From the mouths of babes::::::

We recently received out Blog2Print book in the mail. I had no idea how much the girls would love this! For each year of their lives I have created a photo book for them, but they are mostly photos with a few captions of what is going on. The blog book, however, contains all of the funny anecdotal stories of their lives....Ella just laughs and laughs at the things she said as a toddler learning to talk. I started thinking maybe I haven't been noting enough of Aubrey's sayings... So without further ado....

As she is doing this she says, "Aubrey funny face!!"

Aubrey is our trouble-maker these days...no 2 ways about it. Lotions/creams/water are her FAVORITE obsession, not to mention HUGE mess-makers.

Last week, Aubrey had pushed her learning table over to her changing table, climbed up one to the next until she was happily perched on her changing table. Once up there, she found a container of vasoline. (With all the snotty noses around here, we have been putting vasoline on their noses to help with the chapped/painful blowing.) She decided that she needed to put vasoline on her own nose. Ella comes running downstairs, I go running upstairs; mess cleaned, Aubrey time-out. I no sooner get to my tasks back downstairs when again here comes Ella, "Aubrey got into the sunscreen in my top drawer!" Again, Aubrey had climbed up onto Ella's bed, reached over the end and into Ella's dresser. This time Aubrey knows she is in trouble. She looks at me so serious and says "I tubble maker." Yes, yes Aubrey you are that indeed!!!

Yesterday in the car, Aubrey is applying chapstick to her lips (I'm supervising in the front seat). I swear I no more than blinked and she was rubbing chapstick from her lips to cheeks to under her chin. I sternly said "No thank you, Aubrey!" She looked right back at me, furrowed her brow and said "EXCUUSE ME!" I couldn't help laugh, I know I shouldn't...I know it just encourages the behavior---but she was mimicking me! I say that all the time when the girls talk back to me.

***Disclaimer*** While typing this very blog, I had to pause in order to go clean up Aubrey's latest mess on her changing table----powder, vasoline and her Bolt stuffed dog!!! She did try to clean it herself with baby wipes, but you can imagine how well that worked ;-)

I swear I do not leave my children unattended only to surprisingly find them wreaking havoc on my house. Only minutes before this happened, both girls had been happily making music upstairs with their instruments pretending to be the Fresh Beat Band!!!

One of my current favorite things of Aubrey's large bank of witty remarks is regarding when Ella takes something away from her. Aubrey has learned to use Ella's words against her...up until recently, Ella could outwit or just bully Aubrey into giving her back whatever toy she wanted. Now we hear Aubrey say:
"ELLA...GIVE IT BACK TO ME RIGHT NOW!!"
Then we say, "Aubrey thats not how you ask for your toy." So then she brings out her sweet, innocent voice:
"Please can I have it?" 

Ella is not without her own witty remarks. It has been raining incessantly this month (the newspaper said that it has rained every day since March 6th with a measurable amount of rain each day!). During one of the brief breaks in rain, Ella went out outside with Grandpa Rick. She spun around in the easement and said, "Awww, new air. I really needed some new air!"

We have also been trying to instill in Ella the fact that she should  not watch Aubrey make all these huge messes, or even worse, help make the messes just because Aubrey did it first. Today, Ella told me about Aubrey dumping some water on the floor; as I was mopping up the water Ella says "Its a good thing I told you 'cause kids can't clean up grown-up messes!"