Pictures from the week.

Do all kids carry TWO babies around?

Quinn had "sports" camp this week. They practiced soccer, basketball, t-ball, and football. Quinn wouldn't let me take any photos of him, but I sneaked in a few. He's in the bottom left here.

And in the right, here. He loved this camp!

Zahra at my computer :)

This one is a couple weeks old. Moin took Quinn out to breakfast for his birthday, and the restaurant presented him with this cookie! This is how Q chose to pose.

Quinn's happy birthday picture for Pa.

Snacktime at the park. The Syed children all decided to wear pink together.

Watermelon at the Greek festival

Penelope called Moin over the other day to show him something. He texted me this picture. Now, let me give you some context. Our bathtub has a "spout protector" that keeps the kids from hitting their heads on the water spout. It's in the shape of a duck. So what Penelope did here was recreate the bathtub. Can you see - the duck on the left and the baby in the tub on the right.

She recreated herself in the tub!

As some of you know, part of my dissertation involved examining children's ability to map from an object to a representation of that object. Much of this research is based off of Judy DeLoache's model room studies, in which she examines how children map from a life-sized room to a "scale model" of that room.

So I was so excited that Penelope made her own scale model! Excitement comes easily around here...

Zahra and Penelope spend all their time together. And most of the time, they really seem to enjoy one another's company.

Moin and I have discussed from time to time that we need to separate them more. When they start school we want to be sure that they'll be in different classrooms and preschool is only one year away (yikes!) so we should probably put more effort in to taking them separate places.

It's hard though, because the girls are either being watched by one person (and therefore have to be together) OR if both Moin and I are both home and able to separate kids it most often makes sense to separate Quinn from his sisters (ahem).

Anyway, today when Moin got home from work I attempted to take Zahra get my iced tea refill (yes) from Dunn brothers. Mind you this is a 10-minute trip TOPS and I thought Zahra would be excited to spend alone time with mom.

This was her reaction.

She cried and cried, and just pointed to the other carseat yelling "Pee-pee, PEE-PEE!!!!" (current version of Penelope)
She was NOT happy without her sister.

And really, who can blame her? Aside from the three weeks separated in the NICU these girls have always been together. And even there they managed to sneak in some time :)

They've always slept in the same room, and even in the same crib for a while.

So yes, we'll have to keep working on this whole separation thing. Luckily they've still got that year until preschool!

The Syed Children are lucky to have lots of great "aunts" and "uncles". Those words are in quotations because these people aren't technically related to the Syed kids, but I guarantee you they love them with all their hearts. And the kids feel the same!

I was reminded of this the other day when Quinn received a birthday gift from Aunt Amy and Uncle Alexander.

They know that Quinn loves cookbooks, so Amy found her favorite childhood cookbook on ebay and had it sent to Quinn. It has kid-friendly recipes from all over the world, including the Soviet Union! :)

So far we've made rice pudding (sweeden) and stuffed pita pockets (Lebanon). Moin also made a variation of potato latkes. Quinn also reads the book throughout the day and loves it. Up next are honey baked donuts from Turkey!

Aunt Amy and Uncle Alexander actually have a good track record in terms of gifts. Who can forget the matching outfits from Hawaii?

Or Alexander's handmade flame outfit for baby Quinn, which got lots of oohs, ahhs, and hollers on the streets of Santa Cruz.

We received another great gift from a "relative" recently. A box of items from Uncle Boyd.

What is a box of items, you ask? Well it's hard to define, but Boyd likes to send collections of goods that might appeal to all members of the Herold/Syed family.

I received a doorbell, and moin received a stapler.

Quinn received a stuffed animal, and the girls got baseball cards!

Here are some other Aunt/Uncle gift highlights over the years, although I'm sure I'm leaving some out.

Quinn's trip to Izzy's with Auntie Polly. he still talks about it!

The easy bake oven Quinn received from Auntie Crystal for MY (ahem) birthday

The "Q" painting received from Auntie Belle after Quinn's birth. Hey Belle - we're still waiting for P and Z! (Kidding)

Not to get too cheesy, but the best gift of all is our children having all these wonderful people in their lives. So many awesome role models to choose from!

Photos from the week!

 Dollhouse all set up. The girls' love for this item has not diminished at all. In fact, quite the opposite.

 Twin Cooperation! P pushes the water fountain while Z takes a drink.

 Z and Q postin up in the toystore.

 Big girl Zahra!

 Croissants at Bread and Chocolate

 Q and our new lawn sign 

 Just some of the goods Quinn made in his "Grossology" camp this past week. Note the throw-up in the front. Over the week he also made boogers, snot, and "ouchies." He loved this camp so much that he even cried a bit at the end. Nothing like some gross stuff to tear at a little kid's heart-strings!

 Seeking out shade at Teddy Bear Park

 P and Q :)

Fun times in the Duffy's backyard tent

Penelope and Zahra are not two yet, but please don't tell them that. They won't believe you.

You see, they are pretty certain they are already two, if not four or five.

A few examples:
They do not like sippy cups anymore and only want cups without lids.
They always always feed themselves, although the results are questionable

Both girls are dressing themselves now, and both are attempting to change their own diapers. And don't even think for a second that you can select their outfits for them.

Both are working hard on their somersaults (with varying results), and love watching Gabby Douglas do her routines over and over on the DVR. Oh who am I kidding - so do I!

Both have a new favorite word - "ME!" (must be said in all caps with exclamation point). Second favorite word is mine.

Both girls graduated their swimming class with flying colors. Their teacher said they were ready to move on to the next level, but that they minimum age for the next level was three.

She said to wait until next summer and check back then to see if the girls can move up early.

Penelope and Zahra are lucky though, because no matter how BIG they think they are, I still know of a couple people that will always baby them as much as possible!

Our 36-hour trip to Duluth for Quinn's birthday was brief but tons of fun!

As you know, Quinn loves food (especially treats). We eat pretty healthy at home, and don't keep sweets in the house, so when we travel or go out to eat we let Quinn order basically whatever he wants.  So, perhaps not surprisingly, the highlights of the trip for Quinn all involved eating food, although we did do some other fun things too.

Our trip started off with a visit to Dairy Queen (Quinn's choice). Since he can't get the ice cream that comes with the kids meal we took him down the street for a truffle from the chocolate shop instead.

Quinn was cracking everyone in the store up by letting out giant ecstatic moans and yums and "oh, I love this" statements. I think he may be one of the more enthusiastic truffle eaters that they have ever seen in that store.

Next up was swimming in Lake Superior!

There were actually big waves on the lake this time, so it kind of reminded us of home. The water was so choppy that we mostly just played a festive game of "stick throw" which was essentially throwing a stick into the water and catching it when it came back up.

This game is a lot more exhausting than it sounds, particularly when played with an energetic 5-year-old.

I ended up getting soaked!

We attempted to have someone take a family photo, but Quinn was too busy playing:)

Afterwards Moin and Quinn spent some good time in the hotel playing memory game and doing some of Quinn's new 100-piece puzzles.

He's getting pretty good with the 100-piece puzzles now, although he definitely still needs help. He got some 200-piece ones for his birthday from WAPA so he'll move on to those next.

For dinner we drove up to the New Scenic Cafe, a restaurant recommended by my parents.

It was amazing. Easily one of the best meals I've had in Minnesota. Worth the drive up from the Twin Cities, I think.

The cafe was about a 15 minute drive from our hotel and Quinn was getting a bit fidgety - wondering why we were driving so far away for a meal.

Little did he know that we had looked at the kids menu online ahead of time and discovered that THIS was an available option.

Do I need to tell you that he was THRILLED?

Incidentally, he had waffles with syrup for breakfast in the hotel the next day too. But hey, it's vacation, right?

We spent the next day just hanging around Duluth - enjoying the views, watching boats and playing in fountains.

Quinn used the $10.00 he got from WAPA for his birthday to buy himself a sharp-looking Ernie T-shirt.

We finished up our trip with lunch at an amazing Italian Deli Moin found online. It's in the residential area of Duluth but worth the trip. We all loved it.

I would have taken a picture of Quinn's spaghetti and meatballs but he hate ALL of it in about 2 seconds. I think all that food made him sleepy :)

Thanks for the great trip, Duluth. We'll be back!

Oh, and as a P.S. the girls had a great time with my parents. They had little to no reaction to the three of us returning but were very excited to see the Ernie on Quinn's shirt :)

Dear Aunt Kara,

Quinn really loves the 60-piece egyptian memory game you got him for his birthday. Like, really loves. Like, "likes more than candyland" loves. Like wants to play it ALL THE TIME loves. It's possible that I don't love it quite as much as he does.

Perhaps I might feel better about the game if I had beaten him at it at least once. But I haven't.