The McClelland Family

At Grandma and Grandpa’s house…

My parents got a new camera for Christmas.  It’s not that they didn’t have a camera before…and not even that they didn’t have a digital camera.  What they did have was an a.n.c.i.e.n.t digital camera that took batteries.  Approximately 18 batteries, to be more specific.  And somehow that camera managed to go through all 18 of it’s batteries after taking about a dozen pictures.  If you do the math, you can see that the camera took more batteries than it did pictures!  Needless to say, my parents didn’t have a functional camera.

So now that they have a decent camera, my mom can take pictures of Mary and Lila while I’m at work and I get to see what they’re up to during the day!  Here are some of the pictures taken at Grandma and Grandpa’s house, between Christmas morning and this morning, when we went over for brunch.

Mary on Christmas morning.  Those adorable little curls of hers generate some awesome bedhead!

Enjoying a bottle…

…with Otis.

Laycie came over to play!  Sometimes Laycie and her niece Ryan have playdates with my mom, Mary, and Lila.

Not to be outdone by Mary’s bedhead, Lila brings you…static head!

Grandma and Grandpa have lots of drawers to climb in.

A drawer built for two.

Mary gives Lila a ride.

Pretty Roo

Pretty Bear

Both girls love Bella and Otis’s dog bed and toys.

Sometimes Grandpa works from his home office and gets to see M&L.

Lila, Grandpa, Mary, and Mommy on a Friday afternoon.

M&L have cups, bottles, cribs, diapers, food, highchairs, and anything else you’d need for a day in the life of a toddler over at Grandma and Grandpa’s house.  Here’s Mary sipping her milk at brunch this morning.

Lila and Grandma.  They look pretty well coordinated, don’t you think?

Mary and Grandpa

A few times a month, Uncle Jacob and Becca visit from Wenatchee.  In this picture, Mary’s making her kissy face at Uncle Jacob.

Llama, Horsie, and Lilaroo

For some reason, I wanted to call her Punky Brewster when I saw this picture.

Maybe I went a bit overboard with the clips today…sometimes I just can’t resist!

Grandpa reading Lila my favorite childhood story…The Bernstein Bears and the Perfect Picnic Spot.

Farmer Mary

Taking a break from her farming duties to listen to the story

Becca and Lila look at M&L’s baby pics

Friends

I used to worry that Mary and Lila wouldn’t like each other…as infants, they’d both cry if the other one touched them, they didn’t pay attention to one another, and I think they both wished that they were only children.

Now, however, it’s different story.  A story that I couldn’t have written any better myself!  (Note: You know how really good friends fight occasionally?  Mary and Lila must be really, really good friends!)

Some kind of complex trade appears to be happening in this picture…I’m not quite sure of the terms.

We ♥ reading

Perusing a recent Pottery Barn catalog

Snacking on the catalog

On a rainy day like today, this is about as close as they can get to playing outside.

Mary anxiously awaits the next ball…

…and then lets Lila have a turn.

Friends like to do each other’s hair.  Oh, and at our house, friends also really like to pull each others hair.

When I saw this picture, it made me think of an eclipse.  What’s even cuter than this picture itself is the fact that in this picture, Lila is giving Mary a kiss.

Even though  M&L are so different looking, sometimes they’ll both have the same expressions on their faces.  I also think that their side profiles are very similar.  What do you think?

And, even friends spend time apart…

Mary carries this bucket (and another red bucket we have) like a purse.  She’ll walk around, and keep hitching it up if it slips.

Mary has a little lamb.  (Or, according to the rap on Sesame Street, Murray has a little lamb.)

“Heart.  Rrreeeeeedddddddd heart!”  That’s what this puppy is saying right now…you’ll notice the lit up red heart.  Trust me…I’ve heard it enough times to know.

It’s kind of hard to see, but in this picture Mary is making her kissy face.  I’ve started calling her Miss Kiss.  She scrunches up her nose and mouth and makes a loud smacking kiss noise.

Three bears.

♥

Now you see her…

Now you don’t!

Here I am!

Curtains are fun!

Nose.

Contemplative.

Lila loves to do this…doesn’t she look like she’s trying to do a headstand?

Every time she does this, she giggles…she thinks she’s pretty funny!

That new little trick of hers really works wonders for her hair, huh?

Lila was sitting on me and pressed the camera button here…so I’d guess you’d call this a self-portrait?

Shut the door!

Shutting doors (the laundry room door, the baby gate, the closet doors, the bedroom doors, and even dresser drawers which technically aren’t doors but are still apparently fun to shut) is the newest trend at our house.  All the cool kids are doing it.

The problem with babies shutting doors?  The grownups who try to open said doors risk knocking over the baby(s) standing on the other side.  My new motto when opening any door is “proceed with caution!”

And I must say, there is something undeniably adorable about Lila and the baby gate.  When we let M&L in the “grownup” (aka not-100-percent-baby-proofed) side of the house, we open the gate and let them walk through.  Lila takes a big step over the threshold of the gate, walks about one foot forward, stops, turns around, and gently closes (never slams!) the gate until it latches.

Mary plays gatekeeper to the girls’ bedroom. (Since they’re walking now, I guess you can’t really call it a nursery anymore, right?  Or maybe it’s still a nursery as long as there’s a changing table in the room?  Hmm…any Emily Posts out there know the protocol on this?)

Lila was granted entry, but mommy wasn’t.

Sweet 16 (months, that is)

1 1/4 years.  5/4 years.  That’s a lot of fourths.

I can’t believe Mary and Lila are 16 months old!  In the past few weeks, they seem to have aged 2 months.  Their hair has grown about 2 inches, they’ve gone from 75% crawling/25% walking to 1% crawling/99% walking, Lila has started tantrum-like behavior, Mary points to her “owies” when she cries, Lila mimics us by trying to close the baby-gate behind her everytime she passes through it (nevermind that 99% of the time she’s trying to slam it closed as Mary’s trying to pass through), they’ve started pointing to things in books as I say the word (for example, if I say “Where’s the cow?” they’ll point to the cow on the page)…really, it’s too much to even record here.  It’s amazing.

How many more days until summer?

Mary alternates betwen pushing and lifting this toy to carry around with her.

I can’t wait until they’re old enough to pick up their own toys!

Yummy Yucky is one of our favorite books!

Important life lessons in this book…”Soup is yummy!  Soap is yucky!”

And who can forget the old adage, “Burgers are yummy!  Boogers are yucky!”

Mary wants a burger.

Lila does some stretches.

I love it when they dig through the toy bins, looking for something…so intent!  This wasn’t it…Lila tossed it aside after a second and kept digging with Mary.

Playing with their ball popper

Hmm…I think we know who’s been clogging up the ball popper (blocks, socks, Little People, etc.)…

…both of them!

Mischief makers!

“Hey mom, can I borrow the car?”

“I am 16 today, you know!”

Just last week, M&L finally figured out how to put these blocks together, rather than just tear apart blocks that Kevin or I put together!

Mary was trying to put all the blocks away, but Lila kept taking them out to play with them.

Back to back

After Kevin got home from work, we took some pictures with Big Pink.

Toothy grin from Mary

Serious Bear

There’s a smile peeking through!

No crying, and one out of two looking towards the camera…not bad!

Lilaroo

All alone on the chair…that’s what happens when you throw Big Pink on the ground!

We gave her this toy, but she just wanted Big Pink back!

And, that was the end of the Big Pink photo shoot.  Lila was trying to dive off the front of the seat, and when it was Mary’s turn she was trying to climb up the back of the chair.

As soon as we let Lila down, she grabbed Big Pink and took him over to the toy bins in the corner.  I couldn’t tell if she actually wanted to play with him, or if she was annoyed with him and was trying to put him away.

Nothing rounds off an evening like raiding the dresser and throwing clean bibs on the floor!

W-A-L-K

Part of our weekend morning routine includes going for a W-A-L-K.  We don’t actually call it a “walk” because if you say that word out loud at our house, Pearl and Morris are likely to have a coronary before we make it out the door.  So, we call it a W-A-L-K.  Maybe Mary and Lila will be early spellers.

When we go for a W-A-L-K, the common destination is our neighborhood Starbucks.  We’ve started bringing a snack for Mary and Lila in the snack cups that are supposedly “spill-proof.”  We clip the snack cups to the stroller straps with binky clips because M&L have a tendency to throw things that aren’t securely attached to them.  Ingenious, right?  It works pretty well, but we usually manage to leave a trail of cheddar bunnies/Kix/raisins behind us wherever we go.

A new part of our routine is letting Mary and Lila out of the stroller to walk.  Usually we do this in front of our house before or after our W-A-L-K, but yesterday we let Lila out mid-walk and she held my hand and walked a few blocks on the sidewalk.  It might seem inconsequential, but to us it’s a pretty big deal!

Lila enjoying her snack outside Starbucks

Mary chowing down

Trying to set a world record for “Most Kix crammed into mouth at one time”

Pearl and Morris patiently waiting for their snack (aka the Kix that Mary and Lila drop in their laps)

W-A-L-K-ing

Proud Mary

She might be toddling, but she’s still my Baby Bear.

Hitching a ride on Daddy’s shoulders

“Hi there!”

And where was Lila during all this fun?  Napping in the stroller.

Bedtime Playtime

I love playing with M&L right before they go to bed…for some reason, they act particularly silly!

Twin in the toy bin!

Can you tell she’s having fun?

Snuggles

Pack her in tight!

Mary takes a water break.

The Plague, part deux

For dinner last night, I enjoyed a meal of beef jerky.  From a vending machine.  A vending machine in the ER.

That’s ER as in emergency room.  The place I took Kevin after a solid day and a half of puking, accompanied by chest pains and fever.

Rewind back to yesterday morning.  When I arrived at work, I got a phone call from my mom as she was puking in the bushes on the side of the road while M&L sat in her car.

Don’t worry folks, it’s not the swine.  It’s the PLAGUE!

Thankfully, Kevin and Grandma are on the mend.  Mary, Lila, and Mommy have all been spared the misery (knock on wood).

Despite all the sickness, the cuteness continues.  Here’s another video clip from the archives of the past few weeks that I’m trying to work through…

(despite appearances, no babies were harmed in the making of this film)

The Plague

Kevin’s got it.  Daddy is seriously s.i.c.k.  We’re talking stomach flu folks…it’s not pretty.  I’m hiding upstairs trying to avoid catching it.  Poor Kevin caught a terrible cold right after Christmas and was sick through last week, at which point Mary, Lila, and I were all sick too, so he had no one to take care of him.  He finally recovered from that sickness, was healthy for about 8 minutes, and then this morning he woke up and didn’t feel well at all again.  He tried to tough it out and go to work, but ended up coming home mid-morning because he was losing his breakfast.  Yuck.  This evening he’s even worse off than he was this morning and he has a wife who is hiding from him.    But seriously, someone has to stay healthy to take care of the girls.  I’m praying that I’ll be spared.

Totally unrelated (but incredibly cute) is a video of Mary and Lila playing in the bath.  I have about 18,000 videos from the past three weeks and will slowly share them with you over the next week or so, in which time I’ll probably take another 28,000 videos and then I’ll have to play catch up AGAIN.  I guess that’s the story of life with twins…always a few steps behind.

Playdate

What a treat to have a weekday off work!

This morning, Mary, Lila, and I ran some errands…to the dry cleaners and the bookstore.  At the dry cleaners, I decided to be brave and just carry the girls in with the cleaning rather than use the stroller.  I guess I have a new found confidence after The Perfect Storm!  M&L enjoyed exploring while I waited to pick up our cleaning, and (thankfully) the owner carried the clean clothes out to the car and loaded them in while I dealt with the girls.  She also wanted to give them some some lollipops, but I declined as M&L have never had candy and that’s a road I’m just not quite ready to venture down yet (spoken as a true candy addict…those suckers were a gateway drug for sure!).  At the bookstore, I bought Happiest Toddler on the Block.  Because I want my babies (toddlers?  again, not quite feeling ready to venture down that road!) to be the happiest.  There’s a whole section of the book that teaches parents to speak Toddler-ese…just a heads up in case you hear me speaking a foreign language with Mary and Lila!

After lunch and a nap, we hosted a playdate for our twins group.  Leah, Cassie, William, Ian, Caden, and Liam took us up on the offer and it was so fun watching all eight of them play together!

Lila, Leah, and Cassie

Ian, William, Lila, and Liam

Cassie and Lila

Leah, Ian, William, Caden, Mary, and Liam

Liam and Mary spent a lot of time hanging out on the stairs…Liam was trying to climb over the gate as Mary watched in admiration!

Lila, Leah, Ian, and Caden

Leah, William, and Melissa

Mary

Mary and Leah

Here are several attempts at a group shot…you’ll notice that almost everyone is holding a distraction object (teacups, snap beads, remote controls, car keys, sippy cups, stacking cups, etc.).  I think the last one is the closest I got to all eight pairs of eyes open and somewhat looking at the camera!  In all pictures, from left to right, are Cassie, Leah, Ian, William, Liam, Caden, Lila, and Mary.

And, some more cuteness from Mary and Lila after everyone left.  It’s so fun watching them play these days…whether it’s bringing one another toys, exchanging toys, stealing toys, taking each others socks off, giving each other kisses, pushing each other out of the way, playing in the curtains, sitting on the stairs together, looking at books, hugging animals and dolls, dancing, making calls on their cell phones…whatever they do, I find it highly entertaining!

In this picture, I had asked Lila to find the monkey.  She rifled through the toy bins and produced two monkeys!  I had forgotten that we even had the light brown one…she’s so smart!

Walking in the park…

very different than a walk in the park.

Yesterday was the first time that we took Mary and Lila to a park and they were actually able to walk around and play.  It was pretty exciting!

The big item of interest was the freshly laid wood chips on the ground.  Go figure.

Is is just me, or does Mary look like she’s about 8 years old in this picture?!  Well, a very short 8 year old…

Having fun

Whoa…what’s this stuff??

Look what I found!

Pink coats, bows, AND ponies…let’s hope no one asks if we’re boys today.

One of the few pictures I got of Lila…she was on the move the whole time.

Even though they can walk, they still love to swing!

If only you could have been there to hear the giggles and squeals…

Lilaroo

Baby Bear

Hanging out at the ropes

Hanging through the ropes

More wood chips!

Climbing up the slide

They didn’t make it very far…

…because they realized that there were more wood chips to play with.

Looking tired…

…time to get going…

“We don’t want to leave!”