Sign language and a new dress

That first photo just cracks me up. I'm not sure what it LOOKS like Makayla's doing - but what she's actually doing is signing "drink," while watching "Baby Signing Time." Hard to tell, I know - it doesn't really resemble the true sign that closely - but it's her own version, and it's pretty darn cute when she does it!

If you've never heard of Signing Time or Baby Signing Time, you really are missing out - these videos are so awesome. Anthony LOVES - LOVES - LOVES them, and was so sad when they stopped showing Signing Time on PBS last year. He was thrilled when I bought some videos for our recent 4-week road trip (more on that in coming posts). I also decided to try a couple of the Baby Signing Time videos, and the twins are totally hooked.

We had already been doing some sign language with the girls...mostly the basics...please, thank you, more, eat, bottle, milk, etc. Mackenzie's Early Intervention teacher does a bit more sign language with her when working on language skills, as well. But we took the Baby Signing Time videos (the first 2 that came out) with us on our trip, and I am amazed at how many signs the girls have picked up. Words they regularly use include: more, milk, eat, drink, please, thank you, all done, sleepy, baby, hat, car, and shoes. When prompted, they can do many more, including strawberry, water, bus, diaper, and bath. Today they were asking me for grapes and crackers using sign language! As an added benefit, the girls love the videos so much that on our trip, when the girls were screaming in the car, the videos were the one thing that would definitely calm them down! Darrell and I got to listen to Baby Signing Time a LOT on our road trip!

Anyway...I'm NOT fluent in sign language, and I'm learning right along with them, but I'm a huge advocate of these videos, because I see what a difference it makes already for my kiddos when they can communicate to me what they want. Rather than screaming and crying and me playing a guessing game to figure out what the problem is, they can tell me exactly what they want/need, and it makes things much more peaceful. Don't get me wrong - we still have our share of chaos - we DO have 18-month old twins, after all! But anything that helps reduce the number of tantrums - I'm all for that!

I stayed up late last night trying out a surprise gift my sweet hubby got me while on our road trip - a new sewing machine! I had recently bought the Pink Fig Sophia Dress and Swing Top pattern and wanted to try it out, so I decided to make a dress for the girls. I simplified it for time's sake and because it's just too hot here in the summer to have two layers of fabric on a long dress like this. I'm still happy with how it turned out, especially considering it was my first time ever doing any shirring OR gathering, both of which I had to do on this dress!! I am in LOVE with Melissa Averinos' Sugar Snap fabrics, which I used for the dress. They are so bold and vibrant and just gorgeous...the pictures can't possibly do them justice.

Makayla was a little unhappy with me taking her photos here because all she really wanted to do was nurse. That's all she really wanted to do ALL DAY LONG today. She's trying to get 2 molars in right now, and I suppose it's soothing to her to nurse. But really? I don't have time to sit around ALL DAY LONG and nurse her. Alas - how could I refuse those big, huge brown eyes filled with giant crocodile tears???

A day at the beach

First off, I'm sorry for my silence. I've had some terrible flu bug for the past couple weeks. It's actually gone through the whole family, but I definitely got it the worst, and am still hanging onto it a little bit. The cough just won't go away!! But I'm certainly feeling better now than I was a week and a half ago...there were a few days in there that I really couldn't function at all. It was rough going for a while.

But now we are in San Diego for a nice long weekend, and the weather is GORGEOUS! It was actually a little on the chilly side today, which was a nice change from the awful heat we've been having at home. We spent today at the beach in Mission Bay Park, with some friends.

The girls stayed up the entire day. No nap. You can see Makayla rubbing her eyes. They were sooo sleepy. Hopefully they will sleep okay tonight! Makayla ran around so much she should. That little girl has no fear. None. If I had let her, she would have run right out into the water, shoes and clothes on, not holding my hand...no fear. She just wanted to run. She was so insistent about going to the water, I did finally take off her dress and shoes and let her walk in, where she stood for a minute, walked back out, and immediately got mad because the wind made her shiver and get goosebumps. She didn't try to go in the water anymore, though.

Anthony got to go on his first boat ride. Our friend Tamekia's uncle brought his boat, so Darrell and Anthony took a ride. If you look closely, you can see them sitting up in the front of the boat. Darrell said Anthony got a little gun-shy right as they were about to get on the boat, but once he was on it, he enjoyed the ride.

I think tomorrow we are headed either to the zoo or to Sea World...not sure yet. For now, I'm off to take some cough syrup and get some sleep.