Top 5 for January

Because I've been a little neglectful of my blog this month, I thought I would give you a synopsis of our January.  The weather has been in the teens as the high for the day all month with yucky inversion, grey, gloomy skies.  It doesn't make very many of us happy and wanting to get out and do anything.  But we have managed a few highlights for the month.  So here are our top 5 events of the month.

1 - Shane and I got to go to the Jazz game.  We were given 3rd row seats to the game and even got to eat with the Jazz 100 club.  The food was soo good.  I ate a ton...then you get free snacks at half time. The game was so fun.  I loved being so close up and sitting on the soft seats.  It was a fun date night that Shane and I got to spend together.

2 - We hired a nanny 2 days a week.  Between my work and everything Shane has going on, we decided we needed to find some babysitting for the girls.  Shane now goes into an office for work 2 days a week.  We considered finding someone we could take them to, or even a daycare but finding someone or place for just 2 days a week that had openings for 2 toddlers was a little crazy.  So we decided to have someone come to our house.  We interviewed a few people but ended up finding a girl in our ward that we are good friends with her and her family.  It has worked out so well.  Emily has been great and the girls seem to like her and everyone is getting along and adjusting well.  We are happy to have Emily, someone we know and can trust.  Emily...I need a picture of you and the girls (do you still blog stalk me?)

3 - Getting over sickness in our house.  Shane got the flu (like influenza flu...and yes he got a flu shot) It lasted for 10 days.  He got an ear infection, fever, cough, congested and just plain achy.  It was miserable for him and not very fun for me.  Since I didn't want it and certainly didn't want the girls to get it, we pretty much just had to stay away from him.  Which meant I was a single mom for a lot of that time.  I even slept in a different room for several days.  It made the evenings and mornings a little crazy around here.  I was certainly happy to get my husband back after 10 days.  I got a cough for a few days but felt ok.  The girls both got fevers a few days apart but they were pretty low grade and snapped out of them after about 24 hours.  So about 1/2 the month we just stayed inside and tried not to spread sickness while trying to recover.

4 - We got out one afternoon for a trip to the mall to ride the train.  We were going a little stir crazy being indoors so much so when we finally felt better it was nice to get out and do something a little fun.  The girls had a good time on the train and Siena kept waving her arm up and down everytime I would say choo choo.

5 - Because we've been sick and it's been so cold, we haven't really gone out in the snow but one Saturday morning we bundled the girls up and took them out while Shane was snowblowing our driveway.  The girls had a good time just looking around and then decided to go see dad at the bottom of the driveway.  Well what I didn't realize is they've never walked on a slanted surface before.  Their little legs started going faster and faster and they were trying to keep up until they just couldn't and each one fell.  Luckily they weren't hurt at all but it was seriously pretty funny to see their legs going so fast down the hill.  We'll have to work on that with them when there isn't snow and ice on the driveway.  And yes Aria still refuses to open her eyes when she's outside and the sun is in her eyes.

My Toddlers

A small update on the girls...not a lot of 'new' things they're doing lately.  But there have been a few that are in need of documenting.

SIENA HAS TEETH!!!  2 days before she turned 16 months, I finally felt a tooth about to pop through.  Miracle.  So happy I don't have to take her to a dentist to get x-rays.  She has been so much happier since that tooth and quickly after 2 others have come in.  Yay for teeth.  So Aria has 4, Siena has 3.  Now we can start working on the bigger teeth I guess.

Aria has randomly started crossing her fingers.  I've been trying to get a picture but haven't been able to yet.  It's so funny to see.  In the bathtub, in her high chair, walking around...you just look down and her left hand has her 2 fingers crossed like she's wishing good luck for something.

We've been trying to get the girls to learn some body parts.  Aria can point to her nose and just learned to stick out her tongue when you ask her where her tongue is.  If you ask Siena 'where is your ....fill in the blank.' she will point to her head/hair.  Doesn't matter what it is...so she doesn't quite get that concept yet.

Overall the girls are just plain getting older.  Every so often I just look at them and realize they really are just little toddlers now.  It's crazy how much older they seem to me all of the sudden.  They understand almost everything we tell them.  Many times, I say something not really thinking they understand and they turn around and do what I've just said and I just stand there kind of shocked that they just understood that.

They are into EVERYTHING.  They love their puzzles, which they're pretty good at, strolling their doll strollers around, chasing the ball all over the house, still love books, rocking on their rocking horse, playing on the couch, and making each other laugh to see who can have the highest pitched scream (Fyi...Aria does hands down!)

They LOVE playing and standing on the couch.  We try and try to tell them they can only sit on the couch but it never works.  We've even tried time out for a few days and it helped but they love to play and wrestle with each other.  It makes me nervous that they're going to get really hurt and even when I'm sitting right there, 2 of them going in opposite directions sometimes 1 falls before I can get to her.  So far no major bruises, just some scared little girls.  Not that it stops them for very long. I can't even get a focused picture of them cuz they're so fast.

Siena has this thing with one particular blanket, she'll drag it across the room to me and want me to put it over her so she can hide under it, play peekaboo and/or see how long it takes her to get it off.  Her smaller blankets do not provide as much entertainment so she always finds this blanket to use and it usually takes her about 5 minutes to drag the big thing over to me.

 We also moved them to one nap a day.  Their naps became harder and harder to get 2 into one day.  They were short and sporadic and it seemed one was always up earlier then the other and back and forth we went.  So we switched them to one nap.  It took Siena a couple days to catch on that she needed to sleep longer but now they're both sleeping 2 1/2 - 3 hours and it's heaven having them just sleep one time a day for a longer period.  Loving the one nap schedule so far. 

Oh Christmas Tree

When we were getting ready to decorate for Christmas this year we could not figure out where to put our tree.  I wanted to be able to see it easily and not hide it in some obscure place but we didn't want to have to tell the girls don't touch that a million times either.  So we decided to put the tree at the top of our stairs that overlooks our family room.

I wasn't sure how I was going to like it being up there but I ended up loving it.  It overlooks from our family room and the girls love the Christmas tree.  So every morning when we get them up and they're all sleeping trying to adjust their eyes, as soon as they see the Christmas tree they smile and wave hi to it, every morning and after every nap.  We didn't put anything breakable on there so they've been able to touch it and play with it whenever they're upstairs.  And when they're downstairs playing if you say where's the Christmas tree their heads go straight up and they wave it to it from down below.

Not sure if we'll do this next year or switch it up but it worked out well for us this year.

Family Christmas Card 2012

The Day You Were Born

My mom surprised all of us with a wonderful Christmas gift this year.  She wrote up each story of the day we were born.  It also included a few other stories about each of us and then she went through all her pictures and put together many pages of pictures of each of us growing up.  She put it all together and gave us each a copy of it.

To say I love it is a total understatement.  This book is amazing.  It made me both laugh and cry.  I loved reading the stories about me but also about each of my sisters and brother.  I loved reading it from my mom's perspective.  She even included a section about my sister Debbie who died when she was 6 months old.  I loved reading this and it had many details that I had never heard before.  And to read about it now that I am a mother makes it that much more heartbreaking and special to hear what my parents went through losing their daughter when she was so little and just starting her life.

Mom, Thank You!  This gift has meant so much to me.  Thanks for all the time you took to put this together so nicely and what a true gift it is to read it.  I will treasure it forever and I can't wait to show it to my kids when they get older.

Christmas 2012

We had a great Christmas this year.  Funny, I just realized I didn't really take that many pictures.  The girls got 2 Christmas dresses this year. One that I bought them and one that their Aunt Margene bought them.  Both are so cute and they've been wearing them each Sunday all month.

The Sunday before Christmas we all went to my sister Jennifer's house for cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate.  We exchanged our cousin books and acted out the nativity.  My girls didn't participate but had fun watching and playing with all their cousins.

Christmas Eve we hung out at home and then went over to my parents that night for a yummy ham dinner.  It was just Jennifer, Jeff, Whitney, Max, my parents and us.  It was kind of nice with a smaller group (no offense to the rest of my family) and not so crazy.

We were lucky because the girls went to bed late on Christmas Eve so they didn't wake up until 8am.  Very much sleeping in for us these days.  We got up and had waffles for breakfast and then showed the girls what Santa had brought them.  The girls loved their play house but were a little unsure about their rocking horse.  When we pushed the ear so it starts making galloping and naying sounds Siena totally walked backwards away from it.  Since then they'll go up and pet it and I'm pretty sure they think it's a real horse but they do not want to sit on it and are still a little unsure when it starts making noise.  We had a few presents for them to open and Siena didn't touch one of them.  Luckily Aria was at least a little interested in tearing the paper off.

Shane gave me a bunch of things, a new purse and new blowdryer were my favorite.  I needed both of them desperately.  I gave Shane a few things but his main present was a snowboard helmet...which might have been selfish on my part to keep him safe when he snowboards.  I think he liked it though.

I also got a new iPhone case since I had recently dropped mine and broke the case.  Well is came with a foam cutout of an iPhone and a picture of it.  So I put my old broken case on it and gave it to Siena and she is in love.  She walked around all morning with it thinking she had her own iPhone.  The best present she got which we never even planned for.

That afternoon we went back over to my parents house for our annual turkey dinner.  We ate so much food.  My parents gave the girls little doll strollers and a doll and they love them.  They've been pushing them around all day today.  Aria pushes hers normally and Siena pushes hers to the side and sometimes half carries it but they both love it.  My mom gave me the nicest gift as well but I'll save that for another post.

After dinner we headed over to Shane's brother's house for dessert and were exhausted and very full by the time we got home.

I always feel so blessed and happy at Christmas with everything I'm blessed with.  I have wonderful family, Shane's family and I love that we are all so close and get along so well.  It makes holidays and life so much more fun.  

15 Months

A little update on the girls.  Not the best picture takers lately.  They had their 15 month doctor appointment this week and overall are right on track.  Here are their stats and a few things about them these days.

Both girls have a love for the Baby Signing Time videos.  We checked out a couple of them and they will sign baby and then look at the TV when they want to watch them.  How can you resist that?  They are obsessed with these videos and are totally mesmerized when they are on.  The Wheels on the Bus song has now been replaced by me singing Baby Signing Time when I want to get their attention or stop them from whining/crying.  As of now they can sign, Baby, Time, More, Milk, All Done, and Siena just learned Please yesterday.

Neither of them are saying any real words yet.  The doctor was happy with their signing though.  She said twins are usually late talkers because of 'twin speak' where they can speak to each other and they understand each other and no one else can.  I don't really see them talking to each other much (except yelling or giggling with each other but the doctor says that is it) but they sure do babble a ton around each other and act like they are saying things so not really sure.  Siena is a little closer to saying things that I think I'm understanding so I'm sure it's just around the corner.  Just need to her to say it in context.

Siena
21 lbs 8 oz - 30%
31.5 inches - 85%
Siena still has no teeth.  The doctor wants me to take her to get X-rays done but then said there wasn't much they can do anyways.  So I think I'll wait a little while longer.  Where are her teeth?  Siena has learned to fake cry and it's pretty funny.  All I do is laugh when she starts fake crying.  Siena likes to be read to but she likes to hold the book herself so she pretty much dictates what page we read and what order we go in and many times just gets up and walks away.  Siena is starting to climb more and more.  She can escape just about any barricade we try to put up.  One of Siena's favorite things to do is after we change diapers she likes to take the diaper to the trash.  For some reason up until yesterday she would not put the diaper in the trash but would drop it 5 feet before the trash but she knows that is her job and she loves it.

Aria
20 lbs 2 oz - 15%
30.5 inches - 50%
Aria is walking and walking all over the place.  My favorite thing about her walking is when she goes to turn she plants her left foot and then pivots with her right foot until she's facing the direction she wants to go and then keeps walking.  Aria has 3 teeth and one bulging just waiting to come out.  Aria is the one that will find a book and walk it over to me to read it to her.  She'll let me read to her for however long and rarely gets bored if I read the same book over and over again.  We have 2 windows in our family room where the girls play and there is one window that if the shutter is closed Aria will go over and open it.  Sometimes I don't think about it and as it gets dark I go over and close it only to turn around and find Aria over there opening it back up.

This age is so fun and cute with how excited they get learning new things and how their face lights up when they know they've done something good/cute/mischievous, etc.  However this age is also pretty exhausting with how much attention they both demand at the same time.  Both girls are still pretty attached to me and many times both want to be held.  In fact sometimes I'm holding one and if I sit down they get mad.  They love to be carried around.  They do pretty good entertaining themselves for small periods at a time so I can't complain.  It's just they always want attention right when I'm trying to get something else done.  They almost always win though! :)  We still love our little girls more then ever and are still amazed what blessings they have brought into our lives.