Caley's Dress

A week or two before my girls started pre-k, in the fall of 2007, I took them shopping to find new dresses to wear to school on the first day. Both girls found dresses that they loved and were super excited to wear. I remember that at the time that we bought the dresses both girls were wearing size 4/5. I wanted to buy the new dresses in size 6/6x so that the dresses would be a little big and the girls would be able to wear them for a while.
Well, we could not find the dress that Caley LOVED in a 6/6x, so we bought the 4/5.
Caley absolutely loved her new dress. She wore it around the house many times before the first day of school. She could not wait to put in on that first day. To be honest, I think she was more excited about wearing her dress than going to school.
Since the first day of pre-k that dress has been worn MANY times. Caley pulled it out of the closet any chance she got. She worn it all through pre-k, kindergarten, and 1st grade. Finally, at the end of 1st grade I decided that the dress was getting too short. I took it out of her closet and tucked it away for safe keeping. As much as she loved that dress, I knew I had to keep it for her.
Even though the dress was no longer in her closet, Caley would still ask about the dress. A couple of times she saw it hanging in it's "safe place" and she would say, "aww, I wish I could wear that dress."
Well, yesterday Caley came up with a way that she could still wear her size 4/5, first-day-of-pre-K dress.


Here she is this morning, as a 2nd grader! She put a pair of black leggings under the dress and turned it into a tunic-style top. Eventually, she will grow out of the dress (I think), but for now, she still loves it, still wears it, and who knew a $10.00 dress from Wal*Mart would bring such joy to a very fashion-minded girl.

Through the Eyes of a 7 Year Old

This week the girls and I went to Downtown Disney. While we were there, they got a hold of my camera. It is interesting to see what the world looks like through the eyes of two seven-year-olds.

Here are a few of their pictures...

The Tinker Toys sculpture

An outside shot of the "Once Upon a Toy" shop


The "Mickey" water fountain outside "Once Upon a Toy"

A Monopoly card

Caitlyn with "Genie" from Aladdin

They took some good pictures. Who knows...maybe they are budding photographers!?

Spelling Bee

Yesterday was the 2nd Annual Spelling Bee at my kids elementary school. CJ was lucky enough to be one of the participants this year. The participants for the spelling bee were chosen over the last couple of weeks through a series of smaller spelling bees held in each class. The winner from each class was sent to participate in the school wide spelling bee. All of the words for the school wide spelling bee were determined to be Eighth grade level words. Most of the kids made it through the first round. A few of the 1st and 2nd graders made it through several rounds. In fact, the second runner up was a girl who is in 2nd grade! Amazing! She is an incredible speller. The winner of the spelling bee was a girls who is in 4th grade.

CJ made it through the second round. He did great on his first word(FRUIT), but got nervous in the second round. He had all of the correct letters in his word (SQUEEZE) he just mixed the letters up a little bit (SQUEZEE). Oopse! Oh well, we were really proud of him for being one of only 20 kids in the school who was able to participate. There were some really difficult words and all of the kids did great.

At the end of the spelling bee all of the kids posed for a group picture with their certificates. One funny note... CJ's last name is spelled wrong on his certificate! Our last name is a bit challenging, but when it is for a spelling bee, you would think someone would have double checked ALL of the SPELLING! ;-)

Just Wondering...

Why do kids always get sick in the middle of the night? By sick I mean, why do kids alway wake you up at 2:00 am or 4:00 am vomiting? Why don't they ever do it at 2:00 pm when you are wide awake and equipted to deal with it? Just Wondering...?

Twin Fun Facts

My twins are currently participating into a study being conducted by Florida State University called the "Florida Twin Project on Reading." The goal of the project is to understand the underlying causes of individual differences in reading-related skills. The project compares data collected from sets of identical and fraternal twins. My girls are not aware that they are participating in the project. They simply take the same standardized tests that all Florida public school students take. The Florida State University researches then take their test scores and compare them to those of other fraternal and identical twins.

From time to time we receive a newsletter about the progress of the study. This months newsletter contained a few Twin Fun Facts that I found interesting, and I thought I would pass them on.

1. There are over 125 million twins in the world.

2. The birth rate of twins is about 32 per 1,000 births.

3. Between 1996 and 2006, the percentage of multiple births in Florida grew by more than 19%.

4. About 1/3 of all twins are identical and 2/3 are fraternal. My twins are fraternal, but are often mistaken for identical.

5. Over 20% of twins are left handed, but only 10% of the general population are lefties. My twins are both righties.

Lego Speed Build!!!

The theme of our summer this year seems to be ~ find things to do that are fun and inexpensive. In the spirit of both fun and free, this week we headed back to our local Lego Store for a "Minifigure Speed Building Event."

The rules of the speed building event on this particular evening were; build as many mini Darth Vader figures as you can in 1 minute. The winner was to receive a limited-edition Darth Vader minifigure. In addition, each participate would recieve a Lego Star Wars magnet.

CJ, although nervous, decided that he would take part in the speed building event.

After getting directions from the Lego employee in charge of the event, the kids were off and building. CJ got off to a great start. I could see that he was a little nervous - his hands were shaking - but he hung in there. I thought that he was going to win his heat, when suddenly, the boy next to him managed to finish one more figure than CJ. It was almost a tie, I think CJ would have had it, had he not been so nervous.

Anyway, it was a good experience. Each kid got their magnet and off we went to look around the store. We are looking forward to the next FREE event at Lego.

Off to a great start, CJ gets to work building his first Darth Vader minifigure.

One done, second one started! Will the kid to his right finish first?

To find out about Lego fun near you go to www.Lego.com, search for the store near you, and click on their "new and events" section.

Getting Better

Last Monday Caley tripped at school, fell into a desk, and cut her head above her right eyebrow. She did not need any stitches, which we were relieved about. Yesterday, we took the steri-strips and bandages off. I was very surprised and happy to find that the cut has healed very well and you can barely see it. For the next couple of weeks we will continue to keep it clean and apply Mederma to the cut. With any luck, she won't have much of a scar at all. Yea! A happy ending to a scary incident.

Ouch!

2:00 pm - Chris and I are in the car, headed toward the school to pick the kids up. It was raining, so we decided to pick them up in the car instead of walking, which we usually do. My phone rings..."Mrs. Wr-----(no can ever pronounce our last name) this is Nurse Mary at school. Caley tripped and fell into a desk. She cut her head and I think she may need stitches."

Ok... thank goodness we were on our way there.

We get to the school, we were immediately directed into the nurses office. Both of the girls were there. Both were in tears. Part of being a twin is having the same emotions at the exact same moment, even if only one of them is sad, hurt, happy, sleepy, sick, the other joins in.

Poor Caitlyn was crying her eyes out for Caley. I asked her if her head hurt too(I have heard instances in which twins do feel pain for each other), she said "no" she was just sad for Caley.

Luckily the cut didn't look too bad.

We got all three kids and headed to the pediatricians office. His decision was that she did not need stitches, just steri-stripes and a little bandaging. Again, thank goodness, I think the trama of stitches may have been worse than the actual cut.

In the end, I was very proud of her. She handled the whole thing pretty well. I can't wait to hear the stories she will have to tell from school today. I am sure the whole class will want to know all about her new look. And hopefully it won't leave too much of a scar.

He Did It!!!

CJ got his first hit in a game today!!!

It was a long time coming, but he stuck with it and today was his day.

CJ started playing Little League baseball last fall. He had quite a bit of ground to make up since he had never played baseball before.

I am very proud of him for sticking with it and working hard.

He has had two really good coaches who have worked with him and given him all kinds of encouragement.

One of the best parts of today was that CJ's coach from last fall was the opposing coach today. So, he got to see CJ get his first hit too.

It was a great game.

Both teams played really good and the final score was...

Royals 9, Red Sox 9
It was another great day for baseball!!!

Surprise!

Look at all Those Missing Teeth!

Yesterday Caley came out of school with a perplexed look on her face.

"What's wrong," I asked?

"Caley has a loose tooth, and she is afraid to tell you," Caitlyn answered.

"Oh," I said, "do you want to show it to me?"

Caley did not answer, she just shook her head no. She doesn't like when her teeth are loose. So, we just went on with our day and didn't think about the tooth for awhile.

When dad came home, Caitlyn told him that Caley had a loose tooth.

"Can I see it," dad asked Caley?

This time she did let him see it. He came to the conclusion that the tooth was not ready to come out yet.

Fast forward to bedtime. I am picking up toys in bedrooms, dad and CJ are putting baseball clothes away in CJ's room and Caley is in the bathroom brushing her teeth.

"My tooth came out," Caley yelled from the bathroom.

What? I didn't think it was that loose, I didn't even know that she had a loose tooth until yesterday afternoon.

So, long story short, the Tooth Fairy visited us again last night. She brought Caley this cute Webkin frog (I think the Tooth Fairy shops at the Disney SALSA sale). It was her first visit to our house, this year.

She will be back. I checked Caitlyn's teeth this morning. She has one that is getting ready to come out.

A Birthday Celebration - Times Two

Tuesday was Caley and Caitlyn's 6th Birthday. Where has the time gone? I know that sounds cliched, but it is true. It seems like only yesterday that I found out that I was pregnant, and thought it was only one baby. Fast forward 2 months, SURPRISE, it's twins! Fast forward 4 more months and I am in a hospital giving birth to two healthy girls. Then, in the blink of and eye (or a blur, with twins life can become a bit overwhelming) they are in Kindergarten and turning 6.

So today we celebrated!

The celebration started at school. Mom and Dad brought cupcakes for the girls and their classmates to eat. All of the kids sang "Happy Birthday" to the girls (it's always funny to see how each group will try to squeeze two names into the song). At the end of the song one of their classmates proclaimed "Caley and Caitlyn rock!" It was really cute. The girls are very fortunate to be well-liked by all of their classmates.

After school all of the grandparents came over for a family celebration. This is Caitlyn with Grandpa Tom. We were just getting ready to have dinner.

And here is Caley with Grandma Pauline. Both of the girls love to play dress-up. Caley got all decked-out in her Minnie Mouse dress and tiara for the party.

After dinner it was time for presents. I thought if I only invited the grandparents this year it would cut down on the amount of presents. I was wrong. They still made quite a haul. It was all good stuff though. They got a few toys and lots of new clothes. We are very happy and thankful for that.

Then it was cake time. Birthday theme-ing and decorating is always very interesting with twins. My biggest challenge is to try to figure out how to pull two themes into one. This year we had Tinkerbell and Disney Princesses (imagine that, I think we did the same theme two years ago). All of the decorations, and yes the cake, were half Tinkerbell and half Princesses. The table cover was Tinkerbell on one side of the table and Princesses on the other. The balloons were half Tinkerbell and half Princesses. The cake had purple frosting on the Tinkerbell side and pink frosting on the Princess side. Oh, and did I mention that the cake plates and napkins were half Tinkerbell and half Princesses. At least the colors work together! I don't want to think what the party would look like if one liked Star Wars and the other liked Princesses. Ooohhh, don't even think about it.

It was a fun day...but the party isn't over yet. Saturday morning we are going to take the girls to the Disney Hollywood Studios for the Playhouse Disney character breakfast.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Happy Birthday Caley & Caitlyn!

Hope your day is the best one ever!!!

Love,

Mom, Dad & CJ

A Disney Saturday

After a month full of scouting activities, we finally had a Saturday off to go to one of the Disney parks.

We had not been to Animal Kingdom for a while, so that was our choice for the day.

The park was only open until 5:00 pm, so I knew it would not be a real late night, which is always a good thing.

As we entered the park,Brer Bear and Brer Rabbit were greeting the guests.

Caley and Caitlyn love to have their pictures taken with the characters.

There was a time when they were terrified of them.

I am glad that they like to visit with them now.

Chip and Dale were waiting to greet us as we walked out of the "Festival of the Lion King" show.

Twin chipmunks with twin girls! ;-)

We happened upon this cool walkway that goes around the "Tree of Life."

It is a great place to take a quiet walk and get some great pictures of all of the animals that are carved into the tree.

It was a perfect day to go to the park, not too hot, not too cold, and not crowded at all!!!

Back by Popular Demand!

Is it "Roy?" Is it "the Molenator?" No, it's the Tooth Fairy! (If you have seen "The Santa Clause 2" you will appreciate those names) Yep, she was back again. Sunday night Caley had to give in and let dad take out another tooth. She fought it all day long. By bedtime it was really hanging by a thread. She couldn't even brush her teeth without feeling like it was going to fall out and be washed down the sink. So, it was dad to the rescue. He barely had to touch the tooth and it was out.

Caley was very upset. Now she is missing both top-front teeth. The most upsetting part for her seemed to be that, now she looks like Caitlyn. She is so worried that people will not be able to tell them apart, since they are both missing their front teeth. Oh sure, it is just the teeth that confuse people. Not the fact that they look identical in almost every way!

Everything was all better in the morning when Caley woke up and found the Webkin that the Tooth Fairy left for her. This is her first Webkin, so it is very exciting!

To be continued..............

7 Days til Christmas

Holiday Party Day at School

Today was "Classroom Holiday Party" day for our kids.

In Caley and Caitlyn's class they made reindeer hats, watched a Berenstain Bears Christmas video, ate lots of sugary snacks, and exchanged gifts with the other kids in their class.

In CJ's class they brought in snacks to share. After eating the snacks they had free time to spend on the computers or playing games with each other.

Both of these parties were fine, but neither of them were what I remember having as a kid.

We spent most of a day partying... if I remember correctly.

We had a room mother who would plan a whole day of fun activities, and food.

I also remember having school assemblies.

At the assembly there would be some type of Holiday Program.

My kids had ONE whole hour to have their party today.

I just can't help but think what a shame it is that this is what our schools have become.

When did this happen?

How did everything get so watered down?

When did we decide that there was absolutely no benefit to letting kids be kids once-in-awhile? They already have very little PE, recess, or fun time.

Why do they also have to put a one hour time limit on having a party?

Is one Holiday Party really going to make that big a difference in the amount that they learn this year?

I don't think a half day to let loose and have some fun is too much to ask.

How did we ever let our schools get this way?

I hate to bring up such a negative topic this close to Christmas, but I think it needs to be said.

We, as parents, are responsible to watch what the schools are doing.

Are they being run the way that you would like?

It is worth taking some time to think about it, and maybe start to look for ways to make some changes!

Wordless Wednesday

All of these Christmas festivities are exhausting!

Take a look at more Wordless Wednesday stuff and a post about Jon & Kate plus Eight (one of our fanvorite shows) at http://www.5minutesformom.com/

Good Work CJ!!!

Friday was an exciting school day for CJ. Every Friday Tildenville Elementary recognizes several students from each grade for the hard work that they have been doing. This week they recognized students who had made great progress in reading. CJ was one of three fourth graders recognized this week. To earn this recognition CJ improved on his last benchmark test by 20 points!!!

This was very exciting news for me. I have always known that CJ could get good grades in school. Up to this point he had just not chosen to show his true abilities. I am so proud of him for finally letting himself and everyone else see his true abilities. Great job, CJ!!! Keep it up!!!

As a reward for his hard work, he got to choose the book that he is holding in the picture.

The t-shirt that he is wearing was also a gift from the school. Every student at Tildenville got a new shirt on Friday. The shirts were a reward for achieving an "A" on the fcat and for being a "Five Star" school. Congratulations Tildenville!!!

Do I Hear Fairy Wings?

Believe it or not, the Tooth Fairy was at our house AGAIN!!! Monday night it was Caitlyn's turn. Is it just me, or do they seem to be switching back and forth with the lost teeth? It must be another one of those mysterious twin connections. Oh, what will they find to fool us with when they get older?

This tooth was a bit of a surprise. I knew it was loose, but I did not realize it was that loose. We were brushing teeth, getting ready for bed, and all of a sudden there was blood in Caitlyn's mouth. Then, I saw a space between two of her bottom teeth. I must have sounded really surprised when I said, "Caitlyn, did you just loose a tooth?" She put her fingers in her mouth, and sure enough, she was holding a tiny little baby tooth.

So, we got out the Tooth Fairy Box, yet again. This time the Tooth Fairy brought a little stuffed horse. Too cute!

Need I say it again? Stay tuned.........

Another Lost Tooth

We had another visit from the Tooth Fairy this week.

Last Sunday, Caley said "good-bye'" to her infamous "ugly" tooth.

She originally loosened the tooth by hitting it on our ceramic tile, kitchen floor.

She was playing "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," with her brother. They were sliding across the tile floor on pillows, pretending to be the kids in the movie floating across the chocolate river!

So, last Sunday, dad decided it was time for that tooth to go. It had gotten pretty ugly, and we were worried that maybe her gums were getting infected.

After quite a bit of drama, Caley finally held still long enough for Chris to pluck the tooth out.

Thank goodness, it was fine, no infection, and very little blood.

Caley sulked for most of the rest of the day.

It was hard to say "good-bye" to an old friend I guess.

She was all better the next morning, when she found the doll that the Tooth Fairy had left for her!

Stay tuned, we have many more loose teeth!

Halloween Fun!

Halloween is a day that my kids wait for all year. They start talking about what costume they want to wear, months and months before it gets here. I have to admit, it is partially my doing. I don't like the long hot summers that we have in Florida, so my way of passing the time is to count down to Halloween. I have learned that usually by this time of the year, we get some long-awaited for, cool days and nights.

This year our Halloween traditions started on Thursday night. We got all of the pumpkin carving stuff out and set out to carve our pumpkins. CJ's pumpkin ended up being the "traditional" pumpkin face. Caley picked a "Minnie Mouse" design out of a pumpkin carving kit. Caitlyn choose a "Mickey Mouse" face out of the same kit. I decided to use this cool little tool that was in the kit, and put "Mickey Mouse" cut-outs all over my pumpkin.

Everyone had a fun and messy time with the pumpkins.

Friday afternoon, after school, the kids came home and got right to work putting on their costumes. This year Caley dressed up as "Sharpay" from High School Musical. Caitlyn dressed up as "Jasmine" from Aladdin, and CJ ended up in a "Jack Sparrow" costume. He was originally going to be "Capt. Rex" from Star Wars-the Clone Wars. When he went to put his costume on, he was not comfortable in it. Luckily for both of us, his costume from last year still fit. He did not get to wear it last year, because he was sick on Halloween!

After everyone was all decked out, Grandma and Grandpa came over. We all piled in their van and headed to Downtown Disney. They do a very nice Halloween celebration there. They have "Trick-or-Treating" at about 15 different shops and locations around the Marketplace. They also have a DJ, Jugglers, Magicians, a Storyteller, a place to get pictures taken, and "Mickey" Halloween decorations. It is really fun, and has been a tradition of ours for the last 3 years! Even Grandpa got into the Halloween spirit this year! We got lots of laughs out of his crazy costume! ;-)

And by the end of the night, everyone wanted to try on Grandpa's costume. We had a good ole time drinking hot chocolate and passing that crazy nose and mustache around! It was a good night! WE CAN'T WAIT UNTIL NEXT YEAR!!!