Addison and I had a little mommy/daughter time yesterday while I painted her toe nails. :) I ordered some natural, non-toxic nail polish from www.piggypaint.com, and it finally came. At first she jerked her foot away, but then realized what I was doing and sat pretty still for me.

And are her painted nails...

Fischer stood and watched me... I was worried he'd get jealous and I would have to do his too in order to avoid a fit, but he just happily watched as I painted her nails, then went about his business.  Addison then had fun pointing at her toes for the rest of the day. :)

After our painting fun, we went to the Ronald McDonald House of Columbia to drop off a bag of beverage tabs. I also had some toiletries from our vacation to drop off - they are always in need of toiletries, so I brought all the ones from our hotels home to donate!

The lady who was working also gave me several of these tab collection houses...

It's now sitting in our pantry, and when it's full of tabs, I will go drop them off. It's such an easy and cheap (because you most likely drink those drinks anyway) way to do something for others.  If anyone wants one of these little houses for their house or office, let me know - I have plenty!

Yesterday, I broke out the finger paints and finally let Addison and Fischer give painting a try. After last week's shaving cream play time, I thought it might work out well to put them in their boosters seats so that they couldn't walk around painting everything in the room!

Like with the shaving cream, they were a little confused at first. Addison tasted the paint right away too, which must have tasted better than the shaving cream because she didn't start drooling everywhere! They still didn't sit and play for too long, but they seemed to have a little fun with it.

Here are a few pictures from our art session... Fischer painted himself a little too.

We went to the beach over the weekend.  Beach trips aren't relaxing like they used to be, but they are just as fun.... laying out by the water with a book and a cold beverage has been replaced with chasing two active toddlers up and down the beach, and in and out of the water, while trying to limit the amount of sand they eat.  Addison and Fischer had a great time playing in the sand and in the water, and really weren't afraid of it at all! I didn't get too many pictures (because of all the chasing I had to do) but I managed to get a couple.

The purpose of posting this family picture is to show just how active Addison and Fischer were being - Addison was trying to leap out of my arms, and Fischer wouldn't hold still at all. :)

We stayed with our friend Rett, and he had stairs in his condo. Addison and Fischer were obsessed with them, which also gave Scott and I quite a workout. Here they are on one of their many trips up.... They aren't fully clothed because their clothes were soaking wet from the chairs out on the porch.

I helped Addison and Fischer make a sticker picture for Scott... it was their first time playing with stickers, and I think they enjoyed it. Scott's picture is now proudly hanging above his computer in his office. :)

Here is the finished product...

Addison and Fischer have been trying new things lately. We've been working on their jumping skills, which is pretty funny. They get very excited and try to say "jump" while going up on the tips of their toes.  The other day, Addison was trying every harder, and would lift one foot up off the floor, then the other, but you could tell she thought she was jumping!

They are both also smelling flowers now. Whenever we see pictures of flowers in their books, they sniff the page. Fischer sniffs correctly, but Addison is still blowing on the page, but thinks she is sniffing it. They have both done it outside too, with real flowers!

They are also answering questions more and more. Fischer likes to answer "nah" to almost everything. This morning, however, Addison answered yes to something! She had a dirty diaper, so I said "Addison, is your diaper poopy?" She looked at me and shook her head yes!

Unfortunately, as they are getting older and more verbal, they are starting to fight over toys more. They get very frustrated with each other! Sometimes we let them work it out on their own, but if it starts getting out of control, we step in. I've already had to take many toys away because they weren't sharing well.

Speaking of unfortunate events... we went to dinner with friends last night. Addison and Fischer did not behave well, and Scott and I were both pretty embarrassed. Luckily, our friends didn't seem to mind too much, but hopefully they are willing to go out with us again eventually. :) I know this is going to happen, and it's all part of having young children, but I don't think we were prepared because they are generally well behaved when we go out. I hope this isn't the start of a new phase... and if it is a phase, I hope it's a short one!

We are off to the beach this weekend, and I can't wait to see how they react to the water! They loved it back in March, so we'll see if they still love it now!

I ordered Addison and Fischer a picnic table last week, and have been so excited for it to arrive. It finally came and I set it up yesterday. My plan is to have this table be our arts and crafts table. Addison and Fischer are getting old enough to do some little projects, and I thought the table would be the perfect place. Also, it can easily be moved inside or outside... right now it will stay set up in our air-conditioned sunroom until it cools off and we can do more outside.

Here they are sitting at their table for the first time!

We gave them some shaving cream to play with...

Addison immediately put it in her mouth. She started drooling and was trying her best to spit it all out. I guess Fischer realized her reaction wasn't good because he never tasted any of it.

I expected Fischer to dive right in and get messy, but he was pretty hesitant...

It wasn't long before they strayed from the table and touched almost everything in the sunroom with their cream-covered hands. Then, it was bath time. After a bath, they relaxed on the couch and watched some Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

I can't wait to try some more projects with them!

Saturday, after visiting a local farmer's market, we decided to head to the zoo. It was "only" in the mid 80's, so it seemed like perfect zoo weather!

The animals were pretty active because of it being a little cooler, so that was fun. We went into the Kangaroo Walkabout for the first time, and a kangaroo hopped right out in front of us. We were so close!

We also let Addison and Fischer help us feed the goats, which they enjoyed. They seem to really like the farm animals.

Since Scott was with me, we even got to ride the carousel! Fischer seemed ok with it, but Addison didn't love it. Here they are on their animals that went up and down (Addison has a death grip on my back in our picture)...

Addison started crying, so we moved to a bench that didn't go up and down and she seemed to like that better. Scott and Fischer joined us after a few minutes...

We really enjoyed the cooler temperatures over the weekend. I can't wait for it to stay cool so we can do more outside!

Some days, it seems that Addison and Fischer get bored easily. I guess we all have days like that! Friday was one of those days... they were tired of their toys, tired of me, tired of Scott, tired of Mickey... I was at a loss! I decided to go through the pantry and find them something to do. I found these plastic containers, and put macaroni in one and dried beans in the other. They loved shaking them and making a lot of noise, and they stayed entertained for awhile. I got them making "music" on video, with Scott in the background helping them along. You can see in the video that they also thought they were bottles and kept trying to drink out of them. :)





I hope you all had a great weekend!