Today we got (and are getting) a lot of rain. So this morning when I was getting Paige and Virginia ready for daycare I had to make sure they were dressed to walk through rain on their way to the car and from the car to the building. I put them in their rain boots (and wore mine, too), their hooded jackets and their baseball caps. Here they are standing outside the door at daycare dressed prepared for all the rain.

Ben's mom, aka Mimi, watches the girls for us on Wednesdays. The girls are never happy to see her go- they love their Mimi- but tonight Paige really didn't want her to leave. Mimi said goodbye to the girls and said she was leaving and Paige said, "No." Then Paige went and laid in front of the front door to keep Mimi from leaving. We did finally convince her to get up and watch Mimi out the window so Mimi could get out of the house. She's a smart little cookie, that Paige, to know that if she lays in front of the door Mimi couldn't leave. And so cute.

Today after we got home from daycare Virginia decided to play with two of her favorite toys- her bear and her blanket. The blanket is a new thing that she's gotten attached to recently. She was very nicely shaking her blanket out and laying it over bear. And, yes, that's a sticker on her back. A sticker letting us know that school pictures are tomorrow. Too bad Paige and Virginia don't go to school on Wednesdays.

Today Paige and Virginia turned 27 months old. It's hard to believe they're 2 and a quarter years old already.

This evening we went over to Mimi and Pops' house for dinner. Virginia and Paige had a lot of fun playing and eating and just hanging out with Mimi and Pops. They enjoyed standing on the bench on the deck and watching Blue, the dog that lives behind Mimi and Pops, play in his yard.

Virginia and Paige went to the zoo today with their grandparents, Dee and Dude. We have very few pictures because the battery in the camera they took died right after they got there, so my mom took a few pictures on her phone and sent them to me. This is the only one of both of the girls. Apparently they were very quiet during their trip to the zoo, but I think they enjoyed it.

Today Paige, Virginia and I took Jefferson to the vet to get his nails cut. The girls had a great time climbing all over the benches in the waiting room while Jefferson was getting his pedicure. They were happy to have a place to climb and be able to walk around after sitting in the car for about an hour since we took Mimi to the Metro before the vet appointment.

Paige and Virginia decided to have a tea party after dinner tonight. Virginia was dishing out the cups of tea while Paige held her purple cup and studied her magnet. They were nice enough to share their tea with us. It was Ben's favorite kind of tea- imaginary tea.

Paige decided to sit on the arm of the couch tonight and draw on her Magna Doodle. It's hard to tell in this picture, but she's wearing her "oof oof shirt" which she wants to wear every day. Thankfully we have two so she can wear one fairly often and she's happy. I just have to make sure she only wears it one day a week to daycare. I don't want them to think I don't have other clothes for her.

Don't Paige and Virginia look excited to go to school? This is what they generally look like when we're getting ready to leave in the morning, except this morning was the first time this fall that they've had to wear jackets. They are always carrying at least this much stuff, though. They sure look like they were extra tired this morning, though.

Virginia and Paige were playing with their couches this evening and laid down on them. Ben then took their quilts and put those on top of the girls and tucked them in. They were so cute the way they laid there all tucked in. They both even moved their covers and made me tuck them in again. Too bad they don't go to bed that quietly.

This morning Beth and I ran the Inaugural Woodrow Wilson Bridge Half Marathon. Our goal was to cross the finish line without collapsing. And we made it! My official time was 2:30:31. It was a good run and a good race. I don't think I could have done it without Beth, though. She talked for most of the race and kept my mind off of what I was doing. Other than having a couple of really sore knees I feel pretty good. Hopefully I'll still be able to walk tomorrow morning. Here are me and Beth after the race with our finisher medals.

What happens when Virginia wakes Paige up two hours before they normally get up on a Saturday morning? Paige falls asleep on the couch at 11am.

While playing in our bedroom this evening Paige and Virginia got ahold of set of Uno cards. They had a great time throwing the cards around and playing with them. When it came time to put them away, Paige was even saying "Good bye" to each one as she put it in the box. Here she is playing her green three.

And her bear. Really, what more needs to be said about this picture of my little sweetie?

Tonight before the girls went to bed they were laying on the couch/end table together. Paige kept trying to unzip Virginia's sleeper. This is part of the reason why we need to keep them in cribs and not move to toddler beds- they could get out an help each other undress. I don't want to think of the messes we could end up with if they did that.

I had an audience tonight while I was washing dishes. Virginia and Paige moved their chairs into the kitchen so they could watch the excitement that is Mommy washing dishes. Of course, they only brought the chairs in after I took the dog food container away from them and wouldn't let them stand on that to watch me.

How cute are Virginia and Jefferson looking out the window together? What was even cuter was a couple of minutes before I took this picture when, after Jefferson started barking about something, Virginia went over and started to pet him and shush him, trying to calm him down. So sweet. And then they went on to just sit and look out the window together.

This morning Paige decided to get out the tool box she and her sister got for their birthday. She's such a safe little carpenter that she put her safety goggles on before she started working on anything. Granted, she only tried to take apart the tool box, but at least she's got the concept down. Maybe she'll grow up to be like her Great-Grandpa Denick and Gramps (Ben's grandfather) and be an amazing carpenter who can just about anything.

This afternoon we had an extra child for awhile. Ben offered to watch his coworker, Michelle's son, Ian, while she and her husband went to see a movie. Ian was very good. He played with the girls and didn't complain when they stole toys from him. He's a cutie, too! At one point all three of them were sitting down doing puzzles on the floor. And I got Ian to look at the camera. I don't know what Paige and Virginia were looking at, I just know it wasn't me.

Virginia and Paige like to do things their own way. Most people would sit on the benches of a picnic table, but not Virginia and Paige. Instead they pull their couches up to the benches of the table and sit on their couches. I guess the couches are more comfortable than the benches, and they have somewhere to set whatever they need to set down. It works for them.

I was home today working on cleaning out the house a little bit. One of the things I did was clean the toys out of Paige and Virginia's cribs. They have been gathering toys in their cribs for quite awhile, to the point that they basically had to sleep on tops of toys in their cribs, but they wouldn't let us take the toys out. I figured today would be a good day to get the toys out. I was talking to my dad on the phone while I was cleaning out the cribs, so I was just grabbing stuff and throwing it down the stairs. When I finished, this is what the landing at the bottom of the stairs looked like. Of course tonight the girls had to take some toys up with them, but at least there was still room for them to lay down in their cribs.

Paige LOVES her books. Can you tell?

Daddy is out of town for a couple of days for work and I'm sick, so I decided to be a really nice (and lazy) mommy tonight at dinner. I ordered pizza and let the girls sit in the big girl chairs. Don't Paige and Virginia look like such big girls sitting in those chairs eating their pizza, or really their bread sticks?

The girls decided tonight that they wanted to play on the landing of the steps. We're fine with them playing there as long as they're not spinning in circles (which they'd been doing before this picture was taken). I'm not quite sure what they're doing in this picture, but it looks like Paige is trying to tickle Virginia. Whatever they're doing, they sure look silly.

This isn't a very good picture, but you can still see their outfits. The girls picked out their own clothes this morning. I did get Virginia's shirt out, but then they picked out their pants and Paige picked out her shirt. It's kind of hard to see, but Paige is wearing a shirt with penguins in a snowglobe on it. Perfect for September 5th, right? They were happy in their outfits, so we were happy.

We went to my grandparents' house today for an 80th birthday party for my grandma. My aunts and cousins and their kids were all there. It was a great day. But my Aunt Grit was giving me a hard time because she's never on my blog, so I figured I'd throw her in today's post. I wanted to make sure, though, that I had one of the girls in the picture as well, so here are Aunt Grit and Paige walking out for some group pictures.

The girls and I went to my office today for a short visit. Paige and Virginia were both VERY shy while we were there. Paige was attached to my leg or being held by me for most of the visit. As soon as we went to leave, though, I got smiles out of both of them. I guess they're like most people and were happy to be leaving work on a Friday.

The girls love to watch Ben when he's in the kitchen, but they're normally not allowed in there when he's fixing dinner. Tonight they had leftovers for dinner, so they were allowed to be in the kitchen while Ben was getting their dinner prepared. Paige and Virginia pulled Jefferson's food container over and stood on it so they could watch Ben. They also love to do this over by the sink when I do dishes.

Paige told us "Bye Bye" tonight, put on her boots, picked up her purse and blanket, and headed for the door. How cute is she in all her pink?