Fun in the Kitchen

This is a continuation of the birthday post.  Paul said I had entirely TOO many pictures for 1 post so here's Part Two....

For their 2nd birthday, Paul and I got the girls a pretend kitchen from Ikea.  It's pretty basic but considering the size of their playroom, it fits well.  Besides, I'm the one that wants to get them the Pottery Barn Kids kitchen...They have no clue (yet) that bigger and better kitchens are out there!   :D

Anyway, we decided to not give them their big gift on their actual birthday since there'd be so little time to play before bed and also not on the day of their party because of all the other gifts and activity going on.  So after their party and after they went to bed, Paul assembled the kitchen and I took all the kitchen accessories and pretend food they got at their party and voila....

The perfect little kitchen - ready for them come Sunday morning

 

The following day, Penelope pulling off the sheet for the "big reveal"  :)

Checking everything out

I love that you can see Amelia's raised eyebrows and surprised expression as she looks in that little bowl. I can just hear her saying "whoa" in that sweet and funny way.

Time to see what's behind the doors

The apron is a nice touch...

Trying to figure out how to turn the handle on the mixer

Just a cute picture I wanted to include (I think she's pointing to a leftover monkey balloon floating by the ceiling)

Playing together quite nicely

 

Check out the mess around them...I'm pretty sure while I spent a good 15-20 minutes setting the kitchen up and organizing all the dishes and food, it took Penelope and Amelia a mere 3-5 minutes to empty the shelves.  I should have known right?!?!? 

Ok, that wraps all the birthday pictures (finally!).  That next week the girls had their 2 year doctor appointment.  Let me just say, I am SO glad that Paul was there to help wrangle them.  They were everywhere, and into everthing, that morning.  It was an exhausting hour!   :)     And of course, this was the morning where we had our longest wait yet in the waiting room.  And then another long wait for the doctor once we were in our room.  Ugh - don't they understand??  We've got two 2 year olds here people?!

Everything checked out fine with their exams.  Amelia weighed 27lbs 14oz (60th %ile) and was 35 1/4 inches tall (85th %ile).  Penelope weighed 28lbs (65th %ile) and was 35 inches tall (80th %ile).  I find it pretty amazing that even after 2 years, the girls are still awfully close in size.  When I pick them up, I always find myself thinking that Amelia is so much smaller but with only a couple ounces between them, I guess it's just my imagination.  The doctor felt all was good growth-wise and development-wise, they are just a little behind in speech.  I'm a worrier by  nature and I've been stressing over their speech (or lack thereof) since they were about 15-18 months old.  At that time, their doctor just said to be patient.  This time around, she gave us some places to go for an evaluation to see if either girl needs therapy.  We have that coming up in a couple of weeks...  After doing a little reading up about speech delays (I really do limit how much I read about it so I don't go completely overboard fearing the worst!), I think both girls are just "late talkers" but I still want the evaluation so make sure.  Considering that I think they understand most of what I say to them, respond to commands, seem to hear and react to all kinds of noises, I think they just need some coaching on sounding and saying the words.  The worst is when something is clearly upsetting them and they can't verbalize it to me.  I can't fix the problem and then they just start crying and melting down.  I cannot imagine how they must feel - wanting to communicate something so badly to us but the words just aren't there.  So they grunt and whine and reach out, but we still don't understand.  Yeah, those are the worst times when it comes to the lack of speech.  Their tears alone can make me want to cry... 

On a much happier note, at the end of that same week and just a couple days after my birthday, both girls started saying "Momma" and "Mommy".  What a wonderful little gift that was!  For so many months, it has only been "Dada" and "Daddy".  It's about time right!?!  :)   And now Amelia has added "wow" and "yeah".  "Whoa" and "wow" are super cute when we see Christmas lights around town and at our house.  She also has some great facial expressions and both girls do have their own sort of sign language.  Or I guess, our family does.  They use their hands to communicate some things to us and Paul and I have gotten pretty good at figuring out what they want (we usually see those signs at meal times).  Penelope seems to try a little harder to repeat words back when we ask and we all think she's trying to say "Amelia" but it comes out "dor-da" (or something like that).  Pretty funny!  Don't get me wrong, they do have a few other words, but it really is only a few.  And when you consider that the average 2 year old has 50+ words and starts using short sentences...  Well then you understand the reason for the concern.

Ok, enough of all this "speech" talk.  I've got some Thanksgiving pictures to look through and post!