{ erin go bragh }

The Delaney's continued their St. Patty's Day tradition of hosting a party with fellow IU friends. The attendees have changed over the years and this year included lots of double trouble.

Clearly the luck of the Irish was on our side as we managed to capture a family photo with not only all of us looking, but actually smiling (!). I'll give credit to the dancing Katie that was behind the camera.

And who would have thought we would be outside with rosy cheeks?

And tank tops?

A good time was had by all that attended, including our two leprechauns.

Crazy leprechauns that is.

{ ice cream }

What toddler doesn't scream for ice cream? This one.

It was hot and sunny last Friday and Chop was at hockey games all day/night so Grandma and Grandpa C helped take Oliver and Stella on an ice cream outing after dinner.

They haven't had a taste of too many treats and have only had ice cream on their 1st birthday so I envisioned them both sitting on the bench outside Pumphouse Creamery demanding "more". I was right with just one of them. He enjoyed his ice cream.

And grandma's too.

He even performed a little happy dance he liked it so much.

I should have known that when Stella caught sight of open space to run, that that was exactly all she was going to want to do. And so she did. Up and down and up and down the sidewalk. Never once stopping for a taste.

And then on the way home when she was contained to her car seat, only then did she decide to give it a try.

{ six for sunday }

I had intentions of writing this post for awhile now and switched it multiple times from "ten on tuesday" to "five on friday" and have now landed on "six on sunday".

1. This little incident happened last week. I was in the kitchen and turned to find this.

Serious double trouble. She utilized the kitchen helper to climb onto the counter. Is it bad that my first instinct was "I need to get a picture of this" instead of "I need to get her down now"?  

2. A few weeks ago I had said we had a breakthrough at music class in that they were both actually paying attention and taking part in the activities. I jinxed myself. We've since had some serious digression. I jokingly said that we might get kicked out of the class for the following: Oliver launching an egg shaker across the room during the "shake it" song and hitting a little girl in the head with it, Stella climbing up onto and sitting in the instrument table (multiple times), and both of them repeatedly trying to touch the teacher's iPod the entire class. Oy! Six more classes to go......

3. It's too bad they already came up with the concept of drinkable yogurt tubes. Otherwise Stella could make us rich as this is her new method of getting her bowl of yogurt down.

4. A subject that everyone is talking about this week: the weather. It's been amazing. 70s for the entire last week. It gave me a chance to dust off the road bike and get some air in the tires to take it out for a spin around the lake. No spin bike or indoor trainer comes close to the feeling of your own bike and the fresh air on your face. Already looking forward to more biking this year!
5. This said warm weather has meant we have spent a ton of time outside all week. It has helped to make the days go a little faster and the fresh air is good for all of us. Judging by these faces, I would say O & S have been enjoying it.

6. Nothing is better than a game of run around the house, especially when Grandpa C is there to catch and tickle.

{ mission accomplished }

Who knew finding appropriate footwear for these two little puddle splashers would be so difficult?
 After calling 10+ stores looking for size 7 rain boots, I got lucky. Last two in the store, in the right size, and coordinating. With mid 60 degree temps all weekend, I think all we will be seeing for the rest of the season is rain. Splish splash!

{ sleepless in minneapolis }

Yesterday was anything but a normal day. Our days usually do start early and by that I mean with the clock starting with a 5. But today it started with a 4. No rocking, bringing into bed, or anything would get S back to sleep. And with a shared room, O was up as well.

With no classes or other morning plans, I had to pull out all the stops to keep them distracted. Usually a quick outing to Target does the trick but after a disastrous trip there on Tuesday morning, I wasn't up for anything out in public.

I first gave them free reign in the kitchen with helping make cookies, technically Carrot Cake Chippers. Moms out there, if you are looking for semi-healthy cookies, this one is great. No sugar, butter or eggs. Recipe found here (thank you Pinterest).

And yes, Stella is wearing winter boots and Oliver has on one shoe. Don't ask.

The ordeal might have created a little mess, but it filled about 20 minutes of our morning.

This is how it ended. It's a good thing flour is cheap.

On to the next activity.......no one ever said bath time was just for nights, right? They were confused at first.

But quickly realized there was fun to be had.

Yum, bath water.

They both got a little crazy.

And then Stella resorted to her favorite activity. Dumping water over Oliver's head.

Poor O.

And then things really got out of hand and this is how it ended.

If it weren't for lunchtime, I may have resorted to buying them a new pony next.

I found out today that we maybe they had too much fun yesterday, as we were greeted with a 4:44am wake up for the day. Thankfully we had a scheduled morning activity to keep them busy!

And thank goodness it is the weekend! Do you think they'll get the memo to sleep in? At least past 5:30? Fingers crossed.

{ three little ducks }

Sixty degrees and sunny in March means one thing -> puddles!

Owen taught the young ones exactly what to do.

And was more than willing to demonstrate.

Leaving Stella in the dust to figure it out.

Which she very cautiously did.

Despite falling in a puddle within the first 5 minutes of being out there (not to mention the subsequent 3 falls), this little guy was in his element.

Loving every minute of strutting his stuff up and down the block. Sopping wet, mind you.

Rain boots are on the list to purchase this weekend since the snow boots didn't really cut it!

{ reunion }

These three little munchkins stood eagerly awaiting the arrival of Grandma and Grandpa Christensen.

They had spent the month of February in Arizona and made a pit stop in Minneapolis to say hi as they made their way back to Cumberland. Needless to say, everyone was happy to see them!

{ snowstorm watch }

Seems like in Minnesota there is always talk of weather. It was hyped for a solid week. The snowstorm of the winter. I think that the news weather teams have been bored all winter as you could hear the excitement in their voices.

But what we ended up with was: rain + snow = slushy mess

Oliver & Stella were still excited (a little too excited for 5:45am) to look out and say "snow".

Next week's forecast: 48 degrees on Tuesday. I'll take it!

{ ten on tuesday }

I'm stealing this idea from a fellow mom blogger friend (thank you, Kate!) because it is a good way to just recap some random stuff that goes on in our life. But don't count on it every Tuesday because that probably won't happen.

1. The month of February has FLOWN by. Maybe it is the amazing weather we've had? We did wake up to a nice layer of snow this morning but my guess would be that it will be melted in a day or two as the temps are back up into the high 30s. Paul Douglas said that this is a 1 in 80 years kind of winter. I'll take it!

2. We had Maizy back for 5 days last week and O & S seemed to enjoy it. However, I'm fairly certain that Maizy did not. They treated her like a horse and rode her.

And although this picture does look like Oliver is being sweet to her, I can guarantee that there was hair pulling or hitting that came after.

3. We had a breakthrough at music class last week. For the first five (which seemed like ten) weeks O & S would run around the room during class. This left me sitting in the circle alone or chasing them around so they didn't try to open cabinets or touch the iPod that the teacher uses. Most of the time it just left me contemplating why I spent a lot of $$ when all I wanted to do was leave right after we got there. It was a "I'm that mom with those crazy kids" kind of experience.

But this past week they actually participated! That doesn't necessarily mean that they weren't the wild ones in class but they at least took part in certain songs and activities. I'll keep you posted on how next week goes. I am prepared for a digression but hoping they surprise me!

4. When do kids ever become less messy eaters? I know, I've got years before that comes. We are clearly still working on fine motor skills and getting food in the mouth.

Favorite foods (or lets just say foods they will actually eat) right now are waffles, pancakes, oatmeal, pears, blueberries, strawberries (when they aren't $8.99 a container!) applesauce pouches, mac and cheese, pasta/casserole, and anything with dippy. They had steamed carrots with ranch dippy last night and Oliver was licking the ranch off of his plate.
Note: this is yogurt, not ranch dip on his face in the picture below!

5. Dress-up is pretty much the best game in our house. It usually consists of pulling our stuff out of the wicker baskets that O & S have access to by our back bench.

6. And sunglasses - even better. Though you will notice that Oliver took his claim to the rainbow heart glasses that were meant for Stella.

7. Both O & S are starting to talk more and more. Stella's current favorite is telling everyone who we are. So we will show up at a class and she will hold out "Lulu" (her lovey) and very adamantly say "Wuwu". And then points and says "Oli", "Mommy", and last but not least "Stewa". Perfect strangers now know who everyone is.

Oliver's favorite words are George (see #10), car, uh-oh, all done, bubbles, bus, no, and cheese. 

But both of their favorites are their three cousins "Anna" (which they say with a British accent), "Yaya" (Lydia), and "Owie" (Owen). It's not exaggerating to say that I must hear this sequence of names at least 20 times a day. Part of this is due to the fact that they have named some of the characters in the "Little People" books after each of them. Anna is always the girl with glasses (even though she doesn't wear glasses) and Lydia and Owen are a variety of characters.......sometimes of the other gender or skin color.

8. O & S have finally decided that it is okay to be within 3 inches of each other, and possibly even touching (gasp!), if it means that they can both look at a book with us. 

9. Stella decided to end her 10 day nap strike (hooray!!) but it still seems sleep is all out of whack in our house. Oliver has always been our early riser......it has improved from 4:45am during his first 9 months of life to somewhere between 5:15-5:45am. Just when we got him to a more reasonable hour, Stella has decided that she wants to get up in the early 5:00 hour. We continue to con ourselves into believing it will get better but after 19 months and only having both sleep past 6:00am less than a dozen times, I think we should face reality! Or hire a babysitter to come at 5:00am.

10. We are "Curious George" obsessed. And by we I mean O & S. This comes with mixed feelings as he is kind of a mischievous little monkey. He gets in trouble and then wiggles his way out by being cute. Chop thinks this is a bad lesson. Right now the "stories" of George mean nothing......we just tend to flip through pages and point out every, and I mean every, George that is on the page.