And now back to our regularly scheduled subjects...

Ava & Sofia received a belated Christmas gift from their Aunt Mary & Uncle Gregg & Cousin Jack. They absolutely LOVE it. They love it so much that they used it non-stop for days & I finally had to give it a time-out on top of the refrigerator. They are usually very good at taking turns and sharing (it's a necessity when you're a twin) but their patience started wearing thin with this present...


So what is this wonderful out-0f-sight present?! Drumroll please...A digital camera!!! Most of the pictures they took were of their "friends" (stuffed animals) and of each other (well, most of each other...note the foot in the picture above...) and for some unknown reason I found many pictures of our dog's derriere (which I have kindly left out of this montage...).


On another note, having a Chef as the "Patriarch" of the family usually means celebrating holidays & occasions on a day other than the actual day - It took some getting used to at first, but now it's old hat. The girls & I had fun making Daddy a Valentine's Day cake after Valentine's Day and here is the masterpiece! That's the Chef's arm...

A flashback of a moment in time...

So here's a moment in time from the 1980's...How many of you can find me?!

And tell me what I'm thinking...
And what the girl on the bottom left is thinking...


Hey - don't make too much fun of me. I bet you all have pictures like this.

And, by the way...when you play right field in elementary school girls' softball you don't get much action way out there, so corduroys & a sweater are perfectly acceptable attire.

Now, what can I get my girls involved in now so that they can be hideously embarrassed by photographs in 20 years just like me...?

Last week, out of the blue, the girls asked if we could go bowling! We had been bowling before with Zack and Sarah, but that was a while ago. They asked so nicely that I decided to bring them. So, we went over to the local bowling alley & had a really fun time! They really like to bowl...And they like the shoes, too.

Even though Sofia won't eat bananas right out of the peel, she will eat bananas if they're baked in bread with chocolate chips...So...I pulled out our favorite Banana Bread recipe (written on Jennifer's 1996 atm receipt...holy smokes, that was 12 years ago...POW...sometimes the passage of times just socks me in the face...)

and I pulled out the secret ingredient...

And we got all the other ingredients and started baking!

And after a little fun and a big mess:

YUMM - O - LICIOUS!!

And then, less than 24 hours later:

I think we need to start doing double or triple batches...

Quick update...

We did a lot last month! We still take Bella for walks to the park & playground....unless is less than 30 degrees out. Sorry Bella, but that's just too cold for the girls...
We also got to go the the children's museum which was a lot of fun. They love being veterinarians & they love playing on the pirate ship (Ava is hoisting the sail & Sofia is making a sharp turn on the wheel...)

And of course there was another snowstorm. One of our neighbors came over to play & once again, Sofia worked so hard she had to take a rest in the snow...