Hearts, Ducks & Tiny Bubbles

Valentine's used to mean flowers, fancy dinners and alone time. This year Valentine's was all about spending family time with our much loved twins! We started off the morning with a free trial class at Gymboree - Maddie & Aidan had a blast! They climbed on the equipment and paricipted in the songs/dances. Aidan had a fascination with Gymbo the clown and suffered a smack down at the hands of a jumbo sized 2 year old girl. Maddie giggled with delight at the bubbles until she located the back door and made multiple escape attempts. And we all enjoyed the parachute game. Of course I was pretty shocked to find that it would cost $120 PER MONTH for us to join. Oh well, I guess we'll make do with our Willner's tot plex here at home.

After lunch, we had our Valentine's cake and as you can see, it was thoroughly enjoyed!

Of course Valentine's cake often requires a Valentine's tubby. Here they are anxiously awaiting tubby with their Valentine's rubber duckies in hand!

A very successful day for us and I am happy to report, my best Valentine's ever. Somehow these 2 make everything so much more special!

The Grass is Always Greener...

So the past couple of weeks have been pretty tough on Mommy/Daddy. The twins had a stomach bug and let me tell you, IT WASN'T PRETTY!! Recovering from the bug coupled with some more pesky teeth working their way through and you've got massively cranky toddlers. After a few 'Whoa is me' moments (okay, days really) on my part, I decided to pull out all the stops in my efforts to distract these children from their temper tantrums. I emptied out the toy box and let them sit inside and read books. Got a good 20 minutes of entertainment out of that. But who knew that simply allowing them to play in each others cribs would result in sixty blissful, cranky-free minutes. AHHHH....

Aidan in amongst the tutus and princess paraphernalia:

Maddie's latest obsession is wearing Aidan's baseball cap:

Oh and we also spent some time gazing longingly out the window at our swingset and dreaming of the summer days to come:

I am happy to report that the past two days have brought us very pleasant and generally well behaved children :)

Go-Go-Gadget

It was Kurt's 33rd birthday last week (he'll have you all know that I am exactly 3 months older than he is). One of his gifts was the Trasformers playstation 2 game (he'll also have you all know that today was his first time playing playstation since before the twins were born). So we cracked out the game for some family fun!

Aidan is our little engineer in the making and is very interested in any and all gadgets he can get his hands on. He eyes lit up when he saw the playstation gizmo:

Here he is mixing it up with the big guys:

It was adorable and he was really into it:

Until Maddie took the controller and ran that is! Being a twin is never easy:

Maddie's couture this evening was a cousin Vivienne original. She likes to remain stylish at all times!

Bad Hair Day

Our weekend was full of ups and downs. We had a lovely Saturday morning with a visit to our Uncle Jon's new (old) house. Maddie & Aidan had a blast running from room to room and throwing things on his hardwood floors (we have all carpeting here at home). Sunday was a bit rougher with a stomach bug afflicting poor Maddie. Luckily it was a 24 hour thing and after a 5 hour nap (yes you read that right), she is back to her old, havoc wreaking self!

In reference to the title of this post, Aidan has some wild hair. He's had a few haircuts and gets regular tubbies...but we've yet to figure out a way to keep it under control.

Aidan was so wiped out from his playdate with Uncle Jon, that he was fast asleep about 30 seconds after we pulled away. He took a 45 minute nap in the car and below is the unseemly bed head that resulted:

In this one he seems to be channeling his inner Jon & Kate Plus 8 (if anyone's seen Kate's hairstyle of late):

Maddie, of course, took the same car ride and the same nap and came out of it with her typical, perfectly coifed 'do. The girl was born with a fabulous hairstyle (after she got through the bald phase that is).

We've also been working on self feeding with utensils as of late. Maddie is adverse to getting dirty, but Aidan really seems to have mastered it. Not a shock that the first milestone Aidan accomplishes before Maddie is food related!

He might need a little work on his form...but he gets the deed done!

And just so this post isn't entirely about Aidan, below is Maddie with her new favorite item...the blankie Mimi knitted for her before she was born. She loves to throw it on the floor and snuggle with it while saying "mmmmmmm". So cute!!

Another Maddieism is her new capacity to share with Aidan. I have noticed her handing Aidan his Woobie whenever he gets upset and I always make sure to praise her for doing that. So now she runs around the house finding things to hand to Aidan and then claps for herself after she does so. It's so sweet to watch. Until we get to the part where she decides she wants the item back and rips it out of Aidan's hands. For that we do not clap. She's a work in progress...

Rub-a-dub-dub...

Willner Twins in the tub!

So, we have a slightly shameful admission. Yes, up until this past week, we have indeed been bathing our 15 month old twins in the kitchen sink. A bit of a tight squeeze, but SO convenient for Mom & Dad (and our backs). We would bathe them separately that way and recently the howling/screaming of one twin whilst the other was in the "tub" was becoming unbearable. So we have moved on and are finally making use of that brand spanking new bathtub Daddy put in last year!

Maddie & Aidan absolutely giggle with delight at the mere mention of a "tubby" now. Aidan tries to jump in before his clothes are even off and Maddie says "oh oh oh" as she watches the water fill up the tub. So cute!!! Of course we have a plethora of toys and there is no shortage of splashing. It may be tougher on our back and knees, but a full fledged tubby is definitely worth it!

Here they are in action:

P.S. - We assume the time will come when co-bathing is no longer appropriate...but in the meantime, we are basking in the glory of scream-free tubbies!

Explorazone

After spending a few straight days inside the house, we were all going a bit stir crazy. So this morning Kurt & I took Maddie & Aidan to the Explorazone in Norwell. M&A and I went there a few weeks back with our twins group and this place is PERFECT for kids this age. Room to run, climb and play to their hearts content. And being the early risers that the Willners (okay, 3 out of 4 of the Willners) are, we basically had the entire place to ourselves!

Maddie was SO proud of herself after she mastered climbing up and down on the mats while holding a toy the entire time:

They took turns (okay there may have been a bit of pushing involved) using the slide. We were so impressed by their ability to climb the stairs, get on their bums and push themselves down the slide. Here's Aidan in action:

Kurt & I knew what it was like to have triplets for about 30 minutes (plenty long enough for us). Little Bella really took a liking to our family and followed us around everywhere - she even gave M&A a few shoves just like she was one of the gang:

Aidan made a few escape attempts, but he has a few months to go before door knobs are in his reach (PHEW):

Then onto Mimi & Buppy's for lunch & a short visit before we were on our way again. We are definitely planning some repeat visits to the Explorazone! Although with the amount of toys we received for Christmas, we are thinking of charging admission to the "Willner Totplex".

Christmas Day

Santa was very generous to the Willner twins this year!! Not only did we receive alot of wonderful gifts, but we had so much fun visiting with our family. Grandma & Grandpa joined us Christmas morning for gift opening and brunch and then Mimi & Buppy arrived a bit later for dinner. It was a low key Christmas, but a fabulous one!

Maddie & Aidan were astounded by the pile of gifts. They could have cared less about opening them, they were more interested in climbing to the top of the pile:

Aidan adores his new racetrack!

And here he is with his first ever Thomas the train (the Elmo slippers were promptly ditched once he realized they inhibited his ability to climb):

Chilling in their bean bag chairs watching their new Wiggles DVD:

Maddie loves to torture Mommy by dumping all of the food from her shopping cart in various places around the house! At what age do they learn to pick up???

And no one loved any gift more than Maddie loves Hokey Pokey Elmo. She hugs/kisses him and carries him all around the house while wearing her Christmas tutu:

Thank you to all of our family and friends for helping us to make this a very special Christmas for our twins!


P.S. - Here's Maddie days later still wearing her tutu. Kurt denies it, but I'm thinking we may have a girlie girl on our hands!