The King in His Chair

Here is Isaac (the king) in "his chair."  I recently let him watch a downloaded video on my computer.  I sat the computer on his bed and the next thing I knew he grabbed his chair, placed it in front of his bed and sat down...it was really cute.  

 Notice that he always has Bo (the stuffed dog) near him.  When we went to Brugge a few weeks ago we left Bo #1 in the hotel room, when we called the hotel to ask about it they said they had not found it.  Bo is from IKEA (thankfully, because it is one of the few stores that they also have in Europe) so I ran there and got him Bo #2.  Well, a few days later we got a box from the hotel with Bo #1 so now we have 2 Bo's!  It is very sweet because Isaac loves that there are now 2...maybe because of having twin sisters???  He brings BOTH of them everywhere he goes now.  :)

I am not sure what Isaac was watching here but he LOVES to watch Cars (the movie), Blue's Clues and the a video that we all refer to as "the train movie."

 Isaac's chair made it downstairs one day and the next thing we knew the girls were checking out their big brother and he was enjoying the attention. 

There is the king "reading" one of his books to his "royal subjects."

Going out to eat...

..is not something that we do a lot of right now.  :)  There are wonderful restaurants here but most are not really family friendly.  Most people here must be wise enough to get a babysitter and then go out to eat. :) We have found a few family friendly places and one of them is at a local nursery. Yep, a nursery like a place that sells plants and outdoor supplies.  They have a restaurant in the middle of the store and they have a great kids playground.   We went there one day last week after picking up Marc from work. We wanted to go check out some outdoor supplies now that spring has finally come. 

 

 Isabella was enjoying the view in the high chair. 

 Marc is holding Ava and they both have their mouths open...Ava wanted to be like her Daddy. :)

 Isaac was LOVING the balls!!!

 He went on this slide a ton of times.

 He loved just laying in the balls and...

throwing them too. 

Just hanging out...

 We were playing the other day and look who sits up so well...Isabella.  Ava can but not for very long. :)

 I had put a hair band on Isabella and Isaac decided Ava needed one too.

 The girls love their big brother and he loves to entertain them.

Isabella looks like such a big girl sitting up!

Carnaval part 3 (the final edition)

Better late than never!:)  We took a ton of pictures this day and it was hard to choose which ones to show you.  We had a great day going into our town and watching the Carnaval parade.  It was very festive and there were lots of things to look at.   

 We walked into town with the kids.  The girls were dressed up in their ballerina outfits that Aunt Brenda gave them and they have on their jackets from Aunt Brenda too.

 We found a great italian restaurant right at the beginning of the parade so we had snacks and enjoyed the great day!  The restaurants here have outdoor areas all-year-round....they just put blankets out in the winter and heating lamps...it's nice!

 Isabella about to fall asleep!

 Ava was happy to have a little sunshine on her face.

 Isaac was having a great time wearing his costume, drinking apple juice and watching the parade.

He was also enjoying playing with Isabella (after she woke up) .

 I wore a mask that I got when we lived in Italy and we went to Venice for Carnival.  Ava is on my lap.

 What Isaac loved the most was the banana split that he shared with Daddy.

(Did you notice the many directions of his Fireman Hat?)

What I was loving was the clear blue skies!  See the kid on top of the float?

 We went to the park on the way home and Isaac loves this swing.

 Once home it was time for snacks with the girls in their new IKEA highchairs.  One of the reasons that we like them is because they stack and don't take up much room when not in use.

 Isabella has the best laugh and loves her highchair too.

We reached our limit on photo storage space last week after 3yrs.  WOW!

Marc just bought more photo storage for our blogger account, so lots more pictures & posts to come...:)

we will have a new post soon...

we have run out of photo storage and have to buy more space!  It's great that we need more space...we have about 1000 pictures already on our blog! :)

9 months!

These girls are 9 months old!  Isabella on left and Ava on right. This was right before they went to bed and they seemed happy to smile for the camera.

They have such happy personalities.  Isabella is the jammin' this month because she has begun the army crawl and loves to get up on her knees!  She also sits up for long periods while playing with a toy.  Ava is just so cute because she soooo doesn't care what Isabella is doing and is happy as a clam rolling everywhere and playing with her toys laying down. :)

On their actual birthday all we had to make the "9 month sign" was some Edamame (edible soybean).  BUT It wasn't cutting it so we had to go get a cake the next day...

The cake pictures are so cute because Isabella was all about the cake and she was trying very hard to get some!

There she got it and it was all over her hand!  These cakes really are just for Marc and I since the girls don't get any yet. :)  I gave up sweets for Lent so it really was just for Marc and maybe a little for Isaac.  

They were not about to look at the camera when that cake was in front of them!

One final try.  Look at Isabella's face and hands...she is a determined girl! 

Carnaval part 2

Carnaval lasts for a few days.  Most of the parades seemed to happen on Sunday & Monday.  This is what was outside our window last Sunday.  The area where our house is was where the parade began so we had some floats "parked" out front and rehearsing.  We had fun watching them!

Here I am with my cute kiddos...we were having fun watching all the activity outside.

Isaac was really into it.  Check out the video below:

Check back soon for Carnaval part 3 (the final edition)....

Some Cuteness

This is my cute nephew Josiah and my cute sister Brenda.  This picture is from Isaac's 1st birthday party and so it was about 18 months ago (crazy!). Josiah just turned 2 and he has such a great personality!  The thing about Josiah that I love right now is that he adores babies and thinks Ava and Isabella are the BEST!  He calls them "his babies"! :)  This picture makes me smile because the whole time he was visiting us he kept doing this funny look and every time we saw it we cracked up.  Well, check out who started doing something similar the other day...

This is Ava and I started laughing out loud when I saw this! 

 Josiah, here is one of your babies!  Brenda, funny huh?

Brugge, Belgium

 
 Marc is an awesome husband!  I am not much of a homebody and he totally gets that. I enjoy my time home with the kids and I totally see the value in staying home sometimes but I get the "itch". :)  Marc came home on Friday and suggessted we find a Bed and Breakfast in Brugge and go for the night.  It is about 2 1/2 hours from here.  We found a room in about 10 min. online, booked it and headed out.  We figured this was a good trial run with the kiddos since this was our first hotel overnight in Europe. 

 A fun part of our night away was just hanging out.  We all gathered on the bed watching "Blue's Clues" which is Isaac's current favorite show along with the movie "Cars".   

 

Here are the girls on the bed and Ava was trying to steal Isabella's paci!

Here is Marc and Isaac at Breakfast.

This is funny because sprinkles (the kind that you might decorate a cake or cookies with) are big here.  You put them on bread and butter.  Isaac seems to love them and likes to pick them off one at a time and eat them. :)  He was eating chocolate ones here.

This is what the girls were doing during breakfast.  We were all up pretty early because of the rooster outside our window.  Roosters sound quaint and cute until you are woken up by one. 

This is the main square in Brugge.  It was a cold day but overall we had a good time.  Our bus (i mean stroller) works pretty well but Europe in general was not built for large strollers so we are always having a hard time getting in and out of places. We found a new place for Isaac to sit on the stroller...do you see him?

We went to a chocolate muesum and learned a few new things about chocolate.  These are chocolate beans in the picture and Isabella's little face poking out cracks me up!

Isaac is a HUGE chocolate fan!

We had to get creative as the day went on with Isaac.  He was getting tired and so we put him in a carrier on Marc's back and that seemed to work pretty well.

This picture downloaded kinda funny because it is from Marc's phone but this pic is from the end of our day.  We decided to drive out to the coast because Zeebrugge is a huge port and look around (its about 15 min. from Brugge).  Isaac was enjoying all the boats.

We then headed home and all the kids slept in the car (I may have taken a little nap too). Overall, it was good trip and we are learning that traveling with kids (especially really young ones) is fun but you have to have LOW expectations. :) 

Bath Times

 These bath pictures are from last night.  If you wonder how we do bath time with twins this is an idea that I saw on another blog...use their bumbo seats.  It worked pretty well and we will try it again.

 I love how they are touching feet.

 The girls enjoy their bath time. 

 Isaac came in to say HI after he got his PJs on.

I love how the girls are sharing a laugh with Isaac.

Check back soon to see pictures of our quick trip to Brugge, Belgium on Fri. night & Sat....