Maya & Lilly Turn 1!

As I mentioned in the last post, the one redeeming quality about the Holidays in 2010 was that two new babies were added to our family.  And on November 19th, those babies turned one!



We celebrated by giving the twins their presents (I know, VERY original and unique.  Feel free to take notes on all our celebratory ingenuity).

Maya caught on very quickly to the whole "opening presents" thing, and was very...shall we say...excited...about the whole process.



But no matter how fast a one year old opens presents, it's not quite fast enough.  So the older sisters decided to join in and give her a hand.  It was a sacrifice they were willing to make.



Lilly, on the other hand...well...let's just say it took her a little longer to catch on.

"Uhhh...what do you want me to do with this mom?"
 

"Yeah, I think I'm going to go see what Maya's doing."



(We picked her up and put her back in front of the present.)
"Okay, um...I think you want me to do something with this baggie thing."


(We clapped and said, "Yay Lilly! Open your presents.")
"You guys are so weird."


Then Maya came over to show her how it was done.


I can't believe my babies are already one!  Happy (late) birthday my little ladies.  I love you!

Thankful Jar

So last holiday season was...well...HORRIBLE.  Bart says it's really sad that I think that because we got two babies from last holiday season.   But seriously, that was the one redeeming quality of the end of last year.  True, it's a pretty big redeeming quality, but still!

My two older girls were in California.  We spent countless hours in the NICU riding an emotional roller coaster. And I was recovering from an emergency c-section and some serious blood loss.  Really, not fun. Someday I will blog about it....someday.

Anyway...this year I was determined to make up for last year's...lack of jolly-ness...and we started with the Thankful Jar. 

 For each day in November up to Thanksgiving, we picked a paper out of our Thankful Jar that listed something we were thankful for, and then did an activity that related to it.  I photographed that activity, and we wound up with an entire scrapbook full of perfect images depicting what we were thankful for and what we did every single day up to Thanksgiving that we will cherish forever.

Well...that's what was supposed to happen.  Then life happened.  We did pick a paper out of the jar every day.  But I have to admit, more than once we wound up not doing the activity.  Some required going to the store, or library, or somewhere, when it was closed, or Sunday, or just really inconvenient.  So, admittedly, some activities didn't get done.

There were also a lot of activities that we did do that I didn't photograph. But eh, we had fun.  The kids loved it, and it was awesome starting off the day highlighting something to be grateful for.

I've heard of keeping gratitude journals where at the end of the day you write what you were thankful for that day.  But after this, I think I like the idea of doing it the other way.  Pick something you're grateful for and then really work on appreciating it for the whole day.  :)

Anyway, here were some of the activities we did do that I actually photographed:

I am Thankful for my Teeth! 

Give Mom & Dad some Halloween Candy & Brush & Floss.  

(Bart & I liked this one...I may or may not have purposely put it at the top of the jar.)

 

I am Thankful for Grandparents!
Call and tell them "I love you.  I am grateful for you."
I really enjoyed listening to Hannah try and say, "I'm Grateful for you"  Grateful is apparently a rather complex word for a two year old.

I am Thankful for my Hands!

Art Project: Finger Painting, or Drawing.

 

I am Thankful for Turkeys!

Art Project: Make Paper Turkeys

And this one's kind of a combination of two:

I am Thankful for our Kitchen

Bake something fun together in the kitchen!

and 

I am Thankful for my Dad!

Do something nice for Dad.

(Bart had been asking me to make a pumpkin roll for ever.  So when we picked "I'm thankful for dad" the day after we didn't do the kitchen activity, it worked out perfectly.  :)

And...that's all I got.  I know, kind of pathetic.  I only photographed 5 (6 if you stretch it) of our 24 days of thankfulness.  But, eh.  Like I said,  we all enjoyed it and benefited, even if we don't have a scrapbook full of perfect pictures depicting our "Thankful" November.  :)

Oh, and, if you want to make a Thankful Jar for your family, but don't really have time to come up with a bunch of ideas for activities, Somewhat Simple has a whole list you can just print and cut out here.  At the very least, it's a great start and then you can supplement with things that are applicable to your family.  :)

P.S.  I DO know that thankful is spelled with one l.  When I tried to fit "thankful" on the side of the jar, it was too small, and Thank-ful just looked well, unbalanced.  So I like to think of it as, "We are full of thanks...we are thank-full." :)

Very Behind

Well, I'm unbelievably behind on holiday posting, but hopefully the next few weeks will remedy that...prepare yourselves for a ton of posts.

In the meantime I wanted to leave you with this lovely picture of my Lilly.


I literally burst out laughing when I saw this picture on the back of my camera.   My poor little snaggletooth had a run in with her cousin that left her with a cut lip the day before I took this picture.  Lest you think I'm a heartless mother, it looks a lot worse than it was.  About two seconds after she got it, she was up crawling around and playing.  One day we'll look back at this picture and laugh together.  Te he he.

I've decided to enter this picture in the I Heart Faces silly holiday photos contest.  To see funny holiday pictures others have submitted click on the button below and search for the contest.

Eating Habits

A few months ago I tried feeding the twins some beans.  After a severe gagging incident/choking scare, I swore never to give them beans EVER again.  As the days passed on, memories of the racing heart rate and adrenaline rush faded (not to mention they've been doing really well at eating small foods lately) so I thought I'd have another go at the beans today.  I cut up some kidney beans, placed them on their high chair trays, and proceeded to watch them like a hawk as they ate to make sure we didn't have a "bean day" repeat. 

They did great, but as I watched them, I noticed that they have very different eating techniques.  Lilly is very precise.  She will pick up one bean, put it in her mouth, chew, swallow, and then pick up another.



It's almost dainty at times...almost. 

Maya, on the other hand, prefers the grab-as-many-beans-in-one-hand-at-a-time-and-try-to-shovel-them-all-in-your-mouth approach.


And for every bean she actually gets in her mouth, there are probably three or four that wind up in the seat of her high chair. No wonder you're so skinny kid!

Happy Halloween

Can I just tell you, I LOVE Halloween. Last year Halloween was on a Sunday, so we didn't go trick-or-treating, the year before that I had the Swine flu, so I didn't get to enjoy Halloween AT ALL, so this year I had two years worth of celebrating to make up for, and I think I accomplished it! We had TONS of fun celebrating this weekend. We started by carving our pumpkin.

He may not look like much, but he meant a lot to me. His design was a family effort. I wanted lots of eyes, Bart designed the shape of the eyes, and did the carving, and Addison designed the mouth. We were very pleased with the results.

I also turned these into a yummy snack.

We had all of our siblings that live in the area over for a chili cook off/costume party. It was AWESOME! Charles and Heather came a little early, so our kids played in the leaves before everyone else got here.

Bart and I didn't make any chili this year, but we did make apple cider from apples my grandparents gave us from their apple trees, and pumpkin pie from actual pumpkins (not the canned kind). SOOOOOOOO yummy. I felt like we were really celebrating the harvest. Te he he.

Unfortunately, after the sun went down, my camera got put away (I have GOT to get a flash). But my sister in law, Heather, got some pictures of some of the kids' costumes on her blog if you want to see them. It was a really fun party.

Yesterday was the big day. The twins were little cows...although they went to bed before the trick or treating started.

Addison was a beautiful queen (or princess...depending on when you asked her).

Hannah was a candy corn witch.

Addison and Hannah LOVED trick or treating.

And people in the neighborhood did a great job decorating.

Before we were done with even half of the neighborhood, Addison decided she had enough, and was ready to go home (she does NOT take after her mama). Although, if we had let her, I think Hannah would have gone to every single house and then some (she DOES take after her mama).

When we got home, Addison took of her scratchy dress (possibly part of the reason she was ready to go home) and didn't even bother to put on a shirt before digging into her conquest. Hannah didn't even bother to take of the scratchy dress. :)

Last week I saw the cutest picture of a baby and a pumpkin, and thought, "Hey, I want a picture of my babies with a pumpkin!" They didn't turn out quite like I had envisioned, but they're my babies, so I think they're cute.

Overall, it was a GREAT way to kick off the holiday season!