What I am teaching my babies

One of my favorite pastimes is spending time with friends at the beach. So I decided to start early and teach my babies to enjoy this hobby as well. Last time we went to the beach, we invited the twins' friend Sean:
Of course Sean's mom came as well so I could have a friend at the beach. The kids had a good time playing in the sand and water:

We are still struggling with Penelope's love of the taste of sand. Parker also began to enjoy the taste as well. We finally put their pacifiers in to keep them from eating it. I'm not sure what else to do.


We just went to Target and got swimwear for the kids so next time at the beach, the kids will be in more appropriate attire so stay tuned!!

Sunglasses

Necessary accessories for Sunny San Diego:

Our trip to Utah and Idaho

We flew to Utah the Thursday before Easter (note to self: flying with twins is HARD) to see the twin's grandparents and great-grandparents, and to attend a wedding in Idaho. Parker and Penelope LOVED hanging out at grandpa and grandma's house - they have the funnest toys as evidenced in the following picture:


At the dinner the night before the wedding, the twins met A LOT of relatives. It was a little overwhelming, especially for Penelope who is suffering from a little stranger anxiety these days (ok, she's been dealing with it since birth). Penelope did eventually stop crying, although she never really cheered up:



Parker, on the other hand, found comfort in potato salad:

The highlight(s) of the weekend were the many dogs with which the twins got to interact; they both love dogs. In the following picture, Parker is watching Tory's Aunt Kathy's dog play catch; he thought it was the greatest thing:

In this picture, Penelope is chasing after Tory's grandparents dog "Lady". She just crawled and crawled after her. It was one of the only times she did not mind being around people she did not know (frankly, she just ignored them and focused on Lady):
All in all it was a successful trip with only some small issues with sleeping, and driving, and the last 15 minutes of the flight home when Parker just fell apart. As for the driving issues, I am afraid we are pinning all our hopes on when we can turn around the kids in their car seats. Life would be so much easier if they did not hate the car so much.

Playful Penelope

Penelope LOVES peek-a-boo. But I am always the one to hide my eyes or throw a blanket over and then shout 'peek-a-boo!!' Then the other day, I realized she wanted to be the one to hide.

Mobile Parker

Parker crawled just before he turned six months old. Then when we moved to our new house 6 weeks later, he modified his crawl to accommodate our tile floor. You see, the tile is a little hard on your knees so he just straightens his legs and does the bear crawl. Its pretty funny. He doesn't do it all the time but when his knees are sore or he wants to go really fast, he just busts out with the bear crawl. Well, the other weekend we went to the beach and he found this type of crawl very handy for the sand:



But Parker is not content just to crawl (whether its the bear or original), he's been working on his balance and can stand up and lower himself quite nicely without holding onto anything. He walks around the furniture very well and is getting steadier on his feet. Well last Sunday, he did it. He took his first step. He isn't walking but he's getting closer:

Crazy Kids

I'm not sure how Tory figured out that Penelope had this sound in her but its pretty funny when it comes out of her mouth:



I love this video because it looks like Parker has convulsions every so often, or he's just a really bad dancer. You decide:

A New Trick

Penelope mastered clapping first but Parker wasn't too far behind. They both now love to clap and do it often.

Play Time

Here are some fun videos of the kids playing together. They don't always play so nicely with each other but if I separate them, they crawl to find each other.