Thursday, December 31, 2009

1st New Years' Eve

The boys' 1st New Years' Eve was a hectic one! Packing stared first thing in the a.m. for our trip back home the next day. After finally getting babies fed/napped/dressed/fed and all of the bags packed up and car seats installed in the van Brett's sister Bethany let us borrow, we headed off to visit Bethany and her family one last time...in the snow! All of the snow that had been dumped on the area before we arrived had been washed away with rain and we never did get any photos of the babies with snow before that happened. So I snapped a quick photo of them in the van with the snow falling. No time to actually play in the snow since we had to get moving!




We were just shy of making it there before the youngest cousin Rachel went down for her nap so we were not able to get a photo of her, but we did get pictures with the rest of the family and our nieces who are getting soooo big!

Grandpa and Grandma with Emily, Ethan, Mason and Sarah


Emily and Sarah with the boys


Emily giving Ethan smooches


Sarah with the boys


Brett and Emily


Mason with a ball he found that he loved so much he hid it in his carry on! (thank you Auntie Bethany!)


Ethan watching his cousins


Hey...that is not a pillow!!


Ethan trying on Sarah's hat with Uncle Scott


Mason trying on Sarah's hat with Grandma


Auntie Bethany with the boys


Auntie Bethany and Mommy with the boys



After our visit we headed up to Boston to the airport hotel. We had dinner in the hotel restaurant and the babies had their dinner too. We toasted the New Year at 6:00pm since we knew we would be to bed no later than 8pm with the boys and then we would be up VERY early to check in at the airport for our flight. So no midnight party photos for us!

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Meeting Auntie Kate!

The boys finally got to meet Auntie Kate, Uncle Tim and Annika and Gunnar! And Kate's mom was even there too which was a very nice surprise! We had much too short of a visit and were so sad to go but we live by the babies' schedule these days which I know they understood. Thankfully we remembered the camera and got a photo of the boys with Kate!

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Office Visit

Today we visited the folks at my office. But did we get pictures or did we forget again...yup...you guessed it. And we even got to meet another baby (Mr. Oliver) and we didn't get photos with him either and I am so bummed that I forgot to do that!! He is a seriously cute baby and we were so excited to get to finally meet him in person!

However, my friend Jess and her husband Owain met up with us after our office visit and we did get a shot of them with the boys!

Monday, December 28, 2009

Feeding Station & Grandma's Chair

When you don't have high chairs to use for two very wiggly babies, you have to improvise! This was Grandma's idea and a very good one - it has worked wonderfully! Of course now whenever we put them in this stroller they might think it's time to eat...




The boys also snuck into Grandma's chair when she wasn't looking to get these photos :)


Sunday, December 27, 2009

Friends and Family Get-together

Grandma and Grandpa had lots of family over today to meet the boys for the first time. And the boys got to meet their only cousins for the first time today too! Sarah, Emily and Rachel! We only got photos with Sarah and Emily though, since Rachel is 2 years old and not so fond of having her picture taken. We'll try again later this week though! I'll also try to add more photos to this post once I see if Grandma and Grandpa got some more photos of the day!



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That same day we also had visits from Daddy's friends Mike G. and Chris E. We were apparently too tired in the morning to remember to get the camera out for Mike G.'s visit and are thoroughly bummed. :( But remembered it at lunchtime when Chris E. was here.

Friday, December 25, 2009

1st Christmas

Another hectic day as we traveled from 2B and Tati's house to Grandma and Grandpa's house via the friendly skies. A much better travel day though because there aren't that many people flying on Christmas Day and the flight was about 40 minutes in the air! So we again forgot to take photos except for this one in the morning. Here are the boys on Christmas morning hanging out with Uncle Nicu, Cousin Erik, Cousin Erik's baby Caleb and Daddy.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

The Night Before Christmas

Another visit with Santa on Christmas Eve night and turns out... they like Santa after all! At least, they like Santa when they are not starving and just up from naps! (and no, all those presents next to Santa are not for the boys - they wish they were though!)



And here's a video of their "talent" for Santa :)

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Rough Day...

Everybody has a bad day now and again, and today was Ethan's. Thankfully everyone was in great spirits when Auntie Meg and her mom Mrs. A and Sister-in-Law Katie came to visit us in the morning (where was my camera?! grrrr) But things went downhill for both of the guys when they decided not to take their morning naps and then Ethan fell asleep in his highchair while eating. And everyone needs a baby photo that involves them falling asleep while eating right? Though I don't think we'll ever get one of those with Mason because that boy loves his food far too much to fall asleep!


Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Chicken

First taste of chicken! But Mom really messed it up because she didn't mix enough veggies with the chicken and they made it VERY clear that it was too dry for their liking. See photos below. Thankfully I got it right the next day and they love it now (when mixed with lots of veggies.)


1st Haircuts!

The boys had their 1st haircuts! Mostly because Mason desperately needed one with all that hair he has - it was growing over his ears already! Daddy just does not approve of boys with long hair, so there was no waiting until the 1st birthday. Their great grandmother Little Muzz had 1st haircutting honors. But talk about a tough job with squirmy, wiggling, moving targets! Now if only I had remembered to get the after photos when they were finished...

Mason's 1st haircut photos







Ethan's 1st haircut photos




Monday, December 21, 2009

Jumping Fun at Tati & 2Bs!

Tati and 2B got the boys jumperoos for their visit and they gave them their absolute seal of approval! :)


Army Crawling

Ethan started to army crawl today! But of course we didn't have our video camera ready to capture it so you will have to take a rain check for that one! But we'll work on it!!

Sunday, December 20, 2009

1st flight!

Here we are on the morning of our first flight before we left the house - if you look closely you might even be able to see the airplane shirts they wore for the occasion. And you can see them in their new car seats!




However, these are the only photos of the day! We were too busy and too frazzled to take any others as we had major flight delays and other chaos that made the trip not so fun and made photo taking the last thing on our minds. The boys actually did amazingly well on the flight, but the craziness of the day was a bit much for everyone. It took us about 12 1/2 hours total, which is a lot for two babies (and two parents too) since it should not have taken nearly that long. But we made it!!!

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Cookies with Santa

No cookies actually because we arrived to the neighborhood event too late and the cookies were gone already! You would think that living directly across the street from such an event would give us an advantage, but it took place during most of afternoon nap, so what could we do?

But we did have our first encounter with Santa! And lesson learned: taking two babies who have just woken up from their naps and making them wait for their bottles because we didn't want them to puke all over Santa, was not such a great idea...

These two usually love ALL people (so far anyway, we haven't really hit that stranger anxiety stage), but not when they haven't had their bottles, and in Mason's case - even though I gave Santa a bottle to feed him to try to turn that frown upside down, Mason was beyond hungry and too freaked out by then to warm up to Santa. If you look really close, you'll see that even in the photo where Santa is trying to give him a bottle he still has huge tears in those eyes and needed mom to immediately rescue him to give him the rest of that bottle. Ethan took it fairly in stride except when his brother first started crying and then he cried too, but otherwise he didn't mind the big man in red so much.





Saturday, December 12, 2009

Infant Carriers - a sad farewell

Today was the last trip in the Infant Carriers and our trusty Snap-n-Go double stroller. These were incredibly useful baby items and ones that we will sorely miss. Now we will have to buckle and unbuckle babies every time we take them somewhere and that is really a task as they are incredibly squirmy these days. But the Infant Carrier is borderline too small for Mr. Mason, so we have decided to move both of them along to their big boy car seats. Here are some photos of their last trip with mom and dad in their infant seats. The next time you see them in the car they will look all grown up (sniff, sniff).

What?!! You say I am too big for my infant carrier? What exactly are you implying?...


Gabby and the boys in front of the tree





Last car ride in our infant carriers