The latest and the greatest! They're just too cute for words. They still insist on choosing their own clothes...which usually work out...but I've got to hide Ava's 18-24 month "just peachy" shirt! As you can see it's a bit small on her!

I also need to buy them new corduroys for next year!! Holy holey knees, Batman!!

The latest...

My apologies for not updating in a long, long time...Here are some of the most recent pics :o)

Not much is new, which sometimes is a good thing. Sofia & Ava are just very fun and normal 4 1/2 year olds. They love going to preschool & we are also working on speech & articulation with a different teacher and that is actually going pretty well. They have some kind of "twin twang" going on and it's very cute, but it makes it difficult to understand them sometimes. The sound we're working on now is saying "clown" instead of "claayyowwn" or "ow" instead of "aaayyowch." The next thing we'll work on is saying "f" instead of "epp." Fun fun fun!

Cloppers...

Fun inside the tent...

Fun at the beach with Bella and on the swings...

New dining room corner...

Fun at Hammonassett...

Fun coloring Easter eggs with Ethan...

And that's all folks!

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...

As promised...

Pictures of Christmas Tree Removal (& our conversation as we got the tree out of the house...)


Let's just push the tree out the window so we don't track needles all the way through the house! Great idea!



Mo-mmmmy... I knocked over the watering can..

That's okay -

Xavier will help clean it up...

But the tree appears to be stuck...Daddy's not going to liiiike this...





That's okay, we'll push it out!!





In the end, we did get the tree out of the house...and that's really all that matters!