24 posts tagged “twins”
Throughout their tender years, the twins have always had differing personalities. The eldest, H, suddenly turned into a teenager at approximately age 6 and her moods were completely unreadable. The slightest thing that could be misread would be and she'd blow her top and rant and rave and get everyone worked up trying to calm her down. J on the other hand, always seemed to be so sweet, although the fact she was such a sticky beak would get her into trouble.
H really got into the moody teen thing a year or so ago, her anger growing and then exploding and I'd have to find inventive ways to cool her down. Suddenly, although she still gets grouchy at times, those times are decreasing in length and her dippy side, the one that makes us laugh and her smile in wonderment at our laughter has become the dominant one. Not J. J, my sweet little girl, has turned into a full blown why-should-I-give-a-f'ing-sh*t kinda girl. Although there are still cute moments and times when she's playing along and being totally hilarious, I am still shocked each time a big outburst leaves her lips and looking at her eyes you can see the pure anger.
I'm hoping she grows out of it and not too far in the future either... jeepers, she can give the most withering looks.
The girls got to their positions at the hotdog stand half an hour early on Sunday. Of course, when we dropped them off they were fighting over who would carry what. Instead of one of them carrying the two bags with the small cupcakes and another taking the big box with the banana cake, both of them took a bag with J laughingly leaving her sister to take the box as well. Of course, with it being H, this did not go down well. She cursed, she shouted, she hissed and begrudgingly took the cake box out with her and upon catching up with her sister, dumped it, rather unceremoniously on the grass and stormed off. Ah, again, the joy of twins.
They were only due to be there for two hours and eventually came home seven and a half hours later, absolutely shattered and with sunburnt faces. They'd enjoyed some parts of the day but felt that as they'd stayed on for over five hours more than was required of them and helped take things back to the scout hut that maybe they could have been thanked a bit more. J was actually quite upset that when she pointed out that someone was mistakenly filling up my cake box with the cub's plastic cups that she felt as if they were accusing her of trying to gain a free box. When the cub's missing cup box was found she didn't get an apology and my children are really keen on things being balanced and she said so. That didn't go down too well. There were a few other things that upset them, but they felt the good parts were good experience and H's banana layer cake sold for £5.
This post is the three portrait style photos I've chosen to enter the quest - and the others I liked from playing at the bottom of the post for reviews. All taken with a point and click camera, so no fancy close ups as it doesn't do much!
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Chosen by H - the twin on the right
Chosen by me - shows Number Two Son in a rare capture - no boss eyes, no sticky up fingers, no smear as he races to beat the camera - I caught this one just right. Also shows KT snuggled against the bracing North Sea wind and H doing homework on the bench!
Chosen by KT. On the same day as the above photo, J popped into the van and was doing Dracula impressions. I wanted a pic, but she made a great game out of hiding behind the blanket every time I pressed the button - the kids have learnt it's a slow old camera! This one was her cracking up because it was obviously such a great game! Behind her is the prom through the can window - less that a minute's walk to where the bomb was found yesterday.
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Another of the shots taken in the garden - J has a thing for sticking out her tongue at the moment and H just pulls the most fantastic faces...
I've been trying to get the kids to do death shots for years. We play at dead at home - did you know that when you are dead your tongue always sticks out? And to revive that person, all you have to do is push their tongue back into their mouth and shake them whilst saying 'Wake up! Wake Up!' - works everytime.
This lady's pooch was much admored by the two gents. The one bending down got right down level with the dog to give it some good old loving but this was the only pic where you could see the lady's face.
The Sisterly Love shot - in slight sepia style for KT, original for me and black and white for H
KT doesn't feel that some of these count as portraits - I disagree. Any opinions?
The twins came home from their annual night hike exhausted. J was straight upstairs after a kiss and a hug. H on the other hand, decided she wasn't tired. I pointed out that KT mentioned she'd been bouncing her head against the window like a fly trying to escape in the world beyond a pane of glass on the journey home and she went up without any further comment.
I don't know much about the results yet, other than their team completed the course, though I am sure when the snoring is over and I get mugged that I will find out more!
Inspired by Tara M's post: My Fair Lady
The girls were almost 5 when they first said they wanted their ears pierced and I refused. I wanted them to be sure. They asked every day for a year and I thought, yep, they're ready now. They fought over who would go first, and J, being the bossy one decided to be strong and go first.
She sat in the chair and giggled as they marked her ears... then bawled her eyes out when they shot the earrings into her little lobes. H looked on in horror as I gave J a big hug and I knew we were about to have problems with her.
First she refused to sit in the chair.
She ran out of the shop and into the shopping centre, and thankfully she plopped herself onto a nearby bench. I went to get her and she cried that she really wanted earrings but it hurt J so it would hurt her. At this point, I had two five year olds clinging to me crying in the middle of a busy shopping centre. J snivelled and tried to tell H that it hurt but she had to have it done because she really wanted it done.
H, really was on two minds. She kept glancing over at the shop, then putting her hands over her ears and saying no. I told her we had to go back in whatever as I had left all my shopping in there (it was a last minute thing to get their ears done) and she half-reluctantly came back with me. As I spoke to one of the girls in there to say I didn't think she wanted it done today, J got her sitting in the chair. Once she was sat in it, she again decided she wanted her ears pierced. We all went over and I asked her if she was sure. She said yes, but her little eyes were quivering with tears and I asked her again. She grabbed my hand and said yes again, but wouldn't let go off my hand. The two girls came over and put dots on her earlobes, which I thought were uneven and they looked, agreed and redid them, but I still thought they were uneven. They disagreed, and called over the manager. She agreed with them that they were even so I reluctantly said go ahead. H's grip on my hand tightened up and her knuckles went white. The guns cracked and one of the girls said all done - H didn't believe them - she hadn't felt a thing!
The two of them were so proud to have their ears pierced, and almost marched to the bus station - but I was right - H's earrings are always a little wonky!
Last night the girls stopped with KT and they watched 'Jamie At Home'. KT told me something that happened last night and I've asked J to tell me the story as I type...
"First he shot Mr Rabbit and chopped him into pieces. Then he put him into bread crumbs and fried him. It looked like he was cooking fried chicken and I said to H, 'Have you heard about the chicken shortage the last few times we've had KFC?'.
She said 'no, why?' and I said 'well, they've not been using chicken, they've been using little rabbits', and she said, 'well I thought they'd been tasting a little bit funny'.
After the break Jamie went to the farmers because he wanted some venison and I said, 'first it was Thumper and now it's Bambi, who's it gonna be next!?'. "
This illustrates two things. First H is incredibly gullible. In fact, we once told her that the Oxford English Dictionary was taking the word gullible out of it's next print and she believed that as well.
Secondly, J has an incredible sense of humour and quick thinking wit. The kids all do, but J seems to top the rest of them - she's an evil genius!
Show us your favorite photograph.
Yeah, I know it's 18 months old now and has a toilet block in the background, but I really love how this one came out.
The kids had Thursday off school for the first of the new school year's review days. It was the first time we met the girls' new form tutors and we really quite liked both of them. We had a good old natter with Mr Nicholls with various things, including the benefits of the new vertical tutoring/mentor system they have in place at the school and I pointed out that KT had been worried about the range of ages in the class. It was something we disagreed about - the kids had all gone to a school back in Northampton which employed a family group system that met up in the week for learning activities and it worked really well, but KT was concerned about how the younger kids would get on with the kids who are 15 years and up. Apparently, in both the girls' forms the mix of kids they have is just perfect. One hope of using the new system is that any bullying will be reduced as the kids will have a whole heap of experienced pupils to call on for help in stopping it. Something else the new groups are doing is working on a project to raise money for local charities. Each tutor group is to choose a charity and then decide what they are going to do to raise funds. Apparently H's group has decided to raise cash towards some sort of memorial for a pupil who lost his life to cancer last year and I think that's an excellent thing to choose. They'll be working on making hand made cards, possibly commissioning them when they get into the swing of making them and I really look forward to what they produce. J's group has a lot of ideas but I think that's hindering them slightly as they don't seem to be able to decide who to support or which of their ideas to use yet, but I'm sure they will all work well together when they do.
Another good thing that came out of it was that J couldn't print of her homework the other night and sent it to school so she could do so at the library. Unfortunately, all the workstations were being used by new Year 7's who were quite happily playing on CBeebie games and so she ended up redoing the whole lot by hand. Both of their form tutors have offered that if a situtation like that occurs again that they could print the work out for them, which was great to know. There was a touch of bullying recieved last year, especially by one of the twins and both tutors had been informed of that. They've promised the girls that if anything like it starts this year that as long as they come forward (they are both terrible at 'telling tales' unless it's on each other, but H is definately most likely to keep things to herself) that they will put a stop to it. Mr Cox pointed out something that we laughed at the end of last year that J had gotten a low mark for science, something she is rather adept at, and the comments included keep up the good work... for the bad mark... He says he will query it as he has her for science this year and he is as certain as we are that the mark given was a mistake, especially as all her other marks were so high.
All in all, a great start to the year - well done, kiddoes!
My babies are growing up. The fact that they are blossoming into young women and soon will be heading off into independance seems to be snowballing into my mind. One of them went through a phase fairly recently of not wanting any love - no hugs, no kisses, no feet rubs and when I was so used to doing that, it was a shock to suddenly have to show this new child respect for her wishes. However, she's decided she's not too grown up for all that and I now often find myself with a foot plnked on my lap for a rub or if I am sitting on the floor she might come over and make me into a floor cushion - aww.
Anyhoo, the purpose of writing this was to say Hoppy Burpday to the girlies and to let them know how proud of them I am. They've always done well at school and when we decided to move just before the end of Year 5 they took it all in their stride and although they were a little apprehensive, they made new pals quickly in their new lower school. They joined a group called PALS which meant they had sponserbiliries in looking after the very junior children at lunchtimes and this was featured on Teachers' TV. They spent a few years singing in a church choir alongside one of their brothers until the choir had to be disbanded and like their brothers were part of their lower school choir back in Northampton, which traipsed into town twice at Christmas to sing carols and raise funds for Save the Children. When they moved here, they were chosen to participate making a CD and singing at the local theatre - something they really enjoyed even though the day they were making the DVD we had to collect a very upset H as a rather large child had barged into her in the playground and broke her tooth. They were also chosen to be part of a small choir at a teacher's wedding.
They've participated in two football tournaments including playing football for the school - a very good result there when their team wasn't expected to do well and they've both represented their school in cross-country. H was team captain of their Tag-Rugby team and J got incredibly exhausted doing a Paarlauf for her lower school here but boy did she run. They've played netball for the school and then spent a lot of hours going back there this year to help coach other kids at it. Their swimming ability has come on leaps and bounds in the past few years and now they regularly go swimming at the weekend with friends - just another symptom of growing up. Still, if J ever tries swimming to the Netherlands after a flipping football again like she did last week, I will throttle her myself.
H was chosen as a librarian and J as an assistant one at the lower school here, a job they loved as they helped me back in Northampton with the same tasks. They enjoy going to Scouts, and have found a great love of camping and outdoor activities. In fact, they've really done so much over the past few years, it's almost been a whirlwind of activity. They still make me smile and are even funnier than ever - I think they're going to be fabulous young ladies.
The girls at 10
... at 11
... and at 12 - what a difference a few birthdays make!
Instead of housepoints the girls can gain achievement awards for outstanding work. If they manage to get 50 or more across 5 subjects, they get a gold award - 50 more and they get diamond. Well, they both narrowly missed out on a diamond award, but I am still incredibly proud that they'd gained their gold before Easter. At the award assembly, I noticed their form tutor looking ecstatic - 17 children in her form managed to gain gold, more than any other form throughout the school.
Well done, girlies!
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