quack swing

Howdy folks,

I only have about 30 minutes of free time this afternoon because we're baby sitting tonight! We agreed to trade babysitting favors with our friends who have 9 year old boy and girl twins. Tonight is our turn to watch their kids and they will return the favor in the next few weeks.

The last couple of days have been somewhat uneventful except for Kendra taking our twins to the "mommy and me" group. Here's a picture of a few of the other women who bring their babies to the get-together.



Kendra always looks forward to the conversations and chance for Easton and Layla to interact with other babies. I know I don't have enough time share the full details of our outing this morning, but I'll try:

Quack!

We roller-bladed to the local park where ducks fill a huge pond. Kendra has been saving crusty bread pieces for a few weeks so we took our stash of goodies with us in hopes of luring a duck or two over to our edge of the pond. As you can see in the background of this picture, we exceeded our hopes of "a couple of ducks" and wound up with about 50.


We couldn't believe how friendly and comfortable the ducks were with us. They were eating bread off Kendra's shoe and straight out of my hand. At one point I had to physically push a duck away from Easton and I because I thought the duck was going to snap at Easton!


Here's another picture to show one section of the flock of ducks. They were loud and smelly and would eat almost anything we put in front of them... I'm referring to Easton and Layla, of course. Now that I think about it the ducks were very similar.


I was surprised at the lack of emotion from the twins. They were aware of the ducks, but weren't terrified or excited. They were just comfortable listening to the ducks quack and intently watching them walk around us.

Swing!

On our way out of the park we heard the bucket swings calling our name. We decided to find out if Easton and Layla fit in them and if they would get excited about the swinging feeling. I wasn't sure because neither of them cared much for the little plastic baby swing we have. However, the bucket swings were a big hit! They not only fit in the swing without falling out, but they were giggling and smiling the whole time.

Here's a picture of Easton for those of you who can't see the short video clip of Easton kicking and laughing:


and here's Layla


and here's a picture of both of them together:


and last but not least, a video clip of their first swing:

We made the most of our 72 degree weather and weekend family time. The only puzzling part of the last few days is why Layla is becoming more vocal with here eating demands. The spoon can't get from her mouth, to Eastons, and back to her mouth fast enough. She opens her mouth REALLY wide and makes this excruciating, loud "Aaaaaaagggggh" noise and holds the tone and volume for several seconds. We've been trying to teach her how to say "more" in words and sign language, but that doesn't seem to be sinking in much yet. I'll finish this post up with a couple of pictures showing Layla and Easton in their baggy 9 month outfits. At least they are semi-matching! She's getting more stable and brave with standing up all the time.

Easton's shirts are always dirty by the end of the day from commando crawling around on the tile no matter how recently Kendra has mopped. Go Roomba, Go!


Tomorrow we are planning to join our church picnic for fun times so I'm sure we'll have some good pics and stories from that. As we always say, "you can't have adventures unless you go adventuring!"

Bye bye