Happy New Year

In Kaz, they celebrate the New Year as the big holiday this time of year. There is a smaller celebration for Orthodox Christmas (January 7th), but when Kaz was under the rule of Russia, all religious holidays were banned so New Years has been their main holiday. They have Father Frost( looking like a slimmer Santa, but in Blue) and New Year's trees. A lady that was there the last few weeks said that they had a lot of tigers hanging in these trees. This is the year of the tiger on the Chinese zodiac. I wanted to get the girls some tiger ornaments for their tree, but I couldn't find any. To celebrate instead, I got them a play kitchen.
Sasha wants to wear her sleepers as soon as she gets home. Backwards of course!The kitchen came with a toy cell phone. It was the first thing Leeza grabbed. She does love phones. I can't wait until she is a teenager!They won't eat any real veggies, but Sasha sure was trying to eat the plastic ones. I wonder if they have any nutritional value?Leeza set the table for her Fisher Price Little people. It looks like a royal banquet to me!Earlier in the week, the girls played dress up. They like the clothes they got for Christmas.

Weekly Update

I weighed the girls today. Leeza weighs 29 lbs now and Sasha weighs 26. Back before Thanksgiving, they were at 26 and 24 so Leeza has gained 3 lbs in the last month and Sasha 2 lbs. When i carry them both now, it seems like they gained about 50 lbs! Leeza has gotten taller and is now about 2 inches taller than when she came home. Sasha only grew a little taller since Thanksgiving. I actually think both girls have lost a little weight since starting day care. THey do so much more running around the gym. They still have tummies, but not that big.
Sasha has her first ear ache. It seems to be better today.
They are adding words all the time now, but I still don't understand most of their conversations.
They are sometimes calling Frosty by her name, but she is still usually arf arf or even doggie now.
Sasha has decided that she is going to dress herself each day. She is doing pretty good, but can't get pants/diapers up over her behind yet. Leeza has decided that she now wants to choose her shirt in the morning just like Sasha is, but really doesn't want to dress herself. Whatever I pick out the first time is rejected and the second shirt is chosen.
They are both getting picker in their food choices. Neither is doing well with veggies yet.
Both girls decided they want to eat with big forks so they now use plastic adult forks like they have at day care. I have a ton of kid silverware not being used now.
They think it is funny to remove their shoes while they are in the car seat. Mama yelling when she hears the velcro being opened is very funny.

Christmas

The girls had a lot of presents to open, but they were most interested in the small group of presents on the end table that were for me! These got opened first and Sasha carried around my new pillow cases for about 10 minutes before she went back to opening presents.

The living room got rather messy. Opening presents took about 1 1/2 hours because they opened them sloooowly. They had a good time.

Leeza got to indulge her love of hats. Unfortunately there were 2 so I ended up wearing a sponge bob stocking hat and about 4 barrettes. Fortunately there are no pictures of that.

Both girls like their dress up boxes. Sahsa wanted to get back into her sleeper for nap time and the afternoon.

The girls also liked their cabbage patch dolls although the clothes didn;t stay on them very long.

As usual, they also enjoy playing and sitting in the boxes. This was after I cleaned the room up. They messed it back up again in about 5 minutes.

Merry Christmas

The girls had their Christmas party at daycare Wednesday. They made these for their mama.

Oh, the fun of being 2 at Christmas. We braved torrential rains and insane shoppers to go to the mall to see Santa on Christmas eve. Although I was glad we did, I think I was the only one.

I have some Christmas photos that I will post tomorrow. Today was a fun day, but very long so I am off to bed. The girls fell asleep before I left the room so I think they had a very good Christmas!

Hello, Is Aunt Debbie there....

The girls were sick at daycare Monday with a fever so that meant they had to stay home Tuesday even though they were feeling better. They were playing nicely with their new little play computers so I thought I could sneak off to use the bathroom for a minute. Well, I walked back into the living room and there was Leeza talking to someone on the phone. She had dug the phone out of the end table drawer I keep it in when they are in the living room and somehow managed to speed dial her Aunt Debbie! She is fast and has a great memory for where I keep the things I don't want her to touch!
Everyone spent the day in their PJs. Sasha is now wearing a one piece blanket sleeper with the feet cut out and put on backward. She figured out how to pull the duct tape off the diaper. She ended up with a duct tape belt and no diaper so I am on to plan 2. I thought she would hate it, but she loves it and gets mad when I take it off in the morning to put on clothes to go to daycare. They both are having fun playing with their blocks now. Sharing is a litttle bit of a problem, but there are 60 blocks so each can have their own pile.

Weekly update

New things this week:

We now say potty instead of doing the pee pee dance.
Sasha wants to dress herself, but can't quite get her pants up yet
Leeza is getting another cold and doesn't feel very good.

Sasha wants to eat with my fork instead of her plastic ones
Leeza can sing the first line to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. She sings the rest, but makes up her own words.

Leeza ate carrots AND peas. OK, 2 carrot slices and about 6 peas, but that counts!

At daycare when I come to pick them up, they come running to me and hug me and now they run off again to continue playing.

There was a traffic jam in the living room today.

Maybe it would help if mama would pick up the living room more often! I didn't realize it was this bad until I saw the pictures. They hug each other a lot. For no apparent reason, they just start hugging. Usually, it is after bathtime, but it can be anytime. How cute is that??? You can tell that Leeza is getting tall!

Daycare week 2

Both girls did better in daycare this week. No tears from Sasha this week at all. She still sticks pretty close to one of the teachers, but leaves me in the morning to go eat without appearing upset. When I arrive to pick them up, they are always in the gym playing and running around. Both girls come running to me with big smiles on their faces and give me a hug. Now both girls go running off again afterwards and I have to call them to get them to put on their coats to go. I guess I am happy since they like daycare, but I also want them to miss me a little.

Sasha is showing signs of being a fashionista girl. She got upset one day and took off her shirt. I realized that the shirt (blue with pink flowers) really didn't go that well with her pants(dark pink). I changed her shirt and she was fine. Now she wants to dress herself, but she can't quite manage it yet. She also wants to change her shirt every morning to whatever one I have picked out for Leeza, but mama just makes her wear the first one I put on her. She also decided that she wants Leeza's purple coat. I mistakenly put it on her one day and now she thinks it is so much better than hers. Leeza doesn't care what she wears as long as she can be running off somewhere in it.

Both girls are growing fast, but Leeza is going through another growth spurt. I did a quick check this morning and it looks like she has grown another inch since Thanksgiving. That is over 2 inches since she came home. I think her feet are growing as fast as she is. She has big wide feet for a little kid. I keep telling her she has Harmon feet. She also has big hands so I think she is going to be tall. I will measure and weigh them on Christmas eve(a month after the last time). I know they are gaining a lot of weight and they feel like they weigh about 100 lbs each when I carry them now.The girls are not as tired this week as they were last week. I think part of it was getting used to all the extra activity at day care and part was I tried to push bedtime back to 8 pm so I could have more time with them. That did not work so they are in bed by 7:30 now. They get up around 6:20 so they need the early bed time. Thursday, they decided to play bedtime with their dolls. They put them on pillows and then covered them up.Sasha even brought a book over and pretended to read to her baby.Poor Leeza's baby was quickly abandoned as she found something better to do.Running and jumping from the chair to the sofa and back again is much more fun!