The power of two

Having two little girls around the house now can be quite powerful. Twice the energy, twice the volume, twice the smiles and laughs ...


... and then of course twice the tantrums and twice the germ exposure :)

Thanks to the start of the fall activities and the subsequent introduction of new germs into our weekly routine, we're battling colds. Thankfully, it's been mild and short-lived, but still. I'm finally coming to terms with the fact that if we're going to do things like go to story time, playgroups, museums, etc. then we're just going to end up with colds. Oh, well. After the bad one this summer, I feel like we can measure our colds on a different scale.

One of the experiences last week that might have caused these lovely colds was a day trip to the National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium in Dubuque, Iowa, with a neighbor and her two boys. Picture this ... four kids ranging from 2 months to 3 years in the van for an hour and half each way plus a few hours exploring the indoor and outdoor exhibits. All in all, I'd call it a success and Anna is still talking about some of the exhibits, including the big fish, sharks, and sting rays that were in the huge tanks.

Another activity that could have caused these colds might have been the first Kindermusik class of the semester. Now that Anna is older, she attends most of the class by herself, with Kate and I only making an appearance at the beginning and at the end. She seems to be enjoying it, but I think I'm having a harder time adjusting, especially since "music class" had always been a special activity that Anna and I did together.

We also did a few afternoon activities last week that might have caused these colds, including a trip to the Madison Children's Museum one afternoon. I'm definitely going to remember that it is much less crowded (and thus much more fun) in the afternoons!

By Friday morning, Kate had a runny nose ... just in time for my parents and brother to come for the evening and Saturday morning. Oh, well. The girls had a great time, especially with Uncle Adam, who they don't get to see very often. Saturday morning we all loaded up in the van and drove downtown for the Farmer's Market and to visit the Capitol (Anna was SO excited to show it off).

Anna is still very much in the "why" stage, as my parents and brother discovered. Of course, they thought it was hilarious, but I'm ready for it to be done. Kate has actually picked up on it, too, and if Anna doesn't pipe in right away with a "why", then Kate will say "why", without quite understanding what it means. Sometimes I long for silence :)

Although I must admit that the bus game we play in the van now is pretty entertaining. Kate likes to identify any kind of bus she sees and will usually say "too bus, Too Bus, TOO BUS, TOO BUS!" (kicking and waving her arms at the same time, this kid has bottomless energy) until either Anna or I acknowledge that she has accurately identified the school bus, or we say "No, Kate, that's a city bus." Then Kate says "ci-tee bus". After having Kate do this several times, Anna tries to get me to laugh by saying "Mommy, school bus, school bus" and pointing at random things until I say "No, Anna, that's a car/truck/building/whatever-she's-pointing-at".

Anyway, I digress ... after my family left and the girls napped, we headed to a birthday party for a friend (turning 4) and her dad (turning 40). It was a great evening filled with good food, good company, and a special birthday performance by David Landau! Anna was thrilled and couldn't wait to dance. (If you could really see her expression in this photo, you'd understand just how excited she was.) Although by the end of the night, she proclaimed that Pastor (who was also there) was more fun to play with than Dave Landau :)

Whew! It feels like time is just speeding up, just when I'd really like it to slow down a bit.

Fall activities begin!

Last week was the offical start of many of our school-year activities ... hooray! We had story time on Tuesday, a new playgroup in McFarland on Wednesday and Bible Study on Thursday. These activities, along with Kindermusik for Anna, will be our weekly regiment for the next several months ;) I think Anna enjoyed all of these activities, with story time as her favorite. Kate, on the other hand, has had a lot of Mommy time this summer and it will probably take a little while for her to adjust to all of the new places/people/stuff. Bible Study morning was not a happy time for her; she didn't agree with Mommy leaving her in the nursery and ended up spending most of the time on my lap. Oh well, I've got a plan for the next few weeks and hopefully we'll get out of this phase soon.

The best part, for me, of our activities starting last week was that the afternoons were our "free time". So instead of simply waiting and biding our time until Matt got home, we were out and about doing things. On Tuesday afternoon we went to a local vineyard to pick some grapes for more grape juice. We'd already made some grape juice from the grapes in our yard, but when the girls finished off the first quart in about 24 hours ... AFTER me having watered down the juice ... I decided we needed more.

On Wednesday afternoon we went for a hike at the nearby state park, which was LOADS of fun. Granted, the 1.2 mile hike took us over an hour, but the girls had a great time. We went on a nature trail so Anna got a kick out of finding the next sign to read and then, by the end, telling me it was her turn to teach me things. Kate's favorite part, I think, was finding walnuts all over the place, picking them up, and then sticking her finger into the squishy part. They both enjoyed playing "red light, green light" down the path together, too. I've been trying to take mental pictures from time to time of these moments, because I know they are fleeting. Seeing them run down the trail together smiling and laughing ahead of me is one of those pictures I'll hold onto :)

On Thursday afternoon we went to the zoo and then on Friday morning we met some friends at a petting zoo/farm and then just hung out around home in the afternoon.

Busy days, but all of it fun.

We're (okay, it's mostly me) trying to start a Sunday evening tradition of watching the Packers game together while we eat dinner. Since most of their games are at noon, we've taken to recording them and then watching them later. The first week things didn't work out quite so well, but this past week was great. After the initial excitement wore off for the girls, they just played around in the basement for the rest of the game. Anna can fairly accurately identify Aaron Rogers now and when Kate first saw the game, she looked at me and said "running!", one of her favorite things to do.

Here's the results of our attempts at pictures before church on Sunday (and yes, Kate wore a Packers outfit to church; that kind of thing is okay in Wisconsin). We especially like the "Anna tickling Kate" pose :)

The "make-up" trip to Augusta

Back in July I had planned a trip up to see my parents with the girls, but then we all got sick and had to cancel. So this past week was our "make-up" trip :)

All in all, it was a great visit, with the only trouble being that Anna got up WAY too early both mornings. At least that meant that I got to have a really, really quiet trip home on Friday afternoon; Anna slept almost the whole way!

Some of the girls' hightlights from the trip included hikes in the woods with Grandpa, a wagon ride behind Grandpa's tractor, both girls getting a chance to drive the tractor, a boat ride on a beautiful afternoon, a campfire, and kayaking with Grandma on Friday morning. My main highlight was not having any food preparation/clean up responsibilities ;) That and being able to hang out with my parents, of course!

Fall begins!

A few weeks back we went from summer weather to fall weather in about 36 hours. Seriously ... on Monday and Tuesday the highs were in the 80s and by Thursday and Friday the highs were in the 60s. Crazy, right?

The first week of school in our house passed once again with the only noticable change being that we now see the school bus go by in the morning and afternoon. It's kind of nice that once again neither Mommy nor daughters need to worry about school schedules :)

The day that school started here, we went to the new Madison Children's Museum, thinking that it wouldn't be as busy as it had been in the prior few weeks. We were right that it wasn't quite as busy, but it was pretty crowded nonetheless. Still, it's a great place to visit and I'm sure we'll be heading that way again this fall and winter :) The only problem is that the girls are practically guaranteed to catch something whenever we visit; there's just too many people/kids who go through on a daily basis for us NOT to be exposed to unknown germs. Oh, well. This time the cold was pretty mild.

We also made a trip over to Milwaukee to visit Gretchen and Josh one more time before their baby comes. Everyone did well with the traveling and it was really nice to be able to visit with Gretchen again.

Labor Day weekend was low key in our house, especially since both girls were still working through the MCM cold. The highlight for me was probably my birthday (31 ... ahh!). My brother surprised me with flowers and chocolate (yum!) and then Matt and the girls got me flowers and balloons. Anna and Matt also made me my birthday muffin and hid some 31s for me in the afternoon (that I just finished finding!). The highlight of the day, though, was probably my trip up to the Dells to go shopping and have lunch with my mom; several hours of being kid-free was really nice :) The lowlight was the fact that Anna had some pretty rough sleeping troubles the previous night and we both had very little sleep that night :(

In the midst of all of this, Kate has been entertaining us a lot. A few weeks back she said something that sounded like "I'll bite you!"; Matt thought it was hilarious and so she kept saying it to get him to laugh. This girl will do just about anything for a laugh. Anyway, I figured that if she could say "I'll bite you", she should be able to say "I love you." So whenever she would say "I'll bite you", I would try to change the topic to "I love you". She picked up on the phrase pretty quickly, but then got the two connected in her mind so that if we told her "I love you", she'd respond with "I'll bite you". Silly girl. Now we're a little past that and she'll say "I yuv oo" on her own :)

I haven't ever uploaded a video so we'll see how this one goes. It's from a week ago or so and when Matt and I looked at it today, we realized that she's already different from when it was taken. It's amazing how much Kate is changing and learning in such a short time!