The Twins are 2!

I hate that I can't seem to find the time to stay caught up on my blog! I love going back and reading my updates, especially on the girls because I've found I've forgotten so many things. It's nice to have things written down so those memories aren't lost! Anyway, I'm a couple months late on this update but I didn't want to miss it.

Eden and Lydia turned two on September 21st. Am I the only one that finds this crazy?????? I still find myself calling them babies on occasion, but they really aren't anymore. The "terrible" twos are definitely in full swing but also the terrific twos! Some days are so incredibly hard and I wonder what happened to my sweet girls that turned them into little terrors. But other days they are absolute angels that want to snuggle and kiss me and tell me they love me all day. Those days are the best!

EDEN: Eden has definitely taken on the role of older sister. She bosses Lydia around all day and luckily Lydia is super mellow and likes to follow along with what her sister says most of the time. For instance, for Halloween Eden was supposed to be Bo Peep and Lydia was going to be her sheep (very fitting for their personalities) but when it came time to put costumes on, Eden was insistent that she be the sheep and Sissy be "Peep." Lydia promptly handed the sheep costume to Eden and picked up the Bo Peep dress instead. At least they were both happy in the end. When we go for walks, Eden gets really upset if she is not leading the pack. She prefers to run ahead and call back, "Come on, guys!" Eden loves to draw pictures. I know I'll probably regret it one day, but the crayons are always sitting out at their play table so she can color multiple times throughout the day. Fortunately, she knows that coloring is only for paper and we've only had one incident of crayon on the fireplace. Both girls are pretty good with recognizing different colors so we're starting to talk about shapes now. I don't think they really get it at all but they love to say "circo" (circle) over and over as they draw their pictures and proudly show me their cirlces (aka scribbles). I also introduced finger paints recently and those were a huge hit!

LYDIA: Both girls talk really well, but Lydia definitely talks a bit more and a bit more clearly. She is such an imitator and copies whatever we say. When we read books or say prayers, she always repeats the words. She is quite the singer as well. She can carry a tune and she knows a lot of the words to the songs we sing. She also likes to make up her own songs. She usually sings herself to sleep at nap time. It's pretty cute. She made up a song about Eden and we think it's so funny when she sings it. The only problem is, Eden hates it! Whenever Lydia sings it, Eden screams, "No Lydi! No Song!" Lydia has always been more cautious than Eden but she's started to get over some of her inhibitions. She used to hate being pushed in the swing at the park but recently she's decided she loves its and will even tell me to give her a big push. Both girls still love the park and we've had great weather this fall so we go at least a few times a week.

SLEEP: Oh, sleep. I thought sleep issues were only things you deal with with babies. Hahahaha. How naive I was. They went through a really long stretch of good sleep but recently that has all changed. The girls went through several weeks of nap strikes where they just flat out refused to nap. In the beginning, it was fine because they would just talk to each other and read their books in bed but as the weeks wore on, they just started getting more and more overtired and nap time turned into scream time. It was devastating. Perhaps, you think I exaggerate and devastating is too strong a word, but if you've never dealt with two overtired, cranky two year olds day after day, you have no idea how horrible it is. I tried everything to get them to take their naps from crying it out (2 hours of screaming!) to sitting in their room with them to help them be calm to different naptime schedules to totally losing it and yelling at them to go to sleep. Nothing worked. It's so hard to accept that the are independent little people and if they don't want to take a nap, I can't force them to. I finally tried separating them and moved Eden to another room for naps but that did not go over well. Eden wasn't having any of that, but when she said Lydia should sleep in the other room, I decided to try it. Thankfully, we've seen some improvement. They still skip naps a couple times a week but at least they are taking some naps and we're able to avoid all three of us in tears every afternoon. Bedtime is also a challenge. They just don't want to go to sleep! I can't just ignore them, because Eden has started to strip down out of her clothes and diaper and I find her naked as a jaybird when I go check on her. One night, I didn't check, and about midnight she started whimpering and crying because she was cold and wet. We've found that the earlier we put them to bed, the better.  So recently we've been trying to get back to 7:00 PM bedtime. It just seems like it's so hard to have them ready for bed by 7:00. They are still in their cribs and Nate thinks we should just go ahead and move them to beds now while things are bad. He says it can't get worse. But it can!!!! So I'm sticking to my guns and we're keeping them in cribs for as long as possible! The good news is we finally got rid of their binkies. They obviously weren't helping them sleep anymore so we told them binkies were for babies and just stopped using them. The first few nights they would bring it up and say "binkies for babies" but they seem to have forgotten all about them now.  Let's be honest, the binkies were probably more for our sanity than to fulfill the needs of the girls.

OUR DAYS: Our typical day looks something like this
7:15 Girls wake up. Nate gets them out of bed and starts getting ready for work. I catch a few more minutes of sleep if I can
8:00 Breakfast
8:30 I clean up the kitchen while the girls color at their activity table
9:00 We head upstairs. I get the girls dressed for the day and then start my sewing for my Etsy business. The girls toy room is right outside my sewing room so they play with their toys while I sew. I break up the occasional scrabble but honestly, they play together really well. (Especially in the mornings when they are happy.)
10:30 We'll either have a playdate with friends, run our errands, or go to the park if we have nothing else planned.
12:00 Lunch time. Nate gets to come home often so we enjoy spending some time with Daddy during the day!
1:00-3:00 Nap time or "rest" time if they choose not to sleep. I use this time to work some more on my sewing
3:00 Girls wake up, have a snack, and watch a show. Their favorite thing to watch right now is a cute short film called "Room on the Broom." They ask to watch the witch nearly every day! Other favorites include Mickey Mouse, Dora, Curious George, Daniel Tiger, and Sofia the First.
4:00 We either play outside, go for a walk, go to the park if we didn't go in the morning, video chat with one of their Grandma's, or run any errands we didn't get to earlier.
5:00 Realize its almost dinner time and I haven't prepared anything. (Why does this happen every day?) Figure something out. The girls will either play upstairs or if they're cranky and I don't want to deal with it while I'm cooking I'll put another show on.
5:30 Nate comes home
6:00 Dinner. Playtime with Daddy while I clean up the kitchen.
7:00- Bathtime, stories, songs, prayer
7:30 Bedtime. Spend the next hour or so trying to get them to go to sleep! (Or more on a bad night. Less on a good night. Like I said, we're working on this!)
The rest of the night, Nate spends working on our renovation projects on our house and I spend working on my business.

GOALS: There are a few things I'm hoping to do better as a mother this year. I don't yell at them often but enough that I'd like to do better. It doesn't help and just makes me feel guilty. Potty training. The girls are definitely showing signs of readiness but I'm not ready. I'm pretty busy with holiday sales with my business and I just don't want to deal with it! My plan is to try in January. The baby is due in February so we'll see if we can knock it out before baby comes. I'd also like to do more at teaching them things. They are like sponges and I feel like I should be introducing them to more new things. Stupid Pinterest makes me feel like I'm a bad mother because I don't do any of those activities with my kids. I don't need to go crazy but I'd like to dedicate some time to my children's learning.

We love these girls so much and feel blessed to have them!