Midway Ice Castles

I just wrote a blog post a couple weeks ago and I'm already itching to write another.  Must be because I just received my printed and bound book of posts from last year.  I love having them as a journal of our family each year and now I'm all motivated to better capture 2014's moments for the 2014 book.

Last weekend we bundled up and ventured with the whole family to see the Midway Ice Castles.  They were pretty neat.  All these tunnels and corridors with icicles hanging down and as the sun starts to set there are glowing lights behind the walls.  We were lucky enough to be there just as the lights were turning on.  They had also created an Olaf snowman from the movie Frozen to Olivia's delight.  I found this aerial pic that may give you a better view of what it was like.  To make the castle I guess they have an Ice Farm where they grow icicles. Once they are a certain size they are broken off and attached to the top of a current Ice Castle with some slush. At night when they are closed they turn on some sprinklers which spray the entire structure. The water and the cold nights cause the Castle to grow. I guess they just keep adding on to it all winter long.

We ingeniously decided on this sled as the best mode of transportation for the boys through the snow castle.  It would have been very tiring to carry them and may not have worked well in the backpacks.  They were the hit of the castle.  They got all kinds of attention and everyone thought them so cute cuddled up with each other in the sled. 
We convinced Jared and Heather to come with their boys and Liv adored exploring the castle with Eli and Emmett.

Other pics worth posting:
One day when it was 40 degrees I deemed it summer-like enough for us to all brave a walk.
Every day Liv wants to role play a different princess movie.  This morning it was Beauty and the Beast.  She can quote the whole thing and tells me exactly how to act my part.  I was Gaston and had to throw her book in the mud.  She picked it up wiped it off with the corner of her dress and shouted, "Don't talk about my father that way!"  Yesterday it was Peter pan.  I was Peter Pan, the boys John and Micheal, she Wendy of course and we got to reenact the window scene where all of us take off flying to Neverland and then of course the boat sword fights with Captain Hook.  This day she was Rapunzel long hair and all.

The boys up to their usual mischief.  Every time I pull out a new roll of toilet paper there are usually a few bites missing.

And I really wanted to post this collection of chair pictures.  The two boys just recently and this old one of Liv when she was almost exactly their age.

Cleaning the Bathrooms

I feel like I could write another day in the life of twins post and list all the messes and trouble my twins get into in just one day.  Geez!  So stay tuned for that, but for today I'm just gonna ramble about a couple things I felt the need to document.

Tuesday and Thursday mornings Liv goes to preschool.  That is also my scheduled cleaning time.  The boys take a nap while she is gone and I do as much as I can while they are asleep on Tuesday and then repeat on Thursday and whatever gets done gets done until the next week.

So on Tuesday I cleaned all the bathrooms.  Let's just say with the holidays (meaning no school) and being out of town it had been a while.  Liv came home and went to the bathroom and exclaimed, "Mom!  You did such a good job cleaning the potty!"  It felt so nice to be recognized and appreciated.

However, later that night while I was doing the dishes and Derek was playing with the boys he got a phone call that he had to take and left the room.  All I did was finish the one dish I was working on, and by the time I was done and came to check on the boys they had gotten into that same bathroom, climbed a stool to open the drawer with their toothbrushes and were both in the potty scrubbing and swirling the inside of the potty with their toothbrushes.  I didn't see them then put them in their mouths while I was there, but I would not be at all surprised if that had happened before I got there.  Guess they didn't agree with Liv's assessment that I did a good enough job cleaning the toilet.  And I guess if I'm trying to think positively...at least they did it on a day I had cleaned that toilet.  So, they are now toothbrushless until I can make it to the store to pick some new, clean toothbrushes for them.

Also of note.  Liv keeps telling me she wants to get on a plane and fly to Babi's house again, and I keep explaining that it costs a lot of money which we don't have to fly all of us out to Babi's house.  So this morning she woke up and literally broke her piggy bank (ceramic pink pig all over the floor) to retrieve 2 dimes and 4 pennies.  When I discovered her she said very excitedly, "Mom!  I can share this money with you so we can fly to Babi's house."  Oh how I wish that was enough money to cover the cost of flights.

Here is a picture of this funny girl who spends a majority of the day in some princess dress.  This particular day is was wearing her Rapunzel dress, holding two Rapunzel figurines, and watching Tangled!

A few more pictures from the week:

The other evening I walked in the kitchen to find that the boys had both climbed into this laundry basket together all by themselves and then proceeded to pull every DVD off the shelf.  Cute nonetheless.

 

The boys are really starting to love London

They got this building block table for Christmas.  It mostly gets used as a step stool to climb on to something else...the kitchen table, the piano or to pretend to be Camdenzilla...

How I wrote this post.  Carter asleep.  Camden contained...for now