Hello! and apologies for being so late with this post! Life is just so busy at the moment in my crafting world that I completely forgot about updating this blog!! But here I am with a quick life update and also a “favourites” special.

I thought that the terrible twos were bad and the “threenagers” period was worse. Nobody ever mentions anything about 4. So somehow I thought that the moment they turned four years old everyone would chill out and have a much more relaxed attitude about things. WRONG! The tantrums and the power struggles are as strong as ever, and both of them -but specially Eric- are going through a “lying” phase, where they just lie and contradict you for the sake of it.

Bedtimes are relatively easy at the moment. They have a bath, put on their PJs, have a bedtime snack (banana for Elisa and apple for Eric) and then I read stories until it’s time to say night night. More often than not, one of them will have fallen asleep whilst I am reading. But it doesn’t happen too often. I used to read until both of them fell asleep, but they saw this as an opportunity to stay awake. So now I read the stories, three or four of them, and then I say goodnight and leave them to settle to sleep. We have had a couple of times where they didn’t want to be left alone in the room, or were “scared of the dark” (despite the fact that they sleep with a mahoosive night light), but more often than not they settle quite well. The bad news is that bedtime is very late for them. They never get in bed before 8:30 pm, and we rarely stop reading stories before 9:15. Having them both asleep by 9pm is quite an accomplishment these days.

Jon and I have a rota that works quite well. One night he puts them to bed (does the whole routine with bath, etc) and I tidy downstairs (kitchen and living room). And the following night we swap. This way we can both have one-to-two time with the twins, the house gets tidy(er), and the person who is not putting them to bed can go out to see friends, meetings, etc. This works quite well most of the times, however if one of the twins decides to have a meltdown, the parent who has the “free” night has to come to help. Not the end of the world, though.

 

Elisa still loves food almost as much as she has always done. She still eats quite a lot, although sometimes she has spells of only picking on food. Eric’s appetite changes so much! Some days he devours everything we put in front of him and demands even more. Some days he just is not hungry! At nursery they both eat quite well, and one of the carers told me recently that Elisa told her that she loves lettuce and cucumber, and the carer was so proud because as she said, the other kids only ever tell her that they like burger and chips (which Elisa also likes, don’t get me wrong, but she IS a big salad fan)

At four years old:

Elisa’s favourite…

• Drink: She loves squash and is not bothered about the flavour. She will equally drink orange squash or Ribena. Or her latest favourite one: “mixed up drink” which is orange squash and ribena mixed up. She also loves gazpacho and drinks it as fast as me when I make it!
• Food: She loves salads (but she prefers them with olive oil and vinegar!), chicken, edamame beans, noodles, spaghetti, Spanish rice and much more.
• Book: I don’t think she’s got a favourite story book at the moment, but she loves looking at flip books (she is fascinated by a human body one) and sticker books. For their birthday she also got some books for practicing letters and numbers that she enjoys.
• Toy: Again, she doesn’t have one favourite toy. Before she was insparable from her Sheepy and little teddy but she doesn’t pay much attention to them nowadays. She loves playing with play doh, building blocks (lego too recently!), painting, she likes the little paw patrol and peppa pig toys… but no definitive favourite.
• Song: She loves singing and makes up the most beautiful tunes.
• Colour: Pink and purple. But some days she also says that her favourite colours are blue, or red, or green.
• “Thing”: She still loves going to the park and being outdoors. She much rather be in the garden playing with the hose that inside.
• TV Show: Paw Patrol has been a big favourite this year, however their most favourite thing at the moment is what they call “Pretend Peppa Pig”. What they are referring to with this term is to those channels on youtube where adults play with toy sets. They are obsessed with these. They have also started loving PJ Masks at the moment and Masha and the Bear.
• Friend: Eric is her best friend, obviously, but apart from him she absolutely loves Isaac.
• Place: She is really looking forward to going to Motril in the summer. She keeps talking about the beach, so I would say her favourite place is the beach!

Elisa is…

I haven’t weighed them for a very long time so I have no idea how heavy she is! I suppose I need to find out soon, as they are going to be growing out of their car seats soon! :/ She is 100cms tall and I only know this because I measured them on their dinosaur thingy.

She wears size 4-5 clothes and her shoe size is 9. She still wears a nappy at night, and not sure she is ready at all to remove it any time soon.

She is very athletic, she loves to run and jump, she is very giggly and happy. She is still very shy with strangers and takes her time to warm up to other people.

Eric’s favourite…

• Drink: He prefers orange squash over anything else. He says that he loves gazpacho, but he will only drink a tiny bit when I make it, so not sure he likes it or not!
• Food: He is still very keen on sausages, he also loves cheese omelette and quiche/pies. He loves noodles and edamame too, and  most salad except lettuce. Both of them are great fruit eaters too.
• Book: He loves Curious George stories and also Sofia the First. He still loves stories and loves listening to them.
• Toy: Definitely his paw patrol toys, but he also loves lego and building blocks, play doh and puzzles. He is very good at puzzles!
• Song: Still not into music and he very rarely sings himself.
• Colour: No predilection although he sometimes says red.
• “Thing”: Television. He’s obssessed with it.
• TV Show: All of them! “Pretend Peppa Pig”, PJ Masks, Paw Patrol, Masha and the Bear. He also seems quite keen on Thomas the Tank Engine, but only for a while and then gets put off.
• Friend: Isaac.
• Place: The living room 🙂

Eric is…

Same as Elisa, I haven’t weighed them in a long time. But he is 1.35m tall and wears size 4-5 clothes and size 9.5 shoes. He is very thin so some of his trousers seem to fall off all the time.

He is also happy and loves rough and tumble play with Elisa, but he seems to be a bit more sensitive and he is definitely more “dreamy”. He is not athletic at all, in fact he is a bit clumsy.

 

We had their birthday party a couple of weekends ago and it was a total success. It was held at a café called More of the Good Stuff in Dummer, and the lady who runs the place organised a cracking party. It was pirate themed and there were lots of games and crafts to do. The kids had a very good time and the cake was delicious!