I’ve written about our dance parties lately, but you really have to see them to experience it. Two videos, one from my parents house and one from ours this morning.

This one has costumes. Dedicated watchers can watch past about 45 seconds… the rest can skip it.

I know I’m going to look back at these days sometime and say what did we do all day? Some of the highlights of today were making ice cream sandwiches from homemade chocolate chip cookies with homemade kit kat ice cream and teaching Celia to play fetch. It was raining and we were supposed to have had our storm windows replaced today so I had our schedule cleared. We were stuck at home with no car. So we:

• Woke up at 6:30, I got the girls dressed and took them out for my morning walk. In the rain, they were covered, me not so much.
• Came home and tried to stretch while they jump on top of me, nursed the girls, started making Celia’s breakfast.
• Woke up Jordi (he worked until the wee hours of this morning), started feeding Celia until Jordi was done with his shower and then I got mine.
• Cooked and inhaled my breakfast before Jordi left for work. Said goodbye to Jordi and got dressed while two girls again wanted to jump on top of me.
• Played and read to the girls for an hour. Tried to put Celia down for a nap, failed. Played for another half hour and got Celia down for her nap. We play a lot of ‘dance class’ which consists of pushing the music button on the tea pot toy and shaking around. Josie has some crazy dance moves. Celia mostly claps and does lots of squats. I read about 6 baby books at this point. Celia actually listens and looks at them now. That wasn’t the case even a week or two ago.
• Celia napped, I did a letter workbook with Josie working on her writing skills (this was her choice) and letter recognition. We made ice cream just out of the basics, cream, milk, sugar and vanilla. Chopped up some kit kats to throw in too. I read Josie a new magazine of hers and a long story, twice. We did some stickers as well and told stories about them.
• Celia woke up at 11:30 and I started getting lunch ready while they play. We ate around noon and then cleaned up.
• We played some more in the living room, building with mega-bloks. Celia rediscovered her ‘baby’ toy bin which has been ignored for a few weeks. I played catch with Josie for 5 minutes before she got bored and Celia took her moment to grab the ball and bring it to me. I threw it, she got it and brought it back. We did this for the next 10 minutes until Josie couldn’t stand watching anymore and started chasing the ball herself. We had more dance parties.
• I email out to other moms begging for a playdate.
• I try again to put Celia down for a nap and fail. She is very sleep resistant lately. I fold and sort diapers. We play some more and I read some curious george books for as long as Celia will permit (about half a story at a time). Eventually I get Celia back to nap.
• I fold laundry while Josie plays and then prep the food for dinner. It is apparent no one can come for a play date today.
• I bring out the mixer and Josie and I make cookie dough in the dining room without making too much of a crazy mess. Josie adds the vanilla herself for the first time following my precise instructions of just give it a squirt or two. She also put all the cookies on the pan for the first time herself using the cookie scoop, her hands are getting much stronger.
• I bake the cookies and start cooking dinner. Realize I don’t have enough of key ingredients even though I went to the store yesterday and had read the recipe beforehand. Find other stuff to improvise with.
• We made ice cream sandwiches from the cookies so they’d freeze together a bit.
• Blur of time from about 5:20 when Celia wakes up and Jordi gets home while I try to make dinner, set the table and pick everything up. Josie was exceedingly helpful today.
• Jordi is home just before 6, we eat, Josie anticipates ice cream and declares herself full after a few bites, but keeps eating actually as we all sit together. Celia eats her whole avocado, a few bites of corn, a pile of rice noodles and some cantaloupe. Dessert is “fantastic” in Josie’s words, she doesn’t finish it though as she was actually somewhat full.
• We clean up the plates and have some family dance party time. Get the girls into pj’s, teeth brushed, pottied and diapers. We read another Curious George story and I put Josie to bed (7:20). Celia had a late nap so we play some more fetch and catch with her before she again fights going to sleep (8:20), but I win this time through sheer determination.
• The house is somewhat clean as Jordi cleaned while I put the girls down, I am here on the computer, Jordi waiting for me to play a game when we really both just need to go to bed.
• Oh and somewhere in there I changed at least 5 poopy diapers from Celia and a few non-poopy ones plus 8+ nursing sessions. Somehow the time just passes so quickly when we look back, but the day is so long in the middle. I am very glad to have these days with my girls. I have to start deciding on preschool stuff for Josie in the next month for next year.

Sorry I sacrificed your flowers to get pretty pictures of my girls.

I got to eat ice cream every day on vacation!

These photos somehow just struck a chord with me.

and now at age 3

Celia’s had some busy days teething. She’s gotten teeth number 6 and 7, and 8 isn’t far behind. She is not sleeping well at all. It is past 10, we should be in bed!

Tiger says that last nights dinner was yummy. Try the Garbanzo and Artichoke Quinoa yourself. Best with fresh from the farmers market feta cheese. Celia got her first quinoa! That was a big mess!

Me trying to be artsy again, Josie waiting for people to show up.

Swinging and more swinging…

Per usual, Josie was not terribly cooperative with looking even remotely near the camera

I’ve been working with Josie during Celia’s naps on a sticker book that goes into numbers and colors and animals and basic concepts like that. Today we were working on numbers and they had some small addition and subtraction problems. Like you have three flowers, add one more and how many do you have? No problem with those. Then we get to looking at four balls, and you take one away, how many do you have? Josie’s response… “Why do they take one away?” And I explain every time it’s just a math problem, a figure of speech but every time again she asks the question. I guess she wants more detailed motivational math problems so she can understand what happened to the ball.

We’ve been super busy these days building things with our magna-tiles. Lots of creative uses and our structures are getting bigger and better.