The obligatory laundry basket photo

Okay, face it, YOU have a picture somewhere in a box in your closet, of YOU sitting in a laundry basket, in a white t-shirt, when you were one year old. I have one. You have one. We all have one. So, it is about time we took a pic of A&H doing their obligatory laundry basket shot. What is it about kids loving this activity so much?

While Drew spent 15 minutes climbing in and out of the laundry basket, Hailey decided to empty out a basket on our changing table, and climb in and out of that one. I think she climbed in and out of this white basket about 100 times, delighted with herself each time.

In other news:
Teeth:
- Hailey has TEN teeth, including 4 molars, one in each corner!
- Drew still has only FIVE teeth, 3 on top, and 2 on bottom, only in front.

Favorite activities:
Drew: playing with WHEELS, any kind, anywhere. Trucks, reading books, being held, being tossed up in the air, JUMPING on the bed, playing piano with daddy, sleeping, emptying the cupboards in the kitchen, playing with any kind of flashing light, turning on and off any BUTTON of any kind of electronic item. Greg especially loves when he turns off the computer. :)

Hailey: eating cheese, reading books, pulling every toy out of the toybox, holding onto her "mittens" (her security blanket), playing "chase" where I chase her around the house, playing with any kind of ball, eating "grown-up food," taking baths, going through mom's drawers in the bathroom looking for make-up, putting on any kind of SHOES, pulling all tupperware out of the cupboards, and of course, babbling!

Both kids now know many animal sounds. So they can respond to "What does a cow say?" with the "moo" answer. They know cats, dogs, cows, chicken, etc.

Hailey has been saying her new first real word this week: Ball! She says it all of the time, can recognize it in books, and even pointed to Greg's hand and said it when he was eating big grapes. So cute!

Hailey's digger

Today was a beautiful day, so we did some fall clean-up in the yard. The kids helped, of course. Hailey got distracted and decided that running downhill in the yard was much more fun, and then ended up taking a digger of a fall. She thought that was delightful. Drew was having more fun eating the pinecones!

Miserable Colds

Well, this week hasn't been all that fun, because the kids have both had terrible colds. They are so congested, and they just cannot breathe through their noses at all. So, the net result is that their cute little faces are just covered in runaway snot (yuk!), and also in drool. They are yucky, soppy messes!

On top of that, they just haven't slept all that well - Hailey was up several nights in a row, just unable to breathe very well, and with a fever. Poor girl. I think we are now on the back-half of the colds, so hopefully they will disappear in the next day or two.

On a lighter note, we found a good sales on kids' shoes, so we stocked up. Here are the new shoes in action...

The Pumpkin Patch

Today we ventured on a Fall outing to visit the Pumpkin Patch! It was a glorious fall day, and the kids loved picking out their first pumpkins. We also let them partake in our yummy kettle corn, and also ride around in the wheelbarrow.

Picking out pumpkins was one of my favorite activities as a child, so this is a fun tradition to now start with our kids! (especially the part about riding in the wheelbarrow - see video below...)

Stacking....

I am trying to spend time with the kids where we do activities that challenge their little minds. Someone recommended to us that we could/should work on "stacking" activities, so that is what we did all afternoon today. We have these great plastic cups that stack (Thanks, Uncle Mike White, for the good xmas gift!)

Hailey kept building it up the tower, and Drew kept knocking it down. :)

CANCUN!

Greg and I just returned from a fabulous long weekend vacation in Cancun, Mexico! It was delightful! Greg had to go there for a Microsoft conference until Thursday, and so I flew in by myself on Thursday evening. Then we stayed until Monday afternoon, and enjoyed 4 glorious days there!

Among our activities:

- Eating out luxurious long dinners each night. (yummy fajitas!)

- Sitting by the pool each day, ordering lunch/drinks and reading books (see hotel pic below)

- Swimming in the bright blue ocean every day, jumping in waves (see the amazing color!)

- Spending 1/2 day at Tulum, visiting Mayan ruins (see pic below)

- Sleeping 10 hours every night (um, no picture of this)

- Taking a boat ride to spend 1/2 day at Isla Mujeres, an island right off the coast

- Having lots of laughter and fun together, without the kids!

- Smoking cigars on our balcony the last night, watching a huge storm blow in.

Thanks to nanny and Grandma Judy for watching the kids for the 4 nights we were gone. We missed the twins dearly, but loved having so much fun just being with each other.

Funny Little Drew

Andrew has been sooo sweet and so funny lately. Here are two short videos - one where he displays his newest trick of making the "naayyy" sound that a horsey makes. And the other one shows him in a fit of laughter over his newest ticklish spot - under his chin.