Style

These girls crack me up.  They have their own definite sense of style and certain clothes that they mostly keep for themselves.  See that black and white striped skirt that Maddie is wearing?  Well, we have two and Maddie alternates them so she can wear that skirt 3-4 times a week right now.  For a little while Annie and Maddie were both wanting to wear that skirt which once belonged to Elizabeth.  When I was shopping at Target for their birthday I happened to see that they were making the same one we had already, so I grabbed another so Annie and Maddie could each have one.  That hasn't worked out so well because Maddie is wearing them both.  But it works out because we have two pairs of the jeggings that Annie loves to wear, and one had been intended for Maddie.

                                                

Cookie Dough

There are times I think we are making progress in treating our family with kindness, and other times I think we've made absolutely none.  Tonight when we were making chocolate chip cookies, Ryan took the beater off the KitchenAid mixer and offered it to Annie and Maddie.  Maddie was in the kitchen, and Annie was slightly further away in the family room.  Maddie was to Dad in about a step and a half and declared, "Annie doesn't like chocolate chip cookies," while grabbing the beater in her greedy little hands.  Annie was in hearing range and was outraged, "I do too like cookies!"

Anything I've ever said about my twins looking out for each other is a lie.  They are happy to throw each other under a bus if it means getting cookie dough.

Last of the fall soccer

Our last soccer game was supposed to be last Saturday, but it was rained out.  The games that were at 9 am still played, but it was pretty sloppy by 10:30.  So we rescheduled for the following Thursday.  Someone was supposed to get a referee, but by 10 minutes past starting time no ref had showed up.  So the opposing team coach refereed the game.  We needed to get started because the sun was fading fast.

As the game progressed, I noticed fog? mist? was starting to come in.  I had to take a picture of it behind the kids.

 Then I noticed that we were in for a spectacular sunset.  Be warned, I took a lot of pictures.

 The fog was surrounding us.

I got the soccer ball in the air:

 The kids probably thought I was taking pictures of the playing.  But the sky was a pretty amazing backdrop to the brutal game.  All of our team got kicked hard at some point in the game.  At least Annie and Maddie held it together better than some.

 That sky though...

 Made it to half time!

 Half time pep talk with Coach Michelle

 By the end of the game it was pretty hard to see.  There were small girls out there, but I couldn't always see where the ball was.

 Taking an end of the season team picture in the fog in the dark isn't the easiest thing to do.

We made it!  Go team Sunnyside!

Class Picture Day

You know that mom who lets their child go to school on picture day wearing some strange outfits because the child thinks she looks nice?  That would be me.  I don't know what to say about Maddie's outfit this year.  She picked out her whole outfit very carefully and thinks she looks great. 

How can I say otherwise?

Annie is wearing the same jean jacket she wore for individual pictures in the fall.  She loves that thing.  She also loves that shirt, jeans, and pair of boots.  They are on constant replay.  It was supposed to be a matching twin outfit, so she can wear that outfit twice as often.  

Twinsies

One of the joys of having twins is having two toothless smiles at the same time.

Twins Party

Annie was feeling better this morning.  Annie and Maddie wore their new matching outfits from Grandma and Grandpa to school.  I came in this afternoon for a combined class party.  Annie and Maddie aren't the first set of twins with the same teacher combination to have a birthday, and those twins set a precedent.  We never go quite as big as other families, and this year was no different.  We took cookies and juice and that was it!

Last Game

Whew.  We made it to the end of fall soccer season.  Between volleyball and soccer, we've been hopping.  It's just our luck that both sports teams play on the same night.  It made it a little tricky last week with Ryan out of town, and both Emma and the twins had away games.  I had to get someone else to pick Emma up when she got back to town and take her home because it was just not going to work otherwise.

We are missing two of the girls in these photos.  They just hadn't arrived yet.

 Even our coach showed up for this game...

Soccer has been good for the twins.  Even Maddie was showing some major improvement in her interest and ability these last couple of games.  At the beginning of the season, she was happy to watch the ball go from one end of the field to the other from wherever she was.  I'm not saying we'll ever be good, but at least she was chasing the soccer ball and trying to kick it.

All I Want For Christmas

Both of Annie's top front teeth have fallen out.  It's so stinkin' cute.  There's just something so 1st grade about the lost front teeth look.  As we are approaching the Christmas season, I had both Annie and Maddie sing the "All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth" song for me so I could record them in all of their sweet perfection.  Annie is up first.

Maddie hasn't lost her two front teeth yet, but she does have one that is pretty loose and hanging crookedly.

All three of us together for the finale.  

I think all I want for Christmas is for these girls to stay this way.  I love them so.

Ice Cream

I told the girls they could have *one* spoonful of ice cream.

Silly Girls

Annie and Maddie continue to keep life interesting.  This is Maddie getting out of her shower to use the toilet.  Because even when Mom reminds you to go potty before your shower, sometimes you still forget.  Maddie was well covered from the coldness of the bathroom.

 Annie lost another tooth.  This is the face she made when I told her smile for the camera.

Twinsies

Remember when Annie and Maddie would get so upset when one was mistaken for her twin?  Now they try to confuse people.

Hand Me Down Clothes

My kids get so excited when another bag of hand-me-down clothing comes home with Daddy.  There is a lady with twin girls a couple of years older than my twins at the school where Ryan works, and they've been so kind in sharing their clothes when they are outgrown.  Annie and Maddie had a fashion show with their new threads.

New Skills

Learning new skills is exciting, and kindergarten is a great time for that.  Annie and Maddie's latest accomplishment is shoe tying.  Today I wasn't even allowed to tie my own shoes, because a couple of little somebodies like to practice.

Kindergarten

Today when the kids got off the bus, Annie had her hands in her coat pockets.  I didn't think much about it until Maddie said Annie's hand were messy while we were walking to the house.  I gave her a funny look, and Annie took her hands out of her pockets.  They were blue.  And by blue, I mean really, really blue.

 I asked her what happened to her hands.  She informed me that her teacher did that to her hands.  "Like for a project?" I inquired.  She nodded.  So I asked how come her hands didn't get washed before she came home?

"There wasn't time."

That does not sound like her teacher.  Her teacher is a stickler for clean, organized, and following the rules.

While I was scrubbing Annie's hands with dish soap (hand soap was not doing justice to this mess) and a wash cloth, I was pressing her for more details about this supposed art project.  Maddie came in and said that Annie colored her hands on the bus.  Annie vehemently denied this.

Evidence in Annie's backpack corroborated Maddie's story.  That's when Annie knew the truth was out, felt embarrassed and cried.  Since the marker was not particularly washable, Annie's hands were blue all evening, and she was really touchy about any mention of the episode.  She was quite upset with me for sharing the above picture with her grandparents.

On the upside, Maddie is the only one of my kids to regularly give me love notes.  I love them.

"I love you cos (because) you are nis (nice) and you are cid (kind) you are o so nis (nice)."

100 Days Smarter

Kindergarten is the best.  Annie and Maddie tell me they know everything already, which has been mostly true.  Their reading is coming along nicely, and Annie did so well reading her talk in Primary on Sunday.  We went over her talk several times Saturday evening, and once Sunday morning (I of course forgetting to write the thing until Saturday after dinner....).  The twins read me those little paper books they bring home from school, and they have a great attention span for read aloud books.  We've finished Old Yeller, a junior version of The Secret Garden, and we are now into The Magician's Nephew from the Narnia series.  We usually have an audio book of one kind or another playing in the car, and they are always asking for it to be turn on when we are in the car.  There is no shortage of words being spoken around here.  Seriously.

Last night Annie and Maddie brought home a little note from the school saying for the 100th day of school, the kids could dress up like they were 100 years old.  As I was not given a lot of time to come up with something, the girls were sent to school with "shawls" and buns in their hair.

 Annie has her shoes on, and Maddie hadn't gotten that far in her school preparations.  There isn't that much of a height difference between the two.

 This is their "old lady" faces.

I guess being 100 days smarter does funny things to your face.

Bed Time

Annie and Maddie haven't really used their bunk beds.  I don't think anyone has slept on the top bunk in ages.  Maddie kept a box of her preschool books up on the top bunk, and there were toys and other junk up there.  Annie and Maddie are still kind of wild sleepers, and we found them in some odd positions, like this one with Annie using Maddie's bum for a pillow.

I had this idea.  We could trade some of the beds in our house.  We could bring up the full sized bed that was in the guest room (I think one person has used it in the last year), and Annie and Maddie could use that.  I just had to convince Ryan.  I mean, I would have done it myself while Ryan was gone, but those bunk beds are horribly heavy, and someone or something would get hurt in the process.  Ryan said he would help when he got home.

Well, this is what we saw of Ryan:

 We got up at 9:30 am, had breakfast, and then Ryan crashed on the couch.  He got up for lunch, afterwards went upstairs to check his phone, and no one heard from him again for a couple of hours.  He did manage to stay awake long enough to come with us to the bread and soup social at the church in the evening.

After the social, Ryan helped me take down the bunk beds and bring up our old double bed.

Annie and Maddie were stoked.  The love their "new" bed.  We might as well embrace their need for closeness.  It hasn't changed as long as they've been out of their cribs.

No Longer Quite So Identical

Annie lost her first tooth at church last Sunday.  She was so confident that she was going to lose her tooth at church that she insisted that we bring a plastic baggie with us to church.  (This only confirms her opinion that she knows everything.  I have raised some very uh, confident girls.)  Annie came and visited me in nursery to hand me her tooth, and show off her smile.

Then today I took Maddie to the optometrist today.  She was given a referral from her school vision screening, and so I took her to get her eyes checked.  It turns out, she needs glasses.

One more way it will be easier to tell Annie and Maddie apart now.

Sniff.

Graffiti

We actually have quite a lot of paper here at home.  In spite of this fact, I find writing on the strangest of surfaces.

There's this story we like to tell guests.  Once upon a time, Emma learned how to write her name.  The little darling was about 4-years-old.  One day she found a Sharpie and scrawled her name in bold letters across Elizabeth's naked chest.  Then she proceeded to tell me how Elizabeth had done it to herself, but being the smart parent that I am, I knew it had really been Emma's doing.

I think someone was trying to throw me off the scent.  Those twins of mine are pretty smart cookies.  It's a shame it doesn't actually look like Emma's handwriting.

Annie and Maddie turn 6

Something happened over night.  Suddenly my two 5-year-olds became 6-year-olds.  Annie and Maddie have been counting down for the past month or so.  They knew that Halloween was coming, and that their birthdays are "three days after Halloween."  They told everyone.  We had lots of opportunities for math.  "What's 7 days plus three more days?"

The girls went to school very excited for their birthdays.  Our district does not allow home baked goods, so they took Oreos to school to share.  

As it turns out, Annie's teacher totally forgot Annie's birthday.  Annie was very perturbed over this.  It was all she could talk about when she got home for a while.  (We had to wait until Dad got home before opening presents.)

Luckily, the girls got some birthday wishes over the phone while they were waiting.

Present time!

 Annie and Maddie were quite excited over their Elsa and Anna dolls.

After a dinner of crepes, it was cake time.

 I think Annie and Maddie were attempting to mimic their cupcake smash from birthday numero uno.

Happy birthday, my girlies.