Olivia and her zippers

Lately, we have made sure to put Olivia in one piece pajamas as she has a tendency to put her hand down her pants while napping or when she first wakes up in the morning, and a few times she has found a surprise! We figured the one piece pajamas would curb this habit. One morning I walked in and she had her hand stuck in the whole between 2 snaps! Then earlier this week, I walked in to see her zipping and unzipping her pajamas which left me to wonder "When did she learn how to use zippers?!"

I told her day care teacher about it, and she told me that this week at day care they had been learning how to use zippers, so they could zip and unzip their coats all by themselves. Olivia has become quite the master at the zipper, and can even take her coat off by herself!

This is how we found Olivia this morning....she even managed to get her arm out!
If you look closely her zipper is undone as well, but thank goodness for the snap at the top that she hasn't figured out how to undo! I'm waiting for the day we walk in and she has no pajamas on!!!!

Alex was jealous we were taking pictures of Olivia, so here is how Alex looked this morning!
On another note, Olivia has become obsessed with her winter hat (from last season that barely fits her anymore). She insisted on wearing it to day care yesterday which meant Alex wore his too! When I left day care, they were playing with their friends, but refused to take the hats off! Ben had to take Olivia to the doctor yesterday and apparently she was examined with the hat on because she wouldn't take it off! Then came today when she refused to eat her snack without her hat!!! Crazy girl!!
I have never met someone so attached to clothing items like her!

Halloween

I think that this year will be the last year I will be in charge of Halloween costumes for Alex and Olivia. With having twins, I feel this need to capitalize on the duo thing until they no longer let me. However, this year it just proved too much stress as I yearned to find the perfect costumes!!! I wanted to do Mickey and Minnie this year, but Ben never liked any of the Mickey costumes!! So next year he is in charge, since the duo costumes failed this year!!!

The plan was for them to be an angel and a devil. When I got their costumes in the mail, I put Olivia's angel costume on (she was the chosen angel not necessarily because she is an angel all the time but more so because it was a dress!), and it was a little small, and I think it was uncomfortable because she started crying hystarically! It was either that, or she knew she wasn't an angel!!!

So I decided to try the devil costume on Olivia (I don't know what I was thinking), and ironically she FELL in love with the costume!!! She wore it all night until we forced her to take it off at bedtime! It had wings that velcroed to the back, and while getting ready for bed we took the wings off, and she happened to fall in her room and she got velcroed to the floor. It was quite funny, although Olivia didn't find it funny!
I was then off to find Alex a devil costume, but couldn't find anything in his size! So since the kids Halloween party at day care was the next day, a firefighter was going to be Alex's costume (just like Grandpa Jarboe!)

They had a great time at their Halloween party. Olivia loved staring at herself in the mirror, and they both loved hanging out in their costumes with their friends!!!


On Halloween night, we decided to get them dressed in their costumes, and take them to a couple of houses! We took them around in the wagon, which they both loved.
The weather was beautiful as it was close to 70 degrees. Alex wanted to go inside every house. He was confused why we would get candy and then just leave. Then when we came home, they both played with their candy like it was a bunch of toys!! So cute and so innocent, as they had no idea what the got was something they could eat!!!

Pumpkins and more.....

My parents came to visit several weeks ago, and since it was fall time we decided to go out to a local pumpkin farm. I had heard of this place before which is pretty close to our house, but have never been.

There was lots to do, and lots of pumpkins. They had a hay ride, which we didn't take, but will perhaps do so next year. The day we went they had clowns that were making balloon animals. They had painted pumpkins, cider & donuts, a fire truck to climb up on, and lots of room to run!
The kids had a blast. Grandma and Grandpa Krausman waited in line with the kids for the clowns to make a balloon animal for them. The clowns made them dogs out of a balloon, and then made it so they could wear it on their wrist!

They spent sometime climbing around on the fire truck.


Grandma and Olivia waited in line for 2 painted Elmo pumpkins which were a huge hit for the kids!!!
And we picked up our pumpkins. It was a great day and everyone had fun!

Now if we only could have found time to carve the pumpkins.....ahhhhh maybe next year!

Jarboe Olympics

The kids have been very busy lately practicing for the Olympics, or at least honing their sport skills!!!!!!

With Olivia it has been fast pitch softball.
And with Alex it has been bowling (with pumpkins).
Then there is the potty Olympics!!! Yep they have taken the bowl out of the potties, stepped inside, and are attempting to walk around in them. (And don't mind Olivia's hand down her pants, she does that often, and sometimes even finds a surprise!)

Ben's 30th Birthday

Finally, Ben has joined me by entering the 4th decade of his life!!! I wanted to do something special for his birthday, so I decided to coordinate having his college friends visit for the weekend. Jamie and his wife Alison, who live in Kentucky, flew in for the weekend, and Vin, who lives in Boston drove down Saturday for the night. Ben's college roommate Scott was unable to make it. It was all suppose to be a surprise, but let's face it, I am horrible with surprises! I told him a few weeks before everyone came!

It was a great weekend, and it was great to spend some good quality time with friends we haven't seen in a while. We all went out to dinner on Saturday and then went to a bar to watch the Purdue vs. Notre Dame football game (I won't mention the outcome).

The kids (including Dudley) definitely fell in love with Jamie, especially Alex who followed Jamie around all Saturday morning!!!
It was very sad to see everyone leave Sunday morning, and we hope to see them all again sometime soon!

Ring Bearer and Flower Girl

The blog hiatus is now over......lots of updates over the last couple of months!

In September, Alex and Olivia had a big weekend!! They took their first ride on an airplane and were the ring bearer and flower girl in Ben's cousin Kyndel's wedding. The wedding was in Ben's hometown of Evansville, Indiana, and when planning the trip we decided to fly to Nashville, TN since we could get a direct flight. Nashville is a 2 1/2 hour drive from Ben's parents, but we figured that would be easier to deal with compared with trying to connect flights with 2 kids, bags, and car seats!

We flew out on an early morning flight on Friday. We had to wake the kids at 4 a.m. to get going. By the time we got to the airport and through security the kids were wide awake! I was hoping they would sleep on the plane, but they were wired by the time we got on the plane. We were a little nervous as to how they would do on the plane but came prepared with toys and food.

They sat in their car seats on the plane, and as the plane started taking off, Olivia looked at me like she was unsure what was happening, but after that she was fine. They both spent the plane ride eating their breakfast, and Olivia even fell asleep toward the end of the flight.

We originally planned on stopping for breakfast in Nashville to let the kids burn some energy and make them tolerate the drive better. But the plan was spoiled when they both fell asleep within 10 minutes of being in the car! So Ben and I settled on the McDonald's drive thru for breakfast, which wasn't too shabby!!! And the kids enjoyed a few McDonald's pancakes when they woke up!
Saturday was the wedding, and it was a very long day, but the kids did sneak in a quick nap before we had to leave for the church. They looked super cute dressed up, even though they screamed and cried as we got them dressed! They were pretty terrified to walk down the aisle when the time came, so Ben walked them down.
Then it was off to the reception.....the kids had a BLAST running around the reception!!! In fact, at one point Grandpa Jarboe told me that he was breaking a sweat just chasing Alex around the reception hall! They didn't eat much but I think that was mainly because they didn't have the appetite for sitting still, as witnessed in this picture that Ben's mom tried to get with Ben's grandma and all her grandchildren!
We left shortly after dinner when the kids started to have melt downs. Our flight home on Sunday, was an evening flight which we thought would be a good idea as we thought the kids would just fall asleep on the plane. Neither fell asleep in the car on the way to Nashville, which is when we figured they would nap. We had dinner at the airport, and then boarded the plane.

They both fell asleep after about 45 minutes on the plane which was close to 9 p.m. eastern time (normally their bedtime is 7!), and they had not napped all day! Shortly after Alex fell asleep, he started he started getting restless in his sleep. Ben was concerned, and I just thought he was dreaming. Unfortunately, Ben was right as soon after it started, Alex started throwing up. After we got him cleaned up and changed, Olivia started having the exact same restlessness. And sure enough, she ended up throwing up as well. To this day we don't know what caused it but I have never wanted to get off a plane so much as I did at that time. From here on out, we will only be taking morning flights where there is nothing in their belly to throw up!!!

Other Summer Happenings

Since we came back from vacation, the days seem to just pass us by so quickly. Ben is home with the kids 3 days a week and they go to day care 2 days a week so he can get some things done around the house. It took a few weeks for Ben to get into a routine, but things are much better with the routine, but he still says (in his own words) the kids "beat him like a rented mule" every day he is with them! Glad to see they are keeping daddy on his toes!!!

The kids have been busy this summer between Wednesday morning music class, Saturday morning swimming class, and all the other things we have had going on this summer.

Olivia is starting to understand a lot and starting to speak with a lot of words. These days we think her favorite word is "no", and it sounds so cute when she says it. But one day at day care the teachers were doing the kids hair, and Olivia went over to the teacher and pointed to her head indicating she wanted her hair done - - it was a little tough since she doesn't have too much hair on top, but it did come out very cute!!!

She's still doing goofy things......And she is still very much into shoes! Perhaps a future shoe salesman?!

Alex is starting to pick up a lot of words, but isn't very good on using them. He prefers to point and use his caveman sounds. It isn't very helpful to us in trying to figure out what he wants. He has turned into a little joker. Everything is so funny to him and he is always being sneaky! All of that leads into Alex always getting into trouble!!! But he still has a heart of gold when it comes to his sister and he will pretty much let her have whatever she wants.

We bought the kids a playhouse that we have on our deck. It is amazing that they can be entertained by just walking in and out of the house for at least 30 minutes!!

The kids are getting so big....Alex has been into hats lately and here is with one of my hats on, and to be honest it wasn't that big on him!!!

Each day the kids get a little better with Dudley, but we still have a ways to go, but they are definitely succeeding in tiring him out!

Summer Vacation Part II

Part II of our summer vacation was spent visiting with friends who we haven't seen in a while. Our friends, The Zinks, let us stay with them in their house for our trip, and this was a blast. The Zinks have 2 boys, Phil who just turned 2, and Daniel, who just turned 1. Needless to say the kids all had a blast playing with one another. We did a lot of things while in Indianapolis. The highlights include:

-Watching the Zink kids and the Jarboe kids play with each other

-Enjoying Arnie's in Lafayette for lunch

-Watching the kids run around Purdue's campus - as you see the number of kids increased tremendously since our last trip to Purdue with the Zinks and this one.......
Here we are with Paul and Phil in 2007 (I am pregnant with Alex and Olivia)

And now we have added 3 kids to the group in less than 2 years! (Paul unfortunately couldn't make the trip to Purdue with us - - he had to work! Bummer!)

-Having our friends, Brooke and Dan, who are professional photographers take pictures of Alex and Olivia
-Having a Zink Family BBQ, and watching the kids play in the backyard


-Spending good quality time with Jen and Paul every night after all the kids went to bed
-Seeing all of our friends in Indy, including The Lubsens, Jess & Adam, The Clarks
-Stressfully trying to get Olivia to go to sleep every night and naptime, which resulted in Ben doing the 465 Loop in Indy 2 nights in a row to get her to sleep.....due to the ear infection (which we had no idea but had photographic proof when we got home)
The ride back to Connecticut was a bit rough due to Olivia's ear infection and the tooth she was cutting. We made it back driving straight through (in retrospect we should have stopped). We were exhausted when we got home and unfortunately the kids were wide awake!!!

Thanks to all of our friends (especially the Zinks) for making our trip to Indianapolis an unforgettable one!