He is Risen!

Easter candy, pink bunnies, and plastic eggs still linger around here and they are a good reminder that He is Risen!   While I don't think Allie and Harper understand anything about Who rose on Easter, they definitely understood hunting for Easter eggs, especially Harper.  I have to admit that we cheated with a practice hunt in our yard:

The score was Harper 7, Allie 3 on that round, and Allie needed extra help because she was more interested in opening and closing eggs than finding more.  Harper was out for more, more, more on each hunt. 

We were 2 minutes late to our neighborhood hunt and all the eggs were gone by the time we got there, but A&H still got to hang with their mentor Lucy.

 

Harper did manage to collect a few eggs from the baskets of other unsuspecting toddlers, but she was smart enough to carefully guard the eggs in her own Easter basket, which she carried around about half the week.

At our church egg hunt, I got distracted trying trying to corral Allie and my sisters' dog, so Harper had about 15 eggs before the whistle blew.  I promise we weren't intentionally cheating that time.  Score: Harper 20 - Allie 7.  Allie's improving, and would have done well if Harper hadn't gotten so much of a head start.

Lovey made Easter weekend in the mountains very festive with egg dying and two more egg hunts.  We were thrilled to have my grandmother San-San with us all weekend.  Come Easter Sunday, Allie was hunting with the best of them and Harper dominated her age group.

He is risen indeed!

A&H's New Room

We love our new house and thanks to all the moving help from our parents, we settled in quickly.  I thought it would be fun for Allie and Harper to look back at this blog and see their old rooms.  I may add a rug, some curtains, and a white bookshelf, but it will stay like this for a while.  My mom arranged everything.  The cribs came from my grandmother, San-San.  She bought one for my 16 year old cousin, when she was a baby of course, and one for her house.  Yes, they do have drop sides, which are banned now, but I wasn't worried about it because it is nearly impossible to figure out how to make the sides drop. 

I love the blueberries print above the glider.  My friend Georgia (see her blog and etsy shop-most fabulous pound cake you will ever put in your mouth, I promise, and her spicy sweet pecans are amazing) saw it at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens and directed me to the artist, Hillary Parker.

The Herend cups with a prince charming frog were the sweetest first birthday gift from our friends Camp and Virginia.

And my other grandmother, Ellie, made a watercolor of a photo of me when I was a little girl with my favorite stuffed animals. 

I treasure this painting and love that I have many pictures of Allie and Harper at the same table.

And here are a few pictures of Allie and Harper's first room at our old place:

Thanks to many friends and family for the donated items and help decorating!

New Home

We are really loving our new home. Allie and Harper are the perfect age to start enjoying our backyard, and heading outside is an easy and welcome change of scenery without having to leave the house.  Michael's parents brought us a housewarming present that Harper and Allie can't get enough of:

They love to "side"

This may be why they don't like me taking pictures -- oops!

I thought I would really miss our condo, but this neighborhood has a lot to offer to replace what we left.  I was most sad to not be able to walk to the grocery store, but turns out that it is totally possible.  It's a bit further and hillier than my old Trader Joe's walk and it is to Publix, but I need the workout.  I was a little sentimental about driving to the Botanical Gardens for the first time yesterday, but we love our new playground, Tanyard Creek Park, and we even saw a duck in the creek, which helped get over the loss of our daily Piedmont Park duck visits.

Allie at Tanyard Creek

We've loved having my sister and her dog Weezy in town!!

Loving Weezy.  We are working on being gentle.

Harper wants to wear her pig backpack everywhere.

Harper's love for backpacks has been helpful when I'm attempting to use the leashes.  The first experience with the leashes at the aquarium was out of control and looked like child abuse.  Today at the zoo they seemed to like the leashes, especially when I called it a tail.  This was a trial run; I still had the stroller, of course.  It was so much fun to see all the animals with their friend Charlie.

Go Tarheels!

Tonight UNC vs. Duke.  Let's go Heels!  I try not to remember lass than a month ago when Duke came back in the last two minutes to win by one.  It was a very sad ending to my birthday.  Let's redeem ourselves!

 

 

It's very difficult to get a decent shot of these active little cheerleaders. We tried!

16 Months and We're Moving!

We are moving on Saturday!  We have LOVED our time in Midtown.  The highlight has been walking everywhere:  Botanical Gardens, High Museum, Trader Joe's, Piedmont Park, dry cleaners, Publix,  and the library.  Allie and Harper almost always appreciate a good stroller ride (once I've wrestled them into the stroller) and it has been awesome to get out of the house and be productive running errands on foot.  Living here made me lose the baby weight and the first 16 months have been significantly easier because I could go almost all week without getting in my car.  Buckling two babies in car seats can be a lot of work.

We are really going to miss it here, but decided to move to be closer to our friends from church, Atlanta Westside.  Our close friends the Dutsons will be three houses away!  It will also be really nice to get to the car without going down two flights of stairs or an elevator.  And this will be the first house Michael and I have lived in -- I'm excited to have a back yard and maybe start a garden.

Also, my sister just moved to Atlanta and I could not be more thrilled.  The babies LOVE their T-Lo and her dog, Weezy.  Just one week in and I'm already experiencing the joys of having family close-by. We've even had two nights out without having to pay a sitter!

Allie and Harper are doing new funny things everyday.  They really do get more entertaining each week.

At 15.5 months, Allie was 30.5 inches tall (42nd %ile) and 23 lbs 2 oz (48th %ile), although, she was squirmy getting the height and I'm pretty sure she is taller than Harper.  Her favorite toys are ones you can pull with strings.  She also loves walking around with a mesh laundry basket over her head.   Her laugh is infectious and she is almost always joyful.  She does not, however, like to be woken up from a nap early or when you take something she is holding.  She gets fixated on random things and does not want to loosen her death grip on them. She is very strong.  Her new words are goldfish, bike, duck, Weezy, hot, open, up, baby, keys, and ice.  Real babies are very interesting to her, especially baby Josie Dutson.  This week she also peed on the potty!  (I'm not starting potty training, but let them sit on the potty if it's convenient, and I was so proud of her!  They are both very interested in the potty so maybe I'll start sooner than I think.)  To my dismay, it still takes her 30 minutes to an hour to go to sleep.  The majority of the time she is happy in her crib, but I wish she would cuddle up with her blanket and pass out in less than 5 minutes like her sister.  I dropped the morning nap because it was taking her so long to go to sleep, but I think this is just her style.  I guess she just likes her solitary play time in the crib.  I'm so thankful for the video monitor because at nap time Harper usually goes to sleep and wakes up an hour before Allie, so I can dash in and sneak Harper out before she wakes Allie up.  At her last eye doctor appointment, the doctor noticed for the first time that her droopy eyelid is starting to slightly affect her vision, so we've upped the patching to two hours a day.  Allie has been a great sport about it; she only rips off the patch early one or two days a week.

Harper was 31 inches tall (59th %ile) and 22 lbs. 2 oz (33rd %ile) at 15.5 months.  Harper loves to interact with others and has caught up with Allie on her words.  Because she is by nature more into people, she talks more and seems to always be trying to communicate something.  She had a week or two where she said, "UP!" 40 times a day and held up her hands to be picked up.  She is signing less as she can talk more.  Instead of signing "more" all the time, she says "mama, mama, mama" all the time.  I thought she just wanted a lot of me, but turns out she still just wants more ("mama") of everything.  Her new words are ice, juice, hot, keys, Tee-tee (for T-Lo), CiCi (grandmom), baby, and shoe.  She loves to get shoes out of the closet and bring them to me.  This is very helpful when it is time to get dressed because she knows her crocs from her keds and her church shoes and will bring me the correct pair for her and Allie when I ask her.  She is mama's little helper and I'm constantly amazed what missions she happy toddles off to complete: closing doors, putting away toys, bringing me items, wiping the floor, and putting things in the trash.  Allie knows exactly what I want her to do, but she's not as interested in helping as Harper.  Harper still loves her crib and loves to sleep.  She entertains herself for a good 20 minutes stacking these rings and wearing them as bracelets. These two ladies who have been raised the exact same way could not be more different.  Parents need to give themselves grace (or less credit) on how their kid sleeps, eats, performs, and obeys because to a large extent it's just who they are. 

I'm still missing the morning nap and wish that I had tried to hang onto it a little longer (I dropped it at 14.5 months).  We do have more adventures outside of the house, but miss the extra 1-2 hours to restore order to the house and have personal time.  I'm not planning as much as I did in the evenings because I need that time to do housework and catch up on email, etc.  They go down at 12:45 or 1 and usually only sleep for 1.5-2 hours.  I'm still waiting for it the lengthen out, but they are making up for the sleep with a late wake-up time, sometimes 8:30am.  I guess I can't have it all.

Here are some pictures from the zoo, the bath (they both think it's hilarious when the other one's hair is shampooed into a mohawk), a bath with Lucy, and snack time.  

Sweet Moments

I hope I will never forget this:  Allie has started to sing Jesus loves me when I put her to sleep and just now, she let me rock and hold her while she sang along with me. "la ah ah ah, bible, so, ah la, geeesus." Then every ten seconds she would lift her head off my chest and give me a sweet sloppy kiss.  Five minutes of that and all the tantrums of the week were washed far from me. Allie is one busy little lady, so I do not get enough snuggle time with her.  Pure bliss!

Both ladies are a little under the weather, especially Harper, so we've had some trying moments this week and had to cancel all plans to meet friends.  BUT, I just came off the most relaxing 4 night vacation, the weekend with our Texas friends in Colorado I look forward to every year! Last year, I left a 4 page manual on how to care for Allie and Harper, pumped every 3 hours, and thought about them every 5 minutes.  This year, I scribbled a page of food suggestions and a general schedule and walked out the door with confidence.  A huge thank you to our parents for keeping Allie and Harper.

They had a blast being spoiled by grandparents and didn't miss us one bit.  We were worried the snow would be bad, but it was perfect and I was reminded how amazing it is to fly down snowy hills in God's incredible creation.  Skiing can be so awesome that sometimes it just feels silly and surreal.  We are taking advantage of willing parents while we can. One day we will take Allie and Harper skiing and I know that it will be a lot of work: carrying gear, pulling kids down cat trails, and warming frozen fingers and noses.  At the same time, seeing three year olds flying down hills and bumping their way between moguls makes me excited about it.

Chippen Nails is where we get manicures and pedicures in Colorado.  Someone please submit this pic to failblog.com.

One day we will teach them to ski; for now we will teach them how to sit in chairs.

Hugs!

15 Months

Life is changing so much every week.  Michael and I are endlessly entertained when Allie and Harper are happy and busy about the house. Our push and ride-on toys multiplied at Christmas time and they cover our house, turning up in a new place every few hours.  The girls especially love their new grocery cart, which they allow to hold only plastic fruit.  Try to put anything inside that cart besides fruit and it will immediately be chucked out.

I need to be teaching them more because it's becoming obvious what little sponges they are.  They'll bring you the correct fruit when you ask for it.  They proudly identify their nose, eyes, mouth, ears, toes, feet, and belly button.  This morning, after Harper spilled the water that was on my bedside table, I said, "Harper, can you go get a towel and wipe this up?"  Immediately, she walked to the kitchen, got a dish towel, brought it back to the room and started wiping the floor!  And after a friend left this afternoon and said "Bye, Kakhi," Allie repeatedly said "Kakhi, Kakhi, Kakhi."  I told her to call me Mama and she said "Mama Kakhi Kakhi Kakhi" and laughed her head off.  Tonight Allie pulled her blanket over her head and walked around blindly.  She ran in to lots of things, but was having way too much fun to be bothered by something like that.

Allie's other recent words are cracker, more, yes, bath, apple, egg, Bible, pee (please), and Harper.  She also likes to sing along with you, and has started to sing something like Jesus Loves Me, which we sing before each nap and at bedtime as a sleep cue.  Harper has added backpack, Bible, and yes. She does not have as many new words as Allie, but she is an emphatic signer, especially for MORE.  She wants more of everything.  She uses all the signs we've taught her: more, milk, eat, yes, no, and sleep. She is always trying to communicate with you in her own babbling language.  For the last two days she has constantly been saying yelling Ah-Dee.  I kept asking her what Ah-Dee is until it finally dawned on me tonight: Allie!  It's precious.  She loves to yell for Allie! It is such a joy to see how affectionate they are becoming.  They give hugs and kisses on demand and often tackle each other while giving hugs and kisses.  When one is sad, the other will comfort with pats, hugs, and kisses.  That brightens my roughest days.

Side Hug

 The biggest change that we are dealing with lately is giving up the morning nap.  Allie was playing or whining in her crib for over an hour when I put her down at 10am for the morning nap.   Harper usually took her morning nap happily, but a few mornings she skipped it too.  Two weeks ago, I decided to officially give it up and we still haven't really adjusted.  My goal was a 1pm nap because we hang out with older friends who don't nap til 1 and that would give us enough time for outings.  I put them down at 1 and Harper would usually go right to sleep but then wake up 45 minutes to an hour and a half later.  Allie was still taking 45 minutes to go to sleep so Harper would wake her up soon after dosing off if I wasn't sneaky enough plucking Harper from crib.  After talking with some friends, I think the problem is that 1pm is too late for them.  It's a bummer that our outings will be cut short, but it's worth it for me to get some more time to be productive around the house if they will nap longer.  It's hard adjusting from 4 hours of productive time (with two 1.5 hour naps, plus their settle-in time) to 1.5 max some days!  We are probably dealing with some teething, too, since Harper has 4 teeth that are only halfway poking through.  I think she has 11 or 12 teeth.  Can't remember if there are 3 or 4 molars, but it looks like they are painful because they are only halfway through.  Hopefully that's the explanation for the extra separation anxiety (so horrid in the church nursery that twice this week I spent the whole time in there with her).  I think Allie still has only 6 teeth.

Check out those chompers on Harper. They loved wearing their backpacks this night.

We are also in the middle of food-throwing boot camp.  They have been throwing or dropping their food since we started finger foods at eight or nine months and I just kept hoping they would grow out of it.  Allie usually discreetly drops her food, so she gets away with more, but Harper launches handfuls across the room.  Every time they throw food we tell them that is not allowed and to leave their food on the tray, and when they do it again we put them in timeout (sister's crib or the stroller with a blanket over the shade) for a minute or two.  After only a day, we were cleaning up a fifth of the food we used to.  Allie has only been in timeout twice. Harper 10+ times the first day and now only once a day, if at all.  And I'm relieved to not have a mountain of food to clean up after each meal.  Why didn't I do this two months ago? They are still adventurous eaters, especially Allie, and they like using a fork to stab food and a spoon for yogurt.

     These last two weeks have been a whirlwind with two walkers and no morning naps.  To avoid morning meltdowns we've been out the door by 10am to all of Atlanta's finest attractions: zoo with my college friend Elizabeth, Aquarium with twin friends, Botanical Gardens with aunt T-Lo, and High museum with singleton friends (that's what the twin books call the majority of humans, singletons).  At the zoo, the king of the jungle stared at Harper for a good 45 seconds and licked his lips.  She desperately wanted to climb over the railing.  Sadly, I don't have many pics because my portable camera got stolen over Christmas. Also, these ladies are getting difficult to photograph.  While trying to take a picture of one, the other is backing off the highest ledge on the playground.

Love love love these ladies, but also thrilled to be leaving for our sixth annual ski trip with Texas friends on Thursday!! Praise the Lord for and pray for my parents and Michael's!  I'm going to miss them so much and hope they don't miss us and give us the cold shoulder when we return like Allie did last time we left for a long weekend.

Harper and T-Lo