The girls have reached a really, truly funny stage. They say some crazy things and the things they do are even funnier. They love to pretend, they love to fight and they love to laugh. They'll do almost anything to get a laugh. Here they are sucking candle holders to their faces to make me laugh.

From to picasa

Abby thought that Emily sitting in the toy container was so funny she was literally rolling on the floor laughing.

From to picasa

One of Emily's favorite activities is to wash her hands. Seriously she must wash her hands 25 times a day. She can't just wash them and be done with it. She stands there for about 5 minutes splashing, washing her face, her hair and she always tries to wash the hand towel...needless to say we end up with lots of laundry because of her.

From to picasa

Of course she finds more ways that I could imagine to make mischief in the bathroom. A few days ago Byron found Emily dumping a container of shampoo on Abby's head. He had to bathe Abby in the sink to get it all off. Abby seemed to enjoy the spa treatment once she was used to it.

From to picasa

Abby is still enjoying dressing herself. She can't be left alone around neatly folded clothes (so we just leave her clothes in a big, messy pile). She love to dig through her things and put together fancy outfits. She frequently has bathing suits or underwear on over her clothes. She also loves to be "nakey" with only a diaper on. The outfit below is a number that she calls "necklace hat".

From to picasa

Of course every cute habit they have is usually matched by an equally un-cute habit. Emily chomped on Abby's shoulder recently. Luckily, we've only had one or two biting incidents so far!

From to picasa

From to picasa

A couple weeks ago I heard Abby scurry upstairs and slam her door shut and yell "alone" in a nice voice. When they say "alone" they mean leave me alone. I've learned that when they tell me they want to be alone the last thing in the world I want to do is to leave them alone. I went to her room to find her nicely sitting in her rocking chair. Covered in yogurt.

From to picasa

From to picasa

From to picasa

Last week we had a great time preparing for Christmas. The girls really enjoyed making cookies. I had a lot of fun, but found that baking with them around is very difficult because I can't keep track of the beeps going off on the stove and timers while they're climbing up my legs and trying to stick their grubby hands in the dough to eat it. It was fun to see them make something and get to eat it later, though.

From to picasa

From to picasa

Here they are on Christmas eve at church. Abby has become quite the little ham and loves to pose for people.

From to picasa

From to picasa

From to picasa

From to picasa

From to picasa

Here's Abby with her cousin Rachel. She loved snuggling.

From to picasa

From to picasa

Emily loves her Uncle Bret. Here they are checking out the snow together.

From to picasa

From to picasa

The day after Christmas we got a nice snowstorm that gave us about a foot of snow, which the girls have really enjoyed. Before I show you the pictures I have to tell you that I'm not an awful mother. The girls did have mittens on but they wanted to dig in the "sand" (definitely my kids...they just want to be at the beach) and the mittens were impeding the process so they ripped them off and went for the freezing hands. It lasted about 20 minutes before someone realized that their hands were cold and yelled "frozen" at the top of their lungs and they both busted out in tears. Oh well. I warned them. Anyways, Abby spent most of the time digging up snow and eating it while Emily formed big snowballs and stored them in her bucket.

From to picasa

From to picasa

From to picasa

From to picasa

From to picasa

Of course like usual we'll wrap this update up with some mischief. I love washable crayons. So do the girls. It means they survive writing on the walls. Of course they get in trouble and get time outs, but they've also realized that they can find wipes to "clean" it up before I find it. But they're 2 and of course I usually find the mess.

From to picasa

Here's Abby in time out. Sometimes it even works! This time when it was over Byron called Abby over to him and she started crying saying "no hitting" (which was why she was in time out) like she had thought about it the whole time.

From to picasa

From to picasa

The girls' second birthday has been behind us for nearly a month! I can't believe that they're already on their way to 3! So far we've spent most of the month cleaning up after them. This Thanksgiving I spent a lot of time being thankful for Crayola inventing washable crayons. What's extra funny about that last statement is that as I was sitting here proofreading this update I looked down at my phone and someone had colored all over the screen of my iPhone. Again, THANK GOD FOR WASHABLE CRAYONS. Seriously. God help the person that wrecks my iPhone.

Since their birthday is on Halloween they get to have costume birthday parties every year. This year they dressed up as 80's girls.

From to picasa

From to picasa

Since their favorite show is Curious George, that was the theme of their party. Check out the pumpkin Byron made.

From to picasa

From to picasa

They even got to go trick or treating for the first time. As I'm sure you can imagine, getting free candy was a huge hit.

From to picasa

From to picasa

One night Emily broke into the bowl of candy and couldn't unwrap it so she decided to eat it through the wrappers. I was picking it out of her mouth for hours.

From to picasa

From to picasa

From to picasa

They got a fish for their birthday since they had been asking about getting one for months. They named it bubbles and it lives on the counter in the kitchen. They love to feed it breakfast and dinner every day. They even love to steal his food for themselves sometimes...oh well.
Here they are checking him out before he moved to his big bowl:

From to picasa

Their new favorite activity is "esercise" (exercise). Byron and I have been working out doing p90x while the girls play, but lately they've decided that they want to copy us. They love doing push-ups and lifting their 2lb weights. It's way too funny to watch and they get upset if they miss a day.

From to picasa

They also love to dress themselves. One day they picked out boots, mittens and bibs to wear to church. I wish I had the nerve to let them wear only that as it was pretty hysterical. Abby calls this look "nakey, bib, boot, mitten, fumb" (fumb means thumb, like only your thumb shows in the mittens)

From to picasa

From to picasa

We visited the animal farm last month as well. Emily seems to have developed a fear (possibly pretend fear) of any non-human with teeth. Everything is going to "bite me". Abby had a great time. Emily enjoyed herself, but not nearly as much as Abby though. When we were looking at a pig that oinked Emily thought it was a fart. She said "Abby pooped! Gross!"

From to picasa

From to picasa

From to picasa

From to picasa

I recently made pulled pork (one of my favorite foods) and Emily didn't think it was very good. She found a diaper put it in the diaper ad went to dump it in the trash. I guess I think my cooking is better than it really is?

From to picasa

From to picasa

Some more fun times with the girls:

From Recently Updated

From Recently Updated

Abby poking Emily

From to picasa

From to picasa

From to picasa

From to picasa

From to picasa

Hopefully this is not a sign of her athleticism:

From to picasa

From to picasa

From to picasa

From to picasa

They love going to the track to run and watch high school football.

From to picasa

From to picasa

From to picasa

The standard Emily with a stick picture:

From to picasa

From to picasa

From to picasa

From to picasa

From to picasa

She didn't want to leave so the most logical thing to do was to play dead. Because that's obviously going to change mom's mind.

From to picasa

If playing dead doesn't work then having a fit definitely will...or mom will just stand over you trying not to laugh while taking your picture.

From to picasa

They love to race. I can picture them in 15 years on a relay team in track. I can't wait.

From to picasa

Judging by the last month we're in for a year full of surprises from our little terrors. I'm sure year 3 will be full of fun. Thanks for two fun years so far babies!