I have a love-hate relationship with Facebook and since I've been minimizing my activity there lately, but still want to share pics of the kids with family and friends out-of-town, I'm going to attempt to get the blogging thing started again. :-)

Maia & JD are almost 17 months now and SO fun and full of energy. The above picture has been one of my favorites lately because it shows a few standard things about their personalities.......JD is full of passion and emotion - that boy is not neutral! He is usually expressing huge amounts of excitement about whatever he's doing. On the flip side, if he doesn't get something he wants, he is EXTREMELY devistated (you should hear his pitiful sobbing) or EXTREMELY angry (he has already thrown things at me in anger, knocked things off the table, pushed chairs down, etc).

Maia is a little more reserved in her emotion and can more easily be distracted from a disappointing moment. She stands back and observes, thinking carefully before diving into a new experience (therefore she gets hurt less, for example JD has already had two minor black eyes and Maia hasn't even really had a single bruise). She is incredibly affectionate and will sit and cuddle with me more than JD.

Here are some fun new things in the past week or two:
*Both know where their belly button is now
*Both will stick their tongue out at you if you ask where it is
*JD doesn't have many clear words yet besides "dog" and "light". Maia has been saying "Mama," "yeah" in response to questions, "dog," "JD," "baby," and "Nikki." New this week is "danka" when you give her something (thanks but she's picked up the German word for it) and shaking her head no in response to questions.
*They are both incredibly proud of the fact that they can turn around in a circle when asked. Maia will start clapping for herself before she's even finished the turn and she will also clap for JD.
*JD loves to wear necklaces. If I am wearing one, he has to be wearing one.
*Both are pretty self-sufficient at the park now, climbing the play structures and going down the slides without help.
*We have started drinking green smoothies almost everyday - fruit masking the taste of kale, spinach, collard greens, arugula, chia, flax - and they LOVE them. We have to be careful not to let them indulge too much or we pay the price in diaper changes the next day.