Bloomsbury Farm

Last weekend Ian's parents took the girls and I to Bloomsbury farm/pumpkin patch. Boy did we have a fun time! We saw goats and llamas, fed the chickens, held a caterpillar,went down the big tube slide, and rode in the barrel train. We even ran into our sitter Stephanie! Thanks Grammie and Grandpa!

Stella Sings the ABC's

Sisterly love

Trying out Halloween Costumes

I've been searching high and low for costumes for the girls, but everything is so expensive! Little did I know I could make them into pirates just by putting pants on their head...now to find and eye patch that fits! (just kidding grandmas!) Looks like they could also pass as ghosts too!

Jenna and Ella come to visit

My friend Jenna and her daughter Ella visited us at the end of September (Ella is a year younger than the girls). It just happened to be the weekend of my birthday, so here we are sharing cake:

March of Dimes

We were selected to be the March of Dimes (MOD) Ambassador Family for the Cedar Rapids Signature Chef's premiere party (one of the main fundraisers for our local MOD chapter). It was a very exciting event to be a part of and included a wide variety of items to be auctions (food, wine, massages, jewelry, etc) along with a sampling of food from four local chefs who also auctioned off dinner packages. This occurred at the end of September and we "shared our story" during dinner. We brought the girls along to introduce them at the end of the talk, but Zoe had other ideas, and needed to be with us from the start. She decided to continuously swat at the microphone until it almost fell off and cover Ian's mouth as he tried to speak. She gave a shout out to her sisters then decided to recite every cartoon character she could think of. Stella and Abby sat with the grandparents, but also gave a few shout outs to us as we spoke. I think we were a hit.

The girls had their photos taken and put on display to show then and now along with their birth stats. The pictures below are pictures of what was on display. The individual pictures are what I used to create my thank you cards.....each of them holding the first outfit that they wore (and it was way too big at the time.

King of the Mountain!

Oh boy. 3 little escape artists. Yeah, we kind of all knew that this was coming....was just a matter of when. Well, when has occurred, and it leaves me believing that truly the only things are keeping the girls in the house at this point are the door locks (because they haven't figured those out yet). To further illustrate our despair at this point, I happened upon the girls attempting to "move" the couch in our basement to our window ledge....pillows off and everything. Luckily, the thing outweighs them by about 75-100 pounds. Ugh. Pray for Carey and I.



The above picture is Abby doing her "happy dance" on top of the girls' toy box. She was evidently happy that Mommy and Daddy got to share this "momentous occasion" with her.

Dancing Queens...pt. 2

Dancing Queens...

Behold! You may ask yourself...what comes of the strange mixture of good music, and "Fruity Pebbles" for breakfast?
Hip shaking, awkward slow-dancing, and lots of flamboyant sunglasses!

Stella in a strait jacket

No really, it's just Stephanie's jacket tied around her. Stella absolutely loved it! (notice that 1. the jacket pocket says Fox; 2. she can still dance in it; 3. the angry mob chasing her)

What's new

Hmmm...that's a good question. I guess A LOT would pretty much sum it up, just don't ask for specifics.

We had another round of colds pass through the house again earlier this month. It hit Abby pretty hard again, thankfully not with RSV. However, she was diagnosed with early onset of childhood asthma. We've been starting to feel better, but the recent humidity has got Abby all wound up.

The girls are talking a lot...saying words that I didn't even know that they knew! We are doing very well with counting to 20 and have somewhat mastered counting backward from 10. We know the words to songs and the order that things happen on our favorite shows. And names, they rattle right through the whole family, the muppet show characters, Whinnie the Pooh, etc. They love playing with and rough housing with each other. They continue to amaze me.

Zoe (sitting on Stella) Playing Paddy Cake:


Stella doing a little house cleaning:



Abby and Stella sitting in the book basket reading:



Zoe with her shorts on her head....BOO!

Check out our new ears!

Our Mickey Mouse ears....courtsey of Grammie and Grandpa Fox's trip to France.





Stella




Abby




Zoe

Go TWINS!!!

HATS off to our family in Minnesota....Gooooooooooooo Twins!

Zoe cheesing it up!!


Stella

Abby

My Big Girls

I've been patiently waiting for the time to come when I could sit the girls at the table and let them feed themselves. Now that they are doing so, we've been faced with a new set of issues...like how to corral 3 2-year-olds and have them eat a complete meal at the table?! They also like to share food and if they don't like something, they just put it on another sister's plate. Meals have definitely become more entertaining.....we just had a sword fight with our bread sticks tonite!! "dip" ....we have to dip EVERYTHING in something. For a brief moment, they are caught at the table...







We've also started transitioning toward potty training. Nothing exciting yet, but we always have to "potty" before we get into the tub. Here are some shining moments:





We've also added bubbles to the bath (which didn't go over so well the first night, kind of freaked them out). Our other sitter Stephanie got the girls some tub (soap) crayons, which they absolutely love!




Beyond that, we've pretty much mastered climbing up and down the steps (and off and on furniture). Reading is still our number one hobby (next to watching the Muppets of Course!!). I'm still amazed at all the words they are repeating and recognizing.

For the last couple of nights, I've been watching some of the Olympics....swimming is my favorite. Anyway, I was watching syncronized diving and the girls wanted to watch the Muppets, to which I responded, "look, they are swimming!" All three shouted "bath, bath" and started clapping when they jumped into the water. They actually watched almost an hour of the diving.

But the funniest thing happened tonight: As I mentioned before, the girls love to climb on furniture....Abby usually leads. She had climbed onto the couch and was standing (which we don't allow...sit down or get down). Stella walks over to the couch, holds up one finger and says, "no Abby, sit corner". Abby sat down and Stella walked over to me and kissed me on the cheek.

Our New Ride

Our sitters, Sarah and Mallory, got the girls this wagon for their birthday. Our driveway has just enough of an incline that the girls can go cruising on their own. They love it!!