85 to 45

Wow!  We've gone from our last foray at the beach in one weekend to new coats and 45 degrees the next.  Here's your list bathing suit picture for a while.  We did get to wear our new long-sleeve outfits from Nana and Grandpa and snuggle with Daddy.

At the beach we got to play with our new beach toys.  We made seahorses and castles, and they were much more fun to take down then put up, though daddy did try to make a fort with a moat.

At the beach shelter there were lots of butterflies, LOTS!  They were everywhere on the flowers.

This is what we look like on the way home.  It was way past nap time.

We've spent some time recently trying on hats.  Hats, and anything that could be a hat.  We're exercising our imagination.  Apparently Catherine is going to be a fencer and Samantha is going to be a chef.

The girls now have an Elmo's restaurant with a shopping cart and play food.  Maybe Catherine will be a chef too, and the girls will have their own place one day.  I'm sure it will have lots of healthy food because that's what Catherine loves, and lot of tater tots, because that's Sam's favorite.  However, I don't think it will have spoons.  Catherine thinks she doesn't need them.  Below is a picture of her eating mashed cauliflower with a fork.  We tried giving her a spoon and showing her how to scoop.  She calmly put the spoon down and kept going.  Any help was immediately pushed off.  She yelled at me for helping.  She's a big girl.

Stretch tall for the dunk!  Dave is so proud of them.

  

football and fish

I'm fully back to school now, even spent a night away from the girls on a overnight retreat for the middle school.  We're beginning to settle down at school, but the girls have just gone right in stride picking up with our nanny Chelsea.  The girls love her and it makes me so happy to know that they are so loved during the day.  Although, when I was gone and Dave came home, Catherine brought Chelsea her shoes, put them down in front of her, and said "bye!" and waved.  Poor Chelsea didn't know if she should be offended, or proud that Catherine knew that it was time for Chelsea to go.  I'm going with the latter.  They are both so smart.  They now empty the dishwasher for me, handing me the plates to be stacked and put away.  They both are bouncing now, especially Catherine.  She can hop all the way across the living room!

In the meantime, we've been cheering for the Gamecocks.  The girls get so excited when we play 2001 and the fight song.  They cheer and wave their arms.  Every time the crowd cheers they clap their hands and hold them up for a touchdown.  I'm so proud of them.  I can't wait until I can take them to campus and see a game.  I think I may cry when it happens.  Sometimes I am so amazed that I can have such an emotional reaction to a place, especially one that isn't my home.  But it was my home for a time, where I met some of my best friends, and where I met Dave.  It is a place that changed my life and I want the girls to know it.  So Go Gamecocks!  I don't care if people stare at us when we all go out wearing our jerseys.  We are proud!

We recently went to a family party and my cousin took some beautiful pictures of the girls.  They were so good while we were there despite the fact that they barely slept all day and were up way past their bedtime.  I was proud of them.

There were fish in the pond behind Aunt Eleanore's house and we had to rush to keep the girls from getting in the water.  Shish!!!  They are trying so hard to say that word.  They love the fish in my dad's tank too.  So we bought the girls some betta fish and you can see their pictures below.  I picked them out and personally I think they are beautiful.  There were also ducks, which the girls noticed but didn't care a whole lot about.  That is, until they began quacking.  Then Catherine did this...

They just love animals and wildlife so we watch a lot of Jack Hana on TV in the mornings and go to the science museum a lot.  Thank goodness it is free on Wednesday afternoons for Durham residents.  I do see a family membership in our future, good thing it is cheap.

This is Cocky.  He is a halfmoon betta fish.

This is Pete.  He is a halfmoon double tail betta.

Learning new things

Blessed to have been able to spend the summer with the girls, I am so amazed at all the things they can do, and how their personalities shine.

Catherine: Oh, our little shrimpy-shrimp!  She really enjoys making people laugh.  Silly faces, races around the house, imitating your stances, playing peek-a-boo, she does it all while watching for your reaction, feeding off of your laughter until she is hysterical too.

Catherine also loves to please.  When you ask her to, she will put clothes away (never mind that she took them out in the first place), close drawers, put away her books, and clean.  Yes, clean.  She takes wipes out of the container and will clean the floor.  One day Samantha was cranky and threw her messy diaper on the floor.  Before I could get her secured and get to it Catherine had taken the clean pajamas off the chair and started cleaning the floor.  Yikes!  Thank you so much for your help, but you are not helping.

Stuffed animals are her new favorite thing.  She loves a bear she has that she's been calling Mmba, taking it with her around the house, holding him while she drinks, asking for him at story time at night.  I loved my stuffed animals, taking as many to bed with me as I could, and it makes me smile to watch her.

Catherine wants to be an adult.  I have the feeling that I'll be telling her to slow down in the future.  She is trying on my shoes and doing a good job of it too, and brings me my shoes to help me put them on.  She spears food with her fork and would rather eat that way no matter how long it takes.  She closes the door, feeds the dog (not my favorite thing), and takes care of Samantha.  When Sam's upset she pats her on the back and brings her a toy or her paci.  At the beach she wiped sand off of Sam's leg.  I'm glad she looks after her sister, but I also hope that she won't be the one dictating their activities in the future.

Samantha: Our girl with the gorgeous curls.  She's been a trooper recently with her eye teeth coming in, but we think she's over the hump.  She also is good at cleaning up, but doesn't get that I mean for those things to stay put.  We're working on it.  Reading is her favorite thing.  She will sit quietly for some time with a book just flipping the pages.  Then she'll come to you to ask you to read it, which means she emphatically points at pictures and you have to tell her what it is.

She is also good at following directions, telling you where she put things, bringing you things, closing things.  She's not happy about doing things she doesn't want to do and hates being told no, but she will do it.  However, there will be some crying and maybe even a small fit with her head on the couch while she watches to see if you are watching here.  Where do they learn these things?  Speaking of which, she learned how to open the child-locks on the lazy susans in the kitchen and then showed Catherine how to do it too!  Fortunately, they decided that once they could get it open they weren't interested in it anymore so I can leave my spices where they are for now.

Samantha is taking ownership of getting dressed.  She tries so hard to do it herself.  She's much better with Dave's shirts for obvious reasons, but she keeps working at it.  She is a very persistent kid, she tries and tries until she gets it.  That goes for figuring out how to climb onto the couch or bed (not my favorite new skill), making the pop up toy work, or stacking cups.  I'm so proud of her when she gets it because I know she really wanted to because she tried.

Together: They babble and I can't believe they aren't talking in full sentences yet. We're slowly adding words I guess, because they say "bye" now to everyone.  I'm amazed that they can follow directions so well and understand so many things we say and ask, but can't say those same words back.

They really like each other!  I am documenting it as much as I can because I know there will be times when they think they will hate each other forever.  At night they give each other hugs and kisses before bed and it makes me melt.

One last trip

We've been doing a lot this summer; reading, playing, climbing (that is new), dancing and singing, and making silly faces.  That last one we probably did the most.  Another thing we did a lot was travel.  Here are some pictures from our last trip before school begins.  It won't be our last beach weekend, but it is still a little bitter sweet.

Nana and Grandpa bought them a pool for days when it is too hectic or too crowded to get to the beach.  It has a hippo head that sprays water, which was very exciting.  I'm just proud that Catherine kept her hat on her head.  We worked hard on that, wearing hats around the house all day.  Samantha is still not a big fan.  You can see hers in the water.  Aunt Mary Anne was also still in town so the girls got to play and partake in a lot of silliness with her.  She tried with the hats too, but to no avail.

Catherine became fearless at the beach.  Now she walks around waving at everyone attempting to take shovels from little boys in exchange for seashells.  Then she takes off towards the water, wanting someone to pick her up and take her farther out so the waves can crash and spray on her face.

Here they are taking a break with Daddy, getting some fruit and water before we head up to get changed.  Doesn't Catherine look so dainty?  By the way, if you look closely in the back you can see two turtle nests with the plastic guides for the hatchlings to head to water.  One nest hatched that night!  

Then it was on to South Carolina for a whirlwind tour to Pam and Patrick's to meet Charlie and Maggie.  The Charlie got along very well with the girls, they even shared!  We managed to get some good pictures of the 3 of the little ones, too.

Then, after we made a tornado mess of that house, we moved on to Dave's aunt and uncle's where we stayed so we could visit our new nephew, who is one month old today.  The girls played with their cousins Hannah and Sam, and looked at Amos.  He's not up to playing yet, but I have a feeling that these 3 will be close as they grow older.  We also tried to get some family photos, but it was trickier this time.  Interestingly, Samantha was the most difficult, followed by Catherine.  The least difficult was the youngest.  He was great!

The girls got to experience a lot of new things there, including chickens, horses, and a trampoline.  Catherine had a great time making faces at and feeding blueberries to Uncle Bobby.  I have a feeling that visiting Aunt Heather and Uncle Bobby will be done often in the future.

The best part of the whole trip for me was that Catherine finally has a tooth on the top!  She is now up to 3, maybe I can start feeding her bigger pieces of food.  The girls also got to see Dave's dad and they immediately warmed up to him, laughing and playing peek-a-boo.  It was so great to see them together. And now the summer is drawing to a close, but we will continue to keep you posted on all that the girls are learning and doing.