These kids!

Most days end with my stomach hurts from laughing so hard, that's the only abdominal workout I've had in a long time.

Ruth: Alden jacked my peas!
Alden: I love poopoo, yummy!
Ruth: Only us ladies can go inna here, you boys go inna other one *points to the men's room door*.
Alden: I voting for John McCain!
Ruth: Write my name mommy, R-U-T-H spells Ruth!
Alden: Turkey makes my tummy hurt, we have McDonalds?


After I got a speeding ticket:
Ruth: Why that man make us stop? Us going fast.

Ruthie is A-OK

Well, she's still sassy, but I didn't expect that to change. We waited around until noon on Friday for the all clear. Grrr. Not too impressed by the service we received at the ped's office. We had a fun weekend at my dad's house. Nana and grandpa babysat so the husband and I could go out OVERNIGHT. We stayed at a cute little hotel in Placerville and went out to dinner and did some window shopping. We attempted to see a movie but arrived at the multi-plex and realized that we had NO IDEA what any of the movies were about. The posters gave a little clue, but rather than waste $20 on something that might suck, we decided to go walk through Nugget. Nugget is like Whole Foods on steroids, tons of organic stuff, and the prepared food area is amazing. There's a salad bar, Chinese bar, grilled chicken, beer/wine, Mexican, on and on and on. The new store in El Dorado Hills is crazy big.

So yes, we spent our date night walking around a grocery store. When did I get so old and boring? Oh well.

Don't call CPS on me

Ruthie had a little tumble today, she fell off her scooter. It seems she may have broken a bone in her foot, I should know for sure tomorrow. Poor little bit, I have to carry her around, so she calls to me: "mommy, please take me potty" or "mommy, I want to sit in the other chair". So sad. I took her to the pediatrician and we had x-rays done, but the radiologist hasn't reviewed them yet. In the meantime, ice cream, an ACE bandage, and some Motrin is holding her off until the morning. The medical imaging place has a special separate room that is quite obviously the mammogram room, while we were waiting no fewer than three little old ladies came in to get their boobs squished. They all looked slightly nervous, and when the door to the special room opened I saw posters about breast self exams. Ruthie kept asking "what the ladies doing mama?", it was cute. She's such a little chatterbox, her latest kick is knowing everybody's name. The mailman, the homeless guy looting our recyling bin, the little girl having a tantrum at the doctor's office, the x-ray technician, etc. she must know everyone's name or else!

Monterey Bay Aquarium

Yesterday we went to Monterey in order to escape the heat. It was so refreshing to be out of this hot weather and gross air. Towards the end of the day we actually had to buy sweatshirts! I felt like such a tourist. We started out at the aquarium, which the kids l-o-v-e-d. We did the older part first, and the newly remodeled Splash Zone. We discovered that European tourists are extremely rude, and that it was pointless to bring the strollers in because Ruth and Alden preferred to sprint between exhibits. Ruthie's favorite animal is the "habapuss" aka octopus, Alden seems to prefer the starfish and kelp. We took a break around lunch time and had some pizza on Cannery Row.

After pizza we went to Trader Joe's and bought some flowers, then we went to the cemetary and put them at my grandfather's grave. To escape the somberness, we then took the kids to Dennis the Menace Park. Unfortunately our battery died at the aquarium earlier in the day, so no pictures of the twins having fun. While I was waiting for Ruthie at the bottom of the slide, I had a nice chat with a woman who just moved to the area a year ago. I commented that the park had changed a lot since I played there as a kid and she said "oh the park has been here that long?" I'm not sure what her interpretation of "that long" was, and I started to wonder if I'm really old, then I realized that I played there TWENTY YEARS AGO. Crap I'm old.

After we left the park, we walked around Fisherman's Wharf and chowed down on some free chowder samples, and we had a caricature drawn of the kids. We also went to the candy store and Ruthie picked out "candy balls" and Alden chose gold coins. That boy, he's all about the money! He loves carrying coins and paper dollars.

After the Wharf we went back to the aquarium and went through the Outer Bay area. The aquarium is open until 8PM on weekends in the summer, but it was mostly deserted. It was so neat to have room to let the kids run and shout without worrying about losing them or getting the evil eye from the previously mentioned rude European tourists. Seriously though, at the Splash Zone, Alden splashed some water. Approximately three drops landed in the vicinity of this little girl's sleeve. The five adults with her all shouted "hey hey hey" and shot Alden dirty looks and clucked their tongues and shook their heads. WHAT THE HELL?! I looked at them and said "he's 2 and you don't all need to yell at him". Ugh. Asses. It's not like he dragged her into the bathroom and gave her a swirlie.

Anyway, here are some pictures!

Big news from Ruth!

About three weeks ago Ruthie woke up and decided she wasn't going to wear a diaper anymore. Yes, she is AMAZING. She peepees on the potty like a pro, and poops too. In fact, she makes family poops. After she dropped a dooce last week she proudly pointed to the different...um...elements and pointed out "there's a mommy poopoo, a daddy poopoo, and a Woofie (Ruthie) poopoo!"! She also does two different types of poop, pieces or a choo-choo. Pieces are little nuggets, a poo-poo choo-choo is a log. Fascinating, isn't it? We talk about poop all the time here. Finding tiny panties has been a little hard, she can wear size 12-18 in the waist and panties come in 2T-3T as the smallest size. Gymboree fits her pretty well, and Hanes from Target. The funny thing is that quite a few of her shorts and capris are way too big now that she isn't wearing a diaper! The good news is that I got out her last year's fall/winter wardrobe and discovered that since she isn't wearing a bulky diaper, she can wear most of her bottoms again this year.

Alden isn't as taken by the potty, he has peed in it on occasion, but I don't anticipate him being ready to potty train any time soon. He wears little underpants but tends to pee in them or take them off and streak through the house. We do a lot of streaking here. Well, the kids do.

As a reward for being a big girl and saying bye bye to diapers, Ruthie got a new kitty. She's a little Siamese named Violet.

Disneyland

Disneyland was awesome. I totally misunderestimated (thanks GW for that gem) the twins. I thought they'd be overwhelmed and not have fun, or they'd be bored. HA! In hindsight we should have planned on going to the park for two days rather than just one. Our hotel was a dive but the location was awesome, right across the street from the Happiest Place on Earth. We checked in on Wednesday, hit the park on Thursday, then drove down to San Diego for more family fun on Friday! Ruthie loved the princesses, specifically Tinkerbell. Well, I guess she isn't a princess.....whatever. She loves her! I had to stalk some new pajamas on Ebay so now she has two pair of Tink jammies. We didn't take our camera in so I only have a few pics that my sister took. Enjoy. The first one is Ruthie with her cousins and uncle Tyler, and Cinderella.

My baby sister and my nieces, and Ariel.

Happy Birthday to my Twinkles!

I'll post pictures later, too pooped right now.

We celebrated Ruth and Alden's second birthday with a big bash at the lake. It was a Rootin' TWOtin' good time. Yes, I'm a dork about themes. I can't believe my lovelies are two, the second year flew by, even more quickly than the first. They learn new things every day, Ruthie knows all of her colors and can count to 5. She sings a bunch of songs, and has memorized a few of her favorite books. Alden is alway studying how things work, hinges, doorknobs, wheels, etc. His love of animals continues to grow, we saw some dogs at the park over the weekend and he immediately squatted down to their level (the ever-popular Merced Chihuahua) to say hello. I can't wait to take them to the fair this summer, they will go nuts.

Their size differences remain fairly constant, Ruthie is a hair over 23 pounds, Alden is a hair over 32!!!! He's also about 4 inches taller. The funny thing is, she eats way more than Alden. We eat lunch together and she scarfs hers down, then steals pieces of my food. I'm doing Weight Watchers, maybe she's just trying to keep me on track?

We have a busy summer planned, we are going to my dad's house next weekend, then we are off to Disneyland and San Diego. All told the kids and I will be gone for a week, my older sister and her family are in the states before their move to South Korea. We are all looking forward to spending time with her and her family, including my newest niece!

Monterey Bay Aquarium

I was feeling brave (or foolish) and took the twins to the Monterey Bay Aquarium last week. I was a little worried that they are too young to enjoy it, but I am happy to say I was wrong! They had a wonderful time and Ruthie learned two new words: fish and bird. I also discovered that Alden loves kelp and tasting sea water. Our favorite exhibit was the touch pool and the Outer Bay exhibit. The touch pool has special raised areas for the little ones and the twins were able to dip their hands in the water and fish out things like abalone shells, kelp, starfish, etc. The Outer Bay exhibit is the world's largest fishtank. There are huge huge windows and the fish and sharks are not shy about coming up to the glass to say hello. The whole aquarium is VERY kid friendly! Many of the exhibits have little knobs or levers that kids can manuever to reveal questions, pictures, etc. There was also a little slide in the sea otter area, the purpose was for kids to watch a video on how river otters slide down banks, but I think that was a little advanced for the twins. We had an incredible time and I can't wait to go back! It was pretty hard being by myself because they both wanted to run/walk and rarely in the same direction. It would have been more relaxing if daddy was able to join us, maybe next time!

Lazy Friday

Playgroup was cancelled this morning so that left the twins and I with no plans. We spent the morning at the park but the heat drove us inside after about an hour. Alden was crawling on the play structure and he popped some jolly rancher type candy in his mouth. I grabbed it and threw it over my shoulder into the acres of wood chips on the ground. After a few minutes I feel a little tug on my pants and there is my little Roo proudly holding up the shiny pink gob as if to scold me for littering.

Now we are home, and the babies should be waking up pretty soon, hungry for lunch. After lunch we might go see what's crackin' on campus; the freshmen are moving in today! Daddy has been busy all week helping out with emergencies and mysterious equipment failures.

In other news, the twins got their first haircuts this past weekend. They looks so grown up!

Before: Dig the mullet?

<---After

Alden before:

After: Clutching my boob for comfort, such a man!