Little Gym Show Day

They open every class with a song about shaking your bells, and the girls absolutely love it.

Then we do some group activities each class. For Show Day, we got to play with the parachute (below). Kaitlyn was the first one on! She loved it. Nicole liked most of it. Truth be told, she gets a bit fussy at LG these days if they aren't doing her favorite things.

And here we have Nicole's FAVORITE THING...the rings!!! She LOVES these. She also loves the bells (from above) and the balls (which are later), so you can see a noticeable smile on her face with those activities. If it's anything else, it's hit or miss as to her mood that day. Kaitlyn, on the other hand, seems to enjoy the entire class no matter what. Let's hope Nicole is just in a phase.

An action shot of Kaitlyn letting go of the rings, and sister waiting immediately in the wings to take her turn back on the rings!

And here we got to play with the balls toward the end of class. Great throw Nicole. That red ball was what she threw. Maybe we should be signing up for tee ball!!! She's got an arm.

And then it was time for bubbles...another favorite. Ok, so Nicole does like a lot of the aspects of Little Gym, but when she's not enjoying it, boy do you know it. I guess that's why the bad stuff just sticks out in my head.

Finally time for the medals. Yippie!!!

SOS

I cannot believe the girls turn 2 in just over one month's time! And what's more scary is that I do NOT have a party theme yet!!! AH!!! HELP!!! I've got to get invitations out soon and start looking around for party supplies and party favors, so I've got to get my theme in order soon.

OK, so here's what we've considered so far, and nothing just sticks out as a winner for various reasons:

1) The girls love the aquarium and fish (Nemo in particular) and the aquarium does parties, but we looked into the cost and it's just not practical. I suppose we still could do Nemo, but that seems like such a narrow theme...is there enough I can do with that?
2) Mickey Mouse. The girls love everything Mickey, but Ceylese did Mickey for Mackenzie's second birthday, so that's been done at this age in my family. Yes, I know I shouldn't care, but I do.
3) Sesame Street is out because we did that last year.
4) Jungle/animal theme. The girls love animals. So, we were thinking just about doing some general kind of animal theme. This is probably my fall back so far unless we can come up with anything else fantastic soon. My fear with this theme is that I won't be able to find decorations and favors that are just general animal theme.

So you see my problem? Any suggestions or thoughts?

Playing Dress Up

They own these Cinderella dresses. They were a bit big, so we had never used them before. Well, Joanna thought to try them one day and took these photos. They're SO cute. I'm sorry I missed it. We'll have to play dress up again sometime when I'm around.

We've taught the girls to "give your sister a kiss." Priceless....

Zoo

We went to the zoo on Sunday. The girls slept until NINE THIRTY Sunday morning, so needless to say, we got a LATE start. (I love that!!! I hear about kids getting up at 6:30am, and it makes me shudder. I know it's coming one day when they're school age, but I'm loving this phase right now.)

Since we got there so late, we didn't stay too long since we had to get back for lunch, nap, etc...but, we got annual passes, so no pressure. We can come back whenever we want. For those of you keeping track, that rounds out the Atlanta season pass experience for the Barbree family. We now have Aquarium, Six Flags, White Water and Zoo!!! I keep saying, it's super easy to do that now becuase we're only paying for me and Mike. When we have to start buying passes for the girls, it will be another story. So, we'll enjoy this while we can.

Below are some photos from the petting zoo first. The girls really enjoyed this.

And here are our little Lions...

Developmental Results

It went better than I could have ever imagined. Kaitlyn is not autistic. Kaitlyn is not PDD-NOS (just to the left of the autism spectrum - pediatric developmental disorder not otherwise specified). She scored only about 1 month behind on her speech (which encompassed both her receptive speech - what she understands us say - and her expressive speech - what she actually says).

Now, you all might be thinking, why did they even have her tested if she scored so well and only showed a one month delay? You'd think to yourselves that I'm crazy and maybe I imagined all of this or have too high of expectations. I suppose I'd tell you all that you're entitled to your opinion, but you also don't have twins. And I'd go with the old saying about a mother's instinct, and my instincts told me to have this checked out. I wonder if my concern grew from the fact that I watch Nicole every day, day in and day out, and notice that Kailtyn's vocabulary is not really close to Nicole's. So, how was I to know whether Nicole was advanced or if Kaitlyn was behind? And Kailtyn has this stimming. And I know two people with autistic children and having heard their stories, I think I felt like it's never wrong to puruse your gut feeling when it comes to your kids. I guess to sum it up, this would have haunted me if I hadn't done anything about it.

The doctor still recommended that we continue with speech therapy, so it's not like she thought Kaitlyn was "fine." And she told me she'd never tell me that Kaitlyn was fine at our first visit because, after all, I wouldn't have brought her in for an evaluation if everything was perfectly on track. So, we'll continue with that for a while. Maybe Kailtyn will have her break through...maybe not. She also wants to see Kaitlyn back in 6-9 months to make sure she's making progress (unless she progresses so much that it's unnecessary).

Thanks for your warm wishes. We appreciate it. And we were pleased that we did this and pleased with the doctor's thoughts/opinions.

Outdoor Pictures

It is SO hard these days to get photos of the two of them together. Kind of stinks, but we try anyway. We sure get plenty of individual shots that are super cute though!!! Hope you enjoyed them.

What's Been Going On?

Just a quick update here.

Well...my purse was stolen on Saturday. I was at the playground with my kids for crying out loud!!! Couldn't have been a more wholesome scenario, and thieves took advantage. I admit that I was pretty stupid. I left my purse in the car. Mike wasn't able to go with me, so I was thinking that carrying a purse on top of holding kids' hands and getting them safely there wasn't necessary. And the parking lot (and my car) were visible from the playground. I think the thieves know that parents are consumed with watching their kids instead of being aware of their surroundings, so they pray on those parents. And why wouldn't they? They're absolutely right. I was watching Kaitlyn and Nicole have the best time going up and down the slide themselves!!! They loved it. We had a great time (until we got back to the parking lot).

So, even though I could see my car the whole time, I don't think I glanced that way once. And the thieves probably also realize that there are plenty of moms who leave their purses in the car. So, not only did my purse get stolen, but we had to replace 2 windows on the car. They tried one window first, apparently, and it wouldn't shatter. So, they moved to another window. Of course the first window had plenty of spider vein cracks in it though, so it still had to be replaced. SUCKS! And they got more than one car cause their strategy is dead on...moms leave purses in cars, especially somewhere like a playground. Well, not this mom anymore! I have learned a very valuable lesson...the VERY HARD WAY though!

I just don't get it though. Saturday was a beautiful day. The playground was packed! Cars coming and going every few minutes. These thieves had guts to say the least. They obviously have this down to a science so they can get in and out in a matter of seconds. Oh well....I'll say it again...SUCKS!

Second update...I'm counting down to Kaitlyn's evaluation results. Only 2 more days. We find out Friday morning. Keep your fingers crossed.

Third update...we took some very cute pictures on Sunday of the girls outside with beautiful landscaping in the background. There are several that I really like. When I have a chance, I'll upload photos, so stay tuned.