A (not very surprising) morning surprise

Aaron opened the door to Tamar and Daniel's room yesterday morning to find both of them wearing their blankets on their heads. As he walked into the room, they both gleefully announced "WE'RE HIDING!" from under the blankets.


Needless to say, he wasn't too surprised (although we always pretend to be . . .)



--Victoria

Too cool for school!

I picked Tamar and Daniel up from daycare a few days ago and Tamar had discovered that she has pockets and that she can put her hands in them. Which is how she decided to hang around for much of the evening.  Looking very cool!

--Victoria
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Trip home from New Jersey

We left right after lunch and the kids were pretty tired . . .  Within just a few minutes, Daniel was asleep, and Tamar followed soon after.  Even Benji covered his head with a blanket and dozed for a while. Fortunately, Aaron and I took turns staying awake! We got home in good time and the kids were even able to run around a little before baths and bedtime.  --Victoria

 

 

Smiling on the slide!

I love this adorable little girl!  --Victoria
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Saturday Fun at the Playground in New Jersey

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Garden Helper

Tamar saw me cleaning up leaves and brush from the patio and area in front of our house, and wanted to help. I was wearing gardening gloves and she insisted I get her gloves of her own. "I need gloves! I need gloves!" I didn't have Tamar-sized gloves readily to hand so I offered her some "gardening mittens" which she happily wore for about three minutes until she realized that 75 degree weather is not great for wearing winter mittens. By that time her attention was elsewhere, thankfully.



--Victoria
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Another brother-powered wagon ride!

Now that it's light later in the evenings, we've been going to the playground after dinner. Daniel decided it was his turn to pull the wagon . . .  I pushed from behind most of the time so that it didn't take forever to get home, but it turns out that Daniel is actually capable of pulling Tamar and Benji in the wagon by himself (check out the youtube video at the link below). That little boy is STRONG!



--Victoria


Here's the video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVEO7o0yVOE
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After-dinner Walk

I took Tamar and Daniel for a walk after dinner and they decided we should look at all the flowers we passed. They apparently decided that they each had to find the flowers and identify the colors and comment on them. Daniel kept yelling "TINKY FIYAS!!!" -- which translates as "stinky flowers!" -- which means "how lovely these pretty flowers smell" in Daniel-speak.

--Victoria
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Just a normal busy day...

Designing something (Benji), playing with stickers (Daniel), crayoning a coloring book (Tamar).

--Victoria
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Photos from Benji's Birthday Party

Unfortunately, I was so busy that I didn't have time to take photos except just before we sang happy birthday and the cake(s) were cut. The party was a "paper airplane" theme and we had books of pre-printed paper airplanes for the kids to make, with cool patterns and fold lines to make fancy airplanes--as well as regular paper for the classics! The cakes were supposed to look like one of the finished planes in the book (and they came out pretty well).

--Victoria
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Daniel loves basketball!

Daniel toddled after some of the neighborhood boys, who were playing a fast game of basketball with the kids in the front house. Two of the boys (twin brothers who are about 9 or 10) immediately started playing with Daniel with the soft foam ball he brought with him, tossing it back and forth to him and rescuing it when Daniel dropped it. He was delighted and loudly exclaimed "BAKEE BALL!!!  BAKEE BALL!!!" for a long time. The boys thought it was hilarious and that Daniel is adorable. Eventually Benji got in on the action as well, as you can see in the second photo. I'm so grateful that our neighbors have such lovely kids.

--Victoria

Brother-Fueled Wagon Ride to the Playground!

Twin hugs!

Happy Birthday to Benji!

Last week, on Benji's birthday, Aaron sent me this email message:


"This morning, Benji asked the babies if either of them wanted to say happy birthday to him. They both immediately started singing Happy Birthday. Except the only line they knew was the first one -- which is admittedly 75% of the entire song. But without singing the other line, you have no idea when to stop the song. So they just kept singing happy birthday to you over and over and over again, getting more and more confused, because they both felt like they had been singing for a long time, but they weren't getting to the end of the song."


--Victoria

Apologies for the blog silence!

Dear all,

I am in the second week of my new job and while thing are going very well, I am absolutely swamped with training, administrative tasks, and work. I will start blogging again as soon as I can. I know you need your daily fix!

Love, Victoria

Very Useful Helpers

I feel like one of the things Aaron and I dropped the ball on with Benji was making sure he had chores to do around the house. I'm trying to teach the twins early on that they can help out with household activities. They loved helping me to push the garbage and recycling to the curb and carry the recycling bin back to the house.

--Victoria
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Benji loves building (in video games, too!)

Benji is sometimes allowed to play Minecraft on Aaron's phone. It's a building game in which all the adventures are premised on building things with the blocks in the game. Kind of like a lego in a video game, I think?  Needless to say, our busy building boy loves it.

--Victoria
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Daniel the Goofball

He found his summer hat from last year and decided to wear it while he was riding the alphabet train. The hat really doesn't fit him anymore, but he doesn't care!

--Victoria
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Benji lost his sixth tooth!

He just lost the one on the bottom left side of his mouth, and he says there's one on the top that's very wiggly! Thanks again to Auntie Roxana who made Benji a special little bag to use when he's putting his tooth under his pillow for the tooth fairy.

--Victoria
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Afternoon Fun in the Park