No pictures again, but just a few stories:
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unfortunately for us, Joseph threw up twice on the 9 hour drive to Kansas City. Poor little thing. He seemed perfectly fine and had just eaten some Lion King fruit snacks (he calls them "Hakuna Matata fruit snacks") As he was erupting and mom was scrambling around (in vain) to find something to catch it, he was saying "yuck!" and "don't do that, fruit snacks!" When we were cleaning him up, he apologized to me and said "it's Joe Joe's fault." He also thanked me after he was wiped up and in fresh clothes. What a little sweetie. We felt so guilty for getting him out when he still felt crummy. Even though it had been several days since his last throw up, he must have gotten kind of motion sick, too. He had to wear his bib the rest of the trip, which proved to be very useful the second time around.
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We are mostly doing better now, just not sleeping all that well in strange places. Plus, the babies are still working on some teeth. They've been kind of puny. My family has been commenting on what good little boys they are. Of course! They hardly have the energy to move around, much less fuss and get into things!
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On Wednesday, I took Joe to an open gym at a local community center. They have all sorts of ride on toys, play structures and even some moon walks. Joe had so much fun running all around. One kid was being kind of a bully to him. Everytime Joe would stack some blocks up, the kid would kick them over kind of maliciously (as much as a 2-year-old can be malicious, I guess) Since that kid's mom was obviously not around, I just sat back and watched how Joe would handle it. At first he was annoyed, but kept stacking and tried moving over a little to start stacking somewhere out of the kid's way. Finally, he could take it no more. He shoved the kid hard enough to knock him to the ground. Again, no mother rescued the kid. So I just pretended not to have seen anything. He got what was coming to him, and he didn't bother Joe anymore. Problem solved. (please no comments about how I condone violence...)
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Later, at that same playtime, a much smaller kid dressed a lot like the first one kept getting in Joe's way on the moon walk. He didn't mean to, he was just small an not on very good footing. Joe was very patient with him, but after one too many annoyances, Joe looked him in the face and said, "It's time a go home, kid." That gave me a chuckle.
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Our veggie battle is getting some big reinforcements in the form of Sesame Street. Yesterday, the SS gang was putting on a play in which Tellie was an asparagus. I think Elmo was broccoli, I'm not sure. Anyway, just by coincidence, we were having asparagus for dinner that night. Joe actually asked for some saying, "Tellie likes 'sparagus, mommy!" He even ate TWO spears. You could have knocked me over with a feather. We're trying broccoli next. God bless the Childrens Television Network.
We have a fun new activity here. Kissing! I caught Patrick getting a little too close to Luke the other day, (presumably to tackle or otherwise annoy him) and I had a brilliant idea… Patrick loves to give kisses. I told him to give Luke a kiss, and he did! Luke thought it was pretty funny and didn’t mind. It seems that this was the first twin to twin kiss in our house (at least on purpose.) At bedtime yesterday, we had so much fun directing the kids to give each other kisses. 
One or two smooches got a little violent, but they were mostly sweet and totally precious to witness.
All of the kids were outside my parents’ house enjoying the rockets until all three of them ended up in the trees. It was only nice one or two days while we were home, so we had to take advantage of it.
Patrick was fascinated with the birds and occasional squirrel that came to eat at Papa's bird feeders. (don't worry - we were right behind him as he stood on the kitchen counter)
"Wow!"
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