Best Christmas Ever!

Driving home from my parents Royce and I agreed, this was the best Christmas ever.

We had my family's get together on Christmas Eve. We shared the night with my parents, my Sister, her Husband and two daughters, my Brother, his expecting Wife and their daughter. The girls had so much fun it was a joy to watch them. My two younger nieces, Shaylah and Olivia, are four and two and it's fun for the twins to watch them play and try to play with them. Adia especially tries hard to be involved.

The girls enjoyed opening more presents and watching everyone else do the same. The highlight of their night was the big pile of spoons on the floor from our failed attempt to play a family game of spoons (which proved to be too difficult with the little ones, a small living room and all of us talking at the same time - hahaha).











Christmas Day I brought the girls back to my parents and they got their big presents from them....Cozy Coupes! We spent two and a half hours putting them together and the girls stood close to us trying to climb in before they were ready. It was hard for them to be patient and they seemed to instinctively know exactly what to do when we finally had them ready. It was so cute!




Now we're gearing up for the big birthday celebration. The twins turn ONE on January 2nd and they're having a birthday party on the 9th. It's going to be a fun celebration for all of us.

Bad Ronald

I try to eat healthy and most of the time I do. Royce and I are vegetarian and have been for years and years. We do indulge in fast food on occasion but I try my best to make sure we have healthy options in the house. The girls are being raised vegetarian because our lifestyle is based on our ethical belief that all life is precious. Both girls have been breastfed since day one and still are however they do eat three meals a day of good wholesome organic vegetarian food (always organic). I take pride in giving them the best the earth has to offer.

Tonight I had Royce pick me up dinner at McDonald's (I know, the horror!). I got my usual two cheeseburger value meal (hold the burger of course) and skipped eating the fries. I left them in the bag which I left on the couch as we hurried off to my parents.

Fast forward a few hours later. I'm out shopping and Royce is home feeding and getting the girls and dogs ready for bed. He had them in their jammies and left them on the loft with their toys for a minute while he went to fill up the humidifier in their room. When he came back Rasa had two fists full of French fries and some in her mouth! Adia was eating them too all while shaking the McDonalds bag while fries are flying through the air!!!!

Let this be a lesson to me! I want to be a "do as I do" not a "do as I say not as I do" kind of Mom. Time to clean up my act! Like Gramma says "McDonalds fry's are not food!"

A Fathers love

I've heard it said that a Fathers love for his daughters is like no other. I've seen it to be true and to not be true. In this house it's true in every sense of the phrase.

I'm continuously in awe of my Husband and his love for Rasa and Adia. Royce is a very affectionate and loving person naturally and I knew even back in the days of us dating in High School that he would make a great Dad. I never knew how great until the day the girls were born.

Royce saved up vacation time and took a couple weeks unpaid so he could spend a month with our new family when the twins were born. When they came 6 weeks early and had to spend seven days in the Special Care Nursery at Children's he was there - every minute of everyday. ALL of our nurses commented on it because it wasn't common for them to see both parents there so involved. Royce was changing diapers, supporting and encouraging me as I learned to breastfeed tiny twins. He was glowing with love and pride of his baby girls. He would walk in with my pumped milk and hand it over to the nurses and brag about how great his wife was doing with nursing. He was immersed in every moment of it all with love, tenderness and patience.

We were both completely overwhelmed with the schedule at first because my C-Section was at 8 pm and every three hours after that for seven days we had to get up to Special Care to change, do temps and feed the babies. Royce would run and get me food (nursing twins and pumping takes an enormous amount of caloric intake to keep up) and the hour break we would get every four hours during the day he would spend making sure I had enough to eat and that I rested.

When we got home we did sleeping shifts - every two hours around the clock. When Royce returned to work he only slept 4 hours a night for 6 months! When Rasa had colic for 6 months he would gently and patiently cradle her in his arms and rock her or bounce her up and down the hallway.

He's changed as many diapers as me, he's pulled off countless onsies that had blowout poo all up the backs of them and bathed the baby clean. He's shampooed, conditioned, lotioned, brushed hair and teeth as many times as I have. He's kissed noses, bellies, toes and fingers a million times over. He's rocked the girls to sleep every day since they came home. He's whispered "I love you so much" in each of their ears more times than they'll ever know how to count. He's been sprayed in the face with spit up, sweet potatoes and green peas. He has been there for every well check & every shot.

He's never complained, ever. He always says he wants to do it because it's a part of being close with his daughters.

You don't have to tell me he's exceptional. I know he is.

I love you Royce.














photo by Jennifer Sime Photography

A is for Adia

A is for Active.
Adia can work a room in no time flat. She loves company and entertaining. She also loves giving a good hug and lick (her version of a kiss - she must be watching the dogs a little too much). Adia has discovered how much fun it is to be naughty. This morning she decided to dance with her hands up in the air, bouncing up and down and in between bounces she'd smack Rasa on the head. Each time she'd do it she'd giggle with delight and each time Rasa protested Adia would let out a roar of laughter. I said "Naughty naughty Adia!" but with every ounce of self control I have I couldn't muster up enough to keep from laughing. Naughty naughty Mommy!


A is for Adventurous.
She has been climbing since she started crawling. She's got a lot of upper body strength for a baby and can hoist herself up on things. Today she was working very hard on trying to hoist herself over her Learning Home. She'd fall off and laugh and get right back up again. It would be safest for Adia to play in a padded room but she's tough and even though her face and head always seems to be decorated with bruises she rarely gets hurt.


A is for Affectionate.
She has a collection of stuffed animals, Elmo and newest edition Dora who she hugs, laughs at (or in Elmo's case with!) and kisses. When we hand her a dolly or animal she says OOOOOOOH and laughs and hugs them tight. She gets so excited she can hardly contain herself. At the first sight of Dora she started shaking and was so excited she was whimpering! Dora was meant to be a gift to Rasa from my Mom because Rasa has an infatuation with hair and we thought giving her a doll with a lot of hair would keep her interested and also keep her from pulling ours! Rasa does like Dora's hair but Adia rarely gives her the opportunity to play with her.



She's my crazy, crazy girl who I'll think of while trying to fall asleep at night and laugh.

I said all done!

I sit Rasa and Adia in their high chairs and give each of them some Puff's to snack on while I'm making their breakfast. They happily snack away until I'm ready and sitting in front of them. I give Adia her first bite and then grab Rasa's spoon. Rasa looks at me, smiles and then signs "all done". I said "Nooo baby you haven't eaten yet". She smiles and signs "all done" again. I put the spoon up to her mouth and she clenches her mouth shut and turns her head. I sign "eat" and say "No Sweetie it's time to eat now". She signs "all done" again and refuses looking at me with a dead stare. Hmmmm maybe baby communication isn't all it's cracked up to be!

Christmas, birthdays, this and that

This really is a fun time of year for us. The girls birthday is about a week after Christmas and mine is three days after that. I've been having fun planning their first birthday party! We decided to do The Very Hungry Caterpillar theme. It forces me to be creative since there is nothing in the states that you can buy as far as party supplies for this theme! I'm having fun and the girls will enjoy it. We decided against a big party with friends and family and just opted to do Royce and my immediate family only. There will still be a lot of people but the girls really know everyone and won't be overwhelmed or stressed. I hate going to one year old birthday parties and seeing the baby completely out of sorts and overwhelmed. That's not fun - lol!

Christmas is next week and we're really looking forward to celebrating with my family. We celebrated with some of Royce's family last week. Royce's Dad and Stepmother live in South Carolina and we all got set up on Skype last night so we're excited to "see" them regularly and they're thrilled to be able to watch the girls. The girls were so funny waving, smiling and laughing at them through the webcam last night.

I'm sitting on the loft now while the girls are down the hall playing in their room. They just woke up from their first nap. They've just discovered where the baby monitor speaker is and are throwing it around and laughing. The two of them have creative ways of having fun together (and frequently shut me out of their room!) that makes me nervous for the years ahead. Hopefully I can stay one step ahead of them as long as possible! I hear silence now which means I must go and QUICKLY!

Old and new

About seven or eight years ago when I was up at my Grandmothers cabin she and I were going through some of her antiques and she was telling me stories of how she got each piece or where each piece in her old hutch came from. I'm not a huge fan of old porcelain or dishes but one piece she had I adored, not because of what it looked like, but because of what it was used for. It was a big white bowl and at first glance I though it was a big pasta bowl (what do I know about antiques!) but it was actually a baby bath! She told me that her Mother, my Great Grandmother, was bathed in it as a baby and it was passed down to her who in turn used it to bath her only child, my Grandmother. My Grandma was a little attached to the piece which is why I assume she never passed it to either of her daughters when they had babies. After talking to my Mom about the bowl it turns out Grandma never told her or my Aunt what it was.

When she died a few years ago I asked for the bowl and my Mom was kind enough to get it for me. I have a thing for family history and while the bowl is probably not worth much that's not why I wanted it anyway.

The girls and I had fun taking pictures with it. They really liked sitting in that big bowl. Of course my intention was to take pictures while they were tiny but I guess I had too many other things going on in my head and I forgot all about it! The two of them could have easily fit in it together when they were brand new.

Rasa Bea





Baby A

Rasa signed fish!

We have this adorable book called "What Do You Say". It's got drawings of different animals in it and it asks what you say to that animal - for instance "what do you say to a bee? bzzzzzzzzz" get it ;-) The last page it asks "What do you say to a little fish?" and then it says "hello little fish" which is silly and cute. As I read the book to the girls I'll sign some of the animals in sign language (the ones that I know that is). Yesterday Royce was reading them this book and I haven't read it to them in about a week. He doesn't do the signs with the book because he doesn't know them but when he got to the last page and asked, "what do you say to a little fish", Rasa signed fish!! I was excited because she signs several words but most of them are words we use all the time like milk or all done. Fish is one we only use when we see pictures of fish or actual fish. It's exciting to me because she's obviously interested in them and now I know that!

Ying and the Yang

I write every month on the changes in both of my daughters and it's pretty obvious the differences in the two of them. They are the perfect balance of soft and hard, outrageous and shy, silly and serious. It's so funny to me because all siblings are different but these two really are opposites. They sure enjoy playing with each other though.

Last week we were playing in the girls playroom and I put some blankets over a table to create part of an obstacle course for them. Adia liked throwing herself onto the outside of the tent because the tension of the blanket would spring her back up again. Rasa crawled inside of it with her book and sat down to look through it - LOL! See what I mean :)

These are just a couple silly video's I took. Please ignore my obnoxious ramblings - hahaha when you spend 24 hours a day with babies this is what happens (click on blue underlined text for video link).

Adia jumps and giggles while Rasa sits and puts her Little People upright in their airplane.


The two of them climbing on me and refusing to wave or play with me

It's beginging to look a lot like...

CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!! I'm a huge fan (the all CAPS should have been a dead giveaway)! It's so wonderful and exciting to have a reason to get all wild over Christmas again. The past few years felt like something was missing around the holiday's and now I know what it was, Rasa and Adia. While we realize the girls wont remember any of this season's festivities, who cares! They're having a blast now and isn't that what's important anyway?

Royce strung lights outside on our big tree and little pine trees. The girls were amazed the first night we turned them on. Adia's eyes got big and she reached for them and clapped her hands. Rasa was mesmerized but only for a moment and then seemed a little bored. She was the most delighted when I put her up to the real Christmas tree for the first time and the glitter of the decorations caught her eye....she just couldn't resist and had to have a taste (don't worry - the ornaments are actually plastic).



Both girls are wild about the tree. My request to my parents was to pick the straggliest Charlie Brown tree they could find - they did well! I love it!




Yesterday we celebrated Christmas with Royce's Mom (Grandma Sue). We exchanged gifts and I made a nice lunch spread to eat. I was really excited to give Sue her gift. I designed a hardcover custom book of a hundred pictures of the girls from the past year. She got teary and said it was the best gift she had ever received (YES!). The girls were excited to play with her and had fun opening their first wrapped presents. Rasa knew exactly what to do but Adia wanted Daddy to do it. What's in the boxes? More toys!! Yahoo. They also received warm snowsuits and hats and mittens.



The snowsuits:

Adia and Grandma Sue playing - despite the fact that Adia fell right before Sue walked in the door and split the inside of her lip open (yes there was blood - OMG I did a good job of remaining calm even though blood usually makes my knees buckle) she was in good spirits, what a trooper:




The girls went down for their second nap shorty after Sue left. We invited my parents over to eat left overs in the evening and really enjoyed their company. The girls were wildly excited to see their other Gramma and Grandpa too. I managed to score a bottle of my Mom's homemade blueberry liquor - OH YEAH!