Happy 30th Birthday to Anne

Today, my friend Anne turns 30 years old. Happy Birthday Annie! Wishing you so much happiness on your special day!

Anne and I met when we were 15 years old at the fine academic institution of Visitation Academy High School in St. Louis, MO. I feel so blessed to have had Anne as a friend by my side through high school, college, grad school, and our moving all over the place - her to Philadelphia and back to St. Louis, me to North Carolina, DC and Nashville.  We've seen each other through job changes, relationship changes, house moves, and the ups and downs of life.  

Anna and Margaret are so very blessed to have "Aunt Anne" in their life - Anne was calling and emailing me moments after their birth, spent a weekend getting to know them in Nashville when they were 4 weeks old, and then made multiple trips to see them since then - and was there to help us celebrate their first birthday. She's spoiled them with gift after gift and treats them with so much love, generosity, and kindness.  We are all so lucky to have her in our lives, and I often feel that I don't deserve such a perfect friend who unconditionally loves and supports all of us, even through this last year when I haven't been the friend I've wanted to be because I've gotten so caught up with caring for the girls.  To have a friend who forgives you for not returning emails and phone calls, and for not being there when they could have used your company and support - well, that truly is a good friend.

At my bridesmaid luncheon in July 2004

Holding 4 week old Anna

And 4-week old Margaret

Thank you, Anne, for being the most loyal, supportive friend in my life.  Joey, the girls and I are so thankful for you!  We are so excited to celebrate your birthday this weekend in Nashville.  Lots of love from our family to you.

Discoveries

Every night, after we put the girls to bed, Joey and I go through the living room and kitchen and put back the myriad of toys strewn about the house - a hurricane clean-up of sorts.  In the past week, I've found the following items in rather odd places:

• My car keys in the dryer
  
• One of the girls' shoes in the vegetable drawer of the refrigerator
  
• My cell phone in their playhouse
  
• Cheerios in the bottom of my shoe
  
• The TV remote control in the storage drawer below our oven
  
• Hair clips in the tupperware cabinet

And you know what?  Finding these little things always makes me smile - because they are just little end of the day reminders that we have these lovely - and very, very busy - little ladies in our lives.

 

Taken in May 2008: The last time they ever sat still long enough to get a picture of them together.  

Perfect Weekend

So I'm a day late in posting this, given it's now Tuesday...but I thought I'd give a little run down of our fun past weekend in Nashville:

Friday

The girls and I met Joey right as he was getting out of work at the Nashville Courthouse Public Square, which happens to be directly across from his office and viewable from his office window.  I've been wanting to take them there for some time to play in the huge spray fountains.  Not to my surprise, they were entirely intimidated by them - particularly when they towered at least 6 feet over their heads - but they were quite enamored by the reflecting pools.  After an hour and a half of playing in them and being soaked from head to toe, we literally had to drag them away, kicking and screaming, to take them home for a late dinner and bath.  I'm sure we were quite a sight as we frantically pushed two screaming toddlers in just their diapers toward the car.

Thrilled at walking back and forth across the reflecting pool

As an afterthought, it's pretty gross that we let them play in these, given the pools are frequently visited by dogs

The aforementioned fountains in the background of this photo - apparently we're not quite ready for those just yet.

Soaked!  And taken just after Margaret dunked her entire face in the pool

Drying off by chasing Daddy on the lawn

Saturday

We enjoyed a quiet morning at home, making breakfast and playing with the girls.  After their nap, we took a test drive of a Toyota Sienna as part of our ongoing search for a minivan.  The car was nice, though the test drive was slightly humorous, as our car salesman happened to be a 3-days in rookie on the job and didn't know anything about the Sienna.  As we were driving, Joey and I were actually pointing out the features to him, so I guess we sold him on the car, ha ha.  No big deal, though - everyone has to be a beginner at their job at some point.

That night - a babysitter came over to watch the girls so that Joey and I could have a date night!  We enjoyed a 4-course meal at Zola and really got a chance to talk, free of the distractions of the girls and household chores that we normally get wrapped up in while we are home.  We shared a chocolate cappuccino tart for dessert, fulfilling my serious craving for chocolate that I've had for the past few weeks since we've cut out buying ice cream in an ongoing effort to drop the pounds.  

Sunday

Joey's college roommate, Bo, who now resides nearby with his wife Rhiana and daughters Evie (2.5) and Amelia (3 months), called and asked us if we wanted to meet them at the Nashville Zoo.  Seeing that we thrive on last minute planning, and it was the perfect day for a trip to the zoo with overcast skies and cooler temperatures, we jumped at the opportunity and even bought a family membership while we were there.  It was perfect - the kiddos behaved well and the animals apparently were up for showing off that day, getting close to the fence to let us take some pictures.

As you can see, Anna and Margaret are far more interested in their snacks than the very cool giraffe behind them

Margaret and Daddy

Well, off to attend to my non-napping daughters - I hear them both screaming and "talking" to each other in their room. I think Anna and Margaret are caught in this weird, in-between phase of not being tired enough to take the morning nap, but not ready to stay awake until their afternoon nap, so our days have been erratic and often filled with overtired meltdowns. Toddlerhood has been interesting!

To my sister-in-law, on her birthday

Dear Karolyn,

Happy Birthday to you!! You are so special and amazing in every way, and I feel so honored and blessed to be in your family. Thank you so very much for always showing so much love to me, to Joey, and to Anna and Margaret. How lucky they are to have an aunt who loves them so very much. We are missing you always, thinking and praying for you today, and looking forward to seeing you in just a few days.

As always, we were late in getting your birthday card and gift in the mail - and so Anna and Margaret decided to make you a little e-card to brighten your day.

We love you!!!!

Joey, Katie, Anna and Margaret

Somehow this still hasn't gotten old

The tupperware party continues!

Mental Note...

Large amounts of sugar early in the morning aren't conducive to winding down for a morning nap.  Anna is currently standing up and spinning around in circles on our living room floor, and then laughing hysterically after falling down on the ground out of dizziness.  Slightly hilarious to watch, but I fear trying to get her to take a nap in 15 minutes.  

The reason for this sugar high?  Eggo Bake Shop Muffin Tops for breakfast.  Oops.

Hello everyone!  I promise I will get back to this blog this week - I've been quite neglectful.  It feels great to say that between my moms' group, a music class that we're taking, and meeting up with friends, we're having so much fun that it's leaving little time to blog.  And we've had beautiful, pleasant, tolerable August weather (that sounds like an oxymoron), so we've visited every park in town.  This sure beats last summer, during which we experienced the hottest summer on record since 1955.  Have a great week!

Question for the week: When will our mother cut our hair instead or resorting to these ridiculous hair styles to keep our bangs out of our face??

Five instances this week during which they proved to be the geniuses I always thought they were

I think I need to give my children more credit for what they know and understand. I jabber all day long, not really thinking they are listening or comprehending all that much - but they proved me wrong the past few days.

Incident #1: We're preparing to go outside and I say to the girls, "Okay, ladies, let's go put on our shoes."

Twinski reaction: They both walk over to the closet, pull out their shoes, and bring them to me. (Admittedly, they grabbed 2 mismatched shoes, by hey, pretty cool, huh?)


Incident #2: We've come back inside from yet another sweltering, humid day, and I say, "Let's take your shoes off."

Twinski reaction: Anna sits down and begins pulling on the Velcro strap on her shoe.


Incident #3: Anna has dug my keys out of my backpack and is carrying them around the house. I call to her from down the hallway and say, "Anna, please bring Mommy the keys."

Twinski reaction: Anna walks on over, hands the keys to me, and smiles. I felt like I should have patted her on the head and given her a treat.


Incident #4: Margaret hands me a small, crumpled up piece of paper that she found somewhere in our house. I act surprised and truly overjoyed to receive this gift, and say, "Oh, how nice, it's beautiful, but I insist you keep it - it's for you."

Twinski reaction: Margaret takes the piece of paper back and puts it to her ear.*

(*Okay, that one needs an explanation. Whenever we're playing with the myriad of toy phones we have around the house, I pick it up, pretend to have a conversation with someone, and say something like, "Oh, you'd like to speak to Margaret? Okay, she's right here. Margaret, it's for you!" So I think when Margaret heard the words "it's for you," she instantly thought we were playing the phone call game. Cute!)


Incident #5 - or, my heartwarming moment of the day: I'm in the girls' room, about to put them down for their morning nap, and we're playing with their dollies. I pick up a doll, and to demonstrate being affectionate, I give the doll a hug and a kiss.

Twinski Reaction: Margaret watches intently - then leans over and gives Anna an enormous hug. Awwww!!!!!! Moments like this make the challenges of raising twins all seem so very, very worth it.

Of course, the hug then went on for 30 seconds too long for Anna, and turned into a wrestling match with kicking and screaming, but it was cute there for a second.

So it's not much, and certainly no need to sign them up early admissions to Harvard. But I guess I find myself so surprised that they're absorbing so much - and understanding so much language. It also makes me realize that their ability to selectively listen is there - and when I'm saying to one of them, "stop pulling your sister's hair!" but they refuse to stop...it's not a lack of understanding as much as mind over matter.

On a completely different note...we took a few photos of the girls outside this past weekend, and so I thought I'd post them. They look so OLD to me - my goodness, where have my babies gone?