The McPherson Chronicles

We're just now recovering from Christmas. We had a wonderful 2nd Christmas with the girls and had so much fun seeing them start to get into the holiday spirit. I say start because the most they understood of it was that there was a giant tree in the living room and whenever they requested Mom (or the radio) would sing Christmas songs. I don't think they would have cared about the tree either except that we put their new Elmo ornaments right in the front so he got a shout out a couple of times a day. We spent Christmas Eve with Kevin's family watching the cousins open presents. I think it was a little ovewhelming for the girls to have so much going on all at the same time, but they sure did love playing with the toys (both theirs and cousin Lizzy's) once they were opened. The girls were more interested in throwing each tiny little piece of wrapping paper they pulled off into the trash bag rather than focusing on the present underneath. Warms my heart to see such little...

We continued our holiday tradition of visiting the Mission Inn lights in downtown again this year. Due to the 6 days of nonstop rain, we didn't make it there until right before Christmas. It was definitely worth the visit though as the lights are always amazing. The girls liked looking at everything and oohing and aahing along with us. They especially loved the 2 dogs and 17 million horses we saw (or at least the 8 horse drawn carriages circling the building we saw over and over and over again). Horse must have gone by Watching the ice skaters

My sister-in-law was nice enough to think of me when she saw this video on another blog . I was quite amused and I think it may give some of you some insight into the questions people feel are appropriate to ask just because I have twins. Yes, I have heard almost every question in this scenario. I just wish I were as witty (or gutsy) to respond the same way as the character. I hope you all at least get a laugh out of it.

I forgot to put these up sooner. We took the girls to see Santa a few weeks ago just so we could have a screaming Santa picture on file. We knew full well going in that the girls would not enjoy sitting with him, but we went for it anyway. It wasn't too bad actually. They were willing to sit with us on his lap and they would hi-five and take candy from him without a problem. When we put them in his lap and walked away, that's when they decided they had had enough. We had to though! We can't be those parents who never took their kids to see Santa.

First, check out this quick little video we put together for you. During all this sicky-madness we did manage to get our tree and put it up. It's probably quite different from anyone else's since it's on top of our coffee table. We figured this way we could get a smaller tree and make it look bigger and also buy ourselves a little bit of time before the girls are able to full on attack the tree. Hopefully we can stop them while they're still mounting the table and save the tree. So far, so good! We've only had to rearrange a few low hanging ornaments otherwise they're willing to leave the tree alone...for now. And here are some unsuccessful attempts at Christmas pictures of the girls. We were trying on their Christmas dresses and figured it was worth a shot. You can definitely tell they are still sick. Oh well, we'll try again in a couple of days. 

I stumbled upon this on another website and I immediately knew it had to go here. It's an accurate representation of where the girls are currently. If it is on, I must turn it off. If it is off, I must turn it on. If it is folded, I must unfold it. If it is a liquid, it must be shaken, then spilled. If it a solid, it must be crumbled, chewed or smeared. If it is high, it must be reached. If it is shelved, it must be unshelved. If it is pointed, it must be run with at top speed. If it has leaves, they must be picked. If it is plugged, it must be unplugged. If it is not trash, it must be thrown away. If it is in the trash, it must be removed, inspected, and thrown on the floor. If it is closed, it must be opened. If it does not open, it must be screamed at. If it has drawers, they must be rifled. If it is a pencil, it must write on the refrigerator, monitor, or table. If it is full, it will be more interesting emptied. If it is empty, it will be more interesting f...

As soon as I finished the last word on the last post, Lucy coughed I turned around and she proceeded to throw up all over the couch and carpet. My house sure is taking a beating! Auntie Sarah came over to help me keep things under control while I cleaned up and did a load of laundry and cleaned the carpet (thank goodness for my Little Green machine!!). Since we've already been through this with Olivia I feel like we can get through this quicker and know what to give and what not to give Lucy until it passes. I've learned my lesson to not say we're so lucky about only having one sick child. Here's to hoping this ALL passes quickly! My poor sickies

As in the flu. Poor Olivia started throwing up early Wednesday morning and continued throughout the day. She didn't have a fever and didn't act sick. In fact it was hard to get her to stop playing and rest. She acted good as new after each incident and went right back to playing with her sister. We had a really hard time getting fluids in her too since all she wanted was milk. We gave in to her begging once and let her have some only to learn our lesson a short time later. Let's just say our carpet (and the smell in our house) will never recover. She made it from 10-6 without throwing up so we thought we were through it when dinner re-appeared. I think it freaks Lucy out more than Olivia when she throws up. Lucy gets so worried about her and cries and cries. Olivia cries at first but it's more just to clean her up. Once she's washed off, she's fine. I finally took Olivia to the Dr. after she woke up Thursday and threw up again, without having anything to e...

Some form of this is probably one of the most frequent comments/questions we get about twins. Answer: it's the only thing we know. We didn't have a singleton (Kevin loves when I use that term) before the girls and we haven't had any since, so having 2 little ones to chase after is all we know. We hardly know what to do with ourselves when just one of them wakes up early from a nap and we have to entertain her until sister gets up (or else she will go wake sister up her self). So I figured maybe a little back tracking of how we manage(d) with 2 babies and now toddlers, may be good, at least for our memories. At the beginning we had LOTS OF HELP. I'm fairly certain I've already documented all that somewhere on here so I won't go into details. I can't stress enough how much having help really does allow the mom to re cooperate, especially after a c-section and while nursing. Speaking of nursing I mostly nursed them one at a time, but occasionally for th...

Here's a little breakdown of the girls' traits and personalities now that they're nearly 21 months. Olivia -independent -studious- loves to "study" books, magazines and ads -sensitive -hesitant and about new things, people and places -great at following directions -cuddly -loves to sort and stack -loves to dance and sing Lucy -total ham -uses a lot of facial expressions -slightly bossy -sings and dances a lot -talkative -curious and brave -tests the limits and isn't usually swayed by "no" -possessive but learning how to share Even though they have so much that is different about their personalities, they are also very similar. They play great together! They talk, sing and dance with each other and love to chase and wrestle together. They truly are best friends.

You can find out about The Beast in the first part here . It took almost a year but we have finally made some progress in the girls' relationship with The Beast. We've continued to vacuum while the girls are sleeping for the most part (there have been 2 cracker crumb disasters that have required immediate vacuuming).  The girls, up until the last week or so, have continued to freak out when we open the closet where the vacuum resides and hate vacuums at other people's houses as well. I don't know what got into them last week but all of a sudden they started asking for the vacuum and going over to the hall closet. At first I just thought they were freaked out by the noise of the heater and thought The Beast was about to make an appearance. Kevin finally started opening the hall closet so they could look at it and they didn't freak out. In fact, they began regularly requesting to see it. Kevin took it out of the closet one night after work and asked the girls if t...