Their favorite part was throwing a ball to Jenna's dog Bella - Anna especially loved it. Whenever we were outside she found the ball and offered it in her direction. She also tried with the cat, but learned that cats don't like to play fetch with balls, much to her chagrin.

They also loved the climbing structure/slide that Nana and Pop had set up - they would just run in circles going up and down the slide...either on their bottoms or tummies. The periscope was fun too, but they didn't quite get the concept just yet.

Of course there was grass throwing. They were so happy to pick up and throw grass - much like they do at home with leaves.

My Favorites

My new favorite picture of my sweetests.

Anna quickly figured out that posing for longer would delay nap time.

Kara told me she didn't want to smile for this second one.

Anna's a little better at posing than Kara at this point. They both definitely look like big girls now instead of babies, even though we're still working on hair.

Lately I've been asking them whether they're "fighting or being best sisses." They always tell me bests. I think my asking prompts them to stop fighting sometimes, probably because they know I always come check on them after I ask. First is Kara, then Anna's rendition of "bests" - she's always the first to claim they're being bests.

PS - Kara has caught up with Anna - it never takes too long. She got her last incisor, so is up to 16 teeth, and is an expert marcher and shrugger like her sister. :)

Easter Bow Heads

They loved wearing the bows from their presents as headbands - and have asked to wear them several times since.

Kara sweetie.

Anna sweetie.