Thursday, August 27, 2009

What Would It Be Like To Have Twins?

Natalia and I went on this last trip to Tahoe with the Lyons Family. Courtney and Danielle had a wedding to go to in South Shore and I said I would watch Ava while they were partying like rock stars. The girls and I started off our afternoon with a trip to the meadow


It really is such a fabulous place. Tons of things to look at - birds, butterflies, dragonflies, flowers, etc. Lots of space to run, and plenty of fresh air. The boardwalk also provided a perfect little bench for the girls to have a snack.




I had promised them that they could touch the COLD water in the brook on our way back to the car. Ava wanted to climb all over the rocks, while Natalia wanted to scoop up the sandy bottom. (I think I will feel a lot better about trips to the brook once the girls can swim and are big enough to rock climb without help. There is something about freezing cold water and jagged rocks that is so magnetic to those two, and knowing that I don't have to have a hand on them at all times will be so nice!)



The only way I was able to get them in the car was to promise that we would make play-dough when we got home. Now I have never made play-dough in my life. Thank goodness for my Blackberry. I downloaded a recipe for easy play-dough, pulled out two bowls, stripped down the girls, and put everything on the island.

The play-dough experiment started off a bit rocky. The recipe said 1 C water and 1 C flour with some salt and oil and cream of tarter thrown in. Maybe I didn't read all the directions. Maybe I was supposed to cook it on the stove, or put it in the microwave, or bake it, but let me tell you something. 1C of water and 1 C of flour do not play-dough make. A gooey, sticky, gloppy mess? Yes! Nice, moldable play-dough? NO!!!

"Sticky...Sticky...Stickly!!!" The consistency of the stuff almost broke Ava. She DOES NOT like to get messy. Sticky things are no fun for her. So having goopy, messy, flour stuck to her fingers was about the worst thing that could have happened. Uh-oh. I quickly washed off her hands and gave her a spoon. The world was once again all right.

Natalia on the other hand got the stuff ALL OVER. She plunged her hands in, wiped it on her legs, her belly, her face. It was like she was trying to give herself a play-dough wrap. Spa day for 2 year olds.

While spa day was a great idea, we did need some play-dough. So I just started mixing more flour in. Then a little more salt and cream of tarter. The some more oil. The some more water. I really have no idea how much I put in, but we ended up with a HUGE amount of the stuff. Natalia wanted hers blue, Ava wanted yellow, and then they mixed some up and made green.

As you can see, Natalia helped me mix the blue food coloring into the play-dough.

After we had all the fun one can have with play-dough (after Natalia started trying to eat it) we decided to take a bath. Those girls do love their water!!! We got all the sticky stuff off, bundled up into our pajamas

And headed to bed.


Good day!

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

We Have Contact


So you may have thought that Natalia and I fell off the face of the earth. In a way it is true. We have been traveling, and starting businesses, and getting ready to start preschool. Lots of work for two girls. But now we are back.
We recently returned home from a trip up to our cabin in Tahoe. Natalia got to spend lots of time outside in the meadow close to our house.
It used to just have dirt paths, but there is now a wonderful boardwalk that winds through it.


What a happy girl she is!