Times have changed

This is your 200th installment of "Adventures with Lily and Elsa." And we're nearly to our 3 year blogaversary. I've been taking a trip down memory lane reading my earliest posts. Its hard to remember being 9 months pregnant with twins in August. The doctor told me the babies would surely be born by Sept 1st. Little did I know, we'd be waiting another two weeks for them to finally arrive. I found a line from their newborn days "the girls have about 8 feedings a day each. So, that's about 16, 20 minute feedings per day."--Sept 2004 I can't believe I spent over 5 HOURS per day just breastfeeding. Wow. Back in those days, we were all about feeding, burping, getting them on schedules. Getting out to Target or the grocery store was an all day event. I remember how excited we were the first time their eyes started focusing on their teddy bear mobile.

Now, we have such lovely happy energetic children who have so much personality and are so independent. Their language skills are so amazing. I love to hear them talking to each other and us, making up songs and playing games. Just this morning, the girls wanted to go on a ride in a spaceship. So, we strapped on our imaginary spacesuits, got in our rocket-ship and took off.

We're about to leave the realm of toddlerhood behind. Mark and I definitely see more kid than baby in our girls now. In two weeks, they officially become preschoolers. Their world is about to get even bigger. And somebody needs to send me a box of kleenex because I know I'll be a weepy mess on their first day. But, I'm sure 3 hours to myself every morning will quickly help me feel better. :)

And onto the pictures . . .

This weekend we took the girls to the Hunterdon County 4-H Fair. The girls really liked all the animals. Here's Elsa riding a saddle on a hay bale.


Lily got a turn, too. The one disappointing thing about the fair is that the girls were still too short for any of the rides. This is where being in the bottom 10th percentile is frustrating for them. All the kiddy rides stat at 36inch. L and E measure up at 35in. Just a little too short to join most of their cohorts in their age-group. Just have to wait until next year.


True to character, Elsa approved of her first funnel cake. Lily thought it was gross.


Big News. Miss Elsa is now officially potty trained. It happened so fast. She hadn't even really been interested in trying, didn't even want to sit. Finally, I told her we'd buy the toy ambulance she'd been coveting at the toystore if she started going in the potty. Amazingly, she had immediate success and hasn't had a single accident since. It has been over a week now. Both the girls, still wear a just-in-case pullup at night. But for all intents and purposes, the Pannings are diaper free! Woot! Hard to believe it finally happened after changing so many thousands of diapers.

The picture above shows the truly amazing and inspiring Playmobil Ambulance that made this all happen. And Lily giving Elsa a big congratulatory hug.