Here Comes Peter Cottontail....

I told the girls I was going to make a salad to go with dinner and that they could help.
We planned to go to the store to pick up the ingredients that afternoon.

I was planning to make mom's Calico Salad -- a green bean/corn/pea salad.

Kayla: What kind of salad are we going to make?
Me:  A Calico Salad.
Kayla:  Can we put fruit in it?
Me: You want to make fruit salad?
Megan:  Yes!
Me: Okay, we'll make that, too.

We sometimes make our own combination of fruits to make our own kind of fruit cocktail.


So we went to the store, picked up what we needed for both salads.
We made the both and put them in the fridge until dinner.

The girls said they wanted to surprise Grandma with the fruit salad.

Grandma came over for dinner, and the Megan was excited to tell her about it.

Megan:  and we made cottontail salad!

Your Momma Dresses You Funny...

These pictures are from May of 2011, back when the girls were about 2 1/2 years old.
They liked to pick their clothes -- and we let them, unless we were going somewhere other than to Miss Kelli's daycare.  This was when they would wear dresses over pajamas, or over play clothes, or instead of play clothes -- you never knew what combination they'd pick.  Like a gingham dress over some brightly colored stripped pants.

Kayla

Pajamas rarely matched.

Kayla and Megan

We became accustomed to seeing odd looking attire around the house.
But what was surprising was the time we came home from a date night.  Grandma Ruth Bingham watched the girls for us.  They were asleep in bed when we got home, but Grandma apparently had been corrupted by the girls' unusual fashion sense.

Grandma Ruth Bingham

After talking to her for a few moments, I finally had to ask her what she had done to her hair.  She quickly remembered that she still had stickers all over her head.  The girls had decorated her with stickers when they were awake -- and many remained atop her head.

Be careful around our house -- you never know what fashion trends you may unknowingly pick up!

December 2012 - Kansas City Trip

My mother, Kayla, Megan and I went to Kansas City for a weekend.  Things had been pretty hectic for us all lately with work and health issues, so we decided an all-girls vacation would be fun.  Mike made plans for a wife-free/kid-free weekend and Mom and I made plans.

Mike dropped the girls off at daycare on his way to work, and I packed for the girls and I.  I picked up mom a little later, and we surprised the girls at Miss Kelli's house.  They were so surprised!  Now, we hadn't told them we were taking them to KC, but they've brought it up over and over, ever since last May, when Mike and I took them there.  They even remember the Vogts Family Christmas that we took them to, asking to go to "Granny's Kansas City House".  They didn't quite understand that it was Mike's Aunt's house, and that Granny was just visiting, too.

We asked them where they wanted to go that was special.  Megan came up with "The Toy Store!"  when we said we were going to Kansas City, she was upset!  Kayla was excited, but Megan really wanted to go to a toy store.  So I said we could go to one in Kansas City.


We visited one of my mother's friends from when she lived in Arkansas.  She has a beautiful home! Of course it wasn't child-proof, and I had to keep a close eye on Megan and Kayla.  They were very good, but very inquisitive.  Megan really wanted to paint in her painting room, and didn't understand why we wouldn't let her.  I'd brought a new puzzle with us to play with, so that helped distract them.  The talking scale in the bathroom was great fun, too!

We took the girls out to dinner and the Cheesecake Factory, and then went to Toys R Us.  The girls had a ball!  I made them ride in the cart, though, to keep it somewhat contained.

The girls loved sleeping in the "big bed" at the hotel.  We had a 2-story suite, and let the girls sleep in the king sized bed in the loft.  They did very well!  Mom and I stayed up later, and I sneaked into bed with the girls after they were asleep.   The first night I slept next to Kayla.  The next evening, though, Megan told me, "When you go to bed Mommy, I want you to sleep where you belong."  I asked where that was, and she informed me, "next to me!"  Kayla argued, so they decided that I needed to sleep in the middle, beside both of them.  I slept next to Megan, and in the morning, she told me, "you didn't sleep where you were supposed to, Mommy!"

We took the girls to Build a Bear.  They each picked out several different animals before they both ended up picking the exact same bear.

Kayla, stuffing her bear

Kayla, preparing her bear's heart

Megan, stuffing her bear

Megan, preparing her bear's heart

They really have the routine down -- letting the kids help stuff the bear, preparing the heart by doing things like "rub it on your head so it's really smart like you", etc.  

Then the girls went picking out clothes.  It's funny --- although we encouraged them to choose independently, they both picked the exact same dress, shoes, and panties.  (Yes, bears wear those, didn't think they were bare bears, did you?)

They did pick different sound inserts, though.  Megan picked one that sings Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer.  Kayla picked one that sings a birthday song.

 Megan, getting some help from Anna

Kayla, getting some help from Grandma

 

 Kayla, "bathing" her bear

Megan and Kayla, registering their bears

They put an ID number inside the bear that's registered to them.  That way, if it gets lost and someone turns it in, it can be returned to the owner.

Megan with her bear

Kayla with her bear

As we were leaving the store, I tried to go right, toward the mall exit, but Kayla pulled to the left. "Mommy," she said, "wait, I see something!"  I looked to the left, but only saw a colorful display of ipod speakers on a kiosk.  "What do you think you see, Kayla?"   "I see a pony ride, Mommy!" she said.  I took a couple steps to the left, and sure enough -- a double-decker carousel ride was in the mall. So of course, we had to ride it. Twice.

  Megan

  Kayla

 Kayla

  Megan

 That evening at the hotel, the girls tucked their bears into bed while they played.

The next day we did a lot of shopping. In one of the malls, they had a miniature merry-go-round, so we had to ride that one, too.  It just didn't compare.

 Megan

Kayla

All in all it was a fun weekend.  The girls didn't want to go home, but between all the luggage I'd packed and all the shopping we did, we had to or we wouldn't have had room for us in the car!

August/September 2012 Flashback

Kayla, Megan

The girls spent the night at Granny and Grandpa's house for the weekend.  The last night, their cousins stayed over and they all "camped out" together in the basement with Granny!

The girls both get excited about make-up.  At almost-4, it's way too early for mommy!  Grandma gave the girls some Disney Princess Chapstick, which they both applied liberally.

 Kayla, Megan (and Loki)

  Kayla

Megan

June 2012 FlashBack

This summer the girls were big enough to go over to Grandma's and play.  (Grandma lives in the house behind ours so we can watch them walk through the yards.)

Grandma let them play in the sprinkler.  And not always in bathing suits.  They loved it!

Playing with Cousin Nathan!

Megan, Kayla and Nathan

"Helping" Mommy with dishes...

Kayla

Tea for you and me and a couple of Barbie dolls.

April 2012 Flashback

The girls love dresses. They went through a phase where they only wanted to wear dresses!  Most of the time we indulged them.  They would often go through several dresses in a day, just because they felt like changing.  As I write this, it's December 2012, and they still love dresses -- but the passion has faded a bit.  They still like to change clothes though -- Kayla more than Megan.
They come up with some wild outfits.  Megan has sweat pants on under her dress.  Not so bad...

Megan

Kayla has pants on, and socks and shoes.  She hasn't quite got that matching clothes skill mastered yet....Those are Mickey Mouse socks with her Hello Kitty dress.

Kayla

Kayla

This is how I found Kayla in bed.  She was sound asleep, half on, half off of her bed. How she slept that way I'll never know!

Kayla

The girls got their first big girl bikes!  The first helmets we got were too big.  The girls had fun with them though!

Kayla

Megan, Kayla - Unicorns doing headstands? Or were they that top-heavy?

 We did get them some properly sized helmets, and are saving the unicorn ones for when they're a little bigger.

My mother does not like this picture.  It shows how they learned to make funny faces! But I had to put the disclaimer in, as I know my mother will see this and ask me why on earth I would post that picture when there are so many other pictures with cute smiling faces.  Hi, Mom : )

 Megan, Kayla

They ride their bikes at Grandma's house, which is right behind ours.  Her driveway is flatter and more spacious -- and there aren't as many other kids around to interfere with them.  Our court has a lot of little kids and the cul de sac becomes a playground.  We don't let the girls play in the street unless one of us is in the street with them, letting them ride their bikes.  They know to stop at the end of the driveway.

November 2011 FlashBack

Kayla is a real helper.  She wanted to set the table.  So she found a "fork" (a Trio Block piece) and a "plate" (a Dora game card).
She proceeded to set the entire table that way.

Megan, on the other hand, was Miss Independent.  She was going somewhere with mommy's lap top bag, and quite proudly! She picked some interesting jammies that evening, too.

 Megan

 Megan and Kayla and "Red Teddy"

Kayla really took a liking to "Red Teddy".  He never had any name more than that, but she was quite attached to him for quite a while.  Every night she had to take him to bed.

He had a mechanism inside to make him talk in response to sounds -- but we had him turned off.

She didn't know he talked until one night he got switched on.

Megan, Kayla, Penni and Grandma

Grandma and her dog, Penni, come over to visit.  The girls like Penni, and she's very good with them!

Right before Thanksgiving, one of the local stations showed the cartoon, Elf On a Shelf.  Grandma had given us the book, so we got into our jammies and went over to Grandma's house to watch it.

 The next day, "Chilly" the elf came to visit!  The girls were so excited to find him!

Every once in a while they will ask about him, and it's been almost 8 months since he last visited on Christmas Eve.  They kept forgetting his name, and called him Pinochio. 
Except Megan can't pronounce it, and calls him "Nokio".
He'll come back again around Thanksgiving this year, I'm sure.