A Year in Review

Wow, where has the time gone...it's New Year's Eve, and I've not posted since the twins started day care back in September!  Working full time and raising twins doesn't leave much time for any extra activities.  :)

Scott and George are now 8 months old and amaze me more and more every day.  George finally started eating cereal and now he's a machine that can't be stopped!  We've worked our way through all the fruits and veggies and are starting to get the hang of puffs and sippy cups.  Both twins have 2 bottom teeth and I believe the top 2 aren't too far off.  I estimate both twins to weigh in around 20+ lbs, and I think Scott has a slight edge on George too! They are starting to look like little boys and not babies anymore.

Scott can army crawl fast as lightening, while George moves his arms and legs and looks like he's swimming but still doesn't get anywhere.  George is content to sit and play with whatever is right in front of him.  Scott has to be on the move at all times (just like his dad!) and just this week learned how to get back into a sitting position from his stomach.  I walked into the nursery last night and he was just sitting up in his crib, which is not how I had left him!  Needless to say, we recently lowered the cribs to the bottom for fear that as soon as Scott learns how to pull up, he'd hike his leg over the side and off he'd go. 

The boys love day care, and their teachers love them!  Scott always gets in trouble for taking off and eating his socks; George is just happy-go-lucky and will go to anyone.  They hardly ever fuss or cry, and I know their teachers appreciate that!  The twins graduated from their infant room at Christmas and will start in the Koala Bears room in the new year.  We've been fortunate that the boys only brought home 2 viruses from day care and have otherwise been healthy.  But one virus was a doozy and was passed around all of our family, including both sets of grandparents and some out of town friends that happened to be around that ill fated weekend!  I hope to not experience that ever again!

In October we took the twins to a pumpkin patch and of course dressed them up for Halloween:

Sunny Acres Pumpkin Patch

The finished product of their pumpkin picking.

Our little tigers!

November brought much to be thankful for, including two great days of Thanksgiving with our families:

Boehnlein Family Thanksgiving

All the VanMetre grandchildren

We also had a photo shoot in the park for 6 month (almost 7 month!) pictures.  Scott was our little Zoolander and posed for everything!  George wouldn't have any part of it, cried the entire time and did not want to participate.  Still, the photographer managed to get a few good pics, although not of the twins together.

Scott III

George William

The holidays were so much fun this year.  The boys had a blast with all the Christmas festivities:

Posing for a Christmas card pic

But posing with Santa...not so much... 

Santa (and family and friends!) were very, very good to the twins this year.  They had fun helping tear paper off the packages and then sticking it in their mouths.  The liked the boxes almost as much as the toys!  More pics to come of the twins and their Pottery Barn chairs, red wagon, and their many, many other gifts received.  It still amazes me how kind and thoughtful everyone has been to us throughout our journey, and continue to be as we navigate through this first year and beyond.   

I hope this catches everyone up on what's been going on with the Boehnlein twins!  I don't usually make New Year's resolutions, but I do intend to get back into blogging about life with twins in the new year.  Here's to a happy and healthy 2012 for all! 

First Day of School!

Yesterday, the twins started daycare.  They had a great day!  There are a max of 9 babies in their classroom, and I think some of them only come part time.  All of their teachers are older, grandmotherly type women who truly enjoy their role in the lives of these babies.  (They might not think that once they have to try and get George to eat rice cereal off of a spoon!)

Scott and George went to all the teachers easily, and everyone commented on what friendly babies they are.  But they were definitely happy to see me and Scott when we picked them up in the afternoon!  We took them out to eat to celebrate their first day of school, then went home for lots of snuggle time before putting them to bed.  

The twins have spent the last two nights in their own cribs, all night long, and have done fairly well.  Scott sleeps all night but does flail around a bit around 3am.  George still wakes up and it takes a couple of trips in with a pacifier to get him back to sleep.  Although, last night he rolled over for the first time, and we missed it!  He started crying and I went to check on him around 230am, and he was all the way on his stomach and his foot was stuck through the side of the crib. 

With the twins starting daycare and being moved into their own rooms at night, it's been a hard week so far on Mom.   The boys are getting so big, which is fabulous, but I fear that with them in daycare I'm going to start missing out on milestones.  :(  I want to spend as much time with them as possible!  Thankfully, I still have a lot of vacation time that I must use before the end of the year.  I've taken off every other Friday and a lot of time at the holidays, with a few days to spare....<sigh>....

Ready for school!  Love how they always hold hands when placed in the crib together.

Hi Ho, Hi Ho....

....it's off to work I went this morning!  Except I wasn't smiling and whistling like the Seven Dwarfs.   Thankfully it's a short week, followed by a long weekend, which makes next week a short work week too!  I have 1154 emails to dig through and lot of new company policies to catch up on. 

The twins don't start day care until next week, so Scott is home with all of us for the remainder of the week.  Next Tuesday is going to be brutal when we have to drop them off at day care for the first time!

Well, lunch break is over, so I must get back to reading emails..... 

August Catch Up

What a crazy few weeks!  Scott and I took the twins (and Chance!) to Destin a couple of weeks ago.  We went on daily walks and had a couple of trips to the beach, and the twins LOVED the pool.  I can't wait to get them in swim lessons next year so they can really have fun in the water on vacation next summer.

George and Scott at the beach

We came back to a disaster of a house - a storm had knocked out power for 3 days while we were gone.  Although my BIL checked on the house (no damage!), he was too late to save any of the food in the fridge.  So now I have the cleanest fridge in town, and I've yet to make it to the grocery for a full restocking trip.  Also, while we were gone we had 3 ceilings redone/repainted in the house, so Scott and I spent all last week cleaning and moving everything back into place.  

Scott III and George were baptized yesterday, and we had all of our family over for desserts afterward.  It was a beautiful day and the twins held up well during the ceremony - Scott even fell asleep for a bit! 

George with his godparents - Greg and Carrie

Scott with his godparents - Christopher and Laura

The boys had their 4 month check up today and all is well.  They are growing like weeds!  Scott weighed 14 lbs 13 oz and was 25 inches long; George was 15 lbs 10oz and 24.5 inches long.  They had more immunizations and are overall just happy, healthy babies!  I'm starting them on rice cereal tonight, and they will get to start veggies and fruits in a couple of weeks. 

Now back to reality....works starts on Wednesday....

Perfection

Last Saturday, Scott and I got up and took the twins on a walk to the Farmer's Market, met up with friends, then walked to lunch.  We spent the rest of the weekend running errands with the boys. 

On Monday, I took the twins to my parents, where they had half the town lined up to meet them, and I had a great lunch catching up with friends.  Needless to say, Scott and George were on their best behaviour and won everyone over.  :)

The boys were so exhausted from all the recent activities that on Monday, they slept through the night, from 10p-730a!  They have actually slept through the night for 3 nights now, and it's been amazing to have uninterrupted sleep.

These last few days have been absolutely perfect. The weather has been great, especially today. It was in the 70s this morning, not a cloud in the beautiful blue sky.    I've been able to go on walks every day with Scott and George, and even took them to Target (note to self: do not go to Target the day before some schools are back in session!).  This is exactly how I had imagined all of my maternity leave, with daily walks and weekend trips to the Farmer's Market.  Sadly, Mother Nature had other plans with her summer of 90 degrees temps with a heat index of 115 for the last month.  Hopefully that weather is behind us and I can enjoy the last 3 weeks of my leave exactly the way I imagined!

Sunflowers

Sunflowers were my sister Pam's favorite flower.  I was never a huge fan until last year when she passed away.   Now I see sunflowers everywhere! 

My next door neighbor has them growing over the fence, so I can see them from my kitchen window - they've probably been there for years, but I didn't notice them until last summer.  I will see sunflowers randomly when on a walk, or driving through the neighborhood.  I see them in the background on tv shows, movies, and commercials.  We even saw a field of sunflowers on the side of the road while driving to Florida a few weeks ago. My attempt at growing sunflowers didn't work out so well though. :)  I like to think that any time I see a sunflower, it's just my sister reminding me that she's still here with me in some special way.

Pam would have been 50 years old today (and she'd probably kill me for revealing her age!).  I still can't believe she's gone and that my babies will never get to meet their Aunt Pam, but they will certainly learn all about her through pictures and stories. 

Happy Birthday Pammy!  I love you!

(sunflowers in my neighbors yard)

Wedding

Last weekend was the weekend we've been waiting for all summer - Christopher and Polly's wedding!  Christopher is Scott's younger brother, and he's like a brother to me as well.  I know I could call him and count on him for anything.  Polly was a beautiful bride and the reception was fabulous!  

This was the first night Scott and I were both away from the twins overnight.  A BIG thank you to my parents, sister, and  all my nieces for entertaining the boys so we could have a night out!  I've paid the price for it all week by suffering from a summer cold/allergies (and amazingly, I did not have a hangover!). 

The twins came to the church before the wedding for a few pictures in their tuxedo onesies:

Uncle Christopher, me with Scott III, and Scott with George

Uncle Christopher with Scott and George, Baylor and Bennett