Let It Snow!

It's snowing!!!  We actually had snow in Charlotte!  Ok, so it was our typical kind of snow in that it isn't the really good powdery stuff, but it was snow nonetheless.  The kids didn't care that the snow had some sleet and freezing rain mixed it.  While it wasn't the kind of snow you can pack and make a good snow man out of, it was the kind of snow you could sled in. 

Dylan woke up Saturday morning and could not wait to go outside and play in the snow.  Since we aren't really prepared with snow gear here, we had to try to find gloves, mittens, boots of some sort, and the warmest clothes to layer under our coats.  Getting the kids ready to go outside was quite a task in and of itself with all the layers and such. 

Dylan jumped right into the snow and was trying to make snow angels, snow balls or whatever he could.  Zoe wasn't quite sure what she thought of the snow at first.  As usual, it took Zoe just a little bit to warm up to something new, but once she did she was ready to go! 

Thankfully some of our neighbors have family in Virginia and are more prepared for the snow due to their visits home.  So we were able to borrow a few sleds which were a huge hit with both Dylan and Zoe.  Dylan was much more of the daredevil like his Daddy while Zoe was a little more conservative.  Dylan was looking for the biggest hills he could find to sled down.  He wiped out a few times and while it may have scared him a bit, as well as it scared me, within a few seconds he would start screaming "Again!  Again!" 

When it was time to come inside, because the kids were getting pretty wet, Dylan was ready for some hot chocolate.  So now every time he goes out to play in the snow, we have to come inside and have some hot chocolate and sit by the fire.  While I love playing with the kids in the snow, I must admit my favorite part is afterwards.  I love sipping hot chocolate by the fire with David and the kids while looking out our big window at the snow outside. 

Build A Bear

This weekend we decided we would take the kids to Build A Bear for the first time.  The kids have walked by the store in the mall a hundred times because it is conveniently located right beside the kids play area.  The last several times I've taken the kids to the play area, Zoe has walked out of it and headed directly into the Build A Bear store.  She's even picked out a bear.  So despite we were questioning if the kids were old enough to truly enjoy the Build A Bear experience, we took them.  During our time there we definitely came to the conclusion that we would have likely been better off to wait another year.  Despite a little bit of chaos, it was worth it though.

We were expecting the experience to be a little more guided so we had to ask lots of questions, but all worked well since the kids are really more into going at their own pace anyway.  The kids were able to pick out their very own bear.  Zoe picked the same bear that she had picked the other two times she has wandered into the store.  It was a tan and cream color bear.  Dylan picked a black bear.  Then it was time to go have the "fluff" as Dylan calls it put into the bears.  Dylan and Zoe each picked out a little heart to go inside of their bears before the associate sewed them up.  Picking the heart, kissing it, and sticking it inside the bear seemed to be one of Dylan's favorite parts.  It was hard to get him to move on to the next step in the process until he realized it was giving his bear a bath.  Both kids enjoyed pretending to bathe and groom their bears.  Once the bears were all good and clean, it was time to go pick out some outfits.  Dylan was actually pretty quick in picking out his bear's outfit.  He's been really into soccer here lately and so he picked out a soccer outfit that was complete with shin guards and a soccer ball.  Daddy helped Zoe pick out a cute dress and Mommy helped her pick out some matching shoes.  We dressed the bears and got them all ready to be taken home.  Before leaving you get a birth certificate for your bear and so the kids needed to come up with a name for thier bears.  This was a bit challenging so we ended up leaving the store with our new friends "Bear" and "Soccer Bear."  Dylan and Zoe both had to sleep with their bears and Zoe has carried hers around all day today.  We hope this will be a toy they both remain fond of for a long time.

Bathing the Bears

This was my attempt at taking pictures of their bears all dressed before checking out of the store.  I will have to try again.  Zoe nor Dylan were interested in pictures.

We Have a Talking Girl!

When I woke up this morning and started interacting with Zoe I had to ask myself "Where has my baby gone?"  Zoe is losing that baby look, thinning out, walking, dancing, and playing.  Zoe has a ton of words and now she is talking in short sentences! It seems like it all just happened suddenly!  As Dylan put it best "Mommy, we have a walking, talking girl!" 

Zoe came downstairs this morning and Dylan was already awake.  She was so excited to see him and she exclaimed "Hey DD!"  She can't quite say Dylan yet, but she remains consistent in calling him DD.  Then she went to the book basket in the play room and came up to me with a Little Bill book and said "read book."  And her favorite thing to say is "What is that?"  So we have spent most of the day answering Zoe's "What is that?" questions.  I'm sure at some point this question of hers will go from being really cute to a little overbearing at times.  So I'm going to try really hard to focus on the being cute part of this phase.

You just never know when something your kid does all the time will suddenly be the last time.  I know I may grow tired of hearing "What is that?" a million times a day, but I'm going to try to remember that one day she may not ask that question at all and I'll miss that.  I'm learning and reminding myself to savour the littlest moments and try to take time out and enjoy my kids as much as I can while they are still kids.  Each moment of each day is precious with them and I want to live it to the fullest! 

Zoe saying "cheese."

Zoe hurt her finger and showed it to me and said "It hurts."

Zoe pointing and asking "What is that?"

Zoe brought Daddy a book and said "Read book."

A Day of Discovery

This past weekend was the first weekend in three weeks that everyone in our household was well and we wanted to do a fun family outing.  Dylan fell in love with Discovery Place when we went several weeks ago and kept asking to go back and show Daddy the big museum.  So Saturday morning the four of us took off to spend some time at Discovery Place.

Disappointed that we didn't see the pirate exhibit last time, "Shipwreck: Pirates and Treasure", we made this our first priority.  We found the exhibit was more about undersea exploration of shipwrecks than pirates, but it was very interesting and kept the attention of the kids pretty well.  One of the neatest things that we experienced in this exhibit was standing in these glass hurricane tubes to experience winds up to 80mph - a category 1 hurricane.  We didn't allow Zoe to get in the hurricane tube but we allowed Dylan to go in with David.  Dylan was ready to get out when the winds hit about 45mph. 

Dylan and David coming out of the hurricane tube

Dylan enjoyed pretending to steer a boat through hurricane waters.

Dylan was interested in listening about some of the treasures that the exploration team had found

But of course Dylan's favorite thing was the pirate exhibit.  Here Dylan is posing with the pirates and pretending to be Pirate Dylan and saying "argh!"

We then moved on to the "Cool Stuff" exhibit which is where the kids and I had spent most of our time during our last visit.  This exhibit allows families to learn and  experience various physics concepts.  I'm not sure who had more fun in the exhibit - the kids or David.  Since both of us were there, we were able to allow the kids to both explore the exhibit on foot.  Pictures are worth 1000 words so I'll continue to use pictures to tell about our day.

Dylan and Zoe loved the Tennis Ball Launcher where you pulled the rope, let it go and made a tennis ball fly.  Zoe had a bit of hard time with sharing and taking turns though.

The Pulley Chairs were another favorite for both kids.  They had three different chairs that were used to show that the more times the rope was wrapped around the pulleys the easier you could lift yourself up.  Of course Dylan and Zoe both needed help from David and me to lift them up.

Dylan really enjoyed playing with different pulley systems to move gravel rocks around.  He and I stayed at this exhibit for at least thirty minutes.

Zoe's favorite exhibit was one that she created all on her own.  She swiped the cups off the exhibit and made herself comfortable on the floor.  So I plopped down on the floor in the middle of the exhibition hall with her for the next 20-30 minutes. 

Zoe  loved stacking and unstacking the cups and was having a great time.  Then she tried to pretend to drink out of one. 

This is Zoe's reaction when I told her "No! No! The cups are dirty and you can't put your mouth on them."   Zoe is quite the drama queen and tries to get her way with all this drama.

This is the look I got when she realized that she wasn't going to win this battle and I told her we would put the cups back if she put her mouth on them again.

We had a great day with just the four of us.  I love our family outings no matter where we go.  It's really nice when the kids and I get to do something along with Daddy. 

The Princess and the Robot

I have a passion for photography and I love photos and have tons on display throughout the house.  I have shown photos to the kids of family and friends since they were babies.  It's a great way to teach them who people are and I use photos especially to help them learn and stay connected with out of town family members.  So now it seems the kids love to look at photos and talk about them.  Dylan likes to point out his family in pictures and tell something about them.  He might point out his cousin Alec and say "That's Alec.  Alec has lots and lots of trains."  He will look at a picture of Grandma and Grandad and say "That's Grandad and Grandma.  They live in DE which is a long way from here."  He also likes to tell me about the pictures of him and say "This is a picture of me when I was a little baby like our baby (Zoe)."  It's always fun and interesting to hear his thoughts on the pictures.  We can spend quite a while looking at pictures and talking about them together. 

Today Dylan was looking at the pictures on the wall upstairs and he loves to look at our wedding pictures.  He always says "That's Mommy as a princess when she married Daddy."  or "Mommy, this is a picture of you as a princess."  The first time he said it I was shocked because I didn't even know that he knew anything about princesses.  Of course, every time he says it I think it's sweet and it makes me smile.  Today after he said the usual commment he told me and David that "I want to get married too!"  "And Zoe wants to get married and be a princess too!"  David asked Dylan "Who are you going to marry?"  Dylan pondered this question and put his index finger to his mouth and said "Hmm..."  Then after a few seconds he said "I'm not going to marry a princess.  I'm going to marry a robot!"  Dylan said it all so matter of factly and then he was done and ready to go play.  

It's so funny to see his thought processes and to see how fuzzy the lines are for him between fiction and reality.  I love the childhood innocence that he has and want to enjoy these precious moments.  I know all too soon Dylan will be talking to David and I about getting married and their will be some specific girl in mind.  I'm not ready for that!  So for now, I'll play along with the idea that he is going to marry a robot! 

Here are some of Dylan's favorite pictures of the four of us:

This is a picture of "Mommy as a princess when she married Daddy."

These are pictures of Dylan when he was a baby like our baby with Mommy and Daddy.

Left: Dylan isn't quite sure that this was really him as a baby.  I love this picture, but poor kid did have some hair issues for a few months.  Right:  This is our baby with a similar teddy bear.

Dylan says "This is our family with Daddy, Mommy, Dylan, Zoe and Renoir. 

We were on the bench outside in our playground." 

Like Brother, Like Sister

One of my favorite things about Dylan and Zoe at these ages are watching their little personalities develop and seeing the learning process take place. 

Dylan has a BIG love of life and brings the party with him wherever he goes.  One thing that we have really noticed in Dylan lately is that he thrives on being the center of attention and loves doing anything to get a reaction from you.  If he can make you laugh then he'll keep repeating his actions as long as he can. 

This morning at breakfast was a classic example of Dylan wanting attention.  Dylan loves to make Zoe laugh most of all.  And Zoe just loves her big brother and really looks up to him.  She wants to do everything Dylan does.  So our little clown decided to play with some food and get Zoe laughing and following the leader.

Dylan putting his string cheese over his eyes to make Zoe laugh.  It worked like a charm.

Once Zoe was able to contain her laughter, she had to follow Dylan's lead.

This went on for a few minutes and then everyone went back to eating as normal.  But Dylan decided he needed to get Zoe's attention again.  This time he puts his waffle over his face.

Zoe immediately giggles and then Dylan starts playing peek-a-boo with her by holding the waffle over his face.  And once again my little follower does what she saw Dylan do.

Zoe couldn't help but to laugh at herself as well.

So while we all know that playing with food is an unacceptable behavior, I couldn't help myself from allowing them to play with their food this way this morning.  It made us all start our day out with a little laughter.  While I didn't find the food on the face humorous, the laughter of my kids is completely contagious.  I love them and their little laughs so much!

At Play - The Difference Between My Boy and My Girl

Have you ever thought about how much boys and girls are different at birth?  We often wonder if these differences are a result of nature or nurture.  Well, when you have two kids of the opposite sex close in age, it is very interesting to watch the differences in their development and their preferences as well as how they play and interact.  I have witnessed firsthand that the differences are largely due to nature and have little to do with nurture with Dylan and Zoe. 

This morning was like any other morning in our household and I was observing Dylan and Zoe playing together in their own ways.  Initally they were both playing with Zoe's new dollhouse she received from Bop and Nana for Christmas.  Zoe was playing with "DaDa," "MaMa", and "Baby" as she calls them.  She had brought over play food from her kitchen and was pretending to feed them despite the play food is about ten times the size of the dolls. She was manuevering the dolls in and out of rooms in the house and Dylan was playing along somewhat.  That sort of play only held Dylan's interest for about two minutes and then he decided that he was going to be a robot and try to "melt the house down."  So the dolls go everywhere and the house is knocked over.  Where does this stuff come from?  And of course Zoe ends up crying at Dylan's boyish rough and tumble play while Dylan is all happy because Robot Dylan melts the house down!  Once things calm down again, they were quickly on to the next thing which ended up being legos.  Zoe can build a pretty tall tower of legos as she learned this from watching Dylan.  Dylan is building some sort of house when he then notices Zoe's tower (also known as a tall building according to Dylan) and decided that he was going to be a robot and knock down the tall building.  So then again we had Zoe crying and Dylan excited that the robot has successfully knocked down the tall building.  This was all in the matter of about fifteen minutes or so. 

So I then decided it was time to move on to "music time" to restore some peace in the house.  Dylan and Zoe both enjoy getting out the instruments and playing with them and singing.  Dylan primarily sings and plays the instruments while Zoe dances.  I always enjoy music time with my kids. 

Now for some, you may be wondering why don't the two kids just play with different things.  Well, we have been wondering that very question for about a year now.  We do try to get them interested in playing with different toys at the same time, but one sibling always wonders over to whatever the other one is playing with.  So most of the play around our house is only done solo by one kid when the other kid is napping or not here.  After all, isn't the toy that your sibling is playing with always the most desired?  Hopefully in time this will teach them firsthand how be great sharers and how to pick thier battles.  I realize that is may be asking way too much to ask of two toddlers right now.