And Andrew still hasn't figured out that babies don't eat noses...

 

 

Elizabeth at 6 weeks, John Paul at 1 week

Christmas!

After a rather short but exciting Advent, we adults were all ready for Christmas!  The kids were excited about Baby Jesus and presents, but still reluctant to leave our Advent preparations behind.  We're still trying to wean them off of "O Come O Come Emmanuel"

 

 

John Paul got an awesome Yoda hat

 

Cecilia asked for new bows and ot some in her stocking!

 

And speaking of stockings...  We all (except for the babies) have our own coordinating personalized stockings, which I was pretty excited about.

 

Somehow we ended up with a 10-foot tree because there weren't any smaller ones left by the time we got ours on the Friday before Christmas!  The kids were SUPER excited to see all 3 nativities (Little People, Earth Craft, and Rubber Duckies) set up WITH Baby Jesus in the manger!

 

The babies?  Well, they nursed/slept through the festivities, which meant I sat on the couch playing with our new camera.

 

But see?  There I am in the background, doing what I do best.  And that's where I sat for almost all of Christmas (and that's where I sit about 95% of the time anyway).

Sometimes...

 

Sometimes you're trying to take a cute picture with the kids, put they insist on holding jars in front of their faces.

 

 

Or looking away while your sister holds a baby by your head and the baby sticks her creepy little tongue out...

Fun with water beads

 Meg bought some water beads at the dollar store to put in John Paul's stocking.  The kids went NUTS for them, and for good reason - they're a blast!

 

 

They had a great time exploring the textures, and pouring from vessel to vessel.

 

Although Cecilia got in trouble for standing on her chair instead of kneeling...

 

And they were frequently dropped on the floor, but the kids were good about picking them up.

 

Definitely a non-messy, super-fun way to explore water absorption and have a blast!

 

And seriously, look how pretty they are!  They start out the size of small seeds and swell to the size of large marbles when placed in water.  They have the consistency of firm gelatin and BOUNCE! 

An update

 Things are still busy here! We've been doing a lot of this:

 

 

Elizabeth & Mary Claire holding hands after nursing

 

John Paul & Cecilia reading together

Tonight's prayer

A counting prayer:

5 people John Paul wanted to thank God for:

John Paul
Cecilia
Dad
Mom
...  Grandaddy!

4 animals:

Bear
Moose
Dog
...  Horse!

3 foods:

Turkey
Broccoli
...  Ravioli!

Cecilia's choice?  "A bean!!!"

2 Saints to pray for us:

St. Andrew
St. Cecilia

1 thing to say sorry for:

"God I'm sorry for disobeying..."

Cecilia:  "Doggies are nice!"

Not sure she understands penitence yet...

Double duty

 

Sure, it would make a sweet post-nursing picture, except that Mary Claire (on the right) had just puked down my shirt.

 

And of course, the burp cloth was on my other shoulder, since Elizabeth (left) is the big puker.

 

Sigh.

Big Sister!

 

Not surprisingly, Cecilia is quite taken with her new "Big Sister" role.  She LOVES to "hold" and "rock" the babies, with considerable assistance.

 

But what's her absolute favorite activity these days?

 

Kissing!!!

You have NEVER seen anything this cute!

 

Mary Claire

 

Elizabeth (I don't know why it won't rotate...)

 

And both twins together!  This is pretty much how they were positioned the last few weeks in the womb, only they were upside down.  And don't worry, I watched them like a hawk after I put them in the glider - I figured they'd wake immediately, but they've been sleeping like this for 30 minutes already...

THIS is a father

 

A man who is willing to hold his underwear-clad toddler while he vacuums so she can "help" because otherwise she's terrified of the machine!

 

And she's certainly enjoying the ride :)

They're here!

Oh yeah, the twins have been here for almost two weeks...  But it's hard to take pictures & blog with both hands full!

 

 

Somehow all our pictures got deleted when my little brother got a hold of our camera at Thanksgiving, so this is all I have!  Looks like I should have backed up all those vacation pictures :(

 

Anyway, on the left is Elizabeth, and Mary Claire is on the right.  We put them on the couch to take a picture a few days ago and they stayed asleep, so John Paul HAD to very gently place baby blankets over them.

 

The babies were born early Wednesday morning (3:06 and 3:17 AM) on November 14, weighing in at 5 lbs 8 oz (Elizabeth) and 6 lbs 2 oz (Mary Claire).  Thankfully the delivery was totally uncomplicated & we were able to leave the hospital about 36 hours after the babies were born.

 

Things are going well so far - obviously very little sleep, but both babies are nursing well and John Paul and Cecilia absolutely ADORE them. 

Matchy-matchy

I picked out the kids' Mass outfits this morning NOT intending for them to match so perfectly...  But then it was so cute not to take a picture of it!  I promise they were happy though - these are their "cheese" faces!

Yeah we'll get those poses down one of these days...  Does Cecilia look ENORMOUS to you?  She's really seriously tiny, I don't know why she looks so huge...

Tackle!

I'd say this is their relationship in a nutshell - John Paul will let Cecilia tackle him as long as he can still read whatever he wants...

In other news, I'm at 35 weeks with these twins!  Still no signs of labor, thank goodness - I'm hoping they keep cooking for at least a couple more weeks.  They're both head-down now, so they're jockeying for Twin A & Twin B position - whoever's out first is automatically Twin A, regardless of where they were positioned originally.

So I'm feeling pretty good about the probability of NOT having a C-section.  Pray for us!  Recovering from major surgery with 4 kids under 4 does not sound like fun at all to me...

Another nice thing is that I'm only measuring at about 39 weeks (two weeks ago I was measuring at 41) - somehow the twins have found more space since they changed position.  Weight gain is good for me and the babies, no swelling, passing NSTs with flying colors.  Despite the discomfort, apparently I'm good at being pregnant!  Now we just have to figure out sleeping arrangements...

Happy Halloween!

Cecilia dressed up as a cupcake (purchased for $5 after Halloween last year) and was actually good enough to keep her hat on the entire time!

John Paul ended up deciding to be a generic shepherd - he switched from David to St. Dominic of Silos and couldn't decide...  The great thing about this costume is, it's good for Halloween, All Saints' Day, AND Christmas!  

Here's the little cupcake, all ready to go!

And of course, with her trick or treating bucket.

An unflattering shot of the family...

Ready to go!

The kids did an awesome job, and trick or treating ended up being a lot more bearable than I expected.  A fair amount of walking, but LOTS of stopping, and plenty of candy for me (I mean...  the kids?).

Last year John Paul kept eating candy as we walked and ended up puking as soon as we got home.  So this year my plan was that he had to immediately give me his candy and he got to have a fruit snack for every candy he traded in.  Well, mostly he forgot about the fruit snacks and just gave me his candy because the sheep took up all the room in his bucket.  So we ended up giving him like, 7 fruit snacks total.  And he chose M&Ms as his candy of choice when we got home, so he and Cecilia split a fun-sized package between the two of them.  10 M&Ms each and they were happy with it.  Halloween is actually pretty great when the expectation of gorging oneself on candy hasn't yet been established!

One last trip...

To Cox Farms for the fall!  Of course, we had to start out with apples.

And the corn crib!

Then Cecilia started a trend and went down this slide probably 15 times, not minding that the "big kids" (3 & 4-year-olds) started sliding down immediately after her and kicked her several times...

Of course, she had to find a window for a nice pose!

And a pink "fwuck" although her pronunciation often doesn't include the "w" - little bit awkward...

Couldn't get a good picture of both of them in the egg shell, but John Paul sure tried!

And a SUPER awkward-looking picture that makes me laugh!

We tried another, but with a mouth crammed full of apple, there's only so cute you can get...

John Paul chose an awkward bumpy gourd as his "pumpkin" this time.  Cecilia started crying when we tried to get a picture of them together - I think she was scared to sit on the pumpkins?

So John Paul got to hold BOTH pumpkins and pose!

Cecilia made a run for the flowers...

And on the way out, more big kids showed her how to use these awesome feet!  She was NOT ready to leave, but I'd been on my feet for 2.5 hours and was ready to sit down!

One last awkward picture...  And we'll be back next year!  Definitely my favorite fall activity with the kids :)