The big celebration for #2!!

Due to our love of swimming (and our birthday falling during the lovely winter months of Minnesota), we decided to have our party at a water park in a hotel in Rochester. We were blessed to be joined by grandparents, great-grandmas, auntie, uncle, and cousins, and we swam our little hearts out!

One of us braved the "big kid" slide with both Papa and Grandpa...are you surprised?

Enjoying some snacks with the cousins!

And the ever important event of blowing out candles to make #2 official!

Thanks everyone who celebrated with us and showered us with love and the many gifts!

Love, ME

Our Special Day at the Children's Museum!

Here are just a few pics from our first trip to the Children's Museum in St. Paul, which we visited on our 2nd birthday!

Though lacking in words, we hope you can tell we enjoyed ourselves!

Much love, ME

Happy 2nd Birthday to ME!!!

Hope it is okay that Papa and Mama are still in a bit of shock that our babies are 2 today...and are hardly babies anymore! We could likely write a novel on each of you and the special traits you display, but we will just limit it to a few.

Madelaine, you are definitely growing into the nickname Papa has given you, "Mad dog." You are our wild one. You move quickly for everything, you pick up on things quickly, and you let out crazy giggles and squeels. You are our chatter box. You are our night owl.

Eleanor, you are our sensitive one. You are more cautious in your movements and what things you explore. However, when you do complete something you tend to have already perfected it. You have a longer attention span when it comes to sitting activities, and enjoy coloring and putting puzzles together. You are our early morning bird.

You both love play and real babies. You both love music and shaking your bumper. You both love routine and are fairly good at helping pick up your toys (to Mama's delight). You both still find ways to migrate into Papa and Mama's bed at night. You both give the best hugs and kisses to us and often each other. You both continue to bring much happiness to our lives!!! We love you girls!

We spent a fun afternoon making our first trip to the Childrens Museum in St. Paul and are looking forward to a swimming party in a couple of weeks. Stay tuned for more pics.

Happy New Year!

Cheers! We spent a lovely and quiet (in Gore household terms) New Years at home with Papa and Mama. We had our first attempt at cheese fondue and thoroughly enjoyed dipping and eating the food. We also insisted upon trying it on our own (which is why there are no pictures of this, 1:1 child/adult ratio needed).



We played some games, had fun with hats and horns,









And then relaxed on the couch watching Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (a new fav) before starting bedtime routine. Our New Year started at around 8pm...

Best wishes for a wonderful 2011! I think last year we thought 2010 was going to be an exciting year, which it definitely has been, but there is much anticipation for more excitement to arrive in 2011! Hugs, ME

Christmas 2010

Mother nature allowed us to spend our 1st Christmas Eve at Great-Grandma Ollie's, which was very special to Mama being she has spent all of her Christmas Eve's there and we weren't able to be there last year because of the snow storm. We were going on high following a fun lunch with Grandpa Kip and Ms. Julie and had only had a 1/2 hour nap when we arrived...but bring on the festivities!







This was a last ditch effort at a family photo prior to heading to church and Mama loves this picture because in retrospect it forecasts our behavior at church (E already with her pacifier and M glaring at Mama with the same look Mama probably has given to her parents in her lifetime). Can you guess how long we lasted at church? Maybe 10 minutes at the most!

We were whisked away, changed into our PJs, hit the road, and were out for the hour ride home before being on the outskirts of town. And we didn't wake up until the morning! Santa was nice and treated us to our own play kitchen and we started playing with it immediately and haven't stopped!

Overall we were much more interested in opening gifts this year as compared to last and provided Papa and Mama with a lot of "oh cute" and "oh yeah" which was very entertaining.

Following fun at our house, we headed out to Grandpa and Grandma's for more Christmas morning fun and exciting gifts such as Elmo and friend panties (and cute deer skin slippers). This picture was just too cute to not share!

Christmas Day afternoon took us to Grandma Dee Dee's where we again enjoyed more of the same...fun, food, and gifts!

It definitely was a busy 2 days but we wouldn't trade the good times we shared with our family for anything! Merry Christmas 2010! Love, ME

Happy 23-months to ME!

Hello all! We do not know where this month is going but do know we have a lot to put into this post being Christmas is upon us and before you know we will need to write about that, and another big event...our 2nd birthday! We are very much into imaginary play at the moment and are lucky to have an instant playmate (most of the time). We continue to love playing with our babies and also take turns ourselves pretending to be babies. You can often catch us pretending to feed one another, change one another (so far no messes so Mama feels lucky), and pat or rub one another on the back.

We also continue to expand our vocabulary with a frequent 3-word sentence out of our mouths being "I do it" when it comes to just about anything these days. We are working on counting to five, learning our abc's, and also learning our colors. Our favorite colors right now are green followed by purple.

We have had the opportunity to see Santa twice thus far and still have one more opportunity at the mall. On our first visit, we got about this close...

On our second visit, we first saw Santa be rescued by a fire truck from the top of Rochester City Hall,


followed by a horse and sleigh ride to the Galleria where we happily came about this close...

So, maybe the third try will be the charm?!?!
We finally got some snow and now have large piles all over the place! We've been out once and lasted about 30 minutes, which is likely less time than it took for us to get all bundled up, but we still had fun and enjoyed hot chocolate with marshmallows when we came in.


We also insist upon being in the kitchen now if anyone is making something and would prefer to help if allowed. We recently tried our hands at making sugar cookies...lets just say the end result tasted good to us and we are ready for round #2 anytime!

We enjoy all the Christmas decorations this year and are the first to turn on any Christmas lights when we come downstairs in the morning. We helped put on a few ornaments and watched Mama set out some other things, but we mostly just had fun doing what we do best...run around and be silly!

Hoping everyone is having a bright and merry holiday season thus far!

Love, ME

Countless Blessings

Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world. John Milton

Papa and Mama's top 3 most thankful list (though they could go on and on)!

We dedicate this post in memory of our dear friend Rich who passed away the week before Thanksgiving and whose favorite poet was John Milton. Though our hearts were heavy as we thought of his family and their loss, we celebrated his life as a wonderful father, friend, and English Professor.