Strange Valentine's Day photo shoot

Last week, Charlotte and I were decorating the cookies we gave to her classmates in their Valentines and Corey came down to get a shot of the action.  Then, Charlotte decided to be the world's weirdest model and treat us to some of her favorite poses.  She was in quite an odd mood that night.  I ended up actually decorating most of the cookies myself because she just couldn't be bothered to pay attention.

Here she is, actually sprinkling some purple sugar on the pink heart-shaped sugar cookies.

And here she is showing you the cookie that she said had "frosting poop" on it.

And then the posing began.

She carefully held each pose until Corey snapped the photo.  Where does she learn this stuff?!?!?

Here are the finished products (for all seven classmates plus her teacher and aide).  I totally stole the basic idea from a magazine, but let Charlotte add the stickers on the baggies.  Needless to say, the photo of the example in the magazine looked quite a bit more sophisticated.  Oh well -- these worked!

Solar-powered animals

This scene is a common one in our little house.  Connie and Rocky are two solar-powered peas in a pod.

Grandma JoJo and the monkeys

Grandma JoJo flew up to hang out with us while Corey was out of town for a few nights and we had wild amounts of fun.  Actually, Mom and I painted the baseboards in nearly the entire downstairs in between wrangling Charlotte and Peter.  It took nearly two entire days, but we did it.  As a result, we were too busy/exhausted to take any photos for the first few days of her visit.  To celebrate our accomplishment and to thank the kids for being so amazingly good at occupying themselves while we prepped and painted, we took them to Monkey Joe's (a place full of inflatable slides and stuff).

I'm pretty sure Peter almost wore through the seat of his pants after going down various slides a grand total of at least 40,000 times.

WHEEEEEEEE!

At lunch afterward, Charlotte was too busy coloring to pose for a photo.

The next morning, we tried an experiment.  After watching Peter getting his little buzz cut in a salon and forking over good money for very little actual work on the stylist's part, I took matters into my own hands.  Corey and I teamed up and used Corey's clippers on the little dude.  

He was NOT pleased, but that was no different than in the salon.

The result was just as good as a professional job (probably because it's pretty hard for the stylist to do a very good job with Peter writhing around and screaming the whole time).  Peter was rewarded for his patience with a little treat from the gum ball machine.

Before Grandma JoJo left, we made a huge pile of stuffed animals and laughed at the kids leaping in to it.

Peter was in heaven in a big pile of softness.

Flying through the air!

Super Peter!

We attempted a group shot of JoJo with her monkeys, but the kids (as usual) failed to cooperate.  I think I need to hire some kid models as stand-ins next time.

At least my mom looks beautiful!

Thank you for all your help, Mom.  Come back soon -- there are lots of baseboards upstairs in need of a coat of paint!

SUPER KIDS!

Before we get to the kids being super, here are some shots of other things we did on Saturday afternoon while Sonia and Erin were visiting.  While Peter slept, Charlotte and Sonia sorted out bunches of shells and pretty stones into egg cartons.

Then, after Rip Van Peter woke up, we jumped into the hot tub for some winter swimming.  Sonia debuted a gorgeous new tankini that is unfortunately hidden in this photo.

After a wild dinner (and aren't all dinners with toddlers/preschoolers "wild"?), Uncle Corey whipped out a special adventure for the kids.  They put on their superhero capes that I made earlier in the week and met with Corey for a mission briefing.  He had drawn a map of the first floor of the house and drew a route they needed to take to find the ladybug night light that the nefarious Lady Cheetah had hidden.

Sonia is a budding Dora the Explorer fan, so she was very interested in the map.

Super Sonia (aka Super Sillious) led the way along the route (which took them under the kitchen table and around the couch to start).  Super Charlotte (aka Captain Chaos) followed close behind.

Next, the little heroes had to pet Connie dog on their way through the family room.

Super Petey (aka some kind of cool name we have yet to come up with -- any suggestions?) lagged behind a little, but he made sure Connie got some love from him too.

There was some confusion when we got to the last step -- actually finding the ladybug night light.  The younger superheroes took off on a wild goose chase up the stairs, but Captain Chaos figured out how to find the ladybug based on the map.

Super Sillious tried to convince us that upstairs was the place to be, but . . .

. . . Captain Chaos completed the mission and rescued the ladybug!  Here, poor Charlotte was seriously asking me if Lady Cheetah was still here.  No, I said, we were just pretending.  She was still a little suspicious but dropped the subject.

Super Sillious immediately said, "let's do it AGAIN!"  So Uncle Corey dutifully led the teeny superheroes through the route one more time.  When they requested a third trip, we told them to come up with some other adventures upstairs.  The situation degraded quickly and the kids soon needed to retreat to their fortresses of solitude for some super sleep.

Sonia and Erin drove home the next morning, and we missed them instantly!  Charlotte is already planning new adventures for the superheroes when they are reunited.  Peter has mentioned "See-Saw" (his name for Sonia) several times since she left, and I think he misses her too.  Come back soon, guys!

The junior conductors on a field trip

Saturday morning, we took Sonia to Centennial Park to see the big engine on display.  She loves trains, and she lit up when we told her we were going to visit one.  "Like the one my daddy rides?"  Not quite, but perhaps even more fun because this one she could run up to and touch!  We put all three kids in their train engineer hats, of course.

I don't think Sonia stopped smiling the entire time we were there.

Petey is always so photogenic and adorable when we visit this engine!

Like I have written before, it's always a good time to dance in Charlotte's world.

Checking out the backside of the choo-choo.  The design on the butt of Sonia's coat kills me.

The plane wasn't of much interest to the kids, but they made a quick pass by it as they pretended to be airplanes.

Charlotte has been learning about stop signs in school, and she exclaimed excitedly when she saw this one.  Sonia loves to hug things, so they both ran over to show the sign a little love.

Piling rocks in the train's nooks and crannies was the activity of choice.

I told you Sonia loves to hug things.

The junior conductors needed some quesadillas for lunch after their train adventure.  Sonia insisted on taking a humpback whale into the restaurant with her.

No, I did not give Peter any of my Diet Coke.  He just loves playing with straws and ice.

That girl has got that crazy eyes!

We made it back to the ranch just in time for naps (even though Sonia decided that she wanted to be a big girl like cousin Charlotte and refused to sleep -- whoops, sorry Erin).  More fun to come!

The progeny of identical twins

Ever wonder if identical twins' children will look alike?  Erin and I have disproven any notion that they might.  I guess we could have married identical twins (or at least guys who vaguely resembled each other) and had more of a chance of similar-looking offspring, but alas, we did not.  Oh well -- between the two of us, we did produce three awfully cute kids who have a great time together!

Erin and Sonia made the long drive down from Illinois to see us for a long weekend, and mayhem ensued.  Charlotte is only 14 months older than Sonia, and Sonia is only 7 months older than Peter, but it was interesting to see how those small differences played out in maturity and leadership (or lack thereof).  It's amazing how much time and energy it takes to keep those three fed, clothed, bathed, and picked up after, not to mention mediating toy tussles and supervising playtime in general.  Erin and I stay home with our respective kids every day and are used to doing these things for the smaller groups, but with all three together it sometimes felt like we were caring for at least 12 howler monkeys.  It's like their energy exponentially increases and they take over the entire house in an explosion of toys and snot.

That being said, we had a wonderful time and I can't wait for us all to get together again!  Here are a couple of highlights from the first 24 hours:

Erin and Rocky are now bestest friends.  I had to extract Rocky from Erin's suitcase this morning as she tried to kidnap him on her way out of town.

We played outside on Friday afternoon and Peter showed Sonia how to scoot around with a bucket to fill with treasures.

The kids formed a biker gang and rode around the neighborhood with their trusty sidekick, Connie.

ZOOM!  Connie kept running at full tilt and buzzing by frighteningly close to Sonia.  She thought is was hilarious, luckily.

Charlotte showed Sonia how to find little rock treasures in the back yard.  Note how green everything still is around here!  We have had very warm temperatures so far this winter, and our daffodils (not pictured) are completely confused about when they are supposed to bloom.

More of the weekend fun to come!