First day at the Beach :)

The girls were ECSTATIC when they woke up and saw eachother this morning.

As suspected, the ocean took some getting used to. Neither of our girls warmed up very much by the end of the day.

The Little Mermaid

Leyna spent the ENTIRE day digging in the sand

Sandy toes

Cora spent most of the day playing in the shade as far away from the water as she could get

Happy family :)

Babysitting Baby Brielle

Sandy face. Both of her ears were completely filled with sand

At the end of the day the girls just ran and ran and ran in the sand. SO cute.

We were on the beach from about 11-6 and then hit the pool. Leyna was so comfortable in the water and had a ball.

Cora took a much needed nap

After a late dinner the girls were cleaned up and settled in their jammies for a little sleepover party. TOO CUTE. They are pretty much on Cloud 9 here :)

HUGE day

Phew - we survived! Today was a huge, fun, exciting, exhausting day.
First we drove to Nana's cousins dairy farm for a family reunion. It was a little hot but the girls had fun seeing the cows (even though they were stinky!), hiding in the corn, chasing cats, trying to catch grasshoppers, and hanging out with the family.

After that, and way past nap time, we make another long drive to Teresa's house for her family cookout. More fun, more food, more running, playing, jumping. The girls ran and ran and ran until I thought for sure they would pass out - but they didn't!

We left there at bed time to head for the beach, and SHOCKINGLY the girls were awake for the first 2 hours of the trip. I think it was adrenaline. They finally conked out at 10pm and we arrived at the beach at 11:20. LONG day. Now we're here with our good friends and neighbors and ready to relax and have lots of fun. AFTER we get some sleep. Good night!

AAAAAACCCCCCCCKKKKKKK!

Boy did I ever set myself up for disaster today! Too much to do, not enough time in the day. And of course my little angels who played together so nicely all week were sick and tired of one another today. And Super Cora who faithfully potty trained for the past two days (averaging 8 pees in the potty and only 2 accidents per day) decided she had had enough of all that today. "I NOT PEE ON POTTY!" was her most frequent phrase today. Here's a little run down of our morning:

5:50 Up with Cora
6:30 Start baking cupcakes (Great Grandpa's 90th birthday is on Sunday!)
7:00 Leyna up, breakfast, finish up the baking
7:30 Start first of too many loads of laundry
8:00 Start packing suitcases
9:00 Put "Elmo's Potty Time" on TV, Cora is wearing big girl underwear for the first time
9:05 Start decorating these labor intensive Squirrel Cupcakes
9:10 Cora pees on the floor. Clean up, new underwear, etc
9:15 Pull out the Spot Bot to clean the carpet, beg the girls to just watch their movie, dole out pretzels, back to cupcakes
9:30 Girls fighting, send Cora to time out for battering her sister
9:32 Cora pees on the floor in the time out spot. Guess we know how she feels about that! New underwear again. Glad it was on the hard floor this time.
9:45 Tell the girls to please jump on the fold out mattress for fun while I TRY to finish decorating
10:15 Still not done. Leyna screams "She peed on the chair!" Cora has peed on the carpet in several places, as well as the mattress. Strip her down to butt naked and think about where to start the clean up.
10:16 Pee Paw calls me about picking up the cupcakes.
10:17 I turn my head to look at the microwave clock.
10:18 I turn back to Cora and see her drawing all over her bare stomach with markers. Get off the phone.
10:20 Discover the Spot Bot has broken itself in the last hour. LOVELY. It is officially "that kind of day." Switch Cora back to pull-ups. What was I thinking?

So that was the first four and a half hours of the day. It's about all I can muster. It did get easier as things were accomplished. And I can look back on all of it and laugh as I type it out now. Oh, and this picture pretty much erases all of the suffering...

Wordless Thursday (because apparently I didn't know what day it was yesterday!)

Things to celebrate

These are our kids eating candy for breakfast :) We were celebrating! Celebrating that Leyna slept in her bed all night for the THIRD night in a row. Celebrating that Cora peed on the big potty when she woke up this morning. AND we celebrated even more because she did it SIX more times after that!!! And we celebrated yet again when Leyna put her own shirt on for the first time ever. (Yes, it may be a little late but she has a very large head and it's not an easy task even for me!)
Big day! :)

Quotes

Leyna was full of funny quotes today. She was also full of clumsiness! She nearly broke at least 7 bones today. Her feet have literally grown out of her shoes in the past week. From flip flops that fit perfectly to toes hanging off the edge. It's amazing. She's in a size 9 now!!! So, I think she's a bit off balance and accident prone. Hopefully we can keep her from seriously injuring herself while she readjusts.
Anyway, back to the quotes:

This morning I cleaned the bathrooms and then we went out on the deck to splash in the pool for a bit. Leyna went inside to go potty and a minute later I hear her desperately yelling, "Mommy! Moooommmmyyyyy!" I asked her what was up and she said with despair, "My pee is BLUE!" LOL. I guess I didn't flush the rest of toilet cleaner down when I was done and the poor girl didn't notice it until after she had peed. Gave her quite a fright!

Later at lunch she was telling me that she doesn't want to grow up. She said, "I am who I am and I like being three." :) For the record, we love who she is and like her being three and are in no hurry for her to grow up either!

And finally, at dinner I told the girls Uncle Steve was coming over. Leyna asked why and I told her he was going to look at our car. She asked why again and I told her because he knows a lot about cars. "And ThunderCats!" she exclaimed. Wow, talk about random! LOL

And this conversation went with the following pictures:
Leyna - "Look at my ears Cora!"
Cora - "Wow! Look at my ears!"
Leyna - "Pretty!"

Lots to do

I think it's going to be a busy week. I have a to-do list 20 items long. Today I crossed off 2 things and added 4. It's going to be that kind of week - there are TONS of things to do around here. Luckily I have two girls who love to play together and can make up games and entertain one another all day long. Pet shops, parades, formal balls, princesses and dwarves skydiving off beds, the possibilities are endless. We did make it to the library for some play and story time, and after  dinner we splashed in the one puddle we could find in the neighborhood

And even after a long day together they still hadn't gotten enough before bed time... ;)

Lots of pictures

I'm sleepy! Here are some pictures from today :)

Nana and Pee Paw returned from vacation with gifts. Very well received :)

VERY well received!

Something is wrong with this picture...

Funny how much more she loves the pool when she is fully dressed

Overtired girls really wanted to sleep together tonight. I've since moved Leyna to her own bed for fear of someone getting kicked in the face. SO cute while it lasted though :)

Surprising facts

Today we spent a few fun hours at the pool. The girls had a blast and were braver than ever. We spent a lot of time holding them in the deep end and both girls actually "swam" in the shallow end by laying on their tummies and kicking their legs.

And now for the surprising facts. You might be surprised to find out that despite all of the princess things and dresses, Leyna LOVES bugs. One of her favorite books is "The Icky Bug Alphabet Book." She is constantly hunting for them outside, holding them, and rescuing them from various situations (though occasionally they need to be rescued from her). The other day she found a potato bug in a store and took it safely outside to be with it's family. Today she rescued this little moth from the kiddie pool and held him until his wings were dry enough to fly.

And Cora? She is a snack-a-holic. This girl would much rather eat snacks all day than sit down for a meal. She spent a good 30 minutes straight eating instead of swimming today. Goldfish, blueberries, french fries...you'd think she had a bottomless pit for a stomach and yet she's such a tiny little peanut.

3 weeks...

... until this little munchkin turns 2!

Ugh, I can't take it!
She seems like such a big girl these days. She has lots of big girl sayings and is memorizing all kinds of songs and singing them ALL DAY LONG. She even rolls her eyes at me. Great! Another thing she does all day long? Alternate playing lovingly with her sometimes bossy sister and then torturing her until she literally screams in frustration. It's a talent. She also let herself out of her room this morning while the rest of us were still sleeping and wandered downstairs only to find herself all alone and scared. I woke up to far away crying wondering why it wasn't coming through the monitor. It's tough growing up :(
But today she and her sister played mostly nicely. At one point Cora was a cat being held captive in her pet shop cage:

And later they were two princesses in their castle:

Love these growing up girlies and hope they stay little for a long time!