In The Spirit of Valentine's Day

I find that I begin to celebrate the festivities and seasonal occassions much, much earlier than I ever would have prior to having children. For example, Christmas tends to last for about 2 weeks at our house beginning with the trips to the mall to sit on Santa's lap, to decorating the house and Christmas tree, to the grand finale of opening all those presents from Santa; and of course, there are always lots of photo opportunities to capture every moment along the way of Paige and Taylor. Now, it's February and although it is only the first week of February, I find that I am already participating in the spirit of the coming Valentine's Day. First, it was a trip to the photography studio to have the twins pictures taken (yes, for Valentine's Day)...today, it was baking cookies with Paige and Taylor - those ol' familiar slice 'n bake cookies with the little red, white, pink hearts on top - and, yes, these too were done in the spirit of Valentine's Day.


The twins were eager to help placing their cookies on the cookie sheets, then waiting patiently while the cookies were in the oven. Oh, and Paige and Taylor's "Momo" from Virginia is visting us, so baking the Valentine's cookies today was a little more special for the twins (not that baking cookies with dear ol' mom isn't special, but come on, mommy makes cookies with the twins a lot so it's no longer that 'big a deal').

Each girl started with their own plate of cookies...

Paige and Taylor helped place each of their cookies onto the cookie sheet...

Paige does a quick counting of her cookies...

Taylor waiting her turn to add her last 3 cookies...

Tada! The cookies are on the cookie sheet...

Watching and waiting at the oven door...

The longest 8 minutes of their lives...

Cookies are almost ready, but not yet...

Still waiting for the cookies, but a slight change of venue...

Still waiting for the cookies, but now doing a choo-choo train to pass the time...

Still no cookies?! What's taking soooooo long?!

Seriously, what's taking those cookies so long?!

Mom, do you hear me...seriously, I'm asking you what's taking the cookies so long?!

But we're trying to wait patiently...

After what probably seemed like the longest 8 minutes of their little lives, the cookies were at last ready. When the timer chimed to mark that their cookies were in fact done, the girls both started clapping and shouting, "the cookies are ready, the cookies are ready."

So, with 8 more days to go 'til Valentine's Day, besides baking a lot more fun, festive cookies, the twins will likely be taking a stab at making their very first "homemade" Valentine's Day card for their daddy. Now that they're 3, they are quite the little color-ers, glue-ers, and best-all-around crafty kids. But, shhhhhhh, that is a surprise for daddy!

P.S. Seriously, how cute is it that Paige and Taylor are sporting their "big girl" panties in these pictures?! Elmo and Barbie "big girl" panties are a big hit in our house. Even better, their "big girl" panties stayed - oh, how should I put it - unsoiled for a good couple of hours today! Awesome.