We had the big birthday celebration today!

We are two!

We celebrated with a family dinner at home. Moin made one of the girls' favorite meals - pancakes, bacon and eggs.

For their present, Wa and Pa got the girls each a nice doll and Moin and I bought each doll her own bed. Zahra's doll is named Yui (right) and Penelope's is Lotta (left).

 The dolls were a HUGE hit, until Quinn presented them with his present which immediately trumped everything. Giant Yo Gabba Gabba dolls.

 Zahra got Brobee and Penelope got Muno. Can you see their sheer joy?!?!

Of course, the Yo Gabba Gabba toys then got the beds. Poor expensive, European dolls.

Quinn spent most of the party crying because he didn't have any presents. Gee wiz.

He did get one gift though - the game chutes and ladders, which he promptly beat both Wa and Pa in.

The girls also received new shirts and pants from grandma amy, stamps from Aunt Kara (which we're saving until tomorrow) and some dress-up magnets from Aunt Kelly, Anna and Eli. Lucky kids!

On a side note, I'm not sure what was happening with Penelope, but she spent most of the party doing this.

Now with Quinn, dessert is always the highlight of any party. The girls don't really care for dessert, but we had to get them a festive cake anyway.

Can you see them freaking out (over the characters, not the cake) as it comes in?

Have you noticed our kids love Yo Gabba Gabba?

Of course, the girls did not touch the cake, but Quinn did!

Happy Birthday Z and P! We love you!

Can you believe these crazy girls are going to be TWO tomorrow? Birthday post forthcoming...

We've had a festive weekend around here. The kids received two packages from Grandma Amy. One we're saving for the girls' birthday, but the other we opened right away and it contained THESE

The word "excitement" doesn't even begin to describe their joy over these Yo Gabba Gabba dolls. They've had so much fun with them, and there's only been a little bit of fighting over who gets which one :)


It's cold enough for hats and mittens now, and the girls are quite perplexed by the whole mitten thing. Zahra is distressed by it, but Penelope mostly think they're interesting and weird.

Ready to play outside!

 We had our annual neighborhood Halloween party, which is always so much fun. Moin made these Halloween cupcakes based off of a cupcake video Quinn has been obsessively watching online for the last few years. No, really. So, not a surprise that Quinn helped out quite a bit.

I made the hot dog "mummy's"

Quinn chose this as his halloween costume this year. Obviously he hasn't seen the movie Scream, but he wanted to be a scary ghost and when he saw this at Target he thought it was the perfect fit. The girls are terrified of it, so he can only wear it when they're not around.

I re-fashioned Quinn's 3-year-old Elmo costume to work for me and Moin wore his scary mask that he wears every year. This year he added a baby's head in a jar, which was a nice touch.

The girls were asleep for the party, but they will get to trick-or-treat on Wednesday so look forward to pictures of that as well!

 A bunch of fun photos from the Herold family visit this weekend

We celebrated Anna's bday with a Justin Beiber cake, and...

an actual Justin Beiber concert!

The kids got some great playtime with Kelly, Anna, Kara, Eli, Todd and Patrick

Kelly & P

Kelly & Z

It's cold enough for the Yo Gabba Gabba hats!

Herold girls - lots of em!

Kelly & Todd

The girls got to ride the train with Anna. They LOVE her. All weekend they would say "Anna" whenever she wasn't around.

Thanks for a great visit guys!

A few updates about Quinn

- He's doing so well with piano! He learned bass clef this last week, so now he can play both treble and bass.
- He loves the new version of Electric Company on PBS. Have you seen it? It's perfect for a kid who has outgrown sesame street.
- He's already finished 6 weeks of Kindergarten! This means that his class has completed their 6-week rotation of enrichment courses. They had one week each of: yoga, computers, art, PE, science and music. They also have science every Wednesday. Quinn's favorite by far was computers, which is funny because I could have predicted that early on in his life. My guess as of now is that Zahra's favorite will be music or art, and Penelope's favorite will be PE or Yoga. We'll see in a couple years if that ends up being true!

Penelope has a special talent.

Whenever she sees a picture of herself and Zahra, she always (really, always) identifies Zahra correctly.

Even if she hasn't seen the picture before, she'll point right at Zahra and say "baba" (zahra). Even if the picture if from nearly two years ago, when they were itty bitty babies. How does she do this? Any ideas, fellow twin-parents?

Perhaps it's because she's spent every day of her waking life with her sister, so she's pretty darn sure what she looks like.

Every day these girls surprise me with how much they know and understand about one another.

Picture time!

The kids' new chore charts. They say My name is X, and this is how I contribute to my family. Quinn's chores are: cleaning the table, making his bed, and picking up toys. Z&P just have picking up toys. Let's just say that so far P has far fewer chores marked off than the other two...

Hanging with neighbor Rachel in the fall weather!

One day Quinn and I were out and we realized that it was 37 and we were both in Sandals! Can you tell we've been in MN for 3 years?

Penelope has been putting together her own outfits recently. Can you tell?

A recent Quinn school-artwork. He visited an apple orchard and had to draw a picture of his favorite thing he did there. He answered, "My favorite thing at Whistling Well farm was Eat." haha

Oh, did you think Zahra's twin was Penelope? Sorry - it's actually Moin.

So, I've written about temperament (our inherited dispositional traits) on this blog before, but today I want to focus more on the interaction between our genes and our environment.

Case in point: Penelope and Zahra's coordination.

What, you say? Moin and Kate had not one, but TWO, coordinated children? How is that possible???

Believe me, we're just as surprised as you are. But it's true.

Look at Penelope at gymnastics this past weekend. Moin (who was with her) said she was hanging on this bar and then using the wall next to it to walk her feet up and flip over the bar.

And Zahra was standing on one uneven bar and holding on to the top one at an angle. And both girls can run and throw and kick and climb like they're four, not almost two.

So, where did this come from? Obviously they must have inherited some sort of coordinated genes from somewhere back in our ancestry (ideas, anyone?) But, it's also a result of their environment.

When Quinn was their age he always had an adult (sometimes two!) watching his every move, and carefully following him around the playground. Was he watched very very closely? Yes. Was it the best for his physical development? Probably not. (Luv ya, Quinn! You have lots of skills - physical coordination just may not be one of them)

Z&P are not only twins, but two of three age five and younger. So, sometimes they just get left to their own devices. And you know what? I think that has really benefited their physical skills. Sometimes they need help with something (climbing stairs, getting dressed, etc.) and I can't help them. So they figure out how to do it themselves. And quickly.

So, yes, they probably inherited some "coordination" genes from somewhere. But I'll bet that had they been first born, single children they would not be nearly as skilled as they are today.

Today we took the kids to Edinborough Park, which is one of those crazy indoor playgrounds that exists only in Minnesota. We used to go there all the time when Quinn was two, but we haven't been back since the girls were born. There is lots to do there, but the main even is a 37 ft. high climbing structure.

After reading this post do you even need to guess who climbed to the top of that sucker and went down the giant slides with no fear?