Don't try this at home

I'm sure there was an easier way to do this with masks etc. but I'm not familiar with them yet so I had to erase very carefully to get the photos rounded.

Maybe I should start a new blog for these?

My crazy girl

"The Birth" scrapbook page

I think I'm going to change Jackson's font to white so it's easier to read. Sadly for Madison, Jackson had a LOT more pictures of him taken right after birth.

Mommy's first broken heart

This morning Chris got the kids up and out of their cribs. I met them in the living room where Chris was holding Madison. He handed her to me and she immediately cried and reached aggressively back for him. I wanted to cry myself :-(

9 mo 1 wk 4 dys

Pictures from Christmas

Christmas Eve at my parents' house. Maddie is such an enthusiastic eater. This picture is so cute!

This is the gang at my parents' house. L-R Bottom are Chris's grandmother, Mother, Father, my Mother, my dad's sister, and my Father. L-R Top are Me, Jackson, Madison, Chris (hiding behind Madison), family friends - Donna and Ted. Dinner was delicious as usual. It's been a family tradition with my mom and dad and I to have spaghetti and meatballs on Christmas eve. We spent a lot of my childhood Christmases in snow covered...I mean Oswego NY with no family around. Since Chris and my first Christmas in our first apartment, I wanted to have the dinner at my place so we included Chris's Parents and Grandparents and brother and sister. We had one Christmas Eve there then we bought our tiny house with a tiny kitchen but I insisted on still having dinner at our house. We had a table in the tiny kitchen extended with a card table and we would cram 12 people in there. It was tight but I loved having the holiday. On the 5th year of us being in the house I was getting ready on Christmas eve for people to come over, I turned on the faucet and we had no water! A water main had broken and they couldn't even tell us when we would have water again. I was heartbroken and called my mom crying. She said we could all go over her house. I was very disappointed about my tradition being broken but we had a great time and my mom actually had a dining room for us to eat in. So the next year I figured we'd go back to my house but my parents had bought their new house and this was going to be the last Christmas in the house they had lived in for 23 years so we had at her house again. Then the next year (last year) was the first Christmas in their new house so she really wanted to have dinner there. So I have officially given up my tradition which is fine because now that we renovated our kitchen we don't even have a table to eat at at all! Plus my parents' house is the ultimate "home for the holidays" home. AND it's amazing to think that this is the 340th Christmas that house has seen.

Christmas morning at our house. M&J surrounded by all their presents from "Santa".

These are the chairs that Chris's mom bought the kids. Maddie did a face plant out of the chair the first time she was in it.

Madison in their new rocking horse! Chris's mom spoiled them this year!

Madison with a bow on her head.

Nana and her little man.

This is Chris's cousin's house. Now THAT'S a Christmas tree!

Christmas night back home Jackson had fun playing in the chairs with his new toys.

I'm sure they won't remember any of it but I think it was my favorite Christmas so far. I told them both that they were the best present I could ever ask for. However, I also received earrings from Tiffany and a red iPod shuffle :-)

Merry Christmas

This is the card I designed. I ordered 75 and sent them all out and still feel like I had more people I should have sent them to. I'm so sorry if you didn't get one :-(

Cute Cute!

OMG, Rae

I can not believe that these shirts came in the mail from my friend Rae (who by the way, I've never actually met). Her friend Karla does all kinds of embroidery and made these for us. We brought them to visit family today and the shirts were a big hit. Thank you Auntie Rae, you're the best!! Kisses to Avery!



In other news, this is Jackson's new "OOO" face. Madison had a similar one for a while. I managed to capture his today.

Peaceful sleepy boy

I should be sleeping now.
Looking at these pictures of him makes me want to go in and wake him up and kiss him all over. How was I so lucky to get the most preciously handsome baby boy?? The last two days I've taken a 2 hour nap with him in the afternoon while Madison is asleep in her crib. I sleep so much better when I have one of them in my arms. I'm not sure why. I'm actually the type who can't stand to share a bed. I'm so conscious of disturbing Chris that I can't fall asleep. I think twin beds would be a great idea but Chris is a cuddler so I just have to deal with it. OK that was random. Definitely time for bed.

Big Red Balls

OK, get your mind out of the gutter.


We have these very large red christmas ornaments that hang in our kitchen. Jackson LOVES them. I love how you can see his reflection in them.

Bird

Today I was in the bathroom where the door to our basement happens to be (strange but true...that's what you get for living in a 200 year old house). We need to leave the door open so the cat can freely go down there to use her own bathroom. So while I was in there today I heard a rustling in the basement. I assumed it was the cat. Next thing I knew a bird came flapping into the bathroom and right out the door into the rest of the house. Luckily it went right into the play room where the kids weren't. I went in and shut the door and opened two of the windows which happen to not have screens on them. The poor bird was scared to death. His little beak was open like he was all out of breath. He kept flying into the walls and the unopened part of the window. Eventually he landed on the sill (pictured below). I snapped this picture a split second before he flew away. I hope he's back with his family. OH, crap! I hope his family doesn't live in my basement!

Cutie McHandsome Pants

Crawling babies

9 Months old

Dear Madison and Jackson,

We now have two crawling babies! The transition from 1 crawling babies to 2 was a lot easier than 0 to 1. All the adjustments we needed to make for Madison are already done for Jackson. Fighting for toys has gone to a whole new level with you both on the move.
You are both more independent now and can play very happily on your own for a long time.

You're still in size 4 diapers...diapers that are now constantly filled with poop. One morning between 8 and 10 I changed 7 poopy diapers. That's just nuts.

Our schedule is a little different now. It's a little more conventional than in the past. You wake up between 7:30 and 8:30 and have a bottle. By 9:30 Jackson is ready for a nap so I try to put you both down. Madison basically plays in her crib while Jackson sleeps for 30 minutes. Then we get up and play. At 11 or 12 I give you cereal, veggies, and fruit then attempt another nap that is usually a bust. At 3ish you get another meal of veggies and fruit and attempt another nap. This one usually takes and you'll sleep til around 6. Daddy is home at that point and I am off to work so he gives you another meal of veggies and fruit. You play with daddy until about 9 when he gives you a bottle and you're usually in bed by 10. We're still working on getting you to sleep a little later in the morning but that seems to be something we've been working on for 9 months now and it's not happening.

With winter weather here we tend to stay home a little more than we did in the summer and fall. You seem to both be okay with that. Sometimes we need to get out for a change of scenery.

Neither of you are saying any words yet. Just the typical baba, mama sounds. I know they don't mean anything though...just random babbling.

Auntie and I took you to see Santa for the first time. You were both perfectly behaved as usual. Jackson looked at Santa's beard in a very quizzical way but quickly looked forward to the camera. There weren't any smiles but at least there were no tears. I assume next year will be quite different!

Your first Thanksgiving was a lot of fun although Daddy stayed here to spend the day with Papa and his family in Gloucester. The three of us went to Great Aunt Linda's in western Mass where all my family was. You had a great time with all your second cousins who were so excited to play with you.

Dear Jackson,
You can crawl!!!!! Just like Madison, you picked it up really quickly once you started. At first you were very shaky like Bambi on the ice. It was very cute and spastic. But by the next day you crawled clear across the room like you'd been doing it all along. Now you're onto pulling yourself up to your knees on objects. Now we're in for more head bashing.

You have some good nap days and some bad nap days. I do prefer for you to go down on your own but I also adore holding you to sleep. Once you're asleep I kiss your face all over and if you don't flinch I know you're asleep enough for me to put you down.

You still have no teeth! Your hair seems to be growing but still just on the top. Just in the last few days I've noticed you seem a lot bigger.

Your personality is still pretty laid back. You love to just sit and play with toys and watch your sister bounce all over the house. You don't have a problem with strangers and you don't have a problem when I leave the room or take something away from you (unless you're tired).

Today at the doctor you weighed 18 lb 12 oz. Auntie and Nana came with us and were all shocked that you didn't weigh more. If I remember correctly that was the 25th percentile for weight, but for head circumference you were 50th!

Injuries this month: None that I can think of!


Dear Madison,

You are cruising furniture with ease and sometimes with only one hand holding on! You can walk behind a walking toy but only if I keep it from moving out in front of you too fast. The other day you were standing on top of the baby wipe box while holding onto the exersaucer. You are quite agile. We really don't worry about you falling anymore because you have such control of your movements.

You only have bad nap days! Getting you to nap has been a huge struggle and can be pretty frustrating most days...especially when I finally get Jackson to sleep and you wake him up with your crying. Sometimes I feel like I spend the entire day getting babies to nap.

You are incredibly feisty. You have quite the little attitude on you and HATE to have something taken away from you. You're good with strangers and you don't mind if I leave the room.

Your two bottom teeth are almost completely up and your two top teeth are showing now. You are always making funny faces and blowing air through your teeth.

Your hair continues to get longer even in the back. It's still pretty thin though so clips don't stay in for any length of time even though they look SO cute on you!

Today at the doctor you weighed 15 lb 8 oz which is the 5th percentile. Dr. C said that's normal since you're so active now. I believe you were 5th in length too and your head was 25th!

No injuries that I can think of although your forehead has little bruises here and there from all the bumping into things you do.

Snow Storm

We've gotten quite a bit of snow here in the past few days. It doesn't really effect us too much. If we don't want to go out we don't. M&J liked looking out the window at it though.

Madison standing at the door

This was from a couple weeks ago. I kept forgetting to post it. How cute is his hat??

Video

This video is supposed to be dark. Jackson was laying in the chair in the living room and gurgling up a storm. It was cracking me up.

Pictures and a video

Babies attacking Grandma

What is she thinking??

Yes, Rhiann, Jackson IS more graceful already. It's amazing how fast they learn to do things.

More comparisons

My dad as a baby

Chris's paternal grandmother as a baby

First attempt at a digital scrapbook page

I love the idea of digital scrapbooking. No buying paper and supplies (although I already have all of it...), no needing a place to sprawl out, no needing to pick up all the little pieces of trash.
My lovely friend Wendy has been making digital scrapbook pages for Kylie since she was born exactly a month after M&J were. She has really inspired me to get pages done for M&J but it's a little daunting since I now have 9 pages for EACH of them to make.
I finally had some time to sit down and start designing. The plan is to make two separate books for each of them for the first 12 months.
This first page is the first page for Jackson's book. Madison's will pretty much be the same but i will change the colors around a little. I wanted to keep it on the simple side as far as embellishments go since there are so many pictures.

More bath time

My sleepy angel

There is just nothing better than holding a sleeping baby. This night Madison and Jackson had fallen asleep in the car on the way home from somewhere. They had been changed and fed knowing that when we got home we would just plop them in their cribs for the night. When I brought Madison in I just couldn't bring myself to put her down. I just kept kissing her soft cheeks and nose and mouth and forehead and felt her breathing on my face. She has become pretty feisty when she's awake so it's nice to have these peaceful times with her. I love her to pieces either way.

Jackson can crawl!!

It's been a long time coming but Tank can finally crawl. He's not real graceful about it which makes it even cuter. The video is kind of dark...hopefully you can see it.

Santa

I was pleasantly surprised when Maxon (combo of Madison and Jackson that Auntie accidentally said once but i like it) didn't cry when they saw Santa. They didn't smile, but at least they weren't screaming. Auntie came with us to help. On our way out of line we saw a mother and her twin son and daughter who were about 9 years old. They seemed like really good kids and she said that they get along so well. She wished me luck and we went on our way.

First real bath

I decided to give the kids a bath in the bath tub for the first time. They had started splashing around a LOT in the baby bath tub which I thought was pretty dangerous since there are electrical outlets on the walls around the counter.
So I filled up the tub just a few inches and they LOVED it! They splashed and splashed and played with the duckies.

Thanks for all the replies

That was cool. I love to hear from the people I don't know about and the stories and memories from the people I do are a crack up! Thank you.

I WAS however hoping I would get more replies and stories from people that know me...Eileen, Courtney (the blogs' two biggest fans), Mom, Susan N. (I know you're reading), Kristin, Brenda, Rachael, Susan M., Gia, Uncle Mike (do you even read the blog??), any other family members out there reading?? I want to know!

Who are you? and why are you looking at my adorable kids?

In a month since I put up the hit counter I have had 718 hits! That's crazy! I could probably list the people that I KNOW read the blog (whether they comment or not) and it's certainly not 718. Even if you divide that by 4 weeks it's 179.5 hits per week and I couldn't list that many people.

So this has me thinking...WHO ARE YOU???

If you are reading this you are required to do the following whether you are a frequent commenter or not, whether I know you in real life or not, and especially if you've never commented before...click below on "click here to comment or read comments" and answer the following questions

1. your name or screen name

2. how you know me or how you found my blog

3. your favorite memory of me or your favorite detail from my blog

4. the first word that comes to mind when you think of me or my blog

(in the time it took me to post this the count is up to 723)

Madison

Poor Jackson isn't getting much attention on the blog lately. He's just a 'normal' baby. So before I go on about Madison again I'll tell a little about how awesome baby Jackson is. He is such a sweet boy. My favorite thing to do with him is take a nap. He sleeps WAY longer if I'm there to hold him tight. The next best thing is if I wake up to find him just looking at me with his beautiful expressive eyes. Then I wonder how long he's been laying there so content to just look at me. I love to snuggle my face into his and sleep cheek to cheek.

Once he's up I will bring him to the living room and sit him on the floor. I'll go into the play room to grab a bin of toys. When I come back into the living room with the bin his eyes light up, he smiles so big, and flaps his arms around in excitement.

A bit about them both...When they sit in their high chairs they look at each other and laugh and smile. If Jackson is sitting on the floor and Madison gets too close he will reach out and GRAB her hair. She cries so hard. It's sad because he isn't being mean in any way...just thinks she's a toy. They both are pooping like champs now. Since the feeding of food has been going so well they poop in almost every diaper I change. And it smells SO bad!

OK, onto Madison. Her pulling up to standing has reached a whole new level. She has quickly learned that she needs to get down carefully so that she doesn't smash her head on the floor. One night last week my mom and I watched her go through the learning process in about 10 minutes. She got up and down probably 20-30 times each time with more ease and she got quicker and quicker each time. She now hardly falls down.

She also has been cruising the furniture which I didn't think to mention but I guess it's a pretty big milestone. She goes pretty far and sometimes from a tall toy to the chair that is next to it then to the other side of the chair (it's a big chair).

She now goes from crawling to sitting which before she would just get to her side. She's figured out how to get her foot out of the way and now can get to sitting. She's been sitting more often now. Since she skipped that before learning to crawl it's cute to see her just sitting there.

Last night she was playing with a tall box (who needs toys?). She was standing up on it and patting the top so I was drumming too. Jackson was sitting next to us so he was enjoying the noise too. They were both laughing. I decided to move the box away from her slowly and see what she did. She walked clear across the room while holding onto the box. Is that considered assisted walking? I don't even know. We have a walking toy but I think it would move too fast for her although I think she would learn VERY quickly how to keep up with it.

Looks like at least Madison will be walking in Auntie's wedding in June! So if just Madison can walk in June and Jackson learns to walk between June and September does that mean that only Madison can walk in Mike's wedding? ;-) (Auntie's rule is that if M&J aren't able to walk in her wedding in June that they aren't allowed to walk in Uncle Mike's wedding in September...ah, sibling rivalry...so glad I'm an only child :-) )

Happy Holidays

We want to get 4 matching stockings for all of us but the ones we want are just too expensive to justify so we're going to wait until after Christmas to get them when they're on sale. So for this year we thought it was appropriate to get the following...





Since we put up our tree so early it's officially the holiday season around here. We used to put up our tree (fake) the day after Thanksgiving every year but since Chris works all day that day and now I work all night there is no time :-( So we put it up on the Saturday after now. The kids were very well behaved and napped for a solid 2 hours while we got all the stuff down from the attic, drank egg nog, watched Christmas Vacation, and put up the tree and other decorations. When the kids woke up Chris brought them both out at the same time while I recorded their reaction on the fancy video camera (so basically no one will ever see it). They were all wide eyed looking at the tree and smiling.

I love partial color photos but I can never seem to find a photo that it works with. Thanks to Shannon who did this with her twins the following images were created. These are going to be our holiday card for sure!