Chickadees

Tonight Uncle Brian surprised Luke and Carter with an early Easter present-5 little chicks!!! What the heck am I going to do with 5 chicks? Thanks Uncle Brian.

Carter loved the chicks and kept saying 'bird, bird', Luke not so sure. They both tried to pick them up, but threw them down quickly. Not quite sure about them.

I have to admit they are very cute and sweet to look at. I'm just not sure about how much they have already pooped. I'm not sure how long these little chicks will last at the Manning household, but I will give it my best try for the babies, the chicks and Uncle Brian.

Easter Bunny Fun

Happy Easter early. This weekend we had our first Easter egg hunt with our twins group. We did participate last year, but just for a photo with the Easter bunny. We were still a bit to small to hunt eggs. It is always fun to see a ton of little duos either matching or coordinating all together. The babies did well over all, besides neither one of them wanting to get close to the bunny (see photo). They were more interested in eating the goods inside the eggs rather than collecting them. They learned real quickly that the eggs could be opened and there were treats inside. Actually, it didn't matter if the treats were just on the ground from the other kids eggs, they still tried to eat it. They also consumed over 4 cookies each and a juice box so we all got to experience our first sugar high. The babies were running wild and would not stop laughing. In fact they seriously laughed the entire way home (at least 30 mins). As cute as it sounded, I was starting to worry about them. Here is a little clip that I got at a red light. It actually doesn't do justice to what they were really doing. We had a wonderful time and look forward to trying it again next year, maybe just laying off the cookies.

MOLA at the Fort Worth Zoo

Another trip to the zoo, but this time it was different. The Fort Worth Zoo has been working for a few years on the new reptile exhibit (MOLA-Museum of Living Art) and it finally opened last week (only 9 months over their original open date). It was well worth the wait!! They did an amazing job!!! The entire exhibit is above and beyond anything else at the zoo. Another reason why the Fort Worth Zoo is rated one of the top five zoos in the US. The Fort Worth Zoo is also the oldest zoo in Texas. It just celebrated 100 years. We had another wonderful day and look forward to spending more time visiting MOLA and the rest of the zoo.

Jeff and the babies checking out the turtles

Luke and I watching the otter swim

Carter's favorite pass time. He puts his little tongue on the monkey and rubs the foot on his ear. Interesting, I know.

My Helper Luke

To start with I am so happy my babies are finally feeling better and eating more. This last week we were all down with the stomach bug. It all started last Sunday with the most embarrassing vomit in public, which was a first of both Jeff and I. Carter decided to unload his entire weeks worth of food and mile in Diary Queen. That was only the beginning of the most horrible week of my entire life/motherhood. The stomach virus cycled through each of us and has now ended with the most horrible diapers ever. Honestly I can take horrible diapers over vomit any day. So to say the least we are all well now and I will for sure take all precautions when out in public to avoid getting round 2, as I've heard some families getting.
With that said, now about my little Lukster.
My Luke is such the helper around here. Anytime he comes to me wanting something, usually a drink or food, I always give him two and tell him to take one to brother. We enjoy watching him as he walks to brother and hands him the other cup/item, then you hear Carter say 'thank you'. He is so sweet to his brother. I wish I could say the same about Carter. Also anytime he gets Carter's little monkey he always takes it to him. He knows the little monkey is Carter's favorite and he is always trying to make Carter happy. Tonight, I was getting the bath ready and I told Luke to go get brother so we can take a bath just to see how he responded with it. I was waiting to hear Luke's little voice telling Carter 'bath, bath', but he didn't. I'm sure he will as soon as he understands more of what I'm asking of him. Luke is such a sweet little boy.

Spring yard cleaning

Springtime means cleaning out the flowerbeds and getting the yard ready for summer. With the beautiful weather this weekend, we spent most of our time outdoors. Our flowerbed was a disaster and way overgrown from the years of neglect. We decided last year we would make it priority this spring so pulling weeds is what we did. Yard work is a bit different with our two little helpers we now have. Actually not a whole lot of yard work gets done with these two certain little helpers. So Jeff worked very hard while Luke, Carter and myself got in his way and made a bigger mess of all the scraps on the ground. All in all the flowerbed looks wonderful and we all had fun working together as a family.

Yay for Wonderful Weather!!!

Today was a wonderful day at the park. We love all the sunshine we have had the past few days and have enjoyed exploring the great outdoors. This season is very different than last year considering one year ago the babies were just 7 months old. I was very surprised and excited for Carter today with his new discovery of the slide. He took off by himself up the stairs and down the 'steep' slide all on his own. He took a few spills at the end of the slide, but back up the stairs he would go. I am amazed with his passion to explore and his independence.

Luke was a little tired today, but never stopped for a moment. He ran back and forth from cheering brother on at the slide to almost falling asleep in the swing. We were thankful to have Oma with us today to help us out and to show off our new moves to her. We are looking forward to spring and exploring more outside.

Imagination Station

Luke and Carter are both getting more and more creative with their imaginations. Luke had so much fun playing with this mirror. He would kiss himself then try to look behind it to see if there was an actual person there. He would laugh then look at me a bit confused. We decided to get them a mirror at their reach so they could experiment with it more often.

Carter is a little different with his imagination, he likes to explore more physically. He can climb on anything or shall I say in anything. I have found him in this cabinet, in the fire place (thank goodness it was during a time we didn't have a fire going), on top of the back of the couch, under this blanket (can you say static electricity). Maybe I need to keep a closer eye on this one. I just laugh, take a photo whenever possible and hope for his safety.

These two babies are amazing. They are learning at 100 miles per hour. I am so thankful to be able to wittness it first hand.

Some of our new tricks

Here are a couple of videos of Luke and Carter's new things they can do. Carter has been working on spinning these rings for a few weeks now. He concentrates so hard on having his fingers just perfect to make it spin right. I am so proud of him to figure this out on his own. Luke, well he's a bouncer, as we have seen in the past-his jumperoo, the little pony, etc. He is so cute bouncing on the ball and laughing. Enjoy.