Naptime
Every 2nd day or so my girls don't take a nap anymore and they go to sleep at 7pm. I had to start doing this because when they do take a nap they don't fall asleep until 10pm. I find that it's a catch 22. When they do nap they are well behaved but the flip side is that they go to bed so late and I don't get a break. On the other hand if they don't nap they aren't very pleasant to be around (so so cranky) but they go to bed early and I get some time alone with Papa. Well it didn't take long today to figure out if they needed a nap or not. After lunch and after we finished our music homework, they snuggled on the couch with Papa and was asleep in minutes.

In other exciting news, we dislike our fishtank. The fish that live in there are EVIL. There are 2 fish bullies named Harp Harp and Lila who like to eat the smaller fish and has turned our tank into an uninhabited space that once roamed with small colorful fish (namely the triplet guppies, Marty the striped fishy and Rose the rose colored little guy). Well after months of picking on the smaller guys all that was left was Harp Harp and Lila and Papa's sucker fish. We didn't even like putting on the tank light in the morning in anticipation of the horror we might find from the night before. Anyhow it looks like we have a survivor in the mix. Papa was cleaning out the tank this morning and found Rose battered but still alive living in the small filter area. We don't know if we just saved her life by putting her back in the tank or if she purposely was trying to escape the tank of death like Nemo did.

And in even more exciting news....we are headed off to Disneyland. I know it's a crazy idea to go since my belly is ever expanding and I don't know how much walking I'll be doing (Papa jokes that we should get a stroller for 3 for me and the girls and he'll push us around). But we are so excited. Pee in our panties excited. The girls ask every morning if today is the day we head off to Disneyland. They are packing up their Princess dresses and we are headed out to California in about a month's time. Yahoo! Anyone know where I can find a maternity bathing suit in this small town?

Too Many Questions....Stop all the Questions....

This girl above is asking me way too many questions. Which is fine if Mama knew all the answers but I don't. She's asking me complicated questions. Yesterday I was watching Oprah in the playroom while the girls played beside me. The Olympic athlete, Marion Jones, was on talking about how she had taken steriods and she regretted it. They showed clips of her crying and getting emotional so the girls became concerned and asked me why she was crying. So I had to explain that she was sad because she made a mistake. What kind of mistake they kept asking. She did something bad. Like what they asked. So I had to explain a little about steroids/drugs. But what is drugs mama? So I had to explain a version of drugs that 4 year olds would understand. Then Marion Jones mentionned God. So the girls ears perked up again. They have a lot of questions about God ever since Christmas when I explained that you couldn't have Christmas without baby Jesus. Anyways the complicated question yesterday was when I mentionned that God knows everything. But then Rachel told me that I had said that Jesus knew everything...how come God knows everything too? So I told her that it's because God is Jesus' Papa so He knows everything. But isn't Joseph Jesus' Papa she asks? So basically I don't have any concrete answers about the Holy Trinity because its been so long that I've been to Sunday school and I don't feel like an authority on the subject at all. Aahhhhh....when did they become these little humans that questions things and try to make sense out of things and when did they become smarter than me?
And I had to post a picture of the belly. The cool jeans are a gift from my sister, Susan. And I may look tired and stuff but it's actually when I woke up this morning and this is how I look all the time. The other day I went browsing in a clothing store and tried on a turtleneck. When I came back out of the dressing room and the salesperson asked how it went I gave her back the sweater and said it was way too tight around the belly. She smiled politely and said, "Oh, we all feel bloated sometimes". What?!!!! Did she think I was just feeling bloated? Really? Don't I look pregnant?

My girls are giving me skin care advice. A couple of weeks ago I started getting so many pimples on my face. It's driving me nuts. I haven't had this many ski issues since I was in my teens. Alex always forgets what pimples are called and calls them nipples. She points the 'nipples' out on my face. Anyhow a couple of weeks ago the girls excitedly tell me about this cream that you put on your face and go to sleep and your 'nipples' are gone! They saw this on a commercial. OK. Well I didn't think too much of it until this morning when they called out for me to come and watch something on TV....a commercial for Proactiv. And sure enough there were these people giving testimonials about how Proactiv got rid of their pimples and changed their lives. The girls both suggested that I go buy this product. It's cute that they care about me and want to solve my ski issues and sad at the same time that the pimples are that glaringly obvious. When will these hormones calm down already?!!

More Ski Pictures from this afternoon

Can you tell which one is which?

How come I feel like I've skiied all day and am in need of a hot bath and massage? I just stood there and cheered on the girls but feel like every muscle in my body aches. The girls had a super time once again and are totally pooped out right now. We got them harnesses this time to save Papa and Silvano's backs. They work great. The harness makes the girls do all the work down the hill. Turning and slowing down, etc... A day or two more of using the harnesses and the girls will be ready to go down on their own. Kids pick things up so quickly.

1st Skating Class

The girls started out on their bums....
Then they stood up & and got their balance....but weren't too sure how to move about...
Way to go Rachel! Arms to the side and feet moving so slowly one in front of the other...
And Alex...a smile on her face no matter if she was up on her skates or lying on the ice! She really got into it. It was FUN!
And even more fun since their 2 friends are in the same class with them.

More more fun since Kaili came to watch this morning at the arena. These pics are thanks to her since I tried to take pics but was so worked up watching my girls fall all over the place that I couldn't be freaked out and take pics at the same time.

After class we went for a snack at Tim Horton's. Can you get more Canadian winter than that?

Family Dentistry

This gives a whole new dimension to Family Dentistry. Working on your own kids' cavities. So remember when Alex had her cavities and needed to be put out by the expensive Specialist to fix her teeth and we swore off everything sugary? Well, after time, we go back to our old habits I guess and found ourselves in the same situation once again. Sucky. But this time around the girls are mature enough to cooperative with us. Yeah. So after explaining to them for a couple of weeks of what Papa needed to do to fix their teeth, we were ready. So during the holidays while Papa's clinic was closed we headed there as a family and got all the work done without one tear being shed. Phew. (Just a side note: Alex fell asleep while getting her work done. Can you believe it? That's how relaxed she was. Papa noticed that she wasn't keeping her mouth wide open and kept repeating his request to open wide when we both noticed that she had gone to slumberland) Papa sealed each molar (top and bottom) so hopefully we won't be repeating this again. Oh ya and we are back to giving the girls only water instead of juice. So to all the mamas out there where your kids have never had a single cavity, I salute you. Really, that is amazing. How do you do it? Swear off juice and anything sugary? Brush more than twice a day? What are your secrets?

Rough Morning

I'm in rough shape this morning. Totally self-inflicted and it sucks. James and I are totally addicted to this new show Dexter. We had never heard of it before until his sister sent us season 1 and season 2 on DVD a couple of weeks ago. We watch it every chance we get (when the girls are asleep) but we don't know when to stop (like at a decent hour) and so we went to bed again at around 1:30am. Which is fine if you don't have kids. But since we do, the night went something like this....Go to bed late, get woken up an hour later with one of the girls having an accident in bed....get her changed and get her cozy in the guest bedroom...wake up another time to go to the bathroom myself (the joys of pregnancy) and then get woken up early by 2 energetic kids who want their mama to get out of bed. So you would think being tired and all, that tonight I would want to go to bed early but no....I just can't wait to watch more Dexter. It's that good. Sopranos is my favorite series and I think this one comes pretty close. You guys have to check it out. It's so well written, I love the characters and it is funny yet disturbing at the same time.

So in addition to being tired (whine, whine, whine) my tongue is mad at me. I've been loving sour candy these days. Craving it. Thinking of it. Wanting it. Kaili bought me this big container full of these things called Tongue Teasers and they are so yummy. So so sour which is exactly what I want right now. But usually I can't eat that many of them because I don't like the candy part of it. Only the sour sugar coating. Last night while watching many many hours of Dexter I had this great idea to just suck on candy until the coating melts and then chucking the candy part. I don't even know how many of them I sucked back....even near the end of the night when my tongue was warning me that it wasn't a good idea to have any more...I still sucked away. Which brings me today...eating breakfast was not fun. Totally self-inflicted pain I tell you....but I still can't wait to watch more Dexter, have my tongue heal so I can taste some more sugary sour goodness. You think I would learn, eh?