Happy Halloween, all!

Hasn’t it been awhile? It sure has.

But we’re here, and doing well, and are healthy and happy! It’s our first official Halloween in our home (Ian was gone last year, and the babies weren’t quite here…). Our neighborhood, Wallingford, is considered and voted the best trick-or-treating neighborhood in Seattle! Hooray for that!

So getting into the true spirit, we opted for decorating. With the help of my good friend Kimberly, who was visiting us for the weekend from Cincinnati, we managed to carve 6 pumpkins (yes, in order you see Elmo, Ernie, Bert, Grover, and 2 funny monsters).

The girls’ got especially decked out in their Muppet costumes. Sylvie went as Kermit, Jane as Fozzie. For those that don’t know the reference (which I should assume is all of you), in the movie The Great Muppet Caper, Kermit and Fozzie are supposedly identical twins.

They debuted the costumes at their daycare for the fall festival, and rounded out the appearance at our neighbor’s pre-Trick or Treating get-together.

We had high hopes for lots of trick-or-treaters, since we have tons of neighbors with kids. Alas! Disappointment. A total of 9 trick-or-treaters. What a bummer. Especially compared to our friends Carrie and Paul, who live 8 blocks away. They tapped out at 202 trick-or-treaters, believe it or not!

I won’t give up on the holiday, or getting into it. I hope one day we’ll be one of the best houses in the hood to come to—our yard is scary enough…

Sandy the Snail

The Snail is built for speed—and catchy songs about the colors of the rainbow (that is sung by a man without a great voice, but is such a catchy tune, it’s in my head for days).

We got this rocking snail off Gilt last week.  The girls like it so much that we also ordered the dinosaur (should be here any day now!).  Fun.

Here are Jane and Sylvie (respectively) taking turns on the little smiling guy.

Jane and Sylvie hitch a ride.

Two videos: Babies sitting! Babies talking! Babies grabbing!

I see you. You see me. We are learning to sit.

We’re almost 7 months old! ROAR!

About to eat dinner….

And now 6 months old!  More pictures once we finally rip them off the camera (yes, we have not uploaded pictures in months and months…and months).

Hope all is well in your worlds—we are happy, happy and are loving our sweet girls.

the process of discovery

One of Lori's co-workers let us borrow one of those exersaucer things that babies apparently love. The girls are not quite big enough for it yet (their feet don't touch) but we thought we'd throw them in there for a sec just to see what happened.

Lori and I love watching the babies "learn" things. Our days are about these tiny, fantastic milestones that we can see all over their faces. Lori and I were talking about it the other day, and then Dr. Bailey, on Grey's Anatomy described it so well when she talked about her son learning the "K" sound. (Yes we watch that show)

Anyway, I thought I would give you guys insight into one of those discoveries

Here is Sylvie walking us, step by step through what it's like to realize that you like something. Also, since she has no actual language or sentence structure with a bank of adjectives, we have no idea what it's like to think as a baby. I'm stepping in here to fill the gap. I'll be translating Sylvie's thoughts to English so it's easier for us all.

Step one: "What the hell is this?

"I'm upright! I, I feel like I'm floating! why is my dad not holding me and just staring at me with that silly look? how come I'm not being held? when I'm upright, someone is always holding me! How is this happening? My head is touching nothing! I am unsure! what do I do now? I think I'll make that sounds and face I usually do when I'm unsure about something. I think it goes like this... am I doing it? I am"

Step Two: "oh, wait..."

"I made the sound and no one picked me up. Why am I still here?..... wait.... is, is that, is that one of those brightly colored, smelly things that grows outside? I see those on our trips to the car and when we get in and out of our stroller. I think mom calls them flowers. How come this one doesn't smell? Hmmmmm. Curious. Well, it's really nice anyway. It's red. I think that color is nice. Maybe I could enjoy this. let me take a closer look"

Step three "Yep, I like it"

"This thing makes me feel nice inside. like when I get a bottle in the morning. yum yum. It also makes my face move in a pleasing way. Mommy calls it a smile I think. I like smile. smile feels nice. WOW! HA HA! this is so fun!"

There you go. Our daughter and her thought process. Also, As you can see, I, for some reason, decided to show that there was a space between the giant orange circle and her feet. It shows scale. they are cute and tiny.

4 month visit!

The girls had their 4-month visit to the pediatrician Thursday afternoon. For the first time, I had to take them by myself since Ian was working.

It was trickier doing it alone, but I have to say that I managed it wonderfully. I had little stations set up for changing their diapers and disposing of them, and felt very organized.

Even though the girls at daycare said that they didn't nap much that morning, thankfully the Sylvie and Jane were complete angels. They laughed and smiled, and were extra sweet. They both cried receiving one of the shots, but calmed soon after. It was a good day for it overall.

They're doing great! Sylvie is up to 11 lbs 14oz, and Jane is 12 lbs 8.5oz. I can't believe some babies are born that big....Jane is 26 inches long--in the 95th percentile for their age--Sylvie is almost as long.

Anyway, I snapped these while they were on the table waiting for the doctor. They look conjoined. They've come a long way since that first visit Ian posted.

Spring has sprung!

We had every intention of being better about updating the blog. Instead, here we are--the girls 4 months old (today!) and hardly a post. Now I should finally admit it, instead of making empty promises--we'll post when we post.

Here's the catch-up paragraph(s)--the last 4 months. It's been great. We're lucky. Not just saying that. I know we are. Yes, we have two beautiful girls and everyone is supposed to say how lucky they are. But I think we have exceptional, good girls. They are happy. They are smiley and they laugh hysterically. They have been sleeping through the night since the day I returned to work (how did they know?!?), which has been about a month now. In fact, last night they slept 12 hours! Insane. Everyone at daycare loves them, and tells us what good babies they are. Couples in the street can't believe they sleep through the night.

Now I know what you're thinking--it won't last. And I'm sure it won't. But we're taking it for now.

They've been a joy. They've (overall) been easy. There weren't many times we felt sleep deprived. We're getting out, though I must admit it's more of an ordeal. And we even traveled to the east coast for 2 weeks when they were almost 3 months old. They were perfect on the long journeys.

I've been back to work for 1 month. The first week was great--easy because the workload was light, and daycare started off great, and the girls started sleeping through the night.

The following 3 weeks were a bit difficult--preparing for one of the biggest, most challenging meetings I've had to worry about, changing positions (taking on several new accounts), being stressed at work. My meeting was last week, and I'm moving on. Hopefully things at work will normalize somewhat.

We've also had guests for the weekend twice this month--good times overall.

Now to focus on some current things. Yesterday was a great day. One of the things Ian and I have been doing is spending a day every weekend (the nicest day, typically) to explore a new neighborhood. We hit up Queen Anne, Tangletown, and other parts of our neighborhood. The weather this winter has been exceptional.

Yesterday, we woke up around the usual weekend time (7:00), and fed the girls. They're the best in the mornings, so we lounged around and hung out with the babies. Then it's activity time for the girls. While I spent time with the girls, Ian made a delicious stack of blueberry pancakes. Yum.

He took off to play soccer with some friends at Green Lake around 11. About 10 minutes later, I had the girls packed up in their stroller and we were heading out on the town. We stopped in Meridian Park, and ran into our neighbor Jim, with his son Hughie and their new twin boys (Jane and Sylvie's betrothed). I stood and chatted with him for about 45 minutes, before moving on and walking around streets I had yet to explore. The day was gorgeous, and everything is blooming here. I met another neighbor, Helena, who has twins as well.

When I got home, the girls and I had lunch, and then took naps while Ian watched some TV. I then grabbed a shower, and we got ready to meet the Gilmartins for dinner at Tutta Bella. The girls were complete angels at dinner.

We all walked to Molly Moon's ice cream after and then went home. After hanging out more with the girls, we put them down a little after 8. At 9, we were heading over to our next door neighbors' house with a bottle of wine and the baby monitor in tow. We all sat by the fireplace until almost midnight, when Ian and I slunk back through the gate to our house and crashed.

I miss San Francisco a lot. I figured out one reason--that I know what perfect days are like there. That if someone told me to take a day off from work, and go after my perfect day, there are a million scenarios (brunch at Absinthe, walking through Hayes Valley, or Noe Valley, Chrissy Field, or Golden Gate Park...a movie at the Castro, etc....). Limitless! But the timing for moving here was poor--I was 5 months pregnant, and seemingly shortly after on bed rest. And not much time since then to figure out what my perfect days would be like.

I think yesterday would be one of them. Another one of my favorite moments was last weekend. We were walking back from Green Lake, and when we walked by Carrie and Paul's house, they and neighbors we knew were all on the sidewalk having a beer. We joined. It was a gorgeous day. After our beer, we moved along towards home, and waved at other neighbors (someone else I work with) who were all on their sidewalks hanging out. Such a fun, friendly place.

Anyway, here's a video of Jane laughing. They both get on a roll where they just don't stop--it's really funny.